CHAPTER IV

CHRISTOPHER FINDS A NEW LODGING

There was trouble in chicken circles. The young chicks that the Ethels and Dorothy had helped Dicky move from the incubator to the brooder were making rapid progress toward broiler size, and had been transferred to a run of their own where they scratched and dozed happily through the long spring days. Dicky and Ayleesabet, the Belgian baby, were examining them on a late June afternoon. Dicky had brought with him his old friend, the turtle, which had not yet been moved to Dorothy's pool, since his present owner wanted to wait until his aunt's house was occupied before he let so cherished a possession go where he might slip away and his loss, perhaps, be unnoticed.

"When you're living right there tho you can watch Chrithtopher Columbuth all the time I'll let you have him," Dicky had promised Dorothy.

"I see myself in my mind's eye sitting side of the tank all day and night holding the turtle's paw!" Dorothy exclaimed when she told the Ethels of Dicky's decision.

Perhaps because he felt that he was soon to be parted from his old comrade Dicky's affection for Christopher seemed to increase and he developed a habit of carrying him about, sometimes in his hand and sometimes in a little basket which Dorothy had made for Christopher's Christmas gift. To-day he had brought him to the chicken yard in his hand and had laid him down on the ground while he examined his flock and called Ayleesabet's attention to the beauties of this or the other miniature hen.

Elisabeth's words were few, but she managed to make her wants and opinions known with surprising ease, and she never had the least trouble about expressing her emotions. Her little playmate had learned this and therefore when he heard loud howls behind his back he knew that it was not anger that was disturbing the usually placid baby, but terror. Shriek after shriek arose although it seemed to him that he turned about almost instantly.

He was not in time, however, to prevent her from being thrown down in some mysterious way, or to see the cause of the commotion among the chickens. They fluttered and squawked and ran to and fro, tumbling over each other and running with perfect indifference over the baby as she lay yelling on the ground. Her blue romper legs came up every now and then out of the mass of chicken feathers, and their kicking only added to the disturbance and confusion of the chicks.

The hubbub did not go unnoticed. Roger ran from his vegetable garden to see what was the matter; Helen appeared from her garden of wild flowers; Miss Merriam, the baby's caretaker, ran from the porch where she was talking with the Ethels who were waiting for the out-of-town members of the U. S. C. to arrive. At the moment when all these people were rushing to the rescue, Margaret and James Hancock, just off the Glen Point street car, hurried from the corner, and Della and Tom Watkins, arrived by the latest train from New York, burst open the gate in their excitement.

To meet all these inquiries came Dicky, tugging after him by the leg, the baby, howling pitifully by this time as she was dragged over the grass. Miss Merriam seized her and hugged her tight.

"What's the matter with the little darling precious?" she crooned.

Ayleesabet gathered herself together courageously and her sobbing died away.

"What was it all about?" Miss Merriam inquired of Dicky.

"I don't know," replied Dicky, his own lip trembling as he tried to understand the rapid, thrilling experience.

"Tell Gertrude what happened," Miss Merriam urged the baby, wiping away her tears and setting her down on her feet on the grass just as Christopher Columbus bumped his way over the sod to join them.

Ayleesabet's conversational powers were not equal to the explanation, but her little hands could tell a great deal, and her caretaker was skilled in interpreting them. She pointed to the turtle and called him by the nickname that Dicky had given him, "Chriththy"; then she spread out her fat little fingers and waved a forward motion with her hand.

"Chrissy stuck out his head and legs and walked ahead," interpreted Miss Merriam. "Where was he, Dicky?"

"In the chicken yard."

Elisabeth was kneeling beside the turtle now, tapping his shell with a chubby forefinger; after which she rolled over on her back and screamed.

Miss Merriam shook her head at this demonstration, but Dicky translated it out of his previous experience.

"The chickenth hit hith thhell with their beakth, and, when he moved they were frightened and knocked her over," he guessed.

"That's just what happened, I believe," said Roger, setting Elisabeth on her feet once more. "I've seen the chickens run like anything from Christopher, and probably they ran between the baby's legs and upset her and then scampered all over her. I don't wonder she was scared."

Christopher gave no testimony in the case. He may have been overcome by the confusion; at any rate he withdrew into his shell and preserved a studied calm from which he could not be roused.

"I think you can have him," said Dicky suddenly to Dorothy, who had come through the fence at the corner where her yard joined her cousins'. "He botherth me."

"Very well," said Dorothy. "Let's take him over to Sweetbrier Lodge this afternoon. We're all going over there anyway--bring him along, Dicky."

So the procession set forth, Dicky and his shell-covered friend at the fore, escorted by all the rest of the United Service Club, while Miss Merriam and her charge, whose walking ability had not yet developed much speed, brought up the rear.

As they all toiled up the hill to Sweetbrier Lodge Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Morton came out on the veranda of the new house to watch them.

"Has anything happened?" called Mrs. Smith as soon as they were within earshot.

"We're just bringing Christopher over to his new home," Dorothy explained to her mother.

"'The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land,'"

quoted Mrs. Morton. "I used to think that that meant a turtle like Dicky's and not a turtle-dove," and the two mothers laughed and disappeared within the house while the younger people kept on to the garden and the concrete pool.

When they reached there Dicky gazed at the pool in dismay.

"There ithn't any water in it," he objected, shaking his head doubtfully.

"We can reach it with the hose and fill it up in no time," his cousin explained.

"It'll run out of the hole," pointing to the hole made by the broomstick when the concrete was soft.

"We'll put a plug in the hole."

"He hasn't any log to sit on."

"Roger will find him a stick."

"I don't want to leave him here all alone," screamed Dicky, overcome by a renewal of his former misgivings. Casting himself on the ground he hugged his treasure to his breast and waved his legs in the air.

"You can take him back again if you want to," Ethel Brown reminded him, "but you know he's always getting into trouble with the chickens now. He seems to run away every day."

As the memory of the latest encounter between Christopher and the chicks with Elisabeth's overthrow, flashed before him, Dicky howled again. There seemed to be no haven on earth for his favorite.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," suggested Dorothy soothingly. "Let's go down to the house. The laundry is finished, and we can put him in one of the tubs there until this pool is fixed to suit you."

"It'th dark in the laundry," objected Dicky again.

"Not in this laundry. You see," explained Dorothy, sitting down beside the sufferer and patting him gently, "the house is built on the side of a hill, so the laundry has full sized windows and is bright and cheerful though it's on a level with the cellar. I think Christopher will like it."

Dicky stood up, his face smeared with tears, but a new interest gleaming in his reddened eyes.

"Come on," urged Ethel Blue, tactfully; "let's all go and see if we can't make him comfortable."

"I'll pick up a piece of log for him as we go along," promised Roger, and he and Tom and James went off towards the woods to look for just the right thing.

"What a perfectly dandy cellar. Why, it's as bright as the upper part of the house!" exclaimed Margaret as the procession invaded the lower regions of the Lodge.

"Isn't it fine!" agreed Dorothy. "The workmen have cleared it all up, and, if this part were all, it might be lived in right off."

"The whitewashed walls make it look bright."

"And the large windows! I never saw such windows in a cellar."

"Mother says I may put little cheesecloth curtains in them."

"Curtains will look sweet the day after you take in the winter supply of coal," grinned Roger, who appeared with the other boys, carrying Christopher's bit of log.

"They won't look dirty, if that's what you mean by 'sweet,'" Dorothy retorted. "Look--" and she opened the door of a coal bin--"the coal is put in through a concrete chute that leads directly into the bin and the bin is entirely shut off from the cellar. No dust floats out of that, young man."

"How do you get the coal out?"

"Here's a little door that slides up and catches. You notice that the floor of the bin isn't level with the cellar floor; it's raised to make it a comfortable height for shoveling. Under it is the place for the logs for the open fires. There are two bins, one for furnace coal and the other for the coal for the stoves, and the kindling wood goes in this third one. They are all together and large enough but not too large, and the furnace coal is near the boiler and the small coal is near the laundry and the wood is close to the dumb waiter that will take that and the clean clothes upstairs."

"All as compact as a cut-out puzzle," approved Roger. "I take off my hat to this arrangement."

"Thank you," courtesied Dorothy. "Mother and I worked that out together, and we're rather pleased with it ourselves."

"What do you do with the ashes?" asked Roger, who took care of several furnaces in the winter time, and therefore made his examination as a specialist.

"Put them down that chute with a swinging door and into a covered can. It will be hard for the ashes to fly there."

"This is the concrete floor we superintended," said Helen, looking at it closely.

"All smooth and well drained with rounded edges. It's going to be as clean as a whistle down here. See the metal ceiling? That's for fire prevention, and so is the sprinkler system and there's a metal covered door at the head of the cellar stairs."

"There seems to be a lot of machinery for a small house," observed James as he carried his examination around the space.

"Mother said she couldn't afford luxuries but she could afford comforts and these are some of the comforts," smiled Dorothy.

"Not very pretty comforts," remarked Ethel Blue dryly.

"'Handsome is as handsome does,'" quoted her cousin. "When these things get to working you won't care whether they're beautiful to look at or not."

"What's the heating system--steam or hot water?" asked Tom, standing before the boiler.

"Hot water. They say it's more convenient for a small house because you don't have to keep up such a big fire all the time."

"That's so; in steam heating there has to be fire enough to make steam, anyway, doesn't there?"

"And when the steam in the pipes cools it turns to water and dribbles away, but in the hot water system there will be some heat in the outside of your radiator as long as the water inside has any warmth at all."

"How does the expense compare?" inquired James who was always interested in the financial side of all questions.

"The hot water system is said to be cheaper," replied Dorothy.

"Why are there so many pipes?" asked Ethel Brown, looking with a puzzled air at the collection before her.

"Hear me lecture on heating!" laughed Dorothy; "but I did study it all out with Mother, so I think I'm telling you the truth about it. There have to be two sets of pipes, one to take the hot water to the radiators and the other to bring it back after it has cooled."

"There seem to be big pipes and small ones."

"Mains and branch pipes they call them. The man who put these in said this house was especially well arranged for piping because it wouldn't take any more pressure to force the water into one radiator than another. He says there's going to be a good even heat all over everywhere."

"There isn't a lot of difference between radiators for steam and those for hot water, is there?" asked Ethel Blue.

"No, you have to put something with water in it on top of both kinds to make the air of the room moist. Here you have to open the air valve yourself and let out the air that accumulates in the radiator. In the steam ones they are automatically worked by steam."

"There can't be much air in the hot water radiator, I should think," said Margaret thoughtfully.

"There isn't. You only have to open the valve two or three times in the course of the winter. The biggest difference is that the hot water system has to have an expansion tank."

"What's that?"

"Why, when steam is shut up it just presses harder than ever, but when water is heated it swells and it's likely to burst open whatever it's in, so there has to be an open tank up at the top of the house where it can go and swell around all it wants to," laughed Dorothy.

"What are these affairs?" inquired Margaret who had been looking at two other arrangements near by.

"That one is a gas thing for heating water in summer when there isn't any other fire. There's a tiny flame burning all the time, and when the water is drawn out of the tank the flame becomes larger automatically and heats up a new supply."

"That's a fine scheme; you don't have to heat the house up and yet the water is always ready. What's the other?"

"That's to burn up the garbage. In the kitchen there's a tiny closet for the garbage pail. It's ventilated from the outside. There is a thing that burns the garbage and makes it heat the water, but Mother decided that we had so small a family that there might be days when there wouldn't be fuel enough to make a decent fire, so we'd better have the gas heater."

"The other would be economical for a hotel," observed prudent James.

"Here's the refrigerating plant," Dorothy said, motioning toward a tank and a set of pipes and a small motor.

"Going to cut out the iceman?" grinned Tom.

"We're going to be independent of him. Mother doesn't like natural ice, any way; she went over to the Rosemont pond last winter when the men were cutting and the ice was so dirty she made up her mind right off that she didn't want any more of it. This thing will chill the refrigerator up in the kitchen and pipes from it are going under the flooring of the drawing room and the dining room so they can be made comfy in summer."

"Hope you can cut them off in winter!" and Roger gave a tremendous shiver.

"We can," Dorothy reassured him.

"Good work!"

"It makes small cakes of ice too, so we can always have plenty for the Club lemonades."

"I don't know but I think that's more useful than the heating arrangements," approved plump little Della.

"That's because you're fat," responded Tom with brotherly frankness. "You think you suffer most in summer, but if you didn't have any heat in winter you'd change your cry."

"I suppose I should, but I do nearly _melt_ in warm weather," sighed Della.

"We don't mean to if we can help it," laughed Dorothy. "This is the air-washing arrangement over here," went on Dorothy, as she continued her round of the cellar.

"Air-washing!" was the general chorus.

"As long as we have a little motor we're going to make it useful. There's a small fan here that brings in the fresh air. It goes into a 'spray chamber' and is washed free of dust with water that is cold in summer and warm in winter."

"I see clearly that the temperature of this castle is going to be just right," exclaimed Roger.

"After the air leaves the spray chamber it goes over some plates that take all the moisture out of it, and then the fan forces it through the pipes that go into every room."

"Are those the little gratings I noticed in all the rooms the other day?" asked Ethel Blue.

"Those are the ventilators. Don't you think we've made everything very compact here? All these pipes take up very little room."

"Mighty little!" commended Roger. "And they're all open so you can get at them without any trouble."

"Here's a scheme Patrick suggested," laughed Dorothy, pointing upward to what looked like a concrete shelf with an upturned border almost at the top of the cellar wall.

"What's it for?" asked Ethel Brown.

"That shelf is directly underneath the seat beside the fireplace in the drawing room. Patrick plans to save himself the trouble of carrying up the logs by piling them on this shelf down here. Then he lifts the cover of the seat upstairs and all he has to do is to take out his wood and make his fire!"

"That certainly is a cracker-jack labor saving device! Good for Patrick!"

"He's especially tickled with the vacuum cleaner run by this same little motor. You ought to hear him talk about it."

"What are these cupboards for?" asked Helen who had been exploring.

"That one with the glass doors is for preserves, and the place in the other corner that has a fence for its two inside walls is a place for cleaning silver and shoes and lamps and brasses. See--there are cupboards along the inside of the fence. They hold all the cleaning materials, and the cleaner can sit in a swing chair in the middle and use a different part of the concrete shelf against the two cellar walls for boots or fire-irons or knives and forks or lamps. At one end is a sink so he can have what water he needs for his work and he can wash his hands when he turns from one kind of cleaning to another."

"And he isn't all smothered up in a small room. Who thought of that?"

"Patrick and I worked that out together. Patrick has lots of ingenuity."

"I should say you had, too!" exclaimed Della, admiringly.

"Here's where Dorothy does her carpentering," cried James.

"I may move that bench up in the attic later," explained Dorothy, "but I thought I'd leave it here until the house was done, because there are apt to be little things to be hammered and nailed for some time, I suppose."

"How long are you going to be before you fikth a plathe for Chrithopher Columbuth?" demanded Dicky, whose patience was entirely exhausted.

"We'll make him happy right here and now," answered Dorothy briskly, throwing open the door of the laundry.

The sun shone gayly on the concrete floor and the room was a cheerful spot. An electric washing machine stood ready although covered tubs were built against the wall for use in emergencies, and at one side was a drying closet. There were numerous plugs against the wall for the attachment of pressing irons.

"What's this?" asked Ethel Brown, lifting a cover of a hopper at the base of a chute.

"That's the chute for soiled clothes. The other end is on the bedroom floor, and it saves carrying."

"That's as good as Patrick's log device!" smiled Helen.

"Shall I put Christopher's log in here?" asked Roger, lifting the top of one of the stationary tubs.

"Yes, fix it so he can crawl up and sit in the sunshine where it strikes the tub. We'll have to draw some water from the hydrant outside; the water isn't turned on in the house yet."

Roger picked up a pail that was standing near by and went up the cellar stairs two at a time.

"Now, sir," he said to Dicky when he came back, "I'll lift you up and you can put Christopher into his new abode."

Dicky deposited his charge gently on the log and he lay there poking out his head to enjoy the sunshine.

"Did you bring some bits of meat for him?" Roger asked.

For answer Dicky turned out of the pocket of his rompers a handful of chopped beef.

"Certainly unappetizing in appearance," said Tom, wrinkling his nose, "but I dare say Christopher is not particular."