Ethel Morton at Chautauqua — Reading Companion

Roger was a merry-faced boy of seventeen and his mother smiled at the look of responsibility that gave him an expression like his father. Mrs. Morton sighed a little, too, for although she was accustomed to the long absences required of a naval officer yet she never went upon one of these summer migrations without missing the assistance of the father of the family.

Lieutenant Morton had been with the fleet at Vera Cruz for several months, but although there had been rumors that our ships would be withdrawn and sent north, which might mean a short leave for the Lieutenant, it had not come to pass, and it looked as if he would have to spend the summer under the Mexican sun. His wife drew a little comfort from the fact that his brother, Ethel's father, Captain Richard Morton, was with the land forces under General Funston, so that the two men could see each other occasionally.

"How far do we have to go on the trolley, Mother?" asked Dicky, the six-year-old, who had already announced his intention of being a motorman when he grew up, and who always chose a front seat where he could watch the operations that made the car go.

"I forget, dear. Ask Grandmother."

"Twelve miles, son, and over a road that is full of history for Helen. Grandfather will tell her all about it. We are turning into it now. Do you see the name on the tree?"

"'Portage Street,'" read Helen.

The party made a brave showing in the car. Helen, who was almost as tall as Roger and who was in the high school, sat on the front seat with Dicky so that he could superintend the motorman's activities. Mrs. Morton and Roger sat behind them, he with his hands full of the long tickets which were to take them all to Chautauqua and home again. Back of them were the two girl cousins of nearly the same age, about thirteen, both named Ethel Morton and strikingly alike in appearance. Their schoolmates had nicknamed them from the color of their eyes, "Ethel Brown" and "Ethel Blue." "Ethel Brown" was Lieutenant Morton's daughter, and sister of Roger and Helen and Dicky. "Ethel Blue" was Captain Morton's daughter and she had lived almost all her life with her cousins, because her mother had died when she was a tiny baby.

Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson, Mrs. Morton's father and mother, were in the last seat of the four, Grandmother eagerly looking out of the window to recall the sights that she had seen on her previous trip to Chautauqua, ten years before.

"Why is it called 'Portage Street'?" asked Helen, when everybody was comfortably settled. Helen was fond of history and had just taken a prize offered to the first year class of the high school for the best account of the Indians in the colonial days of that part of New Jersey where the Mortons lived.

"'Portage' comes from the French word 'carry,' as you high school people know," answered grandfather. "A portage is a place where you have to carry your boat around some obstruction. For instance, suppose you were an Indian traveling in a canoe from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, you would have to carry your canoe around the rapids of the Niagara River because your little craft could not live in that tremendous current, and around Niagara Falls because--"

"Because it couldn't climb a tree," laughed Roger.

"Just about that," accepted grandfather.

"Are there any waterfalls around here?" asked Ethel Brown.

"Not any waterfalls, but the very land we are on was an obstacle to the Indians who wanted to travel from Canada southward."

"Oh, I begin to see," said Helen. "They paddled across Lake Erie--"

"That was Lake Erie we were riding side of this morning," interrupted Ethel Blue.

"Yes, that was Lake Erie and the gray cloud that we could see way over the water was Canada."

"O-oh," cried both Ethels at once; "we've seen Canada!"

"When they reached the American shore," went on grandfather, "they had to carry their canoes over the twelve miles of country that we are passing over now until they reached the head of Chautauqua Lake."

"Where we are going!"

"Just beyond the village of Mayville we shall see the very spot where they put their canoes into the water again and tumbled in themselves to paddle southward."

"Weren't their feet tired?" asked practical Dicky.

"I guess they were, old man," returned Roger, leaning forward to tweak his ear affectionately.

"If they were," went on grandfather, "they had plenty of time to rest them, for they didn't have to leave their boats again unless they wanted to until they got to the Gulf of Mexico."