Ethel Morton's Enterprise
by
Mabell S.C. Smith
Part 4 out of 4
"We don't know at all if Hapgood's Emily is our Emily, even if they did
both marry Smiths," insisted Mr. Clark stoutly, his obstinacy reviving.
"I shall send a wire to Stanley at once asking for the dates of Emily's
birth and marriage. He must have them both by this time; why on earth
doesn't he send full information and not such a measly telegram as
this!" and the old gentleman put on his hat and took his cane and
stamped off in a rage to the Western Union office.
The sisters left behind gazed at each other forlornly.
"She certainly is an unprepossessing child," murmured Miss Maria, "but
don't you think, under the circumstances, that we ought to ask her to
pay us a visit?"
Miss Clark the elder contemplated her knitting for a noticeable interval
before she answered.
"I don't see any 'ought' about it," she replied at last, "but I think it
would be kind to do so."
Meanwhile Mr. Clark, stepping into the telegraph office, met Mr. Hapgood
coming out. That worthy looked somewhat startled at the encounter, but
pulled himself together and said cheerfully "Just been sending off a
wire about our matter."
When the operator read Mr. Clark's telegram a few minutes later he said
to himself wonderingly, "Emily Leonard sure is the popular lady!"
Mr. Clark was not at all pleased with his sister's proposal that they
invite Mary Smith to make them a visit.
"It will look to Hapgood as if we thought his story true," he objected,
when they suggested the plan the next morning. "I don't believe it is
true, even if our Emily did marry a Smith, according to Stanley."
"I don't believe it is, either," answered Miss Maria dreamily. "A great
many people marry Smiths."
"They have to; how are they to do anything else?" inquired the old
gentleman testily. "There is such a lot of them you can't escape them.
We're talking about your name, ladies," he continued as Dorothy and her
mother came in, and then he related the story of Hapgood's visit and the
possibility that Mary might prove to belong to them.
"Do you think he honestly believes that she's the missing heir?" Mrs.
Smith asked.
The ladies looked uncertain but there was no doubt in their brother's
mind.
"Not for a moment of time do I think he does," he shouted.
"But what would be his object? Why should he try to thrust the child
into a perfectly strange family?"
The elder Miss Clark ventured a guess.
"He may want to provide for her future if she's really an orphan, as he
says."
"I don't believe she is an orphan. Before her precious uncle drowned her
reply with one of his roars I distinctly heard her say that her father
was alive," retorted the exasperated Mr. Clark.
"The child would be truly fortunate to have all of you dear people to
look after her," Mrs. Smith smiled, "but if her welfare isn't his
reason, what is?"
"I believe it has something to do with that piece of land," conjectured
Mr. Clark. "He never said a word about it to-night. That's a bad sign.
He wants that land and he's made up his mind to have it and this has
something to do with it."
"How could it have?" inquired Mrs. Smith.
"This is all I can think of. Before we can sell that land or any of our
land we must have the consent of all the living heirs or else the title
isn't good, as you very well know. Now Emily Leonard and her descendants
are the only heirs missing. This man says that the child, Mary, is Emily
Leonard's grandchild and that Emily and her son, the child's father, are
dead. That would mean that if we wanted to sell that land we'd be
obliged to have the signatures of my sisters and my nephew, Stanley, and
myself, and also of the guardian of this child. Of course Hapgood will
say he's the child's guardian. Do you suppose, Mrs. Smith, that he's
going to sign any deed that gives you that land? Not much! He'll say
it's for the child's best interests that the land be not sold now,
because it contains valuable clay or whatever it is he thinks he has
found there. Then he'll offer to buy the land himself and he'll be
willing enough to sign the deed then."
"But _we_ might not be," interposed Miss Maria.
"I should say not," returned her brother emphatically, "but he'd
probably make a lot of trouble for us and be constantly appealing to us
on the ground that we ought to sell the land for the child's good--or he
might even say for Stanley's good or our good, the brazen, persistent
animal."
"Brother," remonstrated Miss Maria. "You forget that you may be speaking
of the uncle of our little cousin."
"Little cousin nothing!" retorted Mr. Clark fiercely. "It's all very
nice for the Mortons to find that that charming girl who takes care of
the Belgian baby is a relative. This is a very different proposition!
However, I suppose you girls--" meaning by this term the two ladies of
more than seventy--"won't be happy unless you have the youngster here,
so you might as well send for her, but you'd better have the length of
her visit distinctly understood."
"We might say a week," suggested Miss Eliza hesitatingly.
"Say a week, and say it emphatically," approved her brother, and trotted
off to his study, leaving the ladies to compose, with Mrs. Smith's help,
a note that would not be so cordial that Brother would forbid its being
sent, but that would nevertheless give a hint of their kindly feeling to
the forlorn child, so roughly cared for by her strange uncle.
Mary Smith went to them, and made a visit that could not be called a
success in any way. She was painfully conscious of the difference
between her clothes and the Ethels' and Dorothy's and Della's, though
why theirs seemed more desirable she could not tell, since her own were
far more elaborate. The other girls wore middy blouses constantly, even
the older girls, Helen and Margaret, while her dresses were of silk or
some other delicate material and adorned with many ruffles and much
lace.
She was conscious, too, of a difference between her manners and theirs,
and she could not understand why, in her heart, she liked theirs better,
since they were so gentle as to seem to have no spirit at all, according
to her views. She was always uncomfortable when she was with them and
her efforts to be at ease caused her shyness to go to the other extreme
and made her manners rough and impertinent.
Mrs. Smith found her crying one day when she came upon her suddenly in
the hammock on the Clarks' veranda.
"Can I help?" she asked softly, leaning over the small figure whose
every movement indicated protest.
"No, you can't," came back the fierce retort. "You're one of 'em. You
don't know."
"Don't know what?"
"How I feel. Nobody likes me. Miss Clark just told me to go out of her
room."
"Why were you in her room?"
"Why, shouldn't I go into her room? When I woke up this morning I made
up my mind I'd do my best to be nice all day long. They're so old I
don't know what to talk to 'em about, but I made up my mind I'd stick
around 'em even if I didn't know what to say. Right after breakfast they
always go upstairs--I think it's to be rid of me--and they don't come
down for an hour, and then they bring down their knitting and their
embroidery and they sit around all day long except when that Belgian
baby that lives at your house comes in--then they get up and try to play
with her."
Mrs. Smith smiled, remembering the efforts of the two old ladies to play
with "Ayleesabet." Mary noticed the smile.
"They do look fools, don't they?" she cried eagerly.
"I think they look very dear and sweet when they are playing with
Ayleesabet. I was not smiling _at_ them but because I sympathized with
their enjoyment of the baby."
"Well, I made up my mind they needn't think they had to stay upstairs
because I wasn't nice; I'd go upstairs and be nice. So I went upstairs
to Miss Maria's room and walked in."
"Walked right in? Without knocking?"
"I walked right in. She was sitting in front of that low table she has
with the looking glass and all the bottles and boxes on it. Her hair was
down her back--what there was of it--and she was doing up her switch."
Mrs. Smith was so aghast at this intrusion and at the injured tone in
which it was told that she had no farther inclination to smile.
"I said, 'I thought I'd come up and sit with you a while,' and she
said, 'Leave the room at once, Mary,' just like that. She was as mad as
she could be."
"Do you blame her?"
"Why should she be mad, when I went up there to be nice to her? She's an
old cat!"
"Dear child, come and sit on this settee with me and let's talk it
over."
Mrs. Smith put her arm over the shaking shoulders of the angry girl and
drew her toward her. After an instant's stiffening against it Mary
admitted to herself that it was pleasant; she didn't wonder Dorothy was
sweet if her mother did this often.
"Now we're comfortable," said Mrs. Smith. "Tell me, dear, aren't there
some thoughts in your mind that you don't like to tell to any one?
thoughts that seem to belong just to you yourself? Perhaps they're about
God; perhaps they're about people you love, perhaps they're about your
own feelings--but they seem too private and sacred for you to tell any
one. They're your own, ownest thoughts."
Mary nodded.
"Do you remember your mother?"
Mary nodded again.
"Sometimes when you recall how she took you in her arms and cuddled you
when you were hurt, and how you loved her and she loved you I know you
think thoughts that you couldn't express to any one else."
Mary gave a sniff that hinted of tears.
"Everybody has an inner life that is like a church. You know you
wouldn't think of running into a church and making a noise and
disturbing the worshippers. It's just so with people's minds; you can't
rush in and talk about certain things to any one--the things that he
considers too sacred to talk about."
"How are you going to tell?"
Mrs. Smith drew a long breath. How was she to make this poor, untutored
child understand.
"You have to tell by your feelings," she answered slowly. "Some people
are more reserved than others. I believe you are reserved."
"Me?" asked Mary wonderingly.
"It wouldn't surprise me if there were a great many things that you
might have talked about with your mother, if she had lived, but that you
find it hard to talk about with your uncle."
Mary nodded.
"He's fierce," she commented briefly.
"If he should begin to talk to you about some of the tender memories
that you have of your mother, for instance, it might be hard for you to
answer him. You'd be apt to think that he was coming into your own
private church."
"I see that," the girl answered; "but," returning to the beginning of
the conversation, "I didn't want to talk secrets with Miss Maria; I just
wanted to be nice."
"Just in the same way that people have thoughts of their very own that
you mustn't intrude on, so there are reserves in their habits that you
mustn't intrude on. Every one has a right to freedom from intrusion. I
insist on it for myself; my daughter never enters my bedroom without
knocking. I pay her the same respect; I always tap at her door and wait
for her answer before I enter."
"Would you be mad if she went into your room without knocking?"
"I should be sorry that she was so inconsiderate of my feelings. She
might, perhaps, interrupt me at my toilet. I should not like that."
"Is that what I did to Miss Maria?"
"Yes, dear, it was. You don't know Miss Maria well, and yet you opened
the door of her private room and went in without being invited."
"I'm sorry," she said briefly.
"I'm sure you are, now you understand why it wasn't kind."
"I wish she knew I meant to be nice."
"Would you like to have me tell her? I think she'll understand there are
some things you haven't learned for you haven't a mother to teach you."
"Uncle Dan says maybe I'll have to live with the old ladies all the
time, so they might as well know I wasn't trying to be mean," she
whispered resignedly.
"I'll tell Miss Maria, then, and perhaps you and she will be better
friends from now on because she'll know you want to please her. And now,
I came over to tell you that the U.S.C. is going into New York to-day to
see something of the Botanical Garden and the Arboretum. I'm going with
them and they'd be glad to have you go, too."
"They won't be very glad, but I'd like to go," responded the girl, her
face lighted with the nearest approach to affection Mrs. Smith ever had
seen upon it.
CHAPTER XV
FUR AND FOSSILS
When the Club gathered at the station to go into town Mary was arrayed
in a light blue satin dress as unsuitable for her age as it was for the
time of day and the way of traveling. The other girls were dressed in
blue or tan linen suits, neat and plain. Secretly Mary thought their
frocks were not to be named in the same breath with hers, but once when
she had said something about the simplicity of her dress to Ethel Blue,
Ethel had replied that Helen had learned from her dressmaking teacher
that dresses should be suited to the wearer's age and occupation, and
that she thought her linen blouses and skirts were entirely suitable for
a girl of fourteen who was a gardener when she wasn't in school.
This afternoon Dorothy had offered her a pongee dust coat when she
stopped at the Smiths' on her way to the cars.
"Aren't you afraid you'll get that pretty silk all cindery?" she asked.
Mary realized that Dorothy thought her not appropriately dressed for
traveling, but she tossed her head and said, "O, I like to wear
something good looking when I go into New York."
One of the purposes of the expedition was to see at the Museum of
Natural History some of the fossil leaves and plants about which the
Mortons had heard from Lieutenant and Captain Morton who had found
several of them themselves in the course of their travels.
At the Museum they gathered around the stones and examined them with the
greatest interest. There were some shells, apparently as perfect as when
they were turned into stone, and others represented only by the moulds
they had left when they crumbled away. There were ferns, the delicate
fronds showing the veining that strengthened the leaflets when they
danced in the breeze of some prehistoric morning.
"It's wonderful!" exclaimed the Ethels, and Mary asked, "What happened
to it?"
"I thought some one would ask that," replied Mrs. Smith, "so I brought
these verses by Mary Branch to read to you while we stood around one of
these ancient rocks."
THE PETRIFIED FERN
"In a valley, centuries ago
Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibers tender;
Waving when the wind crept down so low.
Rushes tall and moss and grass grew round it,
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
Drops of dew stole in by night and crowned it,
But no foot of man e'er trod that way;
Earth was young and keeping holiday.
"Monster fishes swam the silent main;
Stately forests waved their giant branches,
Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches
Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain;
Nature revelled in grand mysteries,
But the little fern was not of these,
Did not number with the hills and trees;
Only grew and waved its wild sweet way,
No one came to note it day by day.
"Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood,
Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty motion
Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean;
Moved the plain and shook the haughty wood
Crushed the little fern in soft, moist clay,--
Covered it and hid it safe away.
O, the long, long centuries since that day!
O, the changes! O, life's bitter cost,
Since that useless little fern was lost!
"Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man
Searching Nature's secrets, far and deep;
From a fissure in a rocky steep
He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran
Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,
Veinings, leafage, fibers clear and fine,
And the fern's life lay in every line!
So, I think, God hides some souls away,
Sweetly to surprise us, the last day."
From the Museum the party went to the Bronx where they first took a long
walk through the Zoo. How Mary wished that she did not have on a pale
blue silk dress and high heeled shoes as she dragged her tired feet over
the gravel paths and stood watching Gunda, the elephant, "weaving" back
and forth on his chain, and the tigers and leopards keeping up their
restless pacing up and down their cages, and the monkeys, chattering
hideously and snatching through the bars at any shining object worn by
their visitors! It was only because she stepped back nimbly that she did
not lose a locket that attracted the attention of an ugly imitation of a
human being.
The herds of large animals pleased them all.
"How kind it is of the keepers to give these creatures companions and
the same sort of place to live in that they are accustomed to,"
commented Ethel Brown.
"Did you know that this is one of the largest herds of buffalo in the
United States?" asked Tom, who, with Della, had joined them at the
Museum. "Father says that when he was young there used to be plenty of
buffalo on the western plains. The horse-car drivers used to wear coats
of buffalo skin and every new England farmer had a buffalo robe. It was
the cheapest fur in use. Then the railroads went over the plains and
there was such a destruction of the big beasts that they were
practically exterminated. They are carefully preserved now."
"The prairie dogs always amuse me," said Mrs. Smith. "Look at that
fellow! Every other one is eating his dinner as fast as he can but this
one is digging with his front paws and kicking the earth away with his
hind paws with amazing industry."
"He must be a convict at hard labor," guessed Roger.
"Or the Mayor of the Prairie Dog Town setting an example to his
constituents," laughed James.
The polar bear was suffering from the heat and nothing but the tip of
his nose and his eyes were to be seen above the water of his tank where
he floated luxuriously in company with two cakes of ice.
The wolves and the foxes had dens among rocks and the wild goats stood
daintily on pinnacles to see what was going on at a distance. No one
cared much for the reptiles, but the high flying cage for birds kept
them beside it for a long time.
Across the road they entered the grounds of the Arboretum and passed
along a narrow path beside a noisy brook under heavy trees, until they
came to a grove of tall hemlocks. With upturned heads they admired these
giants of the forest and then passed on to view other trees from many
climes and countries.
"Here's the Lumholtz pine that father wrote me about from Mexico," cried
Ethel Blue, whose father, Captain Morton, had been with General Funston
at Vera Cruz. "See, the needles hang down like a spray, just as he said.
You know the wood has a peculiar resonance and the Mexicans make musical
instruments of it."
"It's a graceful pine," approved Ethel Brown. "What a lot of pines there
are."
"We are so accustomed about here to white pines that the other kinds
seem strange, but in the South there are several kinds," contributed
Dorothy. "The needles of the long leaf pine are a foot long and much
coarser than these white pine needles. Don't you remember, I made some
baskets out of them?"
The Ethels did remember.
"Their green is yellower. The tree is full of resin and it makes the
finest kind of kindling."
"Is that what the negroes call 'light wood'?" asked Della.
"Yes, that's light wood. In the fields that haven't been cultivated for
a long time there spring up what they call in the South 'old field
pines' or 'loblolly pines.' They have coarse yellow green needles, too,
but they aren't as long as the others. There are three needles in the
bunch."
"Don't all the pines have three needles in the bunch?" asked Margaret.
"Look at this white pine," she said, pulling down a bunch off a tree
they were passing. "It has five; and the 'Table Mountain pine' has only
two."
"Observant little Dorothy!" exclaimed Roger.
"O, I know more than that," laughed Dorothy. "Look hard at this white
pine needle; do you see, it has three sides, two of them white and one
green? The loblolly needle has only two sides, though the under is so
curved that it looks like two; and the 'Table Mountain' has two sides."
"What's the use of remembering all that?" demanded Mary sullenly.
Dorothy, who had been dimpling amusedly as she delivered her lecture,
flushed deeply.
"I don't know," she admitted.
"We like to hear about it because we've been gardening all summer and
anything about trees or plants interests us," explained Tom politely,
though the way in which Mary spoke seemed like an attack on Dorothy.
"I've always found that everything I ever learned was useful at some
time or other," James maintained decidedly. "You never can tell when
this information that Dorothy has given us may be just what we need for
some purpose or other."
"It served Dorothy's purpose just now when she interested us for a few
minutes telling about the different kinds," insisted Ethel Blue, but
Mary walked on before them with a toss of her head that meant "It
doesn't interest me."
Dorothy looked at her mother, uncertain whether to take it as a joke or
to feel hurt. Mrs. Smith smiled and shook her head almost imperceptibly
and Dorothy understood that it was kindest to say nothing more.
They chatted on as they walked through the Botanical Gardens and
exclaimed over the wonders of the hothouses and examined the collections
of the Museum, but the edge had gone from the afternoon and they were
not sorry to find themselves on the train for Rosemont. Mary sat with
Mrs. Smith.
"I really was interested in what Dorothy told about the pines," she
whispered as the train rumbled on; "I was mad because I didn't know
anything that would interest them, too."
"I dare say you know a great many things that would interest them,"
replied Mrs. Smith. "Some day you must tell me about the most
interesting thing you ever saw in all your life and we'll see if it
won't interest them."
"That was in a coal mine," replied Mary promptly. "It was the footstep
of a man thousands and thousands of years old. It made you wonder what
men looked like and how they lived so long ago."
"You must tell us all about it, some time. It will make a good addition
to what we learned to-day about the fossils."
When the Mortons reached home they found Mr. Emerson waiting for them at
their house.
"I've a proposal to make to these children, with your permission,
Marion," he said to his daughter.
"Say on, sir," urged Roger.
"Mr. Clark is getting very nervous about this man Hapgood. The man is
beginning to act as if he, as the guardian of the child, had a real
claim on the Clark estate, and he becomes more and more irritating every
day. They haven't heard from Stanley for several days. He hasn't
answered either a letter or a telegram that his uncle sent him and the
old ladies are working themselves into a great state of anxiety over
him. I tell them that he has been moving about all the time and that
probably neither the letter nor the wire reached him, but Clark vows
that Hapgood has intercepted them and his sisters are sure the boy is
ill or has been murdered."
"Poor creatures," smiled Mrs. Morton sympathetically. "Is there anything
you can do about it?"
"I told Clark a few minutes ago that I'd go out to western Pennsylvania
and hunt up the boy and help him run down whatever clues he has. Clark
was delighted at the offer--said he didn't like to go himself and leave
his sisters with this man roaming around the place half the time."
"It was kind of you. I've no doubt Stanley is working it all out well,
but, boy-like, he doesn't realize that the people at home want to have
him report to them every day."
"My proposal is, Marion, that you lend me these children, Helen and the
Ethels and Roger, for a few days' trip."
"Wow, wow!" rose a shout of joy.
"Or, better still, that you come, too, and bring Dicky."
Mrs. Morton was not a sailor's wife for nothing.
"I'll do it," she said promptly. "When do you want us to start?"
"Can you be ready for an early morning train from New York?"
"We can!" was the instant reply of every person in the room.
CHAPTER XVI
FAIRYLAND
All day long the train pulled its length across across the state of
Pennsylvania, climbing mountains and bridging streams and piercing
tunnels. All day long Mr. Emerson's party was on the alert, dashing from
one side to the other of the car to see some beautiful vista or to look
down on a brook brawling a hundred feet below the trestle that supported
them or waving their hands to groups of children staring open-mouthed at
the passing train.
"Pennsylvania is a beautiful state," decided Ethel Brown as they
penetrated the splendid hills of the Allegheny range.
"Nature made it one of the most lovely states of the Union," returned
her grandfather. "Man has played havoc with it in spots. Some of the
villages among the coal mines are hideous from the waste that has been
thrown out for years upon a pile never taken away, always increasing. No
grass grows on it, no children play on it, the hens won't scratch on it.
The houses of the miners turn one face to this ugliness and it is only
because they turn toward the mountains on another side that the people
are preserved from the death of the spirit that comes to those who look
forever on the unlovely."
"Is there any early history about here?" asked Helen, whose interest
was unfailing in the story of her country.
"The French and Indian Wars were fought in part through this land,"
answered Mr. Emerson. "You remember the chief struggle for the continent
lay between the English and the French. There were many reasons why the
Indians sided with the French in Canada, and the result of the
friendship was that; the natives were supplied with arms by the
Europeans and the struggle was prolonged for about seventy-five years."
"Wasn't the attack on Deerfield during the French and Indian War?" asked
Ethel Blue.
"Yes, and there were many other such attacks."
"The French insisted that all the country west of the Alleghenies
belonged to them and they disputed the English possession at every
point. When Washington was only twenty-one years old he was sent to beg
the French not to interfere with the English, but he had a hard journey
with no fortunate results. It was on this journey that he picked out a
good position for a fort and started to build it. It was where Pittsburg
now stands."
"That was a good position for a fort, where the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers join to make the Ohio," commended Roger.
"It was such a good position that the French drove off the English
workmen and finished the work themselves. They called it Fort Duquesne
and it became one of a string of sixty French forts extending from
Quebec to New Orleans."
"Some builders!" commended Roger.
"Fort Duquesne was so valuable that the English sent one of their
generals, Braddock, to capture it. Washington went with him on his
staff, to show him the way."
"It must have been a long trip from the coast through all this hilly
country."
"It was. They had to build roads and they were many weeks on the way."
"It was a different matter from the twentieth century transportation of
soldiers by train and motor trucks and stages," reminded Mrs. Morton.
"When the British were very near Fort Duquesne," continued Mr. Emerson,
"the French sent out a small band, mainly Indians, to meet them. The
English general didn't understand Indian fighting and kept his men
massed in the road where they were shot down in great numbers and he
lost his own life. There's a town named after him, on the site of the
battle."
"Here it is," and Helen pointed it out on the map in the railway folder.
"It's about ten miles from Pittsburg."
"Washington took command after the death of Braddock, and this was his
first real military experience. However, his heart was in the taking of
Fort Duquesne and when General Forbes was sent out to make another
attempt at capturing it Washington commanded one of the regiments of
Virginia troops."
"Isn't there any poetry about it?" demanded Ethel Brown, who knew her
grandfather's habit of collecting historical ballads.
"Certainly there is. There are some verses on 'Fort Duquesne' by Florus
Plimpton written for the hundredth anniversary of the capture."
"Did they have a great old fight to take the fort?" asked Roger.
"No fight at all. Here's what Plimpton says:--
"So said: and each to sleep addressed his wearied limbs and mind,
And all was hushed i' the forest, save the sobbing of the wind,
And the tramp, tramp, tramp of the sentinel, who started oft in fright
At the shadows wrought 'mid the giant trees by the fitful camp-fire
light.
"Good Lord! what sudden glare is that that reddens all the sky,
As though hell's legions rode the air and tossed their torches high!
Up, men! the alarm drum beats to arms! and the solid ground seems riven
By the shock of warring thunderbolts in the lurid depth of heaven!
"O, there was clattering of steel and mustering in array,
And shouts and wild huzzas of men, impatient of delay,
As came the scouts swift-footed in--'They fly! the foe! they fly!
They've fired the powder magazine and blown it to the sky.'
"All the English had to do was to walk in, put out the fire, repair the
fort and re-name it."
"What did they call it?"
"After the great statesman--Fort Pitt."
"That's where 'Pittsburg' got its name, then! I never thought about its
being in honor of Pitt!" exclaimed Helen.
"It is 'Pitt's City,'" rejoined her grandfather. "And this street," he
added somewhat later when they were speeding in a motor bus to a hotel
near the park, "this street is Forbes Street, named after the British
general. Somewhere there is a Bouquet Street, to commemorate another
hero of the war."
"I saw 'Duquesne Way' marked on the map," announced Ethel Blue.
On the following morning they awakened to find themselves opposite a
large and beautiful park with a mass of handsome buildings rising
impressively at the entrance.
"It is Schenley Park and the buildings house the Carnegie Institute.
We'll go over them by and bye."
"It's a library," guessed Dicky, who was not too young to have the
steelmaker's name associated with libraries in his youthful mind.
"It is a library and a fine one. There's also a Music Hall and an art
museum and a natural history museum. You'll see more fossil ferns there,
and the skeleton of a diplodocus--"
"A dip-what?" demanded Roger.
"Diplodocus, with the accent on the _plod_; one of the hugest animals
that ever walked the earth. They found the bones of this monster almost
complete in Colorado and wired them together so you can get an idea of
what really 'big game' was like in the early geological days."
"How long is he?"
"If all the ten members of the U.S.C. were to take hold of hands and
stretch along his length there would be space for four or five more to
join the string."
"Where's my hat?" demanded Roger. "I want to go over and make that
fellow's acquaintance instanter."
"When you go, notice the wall paintings," said his mother. "They show
the manufacture and uses of steel and they are considered among the
finest things of their kind in America. Alexander, the artist, did them.
You've seen some of his work at the Metropolitan Museum in New York."
"Pittsburg has the good sense to have a city organist," Mr. Emerson
continued. "Every Sunday afternoon he plays on the great organ in the
auditorium and the audience drifts in from the park and drifts out to
walk farther, and in all several thousand people hear some good music in
the course of the afternoon."
"There seem to be some separate buildings behind the Institute."
"The Technical Schools, and beyond them is the Margaret Morrison School
where girls may learn crafts and domestic science and so on."
"It's too bad it isn't a clear day," sighed Ethel Blue, as she rose from
the table.
"This is a bright day, Miss," volunteered the waiter who handed her her
unnecessary sunshade.
"You call this clear?" Mrs. Morton asked him.
"Yes, madam, this is a bright day for Pittsburg."
When they set forth they shook their heads over the townsman's idea of a
clear day, for the sky was overcast and clouds of dense black smoke
rolled together from the two sides of the city and met over their heads.
"It's from the steel mills," Mr. Emerson explained as he advised Ethel
Brown to wipe off a smudge of soot that had settled on her cheek and
warned his daughter that if she wanted to preserve the whiteness of her
gloves she had better replace them by colored ones until she returned to
a cleaner place.
They were to take the afternoon train up the Monongahela River to the
town from which Stanley Clark had sent his wire telling his uncle that
"Emily Leonard married a man named Smith," but there were several hours
to devote to sightseeing before train time, and the party went over
Schenley Park with thoroughness, investigated several of the "inclines"
which carried passengers from the river level to the top of the heights
above, motored among the handsome residences and ended, on the way to
the station, with a flying visit to the old blockhouse which is all that
is left of Port Pitt.
"So this is really a blockhouse," Helen said slowly as she looked at the
little two story building with its heavy beams.
"There are the musket holes," Ethel Brown pointed out.
"This is really where soldiers fought before the Revolution!"
"It really is," her mother assured her. "It is in the care of one of
the historical societies now; that's why it is in such good condition."
Roger had secured the tickets and had telephoned to the hotel at
Brownsville for rooms so they took their places in the train with no
misgivings as to possible discomfort at night. Their excitement was
beginning to rise, however, for two reasons. In the first place they had
been quite as disturbed as Dorothy and her mother over the difficulties
attending the purchase of the field and the Fitz-James Woods, and the
later developments in connection with the man, Hapgood. Now that they
were approaching the place where they knew Stanley Clark was working out
the clue they began to feel the thrill that comes over explorers on the
eve of discovery.
The other reason for excitement lay in the fact that Mr. Emerson had
promised them some wonderful sights before they reached their
destination. He had not told them what they were, although he had
mentioned something about fairyland that had started an abundant flow of
questions from Dicky. Naturally they were all alert to find out what
novelty their eyes were to see.
"I saw one novelty this afternoon," said Roger. "When I stepped into
that little stationery shop to get a newspaper I noticed in the rear a
queer tin thing with what looked like cotton wool sticking against its
back wall. I asked the woman who sold the papers what it was."
"Trust Roger for not letting anything pass him," smiled Ethel Brown.
"That's why I'm such a cyclopedia of accurate information, ma'am,"
Roger retorted. "She said it was a stove."
"With cotton wool for fuel?" laughed Ethel Blue.
"It seems they use natural gas here for heating as well as cooking, and
the woolly stuff was asbestos. The gas is turned on at the foot of the
back wall and the asbestos becomes heated and gives off warmth but
doesn't burn."
"I stayed in Pittsburg once in a boarding house where the rooms were
heated with natural gas," said Mr. Emerson. "It made a sufficient heat,
but you had to be careful not to turn the burner low just before all the
methodical Pittsburgers cooked dinner, for if you made it too low the
flame might go out when the pressure was light."
"Did the opposite happen at night?"
"It did. In the short time I was there the newspapers noted several
cases of fires caused by people leaving their stoves turned up high at
night and the flames bursting into the room and setting fire to some
inflammable thing near at hand when the pressure grew strong after the
good Pittsburgers went to bed."
"It certainly is useful," commended Mrs. Morton. "A turn of the key and
that's all."
"No coal to be shovelled--think of it!" exclaimed Roger, who took care
of several furnaces in winter. "No ashes to be sifted and carried away!
The thought causes me to burst into song," and he chanted ridicuously:--
"Given a tight tin stove, asbestos fluff,
A match of wood, an iron key, and, puff,
Thou, Natural Gas, wilt warm the Arctic wastes,
And Arctic wastes are Paradise enough."
As the train drew out of the city the young people's expectations of
fairyland were not fulfilled.
"I don't see anything but dirt and horridness, Grandfather," complained
Ethel Brown.
Mr. Emerson looked out of the window thoughtfully for a moment.
"True," he answered, "it's not yet dark enough for the magic to work."
"No wonder everything is sooty and grimy with those chimneys all around
us throwing out tons and tons of soft coal smoke to settle over
everything. Don't they ever stop?"
"They're at it twenty-four hours a day," returned her grandfather. "But
night will take all the ugliness into its arms and hide it; the
sordidness and griminess will disappear and fairyland will come forth
for a playground. The ugly smoke will turn into a thing of beauty. The
queer point of it all is," he continued, shaking his head sadly,
"fairyland is there all the time and always beautiful, only you can't
see it."
Dicky's eyes opened wide and he gazed out of the window intent on
peering into this mysterious invisible playground.
"Lots of things are like that," agreed Roger. "Don't you remember how
those snowflakes we looked at under the magnifying glass on Ethel Blue's
birthday burst into magnificent crystals? You wouldn't think a handful
of earth--just plain dirt--was pretty, would you? But it is. Look at it
through a microscope and see what happens."
"But, Grandfather, if the beauty is there right now why can't we see
it?" insisted Ethel Brown.
Mr. Emerson stared out of the window for a moment.
"That was a pretty necklace of beads you strung for Ayleesabet."
"We all thought they were beauty beads."
"And that was a lovely string of pearls that Mrs. Schermerhorn wore at
the reception for which you girls decorated her house."
There could be no disagreement from that opinion.
"Since Ayleesabet is provided with such beauties we shan't have to fret
about getting her anything else when she goes to her coming-out party,
shall we?"
"What are you saying, Grandfather!" exclaimed Helen. "Of course
Ayleesabet's little string of beads can't be compared with a pearl
necklace!"
"There you are!" retorted Mr. Emerson; "Helen has explained it. This
fairyland we are going to see can't be compared with the glory of the
sun any more than Ayleesabet's beads can be compared with Mrs.
Schermerhorn's pearls. We don't even see the fairyland when the sun is
shining but when the sun has set the other beauties become clear."
"O-o-o!" shouted Dicky, whose nose had been glued to the window in an
effort to prove his grandfather's statement; "look at that funny
umbrella!"
Everybody jumped to one window or another, and they saw in the gathering
darkness a sudden blast of flame and white hot particles shooting into
the air and spreading out like an umbrella of vast size.
"Look at it!" exclaimed the two Ethels, in a breath; "isn't that
beautiful! What makes it?"
"The grimy steel mills of the daytime make the fairyland of night,"
announced Mr. Emerson.
Across the river they noticed suddenly that the smoke pouring from a
chimney had turned blood red with tongues of vivid flame shooting
through it like pulsing veins. There was no longer any black smoke. It
had changed to heavy masses of living fire of shifting shades. Great
ingots of steel sent the observers a white hot greeting or glowed more
coolly as the train shot by them. Huge piles of smoking slag that had
gleamed dully behind the mills now were veined with vivid red, looking
like miniature volcanoes streaked with lava.
It was sometimes too beautiful for words to describe it suitably, and
sometimes too terrible for an exclamation to do it justice. It created
an excitement that was wearying, and when the train pulled into
Brownsville it was a tired party that found its way to the hotel.
As the children went off to bed Mr. Emerson called out "To-morrow all
will be grime and dirt again; fairyland has gone."
"Never mind, Grandfather," cried Ethel Brown, "we won't forget that it
is there just the same if only we could see it."
"And we'll think a little about the splendiferousness of the sun, too,"
called Helen from the elevator. "I never thought much about it before."
CHAPTER XVII
THE MISSING HEIRESS
Mr. Emerson's investigations proved that Stanley Clark had left
Brownsville several days previously and had gone to Millsboro, farther
up the Monongahela.
He had left that as his forwarding address, the hotel clerk said. This
information necessitated a new move at once, so the next morning, bright
and early, Mr. Emerson led his party to the river where they boarded a
little steamer scarcely larger than a motor boat.
They were soon puffing away at a fair rate of speed against the sluggish
current. The factories and huge steel plants had disappeared and the
banks looked green and country-like as mile after mile slipped by.
Suddenly Roger, who was sitting by the steersman's wheel, exclaimed,
"Why, look! there's a waterfall in front of us."
So, indeed, there was, a wide fall stretching from shore to shore, but
Roger, eyeing it suspiciously, added in an aggrieved tone, "But it's a
dam. Must be a dam. Look how straight it is."
"How on earth," called Ethel Blue, "are we going to get over it?"
"Jump up it the way Grandpa told me the salmon fishes do," volunteered
Dicky.
Everybody laughed, but Mr. Emerson declared that was just about what
they were going to do. The boat headed in for one end of the dam and her
passengers soon found themselves floating in a granite room, with huge
wooden doors closed behind them. The water began to boil around them,
and as it poured into the lock from unseen channels the boat rose
slowly. In a little while the Ethels cried that they could see over the
tops of the walls, and in a few minutes more another pair of big gates
opened in front of them and they glided into another chamber and out
into the river again, this time above the "falls."
"I feel as if I had been through the Panama Canal," declared Ethel Blue.
"That's just the way its huge locks work," said Mrs. Morton. "The next
time your Uncle Roger has a furlough I hope it will be long enough for
us to go down there and see it."
"I wonder," asked Roger, "if there are many more dams like this on the
Monongahela."
"There's one about every ten miles," volunteered the steersman. "Until
the government put them in only small boats could go up the river. Now
good sized ones can go all the way to Wheeling, West Virginia. If you
want to, you can go by boat all the way from Wheeling to the Gulf of
Mexico."
"The Gulf of Mexico," echoed the two Ethels. Then they added, also
together, "So you can!" and Ethel Brown said, "The Indians used to go
from the upper end of Lake Chautauqua to the Gulf in their canoes? When
they got to Fort Duquesne it was easy paddling."
"What is that high wharf with a building on it overhanging the river?"
asked Helen.
"That's a coal tipple," said her grandfather. "Do you see on shore some
low-lying houses and sheds? They are the various machinery plants and
offices of the coal mine and that double row of small houses a quarter
of a mile farther up is where the employes live."
As the boat continued up the river it passed many such tipples. They
were now in the soft coal country, the steersman said, and in due time
they arrived at Millsboro, a little town about ten miles above
Brownsville.
Here Mr. Emerson made immediate inquiries about Stanley Clark, and found
that he had gone on, leaving "Uniontown, Fayette County," as his
forwarding address. "That's the county seat where Hapgood says he copied
his records," said Mr. Emerson. "I hope we shall catch young Clark there
and get that matter straightened out."
As there was no train to Uniontown until the afternoon, Mr. Emerson
engaged a motor car to take them to a large mine whose tipple they had
passed on the way up. The Superintendent was a friend of the driver of
the car and he willingly agreed to show them through. Before entering
the mine he pointed out to them samples of coal which he had collected.
Some had fern leaves plainly visible upon their surfaces and others
showed leaves of trees and shrubs.
"Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,
Veinings, leafage, fibers clear and fine,"
quoted Ethel Blue softly, as she looked at them.
Mrs. Morton stopped before a huge block of coal weighing several tons
and said to her son, "Here's a lump for your furnace, Roger."
"Phew," said Roger. "Think of a furnace large enough to fit that lump!
Do you get many of them?" he asked of the Superintendent.
"We keep that," said the Superintendent, "because it's the largest
single lump of coal ever brought out of this mine. Of course, we could
get them if we tried to, but it's easier to handle it in smaller
pieces."
"What'th in that little houthe over there?" asked Dicky. "Theems to me I
thee something whithing round."
"That's the fan that blows fresh air into the mine so that the miners
can breathe, and drives out the poisonous and dangerous gases."
"What would happen if the fan stopped running?" asked Ethel Brown.
"Many things might happen," said the Superintendent gravely. "Men might
suffocate for lack of air, or an explosion might follow from the
collection of the dreaded 'fire damp' ignited by some miner's lamp."
"Fire damp?" repeated Mrs. Morton. "That is really natural gas, isn't
it?"
"Yes, they're both 'marsh gas' caused by the decay of the huge ferns and
plants of the carboniferous age. Some of them hardened into coal and
others rotted when they were buried, and the gas was caught in huge
pockets. It is gas from these great pockets that people use for heating
and cooking all about here and even up into Canada."
Ethel Brown had been listening and the words "some of them hardened into
coal" caught her ear. She went close to her grandfather's side.
"Tell me," she said, "exactly what is coal and how did it get here?"
"What _I_ want to know," retorted Mr. Emerson, "is what brand of
curiosity you have in your cranium, and how did it get there? Answer me
that."
Ethel Brown laughed.
"Let's have a lecture," she urged, "and," handing her grandfather a
small lump of coal, "here's your text."
Mr. Emerson turned the bit of coal over and over.
"When I look at this little piece of black stone," he said, "I seem to
see dense forests filled with luxuriant foliage and shrubbery and
mammoth trees under which move sluggish streams draining the swampy
ground. The air is damp and heavy and warm."
"What about the animals?"
"There are few animals. Most of them are water creatures, though there
are a few that can live on land and in the water, too, and in the latter
part of the coal-making period enormous reptiles crawled over the wet
floor of the forest. Life is easy in all this leafy splendor and so is
death, but no eye of man is there to look upon it, no birds brighten the
dense green of the trees, and the ferns and shrubs have no flowers as
we know them. The air is heavy with carbon."
"Where was the coal?"
"The coal wasn't made yet. You know how the soil of the West Woods at
home is deep with decayed leaves? Just imagine what soil would be if it
were made by the decay of these huge trees and ferns! It became yards
and yards deep and silt and water pressed it down and crushed from it
almost all the elements except the carbon, and it was transformed into a
mineral, and that mineral is coal."
"Coal? Our coal?"
"Our coal. See the point of a fern leaf on this bit?" and he held out
the piece of coal he had been holding. "That fern grew millions of years
ago."
"Isn't it delicate and pretty!" exclaimed Ethel Blue, as it reached her
in passing from hand to hand, "and also not as clean as it once was!"
she added ruefully, looking at her fingers.
By way of preparation for their descent into the mine each member of the
party was given a cap on which was fastened a small open wick oil lamp.
They did not light them, however, until they had all been carried a
hundred feet down into the earth in a huge elevator. Here they needed
the illumination of the tiny lamps whose flicker made dancing shadows on
the walls.
Following the Superintendent their first visit was to the stable.
"What is a stable doing down here?" wondered Ethel Brown.
"Mules pull the small cars into which the miners toss the coal as they
cut it out. These fellows probably will never see the light of day
again," and their leader stroked the nose of the animal nearest him
which seemed startled at his touch.
"He's almost blind, you see," the Superintendent explained. "His eyes
have adjusted themselves to the darkness and even these feeble lights
dazzle him."
The girls felt the tears very near their eyelids as they thought of the
fate of these poor beasts, doomed never to see the sun again or to feel
the grass under their feet.
"I once knew a mule who was so fond of music that he used to poke his
head into the window near which his master's daughter was playing on the
piano," said the Superintendent, who noticed their agitation and wanted
to amuse them. "We might get up band concerts for these fellows."
"Poor old things, I believe they would like it!" exclaimed Helen.
"This is a regular underground village," commented Mrs. Morton, as they
walked for a long distance through narrow passages until they found
themselves at the heading of a drift where the men were working.
"Is there any gas here?" asked the Superintendent, and when the miners
said "Yes," he lifted his hand light, which was encased in wire gauze,
and thrust it upwards toward the roof and gave a grunt as it flickered
near the top.
There it was, the dreaded fire-damp, in a layer above their heads. One
touch of an open flame and there would be a terrible explosion, yet the
miners were working undisturbed just beneath it with unprotected lamps
on their caps. The visitors felt suddenly like recruits under fire--they
were far from enjoying the situation but they did not want to seem
alarmed. No one made any protest, but neither did any one protest when
the Superintendent led the way to a section of the mine where there was
no gas that they might see a sight which he assured them was without
doubt wonderful.
They were glad that they had been assured that there was no fire-damp
here, for their leader lifted his lamp close to the roof. Ethel Blue
made the beginning of an exclamation as she saw his arm rising, but she
smothered her cry for her good sense told her that this experienced man
would not endanger the lives of himself or his guests. The coal had been
taken out very cleanly, and above them they saw not coal but shale.
"What is shale?" inquired Helen.
"Hardened clay," replied the Superintendent. "There were no men until
long after the carboniferous period when coal was formed, but just in
this spot it must have happened that the soil that had gathered above
the deposits of coal was very light for some reason or other. Above the
coal there was only a thin layer of soft clay. One day a hunter tramped
this way and left his autograph behind."
He held his lamp steadily upward, and there in the roof were the
unmistakable prints of the soles of a man's feet, walking.
"It surely does look mightily as if your explanation was correct,"
exclaimed Mr. Emerson, as he gazed at the three prints, in line and
spaced as a walker's would be. Their guide said that there had been six,
but the other three had fallen after being exposed to the air.
"I wish it hadn't been such a muddy day," sighed Ethel Blue. "The mud
squeezed around so that his toe marks were filled right up."
"It certainly was a muddy day," agreed Roger, "but I'm glad it was. If
he had been walking on rocks we never should have known that he had
passed this way a million or so years ago."
They were all so filled with interest that they were almost unwilling to
go on in the afternoon, although Mr. Emerson promised them other sights
around Uniontown, quite different from any they had seen yet.
It was late in the afternoon when they ferried across the river in a
boat running on a chain, and took the train for the seat of Fayette
County. As the daylight waned they found themselves travelling through a
country lighted by a glare that seemed to spread through the atmosphere
and to be reflected back from the clouds and sky.
"What is it?" Dicky almost whimpered, as he snuggled closer to his
mother.
"Ask Grandfather," returned Mrs. Morton.
"It's the glare from the coke ovens," answered Mr. Emerson. "Do you see
those long rows of bee-hives? Those are ovens in which soft coal is
being burned so that a certain ingredient called bitumen may be driven
off from it. What is left after that is done is a substance that looks
somewhat like a dry, sponge if that were gray and hard. It burns with a
very hot flame and is invaluable in the smelting of iron and the making
of steel."
"That's why they make so much here," guessed Ethel Brown, who had been
counting the ovens and was well up in the hundreds with plenty more in
sight. "Here is where they make most of the iron and steel in the United
States and they have to have coke for it."
"And you notice how conveniently the coal beds lie to the iron mines?
Nature followed an efficiency program, didn't she?" laughed Roger.
"They turn out about twenty million tons of coke a year just around
here," Helen read from her guidebook, "and it is one of the two greatest
coke burning regions of the world!"
"Where's the other?"
"In the neighborhood of Durham, England."
"It is a wonderful sight!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "I never knew fire
could be so wonderful and so different!"
Mr. Emerson's search for Stanley Clark seemed to be a stern chase and
consequently a long one. Here again the hotel clerk told him that Mr.
Clark had gone on, this time to Washington, the seat of Washington
County. He was fairly sure that he was still there because he had
received a letter from him just the day before asking that something he
had left behind should be sent him to that point, which was done.
As soon as the Record Office was open in the morning Mr. Emerson and
Roger went there.
"We might as well check up on Hapgood's investigations," said Mr.
Emerson. "They may be all right, and he may be honestly mistaken in
thinking that his Emily is the Clarks' Emily; or he may have faked some
of his records. It won't take us long to find out. Mr. Clark let me take
his copy of Hapgood's papers."
It was not a long matter to prove that Hapgood's copy of the records was
correct. Emily Leonard had married Edward Smith; their son, Jabez, had
married a Hapgood and Mary was their child. Where Hapgood's copy had
been deficient was in his failing to record that this Emily Leonard was
the daughter of George and Sabina Leonard, whereas the Clarks' Emily was
the daughter of Peter and Judith Leonard.
"There's Hapgood's whole story knocked silly," remarked Mr. Emerson
complacently.
"But it leaves us just where we were about the person the Clarks' Emily
married."
"Stanley wouldn't have telegraphed that she married a Smith if he hadn't
been sure. He sent that wire from Millsboro, you know. He must have
found something in that vicinity."
"I'm going to try to get him on the telephone to-night, and then we can
join him in Washington tomorrow if he'll condescend to stay in one spot
for a few hours and not keep us chasing over the country after him."
"That's Jabez Smith over there now," the clerk, who had been interested
in their search, informed them.
"Jabez Smith!" repeated Roger, his jaw dropped.
"Jabez Smith!" repeated Mr. Emerson. "Why, he's dead!"
"Jabez Smith? The Hapgood woman's husband? Father of Mary Smith? He
isn't dead. He's alive and drunk almost every day."
He indicated a man leaning against the wall of the corridor and Mr.
Emerson and Roger approached him.
"Don't you know the Miss Clarks said they thought that Mary said her
father was alive but her uncle interrupted her loudly and said she was
'an orphan, poor kid'?" Roger reminded his grandfather.
"She's half an orphan; her mother really is dead, the clerk says."
Jabez Smith acknowledged his identity and received news of his
brother-in-law and his daughter with no signs of pleasure.
"What scheming is Hapgood up to now?" he muttered crossly.
"Do you remember what your grandfather and grandmother Leonards' names
were," asked Mr. Emerson.
The man looked at him dully, as if he wondered what trick there might be
in the inquiry, but evidently he came to the conclusion that his new
acquaintance was testing his memory, so he pulled himself together and
after some mental searching answered, "George Leonard; Sabina Leonard."
His hearers were satisfied, and left him still supporting the Court
House wall with his person instead of his taxes.
Stanley, the long pursued, was caught on the wire, and hailed their
coming with delight. He said that he thought he had all the information
he needed and that he had been planning to go home the next day, so they
were just in time.
"That's delightful; he can go with us," exclaimed Ethel Brown, and Helen
and Roger looked especially pleased.
The few hours that passed before they met in Washington were filled with
guesses as to whether Stanley had built up the family tree of his cousin
Emily so firmly that it could not be shaken.
"We proved this morning that Hapgood's story was a mixture of truth and
lies," Mr. Emerson said, "but we haven't anything to replace it. Our
evidence is all negative."
"Stanley seems sure," Roger reminded him.
When Stanley met them at the station in Washington he seemed both sure
and happy. He shook hands with them all.
"It is perfectly great to have you people here," he said to Helen.
"Have you caught Emily?" she replied, dimpling with excitement.
"I have Emily traced backwards and forwards. Let's go into the writing
room of the hotel and you shall see right off how she stands."
They gathered around the large table and listened to the account of the
young lawyer's adventures. He had had a lead that took him to Millsboro
soon after he reached western Pennsylvania, but he missed the trail
there and spent some time in hunting in surrounding towns before he came
on the record in the Uniontown courthouse.
"I certainly thought I had caught her then," he confessed. "I thought so
until I compared the ages of the two Emilies. I found that our Emily
would have been only ten years old at the time the Uniontown Emily
married Edward Smith."
"Mr. Clark wired you to find out just that point."
"Did he? I never received the despatch. Hadn't I told him the date of
our Emily's birth?
"He has a crow to pick with you over that."
"Too bad. Well, I moseyed around some more, and the trail led me back to
Millsboro again, where I ought to have found the solution in the first
place if I had been more persevering. I came across an old woman in
Millsboro who had been Emily Leonard's bridesmaid when she married
Julian Smith. That sent me off to the county seat and there I found it
all set down in black and white;--Emily Leonard, adopted daughter of Asa
Wentworth and daughter of Peter and Judith (Clark) Leonard. There was
everything I wanted."
"You knew she had been adopted by a Wentworth?"
"I found that out before I left Nebraska."
"What was the date of the marriage?"
"1868. She was eighteen. Two years later her only child, a son, Leonard,
was born, and she died--"
"Her son Leonard! Leonard Smith!" exclaimed Mrs. Morton suddenly. "Do
you suppose--" she hesitated, looking at her father.
He raised his eyebrows doubtfully, then turning to Stanley he inquired:
"You didn't find out what became of this Leonard Smith, did you?"
"I didn't find any record of his marriage, but I met several men who
used to know him. They said he became quite a distinguished musician,
and that he married a Philadelphia woman."
"Did they know her name?" asked Mrs. Morton, leaning forward eagerly.
"One of them said he thought it was Martin. Smith never came back here
to live after he set forth to make his fortune, so they were a little
hazy about his marriage and they didn't know whether he was still
alive."
"The name wasn't Morton, was it?"
The girls looked curiously at their mother, for she was crimson with
excitement. Stanley could take them no farther, however.
"Father," Mrs. Morton said to Mr. Emerson, as the young people chattered
over Stanley's discoveries, "I think I'd better send a telegram to
Louise and ask her what her husband's parents' names were. Wouldn't it
be too strange if he should be the son of the lost Emily?"
Mr. Emerson hurried to the telegraph office and sent an immediate wire
to "Mrs. Leonard Smith, Rosemont, N.J. Wire names of your husband's
parents," it read.
The answer came back before morning;--"Julian and Emily Leonard Smith."
"Now why in the wide world didn't she remember that when we've done
nothing but talk about Emily Leonard for weeks!" cried Mrs. Smith's
sister-in-law impatiently.
"I dare say she never gave them a thought; Leonard Smith's mother died
when he was born, Stanley says. How about the father, Stanley?"
"Julian Smith? He died years ago. I saw his death record this morning."
"Then I don't see but you've traced the missing heir right to your own
next door neighbor, Stanley."
"It looks to me as if that was just what had happened," laughed the
young lawyer. "Isn't that jolly! It's Dorothy whose guardian's signature
is lacking to make the deed of the field valid when we sell it to her
mother!"
"It's Dorothy who is a part owner of Fitz-James's woods already!" cried
the Ethels.
Another telegram went to Rosemont at once. This one was addressed to
"Miss Dorothy Smith." It said, "Stanley welcomes you into family.
Congratulations from all on your good fortune," and it was signed "The
Travellers."
THE END
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