The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ethel Morton at Sweetbrier Lodge, by Mabell S. C. Smith

Title: Ethel Morton at Sweetbrier Lodge

Author: Mabell S. C. Smith

Release Date: February 23, 2011 [eBook #35364]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHEL MORTON AT SWEETBRIER LODGE***

E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I A New Craft 9

II Playing with Concrete 25

III The Club Selects the Benches 37

IV Christopher Finds a New Lodging 52

V The Law of Laughter 67

VI Spring All the Year Round 80

VII Closets and Stepmothers 94

VIII “Off to Philadelphia in the Morning” 104

IX Helen Distinguishes Herself 122

X The Land of “Cat-fish and Waffles” 136

XI Lights and a Fall 150

XII In the Family Hospital 162

XIII A Golden Color Scheme 173

XIV At the Metropolitan 184

XV Preparations for the Housewarming 203

XVI Columbus Day 219

XVII The Parting Breakfast 234

CHAPTER I
A NEW CRAFT

“Carefully! O, do be careful, Ethel Brown! I’m so afraid I’ll drop one of them!”

It was Ethel Blue Morton speaking to her cousin, who was helping her and their other cousin, Dorothy Smith, take Dicky Morton’s newly hatched chickens out of the incubator and put them into the brooder.

“I have dropped one,” exclaimed Dorothy. “Poor little dinky thing! It didn’t hurt it a bit, though. See, it’s running about as chipper as ever.”

“Are you counting ’em?” demanded Dicky, whose small hands were better suited than those of the girls for making the transfer that was to establish the chicks in their new habitation.

“Yes,” answered all three in chorus.

“Here’s one with a twisted leg. He must have fallen off the tray when he was first hatched.” cried Ethel Brown.

“He lookth pretty well. I gueth he’ll live if I feed him by himthelf tho the throng ones won’t crowd him away from the feed panth,” said Dicky, examining the cripple, for in spite of his small supply of seven years he had learned from his big brother Roger and from his grandfather Emerson a great deal about the use of an incubator and the care of young chickens.

“That’s a good hatch for this time of year,” Ethel Brown announced when she added together the numbers which each handler reported to her. “A hundred and thirty-seven.”

“Hear their little beaks tapping the wooden floor,” Ethel Blue said, calling their attention to the behavior of the just-installed little fowls who were making themselves entirely at home with extraordinary promptness.

“They take naturally to oatmeal flakes, don’t they?” commented Dorothy. “I always thought the old hen taught the chicks to scratch, and there’s a little chap scratching as vigorously as if he had been taking lessons ever since he was born.”

“They don’t need lessons. Scratching is as natural as eating to them. Hear them hum?”

They all listened, smiling at the note of contentment that buzzed gently from the greedy groups of crowding chicks. As the oatmeal disappeared the chickens looked about them for shelter and discovered the strips of cloth that did duty for the maternal wings. Rushing beneath them they cuddled side by side in the covered part of the brooder.

“Look at that one tucking his head under his wing like a grown-up hen!” exclaimed Ethel Blue.

“I’ll have to turn the lamp up a little higher tho they won’t crowd and hurt each other,” Dicky decided.

“I’d wait a minute until they begin to warm the whole of their house by the warmth from their bodies,” urged Ethel Brown, and her brother agreed that there was no need of haste, but he watched them closely until he saw that they were not trampling on each other’s backs or sitting down hard on each other’s heads.

“When will they come out again?” asked Dorothy, who had never seen an incubator and brooder in operation before and who was immensely interested.

“When they are hungry.”

“How soon will that be?”

“In about two hours. They’re a good deal like babies.”

“And is this brooder a really good step-mother?”

“It’s a