Ethel Morton and the Christmas Ship.
by Mabell S. C. Smith.
CHAPTER I
THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB AT HOME
"IT"S up to Roger Morton to admit that there"s real, true romance in the world after all," decided Margaret Hanc.o.c.k as she sat on the Mortons"
porch one afternoon a few days after school had opened in the September following the summer when the Mortons and Hanc.o.c.ks had met for the first time at Chautauqua. James and Margaret had trolleyed over to see Roger and Helen from Glen Point, about three quarters of an hour"s ride from Rosemont where the Mortons lived.
"Roger"s ready to admit it," confessed that young man. "When you have an aunt drop right down on your door mat, so to speak, after your family has been hunting her for twenty years, and when you find that you"ve been knowing her daughter, your own cousin, pretty well for two months it does make the regular go-to-school life that you and I used to lead look quite prosy."
"How did she happen to lose touch so completely with her family?"
"I told you how Grandfather Morton, her father, opposed her marrying Uncle Leonard Smith because he was a musician. Well, she did marry him, and when they got into straits she was too proud to tell her father about it."
"I suppose Grandfather would have said, "I told you so,"" suggested Helen.
"And I believe it takes more courage than it"s worth to face a person who"s given to saying that," concluded James.
"Aunt Louise evidently thought it wasn"t worth while or else she didn"t have the courage and so she drifted away. Her mother was dead and she had no sisters and Father and Uncle Richard probably didn"t write very often."
"She thought n.o.body at home loved her, I suppose," said Helen. "Father and Uncle Richard did love her tremendously, but they were just young fellows at the time and they didn"t realize what their not writing meant to her."
"Once in a while they heard of Uncle Leonard through the music papers,"
went on Roger, "but after his health failed, Aunt Louise told us the other day, he couldn"t make concert appearances and of course a man merely playing in an orchestra isn"t big enough to command public attention."
"By the time that Grandfather Morton died about twelve years ago she was completely lost to the family," Helen continued, "and she says she didn"t know of his death until five years after, when she came accidentally upon some mention of it in a local paper that she picked up somewhere."
"That was after Uncle Leonard"s death, but it seemed to her that she could not make herself known to her people without being disloyal to his memory," Roger carried on the story.
"She probably thought that your father and uncle were just as much opposed to him as her father had been," guessed Margaret.
"As a matter of fact, they have been hunting hard for her through every clue that promised any result ever since Grandfather died because they wanted to give her her share of his property."
"He didn"t cut her off with a shilling, then?"
"Grandfather seems to have had a change of heart, for he left her more than he did his sons. He said she needed it more."
"And it has been acc.u.mulating all this time."
"Seven years. That means a very pleasant increase for her and Dorothy."
"She must think rather sadly of the days when they suffered real privation for the lack of it," said Helen.
"Anyway, here they are now, with money in their pockets and an affectionate family all ready made for them and they are going to live here in Rosemont near us, and Dorothy is going to school with the Ethels, and I"m willing to admit that it comes nearer to being a romance than anything I ever heard of in real life," and Roger nodded his head gleefully.
"I"m glad she"s going to live here so we can see her once in a while,"
said Margaret. "Mother and Sister and I all loved her at Chautauqua, she was so patient and gentle with the people she taught. And of course we all think Dorothy is a darling."
"The Ethels are crazy over her. They treat her as if she were some new belonging and they can hardly bear to have her out of their sight."
"It was Grandfather Emerson who said all summer that she looked like the Ethels," remarked Roger. "Her hair is fuzzy and her nose is puggy, but I didn"t see much other likeness."
"When she grows as fat as the Ethels I think she"ll look astonishingly like them. She"s thin and pale, now, poor little dud."
"I wish she could grow as plump as Della Watkins."
"I saw Tom Watkins yesterday," said James.
"What was a haughty New Yorker doing on the Jersey side of the Hudson?"
"It seems he boards Cupid and his family at the Rosemont Kennels--you know they"re half way between here and Glen Point. He was going to call on them."
"Dear Cupid!" laughed Margaret, recalling the bulldog"s alarming face which ill agreed with his mild name and general behavior. "Let"s go over to the Kennels and see him some day."
"His wife is named Psyche," went on James, "and they have two pups named Amor and Amorette."
"I should think Cupid"s puppy would be the funniest little animal on earth," roared Roger. "Never, never shall I forget the day old Cupe ran away with his market wagon," and he kicked his legs with enthusiasm.
"Did Tom say anything about coming to see us?" asked Margaret.
"He said he and Della were coming over on Sat.u.r.day afternoon and he inquired how far it was from Glen Point to Rosemont and whether they could make two calls in one afternoon."
"Not if he stays at either place as long as we"d like to have him," said Roger.
"Why don"t we have a meeting of the United Service Club on Sat.u.r.day afternoon?" suggested Helen, "and then the Watkinses can come here and you two can come and we can all see each other and at the same time decide on what we are going to do this winter."
"Great head!" approved Roger. "Can you people be here?"
"We can," a.s.sented Margaret.
"And we will." James completed the sentence for her.
"Here are the children. They"ve been asking when we were to have the first meeting, so I know they"ll be glad to give Sat.u.r.day afternoon to it."
"The children" of Helen"s patronizing expression came rushing into the yard at the moment. Ethel Brown Morton, tall and rosy, her cheeks flushed with running, led the way; her cousin, Ethel Blue Morton, not quite so tall or quite so rosy, made a fair second, and their newly-found cousin, Dorothy Smith, brought up the rear, panting a trifle harder than the rest, but already looking plumper and st.u.r.dier than she had during the summer at Chautauqua.
They greeted Margaret and James gladly, and sat down on the steps of the porch to engage in the conversation.
"Hullo," a voice came through the screen door. "I"m coming out."
"That must be my friend d.i.c.ky," declared James. "Come on, old man," and he arranged his knees in position to serve as a seat for the six-year-old who calmly sat himself down upon them.
"How are you?" questioned James gravely. "All right?"