START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHEL MORTON AT SWEETBRIER LODGE*** E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 35364-h.htm or 35364-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35364/35364-h/35364-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35364/35364-h.zip) ETHEL MORTON AT SWEETBRIER LODGE by MABELL S. C. SMITH The World Syndicate Publishing Company Cleveland, Ohio New York, N. Y. Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I A New Craft 9 II Playing with Concrete 25 III The Club Selects the Benches 37 IV Christopher Finds a New Lodging 52 V The Law of Laughter 67 VI Spring All the Year Round 80 VII Closets and Stepmothers 94 VIII "Off to Philadelphia in the Morning" 104 IX Helen Distinguishes Herself 122 X The Land of "Cat-fish and Waffles" 136 XI Lights and a Fall 150 XII In the Family Hospital 162 XIII A Golden Color Scheme 173 XIV At the Metropolitan 184 XV Preparations for the Housewarming 203 XVI Columbus Day 219 XVII The Parting Breakfast 234 CHAPTER I A NEW CRAFT "Carefully! O, do be careful, Ethel Brown! I'm so afraid I'll drop one of them!" It was Ethel Blue Morton speaking to her cousin, who was helping her and their other cousin, Dorothy Smith, take Dicky Morton's newly hatched chickens out of the incubator and put them into the brooder. "I _have_ dropped one," exclaimed Dorothy. "Poor little dinky thing! It didn't hurt it a bit, though. See, it's running about as chipper as ever." "Are you counting 'em?" demanded Dicky, whose small hands were better suited than those of the girls for making the transfer that was to establish the chicks in their new habitation. "Yes," answered all three in chorus. "Here's one with a twisted leg. He must have fallen off the tray when he was first hatched." cried Ethel Brown. "He lookth pretty well. I gueth he'll live if I feed him by himthelf tho the throng ones won't crowd him away from the feed panth," said Dicky, examining the cripple, for in spite of his small supply of seven years he had learned from his big brother Roger and from his grandfather Emerson a great deal about the use of an incubator and the care of young chickens. "That's a good hatch for this time of year," Ethel Brown announced when she added together the numbers which each handler reported to her. "A hundred and thirty-seven." "Hear their little beaks tapping the wooden floor," Ethel Blue said, calling their attention to the behavior of the just-installed little fowls who were making themselves entirely at home with extraordinary promptness. "They take naturally to oatmeal flakes, don't they?" commented Dorothy. "I always thought the old hen taught the chicks to scratch, and there's a little chap scratching as vigorously as if he had been taking lessons ever since he was born." "They don't need lessons. Scratching is as natural as eating to them. Hear them hum?" They all listened, smiling at the note of contentment that buzzed gently from the greedy groups of crowding chicks. As the oatmeal disappeared the chickens looked about them for shelter and discovered the strips of cloth that did duty for the maternal wings. Rushing beneath them they cuddled side by side in the covered part of the brooder. "Look at that one tucking his head under his wing like a grown-up hen!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "I'll have to turn the lamp up a little higher tho they won't crowd and hurt each other," Dicky decided. "I'd wait a minute until they begin to warm the whole of their house by the warmth from their bodies," urged Ethel Brown, and her brother agreed that there was no need of haste, but he watched them closely until he saw that they were not trampling on each other's backs or sitting down hard on each other's heads. "When will they come out again?" asked Dorothy, who had never seen an incubator and brooder in operation before and who was immensely interested. "When they are hungry." "How soon will that be?" "In about two hours. They're a good deal like babies." "And is this brooder a really good step-mother?" "It's a foster-mother," corrected Ethel Blue. "It isn't anything so horrid as a step-mother." "O, I don't think step-mothers are horrid," objected Dorothy. "Yeth, they are," insisted Dicky. "All the fairy stories say they're cruel." "O, fairy stories," sniffed Dorothy. "I imagine fairy stories are right about step-mothers," insisted Ethel Blue. "Did you ever know one?" asked Dorothy. "No, I never did; but I have a feeling that they couldn't love a child that wasn't their own." "Why not?" demanded Ethel Brown. "Mother loves you just as well as she does her own children and you're only her niece." "Not her own niece, either--Uncle Roger's niece," corrected Ethel Blue; "but then, Aunt Marion is a darling." "I don't see why a step-mother shouldn't be a darling." "I don't see why she shouldn't be but I don't believe she ever is," and Ethel Blue stuck to her opinion. "Well, there aren't any 'steps' around this family, so we can't tell by our own experience," cried Dorothy, "and we've got this chicken family moved into its new house, so let's go and see what the workmen are doing at our new house." Dorothy's mother had been planning for several months to build a house on a lot of land on the same street that they were living on now, but farther away from the Mortons' and nearer the farm where lived the Mortons' grandfather and grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. The contractor had been at work only a few days. "He had just finished staking off the ground when I was there the other afternoon," said Ethel Brown. "He's way ahead of that now," Dorothy reported as they walked on, three abreast across the sidewalk, their blue serge suits all alike, their Tipperary hats set at the same angle on their heads, and only the different colors of their eyes and hair distinguishing them to a careless observer. "He told me yesterday that the whole cellar would be dug by this afternoon and they would be beginning to put in the concrete wall." "Where?" "The cellar wall." "I thought cellar walls were made of stone." "Sometimes they are, but when there isn't stone all cut, concrete is more convenient and cheaper, too." "And it lasts forever, I was reading the other day." "I should say it did. Those old Pyramids in Egypt are partly made of concrete, they think, and they are three or four thousand years old." "Does Aunt Louise expect her house to last three or four thousand years?" "She wants it durable; and fireproof, any way, because we're some distance from the engine house." "If we watch this house grow it will be almost like building it with our own hands, won't it?" exclaimed Ethel Brown, for, although the house was her aunt's, Mrs. Smith had made all the cousins feel that she wanted them to have a share in the pleasure that she and Dorothy were having in making a shelter for themselves after their many years of wandering. She and her daughter consulted over every part of the plans and they had often asked the opinion of the Mortons, so that they all had come to say "our house" quite as if it were to belong to them. As they approached the knoll which they had been calling "our house lot" for several months, they saw that the gravel for the concrete was being hauled to the top of the hill where the bags of sand and cement had already been unloaded and a small concrete mixer set up. "They do things fast, don't they!" exclaimed Dorothy. "There's Mr. Anderson, the contractor." A tall, substantial Scotsman bowed to them as they reached the top of the hill. "Have you come to superintend us, Miss Dorothy?" he asked pleasantly. "We're going to make all our preparations for mixing the concrete to-day, and then we'll start up the machine to-morrow." "You won't have the cellar wall all built by to-morrow after school, will you?" asked Dorothy anxiously. "We want to see how you do it." "It won't take long to do this small cellar so you'd better hurry right here from your luncheon," Mr. Anderson returned as he walked away to attend to the placing of the pile of gravel, and to lay a friendly hand on the sides of the panting horses. "If your driveway doesn't wind around more than this road that the hauling men have made all your friends' horses will be puffing like mills when they reach the top," Ethel Blue warned her cousin. "Mother and the architect and a landscape gardener have it all drawn on paper," Dorothy responded. "It's going to sweep around the foot of the knoll and come gently up the side and lie quite flat on top of the ridge for a little way before it reaches the front door." "That will be a long walk for people on foot." "Ethel Blue is speaking for herself," laughed Ethel Brown. "And for Dorothy, too. She'll walk most of the time even if Aunt Louise is going to set up a car." "There's to be a footpath over there," Dorothy indicated a side of the hill away from the proposed driveway. "It will be a short cut and it's going to be walled in with shrubs so it won't be seen from the driveway." "What would be the harm if you could see it from the driveway?" "O, the lines would interfere, the landscape artist said. You mustn't have things confused, you know," and she shook her head as if she knew a great deal about the subject. "I suppose it would look all mixy and queer if you should see the grounds from an airship," guessed Ethel Brown, "but I don't see what difference it would make from the ground." "I guess it would be ugly or he wouldn't be so particular about it," insisted Dorothy. "That's his business--to make grounds look lovely." "I think I can see what he means," ventured Ethel Blue, who knew something about drawing and design. "I watched Aunt Marion's dressmaker draping an evening gown for her one day. She made certain lines straight and other lines curved, but the two kinds of lines didn't cross each other any old way; she put them in certain places so that they would each make the other kind of line look better and not make the general effect confusing." "Don't you remember how it was when we were planning Dorothy's garden on top of this ridge, back of the house and the garage?" Ethel Brown reminded them. "We had to draw several positions for the different beds because some of our plans looked perfectly crazy--just a mess of square beds and oblong beds and round beds." "They made you dizzy--I remember. We found we had to follow Roger's advice and make them balance." "Helen says there's a lot of geometry in laying out a garden. I guess she's right." Helen and Roger were Ethel Brown's older sister and brother. They were in the high school. They had come now to the excavation for the cellar and watched the Italian laborers throwing out the last shovelfuls of earth. "They're very particular about making the earth wall smooth," commented Ethel Brown. "I imagine they have to if the wall is to be concrete," returned Dorothy. "They've cut it under queerly at the foot on both sides; what's that for?" "I haven't the dimmest," answered Dorothy briefly. "Let's ask Mr. Anderson." "You'd find it hard to stand up straight if you had only a leg to stand on and not a foot," that gentleman answered to the question. "That concrete foot gives a good solid foundation, and it helps to repel the frost if that should get into the ground so deep. Do you see the planks the men are setting up twelve inches in from the bank?" The girls nodded. "They are making a fence all around the cellar you see; that is to keep the concrete in place when it is poured in, and to give it shape." "Is it soft like mud?" "It is made of one part of cement and two and one-half parts of sand and five parts of gravel. Do you cook?" They all nodded again. "When you come to-morrow you'll see the mixing machine making a stiff batter of those three things--cement and sand and gravel." "It must be like putting raisins in a plum pudding," suggested Ethel Brown. "You have to be careful the stones--the raisins--don't all sink to the bottom or get bunched together in one place." "That's the idea," smiled Mr. Anderson. "All those things and water go into one end of the mixer and they come out at the other end concrete in a soft state. Then the men shovel the stuff into the space between the fence and the earth bank, making sure that that widening trench at the foot is chock full and they thump it down and let it 'set.'" "I think the cellar will look very ugly with that old plank wall," decided Dorothy seriously. "The planks will be taken away." "Won't the concrete show lines where the cracks between the boards were?" "Do you see those rolls of heavy paper over there? The planks will be lined with that so that the concrete will come against a perfectly smooth surface. When the wood is taken away the men will go over it with a smoothing tool and when they have finished even your particular eye will see nothing to take exception to." "O, I knew it would be right somehow," murmured Dorothy, who was afraid she had hurt Mr. Anderson's feelings. "I just didn't know how you managed it." "Here's the way the end of the wall would look if you could slice down right through it," and the contractor took out his notebook and drew a cross section of the concrete wall showing its widened foot. "What's the floor to be made of?" asked Ethel Blue. "Concrete--four inches of it," answered Mr. Anderson promptly. "It will slope a trifle toward this end, and there a drainage pipe will be laid to carry off any water used in washing the floor. Then a layer of cement will go on top of the concrete." "What's that for?" "To make it all smooth. It will be rounded up at the corners and sides where it joins the walls, so there won't be any chance for the dust to collect." "The cellar in our house is awfully damp," remarked Ethel Brown. "Sometimes you can see the water dripping down the stones." "The walls and the floor of this cellar will be waterproofed with a mixture of rich cement and sand mortar, and I think you'll find, young ladies, that you'll have a cellar that'll be hard to beat." The contractor slapped his notebook emphatically and beamed at them so amiably that they felt the greatest confidence in what he proposed. "Any way, I haven't anything better to suggest," said Dorothy dryly. Mr. Anderson walked off, giving a roar of amusement as he left them. "Where does the sun rise from here?" asked Ethel Blue as she stood at the spot where was to be the front of the house, and gazed about her. "Does the house face directly south?" "No, it faces just half way between south and west. The corners of the house point to north, south, east and west. Mother said that if the front was due south the back would be due north and she didn't want a whole side of her house facing north." "It does have a chilly sound," shivered Ethel Brown. "With a point stretching toward the north the rooms that have a northern exposure will also have the morning sun and the afternoon sun." "I know Aunt Louise will have her dining room where the morning sun will shine in." "Yes, _ma'am_," returned Dorothy emphatically. "It makes you feel better all day if you eat your breakfast in the sunshine. By this plan of Mother's every room in the house will have direct sunshine at some part of the day." "It's great," approved Ethel Blue. "Can't we ask Mr. Anderson about making a bird's bath out of cement?" she inquired. "Ethel Brown and I saw a beauty at Mrs. Schermerhorn's and perhaps he'd let us have some of the concrete to-morrow when the men are mixing it, and we can try to make one." The girls raced over to the spot where the contractor was just about to get into his Ford, and stopped him. "Would you mind letting us have a little concrete to-morrow to make a bird's bath with?" begged Dorothy breathlessly. "A bird's bath?" repeated Mr. Anderson. "How are you going to make it?" "Couldn't we put some concrete in a pan and squeeze another pan down on to it and let it harden?" "Why, yes, something like that," returned Mr. Anderson slowly. "Do you want to make it yourselves?" "Yes, indeed," all three girls cried in chorus. He smiled at their enthusiasm and offered a suggestion. "I suppose you want the bird's bath for your garden, Miss Dorothy;--why don't you make a little pool for the garden?" "Oh, could we?" "If you could get a tub and lay down a flooring of concrete and then put in another tub enough smaller so that there would be a space between the walls, then you could fill the space with concrete. When it set, you could take out the inner tub after two or three days and turn the concrete out of the outer tub and there you'd have a concrete tub that you could move about." "That sounds great," beamed Dorothy, "but wouldn't it be awfully heavy?" "Here's a better way, then. If you can make up your mind exactly where you want to have it in your garden you can have a hole dug, lay down your floor of concrete and put your small tub on it." "I see--then you fill the space between the tub and the earth with concrete." "Precisely; thump it down hard and let it stand untouched for a while. Then take away your tub, and there you are again." "You can't make the concrete floor and leave it, can you?" "No, indeed. You must have everything ready to do the whole thing at once. Put in your tub which is to be your mold, while the floor is still plastic--" "Eh?" inquired Ethel Brown. "Soft enough to mold; and then pour in the walls right off quick. You can't fool round when you're working with concrete." "How can we keep the water fresh in the tub?" asked Ethel Blue of Dorothy. Dorothy paused, not knowing what to say. "It would be fun to keep gold fish in it," she said, "but they would have to have fresh water, wouldn't they?" She turned appealingly to Mr. Anderson. "That's not hard to manage," he said. "You can put a bit of broomstick between the earth wall and the outer wall of your tub-mold and pour the concrete around it. When the concrete has hardened you pull out the stick and there is a hole. Then you can have a drain dug that will tap that hole on the outside and carry off the water through a few lengths of drain pipe." "What's to prevent the water running off all the time?" Ethel Blue wanted to know. "Keep a plug in it," answered the contractor briefly. "And there should be waterproofing stuff mixed with the materials. You have your gardener dig a hole in the garden," he said, adding, "don't forget to have plenty of grease." "What's that for?" "Why do you grease your cake pans?" "So the cake won't stick." "Same here. On the cellar wall we lined the inside of the wooden forms with paper. That isn't so easy with round forms, so you grease them." "I never thought there was any likeness between concrete and cooking," laughed Ethel Brown as the girls watched Mr. Anderson's skill in taking his little car over the rough ground around the cellar excavation, "but there seems to be plenty." "Let's chase off and see if we can collect the things we shall need to-morrow," urged Dorothy. "I'll have to find Patrick and bring him here and show him just where to dig the hole." "Where are you going to dig the hole?" "I think just in the open place on top of the ridge." "I wouldn't," objected Ethel Brown. "Why not?" "Won't it be too warm in summer? If you're going to have gold fish you don't want to boil them." "The water would get pretty hot in the sun, wouldn't it?" considered her cousin. "What do you think of a place under that tree?" "It ought not to be too near the tree because the roots will grow out a long way from the trunk of the tree and they might get under the pool and break up the concrete." "Oh, could a tender little thing like a root break concrete that's as hard as stone?" "It certainly can. Grandfather showed me a crack in a concrete wall of his on the farm that was made by the root of a big tree not far off." "Well, then we can't have our pool anywhere near a tree. A shrub wouldn't hurt it, though; why can't it go near those shrubs that are going to separate the flower garden from the vegetable garden?" "That place would be all right because there's a tall spruce there that throws a shadow over the shrubs for a part of the day. That's all you need; you don't want to take away all the sunshine from the pool." So the exact spot was decided on and marked so that Patrick should make no mistake, and then the girls rushed off on a search for shallow basins and a tub. CHAPTER II PLAYING WITH CONCRETE It was not the Ethels and Dorothy alone who appeared at the "new place" the next afternoon to make the experiments with concrete. Helen, Ethel Brown's elder sister, and her friend, Margaret Hancock, of Glen Point, were so interested in the younger girls' account of what they were going to do with Mr. Anderson's help that they came too. As they puffed up the steep knoll on which the new house was to stand they stopped beside the cellar hole to see what progress had been made since the day before. "They have just frisked along!" Dorothy exclaimed when she saw that not only was the inside fence-mold all built but that the concrete floor was laid and that the men were pouring the mixture in between the planks and the earth wall and pounding it down as they poured. "Mr. Anderson said 'you can't fool round when you're working with concrete,'" Ethel Brown repeated. "They aren't, are they?" The men were all working as fast as they could move, some of them shovelling the materials into the mixer, others running the machine, others wheeling the wet concrete in iron barrows to the men at the edge of the cellar who tamped it down as fast as it was poured into the narrow space that defined the growing wall. "When it is full, way up to the top, what happens next?" Dorothy inquired of Mr. Anderson who came over to where they were standing. "Then we're going to build on it a three foot wall of concrete blocks to support the upper part of the house." "That's the wall that has the cellar windows in it?" "Yes." "Then do make good big ones; Mother likes a bright cellar," urged Dorothy. "We're going to make her a beauty," promised the contractor. "Come up into your garden now and let's get this concrete work up there done. Here, Luigi," he called to an Italian, "bring us a load of concrete over there," and he waved his hand in the direction of the spot where Patrick had dug the hole for the tub. They all examined the hole with care and the Ethels fitted in the tub and found that their digger had done his work skilfully, since there were just about three inches between the earth and the tub all around. They pulled the tub out again and under Mr. Anderson's direction they greased it thoroughly. "We want to do every bit we can ourselves," they insisted when he suggested that Luigi might do that part for them. "Don't forget the hole for the drainage," he reminded them. "Have you got your stick? And on which side are you going to have that?" They surveyed the ground about the hole and decided that a drainage pipe might run a few inches underground for a short distance and discharge itself at the edge of a bank below which a vegetable garden was to lie. "If you're careful what you plant there it will be an advantage to the ground to have this dampening once in a while," said Mr. Anderson, who was something of a gardener. "There won't be enough water to drown out any of your plants." Luigi emptied a load of concrete into the hole and while he was gone to get a new supply the girls thumped it down hard, fitted in the greased tub and wedged a bit of broomstick which Roger, Ethel Brown's brother, had cut for Dorothy into the space between the tub and the earth just at the top of the concrete flooring. When Luigi came back they were ready to thump as he poured and three loads filled up the space entirely. "Now, then, Luigi will bring you one of the smoothing tools that the men over there are using and you can make the top look even," and Mr. Anderson gave more instructions to the Italian. "It will be pretty to have some plants at the edge so they'll bend over and see themselves in the water," suggested Margaret. "I should think there must be some water plants that would grow inside without much trouble," Ethel Blue said. "We must look that up; they'd probably need a little soil of some sort," Helen reminded them. "They'd be awfully pretty," said Dorothy complacently. "Don't you seem to see it--with gold fish swimming around among the stems?" "Dicky might lend us his old turtle," laughed Ethel Brown. "He's tired of taking care of it. You could put a stick in here partly above the water, for him to sun himself on. I don't see why he wouldn't be quite happy here." Dicky's turtle was a family joke. Dicky had found him two years before and had taken him home thinking he was a piece of stone. His excitement and terror when the stone lying on the library table stuck out first a head and then one leg after another to the number of four, had never been forgotten by the people who saw him at this thrilling moment. "Now for your bird's bath," Mr. Anderson reminded his pupils. "You have to work fast, you know." Dorothy brought out her two shallow basins, one smaller than the other. The larger had its inside well greased and the smaller was thoroughly rubbed over on its under side. Into the larger they poured about an inch of concrete and then squeezed the smaller dish into it, but not so sharply that it cut through. They filled in the crack between the two, pushing and patting the mixture into place, and they smoothed the edge so that it turned over the rim of the larger bowl before they cut it off evenly all around with a wire. "There," said Mr. Anderson as he watched them. "We'll see what will come from that. It might be better done--" at which the girls all pulled long faces--"but also, it might be worse, or I'm very much mistaken." "I wish we could make some garden furniture," sighed Dorothy, holding up her dripping hands helplessly, but at the same time gazing with joy at their new manufacture. "You could if you would make the forms," said Mr. Anderson. "All you need to do is to make a bench inside of another bench and fill the space between with concrete." "That sounds easy, but if you were a girl, Mr. Anderson, you might find it a little hard to make the forms." "We can all drive nails," insisted Ethel Brown stoutly. "I believe I'll try." But the others laughed at her and reminded her that she would have to drive the nails through rather heavy planking, so she gave up the notion. "What are the walls going to be made of?" Margaret asked Dorothy. "Something fireproof, Mother said, but I don't know what she finally decided on. I'll ask Mr. Anderson." "Plaster on hollow tile," the contractor answered absent-mindedly over his shoulder, as he walked briskly before them back to the cellar. The girls saw that he was too full of business now to pay any more attention to them, so they thanked him for giving them so much time and made some investigations on their own account among the piles of material lying about on the grounds. "I wonder if this could be 'hollow-tile,'" Ethel Blue said to the rest as she came across a stack of strange-looking pieces of brown earthenware. "It's certainly hollow," returned Ethel Brown, "but I always supposed tiles were flat things. That's a tile Mother sets the teapot on to keep the heat from harming the polish of the table." They stood about the pile of brown, square-edged pipes, roughly glazed inside and out, through whose length ran three square holes. They asked two workmen as they passed what they were. One said "Hollow tile," and the other, "Terra-cotta." "I suspect they're both right," Helen decided. "Probably they're hollow tile made of terra-cotta." "But I thought terra-cotta was lighter brown and smooth. They make little images out of terra-cotta," insisted Dorothy. "I've seen those," agreed Margaret, "but I suppose there can be different qualities of terra-cotta just as there are different qualities of china." "This stuff is fireproof, any way," explained Dorothy. "I remember now hearing Mother and the architect talking about it. And they said something about a 'dead air space.' That must mean the holes." "What's dead air space for?" inquired Ethel Blue. "I think it dries up the dampness, or keeps it out so that it doesn't get into the house." "These are useful old blocks, then, even if they aren't pretty," decided Helen, patting the ugly pile. Mr. Anderson strolled toward them again after giving various directions to his men. "Just how is this tile used?" inquired Dorothy, as he seemed to be more at leisure now. "We build a wall of this hollow tile," he answered; "then we put the plaster right on to it. Do you see that the outside is rather rough? That is so the plaster will have something to take hold of. We mix it up of cement and lime and sand and put on three coats. The first one is mixed with hair, and mashed on hard so that it will stick and it is roughened so that the next coat will stick to it." "Is the next coat made of the same stuff?" "Without the hair; and the third coat is as thin as cream and is flowed on to make a smooth-looking outside finish." "That's a lot of work," commented Dorothy. "That's not all we're going to do to your walls; Mrs. Smith wants them to be a trifle yellowish in tone--a little warmer than the natural color of the plaster--so we're going to wash on some mineral matter that will give them color and waterproof them at the same time." "Killing two birds," murmured Helen. "Then the whole house will look plastery except the roof and chimneys," said Ethel Brown. "Including the roof and chimneys," returned Mr. Anderson. "We're going to use concrete shingles--" "Concrete shingles! Doesn't that sound funny!" "They are colored, so they look like green or red shingles." "What color is Mother going to have?" "Dark green. The chimney is to be made of reinforced concrete." "'Reinforced' must mean 'strengthened,' but how do you strengthen it?" inquired Margaret. "You've seen how we build a mold to pour the concrete in; inside of the mold we build a sort of cage of steel rods. Don't you see that when the concrete hardens it would be almost impossible for such a reinforced piece of work to break through?" "Couldn't an earthquake break it?" "An earthquake might give a piece of solid concrete such a twist that it would crack through, but suppose the crack found itself up against a steel rod? Don't you think it would complicate matters?" The girls thought it would. "I'm awfully glad our chimney is going to be reinforced," Dorothy exclaimed, "because up on this knoll we're going to feel the wind a lot and it would be horrid if the chimney should fall down!" "It certainly would," agreed the Ethels, but Mr. Anderson assured them that they need not be afraid of any accident of the sort with a reinforced concrete chimney. "I've seen skyscrapers going up in New York," said Margaret "and all the beams were of steel. Are you going to use steel beams here?" "No, we don't often use steel construction for small houses, but this house is going to be more fireproof than most small houses even if it does have wooden beams. You watch it as it goes on and notice all the points that make for fireproofness. It will interest you," Mr. Anderson promised as he walked away. The girls all washed their hands as well as they could with the hose with which the workmen watered the concrete mixture, but they had nothing to dry them on and they walked down the road holding them before them and waving them in the breeze. "Mother will think we are crazy if she happens to be looking out of the window," said Dorothy. "My aunt sent you a message, Dorothy," said Margaret. "What aunt? I didn't know you had an aunt," replied Dorothy. "She seems like a new aunt to us; James and I haven't seen her since we were little bits of things." "Where does she live?" asked Ethel Blue. "In Washington. She's an interior decorator and she's awfully busy, so when she has had to come on to New York to buy materials or to see people she has never had a chance to stay with us." "Is she going to make a visit this time?" inquired Ethel Brown. "She has come for a long visit now. She has a commission to decorate a house in Englewood. It's going to take her several weeks, and then she wants to rest and do some studying and to make the rounds of the decorators in the city, so it will be several months before she goes back again." "That's nice," said Ethel Blue politely, and she was glad she had thought so because Margaret said at once, "We think it's splendid. She's a young aunt, lots and lots younger than Mother, and James and I think she's loads of fun." "What was her message to me?" asked Dorothy. "O, we were telling her about the United Service Club and the things we did--sending gifts to the war orphans and celebrating holidays and our plans for helping some poor women and children in the summer and for taking care of the Belgian baby. She was awfully interested and said she felt as if she knew all of you people and the Watkinses quite well, we talked about you so much. Then we told her about Dorothy's house, and how Mrs. Smith had said we might all give our opinions about the decorating, and she asked us to tell you that she'd be very glad indeed to act as consulting decorator when you come to the inside work." "Why, that's awfully sweet of her!" exclaimed Dorothy. "Mother isn't going to have a regular decorator, and I know she'll be immensely pleased to have Miss--what is your aunt's name?" "Graham; she's our Aunt Daisy!" "--to have Miss Graham give us advice and 'check up' on our suggestions." "By the time your house is ready for that part she will have finished her Englewood house; but she said she'd be glad to come over and see the house and the plans any time when she was free for the afternoon, and she hoped you'd consult her about everything you wanted to." "Daisy is a pretty name, isn't it?" Ethel Blue murmured to herself. "I wish one of us was named Daisy." "Her name is really Margaret; I'm named after her. Daisy is the nickname for Margaret, you know." "It's a lovely name," said Ethel Blue again. "And please tell Miss Daisy that I think she's the finest ever, and Mother will think so, too, when I tell her about this," added Dorothy. "And do ask her to come over to one of the U. S. C. meetings when we happen to be doing something that will interest her," concluded Helen, who was the president of the club. CHAPTER III THE CLUB SELECTS THE BENCHES It seemed to Dorothy and the Ethels that the outside of Sweetbrier Lodge, as Mrs. Smith had determined to call her house, went up with remarkable speed, but that the inside would never be done--never! Every day the girls walked down the road after school, and stood and surveyed the general appearance from the sidewalk and from across the street and sometimes they went on to Mrs. Emerson's and discussed vigorously as to whether the view of the corner of the house that was to be seen now would still be seen after the leaves came out or whether the house would be entirely concealed by the foliage. "That's 'one of the things no feller knows,'" Mr. Emerson quoted. "We shall have to wait and see." "We can get an idea how it is to look from the road," said Ethel Brown. "Only there'll be a lot of planting," Dorothy explained. "There'll be a hedge along the street and a lot of shrubs on the knoll and the house will be covered with vines in the course of time." "That's another good point about concrete," declared Mr. Emerson; "vines don't injure it as they do brick." "We'll have it entirely covered, then," laughed Dorothy. "I thought it was to be a bungalow," said Mrs. Emerson. "Your mother has always spoken of it as a bungalow, but the plans I saw the men following the other day when I went up the hill to take a look at things, seemed to me like a two story house." "Mother changed her mind," said Dorothy. "She thought a bungalow would be too crowded now that we have little Belgian Elisabeth with us, so the house is going to have two stories and an attic." "The U. S. C. couldn't get on without Dorothy's attic," smiled Ethel Brown, for almost all of the presents for the Christmas Ship had been made in the attic of Dorothy's present abiding place, and the Club had had many meetings there. "There's nothing like having a well-thought-out plan before you attempt building," said Mr. Emerson, "and that your mother had." "She tried to think of every possible need, Ayleesabet's as well as our own," continued Dorothy, using the pronunciation that the Belgian baby had given her own name. "She has a good contractor in Anderson." "He didn't make the very lowest bid," said Dorothy. "There was one man who was lower, but he was such a lot lower that Mother thought there must be something the matter with the quality of the material he used, or that he employed workmen so poor that they might not do their work well, so she didn't consider that offer at all." "She was very wise," commended Mr. Emerson. "He might have spoiled the whole thing and have cost her more money in the end by turning out a poor job." While the building was going on and before the inside work was done the girls spent a good deal of time in planning for the furnishing of the garden. The flower and vegetable beds had all been arranged some weeks before and many of them had been planted, but the artistic part of the garden had been left until there should be time to devote to it. Mrs. Smith had promised Dorothy that she should have the choice of the garden furniture, reserving for herself a veto power if her daughter chose anything that seemed to her entirely unsuitable. "Not that I expect to use it," she said, smiling at the girls who were listening to her. The selection of the benches and tables and trellises was made a subject of attention by the whole United Service Club. A meeting was called in the partly begun garden so that they might have the "lie of the land" before them as they talked. Dorothy took with her a number of catalogues from which to select or to gather ideas. "We've got a good shelter of large trees already provided for us," she said as they all seated themselves in such shade as the young leaves made. "There ought to be a fine large settee under it where we can have Club meetings all summer, no matter how warm it is," urged Tom Watkins with wise foresight. Tom and his sister, Della, came out from New York for the club gatherings, and the prospect of meeting out of doors instead of in the attic, which was delightful in winter but not so attractive in warm weather, made him offer this shrewd suggestion. "In the first place," said Dorothy again, opening the various catalogues and spreading them on the grass where they could all see them, "don't you think it would be pretty to have all the chairs and benches of one pattern? Or don't you?" "I think it would," answered Ethel Brown, examining the pages carefully before she made her decision. "Would what?" "I should like them all alike. It would be messy to have a lot of different patterns." Ethel Blue, who had a good deal of artistic sense and ability, nodded her agreement with this belief. They all came to the same conclusion. "Then, let's pick out the pattern," said Dorothy, who had an orderly mind. "Something plain, so the visitor's eye won't be drawn to the benches instead of the flowers," recommended Helen. "Suppose we were sitting here, for instance, and looking toward the flower beds--there will be some tables and chairs between us and the flowers, probably--" "If the seeds will only grow," Dorothy sighed comically. "--and we want to forget them and not have them intrude on our attention." "Correct!" James Hancock thumped the ground by way of applause. "What's the plainest pattern there is?" asked Della, extending her hand for a book. "That one--but that's too plain," remonstrated Ethel Blue. "That's so plain that it draws your attention as much as if it were all fussed up." They laughed at her disgust and urged her to choose the next plainest. "I rather think this one with cross bars is pretty," she decided seriously. "You wouldn't get tired of that--especially if they're all painted dark green so you won't see them much." "You girls seem to want to have invisible furniture," grinned Roger. "Me for something more substantial." "These will be substantial enough--they're made of cypress," retorted Helen, "but you don't want to see a lot of chairs and benches when you come out to observe the beauties of nature, my child." "I can bay the moon on a white bench with an elaborate pattern just as musically as on a plain, dark green one," insisted Roger. "Don't pay any attention to him," urged Ethel Brown, which crushing remark from a younger sister was rewarded by a hair-pull effectively delivered by Roger. "Yow!" squealed Ethel. "Now who's baying the moon?" inquired her brother. "Let's decide on the cross-barred kind," decreed Dorothy. "The Lady of the Garden has made her decision," announced James, tooting through his hands as if he were a herald making an announcement. "Now for the shapes. How many are you going to have, Lady?" "I think there ought to be a very large bench that would hold almost all the Club, and then one or two smaller benches and two or three chairs and two small tables for lemonade and cocoa." "And to hold the Secretary's book when she's writing," urged Ethel Blue who held the office of scribe and had not always found herself conveniently situated to do her work. "Here's a bully bench for the whole U. S. C.," cried Tom. "It's curved so it will fit right under this semi-circle of trees as if it were made for this very spot." He held up the picture of a wide bench with two wings. It was greeted with applause. "When that is made in the pattern we chose it will be as pretty as any one could ask for," Dorothy decided. "And painted green," added Ethel Blue, at which they all laughed. "I'm serious about the green," she insisted. "Don't you see what I mean, Dorothy?" she continued, appealing to the person who was to have the final decision on the question. "I think you're right," replied Dorothy. "Don't mind what they say. Write down one of those, Miss Secretary, and one of these right-angled ones--don't you all of you think that's a comfy one?" They did, and they also approved of the single bench and the chairs and the small tables. "They won't be all jammed up in this corner, of course," Dorothy explained gravely, "but when we have a Club meeting we can bring them together if we want to and room enough for everybody." "I thought we were all to sit on the big bench," objected Tom with an air of deep disappointment. "So we shall if you boys are too lazy to pull the other benches and chairs over here," answered Dorothy. "If we have plenty we can arrange them any way we want to." "What about trellises?" inquired Ethel Blue who had been continuing her researches in the catalogues. "Here are some beauties. Don't you think you'll need some?" "She certainly will if that Dorothy Perkins rambler rose gets busy as it ought to," decided Roger. "There'll be a lot of vines and tall things if they'll only grow," said Dorothy hopefully. "I think there ought to be one or two flat ones and an arbor that will be a trellis." "Here's an arbor that you can walk through or sit down in while you admire your plants, and you will be protected from the sun," Tom pointed out. "And that same one with a lattice back and a bench inside makes a pretty good imitation of a summer house," suggested Ethel Brown. "We'll have one apiece of those, then." "Count up and see how much stuff you're planning to order," Roger suggested. "You've got a huge big place to set them in here but you don't want too much wood work, nevertheless." They came to the conclusion that there were not too many for the size of the grounds and were well satisfied with their choice. "Do you see how well we're going to see the house from here?" Dorothy asked. They all agreed that it would be very pretty from that point. "My idea is that the garden must look well from the house," said Dorothy. "Mother wants a pergola somewhere. Don't you think the right place for it would be covering a walk leading from the house to here?" "That's a great notion," approved Tom. "As you came toward the garden you'd have a--what do you call the effect--where you see a view framed in somehow?" "Do you mean a vista?" asked Margaret. "That's it. There would be a vista of the garden." "It will be lovely!" Helen said decisively. "And I don't see why there shouldn't be a trellis framing a view of the woods toward Grandfather Emerson's; that would be pretty, too." Dorothy went over to look at the drawing that Helen held up to her and decided straightway that it was worth trying. They all went toward the upper side of the garden where young peach trees were planted on the northern slope of the ridge and chose a spot which gave a charming picture of the adjoining field with its brook and the woods beyond. "The birds are coming along pretty well now," announced James who
{'title': 'Ethel Morton at Sweetbrier Lodge by Mabell S. C. Smith', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}