Ethel Morton at Chautauqua Part 29

"I'm sure this is Ethel Blue!" cried Mrs. Jackson without hesitation.

"You have your mother's eyes, dear child. And this is Ethel Brown. Here is my daughter. Her name is Katharine."

Katharine was not shy. She had lived all her life in garrisons and she was accustomed to meeting many people. She shook hands with her guests and took Ethel Blue's bag.

"A friend of Mother's let us have her car to come to the station in,"

she said. "It's just outside this door. It's more fun than going in the street car."

The Ethels thought so, too, though they flew along so fast that they hardly could see the sights of the new city.

Katharine chattered all the time.

"You came along the lake almost all the way, Mother says. It must have been lovely. I'm so glad we're here at Fort Edward. It's right on the water and the sunsets are beautiful."

"This is the memorial to President McKinley," Mrs. Jackson informed the Ethels as they drove through Niagara Square. "It was in Buffalo that he was shot, you remember."

It did not take many minutes to reach Fort Edward, which they found to be merely barracks and officers' houses, with no fortified works.

"When Canada and the United States decided not to have any fortifications between the two countries it looked like a dangerous experiment," said Mrs. Jackson when the Ethels, soldiers' children, remarked upon this peculiarity of the so-called fort. "It has worked well, however. There have been times when it would have been a sore temptation to make use of the forts if they had existed."

"I wonder what would have happened in Europe if there had been no forts between Germany and France," said Ethel Blue thoughtfully.

"Armament has not brought lasting peace to them," Mrs. Jackson agreed to the girl's thought.

It was an evening of delight to the Mortons. They always realized to the full that they actually belonged to the Service when occasion took them to a fort or a navy yard. They saw the flag run down at sunset and they beamed happily at everything that Katharine pointed out to them and at all the stories that Lieutenant Jackson told them. Ethel Blue was particularly interested in his tales of the days at West Point when he and her father had ranked so nearly together that it was nip and tuck between them all the way through.

"Until the end," Mr. Jackson owned handsomely. "Then old d.i.c.k Morton came out on top."

It was novel to Ethel Blue to hear her father called "old d.i.c.k Morton,"

but Lieutenant Jackson said it with so much affection that she liked the sound of it.

Of course the Niagara expedition was topmost in the minds of the Ethels.

"You've never been to the Falls?" Mrs. Jackson asked. "I'm glad Katharine is to have the pleasure of showing them to you first. I wish I could go with you but I have an engagement this morning that I can't put off, so Gretchen is going to take you."

"Gretchen is like your Mary," explained Katharine. "She used to be my nurse. I don't ever remember Gretchen's not being with us."

Gretchen proved to be a large, comfortable looking German woman of forty and the Ethels liked her at once. They went by trolley to the Falls.

"It takes a little longer," Mrs. Jackson said, "but if you're like me you'll enjoy seeing a new bit of country and you can do it better from the electric car than from the steam train."

It was a wonderful day for all the girls. The Mortons enjoyed all the new sights and were not ashamed to express their delight; and Katharine, although she had taken many guests on this same trip, took pleasure in seeing their pleasure.

Their first stop was before they reached the city of Niagara Falls.

"What is this big place?" asked Ethel Brown.

"They make use of the power of the water to run factories and to light towns," explained Katharine. "You see those wheels lying flat on their sides?"

She pointed down into a deep shaft whose dripping walls sent a chill up to the onlookers.

"Those are turbines," Katharine went on. "The water from the river is racing along outside not doing any good in the world except to look exciting, so they let some of it flow in through those openings way down there and it turns these turbines and they make machinery go."

"I noticed ever so many factories near here."

"There are a great many here because power is so cheap, but they are also able to send electric power many miles away. Buffalo is lighted by electricity from Niagara, and there are lots of factories all around here that take their power from the Falls."

"What becomes of the water that makes these turbines go?"

"When you see it come out of a small tunnel below the Falls and compare it with the amount that is still tumbling over the Falls you'll be wonderstruck that so small an amount can do so much work. We'll see the place later."

Taking the car again they completed their journey to the town and the girls could hardly wait to see the great cascade which they heard roaring in the distance. Katharine led them first to the very edge of the American Fall. The thick green water slid over the brink almost under their feet in a firm, moving wall, and they had to lean over to see it break into white foam on the rocks below. Like a great horseshoe ran the upper edge, the centre hollowed back by centuries of wear from the swift stream that pressed out of Lake Erie through the ever-narrowing channel toward Lake Ontario.

Over the bridge they went to Goat Island where they seemed on a level with the swirling ma.s.s that bore down directly upon them. Gretchen gave an occasional scream of anxiety.

"Dis water it makes me frighted," she confessed.

The girls raced over the islands called the Sisters and every sight on the American side except the Gorge ride was behind them by luncheon time.

Refreshed by food they started out again.

"We'll go down the Gorge on the American side," explained Katharine, "and come back on the Canadian side. I've tried both ways and I like that best."

The Gorge ride was all that Katharine had hinted.

"It takes your breath away," gasped Ethel Blue as the car traveled slowly beside the turbulent water, crowding and racing after its fall from the cliff above, and hurrying on, incredibly deep, to its outlet.

"I hardly want to look at it," admitted Ethel Brown as they pa.s.sed the Whirlpool with its threatening circular motion.

Gretchen frankly closed her eyes.

"It is wonderful, but too big for me," she admitted.

"You'll not be frightened when we go back, because the track on the Canadian side runs high up on the cliff," said Katharine. "Then when we reach the Falls once more we'll go down to the water level on that side and take the _Maid of the Mist_."

"What's that?"

"A tiny steamer. It goes close up to the Falls--so near you almost feel you are under them."

"You can really go under them, can't you? I've heard people tell about it."

"Yes, but it's no place for children, Father says, so we'll have to put up with the 'Maid.'"

It proved, however, that they would have to put up with even less. For when they prepared to make the change of cars that was necessary for their return on the Canadian side, one of the men in charge stopped Gretchen.

"You're German," he said.

"_Ja_," she answered placidly.

"Then you can't come here."