Ethel Morton at Sweetbrier Lodge

"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 foster-mother," corrected Ethel Blue. "It isn't anything so horrid as a step-mother."

"O, I don't think step-mothers are horrid," objected Dorothy.

"Yeth, they are," insisted Dicky. "All the fairy stories say they're cruel."

"O, fairy stories," sniffed Dorothy.

"I imagine fairy stories are right about step-mothers," insisted Ethel Blue.

"Did you ever know one?" asked Dorothy.

"No, I never did; but I have a feeling that they couldn't love a child that wasn't their own."

"Why not?" demanded Ethel Brown. "Mother loves you just as well as she does her own children and you're only her niece."

"Not her own niece, either-Uncle Roger's niece," corrected Ethel Blue; "but then, Aunt Marion is a darling."

"I don't see why a step-mother shouldn't be a darling."

"I don't see why she shouldn't be but I don't believe she ever is," and Ethel Blue stuck to her opinion.

"Well, there aren't any 'steps' around this family, so we can't tell by our own experience," cried Dorothy, "and we've got this chicken family moved into its new house, so let's go and see what the workmen are doing at our new house."

Dorothy's mother had been planning for several months to build a house on a lot of land on the same street that they were living on now, but farther away from the Mortons' and nearer the farm where lived the Mortons' grandfather and grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. The contractor had been at work only a few days.

"He had just finished staking off the ground when I was there the other afternoon," said Ethel Brown.

"He's way ahead of that now," Dorothy reported as they walked on, three abreast across the sidewalk, their blue serge suits all alike, their Tipperary hats set at the same angle on their heads, and only the different colors of their eyes and hair distinguishing them to a careless observer. "He told me yesterday that the whole cellar would be dug by this afternoon and they would be beginning to put in the concrete wall."

"Where?"

"The cellar wall."

"I thought cellar walls were made of stone."

"Sometimes they are, but when there isn't stone all cut, concrete is more convenient and cheaper, too."

"And it lasts forever, I was reading the other day."

"I should say it did. Those old Pyramids in Egypt are partly made of concrete, they think, and they are three or four thousand years old."

"Does Aunt Louise expect her house to last three or four thousand years?"

"She wants it durable; and fireproof, any way, because we're some distance from the engine house."

"If we watch this house grow it will be almost like building it with our own hands, won't it?" exclaimed Ethel Brown, for, although the house was her aunt's, Mrs. Smith had made all the cousins feel that she wanted them to have a share in the pleasure that she and Dorothy were having in making a shelter for themselves after their many years of wandering. She and her daughter consulted over every part of the plans and they had often asked the opinion of the Mortons, so that they all had come to say "our house" quite as if it were to belong to them.

As they approached the knoll which they had been calling "our house lot" for several months, they saw that the gravel for the concrete was being hauled to the top of the hill where the bags of sand and cement had already been unloaded and a small concrete mixer set up.

"They do things fast, don't they!" exclaimed Dorothy. "There's Mr. Anderson, the contractor."

A tall, substantial Scotsman bowed to them as they reached the top of the hill.

"Have you come to superintend us, Miss Dorothy?" he asked pleasantly. "We're going to make all our preparations for mixing the concrete to-day, and then we'll start up the machine to-morrow."

"You won't have the cellar wall all built by to-morrow after school, will you?" asked Dorothy anxiously. "We want to see how you do it."

"It won't take long to do this small cellar so you'd better hurry right here from your luncheon," Mr. Anderson returned as he walked away to attend to the placing of the pile of gravel, and to lay a friendly hand on the sides of the panting horses.

"If your driveway doesn't wind around more than this road that the hauling men have made all your friends' horses will be puffing like mills when they reach the top," Ethel Blue warned her cousin.

"Mother and the architect and a landscape gardener have it all drawn on paper," Dorothy responded. "It's going to sweep around the foot of the knoll and come gently up the side and lie quite flat on top of the ridge for a little way before it reaches the front door."

"That will be a long walk for people on foot."

"Ethel Blue is speaking for herself," laughed Ethel Brown.

"And for Dorothy, too. She'll walk most of the time even if Aunt Louise is going to set up a car."

"There's to be a footpath over there," Dorothy indicated a side of the hill away from the proposed driveway. "It will be a short cut and it's going to be walled in with shrubs so it won't be seen from the driveway."

"What would be the harm if you could see it from the driveway?"

"O, the lines would interfere, the landscape artist said. You mustn't have things confused, you know," and she shook her head as if she knew a great deal about the subject.

"I suppose it would look all mixy and queer if you should see the grounds from an airship," guessed Ethel Brown, "but I don't see what difference it would make from the ground."

"I guess it would be ugly or he wouldn't be so particular about it," insisted Dorothy. "That's his business-to make grounds look lovely."

"I think I can see what he means," ventured Ethel Blue, who knew something about drawing and design. "I watched Aunt Marion's dressmaker draping an evening gown for her one day. She made certain lines straight and other lines curved, but the two kinds of lines didn't cross each other any old way; she put them in certain places so that they would each make the other kind of line look better and not make the general effect confusing."

"Don't you remember how it was when we were planning Dorothy's garden on top of this ridge, back of the house and the garage?" Ethel Brown reminded them. "We had to draw several positions for the different beds because some of our plans looked perfectly crazy-just a mess of square beds and oblong beds and round beds."

"They made you dizzy-I remember. We found we had to follow Roger's advice and make them balance."

"Helen says there's a lot of geometry in laying out a garden. I guess she's right."

Helen and Roger were Ethel Brown's older sister and brother. They were in the high school.

They had come now to the excavation for the cellar and watched the Italian laborers throwing out the last shovelfuls of earth.

"They're very particular about making the earth wall smooth," commented Ethel Brown.

"I imagine they have to if the wall is to be concrete," returned Dorothy.

"They've cut it under queerly at the foot on both sides; what's that for?"

"I haven't the dimmest," answered Dorothy briefly. "Let's ask Mr. Anderson."

"You'd find it hard to stand up straight if you had only a leg to stand on and not a foot," that gentleman answered to the question. "That concrete foot gives a good solid foundation, and it helps to repel the frost if that should get into the ground so deep. Do you see the planks the men are setting up twelve inches in from the bank?"

The girls nodded.

"They are making a fence all around the cellar you see; that is to keep the concrete in place when it is poured in, and to give it shape."

"Is it soft like mud?"

"It is made of one part of cement and two and one-half parts of sand and five parts of gravel. Do you cook?"

They all nodded again.

"When you come to-morrow you'll see the mixing machine making a stiff batter of those three things-cement and sand and gravel."

"It must be like putting raisins in a plum pudding," suggested Ethel Brown. "You have to be careful the stones-the raisins-don't all sink to the bottom or get bunched together in one place."

"That's the idea," smiled Mr. Anderson. "All those things and water go into one end of the mixer and they come out at the other end concrete in a soft state. Then the men shovel the stuff into the space between the fence and the earth bank, making sure that that widening trench at the foot is chock full and they thump it down and let it 'set.'"

"I think the cellar will look very ugly with that old plank wall," decided Dorothy seriously.

"The planks will be taken away."

"Won't the concrete show lines where the cracks between the boards were?"

"Do you see those rolls of heavy paper over there? The planks will be lined with that so that the concrete will come against a perfectly smooth surface. When the wood is taken away the men will go over it with a smoothing tool and when they have finished even your particular eye will see nothing to take exception to."

"O, I knew it would be right somehow," murmured Dorothy, who was afraid she had hurt Mr. Anderson's feelings. "I just didn't know how you managed it."

"Here's the way the end of the wall would look if you could slice down right through it," and the contractor took out his notebook and drew a cross section of the concrete wall showing its widened foot.

The Foundation Wall of Sweetbrier Lodge as Mr. Anderson Drew It

"What's the floor to be made of?" asked Ethel Blue.

"Concrete-four inches of it," answered Mr. Anderson promptly. "It will slope a trifle toward this end, and there a drainage pipe will be laid to carry off any water used in washing the floor. Then a layer of cement will go on top of the concrete."

"What's that for?"

"To make it all smooth. It will be rounded up at the corners and sides where it joins the walls, so there won't be any chance for the dust to collect."

"The cellar in our house is awfully damp," remarked Ethel Brown. "Sometimes you can see the water dripping down the stones."

"The walls and the floor of this cellar will be waterproofed with a mixture of rich cement and sand mortar, and I think you'll find, young ladies, that you'll have a cellar that'll be hard to beat."

The contractor slapped his notebook emphatically and beamed at them so amiably that they felt the greatest confidence in what he proposed.

"Any way, I haven't anything better to suggest," said Dorothy dryly.

Mr. Anderson walked off, giving a roar of amusement as he left them.

"Where does the sun rise from here?" asked Ethel Blue as she stood at the spot where was to be the front of the house, and gazed about her. "Does the house face directly south?"

"No, it faces just half way between south and west. The corners of the house point to north, south, east and west. Mother said that if the front was due south the back would be due north and she didn't want a whole side of her house facing north."

"It does have a chilly sound," shivered Ethel Brown.

"With a point stretching toward the north the rooms that have a northern exposure will also have the morning sun and the afternoon sun."

"I know Aunt Louise will have her dining room where the morning sun will shine in."

"Yes, ma'am," returned Dorothy emphatically. "It makes you feel better all day if you eat your breakfast in the sunshine. By this plan of Mother's every room in the house will have direct sunshine at some part of the day."

"It's great," approved Ethel Blue. "Can't we ask Mr. Anderson about making a bird's bath out of cement?" she inquired. "Ethel Brown and I saw a beauty at Mrs. Schermerhorn's and perhaps he'd let us have some of the concrete to-morrow when the men are mixing it, and we can try to make one."

The girls raced over to the spot where the contractor was just about to get into his Ford, and stopped him.

"Would you mind letting us have a little concrete to-morrow to make a bird's bath with?" begged Dorothy breathlessly.

"A bird's bath?" repeated Mr. Anderson. "How are you going to make it?"

"Couldn't we put some concrete in a pan and squeeze another pan down on to it and let it harden?"

"Why, yes, something like that," returned Mr. Anderson slowly.

"Do you want to make it yourselves?"

"Yes, indeed," all three girls cried in chorus.

He smiled at their enthusiasm and offered a suggestion.

"I suppose you want the bird's bath for your garden, Miss Dorothy;-why don't you make a little pool for the garden?"

"Oh, could we?"

"If you could get a tub and lay down a flooring of concrete and then put in another tub enough smaller so that there would be a space between the walls, then you could fill the space with concrete. When it set, you could take out the inner tub after two or three days and turn the concrete out of the outer tub and there you'd have a concrete tub that you could move about."

"That sounds great," beamed Dorothy, "but wouldn't it be awfully heavy?"

"Here's a better way, then. If you can make up your mind exactly where you want to have it in your garden you can have a hole dug, lay down your floor of concrete and put your small tub on it."

"I see-then you fill the space between the tub and the earth with concrete."

"Precisely; thump it down hard and let it stand untouched for a while. Then take away your tub, and there you are again."

"You can't make the concrete floor and leave it, can you?"

"No, indeed. You must have everything ready to do the whole thing at once. Put in your tub which is to be your mold, while the floor is still plastic-"

"Eh?" inquired Ethel Brown.

"Soft enough to mold; and then pour in the walls right off quick. You can't fool round when you're working with concrete."

"How can we keep the water fresh in the tub?" asked Ethel Blue of Dorothy.

Dorothy paused, not knowing what to say.

"It would be fun to keep gold fish in it," she said, "but they would have to have fresh water, wouldn't they?" She turned appealingly to Mr. Anderson.

"That's not hard to manage," he said. "You can put a bit of broomstick between the earth wall and the outer wall of your tub-mold and pour the concrete around it. When the concrete has hardened you pull out the stick and there is a hole. Then you can have a drain dug that will tap that hole on the outside and carry off the water through a few lengths of drain pipe."

"What's to prevent the water running off all the time?" Ethel Blue wanted to know.

"Keep a plug in it," answered the contractor briefly. "And there should be waterproofing stuff mixed with the materials. You have your gardener dig a hole in the garden," he said, adding, "don't forget to have plenty of grease."

"What's that for?"

"Why do you grease your cake pans?"

"So the cake won't stick."

"Same here. On the cellar wall we lined the inside of the wooden forms with paper. That isn't so easy with round forms, so you grease them."

"I never thought there was any likeness between concrete and cooking," laughed Ethel Brown as the girls watched Mr. Anderson's skill in taking his little car over the rough ground around the cellar excavation, "but there seems to be plenty."

"Let's chase off and see if we can collect the things we shall need to-morrow," urged Dorothy. "I'll have to find Patrick and bring him here and show him just where to dig the hole."

"Where are you going to dig the hole?"

"I think just in the open place on top of the ridge."

"I wouldn't," objected Ethel Brown.

"Why not?"

"Won't it be too warm in summer? If you're going to have gold fish you don't want to boil them."

"The water would get pretty hot in the sun, wouldn't it?" considered her cousin. "What do you think of a place under that tree?"

"It ought not to be too near the tree because the roots will grow out a long way from the trunk of the tree and they might get under the pool and break up the concrete."

"Oh, could a tender little thing like a root break concrete that's as hard as stone?"

"It certainly can. Grandfather showed me a crack in a concrete wall of his on the farm that was made by the root of a big tree not far off."

"Well, then we can't have our pool anywhere near a tree. A shrub wouldn't hurt it, though; why can't it go near those shrubs that are going to separate the flower garden from the vegetable garden?"

"That place would be all right because there's a tall spruce there that throws a shadow over the shrubs for a part of the day. That's all you need; you don't want to take away all the sunshine from the pool."

So the exact spot was decided on and marked so that Patrick should make no mistake, and then the girls rushed off on a search for shallow basins and a tub.