Ethel Morton\'s Holidays
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Juvenile Library
Girls Series
ETHEL MORTON'S HOLIDAYS
BY
MABELL S. C. SMITH
THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
CLEVELAND--NEW YORK
MADE IN U. S. A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1915
PRESS OF
THE COMMERCIAL BOOKBINDING CO.
Cleveland
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ETHEL MORTON'S HOLIDAYS
CHAPTER I
PREPARATIONS
The big brown automobile gave three honks as it swung around the corner
from Church Street. Roger Morton, raking leaves in the yard beside his
house, threw down his rake and vaulted over the gate.
"Good afternoon, sir," he called to his grandfather, saluting, soldier
fashion.
"Good afternoon, son. I stopped to tell you that those pumpkins are
ready for you. If you'll hop in now we can go out and get them and I'll
bring you back again."
"Good enough!" exclaimed Roger. "I'll tell Mother I'm going. She may
have some message for Grandmother," and he vaulted back over the gate
and dashed up the steps.
In a minute he was out again and climbing into the car.
"Where are the girls this afternoon?" inquired Mr. Emerson, as he threw
in the clutch and started toward the outskirts of Rosemont where he had
land enough to allow him to do a little farming.
"Helen and Ethel Brown have gone to the West Woods," replied Roger,
accounting for his sisters. "Somebody told them that there was a wild
grapevine there that still had yellow leaves bright enough for them to
use for decorating tomorrow evening."
"I should be afraid last night's frost would have shriveled them. What
are Ethel Blue and Dorothy up to?" asked Mr. Emerson.
Ethel Blue was Roger's cousin who had lived with the Mortons since her
babyhood. Dorothy Smith was also his cousin. She and her mother lived in
a cottage on Church Street.
"They must be over at Dorothy's working up schemes for tomorrow," Roger
answered his grandfather's question. "I haven't seen them since
luncheon."
"How many do you expect at your party?"
"Just two or three more besides the United Service Club. James Hancock
won't be able to come, though. His leg isn't well enough yet."
"Pretty bad break?"
"He says it's bad enough to make him remember not to cut corners when
he's driving a car. Any break is too bad in my humble opinion."
"In mine, too. How many in the Club? Ten?"
"Ten; yes, sir. There'll be nine of us tomorrow evening--Helen and the
Ethels and Dorothy and Dicky and the two Watkinses and Margaret Hancock.
She's going to spend the night with Dorothy."
"Anybody from school?"
"George Foster, the fellow who danced the minuet so well in our show;
and Dr. Edward Watkins is coming out with Tom and Della."
"Isn't he rather old to come to a kids' party?"
"Of course he's loads older than we are--he's twenty-five--but he said
he hadn't been to a Hallowe'en party for so long that he wanted to come,
and Tom and Della said he put up such a plaintive wail that they asked
if they might bring him."
"I suspect he hasn't forgotten how to play," chuckled Grandfather
Emerson, speeding up as they entered the long, open stretch of road that
ended almost at his own door. "Any idea what you're going to do?"
"Not much. Helen and Ethel Brown are the decoration committee and I'm
the jack-o'-lantern committee, as you know, and Ethel Blue and Dorothy
are thinking up things to do and we're all going to add suggestions. I
think the girls had a note from Della this morning with an idea of some
sort in it."
"You ought to get Burns's poem."
"On Hallowe'en?"
"We'll look it up when we get to the house. You may find some 'doings'
you haven't heard of that you can revive for the occasion."
"We decided that whatever we did do, there were certain stunts we
wouldn't do."
"Namely?"
"Swap signs and take off gates and brilliant jokes of that sort."
"As a Service Club you couldn't very well crack jokes whose point lies
in some one's discomfort, could you?"
"Those things have looked like dog mean tricks to me and not jokes at
all ever since I saw an old woman at the upper end of Main Street trying
to hang her gate last year the day after Hallowe'en."
"Too heavy for her?"
"I should say so. She couldn't do anything with it. I offered to help
her, and she said, 'You might as well, for I suppose you had the fun of
unhanging it last night'."
"A false accusation, I suppose."
"It happened to be that time, but I had done it before," confessed
Roger, flushing.
"You never happened to see the result of it before."
"That's it. I just thought of the people's surprise when they waked up
in the morning and found their gates gone. I never thought at all of the
real pain and discomfort that it may have given a lot of them."
"Your Club may be doing a good service to all Rosemont if it proves that
young people can have a good time without making the 'innocent
bystander' pay for it."
"We're going to prove it; to ourselves, anyway," insisted Roger stoutly,
as he leaped out of the car and took his grandfather's parcels into the
house.
"The pumpkins are in the barn," Mr. Emerson called after him. "Go down
there and pick them out when you've given those bundles to your
grandmother."
The big yellow globes were loaded into the car--half a dozen of
them--and Mr. Emerson drove back to the house. As he stopped at the side
porch for a last word with his wife he gave a cry of recognition.
"Look who comes here!" he exclaimed.
"Helen and Ethel Brown," guessed Roger. "Don't they look like those
soldiers we read about in 'Macbeth'--the fellows who marched along
holding boughs in their hands so that it looked as if Birnamwood had
come to Dunsinane."
"Roger is quoting Shakespeare about your personal appearance," laughed
Mr. Emerson as he and his grandson relieved the girls of their burdens.
They sank down on the steps of the porch and panted.
"You're tired out," exclaimed their grandmother. "Roger, bring out that
pitcher of lemonade you'll find in the dining-room. How far have you
walked?"
"About a thousand miles, I should say," declared Helen. "We were bound
we'd get out-of-door decorations if they were to be had, and they
weren't to be had except by hunting."
"You're like me--I like to use out-of-door things as late as I can;
there are so many months when you have to go to the greenhouse or to
draw on your house plants."
"Ethel Blue and Dorothy have been educating the Club artistically.
They've been pointing out how much color there is in the fields and the
woods even after the bright autumn colors have gone by."
"That's quite true. Look at that meadow."
Mrs. Emerson waved her hand at the field across the road. On it sedges
were waving, softly brown; tufts of mouse-gray goldenrod nodded before
the breeze; chestnut-hued cat-tails stood guard in thick ranks, and a
delicate Indian Summer haze blended all into a harmony of warm, dull
shades.
"You found your grapevine," said Roger, pouring the lemonade for his
weary sisters, and nodding toward a trail of handsome leaves, splendidly
yellow.
"It took a hunt, though. What are you doing over here?"
"Getting the pumpkins Grandfather promised us."
"You're just in time to have a ride home," said Mr. Emerson.
"You're in no hurry, Father; let the girls rest a while," urged Mrs.
Emerson. "Can't you make a jack-o'-lantern while you're waiting, Roger?"
"Yes, _ma'am_, I can turn you out a truly superior article in a
wonderfully short time," bragged Roger.
"He really does make them very well," confirmed Helen, "but it's because
he always has the benefit of our valuable advice."
"Here you are to give it if I need it," said Roger good naturedly.
"We'll show Grandmother what our united efforts can do."
So the girls leaned back comfortably against the pillars at the sides of
the steps and Mrs. Emerson sat in an arm chair at the top of the flight
and Mr. Emerson sat in the car at the foot of the steps and Roger began
his work.
"It'll be a wonder if I make anything but a failure with so many
bosses," he complained.
"Keep your hand steady, old man," teased his grandfather. "Don't let
your knife go through the side or you'll let out a crack of light where
you don't mean to."
"Be sure your knife doesn't slip and cut your fingers," advised Mrs.
Emerson.
"Save me the inside," begged Ethel Brown. "I'm going to try to make a
pumpkin pie."
"Save the top for a hat," laughed Helen. "I'll trim it with brown ribbon
and set a new style at school."
Roger dug away industriously under the spur of these remarks.
"Is this the first year you've had a Hallowe'en party?" Mrs. Emerson
asked.
"We used to do a few little things when we were children," Helen
answered; "but for the last few years we've been asked somewhere."
"And with all due respect to our hosts we did a lot of the stupidest and
meanest things we ever got let in for," declared Roger. "I was telling
Grandfather about some of them coming over."
"So we made up our minds that we'd celebrate as a club this year, and do
whatever we wanted to. There's a lot more to a party than just the
party," said Ethel Brown wisely.
Her grandmother nodded.
"You're right. The preparation is half the fun," she agreed. "And it's
fun to have every part of it perfect--the decorations and the
refreshments as well as whatever it is you do for your main amusement."
"That's what I think," said Helen. "I like to think that the house is
going to be appropriately dressed for our Hallowe'en party just as much
as we ourselves."
"Why doesn't your club give a series of holiday parties?" suggested
Grandfather. "Make each one of them a really appropriate celebration and
not just an ordinary party hung on the holiday as an excuse peg. I
believe you could have some interesting times and do some good, too, so
that it could honestly be brought within the scope of your Club's
activities."
"We seem to have made a start at it without thinking much about it,"
said Roger. "The Club had a float, you know, in the Labor Day
procession."
"I didn't know that!" exclaimed Mrs. Emerson.
"You were in New York for a day or two. Grandfather supplied the float!
Why, we had just come back from Chautauqua a day or two before Labor
Day, you know, and the first thing that happened was that a collector
called to get a contribution from Mother to help out the Labor Day
procession. I was there and I said I didn't believe in taxation without
representation. He laughed and said, 'All right, come on. We'd be glad
to have you in the procession'."
"You were rather disconcerted at that, I suspect," laughed Mrs. Emerson.
"Yes, I was, but I hated to take back water, so I said that I belonged
to a club and that I supposed he was going to have all the clubs in
Rosemont represented in some way. He said that was just what they
wanted. They wanted every activity in the town to be shown in some shape
or other."
"There wasn't time to call a meeting of the club," Helen took up the
story, "so Roger and I came over and talked with Grandfather, and he
lent us a hay rack and we dressed it up with boughs and got the
carpenters to make some very large cut out letters--U. S. C.--two sets
of them, so they could be read on both sides. They were painted white
and stood up high among the green stuff and really looked very pretty.
Everybody asked what it meant."
"I think it helped a lot when I went about asking for gifts for the
Christmas Ship," said Roger. "Lots of people said, 'Oh, it's your club
that had a float in the Labor Day parade'."
"If we should work up Grandfather's idea we might have a parade of our
own another year," said Helen.
"Always co-operate with what already exists, if it's worthy," advised
Mr. Emerson. "Don't get up opposition affairs unless there's a good
reason for doing it."
"As there is for our Hallowe'en party," insisted Roger.
"I believe you're right there. There's no reason why you should enter
into 'fool stunts' that are just 'fool stunts,' not worth while in any
way and not even funny."
"We'd better move on now if Grandfather is to take us over and get back
in time for his own dinner," said Roger.
"Come, girls, can you pile in all that shrubbery without breaking it?
Put the pumpkins on the bottom of the car, Roger, and the jacks on top
of them. Now be careful where you put your feet. Back in half an hour,
Mother," and he started off with his laughing car load.
CHAPTER II
HALLOWE'EN
"You're as good as gold to come out and help these youngsters enjoy
themselves," was Mrs. Morton's greeting to Edward Watkins when he
appeared in the evening with Tom and Della.
"It's they who are as good as gold to let me come," he returned, smiling
pleasantly. He was a handsome young man of about twenty-five, a doctor
whose profession, as yet, did not make serious inroads on his time.
"What are these people going to make us do first," he wondered as Roger
began a distribution of colored bands.
"These are to tie your eyes with," he explained: "Yellow, you see;
Hallowe'en color. The girls insist on my explaining all their fine
points for fear they won't be appreciated," he said to the doctor.
"Quite right. I never should have thought about the color."
"Mother, this is George Foster," said Helen, welcoming a tall boy who
was not a member of the U. S. C. but who had helped at the Club
entertainment by taking part in the minuet. He shook hands with Mrs.
Morton and Mrs. Smith and then submitted to having his eyes bandaged. He
was followed by Gregory Patton, another high school lad, and to the
great joy of everybody, James, after all, came on his crutches with
Margaret.
"Now, then, my blindfolded friends," said Roger, "Grandfather tells me
that it is the custom in Scotland where fairies and witches are very
abundant, for the ceremony that we are about to perform to open every
Hallowe'en party. He has it direct from Bobby Burns."
"Then it's right," came a smothered voice from beneath James' bandage.
"James is of Scottish descent and he confirms this statement, so we can
go ahead and be perfectly sure that we're doing the correct thing. Of
course, we all want to know the future and particularly whatever we can
about the person we're going to marry, so that's what we're going to try
to find out at the very start off."
"Take off my bandage," cried Dicky. "I know the perthon I'm going to
marry."
A shout of laughter greeted this assertion from the six-year-old.
"Who is it, Dicky?" asked Helen, her arm around his shoulders.
"I'm going to marry Mary," he asserted stoutly.
There was a renewed peal at this, and Roger went on with his
instructions.
"I'll lead you two by two to the kitchen door and then you'll go down
the flight of steps and straight ahead for anywhere from ten to twenty
steps. That will land you right in the middle of what the frost has left
of the Morton garden. When you get there you'll 'pull kale'."
"Meaning?" inquired George Foster.
"Meaning that you'll feel about until you find a stalk of cabbage and
pull it up."
"I don't like cabbage," complained Tom Watkins.
"You'll like this because it will give you a lot of information. If it's
long or short or fat or thin your future husband or wife will correspond
to it."
"That's the most unromantic thing I ever heard," exclaimed Margaret
Hancock. "I certainly hope my future husband won't be as fat as a
cabbage!"
"You can tell how great a fortune he's going to have--or she--by the
amount of earth that clings to the stem."
"Watch me pull mine so g-e-n-t-l-y that not a grain of sand slips off,"
said Tom.
"If you've got courage enough to bite the stem you can find out with
perfect accuracy whether your beloved will have a sweet disposition or
the opposite."
"In any case he'd have a disposition like a cabbage," insisted Margaret,
who did not like cabbage any more than Tom did.
"Ready?" Roger marshalled his little army. "Two by two. Doctor and Ethel
Blue, Tom and Dorothy, James and Helen, George and Ethel Brown, Gregory
and Margaret. Come on, Della," and he led the way through the kitchen
where Mary and the cook were hugely entertained by the procession.
With cries and stumbling they went forth into the cabbage patch, where
they all possessed themselves of stalks which they straightway brought
in to the light of the jack-o'-lanterns to interpret.
"My lady love will be tall and slender--not to say thin," began Dr.
Watkins. "I see no information here as to the color of her hair and
eyes. Fate cruelly witholds these important facts. I regret to say that
I wooed her so vigorously that I shook off any gold-pieces she may have
had clinging about her so I can only be sure of the golden quality of
her character which I have just discovered by biting it."
Amid general laughter they all began to read their fortunes. Tom
announced that his beloved was so thin that she was really a candidate
for the attentions of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, and that he couldn't find out anything about her character
because there wasn't enough of her to bite.
Margaret had pulled a stalk that fulfilled all her expectations as to
size, for it was so short and fat that she could see no relation between
it and anything human and threw it out of the window in disgust. The
rest found themselves fitted out with a variety of possibilities.
"There doesn't seem to be a real tearing beauty among them all," sighed
Roger. "That's what I'd set my heart on."
"What do you expect from a cabbage?" demanded Margaret scornfully.
"I want to know whether I'm going to marry a bachelor or a widower or
not marry at all," cried Helen. "Let's try the 'three luggies' next."
"First cabbages, then 'luggies'," said Della "What are 'luggies'?"
"'Luggies' are saucers," explained Helen, while James brought a small
table and Ethel Brown arranged three saucers upon it. "In one of them I
put clear water, in another one, sandy water, and nothing at all in the
third. Anybody ready to try? Come, Della."
Della came forward briskly, but hesitated when she found that she must
be blindfolded.
"There isn't any trick about it?" she asked suspiciously. "I shouldn't
like to have anything happen to that saucer of sandy water."
"It won't touch anything but your finger tips, and perhaps not those,"
Helen reassured her. "What you are to do is to dip the fingers of your
left hand into one of these saucers. If it proves to be the one with the
clear water you'll marry a bachelor; if it's the sandy one he'll be a
widower, and if it's the empty one you'll be a spinster to your dying
day."
"You have three tries," cried Ethel Blue, "and the saucers are changed
after each trial, so you have to touch the same one twice to be sure you
really know your fate. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," and Della bravely though cautiously dipped the finger tips
of her left hand into the bowl of sandy water.
A cheer greeted this result.
"A widower, a widower," they all cried.
Helen changed the position of the saucers and Della made another trial.
This time the Fates booked her as a spinster.
"That's the least trouble of anything," decided roly poly Della who took
life carelessly.
A third attempt proved that a widower was to be her future helpmate, for
her fingers went into the sandy saucer for a second time.
"I only hope he won't be an oldy old widower," said Della thoughtfully.
"I couldn't bear to think of marrying any one as old as Edward."
"I'll thank you to take notice that I haven't got a foot in the grave
just yet, young woman," retorted her brother.
While some of the others tried their fate by the saucer method, the rest
endeavored to learn their future occupations by means of pouring melted
lead through the handle of a key. Roger brought in a tiny kettle of lead
from the kitchen where Mary had heated it for them and set it down on a
small table on a tea pot stand, so that the heat should not injure the
wood. Taking a large key in his left hand he dipped a spoon into the
lead with his right and poured the contents slowly through the ring at
the end of the handle of the key into a bowl of cold water. The sudden
chill stiffened the lead into curious shapes and from them those who
were clever at translating were to discover what the future held for
them in the way of occupation.
"Mine looks more like a spinning wheel than anything else," said Roger
who had done it first so that the rest might see how it was
accomplished.
"Perhaps that means that you'll be a manufacturer of cloth," suggested
Margaret. "Mine looks more like a cabbage than anything else. You don't
think it can mean that I shall have to devote myself to that husband I
pulled out of the cabbage patch?"
"It may. Or it might mean that you'll be a gardener. Lots of women are
going in for gardening now. By the time you're ready to start that may
be a favored occupation for girls," said Dr. Watkins.
"Here are several things that we can do one at a time while the rest of
us are doing something else," said Helen. "They have to be done alone or
the spell won't work."
"Let's hear them," begged Gregory, while he and the others grouped
themselves about the open fire in the living room and prepared to burn
nuts.
"The first one, according to Burns, is to go alone to the kiln and put a
clew of yarn in the kiln pot."
"What does that mean translated into Rosemont language?" demanded James.
"James the Scotsman asks for information! However, there's some excuse
for him. Translated into Rosemont language it means that you go to the
laundry and put a ball of yarn into the wash boiler."
"Easy so far."
"Take an end of the ball and begin to wind the yarn into a new ball.
When you come near the end you'll find that something or some one will
be holding it--"
"Roger, I'll bet!"
"You demand to know the name of your future wife and a hollow voice from
out the wash boiler will tell you her name."
"I shan't try that one. There's too good a chance for Roger to put in
some of his tricks. What's the next?"
"Take a candle and go to the Witches' Cave--that's the dining room--and
stand in front of the looking glass that's on a little table in the
corner, and eat an apple. The face of your future wife or husband will
appear over your shoulder."
"I'll try that. I could stand a face that kept still, but to have an
unknown creature pulling my yarn and bawling my wife's name would upset
my nerves!"
"Here's the last one. Go into the garden just as we did to pull the
kale. Over at the right hand side there's a stack of barley. It's really
corn, but we've re-christened it for tonight. You measure it three times
round with your arms and at the end of the third round your beloved will
rush into them."
"If he proves to be my cabbage spouse you'll hear loud shrieks from
little Margaret!" declared that young woman.
"Here are my nuts to burn," said Ethel Blue, putting two chestnuts side
by side on the hearth. "One is Della and the other is Ethel Blue," and
she tapped them in turn as she gave them their names.
"What's this for?" asked Della, hearing her name used.
"This is to see if you and I will always be friends. That right hand nut
is you and the left hand is me--no, I." Conscientious Ethel Blue
interrupted herself to correct her grammar. "If we burn cosily side by
side we'll stay friends a long time, but if one of us jumps or burns up
before the other, she'll be the one to break the friendship."
"I hope I shan't be the one," and both girls sat down on the rug to
watch their namesakes closely.
"Here are Margaret and her cabbage man," laughed Tom. "This delicate,
slender chestnut is Margaret and this big round one is Mr. Stalk of the
Cabbage Patch. Now we'll see how that match is going to turn out."
Margaret laughed good naturedly with the rest and they watched this pair
as well as the others.
"Roger and I had a squabble yesterday," admitted Ethel Brown. "Here is
Roger and here is Ethel Brown. Let's see how we are going to get on in
the future."
"Where is Roger really?" some one asked, but at that instant Ethel
Blue's nut and Della's caught fire and burned steadily side by side
without any demonstrations, and every one looking on was so absorbed in
translating the meaning of the blaze that no one pursued the question.
That is, not until a shriek from the Witches' Cave rang through the
house and sent them all flying to see who was in trouble. Dorothy was
found coming out of the dining room, mirror in hand, and a strange tale
on her lips.
"If there's any truth in this Hallowe'en prophecy," she said with
trembling voice, "my future husband will be worse than Margaret's
cabbage man. The face that looked over my shoulder was exactly like a
jack-o'-lantern's."
"It was? Where's Roger?" Dr. Watkins demanded instantly, while James
hobbled to the front door and announced that the jack had disappeared
from the front porch.
"Did any one ask for Roger?" demanded a cool voice, and Roger was seen
coming down stairs.