Ethel Morton at Rose House by Mabell S. C. Smith

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Juvenile Library Girls Series

ETHEL MORTON AT ROSE HOUSE

by

MABELL S. C. SMITH

The World Syndicate Publishing Co.
Cleveland New York
Press of the Commercial Bookbinding Co., Cleveland

1915

[Frontispiece: "Here's where we should land"]

CHAPTER I

ROGER'S IDEA

For the fortieth time that afternoon, it seemed to Ethel Brown Morton
and her cousin, Ethel Blue, they untangled the hopelessly mixed
garlands of the maypole and started the weavers once more to lacing and
interlacing them properly.

"Under, over; under, over," they directed, each girl escorting a small
child in and out among the gay bands of pink and white which streamed
from the top of the pole.

May Day in New Jersey is never a certain quality; it may be reminiscent
of the North Pole or the Equator. This happened to be the hottest day
of the year so far, and both Ethels had wiped their foreheads until
their handkerchiefs were small balls too soaked to be of any further
use. But they kept on, for this was the first Community Maypole that
Rosemont ever had had, and the United Service Club, to which the girls
belonged, was doing its part to make the afternoon successful. Helen,
Ethel Brown's sister, and Margaret Hancock, another member of the Club,
were teaching the younger children a folk dance on the side of the
lawn; Roger Morton, James Hancock and Tom Watkins were marshalling a
group of boys and marching them back and forth across the end of the
grass plot nearest the schoolhouse. Delia Watkins, Tom's sister, and
Dorothy Smith, a cousin of the Mortons, were going about among the
mothers and urging them to let the little ones take part in the games.
Everybody was busy until dusk sent the small children home and the
caretaker came to uproot the pole and to shake his head ruefully over
the condition of the lawn whose smoothness had been roughened by the
tread of scores of dancing feet.

It was while the Club members were sitting on the Mortons' veranda,
resting, that Helen, who was president of the Club, called them to
order.

"Saturday afternoon is our usual time of meeting," she began, "and no
one can say that we haven't put in a solid afternoon of service."

Groans as one and another shifted a cramped position to another more
restful for weary feet confirmed her statement.

"What I want to say now is that it's time for us to be thinking up some
more service work. We are all studying pretty hard so we don't want to
undertake anything that will use up our out-of-door time too much, but
we haven't anything in prospect except helping with the town Fourth of
July celebration, over two months away, so we might as well be planning
something else."

"Do I understand, Madam President," asked Roger, "that the chief
officer of this distinguished Club hasn't any ideas to suggest?"

"The chief officer is so tired that not even another glass of
lemonade--thank you, Tom--can stir her gray matter."

"Hasn't anybody else any ideas?"

Silence greeted the question.

"I seem to remember boasts that ideas never would fail this brilliant
group," jeered Roger.

"There were some such remarks," James recalled meditatively; "and I
remember that you prophesied that the day would come when we'd call on
you for information about some stupendous scheme of yours that was
literally as big as a house. Let's have it now."

"Do I understand that you're really appealing to me to learn my
scheme?" inquired Roger, swelling with amusement.

"If it's any satisfaction to you--yes," replied his sister.

Roger burst into a peal of laughter.

"Shoot off the answers, old man," urged James. "We're waiting."

"Breathlessly," added Margaret.

Roger settled himself comfortably on the top step of the piazza and
leaned his head against the post.

"It certainly does me good to see you all at my feet begging like
this," he declared.

"Bosh! You're at ours and I can prove it," asserted Tom, stretching
out a foot of goodly size.

"Peace! Withdraw that battering ram!" pleaded Roger. "I'll tell you
all about it. Tom's really responsible for this idea, anyway."

"Ideas, real fresh ones, aren't much in my line," admitted practical
Tom, "but I'm glad to have helped for once."

"I don't suppose you remember that time last autumn when I went in to
New York to see you and you took me down to the chapel where your
father preaches on Sunday afternoons?"

"I remember it; we found Father there talking with a lot of mothers and
children."

"That's the time. Well, those women and children got on my nerves like
anything. You see, out here in Rosemont we haven't any real suffering
like that. There are poor people, and Mother always does what she can
for them, and there's a Charitable Society, as you know, because you
all helped with the Donnybrook Fair they had on St. Patrick's Day. But
the people they help out here are regular Rockefellers compared with
those poor creatures that your father had in his office that day."

"Father says he could spend a million dollars a year on those people,
and not have a misspent cent," said Delia.

"What hit me hardest was the thin little children. Elisabeth hadn't
come to us yet," Roger went on, referring to a Belgian baby that had
been sent to the Club to take care of, "and I wasn't so accustomed to
thinness as I've grown to be since, and it made me--well, it just made
me sick."

"I don't wonder," agreed Delia seriously. "That's the way they make me
feel."

"I know what you thought of," exclaimed Ethel Blue, who was so
imaginative and sympathetic that she sometimes had an almost uncanny
way of reading peoples' thoughts. "You wanted to bring some of those
poor women out into the country so that the children could get well,
and you told your grandfather about it and he offered you a house
somewhere."

"That's about it, kidlet. I heard one of the women say that she'd had
a week in the country--some sort of Fresh Air business--and that the
baby got a lot better, and then she had to go back to the city and the
little creature was literally dying on her hands."

"You want to give them a whole summer," guessed Ethel Brown.

"That's the idea. Since I've seen what proper care and good food and
fresh air have done for that wretched little skeleton, Elisabeth, I'm
more than ever convinced that if we can give some of those mothers and
babies a whole month or perhaps two months of Rosemont air we'll be
saving lives, actually saving lives."

Roger looked about earnestly from one grave face to another. All were
in sympathy with him and all waited for the development of his plan,
for they knew he would not have laid so much stress upon it if he had
not thought out the details.

"I've talked it over with Grandfather and he rose to it right off.
Here's where the house comes in. He said he was going to build a new
cottage for his farm superintendent this spring--you know it's almost
done now--and that we could have the old farm house if we wanted to fix
it up for a Fresh Air scheme."

"Mr. Emerson is a brick. I pull my forelock to him," and Tom
illustrated his remark.

"Where's the money to come from?" asked James, who was both of Scottish
descent and the Club treasurer, and so was not only shrewd but
accustomed to look after details.

"Grandfather said he'd help in this way; if the Club would study the
old house and decide on the best way to make it answer the purpose he
would provide two carpenters for a fortnight to help us. That will
mean that if we want to do any whitewashing or papering or matters of
that kind we'll have to do it ourselves, but the carpenters will put
the house in repair and put up any partitions that we want and so on."

"Is it furnished?"

"There's another problem. The superintendent has had his own furniture
there and what will be left when he goes is almost nothing. There are
some old things in the garret, but we'll have to use our ingenuity and
invent furniture."

"The way I did for our attic." Dorothy reminded them of the room where
the Club had been meeting ever since its members returned from
Chautauqua where it had been formed the summer before.

"Just so. We'll have to make a raid on our mothers' attics and also on
the stores in town that have their goods come in big boxes, and I
imagine we shall be able to concoct things that will 'do,' though they
may be remarkable to look upon."

"The mothers and children will be out of doors all the time, so they
won't sit around and examine the furniture," laughed Delia.

"It will be scanty, probably, but if we can get beds enough and a chair
apiece, or a substitute for a chair, and a few tables, we can get
along."

"There's your house provided and furnished after a fashion--how are you
going to run it?" inquired Helen. "It takes shekels to buy even very
plain food in these days of the 'high cost of living," and we've got to
give these women and children nourishing food; they can't live on fresh
air alone."

"Praise be, fresh air costs nothing!"

"That's one thing we'll get free," laughed Roger. "Grandfather told me
to investigate and see what I could find out about finances and then
let him know. So I went in to see Mr. Watkins."

"And never told me," said Tom reproachfully.

"Of course not. All of you people were too sniffy. I told your father
what the plan was and what Grandfather had said. He thought it was
great. He's a corker, your father is."

Delia and Tom looked somewhat startled at this epithet describing their
parent, but Roger meant it to be complimentary, so they made no
remonstrance.

"He said right off that he could provide the women and children in any
numbers and that he'd select the ones that needed the change most and
would be most benefited by it."

"It's not hard to find those," murmured Delia.

"Then he said that he had certain funds that he could draw on for such
cases and that he'd be just as willing to pay the board for these women
and children at Rosemont as anywhere else, so that we could depend on a
small sum for each one of them from the treasurer of the chapel."

"That ought to cover the expense of their food," said Helen, "but we'll
have to have a housekeeper and a cook."

"That's what Aunt Louise said."

"Oho, you've been talking with Mother about it!" exclaimed Dorothy.

"I knew the Club would come to me sooner or later, it was only a matter
of time, so I made ready to answer some of the questions you'd be
asking me."

They laughed at Roger's preparedness, but nodded approvingly.

"Aunt Louise said she'd pay the wages of the cook, and then I toddled
off to Grandmother Emerson and told her I was planning to raid her
attic for old furniture, and asked her incidentally if she thought we
could run the thing without a housekeeper."

"I hope she said 'yes'," exclaimed Margaret, who liked to administer a
household.

"Grandmother was very polite; she said she thought the U. S. C. could
do anything it set out to do, but that there would be countless odds
and ends that would occupy us all summer long--"

"Like making a continuous stream of furniture!"

"And going marketing and doing errands."

"And mowing the grass."

"And playing games with the kids."

"O, a thousand things would crop up; we never could be idle; and so she
thought we'd better have a responsible woman as housekeeper. What's
more she said she'd pay her."

"It wouldn't be polite for me to say about a lady what you said about
Mr. Watkins," said James--

"For which I apologize," declared Roger parenthetically.

"--but I'd like to remark that she's one of the most reliable
grandmothers I ever had anything to do with!"

They all laughed again.

"Where we'll get these two women I don't know," said Roger. "My
researches stopped there. But I suppose it wouldn't be difficult."

"I've heard Mother say that the 'responsible woman' was the hardest
person on earth to find," said Helen, thoughtfully. "But we can all
hunt."

"I know some one who might do if she'd be willing--and I don't know why
she wouldn't," said Ethel Brown.

"Who? Who? Some one in Rosemont?"

"Right here in Rosemont. Mrs. Schuler."

"Mrs. Schuler?"

There was a cry of wonder, for Mrs. Schuler was the teacher of German
in the high school. She had been engaged to Mr. Schuler, who taught
singing in the Rosemont schools, before the war broke out. Mr. Schuler
was called to the colors and lost a leg in the early part of the war.
Since he could no longer be useful as a fighter he had been allowed to
return to America, and his betrothed had married him at once so that
she and her mother, Mrs. Hindenburg, might nurse him back to health.
He had been slowly regaining his strength through the winter, and was
now fairly well and as cheerful as his crippled state would permit.

"You know I've been to see Mrs. Hindenburg a good deal ever since we
got her to go to the Home to teach the old ladies how to knit," said
Ethel Brown. "I know her pretty well now. The other day she told me
she had had an application from a family who wanted to board with her
this summer, and she was so sorry to have to turn them away because she
didn't have enough rooms for them."

"I don't see how that helps us any."

"You know Mr. Schuler hasn't been able to take many pupils this winter
and I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Schuler would be glad to have something
to do this summer when school is closed. Now if they would go to our
Fresh Air house and take charge there for the summer it would leave
Mrs. Hindenburg with enough space to take in her boarders. She'd be
glad, and I should think the Schulers would be glad."

"And we'd be glad! Why, Fraulein is the grandest housekeeper," cried
Helen, using the name that Mrs. Schuler's old pupils never remembered
to change to "Frau." "German housekeepers are thrifty and neat and
careful--why, she's exactly the person we want. How _great_ of you to
think of her, Ethel Brown!"

"You know she wanted to adopt our Belgian baby, so I guess she's
interested in poor children," volunteered Ethel Blue.

"Are our plans far enough along for us to ask her?" inquired Margaret.

"We ought to ask her as soon as we can, because Mrs. Hindenburg's plans
will be affected by the Schulers' decision," Helen reminded them.

"I think we are far enough along," decided Roger. "You see, the idea
is new to you, but I've been working at it for a good many months now,
and if we all pull together to do our share I know we can depend on the
grown-ups to do theirs."

"Shall we appoint Ethel Brown to call on Mrs. Schuler and talk it over
with her? She knows her better than the rest of us because she's seen
her at home oftener."

"Madam President, I move that Ethel Brown be appointed a committee of
one to see our Teutonic friends and work up their sympathies over the
women and children we want to help so that they just can't resist
helping too. Is your eloquence equal to that strain, Ethel?"

Ethel thought it was, and promised to go the very next afternoon. The
discussion turned to the next step to take.

"Grandfather's superintendent is going to move into the new cottage
next week," was Roger's news, "so then we can go over the old house and
see how it is arranged and decide how we'd like to change it."

"And also find out just what furniture is left and draw up a list of
what furniture we shall need."

"Had we better appoint committees for making the different
investigations?" inquired Tom, who was accustomed to the methods of a
city church.

"Later, perhaps," decided Helen. "At first I think we all want to know
the whole situation and then we can make our plans to fit, and special
people can volunteer for special work if we think it can be done best
that way."

"It's a great old plan you have there, Roger," cried Tom, thumping his
friend affectionately on the shoulder. "I bow to your giant intellect.
We'll do our best to make it a success."

CHAPTER II

MOYA AND SHEILA

Elisabeth of Belgium was walking sturdily now on the legs that had been
too weak to uphold her when she first came to Rosemont in November.
Her increasing strength was an increasing delight to all the people who
loved her--and there was no one who knew her who did not love her--but
her activity obliged her caretakers to be incessantly on the alert.
Miss Merriam, the skilled young woman from the School of Mothercraft,
who had pulled her through her period of greatest feebleness, now found
herself sometimes quite outdone by the energy of her little charge.

The Ethels were always glad to relieve her of her responsibilities for
an hour or two, and it was the afternoon of the day after Roger had
reported his plan to the Club that found the cousins strolling down
Church Street, "Ayleesabet" between them, clinging to a finger of each,
not to help her stand upright but to serve as a pair of supports from
which she might swing herself off the ground.

"See! She lifted her whole weight then!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "We
shall have to give up calling her 'baby' soon. She's becoming an
acrobat!"

"It's all due to Miss Merriam. I wish she didn't look so tired the
last few days."

Ethel Blue made no reply. She guessed something of the reason that had
made Miss Gertrude appear distressed and silent. A certain note that
she herself had placed in a May basket and hung on Miss Merriam's door
might have something to do with her appearance of anxiety. She changed
the subject as a measure of precaution, for she had been in the
confidence of Dr. Watkins, the elder brother of Tom and Delia and a
warm admirer of Miss Merriam's, and she did not want the conversation
to run into channels where she might have to answer inconvenient
questions.

"This scheme of Roger's is pretty tremendous," she began by way of
introducing a theme in which Ethel Brown would be sure to be interested.

"We--the Club, I mean--never has 'fallen down' yet on anything, even
some of our 'shows' that we didn't have much time to get up, so we
ought to have confidence in ourselves as a Club."

"With this next undertaking, though, we don't really know how the thing
is done."

"How to make over the house, you mean?"

"How to make over the house and how to run the Fresh Air settlement
when the house is made over."

"There's no doubt we'll know more at the end of the summer than we know
now! We've got to get information from every source we can."

"The way Roger has up to now."

"We must think of every one we know who has made over a house, and Dr.
Watkins ought to be able to tell us of some people who have had Fresh
Air children staying with them, so we can get some idea about what they
need and how a house is managed."

"Come, come." A chirp rose from near the ground. Ayleesabet was tired
of being disregarded for so long.

"You blessed Lamb!" cried Ethel Blue. "Did you say, 'Come, come,' just
because you heard it? Did you think we were talking very learnedly
about things we didn't know much about! Never mind, ducky daddles,
we'll know a lot about them six months from now!"

"Just the way we've learned a lot about babies in the last six months
from this little teacher!" added Ethel Brown.

"Come, come. Home, home," remarked Elisabeth insistently.

"What's the matter? Are your leggies tired? Want the Ethels to carry
you?"

Elisabeth made it known that she would like some such method of
transportation, and sat joyfully on a "chair" which the two girls made
by interclasping their wrists.

Not for long did this please her ladyship.

"Down, down," she demanded in a few minutes.

"We might as well go home if she's too tired to walk and too restless
to ride," decided Ethel Brown, and they turned about, to the evident
pleasure of the baby.

As they were returning along Church Street but were still at a distance
from Dorothy's house Elisabeth suddenly gave a chirrup of delight. The
Ethels looked about to see the cause of this unexpected expression of
joy. Crawling out through a hedge on to the sidewalk was a child of
about Elizabeth's age, but a thin and dirty little mite, with a face
that betrayed her race as Irish.

"What's this morsel doing here all by herself!" exclaimed Ethel Blue.

"She must have run away; or perhaps she isn't alone. Let's look about
for her mother."

Up and down the street they looked while Elisabeth scraped acquaintance
with the sudden arrival upon her path.

"It doesn't seem as if she could be far off."

In truth she was not far off, for as the girls wondered and exclaimed a
weak voice made itself heard from the other side of the hedge.

"Don't take her away," it said.

Leaving the children to entertain each other on the sidewalk they
enlarged the hole from which the new baby had crawled, and pushed their
way through it. On the ground behind the hedge, and hidden from the
sidewalk by its thick twigs lay a young woman, so pale that she
frightened the girls.

"Don't take the baby away. I'll feel better in a little while. She
crept off from me."

"How did you get here?" asked Ethel Brown.

"I came out from New York to look for work in the country. I felt so
sick I lay down here."

"Did you get any work?"

A slight movement of the head indicated that she had not. The Ethels
consulted each other by disturbed glances. There was no hospital
nearer than Glen Point, and indeed, the woman seemed so ill that they
did not see how she could reach the hospital even in the trolley.

As they stood silent and perplexed the honk of a motor roused the
almost unconscious woman.

"Is the baby in the street?" she inquired frantically.

Ethel Brown crushed her way through the hedge, and found that the
children were still on the sidewalk, but were so near its edge that the
driver of the car had tooted to warn them back. To her delight she saw
that the driver was Grandfather Emerson. She waved her hand to stop
him.

"You're a great caretaker!" he cried. "Why do you leave Elisabeth to
look after herself in this fashion? And who's her friend?"

Ethel climbed into the machine beside him and told of the discovery
that the girls had just made. Mr. Emerson drew the car alongside the
curb and jumped out with anxiety written on his face. The hole in the
hedge was too small for him to push through so he ran around the end,
and approached the prostrate form of the woman.

Her eyes were closed and she lay so still that Ethel Blue, who was
rubbing her hands, shook her head as she glanced up gratefully at the
new arrival.

"What's this, what's this?" asked Mr. Emerson in his full, rich voice.
Its mere sound seemed to carry comfort to the poor creature lying at
his feet. He knelt beside her. "Hungry, eh?" he asked. "We'll see
about that right off. Can you eat these cookies?" He took a thin tin
box out of his pocket and opened it. "I have a little granddaughter
named Ethel Brown who insists on my keeping cookies in my pocket all
the time so that I can eat them when I'm driving. See if you can take
a bite of this."

A fluttering hand took the cooky and put it between the pale lips.

Helped by the girls the woman struggled to her feet and stood wavering
before she tried to take a step. She was a young woman with very black
hair and gray-blue eyes and a face that was meant to be unlined and
pretty and not gaunt with hunger and furrowed by anxiety.

"You're very good," she whispered feebly.

Supported on each side she managed to reach the sidewalk, where she
looked about wildly for her baby. An expression that was sad but
infinitely relieved came over her features when she saw the two
children sitting in the gravel of the walk filling their tiny hands
with pebbles.

"A cooky won't hurt the baby either," decided Mr. Emerson, and he gave
one to each of the children.

The Ethels had no chance to ask him what he meant to do without their
discovery hearing them, so they helped the woman into the machine, put
in the two children and climbed in themselves. To their great interest
Mr. Emerson turned the car about and headed it for his own home.

"I wonder what Grandmother will say," murmured Ethel Brown to Ethel
Blue, who was steadying the ill woman's head as it lay against the back
of the seat.

Ethel Blue lifted her eyebrows to indicate that she could not guess;
but both girls knew in their hearts that Mrs. Emerson would do what was
wisest and for the best good of the strays. She came to the door in
answer to the sound of the horn.

"How did you get back so soon?" she began to inquire of her husband
when her eyes fell on the passengers in the car.

"An accident?" she asked anxiously as she ran down the steps.

"The girls found this woman and her child part way over here and I
thought I'd better bring her on and get your opinion about her. I
think she'd like something to eat," and the kind old gentleman smiled
in friendly fashion as the woman opened frightened eyes at the sound of
a new voice.

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