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.  Dicky, 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 glass that Mrs. Morton always kept on the desk.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if our eyeth could thee thingth like that!” exclaimed Dicky, 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 glass 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.”