Ethel Morton's Enterprise Part 29

"I'll go right over there this minute and find out for myself."

"Find out what?"

"Do tell us."

"What do you think it is?"

Mr. Clark paused on the steps as he was about to set off.

"Clay," he answered briefly. "There are capital clays in different parts of New Jersey. Don't you remember there are potteries that make beautiful things at Trenton? I shouldn't wonder a bit if that field has pretty good clay and this man wants to buy it and start a pottery there."

"Next to my house!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith disgustedly.

"Don't be afraid; if we're ever able to sell the field you're the person who will get it," promised the old gentleman's sisters in chorus. "We don't want a pottery on the street any more than you do," they added, and expressed a wish that their brother might be able to convince the persistent would-be purchaser of the utter hopelessness of his wishes.

"What do you hear from Stanley?" Mrs. Smith asked.

"He's still quite at sea in Pittsburg--if one may use such an expression about a place as far from the ocean as that!" laughed Miss Clark. "He thinks he'll go fast if ever he gets a start, but he hasn't found any trace of the people yet. He's going to search the records not only in Allegheny County but in Washington and Westmoreland and Fayette Counties and the others around Pittsburg, if it's necessary. He surely is persistent."

"Isn't it lucky he is? And don't you hope he'll find some clue before his holidays end? That detective didn't seem to make any progress at all!"

Mr. Clark came back more than ever convinced that he had guessed the cause of the "botanist's" perseverance.

"Unless my eyes and fingers deceive me greatly this is clay and pretty smooth clay," he reported to the waiting group, and Dorothy, who knew something about clay because she had been taught to model, said she thought so, too.

"We know his reason for wanting the land, then," declared Mr. Clark; "now if we could learn why he can't seem to take it in that he's not going to get it, no matter what happens, we might be able to make him take his afternoon walks in some other direction."

"Who is he? And where is he staying?" inquired Mrs. Smith.

"He calls himself Hapgood and he's staying at the Motor Inn."

"Is the little girl his daughter?"

"I'll ask him if he ever comes here again," and Mr. Clark looked as if he almost wished he would appear, so that he might gratify his curiosity.

The Motor Inn was a house of no great size on the main road to Jersey City. A young woman, named Foster, lived in it with her mother and brother. The latter, George, was a high school friend of Helen and Roger. Miss Foster taught dancing in the winter and, being an enterprising young woman, had persuaded her mother to open the old house for a tea room for the motorists who sped by in great numbers on every fair day, and who had no opportunity to get a cup of tea and a sandwich any nearer than Glen Point in one direction and Athens Creek in the other.

"Here are we sitting down and doing nothing to attract the money out of their pockets and they are hunting for a place to spend it!" she had exclaimed.

The house was arranged like the Emerson farmhouse, with a wide hall dividing it, two rooms on each side. Miss Foster began by putting out a rustic sign which her brother made for her.

MOTOR INN TEA and SANDWICHES LUNCHEON DINNER

it read. The entrance was attractive with well-kept gra.s.s and pretty flowers. Miss Foster took a survey of it from the road and thought she would like to go inside herself if she happened to be pa.s.sing.

They decided to keep the room just in front of the kitchen for the family, but the room across the hall they fitted with small tables of which they had enough around the house. The back room they reserved for a rest room for the ladies, and provided it with a couch and a dressing table always kept fully, equipped with brushes, pins and hairpins.

"If we build up a real business we can set tables here in the hall,"

Miss Foster suggested.

"Why not on the veranda at the side?" her mother asked.

"That's better still. We might put a few out there to indicate that people can have their tea there if they want to, and then let them take their choice in fair weather."

The Inn had been a success from the very first day when a car stopped and delivered a load of people who ate their simple but well-cooked luncheon hungrily and liked it so well that they ordered dinner for the following Sunday and promised to send other parties.

"What I like best about your food, if you'll allow me to say so," the host of the machine-load said to Miss Foster, "is that your sandwiches are delicate and at the same time there are more than two bites to them.

They are full-grown sandwiches, man's size."

"My brother calls them 'lady sandwiches' though," laughed Miss Foster.

"He says any sandwich with the crust cut off is unworthy a man's attention."

"Tell him for me that he's mistaken. No crust on mine, but a whole slice of bread to make up for the loss," and he paid his bill enthusiastically and packed away into his thermos box a goodly pile of the much-to-be-enjoyed sandwiches.

People for every meal of the day began to appear at the Motor Inn, for it was surprising how many parties made a before-breakfast start to avoid the heat of the day on a long trip, and turned up at the Inn about eight or nine o'clock demanding coffee and an omelette. Then one or two Rosemont people came to ask if friends of theirs might be accommodated with rooms and board for a week or two, and in this way the old house by the road grew rapidly to be more like the inn its sign called it than the tea room it was intended to be. Servants were added, another veranda was built on, and it looked as if Miss Foster would not teach dancing when winter came again but would have to devote herself to the management of the village hotel which the town had always needed.

It was while the members of the U.S.C. were eating ices and cakes there late one afternoon when they had walked to the station with the departing Watkinses that the Ethels had one of the ideas that so often struck them at almost the same moment. It came as they watched a motor party go off, supplying themselves with a box of small cakes for the children after trying to buy from Miss Foster the jar of wild iris that stood in state on the table in the hall. It was not fresh enough to travel they had decided when their hostess had offered to give it to them and they all had examined the purple heads that showed themselves to be past their prime when they were brought out into the light from the semi-darkness of the hall.

"Couldn't we--?" murmured Ethel Blue with uplifted eye-brows, glancing at Ethel Brown.

"Let's ask her if we may?" replied Ethel Brown, and without any more discussion than this they laid before Miss Foster the plan that had popped into their minds ready made. Ethel Brown was the spokeswoman.

"Would you mind if we had a flower counter here in your hall?" she asked. "We need to make some money for our women at Rose House."

"A flower counter? Upon my word, children, you take my breath away!"

responded Miss Foster.

"We'd try not to give you any trouble," said Ethel Blue. "One of us would stay here every day to look after it and we'd pay rent for the use of the s.p.a.ce."

"Upon my word!" exclaimed Miss Foster again. "You must let me think a minute."

She was a rapid thinker and her decision was quickly made.

"We'll try it for a week," she said. "Perhaps we'll find that there isn't enough demand for the flowers to make it worth while, though people often want to buy any flowers they see here, as those people you saw did."

"If you'll tell us just what s.p.a.ce we can have we'll try not to bother you," promised Ethel Blue again, and Miss Foster smiled at her eagerness.

"We want it to be a regular business, so will you please tell us how much rent we ought to pay?" asked Ethel Brown.

Miss Foster smiled again, but she was trying to carry on a regular business herself and she knew how she would feel if people did not take her seriously.

"We'll call it five per cent of what you sell," she said. "I don't think I could make it less," and she smiled again.

"That's five cents on every dollar's worth," calculated Ethel Brown seriously. "That isn't enough unless you expect us to sell a great many dollars' worth."

"We'll call it that for this trial week, anyway," decided Miss Foster.

"If the test goes well we can make another arrangement. If you have a pretty table it will be an attraction to my hall and perhaps I shall want to pay you for coming," she added good naturedly.

She pointed out to them the exact spot on which they might place their flowers and agreed to let them arrange the flowers daily for her rooms and tables and to pay them for it.