“But it doesn’t belong to us.”
“We Army and Navy people can’t expect to own houses, my child. You don’t need to have that told you at this late day.”
“I know that. If Father weren’t so keen on having us all together while we’re being educated we wouldn’t have been in Rosemont as long as we have; but I sometimes envy the people who have a home of their own that they are sure to stay in for ever so many years.”
“When you feel that way you must think of the many advantages of the Army and Navy children. If your father had not been on the Pacific station when you were the Ethels’ age you wouldn’t have had a chance to see California when you were old enough to enjoy it and remember it.”
“I know, Mother. I didn’t mean to growl. I just thought that Father had as much money as Aunt Louise from his father, and he had his salary besides, and yet we haven’t a house of our own.”
“We’ve had a good many of Uncle Sam’s houses, which is more than your Aunt Louise has had. But you must remember that her inheritance from your Grandfather Morton was accumulating for many years while her family didn’t know where she was, while your father and Ethel Blue’s father have been spending the income of theirs all along.”
“Uncle Roger has had a lot of children to spend his on, but Father hasn’t had any one but me,” said Ethel Blue, whose life had been entirely spent with her cousins because her mother had died when she was a tiny baby. Never before had she thought whether her father, who was a captain in the Army, had any money or not. Now she saw that he must be better provided with it than his brother, her Uncle Roger, the father of Ethel Brown and Helen and Roger and Dicky, who was a Lieutenant in the Navy.
“Your father is always generous with his money, but I dare say he is saving it for some time when he will want it,” suggested Mrs. Morton.
“I don’t know when he’ll want it any more than he does now,” said Ethel Blue.
“Perhaps he’ll want to have a house of his own at whatever post he is when he has a grown-up daughter,” smiled Helen. “You’d better learn to keep house right off.”