A SMASH
Mr. Martin for a time thought there must be some sort of fight or
other kind of trouble among the lumbermen to cause all this noise. The
lumbermen, he knew, were, some of them, rough characters, and he did
not wish the Curlytops and Trouble to see any fighting or quarreling
among them.
The children, however, were excited and curious. They looked toward the
bend in the road whence the noise came, and a moment later Janet cried
out in delight:
“Oh, it’s the movie actors! See, there’s Mr. Weldon!”
“That’s right--the cowboys!” added her brother. “I wonder what they are
doing here!”
“They probably came to take some pictures in the lumber camp,” said Mr.
Martin.
But taking pictures seemed very far from the thoughts of the movie
actors--at least, for the time being. They were intent on having a good
time, for they were laughing among themselves and many of the men were
giving voice to that “yi-yippy” yell which sounded so wild.
“I guess they’ve just finished some hard work,” said Mrs. Martin, as
she laughed at some of the antics of the riders. “They’re like boys out
of school.”
So it proved, for when Ned Weldon and some others of the men who had
been friendly with the Martin family while at Dawson’s Farm, saw the
family, they rode up and renewed their friendship, and also told why
they had come here.
“We had to have a lumber camp location for this part of the film,”
explained Mr. Birch, the director. “So we came here.”
“But we didn’t expect to find you here,” added Mr. Weldon, as he made
his horse prance on its hind legs, much to the amusement of Trouble.
“We didn’t expect to come here,” stated Mr. Martin. “But when Mr.
Teeter invited us we thought it would give the children something new
to see for their vacation tour.”
“And they’s bears, too!” exclaimed Trouble.
“I guess you mean elephants, don’t you?” asked Mr. Weldon, who had more
than once laughed at the little fellow’s pronunciation of the name.
“No, not nellifunts--bears,” insisted Trouble. “They’s over there,” and
he pointed to the two tame bruins, chained to a tree. The movie actors
had not yet seen the bears, it appeared.
But Mr. Birch had no sooner looked toward the cubs than he gave a cry
of delight and said:
“Just what we want! You remember that scene, Weldon, where you go into
the old cabin?”
“Yes, I remember that,” answered the cowboy actor.
“Well, I’ve been trying to think of something funny that could happen
there. The bears will be the very thing! We’ll put them in the cabin,
and you go in. Then the bears chase you out. It will be very funny.”
“Funny for the bears, maybe, but not for me!” exclaimed Mr. Weldon. “Do
you think I’m going into a cabin with a couple of bears?”
“Why, sure you are,” replied the director.
“Well, sure I am not!” cried the cowboy. “I won’t do such a thing! Do
you think I want to be clawed by a bear and have my clothes torn?” and
he made such a funny face that the Curlytops laughed.
But Trouble solved the problem by saying:
“They is tame bears. They won’t hurt you, Mr. Weldon, and they eats
peanuts like nellifunts.”
“Oh, if they’re tame bears, that’s another thing,” said the movie
actor. “But I want to be sure they are tame.”
“Yes, they are,” said Mr. Martin. “The bears came to our camp last
night. We thought they were wild, but they soon proved to be tame. Mr.
Teeter has raised them from little cubs.”
“Just the thing for us, then,” said Mr. Birch. “We’ll have those bears
filmed to-morrow. It will make a funny scene, Weldon, with you climbing
out of a cabin window chased by bears.”
“All right--I’ll go through with it,” said the cowboy with a sigh and
another funny face which made the Curlytops laugh. “But if they tear
my clothes you’ll have to buy me a new suit.”
“I will,” promised the movie director.
By this time the moving picture actors and actresses had quieted down
and were getting ready to take their parts in the film. They were to
remain in the lumber camp several days, and the Curlytops were glad of
this, for they liked to see the work being done.
Mr. Birch hurried off to arrange with the tamer of the bears about
using the animals in a scene with Mr. Weldon. The latter remained to
talk to the Martins.
“Is Mr. Portnay here?” asked Mr. Martin. “I don’t see anything of him.”
“No, he doesn’t take any part in this section of the film,” answered
the cowboy. “But we expect him to join us in a few days. Did you get
back your box of albums that his man took by mistake?”
“Yes. I have the box here in the car,” answered the father of the
Curlytops. “We expect to reach Bentville soon, and then I will turn the
old books and pictures over to Mr. Cardwell. I shall be glad to get rid
of them, for I am always afraid something is going to happen to them.”
One of the lumbermen came along then to say that Mr. Martin and his
family could occupy one of the cabins in the woods while they were in
the camp.
“It’s only a rough shack,” he said; “but it’s the best we have.”
“This will do very nicely,” said Mrs. Martin, when they had driven over
to it. “Cows can’t poke their horns in, at any rate.”
“No, ma’am, we haven’t any cows here,” said the lumberman, with such a
puzzled look on his face that Mrs. Martin laughed and explained about
the cow that tried to enter the tent while Ted was asleep.
The movie folk were distributed around the camp in the different
cabins, and soon the place quieted down. This, as I have said, was not
the busy season at the lumber camp in the woods, and only a few of the
men were there. Because of this, many of the cabins were vacant, which
gave the movie people and the Curlytops plenty of room.
The remainder of the day Ted and his sister, taking Trouble with them,
watched the movie actors at work. Many short scenes were filmed, but
the children were more interested in watching Mr. Weldon practice, or
go through, his part with the tame bears.
At first the actor was a bit timid when with the shaggy creatures. But
after he had seen Ted and Janet feed them lumps of sugar, Mr. Weldon
got courage enough to let them eat from his hand. After that it was
easy, and he and the two cubs were soon on friendly terms.
“Now we’ll try how it goes when they chase you out of the cabin,”
suggested the director.
“But they’re so friendly they won’t chase me,” said Mr. Weldon.
“If you have some bread and molasses with you they will,” said Mr.
Teeter. “They’ll go anywhere to get bread and molasses. Just have some
of that with you when you play your part. Hold it out to the bears and
then pull it away. They’ll chase you from here to the end of Crystal
Lake to get the sweet stuff.”
So that was tried. One of the cabins in the open part of the woods was
picked out as the scene in the picture.
The bears were put inside, and then Mr. Weldon got ready to go through
his part. In his pocket he had some slices of bread covered with
molasses, which the lumber camp cook had given him. The bread was
wrapped in waxed paper so it would not make the actor’s pocket sticky.
The idea in this part of the film story was that Mr. Weldon was to
enter the cabin, thinking it held a man whom he wanted to catch. So he
approached the place on tiptoe. But no sooner had he entered, than the
bears, who had been anxious to come out, rushed at him. They smelled
the bread and molasses in Mr. Weldon’s pocket. There was no need to
hold it out to them.
“Now run!” cried Mr. Birch, while the cameras clicked.
There was no need to tell Mr. Weldon to do this. He took one look at
the bears, hungry for bread and molasses, and away he rushed. After him
lumbered the cubs--not angry, just keen to get the sweets.
“That’s good! Fine! Couldn’t be better!” cried Mr. Birch.
Finally the bears chased Mr. Weldon so closely that, tame as they were,
he feared they might claw him in their eagerness. So he climbed a tree
and dropped the bread and molasses down to the shaggy fellows.
This was all they wanted, and they stopped to lick up the molasses,
thus ending the scene.
“That was great!” cried the director.
“Glad of it,” said Mr. Weldon, as he came down from the tree after the
bears had been led away. “If it had been spoiled I wouldn’t have done
it over again. It was too exciting.”
But there was no need to take the bear scene over again, as sometimes
happens when movies are being filmed. It was all right from the first
click of the cameras.
Other scenes were taken the next day in the lumber camp, and in some
the Curlytops had small parts, much to their delight. They liked it in
the woods, and Mrs. Martin was glad to remain a few days in one spot
and have the shelter of a cabin in which to sleep.
Mr. Birch decided that as long as he was in a lumber camp he had better
take some scenes of chopping down trees, and this was arranged for.
Then, as his company was one producing comedies, he wanted something
funny and decided to have a man up in a tree that was being chopped
down.
One of the lumbermen volunteered to take this part, as he said it had
really happened to him once. He jumped out of the falling tree into
another standing near by, and so was not hurt.
“I can do the same thing again,” he said.
This scene took place on the edge of the clearing in the lumber camp,
where the light was good. As the company carried no powerful electric
lights with them, they had to depend on the sun, and in the depths of
the woods there was not light enough for taking good pictures.
After some funny antics, the lumberman climbed the tree. Then another
man began to chop it down. It did not take long, for the lumbermen know
how to fell a tree in a few minutes. And as the big pine began to sway
toward the earth, the trunk being almost cut through, Mr. Birch cried:
“Jump now!”
The man jumped, a camera filming him as he leaped from the falling tree
to one standing near it. Then down to the earth crashed the tall pine.
There was a shout of dismay from some of the movie people standing off
to one side.
“I hope no one was hurt,” said Mrs. Martin.
Mr. Teeter came running up through the cloud of dust caused by the fall
of the tree.
“There’s been a smash,” he said.
“A smash?” repeated Mr. Martin.
“Yes. That tree didn’t fall just the way it should, and it smashed down
on your auto.”
“Oh, is our car smashed?” cried Ted.
“Not all of it, but one wheel is,” said a lumberman. “I’m afraid you
Curlytops can’t continue your tour. I’m very sorry.”