Ethel Morton at Sweetbriar Lodge Part 33

Below stairs all was ready in the kitchen department, the Ethels learned when they offered their services there. What was not completed was the arrangement of flowers and branches throughout the rooms. At the end of an hour during which the Ethels and Dorothy and Helen arranged and Roger carried, the house looked really lovely.

The color scheme of the lower floor was so autumnal that it was not hard to follow it out in leaves and blossoms. Chrysanthemums were ready to emphasize the yellow tones, and bronze leaves from oaks and chestnuts carried on the darker hues. Here and there one of Dorothy's j.a.panese gardens gave an air of quaintness to a corner, or stood in relief against a screen.

Upstairs the nursery was a bower of white cosmos; Dorothy's room was feathery with pink blossoms of the same delicate flower; against Mrs.

Smith's primrose walls trailed the yellow leaves of a grapevine; purple asters nodded in the violet chamber, and the gray guest room wore fluffs of clematis.

It was not a large party that gathered at Mrs. Smith's for the housewarming. The family connection was not small, however, and the newcomers had made some warm friends during the year that they had lived in Rosemont. The older Watkinses and Hanc.o.c.ks had come, and about fifty people filled the drawing room comfortably, admiring its beauty as they waited for the signal to go upstairs to the attic to see one of the entertainments which Rosemonters had learned to expect from the United Service Club.

"It's very charming," murmured Mrs. Hanc.o.c.k to her sister. "I see your hand here."

"Not very much," demurred Miss Graham. "I merely made an occasional suggestion or told them how to work out some good idea of their own. The color scheme is Mrs. Smith's."

"It is charming," repeated Mrs. Hanc.o.c.k, her eyes moving from the yellow-white wood-work to the natural pongee walls and then on to the next shade of yellow, found in the draperies of the windows, made of a heavy linen dyed to strike the next note in the color scale. The furniture was upholstered in three or four shades of brown; a bit of gold flashed sombrely from the shadows, and an occasional touch of dull blue brought out the blue tones of the handsome rugs.

Every one took a peek into the upper rooms as they pa.s.sed upstairs to the attic. Ayleesabet's nursery received much praise, and the delicate tones of the bed-rooms won immediate approval. In the attic they found comfortable wicker chairs arranged about the room facing a small stage before which hung a tan linen curtain.

"What are the children going to do?" asked Mr. Emerson of his hostess.

"I really don't know," returned Mrs. Smith. "Dorothy said it would be appropriate for Columbus Day, so I entrusted it all to the young people."

When the curtain was drawn the Club was disclosed grouped on the stage.

They sang Miss Bates's "America the Beautiful," Mrs. Smith accompanying them on the piano.

"That's all I have to do with the program," she said to Mr. Emerson when it was over and she had again taken her seat beside him.

Then Tom told the story of Columbus--how he was born at Genoa and became a sailor and when he was about thirty-four years old went with a brother to live in Lisbon. Tom was seated on the stage at a table and two or three of the others sat about as if they were in a library listening to the talk. They entered quite naturally into the conversation.

"Four years later," continued Tom, "somebody gave Columbus a map that put the Orient directly west of Spain, and Columbus became filled with a desire to search out the East by sailing west."

"I've read that he died thinking he had discovered the East," responded Helen.

"He laid his plans before the Portuguese king, but he found he couldn't trust him, so he went to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in Spain. They summoned their wisest men to pa.s.s on the subject at a council held at Salamanca. For three years they kept him waiting about in uncertainty before they reported to the king that his idea was absurd. Columbus was furious--"

"I should think he might have been."

"--and he started at once for Paris to try to get the king of France, Charles VIII, to help him. He took his little son with him and one night they slept at a monastery. The prior became interested in Columbus's story and believed in him and didn't want the glory of his achievement to go to another country. So he managed to secure for him another interview with Ferdinand and Isabella, and we're going to see now," said Tom, turning to the audience, "what happened at the convent."

With that the curtain fell. When it parted once more a dark curtain across the stage represented the outside of the convent. Ethel Brown recited Trowbridge's "Columbus at the Convent," while James acted the part of the Prior; Roger, Columbus; and d.i.c.ky, little Diego.

"Those children have a real feeling for costume," whispered Miss Graham to her neighbor, and then started as she found that it was not her brother-in-law, Dr. Hanc.o.c.k, as she supposed, but Ethel Blue's father, Captain Morton, who had come in in the darkness.

"How do you do?" he said, smiling at her startled air. "I suppose they made these things themselves."

"The boys are wearing their sisters' long stockings and the girls made the short, puffy trunks and short, full coats."

Ethel Brown's voice sounded clearly through the darkness though her hearers could not see her.

"Dreary and brown the night comes down, Gloomy without a star.

On Palos town the night comes down; The day departs with a stormy frown; The sad sea moans afar.

"A convent-gate is near; 'tis late; Ting-ling! the bell they ring.

They ring the bell, they ask for bread-- 'Just for my child,' the father said.

Kind hands the bread will bring.

"White was his hair, his mien was fair, His look was calm and great.

The porter ran and called a friar; The friar made haste and told the prior; The prior came to the gate."

Here the dark curtain was drawn and a room was disclosed with a table at which the men sat and a small bed in which d.i.c.ky was put to sleep.

"He took them in, he gave them food; The traveller's dreams he heard; And fast the midnight moments flew, And fast the good man's wonder grew, And all his heart was stirred.

"The child the while, with soft, sweet smile, Forgetful of all sorrow, Lay soundly sleeping in his bed.

The good man kissed him then and said: 'You leave us not to-morrow!'

"'I pray you rest the convent's guest; The child shall be our own-- A precious care, while you prepare Your business with the court, and bear Your message to the throne.'

"And so his guest he comforted.

O, wise, good prior, to you, Who cheered the stranger's darkest days, And helped him on his way, what praise And grat.i.tude are due!"

The pantomime followed the lines closely.

"Wasn't d.i.c.ky cunning!" exclaimed d.i.c.ky's adoring grandmother.

"d.i.c.ky was a duck!" exclaimed Helen, who had slipped out to see the pantomime. "We told him what he was supposed to be--a little boy travelling with his father, and that they had to stop and ask for food and that a kind man took them in and gave him a comfy bed. He seemed to understand it all, and he took hold of James's hand and looked up in his face as seriously as if he were the real thing. He was splendid."

"All the same I'm always relieved when d.i.c.ky's part is over and he hasn't done anything awful!" confessed Dorothy, who had come out also. "It would be just like him to say to James, 'You needn't give me any bread; I want cookieth!'"

"We tried to impress on him that he wasn't to say anything--that n.o.body but Ethel Brown was to say anything; that was the game. I dare say if James had spoken d.i.c.ky would have ordered his meal to suit his fancy."

Tom went on with Columbus's story at this point, but he spoke from the floor because tableaux were being arranged behind the curtains. He told how the interview with the king and queen that the prior had arranged, all went wrong and how Columbus started again for France but was called back by the queen whose imagination had been excited by what he told her, and who promised to pledge her jewels to raise money for his expedition.

Here the curtains swung open and showed a brilliant scene, Della representing the queen, James the king, and all the other Club members, courtiers. Columbus was arguing his case before the court and he was shown in the act of knocking off the end of an egg to convince the men who had said that they would believe the world was round when they saw the impossible happen--when an egg should stand upright.

"I hope Roger's hand won't slip," murmured Roger's mother; "that's a real egg!"

It was while she was standing beside the queen as one of her ladies in waiting that Ethel Blue's eyes happened to fall on her father out in the audience. The light from the stage illuminated his face and she thought that she never had seen him so happy as he looked at that moment.

"He's so dear and he's going away from me," she groaned inwardly. "Now if it were only dear Miss Daisy he's going to marry," she wished with all her heart as she noticed that Miss Graham sat in the next chair; "but it isn't; it's some old Fort Myer woman."

The curtain fell on her misery and Tom again took up his tale. He told about the three tiny ships that Columbus managed to secure, and their setting sail and how frightened the sailors became when day after day pa.s.sed and they saw no chance of ever reaching new land or ever returning home, and how they threatened to mutiny if he did not turn back.

Then came another pantomime with Roger as Columbus and James as the mate of the _Santa Maria_, while Ethel Brown recited Joaquin Miller's poem:

COLUMBUS

"Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of sh.o.r.es, Before him only sh.o.r.eless seas.

The good mate said: 'Now must we pray, For lo, the very stars are gone.