“THE TRIUMPH OF FLORA”
After the disaster of the _Fair Ellen_, Billy promised his mother to
bar explosives from his play, a promise made readily, for “Betsey has
been giving it to me good an’ plenty for leaving that door open,” he
explained to her. Thus the Alaska trade which the boys intended the
_Fair Ellen_ to wrest from Seattle, thereby transferring some of her
prosperity to California’s stricken seaport, remained with the northern
metropolis; and they sought other outlet for their energies.
Billy organized a real estate syndicate, and sold lots to the Gang,
“with or without liability to assessment, as the purchaser prefers.”
A Board of Trade was organized to which all promised to defer, except
Jimmy, who smiled in disdain. He leased the railroad and did a
thriving carrying trade, timber for fencing and warehouses, dirt for
filling, and so on; and was fast becoming “the millionaire of the
crowd,” when the “Board” met and decided he should cut his tariff in
half or leave the syndicate; and as Jimmy was heartily interested in
the game, he accepted their decision and no longer smiled at the Board
of Trade.
Max, whose father was a gardener, knew wizard’s tricks with seeds and
soils; and as Farmer and Forester to the syndicate, gave his knowledge
right and left with happy importance. He taught the girls how to plan
and plant their flower beds, and started the boys on a career of
vegetable-raising that made them feel rich before they began; talked
trees to Harold and other farmer boys, and astonished his father by the
questions he asked and the work he did.
“I haf learn for gifing avay already, but I feel more as rich dan if
they haf gif to me. How ist dat?” Max asked himself, not knowing, this
little German lad so lately come to America, that he had discovered one
of the profoundest secrets of the universe.
To his mother and sister Billy seemed changed. He stuck closer to his
books. His teacher told them the boy stood at the head of his class.
“Jimmy Dorr may be a rival if he feels like work, which isn’t probable.
Jean’s accident last year put her behind, otherwise the boys would have
to work much harder if either excelled her.” Yet even these welcome
words did not account for some things the mother quietly observed;
Billy’s growing promptness, better attention, and memory for matters
outside of play. He was more silent, too; and there was less hammering
and whistling in the shop.
“Billy, I don’t like the look of your eyes; you’re reading too much
at night,” his mother said one evening when he was helping with the
dishes. “You must go to bed earlier.”
May Nell had learned to use the towel; and the two children usually
“did” the dishes at night; but now she was away with Edith at the Opera
House, and mother and son were alone in the kitchen.
Billy had been reeling off stanzas of his favorite “Lady of the
Lake,”--“by the yard,” Mrs. Bennett said, acting it as he recited,
somewhat retarding the work and endangering the dishes. Now he dropped
his towel, caught up his mother and raced with her around the room. He
was so strong that she was almost helpless in his grasp.
“You little bit of a woman! Do you think I’ll mind you? I’m Roderick
Dhu of Benvenue, the bravest chief of all the crew! I’m Captain Kidd,
the pirate bold, whose treasure, hid, lies yet in mould. I’m the strong
man, the bad--”
A lot more nonsense he rattled off, squeezing and kissing her till she
was breathless with laughter.
“Now you’re Fair Ellen and I’m defending you at Goblin Cave!” He thrust
her behind him, held her tight with one arm, while he flourished the
carving knife and called on Clan Alpine’s foes to appear.
But the moment of frolic passed, and he turned to her with shining
face. “You’re the only mother I ever had--so far as I know--” his eyes
danced; “anyway, you’re the only one in sight, an’ a heap too good for
this guy; I guess--I’ll--I’ll mind.”
His mood grew more thoughtful. He put the dishes away quietly, and
neither spoke again till the work was finished. Then he went and kissed
her on the cheek. “It’s good to have you all to myself, little mother;
to be just chums once more.”
She put back his tumbled hair, looked long into his eyes, realizing
with a shock that she was looking _up_. Her little boy was gone.
“But I don’t wish May Nell away, mother, do you?”
“No, my son.” The answer was more sincere than a few weeks before she
could have believed possible. The coming of the child had taken from
her life many hours of association with Billy, sweet as only mothers
know; yet May Nell’s influence had softened and refined Billy, enlarged
his vision.
He tidied himself, bade his mother good-bye, and followed the girls to
rehearsal.
Sometimes all the small meanness of everyday life is swept away by a
great calamity, and the world forgets to hate, and opens its great
heart of love. Such an event came through the catastrophe in San
Francisco. It inclined every ear, moistened every eye. From all the
world’s pocketbook came the golden dollars; from every soul the longing
to do; and when it was done, disappointment because it was so little.
Vina was no exception. Ball games, church collections, children’s mite
societies, girls sewing, boys running errands, each and all helped with
the relief work.
When Edith planned to turn her pupils’ recital into a great Spring
Festival, for the benefit of the sufferers, all the town applauded, and
asked how it could help.
Edith worked very hard. She called her operetta “The Triumph of Flora.”
The words were her own, written hurriedly and set to familiar though
classic airs. Yet many of the daintiest, most tripping melodies she
wrote herself. The sorrows of humanity had winged her brain and dipped
her pen in harmonies, that she might assuage them.
All went well with the preparation; and on a glorious spring night in
the full moon, the town and countryside jammed the Opera House “to its
eyebrows,” Billy said, looking through the peephole in the curtain to
the high window seats crowded with boys.
The operetta opened with a weird winter scene, when the Sower (Harold)
sowed his grain, and the gnomes and elves set upon him; and evoked
Storm King (Jimmy), Wind (Bess), and Frost (Jackson). He was the
comedy of the little drama; and dressed all in black, covered with
silver spangles and diamond dust, he made a joke that the wine-growers
appreciated, for it is the black frosts of April they fear.
After these followed Jean as Rain. Wherever she passed the singers
bowed their heads and sang more softly, and Frost retreated in haste.
Billy was the sun, dressed in a pale yellow tunic, and crowned with a
fillet of sun-bursts cut from gilt paper. He came but a little way on
the stage from the south for each of his short solos; and the others
pelted him back. Especially did he hide from Rain behind Cloud, a tall
girl in a small ocean of gray tulle.
At the close of the act, in the far, high distance, the Goddess, Flora,
appeared on a hill-crest. This was Edith herself, arrayed in a filmy
gown of pale green, garlanded with snow-drops and buttercups. High,
far, and faint came her song of the dawn of Spring. But the gnomes and
the elves, Storm, Wind, Frost, and Rain, roared and howled; and Flora,
affrighted, fled from view.
The curtain fell on the first act and the house rocked with the noise.
It is probable the audience, predetermined to be pleased, would have
approved anything offered; but so far it was more beautiful than had
been expected.
The second act brought a conflict between elves and gnomes, and the
fairies, when first the earth sprites were victorious, but at last
the fairies. May Nell was the Fairy Queen, and enchanted all with her
beauty, her dancing and singing, and her acting, which was sweetly
childish as well as clever.
Flora came into view, clad in palest pink, and wreathed with almond
blossoms. Wherever she stepped the ground was white with almond snow.
Gnomes and elves peeped from behind gray rocks and tree-trunks, but
fled as she came near, following the ever-beckoning fairies.
Sun, dressed this time in bright yellow satin, and crowned with yellow
gems, was surrounded by fairies, and came more and more boldly forward.
He beckoned to Flora, menaced the earth sprites, and threatened Storm,
Wind, and Frost; and at the close was rewarded by Flora’s rejoicing cry,
“I come! I come at thy call, O Sun!
Thy high commands shall quick be done.”
The curtain fell a second time to still heartier applause; and the
long wait between the acts was forgotten in discussion and approval.
The richest people in town had aided Edith with her costuming and
properties, that thus every penny of the receipts might be saved for
the great purpose. They had brought out all their stores of rich
fabric, fine lace, jewels, and ornaments, for the small mummers; and
the effect was entrancing.
The last act exhausted the possibilities of the theatre in light
effects and sylvan scenery; and the curtain rose on a gorgeous scene.
But oh, horror! In the middle of the stage the scene-shifters had left
the ugly truck that moved Storm King’s reservoir of ice and snow. When
used in previous acts, bed and wheels had been hidden by moss, the tank
had been covered by his mantle, and the entire mechanism, moving as he
moved, had seemed a part of himself. Now its secret was disclosed and
it was ridiculous.
Edith in white, half smothered in blush roses, with the fairies and
their Queen, stood ready in the wings. Billy was also waiting his
cue. This time he was to be pulled swiftly in on invisible wheels.
Over his satin tunic was a network of glittering mock gems that must
have included every yellow bead and spangle in Vine County. From his
shoulders floated a cloud of yellow, diamond-dusted tulle; and the
crown of gems surrounded a cluster of small lights, a device Billy
himself had figured out with the aid of the electric light man.
“Oh, Billy, Billy! My beautiful opera is ruined!” Edith wailed, as she
heard the jeers of the small boys in the audience.
“No, it isn’t, sister! I’ve thought of a way out. Keep the kids
straight here--I’ll be back in a minute.”
This act opened with a hidden chorus that lasted two or three moments,
the fairies on the one hand inviting the elves and gnomes to join them;
the others responding. While this was in progress Billy rushed to the
boys’ dressing room and talked furiously but straight to the purpose.
“Say, fellows, business now, and no questions asked. There’s a hitch
on the stage. Storm, wrap that cloak round you--don’t wait for
fixings--and get to your place in the wings, quick! When I say ‘Go,’
take Rain’s hand, crouch low, run to the centre, and between you yank
that snow tank off the stage. _Sabe?_”
Across to the girls’ side he flew. He knew Jean. She would manage
somehow, no matter what the difficulty. And he did not trust her
without reason. She was already in her shining misty robe that was to
change her from Rain to Dew; but she caught the gray mantle, covered
herself with it as she ran, and was in the wings almost as soon as
Billy.
He placed them before him, Rain and Storm, took his great golden horn
of plenty under his arm, stepped on the wheeled board, signalled the
super, and rolled on, driving the crouching pair in front of him with
pelting showers’ of rose leaves, and landing at his station just as the
chorus filed in. The gray pair threw their shrouding mantles over the
truck, and still crouching pushed it out of sight; and the spectators,
believing they had laughed in the wrong place, cheered vociferously,
and never knew the difference.
Rain dropped her gray mantle behind a tree, and reappeared with her
chalice of diamond-dust dew, to touch the fairy chorus to shimmering
beauty. The gnomes, their queer masks and hunched shoulders showing
grotesquely under their gray garb, joined the fairies’ dance. Wind came
floating in as Summer Breeze. Storm was transformed to the Slave of the
Sower; while Black Frost was perched high up at the rear, grinning from
the top of the mountain.
The Sun called to Flora, and she appeared by his side. In front of them
knelt the Sower, crowned with leaves. The Sun bestowed upon him a
cornucopia overflowing with cherries; Flora laid on his other arm long
sprays of roses.
The fairies, gnomes, and elves, danced, sang, and retired; elves and
gnomes crouching close against trees and rocks, the fairies withdrawing
only to reappear one by one as the music went on, here and there, high
in the trees; and each had a tiny light on her brow. But just over
Flora and Sun, poised and upheld by invisible wires, stood the Queen of
the Fairies, crown, wand, and shoulders fire-tipped, her arms waving,
her filmy draperies continually fluttering, fanned by an artificial
breeze. Over all fell a rain of rose leaves.
The scene ended in a crash of music; the curtain fell to a house wild
with cheering. Edith and the principal performers were called again and
again before the curtain. It was a generous, appreciative audience,
giving its heartiest approval by rising.
Late that night when Billy’s mother followed him to the Fo’castle, he
asked, “Are you pleased with it, little mother?”
“It was all splendid; and, Billy, I never dreamed it was in you!
Sister’s operetta would have been a failure if it hadn’t been for you.”
“And Jean and Jimmy, too.”
She stooped and kissed him.
“That’s good enough for me, then,” he said, sleepily. And no one ever
heard him mention again his unexpected addition to the scene.