Ethel Morton at Chautauqua Part 30

"I can't come here! Why not? I been here many times--I und my young lady."

"No Germans allowed here," he insisted.

"She's my nurse," explained Katharine. "My father's an officer at Fort Edward. He's an American. We are neutral," she insisted.

It was all in vain. The Canadian had his orders and he could not be moved.

"Orders," was all that Katharine could get by way of explanation. Being a soldier's daughter she understood that orders were meant to be obeyed and she did not insist for long.

"It's too bad, but I don't see how we can help it," she said. "I suppose every German is suspected now, but it's silly to think Gretchen is a spy," and she threw her arm around the shoulder of the German woman. She had been frightened by the man's roughness.

"Don't you mind, Gretchen dear," she said. "When the war is over we'll come again. I'm sorry about the _Maid of the Mist_," she apologized to the girls, "but of course we can't go without Gretchen."

It was a rather thoughtful group that returned to Buffalo, for the little experience with Gretchen had made them all feel that the war they were hearing so much about was nearer than they had realized.

"Somehow it has seemed as far away as the moon," said Ethel Brown. "But now I feel as if it might jump out at us any minute."

"It won't," Lieutenant Jackson rea.s.sured her; "but Gretchen's experience gives us something to think about from many points of view."

Sunday pa.s.sed happily and on Monday Mrs. Jackson and Katharine took their guests to the station and started them toward Mayville, where Roger met them.

"It has been a wonderful visit," said Ethel Blue to her aunt. "Mrs.

Jackson told me a great deal about my mother. She must have been lovely."

"She was a very dear woman," replied Mrs. Morton, kissing her niece.

"The only uncomfortable thing was about Gretchen," Ethel went on. "I wish that man hadn't frightened her."

CHAPTER XV

THE PAGEANT

"GRANDFATHER," cried Roger as he sat down to dinner one day, "do you remember that when we were in the trolley coming here from Westfield you promised that some time you would tell us about Celoron?"

"I forgot all about it, son. Shall I tell you now?"

"You won't have to now. There's going to be a pageant of the history of Chautauqua Lake and we'll learn the whole thing from that. There'll be historical scenes, and Francis Wilson, the actor, will wind it up with a real play. He's going to bring his company with him from New York."

"Who told you about it?" asked Ethel Brown. "The lady who is to direct the whole thing came to the Girls' Club this morning and explained it to us and picked out the girls she wants to take part."

"I met the Director and he told me," replied Roger. "He's going to be La Salle himself, and the Director of the Summer Schools is to be another of those old chaps--Brule, I think his name was; and the Inst.i.tution Organist is to take the part of Celoron."

"What are you going to be?" asked Mrs. Emerson.

"An Indian brave."

"I'm going to be an Indian boy," piped up d.i.c.ky. "The lady came to the Boys' Club, too, this morning."

"You'll have to put soot on your hair, kid," teased Roger, "and brown your speaking countenance."

"So shall I," said Helen. "I'm to be a squaw. A lot of girls from the Vacation Club are to be squaws. It will be awfully good fun except the browning up. They say that if you put vaseline on your face first the stuff comes off without any trouble."

"I hope it does," Ethel Brown wished. "I'm to be an Indian girl."

"I especially hope it does," continued Helen, "because I have to be a lady of the French Court later on and I'd hate to have my Indian color stay with me!"

"Everybody is accounted for except Ethel Blue. What are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Morton, smiling at her niece.

"I'm a Flower Sprite and so is Dorothy."

"You can wear your own complexion, then."

"I don't believe sprites ever have hair like mine."

"You can't prove that they don't," declared Roger, smartly. "The pageant is going to be the grandest thing of the sort that Chautauqua ever had.

There are to be lots of grown people in it, and the choir and the orchestra are to provide the music and there's to be a minuet--"

"Didn't I take my first lesson to-day!" exclaimed Helen. "My knees are almost out of commission from that courtesy!"

"They wanted me to learn that, too; hand on your heart business for the men, and prance around like an ostrich in a zoo trying to look over the fence! I told them learning the Indian War Dance was all I was equal to."

"It's more in your style," commented Helen drily.

"It seems a good opportunity to learn both. You and Helen might get up a minuet when your club has some sort of party next winter," suggested Mrs. Morton.

"That's so," agreed Helen; "and Margaret and James are both going to learn it, and it will be a lot easier to drill the new ones if four of us know it already."

"All right," Roger accepted the proposal promptly. "I'll tell them after dinner that they can order one of those white monkey wigs for me, too."

"You won't look any sillier than you will as a red Indian," urged Helen.

"Roger would like to have us think that he'd rather appear as a child of nature than a child of art," smiled his grandmother.

"So I would," insisted Roger; "but the main thing is to do what will help most, like a true member of the United Service Club in good and regular standing."

Ethel Blue applauded.

"That suits you, does it, kid?" and Roger grinned cheerfully at the club's founder. "Are all of you going to rehea.r.s.e this afternoon? They say that when you run up into a bunch of people anywhere on the grounds for the next week it will be a squad of pageant performers rehearsing something."

"It looks to me as if it would be a tight squeeze to get it ready in that time," observed grandfather.

"The lady who is to direct the pageant comes from Chicago and she has only this spare time in all the summer."

"Some of the parts are all prepared," said Ethel Blue.