CHAPTER VIII

"OFF TO PHILADELPHIA IN THE MORNING"

"Helen," called Mrs. Morton a few days later just after the morning visit of the letter carrier, "I have a note here from Uncle Richard asking me if I can run over to Philadelphia and attend to a little matter of business for him. He is so tied up at Fort Myer that he can't possibly get away. Do you think it would be pleasant if you and I went over for a few days and took Roger and the children with us?"

The "children" of the Morton family meant those younger than Roger and Helen. Helen received the suggestion with a cry of delight.

"It would be just too lovely for anything," she said, waving in the air the little linen dress she was making for Elisabeth.

"The younger girls had the Massachusetts trip this summer that you and Roger didn't share," her mother said. "I think this time we might all of us go, and I'm not sure that it would not be pleasant to ask the Watkinses and the Hancocks."

"The whole U. S. C.!" cried Helen. "Mother, you certainly were born a darling. How did you ever think of anything so perfectly galoptious?"

"It's natural for me to be 'galoptious,'" her mother returned, laughing. "Now, we shall have to work fast, if we are going to accomplish Uncle Richard's errand, because the people whom he wants me to see will be in Philadelphia only to-morrow. He has telegraphed them, asking them to keep an hour for me, so I must go over to-day or very early to-morrow morning."

"Would you like to have me call up Margaret and Della on the telephone and see if they can go to-day? If they can, I don't see why we can't fly around tremendously and get our bags packed this morning and take an afternoon train," said Helen, who was beginning to grow energetic as the full prospect of the pleasure before her appeared before the eyes of her mind.

Mrs. Morton agreeing, Helen flew to the telephone, and was lucky enough to catch Margaret at Glen Point and Della in New York without any difficulty. They both said that they would consult their mothers and would call Helen again within an hour. She then telephoned to Dorothy, but found that she was at Sweetbrier Lodge and as the telephone had not been put in yet, she was, for a moment, at a loss what to do. She remembered, however, that Ethel Brown and Ethel Blue had spoken of spending the morning at Grandmother Emerson's, and she therefore called up her house in the hope that they might be there.

They had just left there to go and do a little house-cleaning in the cave in Fitzjames' woods, where they frequently enjoyed an afternoon lemonade. Mrs. Emerson said, however, that she could easily send a messenger after them, and that it would not be many minutes before she would ring Helen in her turn.

"I haven't anything to report," Helen said to her mother after she had made these various calls, "but I had better be getting out our handbags and trying to find Roger, I suppose."

Mrs. Morton was already packing her valise with her own and Dicky's requirements and she nodded an assent to Helen's suggestion.

It was not many minutes before the telephone bell began ringing. The first summons was from Margaret Hancock who said that her mother and father were delighted with the opportunity to have her and James go to Philadelphia in Mrs. Morton's care.

"It will be a real Club expedition," she said gleefully, "and I'm just as sure as if I saw it with my own eyes, that you're packing a 'History of Philadelphia' in your hand-bag."

Helen laughed because she was well accustomed to being joked about her love of history.

"I notice all of you are willing enough to listen when I tell about places," she said, "and this time you'll have to take it from me because Grandfather won't be there to tell you."

The next ring meant that the Ethels had returned to Mrs. Emerson's.

"What do you want of us?" Ethel Blue asked in a tone that sounded as if she were not particularly pleased at being called back.

"How would you like to go to Philadelphia?" Helen answered triumphantly.

"Do you really mean it?" asked Ethel, who was not quite sure that her ears were hearing correctly.

"I do mean it, and if you and Ethel Blue want to go with Mother and me this afternoon, you must rush home just as fast as you can and get your bags packed. Aunt Louise says Dorothy may go, but I can't find her, so please stop at the new house and see if she's there and tell her about it."

"Well I should say we would," returned a voice that was now filled with delight. "Ethel Blue wants to know why Mother is going?" she asked.

"On some business for her father--for Uncle Richard. But do stop chattering and come home as fast as you can rush. If we don't get off this afternoon, we can't go until to-morrow morning and we shan't be able to stay so long in Philadelphia."

It was not until they reached home that the Ethels learned that the Watkinses and the Hancocks were to join the party, and they were so excited over the prospect of this Club pilgrimage, that they were hardly able to get together their belongings.

The most difficult person to find was Roger who did not seem to be within reach of the telephone anywhere. They called up all the places where they thought it possible that he might be, but he could not be found, and he walked in just before luncheon quite unprepared for the surprise that awaited him.

"Helen has packed your bag for you," his mother told him, "so rush and change your clothes and go to the train to meet Della and Tom."

Rosemont being already part way on the road from New York and Philadelphia, it was necessary for the party to take a local train to the nearest stopping place of the Express. The Watkinses came out from New York on a local and the Hancocks arrived on the trolley, so that the entire group met at the Mortons' about half an hour before the time to start. They were all chattering briskly, all filled with enthusiasm for this new adventure.

"Don't you think I'd better go too?" Mr. Emerson asked his daughter, as he counted up the throng and noticed their eagerness.

"I don't think it's necessary, Father," Mrs. Morton replied. "Roger and Tom and James are surely big enough to escort us, and I know Philadelphia so well that I have no fear of our being lost in the city with three such competent young men to take care of us."

Mr. Emerson smiled somewhat doubtfully and murmured something about his daughter's having a hopeful disposition.

"You don't realize how serious Roger can be when he feels that he has actual responsibility," said Mrs. Morton, "and as for James Hancock, he is sometimes so grave that he almost alarms me."

"He may be grave, but has he any sense?" asked Mr. Emerson tartly.

"The children seem to think he has a great deal. At any rate I feel sure that no difficulty is going to come to us with these three big boys on hand and I wouldn't think of taking you on this fatiguing trip, on such a hot day," insisted his daughter.

Mr. Emerson looked somewhat relieved although he again assured Mrs. Morton that he would be entirely willing to escort her and her flock.

"No farther than the Rosemont station, thank you," she said, smiling.

It was at the station and just as the train was drawing in that Mr. Emerson handed Helen a notebook.

"You've taken me by surprise this morning," he said, "and I haven't had much time to get up my usual collection of historical poetry, but I couldn't let you go off without having something of the kind to remember me by."

Helen and the Ethels laughed at this confession, for Mr. Emerson was so fond of American history that he was in the habit, whenever they all went on trips together, of supplying himself with ballads concerning any historical happenings in the district through which they were to travel.

"Philadelphia ought to be a fertile field for you, sir," said James Hancock.

"It is," returned the old gentleman, "but you'll escape the full force of my efforts this time, thanks to your quick start."

The run to the junction and then to Philadelphia was made in a short time. It was fairly familiar to all of them and the country presented no beauties to make it remarkable, although Roger pretended to be a guide showing wonderful sights to the New Yorkers, Della and Tom.

"Do you think, Mother, we shall have time to look up some of the historical places in the city?" asked Helen.

"I thought that would be the most interesting thing to do," Mrs. Morton replied. "I shan't have to meet my business people until midday to-morrow, so this afternoon and to-morrow morning we can see many points of interest if we don't delay too long at each one."

"Being related to the Navy through my paternal ancestor," said Roger in large language, "Philadelphia has always interested me because the father of old William Penn, its founder, was an Admiral in the English Navy."

"I didn't know that," said Helen.

"Watch me run for base!" exclaimed Roger. "I got one off of Helen on the first ball. It isn't often that Helen admits there's something she doesn't know about American history."

"You miserable boy! You sound as if I were pretending to be a 'know-it-all'! There are plenty of things I don't know about American history. For instance I know very little about William Penn, except that he was a Quaker."

"Well then," said Roger, "allow me to inform you, beloved sister, that William Penn was an Oxford man and a preacher in the Society of Friends. He seems to have had some pull because the powers gave him a grant of Pennsylvania (that means Penn's Woods), in 1680. He went to America two years later and founded this minute little town which we are approaching."

"Those old Englishmen on the other side certainly had a calm way of giving out grants of land without saying anything about it to the Indians, didn't they?" said Margaret.

"Penn got along much better with the Indians than many of the heads of the colonies. He made a treaty with them, which is said to have been very remarkable in two ways; in the first place he wouldn't swear to keep it because he was a Quaker, and Quakers won't take an oath; and in the next place, he _did_ keep it, which was quite an event in colonial circles!"

"He must have been a good chap," commented Tom.

"You're going to see a statue of him as soon as you get off the train," interposed Mrs. Morton.

"Where is it?" asked Ethel Brown.

"On top of the City Hall. It's the first thing you see when you come out of the railroad station. In fact you're so close to the Public Buildings, as they're called, that I doubt if you can see the top at all until you get farther away from them."

"The statue must be enormous if it's up so high," said Ethel Blue.

"I've been told it was thirty-seven feet high," returned Mrs. Morton, "and that the rim of the old gentleman's hat was so wide that a person could walk on it comfortably."

"Wouldn't it be fun to do our back step on the edge of his hat!" exclaimed Ethel Blue to Ethel Brown, as they looked out the cab which was taking them to the hotel, and saw the figure of the benevolent Quaker black against the sky some five hundred feet above the ground.

The hotel wherein Mrs. Morton established her flock was "in the heart of conservative Philadelphia." Immediately after luncheon they packed themselves into a large touring car and began their historical explorations.

"If we do things according to time, we ought to go first to all of the places that have to do with William Penn," said Helen.

"I'm afraid that might make us jump around the city a little," said Mrs. Morton, "because if I am not mistaken, the house that William Penn gave to his daughter Letitia, is out in Fairmount Park, and the one belonging to his grandson is in the Zoo. We'll see them before we go home, but now we had better give our attention to the things that are here in the city. To begin with we can go to the little park on whose site William Penn made his famous treaty with the Indians. It takes us somewhat out of our way, but I know Helen's orderly mind will like to begin there."

Helen smiled at her mother's understanding of her, and the car sped northwards along the river front, now given over to business and tenements. At the Treaty Park they looked about them with their imaginations rather than with their eyes, for there was little of interest before them, while the Past held a vision of the elm tree under which the group of broad-hatted Friends discussed terms with the copper-colored natives. Lieutenant Morton's children were interested in seeing not far away the ship building yards where many an American battleship had slipped from the ways to pursue her peaceful course upon the ocean.

Returning as they had come, they passed on Second Street the site of a house in which the Great Settler had lived, and promised themselves to remember that in Independence Hall they were to look for a piece of the Treaty Tree.

"Everything that isn't called 'Penn' in this town seems to be called 'Franklin,'" said Ethel Blue, after reading many of the signs on the buildings.

"That's because the great Benjamin lived here for most of his life," said James, by way of explanation. "He was born in Boston, but he soon deserted those cold regions for a warmer clime, and made a name for himself here."

"I should say he left it behind him," commented Ethel Blue again as she read another sign, this time of a "Penn Laundry."

"Penn and Franklin are the two great men of old Philadelphia, without any doubt," said Mrs. Morton, as the machine stopped before Carpenters' Hall.

"Help! Help!" cried Tom. "I blush to state that I don't know Carpenters' Hall from a ham sandwich."

Helen looked at him with horror on her face.

"Stand right here before we set foot inside and let me tell you that I am perfectly shocked that any American boy, old enough to have graduated from high school and to be going to Yale in a few weeks, should make such a statement as that!"

She was genuinely troubled about it and Tom flushed as he saw that she really was scornful of his ignorance.

"Now, next," she said, "do you know what the Boston Tea Party was?"

Tom meekly said that he remembered that in December, 1773, a number of Boston men disguised as Indians had thrown overboard from a ship in the harbor, boxes of tea on which they refused to pay the British duty.

Helen nodded approvingly.

"I'm glad you remember that much," she said tartly. "After that Tea Party there was a continual and rapid growth of dislike for the Old Country, which was trying to tax the colonists, without allowing them any representation in the Parliament which was governing them. The feeling grew so strong that a Continental Congress, made up of delegates from the thirteen original Colonies, was called to meet here in Philadelphia, in September, 1774. It met here at Carpenters' Hall," she concluded triumphantly.

Tom glanced up at the Hall with an entirely new interest.

"In this same old building?" he asked.

"In this very identical place," said Helen, and then she allowed the procession to enter the building.

"September 17, 1774," repeated Ethel Brown thoughtfully. "Why, that was the autumn before the battles of Concord and Lexington."

"Yes, the Revolution had not yet begun. The Continental Congress met to talk over the situation, and here are the very chairs the members used."

Ethel Blue touched one of them with the tips of her fingers.

"I'm glad I've touched anything as interesting as this," she said.

"Look at the inscription," said James, calling their attention to the lettering. "WITHIN THESE WALLS HENRY, HANCOCK AND ADAMS INSPIRED THE DELEGATES OF THE COLONIES WITH NERVE AND SINEW FOR THE TOILS OF WAR!"

"John Hancock was my great-great-grandfather's brother," said James proudly.

"Good for you, old chap," exclaimed Roger, thumping him on the back, while Helen beamed at Margaret.

"How long did these Congressmen chat here?" meekly asked Tom of Helen.

"After about a month they agreed on what they called a Declaration of Rights, and they sent it over to Franklin, who was in England, and asked him to present it to the House of Commons."

"In the light of after events I suppose the House of Commons didn't take a look at it," said Roger.

"They certainly did not," replied Helen, "and the battles of Lexington and Concord were the result. You remember they were fought in April of 1775. Ticonderoga was captured in May of the same year and the battle of Bunker Hill was fought in June."

"And Congress kept on sitting while all this fighting was going on?"

"Yes; the men discussed each new move as it was made. Early in June one of the members made a motion before the Congress that 'these Colonies ought to be Independent.'"

"That idea seems simple enough to us now," said Tom, "but I dare say it was startling when a mere colonist proposed to break off with the mother country."

"It seems to me it's about time for Grandfather Emerson to have some poetry on this period of history," said Ethel Brown. "If he were here, I'm sure he would never have let this Congress sit for eight or nine months without discovering something in poetry about it."

Helen laughed.

"You certainly understand Grandfather," she said. "In just about a minute, while we're going over to Independence Hall, I'm going to read you some verses that belong right in here. On the first of July they began to debate about this proposal that the colonists should be independent. It was a mighty important matter, of course, because if they adopted it, it certainly meant war, and if they did not beat in the war, it might mean a worse state of affairs than they were in at the present moment. So there was much to be said on both sides and it looked as if the vote was going to be very close. Here's where Rodney the delegate did some hard riding," and Helen took out one of the type-written sheets, which her grandfather had given her.

"What Colony did he represent?" asked Ethel Blue.

"Rodney was from Delaware," she returned, "Now listen, while I read you this poem."

"RODNEY'S RIDE

"In that soft mid-land where the breezes bear The North and South on the genial air, Through the county of Kent, on affairs of state, Rode Cæsar Rodney, the delegate.

"Burly and big and bold and bluff, In his three-cornered hat and coat of snuff, A foe to King George and the English State, Was Cæsar Rodney, the delegate.

"Into Dover village he rode apace, And his kinsfolk knew, from his anxious face, It was matter grave that brought him there, To the counties three on the Delaware.

"'Money and men we must have'm,' he said, 'Or the Congress fails and the cause is dead: Give us both and the King shall not work his will. We are men, since the blood of Bunker Hill!'

"Comes a rider swift on a panting bay: 'Ho, Rodney, ho, you must save the day, For the Congress halts at a deed so great, And your vote alone may decide its fate.'

"Answered Rodney then: 'I will ride with speed; It is Liberty's stress; it is Freedom's need. When stands it?' 'To-night. Not a moment to spare, But ride like the wind from the Delaware.'

"'Ho, saddle the black! I've but half a day, And the Congress sits eighty miles away-- But I'll be in time, if God grants me grace, To shake my fist in King George's face.'

"He is up: he is off! and the black horse flies On the northward road ere the 'God-speed' dies; It is a gallop and spur as the leagues they clear, And the clustering mile-stones move a-rear.

"It is two of the clock! and the fleet hoofs fling The Fieldboro's dust with a clang and a cling; It is three; and he gallops with slack rein where The road winds down to the Delaware.

"Four; and he spurs into New Castle town, From his panting steed he gets trim down-- 'A fresh one, quick! not a moment's wait!' And off speeds Rodney the delegate.

"It is five; and the beams of the western sun Tinge the spires of Wilmington gold and dun; Six; and the dust of Chester Street Flies back in a cloud from the courser's feet.

"It is seven; the horse-boat, broad of beam, At the Schuylkill ferry crawls over the stream-- And at seven-fifteen by the Rittenhouse clock, He flings his reins to the tavern jock.

"The Congress is met; the debate's begun, And Liberty lags for the vote of one-- When into the hall, not a moment late, Walks Cæsar Rodney, the delegate.

"Not a moment late! and that half day's ride Forwards the world with a mighty stride; For the act was passed ere the midnight stroke O'er the Quaker City its echoes woke.

"At Tyranny's feet was the gauntlet flung; 'We are free!' all the bells through the colonies rung, And the sons of the free may recall with pride The day of Delegate Rodney's ride."

"Pretty stirring, isn't it! I take it that the Continental Congress had moved over to Independence Hall by this time," said Tom, when the reading was done.

"Yes, they were over here, sitting in the East Room, when they passed the Declaration of Independence."

An attendant seeing the interested faces of the young people, took them about the room and explained the relics to them.

"This," he said, "is the very furniture that was in the room at the time of the signing of the Declaration. Right on this very table the Document received the signature of the President of the Congress--"

"John Hancock," murmured Helen to James in an undertone.

"--and the rest of them," continued the guide.

"Is the original document here?" asked James, who was thrilling with interest, but who preserved the calmness which he inherited from his Scottish ancestors.

"No," answered the caretaker. "That is kept at Washington in the Library of the State Department, but there is an exact copy of it over there on the wall."

Going upstairs, the party remembered to look up the piece of the elm tree, under which Penn had signed his Treaty with the Indians, and they saw in addition the original Charter of Philadelphia, bearing the date 1701.

In another room they found some furniture belonging to Washington and Penn and various portraits of more historic than artistic interest. They enjoyed more seeing some of the boards of the original floor. These were carefully kept under glass, as if they were great treasures.

"Now we're going to see the most sacred relic in America, next to the Declaration itself," said Helen, leading the way down the staircase at whose foot was the famous Liberty Bell, which had rung out its message of joy on July 4, 1775, when the delegates passed the Declaration and the people of Philadelphia knew that war was before them, and yet were glad to meet whatever might be the outcome of the defiance.

They gathered in silence around the bell and read its description:--"PROCLAIM LIBERTY TO ALL THE LAND AND TO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF." They noticed the crack which ran through it, and felt that they were looking upon a real veteran of that far-away time.

"Grandfather told me not to forget to tell you about the little boy who gave the signal to the bell-ringer," Helen said. "He was stationed where he could see the door-keeper of the room in which the delegates were sitting. When the final vote was taken, the door-keeper gave the signal to the boy and he ran out, shouting the cry that resounded through the colonies, 'Ring! Ring! Ring!'"