LIGHTS AND A FALL
It was not often that Ethel Blue took a violent fancy to any one.
Although she had something of the temperament that artists claim to have,
she also had great reserve, and she found the companionship of her
cousins, Ethel Brown and Dorothy, quite sufficient for her.
Now, however, she was filled with admiration for Margaret's aunt, Miss
Graham. Miss Graham suited her in so many ways. She was good to look at,
and Ethel found herself gazing at her wholesome, amiable face, filled
with life and earnestness and fun, and enjoyed it quite as much as if she
had great beauty.
Then, Miss Graham, because of her occupation as an interior decorator,
knew something about art, and Ethel Blue wanted to know how to draw and
paint, and how to appreciate pictures. She found that she never met Miss
Graham without realizing afterwards that she had learned something from
her. Perhaps it was only the meaning of a new phrase, or perhaps Miss
Daisy called her attention to the light on the group of figures in some
picture, or to the harmonies of color in the landscape. Whatever it was,
it was not brought out in any preachy way and yet Ethel Blue found
herself with quite a store of information that had come from her new
friend.
Miss Graham did not seem to single out Ethel Blue for particular
attention. They naturally drifted together when there was a large party,
because their tastes were similar.
"I think your aunt Daisy is nicer than any aunt in the world except my
aunt Marion," Ethel Blue confided to Margaret one day.
"That's just about what James and I think," said Margaret.
"Has she finished her Englewood house?" inquired Ethel.
"Yes, that was done some time ago. That's why she has been able to go to
see Mrs. Smith so many times recently. She has spent several afternoons
at Sweetbrier Lodge, you know."
Remembering this, Ethel Blue went to the new house one afternoon
especially to see if Miss Graham was there. She had no definite reason
for doing so--she merely thought she would like to see her. By good luck
Miss Graham was there, as she had brought out some samples of hangings to
show to Mrs. Smith, and she was waiting on the terrace for her to come,
and resting as she waited.
"I'm glad to see you, child," she called to Ethel Blue, and Ethel did not
resent being called a child, for she realized that it was merely an
endearing word coming from Miss Daisy's lips.
"Bring one of those canvas chairs over here beside me," she urged, "and
we'll look at the view and talk a while."
"Isn't it going to be lovely when the real furniture is on the terrace
here?" said Ethel Blue eagerly.
"The view is lovely, no matter what the chairs are," returned Miss
Graham, smiling at her affectionately. "When do you think your aunt is
coming?"
"I don't know. Did she expect you? Shall I run back to the house and tell
her you are here?"
"No, probably I'm a little early and I shall enjoy sitting here and
talking with you until she comes."
Ethel felt much complimented by this desire on Miss Graham's part and
placed her chair beside her.
Their eyes looked out across the field with its brook and the trees that
sheltered Mr. Emerson's house. Across the street the meadows, rich with
the field flowers of late summer, stretched away towards the distant
river, and beyond that were more trees rearing their heights across the
sky.
As they looked a shadow fell on the meadow and moved swiftly across it.
"It looks as if some huge birds were flying between the earth and the
sun," smiled Miss Daisy.
"Doesn't it go fast!" returned Ethel Blue.
"Notice the change in the color of the meadow, when the sunlight is
hidden for a minute and then falls again on the vegetation."
Ethel Blue nodded, for she saw that the change was almost as if a sheet
of colored glass had been held over a strong electric light.
"Sometimes during a thunder shower," she said, "I've seen awfully queer
colors over in that meadow."
"The air is charged with electric particles sometimes," explained Miss
Daisy, "and you are looking through them. You get different color effects
during an ordinary rain storm, too."
"I think rain over that meadow is going to be one of the prettiest things
Dorothy will see from this terrace," said Ethel Blue.
"She will have a long sweep to watch and a shower moves sometimes fast
and sometimes slowly, so there will be opportunity to notice many
changes," suggested Miss Graham.
"I wonder if Aunt Louise is going to have electric lights out here on the
porch," said Ethel Blue. "They will draw the mosquitoes like everything."
"But she won't mind that because she can stay inside of her wire cage,"
answered Miss Daisy. "Surely she's going to have electric lights. Don't
you see the wires already put in?"
"Of course," answered Ethel Blue. "How stupid of me! Those black ends are
poking out all over the house and somehow I never thought what they were
for."
"Then you haven't noticed the lighting scheme that your Aunt and Dorothy
have worked out. Let's walk through the house now, and see just how she
has arranged it."
They went through the door of the screen into the enclosed portion and
then into the dining room.
"Most people have one of those hang-down lights over the dining table,"
said Ethel Blue. "I don't see any wire for one here. I'm glad Aunt Louise
isn't going to have one. They never are the right height. You always have
to be dodging under them to see the person across from you and the light
shines on the table so brilliantly that you're almost afraid to eat
anything it falls on."
Miss Graham laughed at Ethel's vigorous protest, but she said that she,
too, did not like a central light over the dining table.
"There is no need of a very brilliant light in a dining room," she said.
"You can see the people about the table without any difficulty in a
subdued light and the general effect is far more beautiful than when
people are sitting in a glare."
"I think candle light is prettiest for the dining room," said Ethel Blue.
"It is prettiest for the table," replied Miss Graham. "The place where
you really want a strong light is over the serving table behind the
screen. You don't want the maid to make any mistakes just because she
can't see clearly the dishes she is handling. There you need a strong
light, but it can be placed so low that the screen shields it for the
room and it will not interfere with the dimmer light of the rest of the
room."
"I suppose there ought to be other lights in the room," said Ethel Blue.
"You might find that there weren't any candles in the house some evening
and then it would be awful to have only this light over the serving table
and none of them in other parts of the room."
Miss Graham laughed at the possibility of such a disaster.
"There can be side-lights over the mantel-place," she said, "electric
lights that look like candles, with pretty candle shades, and one or two
similar arrangements on the other side of the room."
"Don't you ever put a central light in the dining rooms you decorate?"
asked Ethel Blue.
"Sometimes I let the light flow out from a dull, golden globe set into
the ceiling over the table. The glass of the bowl is so thick that only a
gentle radiance comes from it and yet it ekes out the light from the
candles."
"Ethel Brown is particularly pleased with the switch out in the
vestibule," said Ethel Blue. "You see you can come home when the house is
all dark, and light the electricity in the hall by turning on the switch
outside of the front door. Wouldn't it be a good joke on a burglar, if he
did it by accident some night when he was trying to get in," laughed the
young girl.
"It's a capital invention," said Miss Graham. "You notice your aunt has
side lights here in the hall. Have you ever happened to be in a house
where they were moving the furniture about and every piece that passed
the hall chandelier gave it a rap?"
"That's the way it is in the house we're in now," said Ethel. "Every time
any one goes away and the express man brings down a trunk, he hits the
light in the hall. I don't know how many globes Aunt Marion has had
broken that way."
Upstairs they found the same side-lighting in all the bed rooms.
"The theory of it is," said Miss Graham, "that when you want to see
anything very clearly, you put in a light close to the place where you
need to work. If you are going to arrange your hair before your dressing
table, you want a light directly over your dressing glass. If you are
going to read you turn on a light beside your reading stand. An upper
light is usually for general illumination and a side light for real
service."
"A combination of the two lights makes a room ready for anything," said
Ethel Blue.
"I want you to notice particularly the fixtures that your Aunt Louise has
selected for indirect lighting," said Miss Graham. "She has chosen
beautiful bowls that look like alabaster. They turn upwards and the bulbs
are hidden in them. The strong glare is against the ceiling so that the
people get only the reflected light. There is to be one of those bowls on
a high standard in the front hall, and one at the turn of the stair-case.
They look like ancient Roman urns, giving forth a marvelous radiance."
"I think that will be prettier than some clear, engraved glass covers,
that I saw the other day," said Ethel Blue. "They showed the bulbs right
through."
"Far prettier," agreed Miss Graham. "The whole object of this indirect
light is to make your room seem to be lighted by a glow whose real origin
you hardly know. Of course your intelligence tells you that there are
electric bulbs up there, but you don't want really to see them."
"It seems to me that people must be thinking more about how to make
things pretty than they used to," said Ethel Blue. "When Ethel Brown's
grandfather built his house, Aunt Marion says it was thought very
handsome by everybody in Rosemont. It has lots of convenient things in
it, and plenty of brilliant lights, but the fixtures aren't pretty and
the idea seems to be to make just as big a shine as possible."
"Nowadays," said Miss Graham, "people try to make the useful things
beautiful also whenever they can."
"I'm glad to learn all about a house," said Ethel Blue, "because some
time I may have to keep house for my father and I want to know everything
there is to know. Of course army people have to live in Uncle Sam's
houses, but still there are always different arrangements you can
introduce, even in a government house."
"I'm sure you'll be able to make useful everything you learn," said Miss
Graham, "and your father will be pleased with whatever makes the house
lovelier and more comfortable."
"I've always meant to ask whether you didn't know my father," said Ethel
Blue. "He is at Fort Myer, near Washington."
"Captain Richard Morton," said Miss Daisy. "Yes, indeed. I know a great
many of the officers and their families at Fort Myer. I've met your
father and I know him well."
"Isn't he the dearest old darling that ever walked?" said Ethel Blue,
bouncing with enthusiasm.
"He certainly is a very nice person," agreed Miss Graham, smiling, "and
he thinks he has one of the finest daughters who ever walked."
"Does he really?" cried Ethel Blue. "I'm so glad he does! You see, I so
seldom see him that sometimes I'm afraid he'll forget all about me. Once
when he came to Rosemont, I passed him in the street when he was walking
up from the station, and he didn't know me and I didn't know him. Wasn't
that perfectly frightful?"
"That was too bad," agreed Miss Graham.
"Somehow I've never thought of being able to live with him," said Ethel
Blue. "You know I've always lived with Aunt Marion, because my mother
died when I was a little bit of a baby, but the other day somebody said
something about my going to Father later on, and I haven't been able to
think of anything else since."
"I know he wants you," said Miss Graham.
"Has he spoken to you about it?"
"Yes, often."
"I suppose I'll have to be a million times older than I am now, before he
thinks I'm able to take care of him," said Ethel Blue.
"I don't believe it will be a whole million years," smiled Miss Graham.
"I shall feel dreadfully to leave Aunt Marion and Ethel Brown. I've never
been away from Ethel Brown more than three or four days in my whole
life," said Ethel Brown's twin cousin, "but if my father needs me, why of
course, I must go."
"Indeed you must," returned Miss Graham, "and I'm sure he wants you just
as soon as he can send for you."
Ethel Blue was so overjoyed at this opinion, that she jumped up on the
ledge on the top of the parapet running around the terrace, and danced
with delight the fancy step--"One, two, three, back; one, two, three,
back"--with which she and Ethel Brown were accustomed to express great
satisfaction with the way in which life was treating them.
To Miss Graham's horror, Ethel Blue's enthusiasm blinded her eyes and her
third back step took her off the parapet. She fell to the ground and
rolled down the hill, her slender little body bouncing from rock to rock
with cruel force and increasing speed.
Miss Graham gave a cry of distress and vaulted over the parapet with the
ease which she had acquired in the gymnasium in her college days. Running
the risk of rolling down hill herself, she bounded down the steep slope,
and reached the foot almost as soon as did the body of the young girl,
which lay very still, its head against the stone which had brought
unconsciousness.
Miss Graham turned over the limp little form, shuddering as she saw the
bruise on the forehead. She tried to lift it but found she could make no
progress up the steep knoll. Again and again she called to the workmen in
the house, and finally two of them appeared at an upper window and made
gestures of understanding when she beckoned to them. They leaped down the
hill with long strides, and soon were carrying Ethel Blue up to the
terrace.
They laid her gently on the floor and ran to get water from the hydrant,
while Miss Graham slipped off the young girl's shoes, raised her feet
upon a block of wood that happened to be near by, so that the blood might
flow towards her heart, and gently chafed her wrists. When the water
came, she dashed a shower of it from the tips of her fingers on the pale
little face lying so quietly against the bricks.
"Will I run to de nex' house an' telephone for de doctor?" asked one of
the men, and Miss Graham nodded an assent and added a direction to summon
Mrs. Morton.
Before either her aunt or the doctor came, however, Ethel Blue returned
to consciousness. Before she opened her eyes, she heard a soft,
affectionate voice crooning over her, "My dear little girl, my poor
little girl."
She kept her eyes closed for a minute or two, so pleasant was this sound
from the lips of Miss Graham whom she had grown to love so fondly. When
at last she opened her eyes and saw Miss Daisy's anxious face change its
expression to one of delight, she almost felt that it was worth while to
fall off a precipice to bring about such a result.