WHEN MAKE-BELIEVE IS REAL
The dwarfs trotted gaily about the stage and finally went off to their
work of chopping wood in the forest, leaving Snow White singing
happily and brushing up the hearth.
"Isn't she pretty?" whispered Sunny Boy to Mother, who nodded and
handed him the opera glasses.
Sunny Boy couldn't make the glasses work very well, but he loved to
try, and he never felt that he was really at the theater unless he
spent some minutes trying to look through the end that brought the
stage nearer to him. He pretended that he had seen Snow White by the
aid of the dainty pearl-handled glasses that were a gift from Daddy
to Mother, and gave them back.
"Oh, look!" he nudged Mother sharply.
A queer old beggar woman had thrust her face close to the window in
the dwarf's house and was watching Snow White.
"Sh!" whispered Mother, as Sunny Boy bounced in his seat. "You must
keep still, dear. Don't make a noise."
The play went on, and Snow White let the old beggar woman in. She was
selling apples, and right away, if you had been in the audience, you
would have known she wasn't a beggar woman at all, but the wicked
stepmother, who was also a witch.
"What did she say?" whispered Sunny Boy, who couldn't hear every word
that was said on the stage.
"She wants to sell Snow White an apple, and Snow White says she has no
money," explained Mother, in a low voice so that the people sitting
near them would not be disturbed. "Now listen, and you'll hear what
they say next."
Snow White had picked up her broom again and was going to work.
"I'll give you this beautiful apple," smiled the crafty old beggar
woman. "See, my dear, I have it for you as a gift. Isn't it
beautiful?"
She put it on the table, and went limping out of the door, pretty
little Snow White running after her to thank her. At the window she
stopped once, waved her hand, and vanished.
Snow White picked up the apple, and admired it. It was very red, and
large and shining.
This was too much for Sunny Boy. He had kept still when Snow White let
the witch in the door--"after the dwarfs told her not to let any one
in the house, too," he grumbled as he watched her do it--and he had
kept still while the witch tried to persuade her to buy an apple; but
it was altogether too much to expect him to sit quietly there and
watch Snow White eat that apple. Not for nothing had Harriet read him
his book of fairy tales!
Snow White shook back her curly black hair and raised the apple to her
rosy mouth for a bite.
"Don't eat it!" shouted Sunny Boy "at the top of his lungs" Harriet
would have said. "Don't bite it! Throw it away! The witch poisoned
it!"
He stood up on the seat, waving his hands frantically, a conspicuous
little figure in a blue and white sailor suit.
How the people about him laughed! The lady sitting next to him had to
wipe her eyes because she laughed so hard the tears came. Mother
pulled Sunny Boy down into the seat beside her, and Snow White went on
eating her apple, because, of course, the play had to go on.
"It's only make-believe, dear," whispered Mother, smoothing Sunny
Boy's tousled hair. "You know she won't really die."
Sunny Boy smiled, a faint little smile.
"I guess I forgot it wasn't real," he said sheepishly. "Anyway, the
little girl from Georgia is crying. I guess she forgot, too."
The little girl from Georgia was crying, the big tears rolling slowly
and silently down her cheeks. Many of the children all over the house
were crying, or if not actually crying, sniffling a bit. Snow White
had eaten her apple and fallen asleep and the poor little brown dwarfs
came home to find her, as they supposed, dead.
But the third and last act had a happy ending. Snow White came to life
again, and the big curtain came down and the lights flared up to show
a houseful of happy, smiling children being buttoned into coats and
gloves, and having their caps and hats and bonnets put on for them by
mothers and grandmothers and aunts and big sisters.
Sunny Boy walked soberly up the aisle beside his mother, thinking
about a great many things. He thought about the dwarfs, and how he
would like to know some to play with. He thought about the big
theater, and wondered if it was fun to be an actor. And then he
thought what a lot of children had come to see the play, and whether
they all lived in New York. He put this last thought into words.
"Do they all live here?" he asked Mother, who, of course, did not know
what he had been thinking and had to have it explained to her.
"No, I don't suppose they all live here," she said thoughtfully, when
Sunny Boy had told her. "I imagine a great many of these boys and
girls are New Yorkers and live in the houses and apartments we have
seen in the city. Some of them, I am sure, come from the suburban
towns to the matinee, the way the children from Glendale come in to
Centronia when we have a good play at our theaters, you know. And some
of these children you saw this afternoon are like a little boy I
know--they come from other cities on their first visit to New York.
Though not all of them stand up and shout at the stage people, I'm
glad to say."
Sunny Boy snickered.
"Well, next time I won't," he promised. "Won't Daddy laugh when I tell
him? Guess he'll think I never went to the theater."
Daddy did laugh when they told him that night, after they had had
dinner and were up in their room together. Sunny Boy had had his bath
and, all cool and clean, was curled up in his pink pajamas in a
blanket on Mother's bed trying to keep awake and listen to Mother and
Daddy talk.
"Right out loud in the theater!" repeated Mr. Horton, pretending to be
shocked. "Why, Sunny Boy, you must be more careful. I don't suppose
you stopped to think that if Snow White had taken your advice and
thrown away the apple, the rest of the play couldn't have happened."
"Yes, and suppose they had come down to you and had said you would
have to write them a new fairy story before they could finish the
play," teased Mrs. Horton. "What would you have done then, Sunny?"
"I'd have just said I couldn't," giggled Sunny Boy, trying to turn a
summersault on the bed.
"Some one called you up about five o'clock this afternoon," said Mr.
Horton, speaking to his wife. "It was a short time before you came in.
She said she would call again after dinner."
"I didn't know I knew any one in New York, at least any one who knew
we were here," Mrs. Horton began, puzzled, when the telephone on the
table rang.
She went to answer it, and Sunny Boy and Daddy had a pillow fight,
which was all the more exciting because they had to keep quiet and not
bother Mother at the telephone. Sunny Boy grew red in the face, not
daring to laugh aloud, and Daddy tickled him unmercifully.
"There, now, do be still," said Mrs. Horton, hanging up the receiver
and coming over to the bed where Sunny Boy and his father were rolling
around, each apparently trying to stuff a pillow down the other's
neck. "Harry! Sunny! Neither of you will go to sleep to-night. Sunny
Boy and I are invited to pay a call to-morrow afternoon."
"All right, let's." A flushed and triumphant Sunny Boy sat up and
smiled blissfully at his mother. He had had "last whack" at Daddy, who
was now busy brushing lint off his trousers.
Mrs. Horton laughed.
"Sunny, you're getting to be keen for going," she declared. "You don't
seem to care where you go as long as it is somewhere. I'm anxious to
see you in school and having a little less excitement. And look at my
bed!"
"That's all right," Mr. Horton assured her hastily. "We scoop Sunny
Boy off so." He swung Sunny high in the air and landed him safely in
his own little bed. "Then we pat up the pillows, so, and smooth the
covers like this--and there you are!"
"Thank you," smiled Mrs. Horton. "Who do you suppose called me up?"
Mr. Horton couldn't guess, and Sunny Boy couldn't guess.
"Adele Parker," announced Mrs. Horton. "We went to school together,
but I haven't seen her since she was married. Bessie and her younger
sister are great chums, and Bessie wrote the sister we were in New
York. She gave our address and Adele has hunted us up. She wants me
to come up to-morrow afternoon. They are just back from the country,
and the house is all torn up, so we won't stay long. But I do want to
see her."
Sunny Boy dropped asleep while they were talking, and in the morning
he and Mother went shopping again, because Daddy was to have an
all-day conference with business men and they must amuse themselves.
"I think we ought to choose a few little gifts to take to the friends
at home," suggested Mrs. Horton, as she and Sunny Boy stepped from the
car and went into one of the beautiful big shops. "Daddy says we won't
be here much longer, perhaps not more than another week. Wouldn't you
like to take something home to Nelson and Ruth?"
Sunny Boy thought this would be very nice, but what should he take
them?
"Well, suppose you think about it, while I buy some things for Aunt
Bessie and Aunt Betty Martinson and Harriet," said Mrs. Horton.
Sunny Boy puzzled and puzzled, but Mother was all through her shopping
before he could think of a single thing that Ruth and Nelson might
like.
"Could we buy 'em a spress wagon?" he asked doubtfully. "Nelson's
always borrowing mine. Or roller skates?"
"Dear me," said Mrs. Horton, "don't you think something we could pack
in the trunk would be nicer? It needn't be a large gift, you know.
Just something they can say came from New York. We'll go up to the toy
department and look around."
This was a different shop from the first one they had visited, and
Sunny Boy had to see all the toys before he could settle down to
choosing gifts for Ruth and Nelson. Finally, by Mother's advice, he
settled on a quaint little painted music box for Ruth that played four
different tunes, and a picture puzzle game for Nelson, who liked to
put things together. These were sent home to the hotel so that Sunny
Boy and Mother would not have to carry packages with them the rest of
the day.
"Now we'll go to the restaurant and have lunch," planned Mrs. Horton,
leading the way to the elevator. "And then I want to get a box of nice
candy to take Adele's children. I hope their mother lets them eat
candy."
"Will there be some children?" asked Sunny Boy, surprised. "That will
be fun. Houses where I sit on a chair visiting are kind of lonesome."
"I don't doubt it," agreed Mother sympathetically. "Well, you'll find
three children to visit with this afternoon. You must have been
asleep last night when I told Daddy. Adele Parker has two boys and a
little girl."
"Daddy calls her Mrs. Kennedy," objected Sunny Boy, following Mother
out of the elevator into a large dining room.
Mrs. Horton stopped at the door till the waitress should find them
seats.
"She is Mrs. Kennedy," Mother admitted, smiling. "I call her Adele
Parker because that was her name when I knew her at school. She
probably calls me Olive Andrew, because that was my name before it was
Mrs. Horton."
The waitress came up to them and beckoned.
"There's a table for two over by the window," she said. "I'll see that
some one takes your order."