Ethel Morton's Enterprise.

by Mabell S.C. Smith.

CHAPTER I

HOW IT STARTED

Ethel Morton, called from the color of her eyes Ethel "Blue" to distinguish her from her cousin, also Ethel Morton, whose brown eyes gave her the nickname of Ethel "Brown," was looking out of the window at the big, damp flakes of snow that whirled down as if in a hurry to cover the dull January earth with a gay white carpet.

"The giants are surely having a pillow fight this afternoon," she laughed.

"In honor of your birthday," returned her cousin.

"The snowflakes are really as large as feathers," added Dorothy Smith, another cousin, who had come over to spend the afternoon.

All three cousins had birthdays in January. The Mortons always celebrated the birthdays of every member of the family, but since there were three in the same month they usually had one large party and noticed the other days with less ceremony. This year Mrs. Emerson, Ethel Brown's grandmother, had invited the whole United Service Club, to which the girls belonged, to go to New York on a day's expedition. They had ascended the Woolworth Tower, gone through the Natural History Museum, seen the historic Jumel Mansion, lunched at a large hotel and gone to the Hippodrome. Everybody called it a perfectly splendid party, and Ethel Blue and Dorothy were quite willing to consider it as a part of their own birthday observances.

Next year it would be Dorothy's turn. This year her party had consisted merely in taking her cousins on an automobile ride. A similar ride had been planned for Ethel Blue's birthday, but the giants had plans of their own and the young people had had to give way to them. Dorothy had come over to spend the afternoon and dine with her cousins, however. She lived just around the corner, so her mother was willing to let her go in spite of the gathering drifts, because Roger, Ethel Brown's older brother, would be able to take her home such a short distance, even if he had to shovel a path all the way.

The snow was so beautiful that they had not wanted to do anything all the afternoon but gaze at it. d.i.c.ky, Ethel Brown's little brother, who was the "honorary member" of the U.S.C., had come in wanting to be amused, and they had opened the window for an inch and brought in a few of the huge flakes which grew into ferns and starry crystals under the magnifying gla.s.s that Mrs. Morton always kept on the desk.

"Wouldn't it be fun if our eyeth could thee thingth like that!"

exclaimed d.i.c.ky, and the girls agreed with him that it would add many marvels to our already marvellous world.

"As long as our eyes can't see the wee things I'm glad Aunt Marion taught us to use this gla.s.s when we were little," said Ethel Blue who had been brought up with her cousins ever since she was a baby.

"Mother says that when she and Uncle Roger and Uncle Richard," said Dorothy, referring to Ethel Brown's and Ethel Blue's fathers, her uncles--"were all young at home together Grandfather Morton used to make them examine some new thing every day and tell him about it. Sometimes it would be the materials a piece of clothing was made of, or the paper of a magazine or a flower--anything that came along."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It looked just as if it were a house with a lot of rooms"]

"When I grow up," said Ethel Blue, "I'm going to have a large microscope like the one they have in the biology cla.s.s in the high school. Helen took me to the cla.s.s with her one day and the teacher let me look through it. It was perfectly wonderful. There was a slice of the stem of a small plant there and it looked just as if it were a house with a lot of rooms. Each room was a cell, Helen said."

"A very suitable name," commented Ethel Brown.

"What are you people talking about?" asked Helen, who came in at that instant.

"I was telling the girls about that time when I looked through the high school microscope," answered Ethel Blue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Single Cell]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Double Cell]

"You saw among other things, some cells in the very lowest form of life.

A single cell is all there is to the lowest animal or vegetable."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Multiple Cells]

"What do you mean by a single cell?"

"Just a tiny ma.s.s of jelly-like stuff that is called protoplasm. The cells grow larger and divide until there are a lot of them. That's the way plants and animals grow."

"If each is as small as those I saw under the microscope there must be billions in me!" and Ethel Blue stretched her arms to their widest extent and threw her head upwards as far as her neck would allow.

"I guess there are, young woman," and Helen went off to hang her snowy coat where it would dry before she put it in the closet.

"There'th a thnow flake that lookth like a plant!" cried d.i.c.ky who had slipped open the window wide enough to capture an especially large feather.

"It really does!" exclaimed Ethel Blue, who was nearest to her little cousin and caught a glimpse of the picture through the gla.s.s before the snow melted.

"Did it have 'root, stem and leaves'?" asked Dorothy. "That's what I always was taught made a plant--root, stem and leaves. Would Helen call a cell that you couldn't see a plant?"

"Yes," came a faint answer from the hall. "If it's living and isn't an animal it's a vegetable--though way down in the lower forms it's next to impossible to tell one from the other. There isn't any rule that doesn't have an exception."

"I should think the biggest difference would be that animals eat plants and plants eat--what do plants eat?" ended Dorothy lamely.

"That is the biggest difference," a.s.sented Helen. "Plants are fed by water and mineral substances that come from the soil directly, while animals get the mineral stuff by way of the plants."

"Father told us once about some plants that caught insects. They eat animals."

"And there are animals that eat both vegetables and animals, you and I, for instance. So you can't draw any sharp lines."

"When a plant gets out of the cell stage and has a 'root, stem and leaves' then you know it's a plant if you don't before," insisted Dorothy, determined to make her knowledge useful.

"Did any of you notice the bean I've been sprouting in my room?" asked Helen.

"I'll get it, I'll get it!" shouted d.i.c.ky.

"Trust d.i.c.ky not to let anything escape his notice!" laughed his big sister.

d.i.c.ky returned in a minute or two carrying very carefully a shallow earthenware dish from which some thick yellow-green tips were sprouting.

"I soaked some peas and beans last week," explained Helen, "and when they were tender I planted them. You see they're poking up their heads now."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bean Plant]

"They don't look like real leaves," commented Ethel Blue.

"This first pair is really the two halves of the bean. They hold the food for the little plant. They're so fat and pudgy that they never do look like real leaves. In other plants where there isn't so much food they become quite like their later brothers."

"Isn't it queer that whatever makes the plant grow knows enough to send the leaves up and the roots down," said Dorothy thoughtfully.

"That's the way the life principle works," agreed Helen. "This other little plant is a pea and I want you to see if you notice any difference between it and the bean."

She pulled up the wee growth very delicately and they all bent over it as it lay in her hand.

"It hathn't got fat leaveth," cried d.i.c.ky.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pea Plant]