Pattern for WrapperPattern for Wrapper
e c e = twice the length from floor to necka b = slitFold cloth on line c b dSew together sides f to eInsert sleeves c to f
e c e = twice the length from floor to necka b = slitFold cloth on line c b dSew together sides f to eInsert sleeves c to f
"Roger really has a lot of sense at times," admittedEthel Brown, after her brother had leaped down the attic stairs in pursuit of the boys.
"He is good about helping," added Della.
"What is this garment—a wrapper?" asked Margaret as Helen held up the soft flannelette.
Wrapper CompletedWrapper Completed
"Yes, it's the simplest ever, and we can adapt one pattern to children of all sizes or to grown people," explained Helen.
"I never heard of anything so convenient!"
"First, you measure the child from the floor to his neck—I measured this on Dicky. Then you cut a piece of material twice that length. That is, if the kiddy is thirty inches from the floor to the chin you cut your flannelette sixty inches long."
"Exactly. Then cut a lengthwise slit thirty inches long. Then fold the whole thing in halves across the width of the cloth and sew up the sides to within four and a half inches of the top and you have a wrapper all but the sleeves."
"How do you make those?"
"It takes half a yard for a grown person—a quarterof a yard for a youngster. Cut the width in halves and double it and sew it straight into the holes you've left at the tops."
"Will that be the right length?"
"You can shorten it if you like or lengthen it by a band. You finish the slit up the front by putting on a band of some different color. It looks pretty on the ends of the sleeves, too. We can use blue on this pink and pink on the blue."
"It's easy enough, isn't it? I think I'll make myself one when we get through with the Ship."
"All you need to know is the length from the person's chin to the floor and you can make it do for anybody. And all you need to do to make a short sacque is to know the length from the person's chin to his waist. I have a notion we'll have some wee bits left that we can make into cunning little jackets for babies."
"I don't see why this pattern wouldn't do for an outdoor coat if you made it of thicker cloth—eider-down, for instance."
"It would. Gather the ends of the sleeves about an inch down so as to make a ruffle, and put frogs or buttons and loops on the front and there you have it!"
"Did you bring a petticoat pattern, Margaret?" asked Ethel Blue.
"Haven't you seen the pictures of European peasant women and little girls with awfully full skirts? I believe they'd like them if we just cut two widths of the same length, hemmed them at the bottom, and ran a draw-string in the top. We can feather-stitch the top of the hem if we want to make it look pretty,or we can cut it a little longer and run one or two tucks."
"Or we might buttonhole a scallop around the edge instead of hemming it," suggested Ethel Brown.
"You know I believe in doing one thing well," said Dorothy. "How would it do if we Club girls made just coats and wrappers and sacques from that pattern of Helen's, and petticoats? We can make them of all sorts of colors and a variety of materials and we can trim them differently. We'd be making some mighty pretty ones before we got through."
"I don't see why not," agreed Margaret thoughtfully. "Let's do it."
"I brought the Red Cross knitting directions," said Delia. "I didn't get them till this morning."
"Grandmother will be delighted with those. She's going to take them to the Old Ladies' Home and start them all to work there."
"Are you sure they'll knit for the children?"
"She's going to ask them to knit for the children now, with bright-colored yarns. Afterwards they can knit for the soldiers, and then they must use dark blue or grey or khaki color—not even a stripe that will make any poor fellow conspicuous."
As they finished reading the instructions they heard the boys tramping upstairs with their paraphernalia.
"It looks to me, Dorothy," said Tom, "as if you had us on your hands for most of these club meetings, to do our work here. Are you sure Mrs. Smith doesn't mind?"
"Mother is delighted," Dorothy reassured him. "And she wants you all to come down and have some chocolate."
FOR A TRAVELLER'S KIT
ONCE the Club was started on its work it seemed as if the days were far too short for them to accomplish half of what they wanted to do. Mrs. Morton insisted that her children should have at least two hours out of doors every day, and that cut down the afternoons into an absurdly brief working time. Mrs. Smith had electric lights installed in her attic and it became the habit of the Mortons and often of the Hancocks to meet there and cut and sew and jig-saw and paste for an hour or two every evening. The Watkinses were active in New York evidently, for Della sent frequent postcards asking for directions on one point or another and Tom exchanged jig-saw news with Roger almost daily.
Meanwhile the war was in every one's mind. The whole country realized the desirability of trying to obey President Wilson's request for neutrality in word, thought, and deed. The subject was forbidden at school where the teachers never referred to the colossal struggle that was rending Europe and the children of varied ancestries played together harmoniously in the school yard. If at the high school Fräulein and Mademoiselle were looked at with a new interest by their scholars no word suggestive of a possible lack of harmony was uttered to them, and their friendship for each other seemed to increase with every day's prolongation of the war.
In the Morton family war discussion was not forbidden and the events of the last twenty-four hours as the newspapers reported them were talked over at dinner every evening. Mrs. Morton thought that the children should not be ignorant of the most upheaving event that had stirred the world in centuries, but she did not permit any violent expressions of partisanship.
"You children are especially bound to be neutral," she insisted, "because your father and Ethel Blue's father are in the service of our country, and a neutrality as complete as possible is more desirable from them and their families than from civilians."
A new idea was blossoming in the young people's minds, however. They had grown up with the belief that armament was necessary to preserve peace. Great men and good had said so. "If we are prepared for war," they declared, "other nations will be afraid to fight us." Captain and Lieutenant Morton had agreed with them, as was natural for men of their profession. They did not believe in aggression but in being ready for defense should they be attacked.
Now it seemed to Roger and Helen as they read of the sufferings of invaded France and the distress of trampled Belgium that no country had the right to benefit by results obtained through such cruel means.
"Just suppose a shell should drop down here just as we were walking along," imagined Roger as he and Helen were on their way to school. "Suppose Patrick Shea's cornfield there was marched over before the corn was harvested and all these houses and churches and schools were blown up or burned downand all the people of this town were lying around in the streets dead or wounded!"
"When you bring it home to Rosemont it doesn't sound the way it does when you read in the histories about a 'movement' here and a 'turning of the right flank' there, and 'the end of the line crumpling up.' When the line crumples up it means fathers and brothers are killed and women and children starve—"
"Think what it would be to have nothing to eat and to have to grub around in the fields and devour roots like the peasants in the famine time in Louis XIV's reign."
"And think about the destruction of all the little homes that have been built up with so much care and happiness. Mary told me her sister bought a chair one month and a table at another time when she and her husband came across bargains," said practical Ethel Brown who had caught up with them. "They've furnished their whole house the way we children have added to our kitchen tins and plates; and then everything would be broken to smash by just one of those shells."
"The people who've been spreading the gospel of peace for years and years needn't be discouraged now, it seems to me," observed Roger thoughtfully, "even if it does look as if all their talk had been for nothing. These horrors make a bigger appeal than any amount of talk."
"Grandfather Emerson says that perhaps universal peace is going to be the result of the war. It seems far off enough now."
"It will be dearly bought peace."
"Hush, there goes Mademoiselle. I wonder when she's going to sail."
"Why don't you ask her to-day? The Club must give her some kind of send-off, you know."
"I wonder if she'd mind if we went to New York to see her start?"
"It won't be hard to find out. We can tell her that we won't be offended if she says 'No.'"
"If she's willing we might take that opportunity to go over the ship. I've always wanted to go over an ocean steamer."
"Perhaps they won't let anybody do it now on account of the war. It will be great if we can, though."
The Service Club learned more geography in the course of its studies of the war news than its members ever had learned before voluntarily. The approach of the German army upon Paris was watched every day and its advance was marked upon a large map that Roger had installed in the sitting-room. When the Germans withdrew the change of their line and its daily relation to the battle front of the Allies was noted by the watchful pencil of one or another of the newspaper readers.
Thanks to the simplicity of the pattern which the Club had adopted for its own they were enabled to make a large number of gay garments in a wonderfully short time. From several further donations of material they made wrappers for children of fourteen, twelve, ten, down to the babies, adding to each a belt of the same color as the band so that the garments might serve as dresses at a pinch. They found that with the smaller sizes they could cut off a narrow band from the width of the cloth at each side, and that served as trimming for another garment of contrasting color.
When they had constructed a goodly pile of long wrappers they fell upon the short sacques, and before many days passed a mound of pink-banded blue and blue-banded pink, and red-banded white and white-banded red rose beside their machines. Della wrote that she was using her mother's machine and was learning how better and better every day. Thanks to their lessons at Chautauqua Margaret and Helen sewed well on the machine already. Ethel Brown and Ethel Blue and Dorothy basted on the bands and the belts and added the fastenings. It was their fingers, too, that feather-stitched and cat-stitched the petticoats that came into being with another donation of flannelette. Dorothy was glad when any new material was cotton as every yard that they used helped the South to rid itself of its unsold crop.
"Ladies are going to wear cotton dresses all winter, they say," she told the Club at one of its meetings. "Mother is going to let me have all my new dresses made of cotton stuff and she's going to have some herself."
"We wear cotton middies all winter," protested the Ethels who felt as if Dorothy felt that they were not doing their share to help on the cause she was interested in.
"When Aunt Marion gets your new dancing school dresses couldn't you ask her to get cotton ones?"
"I suppose we could. Do you think they'd be pretty enough?"
"Some cotton dresses that are going to be worn on the opening night of the opera at the Metropolitan are to be on exhibition in New York in a week or two."
"If cotton is good enough for that purpose I guessit's good enough for your dancing class," laughed Helen.
"Mother says they make perfectly beautiful cottons now of exquisite colors and lovely designs. Don't you think it would be great if we set the fashion of the dancing class?"
"Let's do it. Mother says silk isn't appropriate for girls of our age, anyway."
"If you can be dressed appropriately and beautifully at the same time I don't see that you have anything to complain of," smiled Helen.
With the short time that the girls had at their command every day it did not seem as if they would be able to do much with the garments that came in to be made over. There were not many of these because the boys had been instructed after the first day to ask that alterations and mending be done at home, but there were a few dresses like Mrs. Lancaster's that were on their hands. Mrs. Smith came to their help when this work bade fair to be too much for them.
"I'll ask Aunt Marion and Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Hancock and Mrs. Watkins to lunch with me some day," she promised Dorothy, "and after luncheon we'll have an old-fashioned bee and rip up these dresses and then we can see what material they give us and we can plan what to do with them."
The scheme worked out to a charm. The elders enjoyed themselves mightily and the resulting pile of materials, smoothly ironed and carefully sorted gave Margaret and Helen a chance to exercise their ingenuity. Mrs. Watkins took back to town with her enough stuff for two, promising to help Della with them, and the suburban girls, with the assistanceof the grown-ups, made six charming frocks that looked as good as new.
It was early in October that Helen rushed home from school one day with the news that Mademoiselle was going to sail at the end of the week.
"We must begin to-day to make up a good-bye parcel for her," she cried.
"Red Cross nurses are allowed a very small kit," warned Mrs. Morton.
"We can try to make things so tiny that she won't have to leave them behind her when she goes on duty, but even if she does she can give them to somebody who can make them useful."
"I'll make steamer slippers to begin with," said Ethel Brown.
"How?" asked Ethel Blue.
Top of SlipperTop of SlipperSew a and b together
"You get a pair of fleecy inner soles—they have them at all the shoe stores—and then you cut a top piece of bright colored chintz just the shape of the top part of a slipper and you sew it together at the back and bind the edges all around."
"How do you put the top and the sole together?"
"The edge of the sole is soft enough to sew through. You turn the top inside out over the soleand sew the binding of the chintz on to the edge of the sole over and over and when you turn it right side out there you are with gay shoes."
"They'll fill up a bag, though," commented Ethel Blue. "I should think you might make a pair just like that only make the sole of something that would double up. Then they'd go into a case and be more compact."
"That's a good idea, too," agreed Ethel Brown. "What could you use for a sole?"
"Soft leather would be best. I imagine you could get a piece from the cobbler down town. Or you could get the very thin leather that they used at Chautauqua for cardcases and pocket books—the kind Roger uses—and stitch two pieces together."
"Why wouldn't a heavy duck sole do?" suggested Mrs. Emerson.
"If you stepped on a pin it wouldn't keep it out as well as leather," objected her daughter.
"I believe I'll try a pair with a flowery chintz top and a duck sole covered with chintz like a lining to the shoe," said Ethel Blue slowly as she thought it out. "Then I'll make the case of two pieces of chintz bound together."
"One piece ought to be longer than the other so that it would be a flap to come over like an envelope."
This was Ethel Brown's contribution to the slipper building.
"You could fasten it with a glove snapper. I got some the other day for my leather work," said Roger. "I'll put them on for you."
"Why don't you Ethels make both kinds?" suggested Dorothy. "She'll find a use for them."
"If you girls will make it I'll contribute the silk for a bath wrap that she can throw over her warm one, just for looks, on the boat," said Mrs. Emerson. "I have one I use on sleeping cars and it rolls up into the smallest space you can imagine."
Slipper CaseSlipper CasePlace section a on section b and sew edges together, leaving c d opene = Snap fastening
"Good for Grandmother!" cried a chorus of voices.
"Can we use our famous wrapper pattern?" asked Helen.
"I don't see why not. Mine has a hood but that isn't a difficult addition if you merely shape the neck of your kimono a little and then cut a square of the material, sew it across one end and round the lower end a trifle to fit into the neck hole you've made."
"How about longer sleeves, Mother?" asked Mrs. Morton.
"I think I would make them longer. And I'd also make an envelope bag of the same silk to carry it in on the return trip from the bath. You'll be surprised to find into how small an envelope it will go."
"Put a cord from one corner of the envelope to the other so that Mademoiselle may have her hands free for her soap and towel and other needfuls," advised Mrs. Smith, who had been listening to the suggestions.
"Wouldn't another envelope arrangement of chintz lined with rubber cloth make a good washrag bag or sponge bag?" asked Ethel Brown.
"Nothing better unless you put a rubber-lined pocket in a Pullman apron."
This hint from Grandmother Emerson aroused the curiosity of the young people.
"What is a Pullman apron? Tell us about it," they cried.
"Mine is made of linen crash," said Mrs. Emerson. "Dorothy will insist on your making yours of cotton chintz and it will be just as good and even prettier. Get a yard. Cut off a piece thirty inches long and make it fourteen wide. Bind the lower edge with tape. Turn up six inches across the bottom and stitch the one big pocket it makes into smaller ones of different sizes by rows of up and down stitching. Make a bag of rubber cloth just the right size to fit one of the larger pockets. Take the six inches that you cut off from your yard of material and bind it on both edges with tape. Stitch that across your apron about four inches above the top of the lower row of pockets. Divide the strip into asmany pockets as you want to for hairpins and pins and neck arrangements, and so on."
"Your apron has two raw edges now," said Helen.
"Bind it on each side with tape. That will finish it and it will also fasten the edges of the pockets securely to the apron. Sew across the top a tape long enough to serve as strings."
Pullman ApronPullman Apron
d b plus the turned up portion, b a, = 30 inchesb a = 6 inchesb b = 14 inchesc c c = pocketsd d = strings
d b plus the turned up portion, b a, = 30 inchesb a = 6 inchesb b = 14 inchesc c c = pocketsd d = strings
"The idea is to roll all your toilet belongings up together in your bag, eh?"
"Yes, and when you go to the ladies' room on the train you tie the apron around your waist and then you have your brush and comb and hairpins and toothbrush and washrag all where you can lay your fingers on them in a second of time."
"I got my best tortoise-shell hairpin mixed up with another woman's once, and I never recovered it," said Mrs. Morton meditatively.
"It wouldn't have happened if you'd been supplied with a bag like this," said her mother.
"Mademoiselle's silk wrap must be grey to match her other Red Cross equipment," said Mrs. Emerson, "but I don't see why the chintz things shouldn't be as gay as you like."
"Pink roses would be most becoming to her style of beauty," murmured Roger who had come in.
"I don't know but pink roses would be becoming enough for slippers," agreed Ethel Blue so seriously that every one laughed.
"Let's get pink flowered chintz," said Ethel Brown. "You make the soft kind and I'll make the stiff kind and Dorothy'll make the apron and Helen will make the kimono. Who's got any more ideas?"
"I have," contributed Roger. "I'll make a case for her manicure set. I haven't got time this week unfortunately to tool the leather but I'll make a plain one that will be useful if it isn't as pretty as I can do."
"What shape will it be?"
"I got part of my idea from Grandfather Emerson's spectacle case that I was examining the other day. Ethel Blue's case for the soft slippers is going to be something like it."
"Two pieces of leather rounded at the lower corners and stitched together at the sides and with a flap to shut in the contents?" guessed Dorothy.
"Correct. I shall make the case about four inches long when it's closed."
"That means that you'd have one strip four inches long and the other, the one with the flap, six inches long."
"Once more correct, most noble child. It will be a liberal two inches wide, a bit more in this instance because I'm not much of a sewer and I want to be sure that I'm far enough from the edge to make it secure."
"You don't try to turn it inside out, do you?"
"No, ma'am. Not that mite of an object. You fit a tiny pasteboard slide into the case. Cover it with velvet or leather or a scrap of Ethel Blue's chintz—"
"'Rah for cotton," cheered Dorothy.
"—and on one side of this division you slip in the scissors and the file and the tweezers or the orange stick and on the other a little buffer with a strap handle that doesn't take up any room."
"How in the world do you happen to be so up in manicure articles?" queried Helen, amazed at his knowledge.
"Nothing strange about that," returned Roger. "Aunt Louise showed me hers the other day when I was talking to her about making one for just this occasion. Aha!"
"You could make the same sort of case without the pasteboard partition, for a tiny sewing kit," offered Ethel Blue, "and one of the envelope shape will hold soap leaves."
"I'd like to suggest a couple of shirtwaist cases," said Mrs. Smith. "They are made of dotted Swiss muslin that takes up next to no room and washes like a handkerchief. You'd better make Mademoiselle'sof colored muslin or of colored batiste for she won't want to be bothered with thinking about laundry any oftener than she has to."
"What shape are the bags?"
Shirtwaist CaseShirtwaist Case
"Find out whether she will take an American suitcase or a bag. In either case measure the size of the bottom. Take a piece of muslin twice the size and lay it flat. Fold over the edges till they meet in the centre. Then stitch the tops across, on the inside, of course, and hem the slit, and turn them right side out and that's all there is to it. They keep waists or neckwear apart from the other clothing in one's bag and fresher for the separation."
"Since I have my hand in with knitting," said Grandmother, "I believe I'll contribute a pair of bed-shoes. They're so simple that any one who can knit a plain strip can do them."
"Let's have the receipt."
"Cast on stitches enough to run the length of the person's foot. Fifty will be plenty for any woman and more than enough for Mademoiselle's tiny foot. It's well to have the shoe large, though. Knit ahead until you have a strip six inches high. Then castoff from one end stitches enough to make four inches and go ahead with the remainder for four inches more."
"That sounds funny to me," observed Ethel Brown. "Not exactly the shape of my dainty pedestal."
"You'll have made a square with a square out of one corner like this piece of paper. Now fold it along the diagonal line from the tip of the small square to the farthest edge of the big square and sew up all the edges except those of the small square. That leaves a hole where you put your foot in. Crochet an edge there to run a ribbon in—and you're done."
"I'm going to run the risk of Mademoiselle's laughing at me and give her a folding umbrella," said Mrs. Morton. "It will fit into her bag and at least she can use it until she goes to the front."
"All this sounds to me like a good outfit for any woman who is going to travel," observed Helen. "I'm almost moved to sail myself!"
THE RED CROSS NURSE SETS SAIL
THE girls' cheeks were rosy and their hair was tangled by the wind as Helen and the rest of the U. S. C. left the car at West Street and made their way to the French Line Pier. Roger was heading the flock of Mortons, Mrs. Smith was with Dorothy, the Hancocks had come from Glen Point, more for the fun of seeing a sailing than to say "Good-bye" to Mademoiselle, whom they hardly; knew. The Watkinses were accompanied by their elder brother, Edward, a young doctor.
There was a mighty chattering as the party hastened down the pier. A mightier greeted them when they reached the gang plank.
"Every Frenchman left in New York must be here saying 'Good-bye' to somebody!" laughed Tom as his eye fell on the throng pressing on to the boat over a narrow plank across which passengers who had already said their farewells were leaving, and stewards were carrying cabin trunks.
"Only onepasserellefor all that!" exclaimed a plump Frenchman whose age might be guessed by the fashion of his moustache and goatee which declared him to be a follower of Napoleon III. He was carrying a bouquet in one hand and kissing the other vehemently to the lady on the deck who was to be made the recipient of the flowers as soon as heradmirer could manage to squeeze himself down the over-crowded gang plank.
Taxis driving up behind the U. S. C. young people discharged their occupants upon the agitated scene. All sorts of messages were being sent across to friends on the other side, many of them shouted from pier to deck with a volubility that was startling to inexperienced French students.
It was quite twenty minutes before the Club succeeded in filing Indian fashion across thepasserelle. They were met almost at once by Mademoiselle, for she had been watching their experiences from the vessel.
"Before you say 'Good-bye' to me," she said hurriedly, "I want you to go over the ship. I have special permission from the Captain. You must go quickly. There are not many minutes, you were so long in coming on."
She gave them over to the kind offices of a "mousse" or general utility boy, who in turn introduced them to a junior officer who examined their permit as "friends of Mademoiselle Millerand" and then conveyed them to strange corners whose existence they never had guessed.
First they peeked into a cabin which was one of the handsomest on the ship but whose small size brought from Ethel Brown the comment that it was a "stingy" little room. The reading and writing rooms she approved, however, as being cheerful enough to make you forget you were seasick. A lingering odor of the food of yester-year seemed to cling about the saloon and to mingle with a whiff of oil from the engine room that had assailed them just before they entered. People were saying farewellshere with extraordinary impetuosity, men embracing each other with a fervor that made the less demonstrative Americans smile. One group was looking over a pile of letters on the table to see if absent friends had sent some message to catch them before they steamed.
Below were other staterooms, rows upon rows of them, and yet others below those. By comparison with the fragrances here that in the saloon seemed a breeze from Araby the Blest.
From above the party had looked down on the engines whose huge steel arms slid almost imperceptibly over each other as if they were slowly, slowly preparing to spring at an unseen foe; as if they knew that great waves would try to still them, the mighty workers of the great ship. A gentle breathing now seemed to stir them, but far, far down below the waterline the stokers were feeding the animal with the fuel that was to give him energy to contend with storms and winds and come out victor. Half naked men, their backs gleaming in the light from the furnaces, threw coal into the yawning mouth. The heat was intense, and the Ethels turned so pale that young Doctor Watkins hurried them into the open air. Helen was not sorry to breathe the coolness of the Hudson again and even the boys drew a long breath of relief, though they did not admit that they had been uncomfortable.
"Mademoiselle Millerand awaits you in the tea room," explained the young officer, and he conducted them to a portion of the deck where passengers could sit in the open, or, on cold or windy days, behind glass and watch the sea and the passengers pacing by.
Mademoiselle greeted them with shining eyes.During their absence there had been some farewells that had been difficult.
"You have seen everything?" she inquired pleasantly. "Then you must have some lemonade with me before you go," and she gave an order that soon brought a trayful of glasses that tinkled cheerfully.
"We are not going to be sentimental," she insisted. "This is just 'Good-bye,' and thank you many times for being so good to me at school, and many, many times more for the bundle that is in my room to surprise me. I shall open it when the Statue of Liberty is out of sight, when I can no more see my adopted land. Then shall I think of all of you and of your Club for Service."
"Where do you expect to be sent, Mademoiselle?" inquired Doctor Watkins as the party walked toward thepasserelleover which they must somehow contrive to make their way before they could touch foot upon the pier.
"To Belgium, I think. My brother is a surgeon and I have a distant relative in the ministry—"
"What—theMillerand?"
Mademoiselle smiled and nodded.
"So probably I shall be sent wherever I wish—and my heart goes but to Belgium. It is natural."
"Yes, it is natural. May you have luck," he cried holding out his hand.
"Mademoiselle is going to Belgium," he told the young people who were awaiting their turn at the gang-plank.
They gazed at her with a sort of awe. Tales of war's horrors were common in the ears of all of them, and it was difficult to believe that the slight figure standing there so quietly beside them would see withher own eyes the uptorn fields and downfallen cottages, the dying men and the miserable women and children they had seen only in imagination.
"Oh," gasped Ethel Blue; "oh!Belgium!Oh, Mademoiselle,won'tyou send us back a Belgian baby? The Club wouldloveto take care of it! Wouldn't we? Wouldn't we?" she cried turning from one to another with glittering eyes.
"We would, Mademoiselle, we would," cried every one of them; and as the big ship was warped out of the pier they waved their handkerchiefs and their hands and cried over and over, "Send us a Belgian baby!"
"Un bébé belge! Ces chers enfants!" ejaculated a motherly Frenchwoman who was weeping near them. "A Belgian baby! These dear children."
And then, to James's horror, she kissed him, first on one cheek and then on the other.
PLANNING THE U. S. C. "SHOW"
IT was becoming more and more evident every day to the president of the United Service Club that it must have more money than was at its disposal at the moment or it would not be able to carry out its plans. Already it owed to Mrs. Morton a sum that Helen knew was larger than her mother could lend them conveniently. All of Grandfather Emerson's donation had gone to provide knitting needles and yarn for the occupants of the Old Ladies' Home, and the Club's decision to lay itself under no financial obligation to people outside of the immediate families of the members had obliged her to refuse a few small gifts that had been offered.
All the members of the Club were working hard to earn money beyond their allowances and every cent was going into the Club's exchequer. Roger was faithful in his attention to the three furnaces he had undertaken to care for, though he was not above a feeling of relief that the weather was continuing so mild that he had not yet had to keep up fires continuously in any of them. James still drove his father, though the doctor threatened him with discharge almost every day because of his habit of cutting corners. The girls were carrying out their plans for money-making, and Della had secured another order for stenciled curtains which Dorothy and Ethel Brown filled.
What with school and working for the orphans and working for the Club treasury these were busy days, and Helen felt that something must be done at once to provide a comparatively large sum so that their indebtedness might be paid off and the pressure upon each one of them would not be so heavy.
Helen and James were going over the Club accounts one Saturday before the regular meeting. A frown showed Helen's anxiety and James's square face looked squarer and more serious than ever as he saw the deficit piled against them.
"It's high time we gave that entertainment we talked about so much when we began this thing," he growled. "People will have forgotten all about it and we'll have to advertise it all over again."
"That'll be easy enough if we make use of some of the small children in some way. All their relatives near and far will know all about it promptly and they'll all come to see how the kiddies perform," said Helen wisely, though her look of perplexity continued.
"Let's bring it up at the meeting right now. I don't believe we can do anything better this afternoon than plan out our show and decide who and what and where."
"'Where' is answered easily enough—the hall of the schoolhouse. 'Who' and 'what' require more thought."
It turned out, however, that every one had been thinking of stunts to do himself or for some one else to do, so that the program did not take as much time as if the subject had not been lying in their minds for several weeks.
"At the beginning," said Ethel Blue, "I think someone ought to get up and tell what the Club is trying to do—all about the war orphans and the Santa Claus Ship."
"Wouldn't Grandfather Emerson be a good one to do that?"
"I don't think we want to have any grown people in our show," was Helen's opinion. "If we bring them in then the outside people will expect more from us because they'll think that we've been helped and it won't be fair to us or to our grown-ups."
"That's so," agreed Tom from the depths of a lifetime of experience of the ways of people in church entertainments. "Let's do every single thing ourselves if we can, and I believe the audience will like it better even if it isn't all as O. K. as it would be if we had a grown-up or two to help pull the oars."
"The first question before us, then, is who will do this explanation act that Ethel Blue suggests?"
There was a dead silence. No one wanted to offer. There seemed no one person on whom the task fell naturally unless—"The Club was Ethel Blue's idea," went on Helen. "Isn't she the right one to explain it?" and "The president of the Club ought to tell about it," said Ethel Blue. Both girls spoke at once.
There was unanimous laughter.
"'Ayther is correct,'" quoted Roger. "I think Helen is the proper victim."
"Yes, indeed," Ethel Blue supported him so earnestly that every one laughed again.
"You see, no one knows about its being Ethel Blue's idea and that would take a lot more explaining or else it would seem that there was no good reason for the president's not acting as showman and introducing her freaks to the audience."
"'Speak for yourself, John!' I'm no freak!" declared James. "I think Helen's the right one to make the introduction, though."
Helen shivered.
"I must say I hate to do it," she said, "but we all agreed when we went into this that we'd do what came up, no matter whether we liked it or not, so here goes Number 1 on the program," and she wrote on her pad, beneath an elaborate
PROGRAM
which she had been drawing and decorating as she talked.
1. Explanatory address. Helen Morton.
"Now, then," queried Ethel Brown, "what next?"
"Music, if there's any one to tootle for the ladies," said Roger.
"Dorothy's the singer."
"Oh, I couldn't sing all alone," objected Dorothy shrinkingly. "But Mother said she'd drill a chorus of children and I wouldn't mind doing the solo part with a lot of others on the stage with me."
"How about a chorus in costume?" asked Helen.
"What kind of costume?"
"Oh, I don't know—something historical, perhaps."
"Why not the peasant costumes of the countries in the war?" suggested Ethel Blue. "We're working for the children and we'll have a child or two from each country."
"A sort of illustration of Helen's speech," said Tom.
"They might sing either the national songs of their countries or children's songs," said Dorothy.
"Or both, with you dressed as Columbia and singing the Star Spangled Banner at the end."
"La, la! Fine!" commended Margaret. "Put down Number 2, Helen, 'Songs by War Orphans.' We can work out the details later, or leave them to Dorothy and her mother."
"I've been thinking that we might as well utilize some of the folk dances that we learned at Chautauqua last summer," said Ethel Brown. "Wouldn't Number 3 be a good spot to put in the Butterfly Dance?"
"That was one of the prettiest dances at the Exhibition," said James. "Let's have it."
"Margaret and I are too tall for it, but you four young ones know it and you can teach four more girls easily enough."
"We'll ask them to-morrow at school," said Dorothy, "and we'll have a rehearsal right off. Mother will play for us and it won't take any time at all."
"The costumes won't take any time, either. Any white dress will do and the wings are made by strips of soft stuff—cheese cloth or something even softer, pale blue and pink and green and yellow. They're fastened at the shoulders and a loop goes over the wrist or the little finger so the arms can keep them waving."
"Do you remember the steps, Dorothy?"
"They're very simple, but almost anything that moves sort of swimmingly will do."
"There's Number 3, then," decided Dorothy. "Now the boys ought to appear."
"Yes, what have you three been planning to throw us in the shade?" inquired Della.
"I've got a fancy club-swinging act that's rather good," admitted Roger modestly.
"You have?" asked Tom in surprise. "So have I. What's yours?"
"Come over here and I'll tell you," and the two boys retired to a corner where they conferred. It was evident, from their burst of laughter and their exclamations that they highly approved of each other's schemes.
"We've decided that we won't tell you what our act is," they declared when they came back to the broken meeting. "We'll surprise you as well as the rest of the audience."
"Meanies," pronounced Ethel Brown. "Helen, put down 'Number 4, Club Swinging by Two Geese!'"
"Not geese," corrected Tom, with a glance at Roger, who made a sign of caution.
"What next?" queried the president.
"Let's have some of the small children now. Our honorary member ought to be on the card," said Della.
"Are you sure he wouldn't be afraid?" asked Tom of Dicky's brethren.
"Not Dicky," they shrieked in concert.
"I saw a pretty stunt in town the other evening. It was done by grown people but it would be dear with little kids," urged Della, her round face beaming with the joy of her adaptation of the idea. "It was a new kind of shadow dance."
"Pshaw, that's old," declared Tom with brotherly curtness.
"It wasn't done behind a sheet. That's the old way—"
"A mighty good way, too," supported James stoutly. "I've seen some splendid pantomimes done on a sheet—'Red Riding Hood' and 'Jack the Giant Killer,' and a lot more."
"This is much cunninger," insisted Della. "Instead of a sheet there's a dull, light blue curtain hung across the stage. The light is behind it, but the actors are in front of it."
"Then you don't see their shadows."
"You see themselves in silhouette against the blue. There is a net curtain down between them and the audience and it looks like moonlight with elves and fairies playing in it."
"It would be hard to train Dicky to be a fairy," decided Ethel Blue so gravely that all the others laughed.
"I was thinking that it would be fun to have Dicky and some other children dressed like pussy cats and rabbits and dogs, and playing about as if they were frisking in the moonlight."
"Why not have them do a regular little play like 'Flossy Fisher's Funnies' that have been coming out in theLadies' Home Journal?" screamed Ethel Brown, electrified at the growth of the idea. "Take almost any one of them and get the children to play the little story it tells and I don't see why it wouldn't be too cunning for words."
"What kind of stories?" asked James who liked to understand.
"I don't remember any one exactly but they are something like this;—Mr. Dog goes fishing on the bank of the stream. A strip of pasteboard cut at the top into rushes will give the effect of a brook, you know. He pulls up a fish with a jerk that throwsit over his head. Pussy Cat is waiting just behind him. She seizes the fish and runs away with it. Mr. Dog runs after her. The cat jumps over a wheelbarrow, but the dog doesn't see it and gets a fall—and so on."
"I can see how it would be funny with little scraps of kids," pronounced Tom. "Who'll train them?"
"I'll do that," offered Ethel Brown. "Dicky's always good with me and if he understands the story he'll really help teach the others."
"Pick out a simple 'Flossy Fisher' or make up an easy story with plenty of action," advised Margaret. "The chief trouble you'll have is to make the children stay apart on the stage. They'll keep bunching up and spoiling the silhouettes if you aren't careful."
"Number 5. Silhouettes," wrote Helen on her pad. "What's Number 6?"
"I don't know whether you'll approve of this," offered Dorothy rather shyly, "but when I was at the Old Ladies' Home the other day I thought they made a real picture knitting away there in the sunshine in their sitting room. Do you think some of them could be induced to come to the schoolhouse and make a tableau?"
"Fine!" commended Helen.
"You could have it a picture of sentiment, such as Dorothy had in mind, I judge," said Tom, "or you could turn it into a comic by having some one sing 'Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers.'"
"What's that?"
"A stay-at-home war song they're singing in England. It's funny because it's so full of S's that it's almost impossible to sing it without a mistake. I think it would be better, though, to have the oldladies just knitting away. After all, it's sympathy with the orphans we want to arouse."
"Couldn't we have a tableau within a tableau—a picture at the back placed with the figures posed behind a net curtain so that they'd be dimmed—a picture of some of the Belgian orphans refugeeing into Holland or something of that sort?"
"If Mademoiselle would only send us right off that Belgian baby that James got kissed for we'd have an actual exhibit," said Roger.
James made a face at the memory of the unexpected caress he had earned unwittingly, but he approved highly of the addition to the picture of the old ladies.
"They're thinking about the orphans as they knit—and there are the orphans," he said, and even his sister Margaret smiled at the approbation with which he looked on a tableau that left nothing to the imagination.
"Number 6 is settled, then. Why can't we have the minuet for Number 7?"
"Good. All of us here know it so we shan't need to rehearse much."
"On that small stage four couples will be plenty, I say," offered Roger.
"I think so, too. Eight would make it altogether too crowded," declared Helen. "That means that four of us girls will dance—we can decide which ones later—and you three boys, and we'll only have to train one new boy."
"What's the matter with George Foster? His sister is a dancing teacher and perhaps he knows it already."
"He's the best choice we can make. We want toget this thing done just as fast as we can for several reasons," continued Helen. "In the first place any entertainment goes off more snappily if the fun of doing it isn't all worn off by too many rehearsals."
"Correct," agreed Tom. "Remember that Children's Symphony we exhausted ourselves on for a month last winter, Della?"
Della did and expressed her memories with closed eyes and out-stretched hands.
"If each one of us makes himself and herself responsible for having his own part perfect and the stunts that he's drilling others in as nearly perfect as he can, then I don't see why we need more than ten days for it."
"Especially as we know all the dances now and the Old Ladies' Home tableau won't take much preparation."
"Have we got enough numbers on the program, Helen?"
"I think we ought to end with a long thing of some sort."
"We'll never pull off the show if you try to stick in a play," growled James.
"Not a play, but I was reading Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin' the other day and it can easily be made workable with just a little speaking and some pantomime. Two or three rehearsals ought to do it."
"All right, then. Your sufferings be on your head."
"You'll all back me up, won't you?"
"We'll do whatever you tell us, if that's what you want."
"Read us the whole program, Madam President," begged Dorothy.
"Here you are; I've changed the order a little: