Ethel Morton at Rose House

CHAPTER VIII

SOME ENTERTAINMENT

The escapade of the Italian and Bulgarian women played havoc with the calm of Rose House for several days. The women themselves had narrow escapes from illness and the children were so seriously ill that a trained nurse had to be sent up from the Glen Point Hospital, as neither Miss Merriam nor Mrs. Schuler could undertake nursing in addition to their other work.

When all was well again Miss Merriam redoubled her efforts to teach the women something of proper care of their children and themselves, and, with the help of Dr. Watkins's knowledge of languages, she began to hope that she was making some progress. Mrs. Tsanoff and Mrs. Peterson, who had little babies, were taught to modify milk for them, the dangers of giving small children foods unsuited to their age was talked about now with the recent experience to point the moral; and ways of keeping well in hot weather were explained and listened to with interest.

Substitutes for meat were discussed earnestly, chiefly on account of the high cost of living but also because meat was declared to be far too heating for warm weather use. Each of the women knew of some dish which took the place of meat and she was glad to tell the others about it. Mrs. Paterno knew very well that cheese is one of the best substitutes for meat that there is.

"Americans eat cheesa after meata; then sick," she declared with truth. Her receipt for a risotto Moya wrote down in the blank book in which she was collecting recipes and Mrs. Paterno beamed when it came onto the table.

Chiefly for the purpose of giving the little Italian woman a change of thought, the U. S. C. made a point of providing Rose House with some sort of entertainment every few days. Once they introduced the inmates to an American hayride, and the four women, with Moya and the older children, screamed with delight as they found themselves moving slowly along on a real load of hay--for Grandfather Emerson declared that that was the only kind of hayride worth having.

Again they all stowed themselves away in the automobile and went to a pond ten miles away for a day's picnic. That proved not to be a success, for everybody was so tired all the next day that there was a nearer approach to disagreement among them than ever happened before. Mrs. Schuler made up her mind that home--meaning Rose House--was the best place for them and that amusements must be found at home and not afield.

CHAPTER IX

A NEW KIND OF GRASS SEED

"Your grand-father told me once about a field he had that was filled with daisies," said Ethel Blue. "It looked awfully pretty, but it spoiled the field for a pasture; the cows wouldn't touch them."

"I remember that field. We used to make daisy chains and trim Mother's room with them," said Ethel Brown.

"Mr. Emerson tried ploughing up the field and he had men working over it for two seasons, but on the third, up they grew again as gay as you please. They acted as if he had just been stirring up the soil so they would grow better than ever."

"Poor Grandfather; he had a hard time with that field."

"He said he really needed it for a pasture, so he made up his mind that if he couldn't root out the bad plants, he'd crowd them out. So he bought some seed of a kind of grass that has large, strong roots, and he sowed it in the field. As soon as it began to grow he could see that there certainly were not so many daisies there. He kept on another year and the cows began to look over the fence as if they'd like to get in. The third year there were so few daisies that they didn't count."

"I remember all that," said Ethel Brown, "but what does it have to do with Mrs. Paterno?"

"Why, if we--or Edward--could make her get a grip on herself and control herself that would be like Mr. Emerson's digging up the daisies. It would be hard work and an awfully slow process. But if we also could fill her mind with thoughts about working for her children and trying to make other people happy and with making embroidery which she loves to do, why wouldn't it help? These new things she's thinking about would be like the strong, new grass seed that didn't give the weeds a chance to grow."

Dorothy stared seriously at Ethel Blue.

"She does perfectly beautiful embroidery," she said slowly, as she tried to think out a way to put Ethel Blue's suggestion into effect. "Do you suppose she'd be willing to teach us how to do it? That beautiful Italian cut work, you know. If we should call ourselves a class and ask her to teach us it might give her something quite new to think about."

"I'd like to learn, too," agreed Ethel Blue. "I heard Mother say once that there was a school in New York for Italian lace work. Let's get Delia to find out about it, and when Mrs. Paterno grows stronger and goes back to the city she might go there. They have a shop uptown where they sell the pupils' work. The class here and the prospect of having regular employment when she went back--"

"Work she likes."

"What are you youngsters plotting?" asked the cheerful voice of Grandfather Emerson, who came around the big oak from the grass grown lane so quietly that they did not hear him coming.

They told him their plan, and he listened intently. "The poor little woman has had such a shock that it will be a long time before she can control herself, I'm afraid," he responded sympathetically, "but I believe you've hit on the right way."

"Then we'll get Edward Watkins to ask her whether she'll be willing to teach a class, and we'll all join it."

"The other women might like to learn, too."

"Perhaps they could teach. Bulgarian embroidery has been fashionable lately, you know, and the peasant women do it."

"Your grandmother and I went through a Peasant's Bazar when we were in Petrograd and there were mounds of embroidery there that the peasant women had made."

"The Swedes do beautiful work. Why don't we have a class for international embroidery?" laughed Dorothy. "I think Mother would like to learn the Russian; she's crazy about Russian music and everything Russian."

"We'll ask Mother and Grandmother, too, and perhaps the Miss Clarks would come and the women could charge a fee and make a little money teaching us and be amused themselves."

"I dare say it will do the others good as well as the little Italian. You've hit on something that will benefit all of them while you were trying to help Mrs. Paterno," surmised Mr. Emerson. "What I came over here this morning to see you about was this," he went on in a business-like tone that made them look at him attentively. "Grandmother and I think that Mrs. Paterno has been a trifle too exciting for you young people the last few days. We think you need a change of thought as well as that young woman herself."

They all sat and waited for what was coming, quite unable to guess what proposition he was going to make.

"Helen and Roger are somewhat older and stand such upheavals a little better than you girls, so my plan doesn't include them."

"Just us three?" asked Ethel Brown.

"Just you three. Here's my scheme; see if you like it. I have to go over to Boston to-morrow on a matter of business and it occurred to me that it would be a pleasant sail on the Sound and that you'd be interested in seeing the city--"

"O--o!" gasped Dorothy; "Cambridge and Longfellow's house."

"Concord and Lexington!" cried Ethel Brown.

"The Art Museum!" murmured Ethel Blue.

"And Bunker Hill Monument, and, of course, the Navy Yard especially for this daughter of a sailor," and he nodded gayly at his granddaughter.

"Grandmother will go, to take you around when I have to attend to my business, and we can stay a day or two and come back fresh to attend to Mrs. Paterno's affairs. How does it strike you?"

Without any preliminary conference, the three girls flung their arms around his neck and hugged him heartily.

"Have you talked about it with Mother and Aunt Louise?" asked Ethel Brown.

"I'm armed with their permission."

"I guess we were all worrying about Mrs. Paterno," admitted Ethel Blue. "This will be the strong grass seed that will clear up our minds so that we can help her better after we come back."

"I think you're the most magnificent Grandfather that ever was born!" exclaimed Ethel Brown, standing back and gazing admiringly at her ancestor.

"Thank you," returned Mr. Emerson, bowing low, his hand on his heart, "I am quite overcome by such a wholesale tribute!"

"Had we better tell Mrs. Schuler about the embroidery class plan?" asked Dorothy.

"Run up to Rose House now and explain it to her and ask her to talk to the women about it while you are gone, and then when you get back she'll have it all ready to start," Mr. Emerson suggested.

The next twenty-four hours were full of excitement. Each of the girls had only a small handbag to pack, but the selection of what should go into each bag seemed a matter of infinite importance. The Ethels filled their bags twice before they were satisfied that they had not left out anything that would be wanted, and Dorothy confessed that she had first put in too much and then had gone to the other extreme, and that it had not been until after she had had a consultation with her mother that she had decided on just the number and kind of garments that she would need for a two-day trip to the Hub of the Universe.

"Why is it called that?" she asked of Ethel Brown.

"I asked Mother and she said that people from New York and other cities used to say that Bostonians thought that their town was the centre of civilization. So they guyed it by calling it the 'Hub'."

Roger and Helen went into New York with the travellers and Delia and Margaret were on the pier to see the steamer leave.

It was a glorious afternoon and the boat slipped around the end of the Battery while the westering sun was still shining brilliantly on the water, touching it with sparkles on the tip of each tiny wave. The Statue of Liberty, with the sun behind it, towered darkly against the gold. The huge buildings of the lower city stretched skywards, the new Equitable, the latest addition to the mammoth group, shutting off almost entirely the view of the Singer Tower from the harbor, just as the Woolworth Tower hides it from observers on the north.

Between them Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson were able to point out nearly all of the sights of the East River--several parks and playgrounds, Bellevue Hospital, the Vanderbilt model tenements for people threatened with tuberculosis, the Junior League Hotel for self-supporting women, the old dwelling where Dorothy's friend, the "box furniture lady," had established a school to teach the folk of the neighborhood how to use tools for the advantage of their house-furnishings.

The boat was one of those which steams around Cape Cod instead of stopping at Fall River, Rhode Island, and sending its passengers to Boston by train. Early morning found them all on deck watching the waters of Massachusetts Bay and trying to place on a map that Mr. Emerson produced from his pocket the towns whose church spires they could see pointing skyward far off on their left. Twin lighthouses they decided, marked Gurnet Point, the entrance to Plymouth Bay, and they strained their eyes to see the town that was the oldest settlement in Massachusetts, and imagined they were watching the bulky little Mayflower making her way landward between the headlands.

Mr. Emerson convoyed his party to a hotel on Copley Square and left them there while he went out at once to meet his business friends.

"How far away Rosemont seems, and poor Mrs. Paterno with her troubles," she said an hour later as they stood before Sargent's panel of the Prophets in the Public Library.

CHAPTER X

TROLLEYING

As for the Art Museum, they wandered delightedly from one room to another, but went away with a sensation of having seen too much that was almost as uncomfortable as that of having eaten too much.

"I should like to come here or to go to the Metropolitan in New York with some one who could tell me about every picture or every object in just one room and stay there for an hour and then go away and think about it," said Ethel Blue.

"We will do that some day at the Metropolitan," said Mrs. Emerson. "If the Club would like to go in a body some day we can get one of the guides who do just what you describe. We can tell her the sort of thing we want to see--classical statuary or English artists or the Morgan collection--and have it all shown to us from the standpoint of the expert critic. Or we can put ourselves in the hands of the guide and say that we'd like to see the ten exhibits that the Museum looks upon as the choicest."

"Either way would be wonderful!" beamed Ethel Blue, and the three girls promised themselves the delight of reporting Mrs. Emerson's offer to the Club at its next meeting.

The homeward trip was made by a route quite different from the one by which the party reached Boston. Grandfather proposed it at breakfast on the morning of the day on which they had intended to leave in the afternoon.

"Are you people very keen on this drive through the Park System to-day?" he asked.

The girls did not know what to say, but Mrs. Emerson scented a new idea and replied "not if you have something to suggest that we'd like better."

"How would you like to trolley back to New York?"

"Trolley back to New York!" repeated the girls with little screeches of joy. "All the way by trolley? How long will it take? I never heard of anything so delightful in all my life!"

After such a quick and satisfactory response Mr. Emerson did not need to lay his plan before them in any further detail.

"I see you're 'game,' as Roger would say, for anything, so we'll go that way if Mother agrees."

Mrs. Emerson did agree and even went so far as to say that she had wanted to do that very thing for a long time.

"It's lucky Grandfather insisted that we shouldn't bring anything but small handbags," said Ethel Brown. "These little things we have won't be any trouble at all, no matter how many times we have to change."

They started in heavy inter-urban cars which rode as solidly as railroad cars and enabled them to be but very little tired at the end of the first "leg" of the journey. The wide windows permitted views of the country and the girls ran from one side to the other of the closed cars, so that they should not miss anything of interest, and sat on the front seat of the open cars into which they changed later, so that they might have no one in front of them to obstruct their view.

They went out of the city straight westward through Brookline, through Chestnut Hill, where is one of the reservoirs from which the city is supplied; past Wellesley, where they saw the college buildings rising among the trees on the left.

The party reached Springfield at dusk and had time to take a walk after dinner. They admired the elm-bordered streets and the comfortable houses, and they thought the Arsenal looked extremely peaceful outside in spite of its murderous activities within.

It was a deep sleep that visited them all that night. A whole day in the open air with the gentle but continuous exercise provided by the car made them unconscious of their surroundings almost as soon as they touched their pillows.

CHAPTER XI

THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY

With a long and varied day ahead of them they were delighted to find the morning clear when they awoke.

"There are almost as many points of interest in the Connecticut River Valley as there are on the Concord and Lexington road," Mr. Emerson told the girls. "We're going first to Holyoke, which is one of the largest paper manufacturing towns in the world. I have a little business to do there and while I am seeing my man you people can take a little walk. Be sure you notice the big dam. It's a thousand feet long. The Holyoke water power is very unusual."

Perhaps because they were not experts on water power they were not greatly impressed by the floods of the Connecticut River diverted into deep canals and swimming along so smoothly as to impart but little idea of their strength. Only the whir of the great mills gave evidence that iron and steel were being moved by it.

"How Roger would enjoy this!" cried Ethel Brown, and "Wouldn't Helen be just crazy over all the history of this region?" added Ethel Blue, while Dorothy, who had travelled much but never without her mother, silently wished that she were there to enjoy it all.

"There's another girl's college of note," and Mrs. Emerson pointed out Mt. Holyoke at South Hadley, northeast of Mt Tom.

"And we're going to see Smith College to-day! I feel as if I wanted to go to all of them!" cried Ethel Blue.

"You might take a year at each and find out which was best suited to your temperament," laughed Mrs. Emerson.

From the foot of the mountain they went northward again to Northampton.

"Here's where I ought to go if names count for anything," decided Dorothy.

"If all the girls named Smith who go to college anywhere should go here because of the name there wouldn't be room for any other students," said Mr. Emerson jokingly.

"They say," returned Dorothy on the defensive, "that in the beginning all the people in the world were named Smith and it was only those who misbehaved who had their names changed."

"You can at least pride yourself on their being an industrious lot. Think of all their crafts--they were armorers and goldsmiths, and silversmiths and blacksmiths."

CHAPTER XII

THE BERKSHIRES AND BENNINGTON

Greenfield, where the party spent the night, they found to be a pleasant old town with the wide, tree-bordered streets to which they were growing accustomed in this trolleying pilgrimage. A quiet hotel sheltered them and they slept soundly, their dreams filled with memories of colleges and rose gardens and Indians in romantic confusion. The next day they started westward.

Pittsfield they found to be a large town whose old houses surrounded by ancient trees gave a feeling of solidity and comfort.

"Longfellow wrote 'The Old Clock on the Stairs' here," said Mr. Emerson pointing out the Appleton house. "The first stanza describes more than one of the old mansions," and he recited:--

"Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country seat. Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw, And from its station in the hall An ancient timepiece says to all,-- 'Forever--never! Never--forever!'"

"I remember that poem, but I never liked it much;" acknowledged Dorothy; "it's too gloomy."

"It is rather solemn," admitted Mr. Emerson. "You'll be interested to know that merry Dr. Holmes used to come to Pittsfield in the summer. There are many associations with him in the town."

"I'm sure he wrote gayer poems than 'The Old Clock on the Stairs' when he was here."

"Is this a very old town?" Ethel Blue asked.

"It was settled in 1743. Does that seem old to you?"

"1743," Ethel repeated, doing some subtraction by the aid of her fingers, for arithmetic was not her strong point. "A hundred and eighty-seven years," she decided after reflection. "Yes, that seems pretty old to me. It's a lot older than Rosemont but over a hundred years younger than Plymouth or Boston."

"A sort of middle age," Mr. Emerson summed up her decision with a smile.

After luncheon at the hotel an early afternoon car sped on with them to a station whence they took an automobile for a drive through Stockbridge and Lenox with their handsome estates and lovely views.

The trolley whizzed them back over the same route to North Adams and westward to Williamstown.

"One of my brothers--your great-uncle James, Ethel Brown--went to Williams College," said Mr. Emerson, "and I shall be glad to spend the night here and see the town and the buildings I heard him talk so much about."

"Why don't we get out, then?"

"We're going now to Bennington, Vermont."

"Vermont! Into another state!" exclaimed Ethel Blue.

"When we come back we'll leave the car here."

"Are those the Green Mountains?" asked Dorothy as the trolley ran into a smoother country than they had been in while traveling in the Berkshires, but one which showed a background of long wooded ranges rising length after length against the sky.

"Those are the Green Mountains; and this is the 'Green Mountain State,' and the men who fought in the Revolution under Ethan Allen were the 'Green Mountain Boys'."

"But, ranged in serried order, attent on sterner noise,
Stood stalwart Ethan Allen and his 'Green Mountain Boys'
Two hundred patriots listening as with the ears of one,
To the echo of the muskets that blazed at Lexington!"

quoted Mrs. Emerson. "They were bound northward to the British fort at Ticonderoga."

"Did they get there?"

"They took the British completely by surprise. That was in May, 1775. It was in August, two years later that the battle of Bennington took place."

"We'd better agree to have dinner or supper here if we don't want to get back to Williamstown after all the food in the place has been eaten by those hungry college boys," suggested Mrs. Emerson.

Mr. Emerson took a hasty glance at the setting sun.

"You never spoke a truer word, my dear," applauded her husband, "though this is vacation and the boys won't be there! Still, I'm as hungry as a bear. Let's have our evening meal, whatever it proves to be, in Bennington."

They were all hungry enough to think the plan one of the best that their leader had offered for some time, so it was only after what turned out to be supper that they went back to Williamstown.

In the moonlight the towers of the college buildings glimmered mysteriously through the trees, and the girls went to bed happy in the promise of what the morning was going to bring them.

Ethel Brown was sorry that there were no students to be seen on the grounds when they wandered about the next morning, for she would have liked to see what sort of boys they were, and, if she liked their looks, have suggested to Tom or James that they come here to college amid such lovely surroundings. She liked it better than Amherst but Ethel Blue preferred that compact little village, and Dorothy clung to her deep-seated affection for Cambridge.

"After all, our Club boys have their plans all made so we don't need to get excited over these colleges," decided Ethel Brown; "and I'm glad they're all going to different ones because when they graduate we'll have invitations to three separate class-days and other festivities."

"What a perfectly beautiful tower," exclaimed Dorothy.

"It's the chapel. That light-colored stone is superb, isn't it!"

"Some of these other buildings look as old as some of the oldy-old Harvard ones."

"They can't be anywhere near as old. This college wasn't founded until 1793."

"That's old enough to give it a settled-down air in spite of these handsome new affairs. There must be lovely walks about here."

"Hills almost as big as mountains to climb. But the boys don't have any girls to call on the way the Amherst boys do, with the Smith girls and the Mt. Holyoke girls just a little ride away."

"Perhaps they'd rather have mountains," remarked Ethel Brown wisely.

As the college was not in session Mr. Emerson was not able to see any of the records that he had hoped to look over to search for his brother's name, and as almost all of the professors were out of town, he could not question any of the older men of the place as to their recollection of him. He was quite willing, therefore, to take a comparatively early train for Albany.

They arrived early enough to go over the Capitol, seated at the head of a broad but precipitous street. It was very unlike the stern simplicity of the Massachusetts State House, but they amused themselves by saying that at least the two buildings had one part of their decoration in common. In Albany the tops of the columns were carved with fruits and flowers, all to be found in the United States. In Boston a local product, the codfish, held a position of honor over the desk of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

"All made in the U. S. A.," laughed Dorothy, quoting a slogan of the wartime, intended to help home industries.

They wanted to see the Cathedral and St. Agnes' School as well as the State Board of Education Building, and after they had hunted them out with the help of a map of the city, and had taken a trolley ride into the suburbs, and had eaten a hearty dinner they were glad to go to bed early so as to be up in time to catch the Day Boat for New York.

"What splendid weather we've had," exclaimed Mrs. Emerson as they took their places on the broad deck of the handsome craft. It was not the same one that had taken them to West Point at the end of May. This one was named after Hendrik Hudson, the explorer of the river. They found it to be quite as comfortable as the other, and the day went fast as they swept down the stream with the current to aid them.

Occasionally broad reaches of the river grew narrower and wider again as the soil had proven soft or more resistant and the water had spread or had cut out a deep channel. Off to the west the Catskills loomed against the sky, more varied than the Green Mountains and more rugged.

"More beautiful, too, I think," decided Ethel Blue. "I like their roughness."

A storm came up as they passed the mountains and the thunder rumbled unendingly among the hills.

"Listen to the Dutchmen that Rip Van Winkle saw playing bowls when he visited them during his twenty years' nap," laughed Ethel Brown who was a reader of Washington Irving's "Sketch Book."

"I don't wonder he felt dozy in summer with such a lovely scene to quiet him," Mrs. Emerson said in his defence. "I feel a trifle sleepy myself," and she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with an appearance of extreme comfort.

They passed Kingston which was burned by the British just two months after the battle of Bennington; and by a large town which proved to be Poughkeepsie.

"Here's where we should land if we were going to finish our investigation of colleges by seeing Vassar," said Mr. Emerson.

"I'm glad we aren't going to get off!" exclaimed Ethel Brown. "I'm so undecided now I don't see how I'll ever make up my mind where to go!"

"Something will happen to help you decide," consoled Dorothy. "Isn't this where the big college boat races are rowed?" she asked Mr. Emerson.

"Right here on this broad stretch of water. A train of observation cars--flat cars--follows the boats along the bank. I must bring the Club up here to some of them some time."

"O-oh!" all the girls cried with one voice, and they stared at the river and the shore as if they might even then see the shells dashing down the stream and the shouting crowds in the steamers and on the banks.

Below Newburgh the river narrowed beneath upstanding cliffs and a point jutted out into the water.

"Do you recognize that piece of land?" Mr. Emerson asked.

No one did.

"You don't recall West Point?"

"We're in the position now of the steamers and tugs we watched while we were having our dinner at the hotel. Do you see the veranda of the hotel? Up on the headland?"

They did, and they felt that they were in truth nearing home. The remainder of the way was over familiar waters, and they called to mind the historic tales that Roger and Mr. Emerson had told them on the Memorial Day trip.

"We've seen so much history in the last week, though," declared Ethel Blue, "that I don't believe I can ever realize that I'm living in the twentieth century!"

CHAPTER XIII

HUNTING ARROW HEADS

The week after the home-coming from the Massachusetts trolley trip was a time of busyness for the Ethels and Dorothy. Helen and Roger and the grown-ups who had stayed at home had to be made familiar with every step of the way, and the whole long history lesson that they had had was reviewed especially for Helen's benefit. She looked up battle after battle in large histories in the library and was so full of questions as to how this place and that looked that the girls regretted that they had not taken a kodak so that they might have gratified her curiosity by showing her pictures of all the historical spots in their modern garb.

Affairs at Rose House had to be brought up to date. Mr. Emerson undertook the management of Mrs. Tsanoff's affairs and went into town the very day after his return to call on Mr. Watkins and find out where Tsanoff was working. He found that he had been discharged from his position but a few days before. He had become so downcast as a consequence that he had not sent word to his wife of this fresh disappointment, and he was unspeakably grateful to Mr. Emerson for the chance that he opened to him. A kodak of his dark, sensible face was easily obtained to send to Massachusetts and Mr. Emerson went home feeling that the first step had been well taken.

Making Mrs. Tsanoff understand the new proposition was not easy, but Mrs. Schuler and Moya had learned something of her language as she had learned more English during the summer and, when Mr. Emerson showed her a photograph of the Deerfield farm and told her of its advantages for her husband and the children she was eager to go to it at once.

"The fields, the cows," she kept saying over and over again, and the girls realized how strong within her was her love for the country for which she had made the poor exchange of the city, and they sympathized keenly.

The result of the correspondence between Mr. Emerson and the Deerfield people was that the Bulgarians were put on the train for Springfield within ten days, each one of them, even the twin babies, wearing a small American flag so that they might be recognized by their new employer who was to meet them at Springfield and convoy them home. Mrs. Tsanoff left Rose House in tears, kissing the hands of all the girls and murmuring her gratitude to all of them over and over again as she wept and smiled by turns.

The other women had started the embroidery class, teaching each other and Mrs. Morton, Mrs. Smith and the Miss Clarks. The plan was working out very well, Mrs. Schuler thought, especially with Mrs. Paterno, who evidently loved the work and in it was already losing something of her fear and anxiety.

Roger had made a sideboard for the Rose House dining room assisted by the members of the Club who were "not off gallivanting," as he expressed it.

"It's mighty good looking," commented Dorothy as she examined it. "Was it hard to make? It looks so."

"No worse than that seat we made for Mrs. Schuler's room. We made two cupboard arrangements for the ends just like those, only we put a door over each one of them. Instead of a big box between them to be used as a seat we put a shelf resting on the cleats that went across the backs of the bookshelves. Then we connected the two cupboards with a long plank."

"You put a back behind the shelf."

"We put on thin boards for a back, but we haven't decided yet whether we made a mistake in putting doors in front or not. I like them with doors the way we have it, but Margaret thinks it would have been rather good without any doors. What do you think?"

"I think Mrs. Schuler will like it better with doors. The linen or whatever she keeps in there will be cleaner if it isn't exposed to the air on open shelves and the doors will serve as a protection against dust."

They all agreed that it was one of the best pieces of furniture that they had yet made for the house, and the travellers were sorry that they had not had a hand in its construction on account of the experience the progress of the work would have afforded them.

A few days later the Ethels planned an excursion for the benefit of the younger children which was to be somewhat in the nature of a picnic, but it was arranged to have everyone attend who could do so.

There was intense excitement among the smaller children when the announcement was made that the picnic would be held early the following week, providing the weather proved clear enough not to interfere with their plans.

Dicky's share in the excitement of the journey was the stirring up of a deep interest in Indians. When the Ethels told him that they were going over to the field that Grandfather Emerson was having cleared he insisted on going with them to hunt for arrow heads. They waited until a day after a rain had left the small stones washed free of earth, and they made an afternoon of it, all the Club and all the Rose House women and children going too. The boys carried hampers with the wherewithal for afternoon tea, and the expedition assumed serious proportions in the minds of those arranging it when Dicky asked if they would need one of Grandfather's wagons to bring home the arrow heads in.

As a matter of fact they did not find many arrow heads. Whether the earth had not yet been turned over to a sufficient depth or whether the Indians who had lived about Rosemont had been of a peaceful temper or whether the field happened not to be near any of their villages, no one knew, though every one made one guess or another.

They planned the search methodically.

"I saw a lot of Boy Scouts one day clear up the field in Central Park in which they had been drilling," said Tom Watkins. "They stretched in a long line across the whole field and then they walked slowly along looking for anything that might have been dropped in the course of their evolutions."

"Did they find much?"

"You'd be surprised to know how much!"

"Let's do the same thing here. If we stretch across the field then every one is responsible for just a small section under his eyes--"

"--and feet."

"--and feet. I wish we had an arrow head to show the women so they'd know exactly what to look for."

"Father had one in the cabinet," said Roger, "and I put it in my pocket for just this purpose. I don't know where he got it, and it may not be of exactly the kind of stone these New Jersey Indians used, but it will show the shape all right."

"They always used flint, didn't they?" asked Margaret.

"Flint or obsidian or the hardest stone they could find, whatever it was." "Bone?"

"Sometimes. I saw quite large bone heads at the Natural History Museum."

"I've seen life-size boneheads frequently," announced James solemnly, not smiling until Roger and Tom pelted him with bits of sod.

The arrow head was passed from hand to hand and every one studied it carefully. Then they stretched across the field and began their search. The result was not very satisfactory from Dicky's point of view, for he concluded that he need not have worried as to how the load was to be carried home. There were only seven found. Of these, however, Dicky found two, one by his unaided efforts and the other through Ethel Blue's taking pains not to see one that lay between him and her. Nobody else found more than one and several of them found none at all, so Dicky, after all, was hilarious.

In a corner of the field they built a fire and heated water for the tea in a kettle thrust among the coals. Ears of corn still in the husk were roasted between heated stones, bits of bacon sizzled appetizingly from forked sticks and dripped on to the flames with a hissing sound, and biscuits, fresh from Moya's oven, were reheated near the blaze.

It was while they were sitting around the fire that Dicky's mind turned to the remainder of the Indian's equipment.

"What did he do with thith arrowhead?" he inquired.

"He tied it on to the end of an arrow, and shot bears with it."

"What'th an arrow?"

"A long, slender stick."

"Do you throw it?"

"You shoot it from a bow."

"What'th a bow?"

"A curved piece of wood with a string connecting the ends."

"How doeth it work?"

Roger heaved a sigh and then gave it up..

"Me for the bushes," he cried. "Language fails me; I'll have to make a bow and arrow."

"It's the easiest way," nodded Tom. "Bring me a switch and I'll make the arrow while you make the bow."

"Who's got a piece of string?" inquired Roger a few minutes later as he held up his handiwork for the admiration of his friends,

James produced the necessary string and Roger strung the bow.

"Now, then, let's see what it will do," he said.

Adjusting the arrow he drew the cord and sent the simple shaft whizzing through the air against a tree where it stuck in the bark for an instant before it fell to the ground.

"Do you think it's safe for Dicky to have an arrow as sharp as that?" inquired Helen.

"That's not sharp enough to do any damage. It didn't hold in the tree."

Dicky was delighted with his new toy and went off to test its power, followed by Elisabeth of Belgium, Sheila, Luigi and Pietro Paterno, Olga Peterson and Vasili and Vladimir Vereshchagin. The romper-clad band stirred the amused smiles of the elders watching them.

"They certainly are the cunningest little dinks that ever happened!" cried Ethel Brown, establishing herself comfortably to help make small bows and arrows for the rest of the flock.

The girls as well as the boys of the United Service Club knew how to use a jacknife and the diminutive weapons of the chase were soon ready.

The Ethels were hunting through the luncheon basket for string when a howl from the other side of the field made them drop what was in their hands and rush toward the trees where the children were playing. The mothers followed them, Mrs. Paterno and Mrs. Vereshchagin in the lead.

"I certainly hope it's not the little Paterno," said Ethel Blue breathlessly to Ethel Brown as they ran. "Mrs. Paterno never will forgive Dicky if he's got him into trouble again."

They concluded when they came in sight of the group of children that the Italian woman had run from nervousness and the Russian because she recognized the voice of her offspring, for it was Vladimir whose yells were resounding through the air. Dicky was bending over him and the other children were standing around so that the runners as they approached could not see what was the matter.

Mrs. Vereshchagin increased her speed, uttering sounds that fell strangely on her listeners' ears. The group of children fell away as their elders came near, and the Ethels, who were in front, saw that Vladimir was pinned to a tree by Dicky's arrow which had pierced the fullness of his rompers. He could not be hurt in the least, but the strangeness of his position had startled and angered him and was causing the shrieks that had frightened them all.

Fortunately for Dicky, Mrs. Vereshchagin, unlike Mrs. Paterno, had a sense of humor, and as soon as she saw that her child was neither injured nor in danger she burst into laughter as loud as his cries of rage and terror. Roger quickly unfastened him from the tree to which he was bound and handed him over to his mother, none the worse for his experience except that his rompers were torn. Turning to Dicky, Roger decreed that the head must be taken from his arrow.

"It's not your fault, old man," he said; "but Helen was right--this thing is too sharp."

"I'll tell you what to do, Roger, get some of those rubber tips that slip on the ends of lead pencils. The English stationer must have some. If you put them on all these arrows they can't do any harm."

"Meanwhile the kiddies had better not have them," Mrs. Schuler decided, so they were put aside with the basket, to be finished later when the needed tips should be procured in Rosemont.

"You got off pretty well, that time, sir," laughed Roger. "What were you trying to do?"

"I wath an Indian thooting bearth. Vladimir wath a bear."

"A Russian bear. You got him all right; but let me tell you, young man; you must be mighty careful what you aim at, for international complications may follow."

"What'th that?"

"That means it's dangerous to aim at anybody. I'll make you a target and when you get so you can hit the bull's eye three times out of five at a distance of fifteen feet I'll give you a better bow. Is it a bargain?"

Dicky shook hands on it solemnly.

"Remember now, no shooting at any living thing."

"Not a cat?"

"Not a cat or a bird, a dog or any other animal on two legs or four."

"All right," nodded Dicky, and Roger knew that he would keep his word, for that is a part of the training of a soldier's son.

The experiences of the afternoon were not yet ended. The arrow episode over the children looked about for other amusement. They drifted away from the group still gathered about the embers of the dying fire and made their way among the bushes standing uncut on the edge of the new clearing. Once in a while their laughter was borne on the breeze. It was a long time before any one thought of seeing what they were doing. Then Ethel Brown rose and sauntered in the direction whence the sounds came.

"With Dicky in the lead," she thought, "it's just as well to keep an eye on them."

As she approached the woods she saw the little army of rompered youngsters, each armed with a switch, and each doing his best to strike something high over his head. They all stood with their eager faces looking upward and their arms working busily with what muscle the summer had given them. Leaves were falling from the bushes and the lower branches of the saplings that were struck by their rods, and it was evident that they were causing great destruction to the foliage, whatever the real object of their attack.

Ethel's wonderment increased.

"Children do get the greatest amount of fun out of the smallest things," she thought. "What can they be doing?"

When quite near the thicket, however, her slow steps quickened into a run. Her sharp eyes discovered hanging from one of the trees over the heads of the children one of the large wasps' nests which seem to be made of gray paper. It had caught Dicky's attention and he had coveted it for purpose of investigation. Summoning his cohorts he had pointed it out to them and had urged them to bring it down. Each one had broken a stick; some had stripped off the leaves entirely; others had left a tuft at the end. In both cases the weapons looked dangerously destructive to Ethel, as she ran toward them and saw one pole after another swish past the home of the paper wasps and expected the colony to rush forth to defend their abode. With a cry of warning she bore down on them and with a sweep of her arms turned them all back into the open field. Dicky was indignant.

"What you doing that for?" he demanded angrily. "One more thwat and I'd a had it."

"You don't know what it is," cried Ethel breathlessly. "You'd all be stung if there were any wasps at home. That's their house and they get awfully mad."

The children looked back fearfully at the object of their attack.

"You've had a narrow escape," insisted Ethel, and then to divert their minds from what had happened she made them stretch themselves in a line and hunt for arrow heads all the way back to their mothers.

"Thith ith a funny thtone," exclaimed Dicky, picking up a rather large oblong stone that had a groove all around its middle.

"It looks like Lake Chautauqua. doesn't it? You know they say that 'Chautauqua' means 'the bag tied in the middle'."

"Did the Indianth uthe it?" Dicky asked as he laid his trophy in Roger's hand.

"I rather think they did," returned Roger excitedly. "It looks to me as if this was a hammer or a hatchet. See--" and he held it out for the girls and James and Tom to see, "they must have lashed this head on to a stout stick by a cord tied where this crease is."

"It would make a first-rate hammer," commended James.

"The Indians didn't manufacture as many of these as they did arrow heads, because, of course, they didn't need as many. I rather guess you've made the big find of the afternoon," and Dicky swelled with pride as his brother patted him on the shoulder.

When it became time to go home the Ethels offered to take the short cut to Rosemont and get the rubber tips for the children's arrows.

"If we go across the field and the West Woods we come out not far from the stationer's, and we can leave the tips up at Rose House on the way back so they'll be ready for you to put on to-morrow and the youngsters can have the bows and arrows to play with right off."

"Let me go," begged Dicky.

"All right," agreed Roger. "Be careful when you go over the railroad track, girls. Mother isn't very keen on having Dicky learn that road, you know."

They promised to be careful and set forth in the opposite direction from the rest of the party whom they left putting together the remnants of the feast and packing away the plates.

It was an interesting walk. They played Indian all the way. Ethel Blue's imagination had been greatly stimulated by the tale of the attack on Deerfield and she pretended to see an Indian behind every tree. Ethel Brown pretended to shoot them all with unerring arrow, and Dicky charged the bushes in handsome style and routed the enemy with awful slaughter.

"This is just the kind of game we ought not to play if we want to make Dicky think of peace and not of war," declared Ethel Blue at last when she had become breathless from the excitement of their countless adventures.

"That's so. It's funny how you forget. It's just as Delia says--we don't realize how fighting and soldiers and thinking about military things is put into our minds even in games when we're little."

"I'm really sorry we've done this," confessed. Ethel Brown as they fell behind their charge. "Dicky's 'pretending' works over time anyway, and he may dream about Indians, or get scared to go to bed, and it will be our fault."

"It's rather late to think about it--but let's try not to do it again. Isn't there something we can call his attention to now to take his mind off Indians?"

Dicky was marching ahead of them drawing an imaginary bow and bringing down a large bag of imaginary birds, while from the difficulty with which he occasionally dragged an imaginary something behind him it seemed that he had at least slain an imaginary deer.

Naturally, with his hunting blood up, the Ethels found him not responsive to appeals to "see what a pretty flower this is" or to examine the hole of a chipmunk. He was after more thrilling adventures. Still, by the time they reached the railroad track, everyday matters were beginning to command his attention. This short cut across the track was one that he had seldom been allowed to take, and the mere fact of doing it was exciting. He stopped in the middle and looked up and down the line while the girls tugged at him. It was only when he saw a bit or two of shining metal which, according to his arrow head game of the afternoon, he picked up and tucked away in the pocket of his rompers, that his attention was once more turned to the gathering of the wonders that seemed to be under his feet all the time if only he looked for them hard enough.

The errand to the stationery shop was successful. The stationer said that most pencils now were made with erasers built into them, but that he thought he had a box of old tips left over. He hunted for them very obligingly, and set so small a price on them that the Ethels took the whole box so that they might have a liberal supply in case any were lost off the arrow heads. Dicky put one in his pocket so that he could place it on his arrow as soon as he got it into his hands once more, and he begged the Ethels to go home by way of Rose House so that he could fix it up that very night.

"Is it early enough?" asked Ethel Blue.

Ethel Brown thought it was.

"But we'll have to hurry," she warned; "there's an awfully black cloud over there. It looks like a thunder storm."

They scampered as fast as their legs would carry them and reached the farm in the increasing darkness, but before any rain had fallen. They found all the bows and arrows standing in a trash basket which Roger had made for the dining room.

"Mr. Roger stood them up in that so the children wouldn't be apt to touch 'em," explained Moya.

Dicky sat down on the hearth and set to work on the arrow which he recognized as his because of its greater length.

"You'll have to hurry or we'll get caught," warned his sister.

"We ought to start right off," urged Ethel Blue. "We'll have to run for it even if we go now."

Mrs. Schuler brought in the cape of her storm coat.

"Take this for Dicky," she said. "If it does break before you get home it will rain hard and his rompers won't be any protection at all."

"Put it on now, Dicky," commanded Ethel Brown. "Stand up."

Dicky rose reluctantly.

"Why do you fill up your pocket with such stuff," inquired Ethel impatiently. "There, throw it into the fireplace--gravel, toadstools, old brass," she catalogued contemptuously, and Dicky, swept on by her eagerness, obediently cast his treasures among the soft pine boughs that filled the wide, old fireplace.

"I'll clear them away," promised Mrs. Schuler. "Hurry," and she fairly turned them out of the house.

"You made me throw away my shiny things," complained Dicky as they ran down the lane as fast as they could go.

"Never mind; you'd have jounced them out of your pocket anyway, running like this," and Dicky, taking giant strides as his sister and his cousin held a hand on each side, was inclined to think that he would be lucky if he were not jounced put of his clothes before he got home.