"I thought that would be the most interesting thing to do," Mrs. Morton replied. "I shan't have to meet my business people until midday to-morrow, so this afternoon and to-morrow morning we can see many points of interest if we don't delay too long at each one."
"Being related to the Navy through my paternal ancestor," said Roger in large language, "Philadelphia has always interested me because the father of old William Penn, its founder, was an Admiral in the English Navy."
"Watch me run for base!" exclaimed Roger. "I got one off of Helen on the first ball. It isn't often that Helen admits there's something she doesn't know about American history."
"You miserable boy! You sound as if I were pretending to be a 'know-it-all'! There are plenty of things I don't know about American history. For instance I know very little about William Penn, except that he was a Quaker."
"Well then," said Roger, "allow me to inform you, beloved sister, that William Penn was an Oxford man and a preacher in the Society of Friends. He seems to have had some pull because the powers gave him a grant of Pennsylvania (that means Penn's Woods), in 1680. He went to America two years later and founded this minute little town which we are approaching."
"Those old Englishmen on the other side certainly had a calm way of giving out grants of land without saying anything about it to the Indians, didn't they?" said Margaret.
"Penn got along much better with the Indians than many of the heads of the colonies. He made a treaty with them, which is said to have been very remarkable in two ways; in the first place he wouldn't swear to keep it because he was a Quaker, and Quakers won't take an oath; and in the next place, he _did_ keep it, which was quite an event in colonial circles!"
"He must have been a good chap," commented Tom.
"You're going to see a statue of him as soon as you get off the train," interposed Mrs. Morton.
"On top of the City Hall. It's the first thing you see when you come out of the railroad station. In fact you're so close to the Public Buildings, as they're called, that I doubt if you can see the top at all until you get farther away from them."
"The statue must be enormous if it's up so high," said Ethel Blue.