Ethel Morton at Chautauqua Part 21

"Is that motion seconded?" Helen had not forgotten her first lesson.

"I second it." It was Roger who spoke.

"Question," called Margaret.

"It is moved and seconded that we all do as we like except Roger and that he talk parliamentary fas.h.i.+on all the time."

Thus the president stated the motion.

"Oh, say," objected Roger. "I call that unfair discrimination."

"Not at all," retorted the president. "You were the one who wanted to learn so it's only fair that you should have the chance."

"I can't do it alone."

"Perhaps some of us will be moved to do it, too, once in a while. You see the president ought to know how. These Hanc.o.c.k experts here said so."

"You haven't asked for the 'Ayes' and 'Nos' yet," reminded Margaret, and this time Helen sent it through without a hesitation.

"The next thing for us to decide," continued the president when Ethel Blue's motion had pa.s.sed without a dissenting voice, "is what we are going to do. Of course we can't undertake any really big things here at Chautauqua where we have all our time pretty well filled and where we are studying things that we ought not to slight because they may help us out later in our plans for service. So I think what we must look out for is little things that we can do to be helpful. Does anybody know of any?"

"I know of one," offered James promptly. "Tomorrow is Old First Night.

That's the only time in all the summer when there is a collection taken on the grounds. All the money they get on Old First Night is used for the benefit of the general public. The Miller Tower, for instance, was an Old First Night Gift, and part of the Arts and Crafts Studios was paid for by another one, and the Sherwood Music Studio."

"Great scheme," remarked Roger. "You take your contribution out of one pocket and put it into the other, so to speak. Where do we come in?"

"They want boys to collect the money from the people in the Amphitheatre. That's something you and I can do."

"Is there anything that girls do on Old First Night?"

Ethel Brown turned to Margaret as authority because the Hanc.o.c.ks had been at Chautauqua many summers.

"There never has been anything particular for them to do but I don't know why we couldn't offer to trim the stage. I believe they'd like to have us."

"How shall we find out?"

"I'll telephone to the Director to-night, and if he says 'Yes,' then we can go outside the gate to-morrow afternoon and pick wild flowers and trim the stage just before supper."

"You boys will have to go too," said Helen; "we'll need you to bring back the flowers."

"Right-o," agreed James. "Anybody any more ideas?"

"We'll have to keep our eyes open as things come along," said Ethel Blue. "There ought to be something every day. There's Recognition Day, any way."

"We're all too big for Flower Girls; they have to be not over ten; but Mother went to the 1914 Cla.s.s meeting this afternoon and one of the members of the cla.s.s proposed that they should have boys as well as girls--a boys' guard of honor--so there's a job for our honorary member, Mr. Richard Morton."

"If they have a lot of kids they'll want some big fellows to keep them straight and make them march right," guessed James; "that's where you and I come in, Roger, thanks to your mother and grandfather and my father being in the cla.s.s."

"How about us girls?"

"The graduating cla.s.s can use all the flowers they can lay their hands on, so we can bring them all we can carry and I know they'll be glad to have them," said Margaret.

"Can't we help them decorate?"

"They always do all the decorating themselves, but the evening before Recognition Day there's going to be a sale of ice cream for the benefit of the fund the C.L.S.C. people are raising to build a veranda on Alumni Hall and we can help a lot there."

"Where's that going to be?"

"There'll be hundreds of lanterns strung between the two halls, the band will play, and they'll have tables in the Hall of Philosophy."

"And we'll wait on the tables."

"We'll carry ice cream and sell cake and tell people how awfully good a chocolate cake that hasn't been cut yet looks so they'll want a piece of that to take home to one of the children who couldn't come."

"Foxy Margaret!"

"It'll be true."

"I suspect it will. My mouth waters now."

"You'll excuse my turning the subject, Madam President," said James excitedly, "but there are some of the jolliest little squirrels up over our heads. I've been watching them ever since we came and I believe I've learned a thing or two about them."

"What!"

They all threw themselves on their backs and stared up into the trees.

"They have regular paths that they follow in going from tree to tree.

Did you see that fellow jump? He went out on the tip of that long twig and leaped from there. He just could grab the branch that sticks out from that oak. I believe that must be the only place where it is near enough for them to make the leap, for I've seen at least twenty jump from that same twig since I noticed them first."

"Twenty! How do you know it wasn't one leaping twenty times to show off to us?"

"It was more than one, anyway, for there was a chap with a grand, bushy tail and another one with hardly any tail at all."

"Cats," hissed Ethel Brown tragically.

"Very likely, since shooting isn't allowed here. Last summer I saw a cat catch a chipmunk right over there by that red cottage."

"Did she kill him?"

"Not much! Mr. Chip gave himself a twist and scampered back into his hole in the bank. I tell you the stripes on his back looked like one continuous strip of ribbon he went so fast!"

"Poor little fellow. Any more sandwiches left?" queried Roger. "No? Too bad. Let's adjourn, then. Madam President, I move we adjourn."

"To meet when?"

"When the president calls us," said Ethel Blue.

"And we'll all have our eyes and ears open so as to give her information so she'll have something to call us for."