ETHEL MORTON
AT CHAUTAUQUA

BY
MABELL S. C. SMITH
M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK

Made in U. S. A.

CONTENTS

ETHEL MORTON AT
CHAUTAUQUA

CHAPTER I

ON THE ROAD

IT was a large and heavily laden family party that left the train at Westfield, New York. There was Grandfather Emerson carrying Grandmother Emerson's hat-box and valise; and there was their daughter, Lieutenant Roger Morton's wife, with a tall boy and girl, and a short girl and boy of her own, and a niece, Ethel, all burdened with the bags and bundles necessary for a night's comfort on the cars and a summer's stay at Chautauqua.

"The trunks are checked through, Roger," said Mrs. Morton to her older son, "so you won't have to bother about them here."

"Good enough," replied Roger, who was making his first trip, in entire charge of the party and who was eager that every arrangement should run smoothly. After a consultation with his grandmother who had been to Chautauqua before, he announced,

"The trolley is waiting behind the station. We can get on board at once."

Roger was a merry-faced boy of seventeen and his mother smiled at the look of responsibility that gave him an expression like his father. Mrs. Morton sighed a little, too, for although she was accustomed to the long absences required of a naval officer yet she never went upon one of these summer migrations without missing the assistance of the father of the family.

Lieutenant Morton had been with the fleet at Vera Cruz for several months, but although there had been rumors that our ships would be withdrawn and sent north, which might mean a short leave for the Lieutenant, it had not come to pass, and it looked as if he would have to spend the summer under the Mexican sun. His wife drew a little comfort from the fact that his brother, Ethel's father, Captain Richard Morton, was with the land forces under General Funston, so that the two men could see each other occasionally.

"How far do we have to go on the trolley, Mother?" asked Dicky, the six-year-old, who had already announced his intention of being a motorman when he grew up, and who always chose a front seat where he could watch the operations that made the car go.

"I forget, dear. Ask Grandmother."

"Twelve miles, son, and over a road that is full of history for Helen. Grandfather will tell her all about it. We are turning into it now. Do you see the name on the tree?"

"'Portage Street,'" read Helen.

The party made a brave showing in the car. Helen, who was almost as tall as Roger and who was in the high school, sat on the front seat with Dicky so that he could superintend the motorman's activities. Mrs. Morton and Roger sat behind them, he with his hands full of the long tickets which were to take them all to Chautauqua and home again. Back of them were the two girl cousins of nearly the same age, about thirteen, both named Ethel Morton and strikingly alike in appearance. Their schoolmates had nicknamed them from the color of their eyes, "Ethel Brown" and "Ethel Blue." "Ethel Brown" was Lieutenant Morton's daughter, and sister of Roger and Helen and Dicky. "Ethel Blue" was Captain Morton's daughter and she had lived almost all her life with her cousins, because her mother had died when she was a tiny baby.

Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson, Mrs. Morton's father and mother, were in the last seat of the four, Grandmother eagerly looking out of the window to recall the sights that she had seen on her previous trip to Chautauqua, ten years before.

"Why is it called 'Portage Street'?" asked Helen, when everybody was comfortably settled. Helen was fond of history and had just taken a prize offered to the first year class of the high school for the best account of the Indians in the colonial days of that part of New Jersey where the Mortons lived.

"'Portage' comes from the French word 'carry,' as you high school people know," answered grandfather. "A portage is a place where you have to carry your boat around some obstruction. For instance, suppose you were an Indian traveling in a canoe from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, you would have to carry your canoe around the rapids of the Niagara River because your little craft could not live in that tremendous current, and around Niagara Falls because—"

"Because it couldn't climb a tree," laughed Roger.

"Just about that," accepted grandfather.

"Are there any waterfalls around here?" asked Ethel Brown.

"Not any waterfalls, but the very land we are on was an obstacle to the Indians who wanted to travel from Canada southward."

"Oh, I begin to see," said Helen. "They paddled across Lake Erie—"

"That was Lake Erie we were riding side of this morning," interrupted Ethel Blue.

"Yes, that was Lake Erie and the gray cloud that we could see way over the water was Canada."

"O-oh," cried both Ethels at once; "we've seen Canada!"

"When they reached the American shore," went on grandfather, "they had to carry their canoes over the twelve miles of country that we are passing over now until they reached the head of Chautauqua Lake."

"Where we are going!"

"Just beyond the village of Mayville we shall see the very spot where they put their canoes into the water again and tumbled in themselves to paddle southward."

"Weren't their feet tired?" asked practical Dicky.

"I guess they were, old man," returned Roger, leaning forward to tweak his ear affectionately.

"If they were," went on grandfather, "they had plenty of time to rest them, for they didn't have to leave their boats again unless they wanted to until they got to the Gulf of Mexico."

"The Gulf of Mexico!" rose a chorus that included every member of the party except Dicky whose knowledge of geography was limited to a very small section of Rosemont, the New Jersey town he lived in.

"It's a fact," insisted Mr. Emerson. "The outlet of Lake Chautauqua is the little stream called the Chadakoin River. It flows into Conewango Creek, and that loses itself in the Allegheny River."

"I know what happens then," cried Ethel Brown; "the Allegheny and the Monongahela join to form the Ohio and the Ohio empties into the Mississippi—"

"And the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico!" concluded Ethel Blue triumphantly.

"Good children," commented Roger patronizingly as he turned around to give a condescending pat on the two girls' heads. Finding that their hats prevented this brotherly and cousinly attention he contented himself with tweaking each one's hair before he turned back as if he had accomplished a serious duty.

"Can't you see the picture in your mind!" murmured Helen, looking out of the window. "Just imagine all those tall brown men carrying their canoes on their shoulders and tramping through the forest that must have covered all this region then."

"More interesting men than Indians went over this stretch of country in the olden days," said Mrs. Emerson.

"Who? Who?" cried the Ethels, and Dicky asked, "Was it the President?" Mr. Wilson, the former Governor of his own state, having been the most interesting personage he had ever seen.

"In a minute Grandfather will tell you about the Frenchmen who came here, but I want you to notice the farms we are going through now before we climb the hill and leave them behind."

"I never saw so many grape vines in all my life," said Roger.

"No wonder," commented his grandmother. "This is one of the greatest grape-growing districts of the whole United States."

"You don't say so!" cried Roger. "Why is it? Is the soil especially good for them?"

"Do you remember how flat it was in the village of Westfield? We are only just now beginning to climb a little, and you see we are some distance from the station and the station is some distance from the lake."

"That must mean that there's a strip of flat land lying along the lake," guessed Roger.

"That's it exactly," said his grandmother. "It's a strip about a hundred miles long and from two to four miles wide, and it is called the Grape Belt."

"I saw a man in the train this morning reading a newspaper called that," said grandfather.

"I suppose it is published in one of the towns in the Belt," suggested Mrs. Morton. "I've been told that some of the very best grapes in the country were grown here."

"I've read in our geology that sometimes the soil is peculiarly rich in places where there had been water long ages ago," said Roger. "Perhaps this flat strip used to be a part of Lake Erie."

"I dare say," agreed grandfather. "At any rate the soil seems to be just what the grapes like best, and you can see for yourself as we climb up that these vines look less and less thrifty."

"How queerly they train them," commented Ethel Blue. "I've only seen grapes on arbors before."

"You've only seen them where they were wanted for ornament as well as use," said Mr. Emerson. "Along the Rhine and in the French vineyards the vines are trained on posts."

"Letting them run along those wires that connect the posts must give a better chance to every part of the plant, it seems to me," said Mrs. Emerson.

"Do you notice that the rows are wide enough apart for a wagon to drive between them? When they are picking, that arrangement saves the work of carrying the baskets to the cart. These are the days when you have to make your head save your heels if you want to compete successfully in the business world."

"That's a good stunt in scientific management, isn't it?" commented Roger, who had almost made up his mind to enter the factory of one of his grandfather's friends and who read carefully everything he came across about labor-saving machines and time-saving devices.

"I wonder if Westfield isn't the place where Secretary Bryan gets his grape juice," said Mrs. Morton. "I noticed a big establishment of some kind after we left the station."

"There are two or three grape juice factories there," said her mother, "so I shouldn't be a bit surprised."

"It's good stuff," and Roger's lips moved as if he were remembering the grape juice lemonade that was a pleasant part of the refreshments at the high school graduation reception.

"I've never been here in picking time," went on Mrs. Emerson, "but I've been told that it is something like the hop picking in Kent in England."

"I've read about that," said Helen. "People who aren't well go down there and live out of doors and the fresh air and the fragrance of the hops does them a lot of good."

"It's much the same here. People come from Buffalo and Cleveland to 'work in grapes' as they call it."

"I should think it would be pretty hard work."

"It must be, for the picker has to be on his feet all day, but he is paid according to the amount he picks, so his employer does not lose if he sits down to rest occasionally or stops to look over at the lake."

Mrs. Emerson made a gesture that caused them all to turn their heads in the direction they were leaving.

"What is it, Grandmother? A cloud?" asked Helen.

Grandmother smiled and shook her head.

"Look again," she insisted.

"I see, I see," cried Ethel Brown. "The front part is water, blue water, and that's Canada way, way off beyond."

Sure enough it was, for the car had climbed so high that they could look right over Westfield to the vineyards that lay between the railroad track and the lake, and then on across the water to the dim coast line of another country.

"There's a steamer! Oh, see, Mother," cried Roger, pointing to a feather of black smoke that hung against the sky.

"And I believe that's a sail boat with the sun on it quite near the shore on this side," returned Mrs. Morton.

"We must make an excursion some day this summer to Barcelona," said Mrs. Emerson. "When I was here before we had a delightful picnic there."

"Where is it?" asked her husband.

"That sail is just off it, I should say," she replied. "It is a tiny fishing village, with nets hung up picturesquely to dry and cliffs on one side and a beach on the other."

"I wonder how it got its name," questioned Roger, who always gathered bits of stray information as he went along and never lost anything because of shyness in asking questions.

"They say," replied his grandmother, "that Barcelona was the very spot at which the Indians from Canada used to land when they came over to make a visit on this side of the great lake."

"The place was known long ago, then."

"Apparently. So it wasn't strange that when some Spanish and Portuguese fishermen a long time afterwards wanted to establish a fishing business somewhere along the shore they chose this locality."

"Can we fish when we go there?" asked Ethel Blue.

"If Grandfather and Roger will take you out. Or we can all go in a motor boat."

"Wow, wow, wow!"

This was an expression of joy from Dicky who was happy if he could go anywhere with Roger, happier if his grandfather went, too, and happiest if the excursion was in a boat. His father's love of the water had become his, also.

"Right on the top of this hill," said grandmother, whose memory was serving her well after ten years, "there used to be an inn in the old stagecoach days. A man named Button kept it."

"Button's Inn," murmured Mrs. Morton. "Why does that sound familiar to me?"

"Probably you've read Judge Tourgée's novel of that name. The scene was laid hereabouts, and the drawing is all good because the author lived in Mayville."

"Where's that?" asked Ethel Blue.

"We're coming to it in a few minutes."

"Don't you remember Grandfather said the Indians used to put their canoes in Lake Chautauqua just after they passed Mayville?" said Ethel Brown severely.

Roger roared.

"He did," insisted Ethel, flushing.

"As if Mayville was built then," chortled Roger, and all the rest of them laughed unsympathetically except Mrs. Morton who leaned back and nodded to her daughter.

"Never mind," she said. "We can't be expected to know every date in the history book, can we?"

The town of Mayville, perched on its ridge with distant views visible between the houses, and fields and low hills rolling away from its elevation, seemed bright and attractive to the travellers. The new courthouse stood resplendent in the heart of the village, and just beyond it the road fell to the head of Chautauqua Lake.

"Here's where your Indian friends got in their fine work," called Roger who had been going from one side of the car to the other so that nothing might escape his eyes.

Ethel would have liked to stick out her tongue at him, but she knew that her mother had a strong objection to that expression of disapproval so she contented herself with scowling terribly at her brother.

"What is the story about the Frenchmen, Grandfather?" asked Helen. "You forgot to tell us."

"So I did, but Grandmother says that we are so near to Chautauqua now, so I shall have to postpone it until we have a rainy evening."

"Are we really almost there?" cried the two Ethels, rushing to the other side of the car. "See, how near the lake is. See, there's a high fence with buildings behind it—a funny old fence!"

"That's the famous Chautauqua fence, I suspect," said Mrs. Morton, smiling.

"Why famous? How long is it? What's that little tent on the other side? Oh, what funny, tiny houses!"

Everybody chattered and nobody paid much attention to grandmother although she answered patiently every question.

"It's famous because there isn't another town in the United States that is surrounded by a fence. It's a mile along the road and about a half mile at each end from the road to the lake. That's a fence guard's tent. What's a fence guard? A man to show the nearest way to the gate to people who want to take a short cut through the fence. That's Piano-town. The people who are studying music practice in those little houses where they won't annoy their neighbors in the living cottages."

"Here we are," cried grandfather. "Have you all got your bundles? Don't forget your hat, Dicky."

"'All ashore that's going ashore,'" quoted Roger who had seen many steamers sail, and then he suddenly grew quiet and assisted his mother with his best manner, for on the platform were several young men who looked as if they might be good friends if they were impressed at the start that he was worth while and not just a kid; and there were also some girls of Helen's age and a little older whose appearance he liked extremely.

CHAPTER II

GETTING SETTLED

GETTING the Emerson-Morton party inside the grounds of Chautauqua Institution was no mean undertaking. Roger was still acting as courier and he asked his mother to wait until the other passengers from the car had gone through the turnstile so that the gateman might give them his undivided attention. They all had to have season tickets and when these had been made out then one after another the family pushed the stile and the gateman punched number one from the numerals on their tickets as they passed.

"If only you were eighty or over you would have your ticket given you by the Institution, Father," said Mrs. Morton.

"Thank you, I'm a long way outside of that class," retorted Mr. Emerson with some tartness.

"What's the idea of the punching?" asked Helen, of her grandmother.

"You have to show your ticket every time you go outside of the fence or out on the lake," explained Mrs. Emerson. "The odd numbers are punched when you come in—as we do now—and the even numbers when you go out. It circumvents several little tricks that people more smart than honest have tried to play on the administration at one time or another."

"Why do we have to pay, anyway?" asked Roger. "I never went to a summer resort before where you had to pay to go in."

"That's because you never went to one that gave you amusement of all sorts. Here you can go to lectures and concerts all day long and you don't have to pay a cent for them. This entrance fee covers everything of that sort. Where else on the planet can you go to something like twenty or more events in the course of the day for the sum of twelve and a half cents which is about what the grown-up season ticket holder pays for his fun."

"Nowhere, I'll bet," responded Roger promptly. "Are there really as many as that?"

"There are a great many more if you count in all the things that are going on at the various clubs and all the classes in the Summer Schools."

"Don't you have to pay for those?"

"There's a small fee for all instruction because classes require teachers, and teachers must be paid; and the clubs call for a small fee because they have expenses which they must meet. But all the public entertainments are free."

"This is just the place I've been looking for ever since Father gave me an allowance," grinned Roger, whose struggles with his account book were a family joke.

"Mother," drawled Dicky in a voice that seemed on the verge of tears, "why don't we ride? I'm so tired I can hardly walk."

"Poor lamb, there aren't any trolleys here or any station carriages," explained Mrs. Morton. "Roger, can't you get another porter to take your bags while you carry Dicky?"

Thus reinforced the New Jersey army marched down the hill from the Road Gate to the square.

Mrs. Morton had taken a cottage, and the porters said that they knew exactly where it was situated. Roger, bearing Dicky perched upon his shoulder, walked between them soaking up information all the way. He noticed that both young men wore letters on their sweaters, and he discovered after a brief examination that they were both college men who were athletes at their respective institutions.

"There are lots of fellows here doing this," one of them said.

"Working, you mean?"

"I sure do. Jo and I think you really have more fun if you're working than if you don't. There are college boys rustling baggage at the trolley station where you came in, and at the steamer landing, and lots of the boarding houses have them doing all sorts of things. Jo and I wait on table for our meals at the Bismarck cottage."

"Do you get your room, too?"

"We get our rooms by being janitors at two of the halls where they hold classes. We get up early and sweep them out every day and we set the chairs in order after every class. Then we do this porter act at certain hours."

"So your summer really isn't costing you anything."

"I shall come out a little bit ahead, railroad ticket and all. Jo lives farther away and he won't quite cover his expenses unless something new and lucrative turns up—like tutoring."

"Or running a power boat, Henry," smiled silent Jo.

"Did you get that job at the Springers?" asked Henry eagerly.

"I did, and it's more profitable than toting bags."

"Good for you," exclaimed the genial Henry, and Roger added his congratulations, for the young men were so frank about their business undertakings that he was deeply interested.

The Ethels, walking at the end of the procession, held each other's hands tightly so that they might look about without straying off the sidewalk.

"It's queer for a country place, isn't it?" commented Ethel Brown. "I haven't seen a cow or a chicken since we came in the gate."

"The houses are so close together there isn't any room for them," suggested Ethel Blue. "I haven't seen a cat either."

"I know why. Mother told me she read in a booklet they sent her that there was a Bird Club and you know bird people are always down on cats. They must have sent them all out of town."

"Oh, here's quite a large square. See, there are stores in that big brick building with the columns and the place opposite says Post Office—"

"And there's a soda fountain under that pergola."

"Dicky's hollering for soda right now."

"Mother won't let him have any so early in the morning but we'll remember where the place is."

Yet the procession seemed to be slowing up at the head and, Oh, joy, there was Grandfather making a distribution of ice-cream cones to grown-ups and children alike. Even the porters ate theirs with evident pleasure, consuming the very last scrap of the cone itself.

Then they led the way down a very steep hill and along a pleasant path to a cottage that faced the blue water of the lake.

"Here you are," they said to Mrs. Morton.

"And this must be our landlord's son waiting to open the house for us," said Mrs. Morton as a boy of Roger's age came forward to meet them.

Her guess was right and James Hancock instantly proved himself an agreeable and useful friend. The Hancocks lived in New Jersey in a town not far from the Mortons, but they never had happened to meet at home.

"How many people are there here now?" asked Roger as James helped him carry the bags into the house.

"Oh, I don't know just how many to-day, but there are usually about twelve or fifteen thousand at a time when the season gets started."

"There must be awful crowds."

"The people do bunch up at lectures and concerts but if you don't like crowds you don't have to go, you know."

"What do the fellows our age do?"

"Swim and row and sail. Do you like the water?"

"My father is in the Navy," replied Roger as if that was a sufficient answer.

"Then you'll go in for all the water sports. The older chaps in the Athletic Club let us use their club house sometimes, and they say that this summer there's going to be a club especially for boys of our age—too old for the Boys' Club and too young for the Athletic Club."

"Good enough, I'll join," declared Roger, who was the most sociable lad on earth.

"Can I help your mother any more? So long, then. I live two houses off—in that red one over there just beyond the boarding house—so I'll see you a lot," and James leaped over the rail of the porch and strolled off toward the Pier.

"He seems like a nice boy," said Mrs. Morton; "I'm glad he lives so near."

"I wonder if he has any sisters," queried Helen. "Did you ask him, Roger?"

Roger had not and he admitted to himself that it was a mistake he would remedy the next time he saw James. Just as he was thinking about it the baggage wagon drove up with the trunks. On top was Jo, the porter.

"Hullo," he called.

"Hullo," returned Roger. "I didn't know you rustled trunks as well as bags."

"I don't. I rode down to ask you something," and he proceeded to swing down a trunk to the other two young men as if to hurry up matters so that he could attend to his errand.

"Now, what is it?" asked Roger when all the pieces of luggage had been placed about the house to his mother's satisfaction, and the dray had gone.

"I don't know whether you'll care for it or not, but you were so interested I thought I'd give you first chance if you did want it," Jo tried to explain.

"Want what?"

"My job. You see how I've got this work for the Springers running their motor boat I've got to be somewhere within call of their house about all the time, so they've given me a room there, and I shall have to give up janitoring and bag-toting and waiting on table and everything. I thought if you'd like to try one or all of my jobs I'd speak about you and perhaps you could get in. As late as this you generally can't find any work, there are so many applications. What do you say?"

Roger thought a moment.

"I'd like like thunder to do something," he said, and added, flushing: "I suppose you'll think it queer but I've never earned anything in my life and I'm just crazy to."

"There are awfully good fellows doing it here. You've seen me and Henry," Jo went on humorously, "and a son of one of the professors is a janitor and the nephew of another one is waiting on table at the same cottage I am, and—"

"Oh, I wouldn't be ashamed to do anything honest," Roger said quickly. "I was thinking about Mother. You see with Father in Mexico I sort of have to be the man of the family. I shouldn't want to undertake things that would keep me from being useful to her."

"And you've got a good house here so you don't need a room, so I guess I'll just run along," answered Jo.

"Wait a minute," cried Roger. "Let me speak to Mother."

Just at that moment Mrs. Morton came out on the porch, a little frown of anxiety on her face.

"Here you are, Roger—and you, too,—Mr.—"

"Sampson," filled in Jo.

"Mr. Sampson. I came out to consult with you, Roger. It seems to me that the room in the top story that I counted on for you is going to be so warm that you can't possibly sleep there. I wish you'd run up and look at it."

Roger's face burst into a happy smile.

"Good enough, Mother, I hope it is a roaster," he cried.

Mrs. Morton looked perplexed.

"Jo came to tell me that he thinks he can get me his janitor's job that will earn me my room," Roger explained. "If you don't mind I'd like mighty well to do it, and it will settle this trouble here."

"Would you really like it?"

"You bet."

"You'd have to stick to it; and it might mean that you'd have to give up some pleasures that you'd have otherwise."

"I know. I'm willing, Mother," insisted Roger eagerly.

"I don't see, then, why you shouldn't take it," said Mrs. Morton slowly, "and we shall be much obliged to you if you can arrange it for Roger," she continued, smiling at Sampson.

"How about the table-waiting and the bag-toting?" he inquired.

"I think one job will be about all he'd better undertake for his first experience," decided Mrs. Morton. "I should be sorry not to have him with the family at meals, and I want him to have time for some sports."

"All right, then, I'll try to fix it up," said Jo, and he swung off up the path, pulling off his cap to Mrs. Morton as she nodded "Good-bye" to him.

"Hi," exclaimed Roger joyfully as Jo disappeared; "isn't he a good chap! Now then, Mater, if your oldest son were a little younger or your younger son were a little older one of them might be a caddy on the golf links and earn his ice-cream cones that way," and he danced a few joyous steps for his mother's admiration.

"If you undertake a thing like this you'll have to stick to it," Mrs. Morton warned again, for Roger's chief fault was that he tired quickly of one thing after another.

"A postage stamp'll be nothing to me, and you're a duck to let me do it. Here, kids," he cried as the two Ethels came out of the house, "gaze on me! I'm a horny-handed son of toil. I belong to the laboring classes. I earn my living—or rather my rooming—by the perspiration of my eyebrow," and he explained the situation to the admiring girls and to Helen, who joined them.

"I wish there was something I could do," sighed Helen enviously. "I suppose I could wait on table somewhere."

"I'm afraid it will have to be in this cottage right here," responded her mother. "Even when Mary comes to-morrow we shall be short handed so everybody will have to help."

Mary had been Roger's nurse and had stayed on in the family until now, when Dicky was too old to need a nurse, she had become a working housekeeper. She had remained behind to put the Rosemont house in order after the family left, and she was expected to arrive the next day by the same train that had brought the family.

"I will, Mother," said Helen. "It's only that doing something to earn your living seems to be in the air here, and I must have caught a germ on the way down from the trolley gate."

"You'll be doing something to earn your living by helping at home, and all you would get by waiting on table at a boarding cottage would be your meals and not money."

"Still, it would relieve Father's pocketbook if there were one mouth less to feed."

"True, dear, but Father is quite willing to pay that much for his daughter's service to her family, if you want to look at it in that light."

"It sounds sort of horrid and mercenary, but when I'm older then I'll really do some sort of work and repay Father," and Mrs. Morton nodded her appreciation of Helen's understanding that a Lieutenant's pay is pretty small to bring up four children on.

"This is an age of mutual help and service," she said. "We must be a co-operative family and help each other in every way we can. What you will do for me this summer will be just as much help to me as what Roger will do by providing himself with a room."

"Somehow doing things at home never seems to count," complained Helen.

"But it does count. Service is like charity; they both begin at home."

"I know just how you feel, though, Sis," confided Roger when his mother had gone into the house. "I don't think I ever felt so good in all my life as I do this minute just because I'm going to earn my own room."

CHAPTER III

OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY

"NOW then, people dear," said grandmother, joining the group on the porch, "even if we don't have the house in the exact order that we want it in to-day we must take time to go to the formal opening of the Assembly."

"What happens?" asked Helen.

"If there's a lecture," said Roger apprehensively, "me for the woods."

"If you stand on the edge of the Amphitheatre you can slip away after the introduction but it is worth your while to be present when the gavel falls because you want to follow every important event as it happens right through the season."

So the whole family fell into line when the bell in the tower on the lake shore rang to indicate that in five minutes a meeting would begin.

"That tower has been built since I was here," said Mrs. Emerson.

"It's called the Miller Memorial Tower," said Ethel Blue gravely.

"How in the world did you find that out so quickly?"

"We saw it from the porch and ran down there to look at it," she replied.

When either of the Ethels said "we" the other Ethel was the partner in the plural form.

"Who told you it was called the Miller Tower?"

"A nice girl about our age who was sitting on the bench near it. She heard us wondering and she came over and said it was named in memory of Mr. Miller. He was one of the founders of Chautauqua Institution."

"He's dead now," explained Ethel Brown, "but Bishop Vincent is alive and he'll be here on the grounds in a few days. He's the other founder. He's the one that had the Idea."

"What idea?" asked Helen.

"Dorothy said—"

"Who is Dorothy?"

"Dorothy is the girl who was talking to us. Dorothy said it was a great Idea that Bishop Vincent had to make people come out into the woods to study and to hear lectures and music."

"Bishop Vincent is a remarkable man," said Grandmother, who had been listening with interest to the girls' explanations. "You are lucky young people to be able to see him and perhaps to speak to him."

From the lake the family procession walked up another steep hill to the Amphitheatre, a huge structure with a sloping floor, covered with benches, and having a roof but no sides. At one end was a platform and behind it rose the golden pipes of a large organ. The audience was gathering rapidly. Only the pit was full, for on this opening day of the Assembly people had not yet come in great numbers, while many, like the Emersons and Mortons, had but just arrived and were not settled.

As the bell finished ringing the Director of the Institution walked upon the stage and after rapping three times with his gavel declared the Assembly open.

"Chautauqua Institution has three activities;" he said, "its Assembly, its Summer Schools and its all-the-year-round Home Reading Course. Its work never begins and never ends. Chautauqua has given a new word to the language; has been the pioneer in summer assemblies and summer schools, and has become the recognized leader of the world in home education. Since 1874 the Chautauqua movement has spread until there are 3,000 summer gatherings in this country alone which have taken the name.

"During these years this platform here at Chautauqua has been one of the greatest forums of our modern life. Here every good movement has received a hearty welcome. During the first year, from this place went out the call for the organization of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Here was held the first successful summer school in America.

"Here new organizations have found their first opportunity. Here great political and social and economic problems have been discussed by those who by knowledge and experience are able to speak with authority. Chautauqua, the place, has been beautified and equipped with every convenience for community life. It has been a paradise for little children, has offered every opportunity for wholesome recreation, has given the best of music, literature, poetry and art freely to those who enjoy them.

"Every one who enjoys any of the privileges of this great Institution has a corresponding measure of obligation. The measure of what you take away from Chautauqua is wholly determined by what you bring to it. No system of lectures or of individual study can compare with this great co-operative opportunity which Chautauqua gives for living together, for working out one's own intellectual and religious salvation in terms of intercourse with others. Here are gathered people of vision, people who are striving for efficiency of personality, people who realize that we live in a time of new opportunities and new duties."

A burst of applause followed these inspiring words. Then the young people all left quietly, except Roger, who stayed with the elders after all, when he found that the speaker was to be the President of Berea College, Kentucky. Roger had read of President Wilson's calling these Southern highlanders "a part of the original stuff of which America was made," and he wanted to hear about their sturdy life from a man who knew them well.

The girls went exploring toward the southern end of the grounds.

"I believe this must be the Girls' Club," said Ethel Brown. "Dorothy told us where it was. She said she was going to join it."

"They learn to make baskets and to cook and to swim and to do folk dancing and all sorts of things," explained Ethel Blue. "Don't you think Aunt Marion will let us belong, Helen?"

"I'm sure she will," agreed Helen, as they went up the steps of the hospitable looking building and peered through the windows.

"When will it open?"

"Next week. I'm perfectly crazy about it; I can hardly wait," and one Ethel seized the other Ethel's hand and skipped down the steps with her.

"This next place must be the Boys' Club building if there is such a thing," said Helen.

"There is," cried Ethel Brown. "Dorothy told us so."

"Dorothy seems to know all about everything."

"She does. She was here last summer, and she says she has been all over the United States and she never had such a good time anywhere as she had here."

"We'll certainly have to belong, then. Are there any girls as old as I am?"

"Yes, and I asked if Dicky was too little to belong to the Boys' Club and Dorothy said that he wasn't if he wasn't babyish."

"Dicky isn't babyish."

"I told her that he could dress himself and that Mary didn't pay much attention to him any more and that he tried to do all the things that he saw Roger do and that he went on really long walks with us."

"So she thought they'd take him."

"I told her Roger called him a 'good little sport' and she said she guessed he was all right."

"Over there must be the bathing beach," said Ethel Blue as they turned away from the lake and started up another hilly street lined with houses.

"I hope there's a swimming teacher for you girls," said Helen. "Father taught me when I was smaller than you are, but you've never had a chance to learn yet."

"I'm going to learn this summer if I don't do another thing," exclaimed Ethel Brown enthusiastically.

"So am I," said Ethel Blue.

At the top of the hill the girls came out on an open place with a rustic fountain in the centre. At the left was a beautiful building shaped like a Greek temple. It was creamy in color and gleamed softly against a background of trees.

"What is that do you suppose?" wondered Ethel Blue.

"A-U-L-A C-H-R-I-S-T-I," spelled Ethel Brown as they stood gazing at the inscription over the door. "What does that mean?"

"Aula, aula," repeated Helen slowly. "Oh, I know; it's Latin for hall. That must mean Hall of Christ. It looks quite new."

"Probably it's another thing that's been built since Grandmother was here."

"We must ask her about it. Perhaps they have church there."

"It's a lot prettier than this building," and Ethel Blue nodded her head toward a large wooden house painted cream color. "C.L.S.C. Alumni Hall," she read. "What does that mean?"

"Children, Ladies, Sons and Chickens," guessed Ethel Brown.

"Come Let's See Chautauqua," contributed Ethel Blue.

"Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle," supplied a pleasant voice and the girls turned to meet the smile of a tall, slender woman who was on her way into the building. "That's the name of the association that does the Home Reading Course work."

"Oh, I know," cried Helen; "Grandmother joined when she was here ten years ago and Mother and Grandfather belong, too."

"Did your grandmother graduate?" asked the lady, who seemed much interested.

"She had her diploma sent to her. She hasn't been here since that first time."

"You must tell her that she must watch the Daily for notices of meetings of her class and that there are many festivities during Recognition Week that she can take part in."

"Grandfather and Mother are in this year's class," said Helen shyly.

It proved that the lady knew their names and where they lived.

"You see I am the Executive Secretary of the C.L.S.C.," she explained in answer to the girls' look of surprise, "so I correspond with many people whom I never have a chance to meet unless they come here in the summer."

"Why, you must be Miss Kimball," cried Helen. "I've heard Mother speak of having letters from you."

"Yes, I'm Miss Kimball, and I hope you're going to be a Reader when your school work gives you time for it."

"It will be Roger's turn to join next," said Ethel Brown timidly; "he's older than Helen. And Ethel Blue and I'll belong later. There ought to be some member of the family joining every little while so that we can all go to special things every summer we come up here."

Miss Kimball laughed.

"I see you're already converted to Chautauqua though this is only your first day," she said. "Would you like to go into the C.L.S.C. building? I have an errand here and then I'll walk over to the Hall of Philosophy with you."

The interior of the C.L.S.C. building was not more beautiful than the exterior, but it was full of interest as Miss Kimball explained it to her new companions. The C.L.S.C. classes, it seemed, occupied the rooms for their meetings. So many classes had graduated since the reading work began in 1878 that they could no longer have separate rooms. Sometimes three or four occupied the same room.

"There are plans on foot now," said Miss Kimball, "to have each room's decoration designed by an artist and when that is done it will be as perfect to look at as it is now to feel, for the C.L.S.C. spirit is always harmonious if the color schemes aren't.

"Here is your mother's and grandfather's classroom, down stairs near the door. You've seen that every room has its treasures, its mementoes that mean a great deal to the class members. The 1914 Class hasn't had time to pick up mementoes yet but they have a really valuable ornament in these pictures. They are from a first edition of 'Nicholas Nickleby' which one of the members found in her attic and sacrificed to the good cause."

The girls examined carefully the funny drawings of men with impossible legs and women with extraordinary skirts. Then they glanced at the bust above them.

"It's Dickens," said Helen.

"1914 is the 'Dickens Class.' They began to read in the English Year—the year when all the topics were about England—so they took the name of an English author. Now if you've seen enough we can go over to the Hall of Philosophy for a minute before I must go back to my office."

The three girls were almost overcome by the wonder of being at Chautauqua only one day and meeting and talking with this officer whose name had been familiar to Helen, at least, for a long time. Her geniality prevented them from being speechless, however, and they walked across the open place with happy thoughts of all they would have to tell the family when they got home.

The rustic fountain was a gift from a C. L. S. C. class, they learned as they passed it, and here, ahead of them was the Hall of Philosophy.

"It's almost exactly like the picture in Helen's 'History of Greece,'" cried Ethel Blue, "the temple at Athens, you know."

"The Parthenon," murmured Helen.

"It does make you think of the Parthenon," said Miss Kimball. "In a small way this is beautiful, too, in its setting of green trees, though that was larger of course and its stone pillars gleamed against the vivid blue sky."

"You must have seen it," guessed Helen, struck by the enjoyment of Miss Kimball's tone.

"Ah, Athens is one of the joyous memories of my life!" she exclaimed.

Like the Amphitheatre the building had no sides. The dark beams of the roof were supported by pillars and the breeze blew softly through. Miss Kimball and the girls sat down to rest a while. A sort of wide pulpit faced them, and the chairs were arranged before it in a semi-circle.