That was a tremendous week for the children of Braywood. As some quiet
bayou harbors for a time a few birds of passage restlessly resting
before they fly on into the sky, so the domestic poultry of Braywood was
stirred by the Kemble wild fowl.
Four generations were gathered at the Burbage home. Sheila’s
great-grandmother was always there at the home of Clyde Burbage, senior,
who had fallen out of the line of strollers, and become a merchant. His
wife’s mother, who was Polly Farren’s mother, too, was there for a
visit. The old lady and the older lady had left the stage and now spent
their hours in regretting the decadence of earlier glories, as their
elders had done before them, and as their children would do in their
turn.
The Kembles and Farrens and Burbages were all peers in the aristocracy
of the theater, which, like every other world, has its princes and
peasants, its merchants and vagabonds, saints and sinners.
None of this line dated back, however, to the time when Holy Week was a
period of industry for the churchly actors who prepared their miracles
and moralities for the edification of the people. Nowadays Holy Week is
a time when most of the theaters close, and the others entertain
diminished audiences and troupes whose enthusiasm is diminished by the
halving of their salaries.
It is a period when so many people desire to be seen in church or fear
to be seen in the playhouse, that the receipts drop off amazingly,
though the same people feel it no sin to crowd the same theater the week
before or the week after the Passion sennight.
Sometimes a play is strong enough in draught to pack the theater in
spite of the anniversary. This year the Farren-Kemble play was not quite
successful enough to justify the risk of half-filled auditoriums. So
they “rested.”
But to the children, as to the other animals, there are no holy days, or
rather no unholy days. The children of Braywood made a theatrical week
of it, and Sheila reveled in her opportunity. She had an audience
everywhere she went.
The other children stood about her and wondered. She fascinated them,
and they were eager to do as she bade, though they felt a certain
uneasiness; as if they had wished for a fairy queen to play with and had
got their wish.
The other children commanded in their own specialties and in their
turns. At outdoor romps and sports Clyde Burbage led the way, and
endangered future limbs or present lives by his fearless banter. At
household games with dolls and diseases Dorothy had a matronly authority
and Sheila was like a novice. In hospital games, Dorothy, the head
nurse, must show her how babies should be handled, punished, and
medicined.
It should be set down to Sheila’s credit that she was meek as Moses in
the presence of domestic genius. But it must be added that the things
she learned from Dorothy were likely to be exploited later in some drama
where Sheila took full sway. In Dorothy’s games the dolls always
recovered when Dr. Eugene was called in with his grandmother’s
spectacles on. In Sheila’s dramas the dolls almost always perished in
agony, while the desperate mother clung to the embarrassed doctor, at
the same time screaming to him to save the child and whispering him to
pronounce it dead.
Roger Kemble happened to be passing Mrs. Vickery’s front yard during one
of these tragedies, and paused to watch it across the fence while Mrs.
Vickery attended from the porch. One of those startling unconscious
scandals in which children’s plays abound was suddenly developed, and
Roger moved on rapidly while Mrs. Vickery vanished into the house.
All the while the young Shakespeare of Braywood wrought upon his play
for Sheila. But the moment he thought he had it perfected, he would hear
her toss off one of the dramatic principles that she had overheard her
father and mother discussing after some rehearsal. Then Eugene would
blush to realize that his drama had violated this dictum and was
unworthy of the great actress. And he would steal away to unravel his
fabric and knit it up again.
At last it began to shape itself according to her ideals as he had
gleaned them. He sat up finishing it until he was sent to bed for the
fourth time, then he worked in his room till his mother knocked on his
door and ordered his light out and forbade him to leave his bed again.
He waited till he knew that his parents were asleep, then he cautiously
renewed his light and, sitting up in bed, wrote with that
grasshopper-legged finger of his till he could keep his eyes ajar no
longer. Then he held one eye open with his left hand till the hand
itself went to sleep. He never knew it when his head rolled over to the
pillow. He knew nothing more till he woke, shivering, to find the
daylight in the room and the light still burning expensively.
He put out the light and worked till breakfast and his play were ready.
After he had spooned up his porridge and chewed down his second glass of
milk he made haste toward Clyde Burbage’s house. He hesitated at the
nearest corner till he found courage to proceed. He mounted the steps
with his precious manuscript buttoned against his swinging heart. He
rang the bell. Mrs. Burbage came to the door, and he peeled his cap from
his burning head:
“Is—is Clyde at home, Mis’ Burbage?”
Mrs. Burbage was surprised at the formality of the visit. Boys usually
stood outside and whistled for Clyde or called “Hoo-oo!” or “Hay,
Clyde—oh, Cly-ud!” till he answered. In fact, he had only recently
answered just such a signal from another boy and slammed the door after
him.
When Eugene learned that Clyde was abroad he made as if to depart, then
paused and, with a violent carelessness, mumbled, “I don’t suppose
Sheila is home, either?”
“Sheila? Oh no! She and her father and mother left on the midnight
train.”
“Is that so?” said Eugene as casually as if he had just learned that all
his relatives were dead or that he had overslept Christmas.
He tried to make a brave exit, but he was so forlorn that Mrs. Burbage
forgot to smile as grown-ups smile at the big tragedies of the little
folk. She watched him struggling overlong at the gate-latch. She saw him
break into a frantic run for home as soon as he had gained the sidewalk.
Then she went inside, shaking her head and thinking the same words that
were clamoring in the boy’s sick heart:
“Oh, Sheila! Sheila!”