The Ethels
filled their bags twice before they were satisfied that they had not
left out anything that would be wanted, and Dorothy confessed that she
had first put in too much and then had gone to the other extreme, and
that it had not been until after she had had a consultation with her
mother that she had decided on just the number and kind of garments
that she would need for a two-day trip to the Hub of the Universe.
"Why is it called that?" she asked of Ethel Brown.
"I asked Mother and she said that people from New York and other cities
used to say that Bostonians thought that their town was the centre of
civilization. So they guyed it by calling it the 'Hub'."
Roger and Helen went into New York with the travellers and Delia and
Margaret were on the pier to see the steamer leave.
It was a glorious afternoon and the boat slipped around the end of the
Battery while the westering sun was still shining brilliantly on the
water, touching it with sparkles on the tip of each tiny wave. The
Statue of Liberty, with the sun behind it, towered darkly against the
gold. The huge buildings of the lower city stretched skywards, the new
Equitable, the latest addition to the mammoth group, shutting off
almost entirely the view of the Singer Tower from the harbor, just as
the Woolworth Tower hides it from observers on the north.
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