  Ethel Blue, as Columbus Day approached, was filled with many strange feelings, some of them far from pleasant. When she read a letter from her father a few days before the twelfth she felt as if dread had brought upon her exactly what she had dreaded. The letter was filled with loving expressions but it told her that her father was to be married very soon. “I know that you will love the dear lady who has honored me by saying that she will relieve my loneliness,” he wrote. “I would have relieved his loneliness if he had given me a chance,” Ethel sobbed to herself as she lay on her bed and read the tear-blotted lines for the tenth time. “It will be a sorrow to you to leave Aunt Marion and your cousins, but perhaps the thought that now you will belong in a home of your own will make up for it, in part, at any rate. I don’t see how we can all help being happy together, and we must all try to make each other happy.” Ethel Blue thought of a great many things to say in reply to her father. They sounded very smart and very convincing as she said them over to herself in a whisper, but just as she was wiping her eyes and getting up to sit at her desk and put them on paper her Aunt Marion’s suggestion that she would be selfish if she did anything that would hurt her father or prevent him from making a belated happiness for himself cut her to the heart. “He doesn’t love me or he wouldn’t do it,” she repeated, and then she remembered that all her life she had had a home and a loving family of cousins who were as good as brothers and sisters, while her father had spent the same time without the thought, even, of home-making. “I suppose it’s some old Fort Myer woman who’s as cross as two sticks,” she murmured again and again; and then an inner voice seemed to speak in her ear and tell her that there was no reason why she should not imagine that it was some really lovely person who was as sweet as she was pretty. “Everybody says my mother was pretty,” thought poor Ethel Blue, who had been making herself very miserable by her old habit of “pretending” without any basis of fact, and who now was trying to get a scrap of comfort from the thought that her father had had good taste once and might be trusted to exercise it again. Whether or not to show the letter to her Aunt Marion she did not know. Her father had not said whether he had informed her or not. Usually Ethel told her aunt everything promptly, but now she did not feel as if she could speak of the thing that had appeared dreadful when it was only a possibility. The reality was so much worse that it did not seem as if she could trust herself to mention it. “Aunt Louise has asked him to come on to the housewarming,” she said. “I’ll wait and see if he comes. Then he can tell her and Aunt Marion himself; and if he doesn’t come it won’t be any worse for me to tell them a few days from now than right off this minute.” It was so forlorn an Ethel Blue who dragged herself through the preparations for the Columbus Day entertainment, that Ethel Brown could not help noticing the melancholy air that hung over her usually smiling face. Ethel Blue would make no explanation to her cousin, nor would she tell her aunt anything more than the reassuring words that she was perfectly well. They gave up trying to make her talk about herself, trusting to time to bring its own healing. No letter came from her father announcing his acceptance of his sister Louise’s invitation, nor did another letter reach Ethel Blue. She was inclined to make a grievance of this until it occurred to her that she was not likely to hear until she replied to her father’s announcement of his proposed marriage. “It’s a serious thing and I ought to answer his letter right off,” her conscience told her, “but I can’t say I’m glad and I don’t want to say I’m not glad. I’ll wait until after the twelfth, any way.” Her feelings of selfishness and uncertainty made her a miserable girl during the interval. On the morning of Columbus Day the Mortons and Hancocks went into New York to the Watkinses. Della’s and Tom’s father was a clergyman who worked among the foreigners of the East Side. This was an advantage to the Club members when they watched the procession that wound its way from the lower part of the city northward to Columbus Circle at 59th Street. “These people must come from all over Europe,” exclaimed Ethel Brown as bits of conversation in languages that she never had heard drifted to her ears. “New York is called one of the largest foreign cities in the world,” laughed Roger, whose spirits had risen although he was having difficulties again with his camera and its persistent desire to take everything that came within its range, “whether the girls are pretty or not!” he complained. “They say that New York is the second largest German city in the world, and that there are more Hebrews of different nationalities gathered here than anywhere else,” said Tom. “Here are a lot of people wearing peasant costumes that I never saw in any geography,” cried Dorothy. “When otherwise not accounted for you can generally put them among the Balkan states,” laughed Della. “Look at that girl over there in peasant costume and right side of her is a girl in the latest New York style! That’s a tremendous contrast.” “I suppose the American-dressed girl thinks she is very fashionable, but the other looks much more sensibly dressed and more attractive, too,” said James gravely. “She’s a great deal prettier girl for one reason,” smiled his sister. “She would look better whatever she wore.” They all laughed at James who insisted that he preferred peasant dress, but they all exclaimed with delight at the gorgeous costumes worn by a group of Hungarian men. Some of them were riding in carriages and they seemed very self-conscious but greatly pleased at the attention they attracted. “This is a great day for the Italians,” said Helen as band after band, and society after society, bearing the Italian red, white and green passed them. “Well, Columbus was an Italian. They ought to feel comfortable about it. He discovered us.” They all shouted at James’s way of putting his defense of Columbus’s countrymen. “If we’re going to hear any of the speeches at Columbus Circle we’d better hop into the subway and speed to 59th Street,” urged Tom. They were in plenty of time, and watched the placing around the Columbus monument of numberless wreaths and emblems which the societies brought with them, chiefly at the ends of tall poles and deposited at the feet of the statue of the great explorer. As soon as they reached home the Mortons all went over to Sweetbrier Lodge to help with the final decorations. The attic they had set in order the day before. This was necessary for they had to have a curtain and they wanted to put it through a rehearsal as well as themselves. Extra chairs had been brought in for the occasion and they were now unfolded so that the little audience room was ready for its opening performance. 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 Japanese 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 Hancocks 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. Hancock 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. Hancock, 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 passed 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 pass 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 Dicky, 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. Hancock, 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 Dicky 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 gratitude are due!” The pantomime followed the lines closely. “Wasn’t Dicky cunning!” exclaimed Dicky’s adoring grandmother. “Dicky 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 Dicky’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 nobody but Ethel Brown was to say anything; that was the game. I dare say if James had spoken Dicky 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 passed 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 shores, Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: ‘Now must we pray, For lo, the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?’ ‘Why, say, “Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”’ “‘My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak.’ The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. ‘What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?’ ‘Why, you shall say at break of day, “Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”’ “They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said: ‘Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say’— He said: ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’ “They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: ‘This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. He lifts his lip, he lies in wait, With lifted teeth as if to bite; Brave Admiral, say but one good word: What shall we do when hope is gone?’ The words leapt like a leaping sword: ‘Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!’ “Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck— A light! a light! a light! a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: ‘On! sail on!’” The last picture was Columbus gazing joyfully at the land he had discovered through his perseverance. It was supposed to be the early morning of October 12, 1492, and Roger, surrounded by his sailors, stood with a foot on the rail of his boat, shielding his eyes from the rising sun, while the others crowded behind him, whispering with delight. When the curtains fell together for the last time the lights flashed out upon the audience and disclosed Captain Morton greeting his sister and sister-in-law and his nieces and nephews. “Where’s my girl?” he inquired in his cordial, hearty voice. “Where’s Ethel Blue?” Some one gave her a friendly push forward so her father did not notice the reluctance with which she had been almost creeping toward him. He threw his arm around her shoulders regardless of possible damage to the elegancies of her court costume, and kissed her heartily. The tears shone in her eyes as she forced herself to meet his searching gaze. “Not crying!” he whispered in her ear, and she felt her heart give a real pang as the happiness left his face and was replaced by his old look of sorrow and endurance. “Not crying!” he repeated in her ear. “Why, I thought you loved her! You’ve done nothing but write to me about Miss Daisy all summer!” “About Miss Daisy? Do you mean—? Is it Miss Daisy?” “It certainly is Miss Daisy. Here, come behind the curtain,” and he swept his daughter and his fiancÉe out of sight of the retiring audience. “It is Daisy Graham who is to be your dear mother, my little Ethel Blue. Are you satisfied now?” “O, Father! O, Miss Daisy!” cried Ethel Blue, sobbing now from relief and joy and clinging to both of them; “I never guessed it! It’s too wonderful to be true!” |
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