THE FIRST REHEARSAL
So Neale O'Neil did not parade his new grey suit to church on that
particular Sunday. Before the next came around Ruth had purchased
another pair of trousers that fitted the white-haired boy, and the much
cut-down pair was saved for patches.
Something quite as interesting to him and the Corner House girls as a
new suit, appeared at the First Church, however, which they all
attended. Mr. Bob Buckham was at the morning service.
The girls and Neale did not see the farmer till after the sermon. Then
it was Agnes who first spied him, and she hurried back to where the old
man was shaking hands with two or three of the elderly members of the
congregation, who knew him.
Mr. Buckham in his Sunday clothes looked no more staid and respectable
than he did at home; and his eyes twinkled as merrily and his smile was
just as kind as on week-days.
"Hullo! here's one of my smart little friends," he exclaimed, welcoming
Agnes. "How's your mind now, miss? Quite calm _and_ contented?"
"I feel better than I did," confessed Agnes. "But I'm paying for my
wrong-doing just the same. You know, Mr. Buckham, you said you thought
we almost always got punished for our sins right here and now. We are.
We girls who stole from you, you know."
"Sho'! didn't I tell you to say no more about that?" cried the farmer.
"But Mr. Marks, our principal, is punishing us," Agnes told him.
"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Mr. Buckham, innocently.
"Eva and Myra and Mary and a lot of them, as well as myself, are
forbidden to take any part in the play that is going to be given for the
benefit of the Women's and Children's Hospital."
"Wal, that's what I call rough!" the farmer admitted. "To my mind the
berries weren't worth all this catouse over 'em. No, sir!"
"But what did you _suppose_ he would do to us?" asked the Corner House
girl, desperately.
"Who?"
"Mr. Marks."
"Why--I dunno," said the puzzled farmer. "It re'lly is too bad he
l'arned about you gals playin' that prank, ain't it?"
Agnes stared at him. She could not understand this at all. And
immediately Mr. Buckham went on to say: "The Women's and Children's
Hospital, eh? That's where your friend, Mrs. Eland, is matron, isn't
it?"
"She is Tess' and Dot's friend," explained Agnes.
"Wal! I come inter town pertic'lar to-day to see her. I got kind of a
funny letter from her this week."
"From Mrs. Eland?"
"Yep. Marm said I'd better answer it in person. Word o' mouth ain't so
ha'sh as a letter, ye know. And I ain't no writer myself."
Had he said this to Ruth, for instance, she would doubtless have been
interested enough to have asked some questions, and so discovered what
trouble Dot's busy tongue had started. Agnes, however, only listened
perfunctorily to the farmer's speech. Her mind was too perplexed about
the letter which had reached Mr. Marks purporting to come from Mr.
Buckham, in which he had complained of the girls stealing his berries.
Mr. Buckham spoke as though he had no knowledge of the information
lodged with the principal of the high school.
Now Tess and Dot saw "the eagle man" and they came clamoring about him.
Ruth came, too; and Neale followed. The boy had had no opportunity of
talking to the farmer alone the day of the chestnutting party. Now he
invited Mr. Buckham to go home with him to Mr. Con Murphy's for dinner,
and the old farmer accepted.
"That pretty, leetle gal's mighty bothered about her and her friends
playin' hob in my berry patch last May," Mr. Bob Buckham said, as he
and Neale crossed the Parade Ground. "How'd that school teacher l'arn
of it? Too bad! I reckon the gals didn't mean no harm."
"Why," cried Neale, flushing, and looking at the old man curiously.
"Somebody told on them."
"Told the teacher, you mean?"
"Yes. Wrote a letter to Mr. Marks giving all their names."
"Sho! ain't that a shame?" said Mr. Buckham, calm as a summer sea.
"Pretty mean I think myself, sir," Neale said warmly. "It stirred Mr.
Marks all up. He says he thinks you may intend making the girls pay for
the berries they took."
"_What's that?_" demanded the farmer, stopping stock still on the walk.
"He says your letter sounds as though you would do just that."
"_My_ letter?"
"Mr. Marks says the letter came from you."
"Why, Neale, you know I ain't no writest," gasped the farmer. "It ain't
possible he thinks I'd write him about a peck or two of strawberries?
They was some of my best and earliest ones, and I was mad enough about
it at the time; but, shucks! old Bob Buckham ain't mean enough to harry
a pack of gals about sech a thing, I should hope!"
Neale stared at him with a look of satisfaction on his face.
"Don't mean to tell me that Pretty thinks that of me, do ye?" added the
old gentleman, much worried.
"Yes, sir. She thinks you sent the letter."
"Wal! she treats me mighty nice, then. I'd des-arve snubbin'--I most
surely would--at her han's if she thinks I am that mean. She's a mighty
nice gal."
"She's the best little sport ever, Aggie is!" declared the boy,
enthusiastically. Then he added: "I knew it wasn't like you to do such a
thing, and it's puzzled me. But somebody wrote in your name and listed
all the girls that raided your berry patch--_but one_."
"All but one gal?"
"Yes, sir. One girl's name was left off the list," Neale said
confidently.
"Oh, dear me! Dear, dear me!" murmured the old farmer, pursing his lips
and eyeing Neale very gravely.
"And that particular girl is going to have one of the best parts in the
show they are giving for the hospital benefit," Neale pursued.
"You don't say so?" said old Bob Buckham, still seriously.
"And that very part is just what would be given our Aggie if she were
not in disgrace--yes, sir!"
"Not little Pretty?" demanded the farmer.
"Yes, sir."
"My! my!"
"This one girl whose name did not reach Mr. Marks was just as guilty as
the others. That's right, Mr. Buckham. And she's got out of it----"
"Hi!" exclaimed the farmer, sharply. "You're accusin' her of makin' all
the trouble for her mates."
"If you didn't, Mr. Buckham," said Neale, boldly.
"I most sartainly didn't!" exclaimed Mr. Buckham. "You know I wouldn't,
Neale O'Neil; don't you?"
"I never did think you did so mean a thing," declared Neale, frankly.
"But somebody told your teacher."
"Wrote him."
"And he thinks I done it?"
"Whoever it was must have signed your name to the letter."
"Nobody but marm does that," said the old man, quickly. "'Strawberry
Farm'--that is what we call the place, you know, Neale."
"Yes, sir."
"An' I got it printed on some letter paper, and marm always writes my
letters for me on that paper. Then, if it's a _very_ pertic'lar one, I
sign it myself. But you know, Neale, I ain't no schollard. I handle a
muck-fork better'n I do a pen."
"I know--yes, sir," agreed the boy.
"Now," continued the farmer, vigorously, "you find out if this here
letter that was writ, and your teacher received, was writ on one of our
letterheads. Of course, marm never done it; but--p'raps---- Wal! you
find out if it re'lly did come from Strawberry Farm, and if Bob
Buckham's name is onto it. That's all."
And Mr. Buckham refused to discuss the matter any further at that time.
The busy fall days were flying. It was already the middle of October.
Hallowe'en was in prospect and Carrie Poole, who lived in a modernized
farmhouse out of town on the Buckshot Road, planned to give a big
Hallowe'en party. Of course the two Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil
were invited.
Looking forward to the party divided interest among the older girls with
the preparations for the performance of _The Carnation Countess_.
A full fortnight before the thirty-first of October, came the first
general rehearsal of the musical play. It could not be rehearsed with
the scenery, of course, nor on the Opera House stage. The big hall of
the high school building had a large stage and here the preliminary
rehearsals were to be conducted.
That was a Saturday afternoon eagerly looked forward to. Although the
boys claimed to have much less interest in the play than the girls, even
they were excited over the rehearsal. Few of the boys had speaking parts
in _The Carnation Countess_, but all who had good voices were drafted by
Professor Ware for the choruses.
"And even those fellows whose voices are changing, and sound more like
bullfrogs than anything human," chuckled Neale O'Neil, "have got to
help swell the 'Roman populace' or carry out the dead."
"Now, Neale O'Neil! you know very well," said Tess, reprovingly, "that
the Romans aren't in this play at all, and there will be no dead to
carry out."
"Buzz! buzz! buzz-z-z-z!" crooned Dot, rocking her Alice-doll to sleep.
"Somebody'll slap at that bumblebee and try to kill it, if it doesn't
look out," promised Agnes, pouting. "I wish you folks wouldn't talk
about the old play. You--make--me--feel--so--bad!"
"You'll feel worse when you see that Trix Severn trying to play Innocent
Delight," sniffed Eva Larry, who chanced to be present in the Corner
House sitting-room where the discussion was going on.
"I don't suppose she is really _bad_ in it, Eva," Ruth said.
"Not bad? She's--worse!" proclaimed the boisterous one. "Just wait. I
know Miss Lederer is heart-broken over her."
"She'll spoil the play, won't she?" asked Tess, the anxious. "I hope I
won't spoil it, with my Swiftwing part."
"Oh, you're all right, honey," Agnes assured her. "You know your part
already, don't you?"
"Oh, yes. It's not nearly so hard to remember as the sovereigns of
England. And that's how I come to get the part of Swiftwing, I guess."
"What is the way?" asked Ruth, curiously.
"She means the reason," Agnes put in, who had lately begun to criticise
the family's use of English.
"The reason I got the part?" queried Tess, gravely. "'Cause I could
recite the sovereigns of England so well. I guess Miss Pepperill told
Professor Ware, and so he gave me the part in the play."
"Of course!" whispered Neale. "Of course, it couldn't be that they gave
a certain person her part because, if it hadn't been for her, nobody
would ever have thought of having a play for the benefit of the
hospital."
"I hope they gave it to her because they believed she was best fitted
for the part," said Ruth, placidly.
"Well, believe me!" exclaimed the slangy Eva, "Trix Severn is not fitted
for her part. Wait till to-morrow afternoon!"
"I have a good mind not to go to the rehearsal at all," sighed Agnes.
But she did not mean that. If she could not be one of the performers
herself, she was eager to see her fellow-pupils try their talents on the
stage.
There was no orchestra, of course; but the pianist gave the music cues,
and the stage-manager lectured the various choruses and dancers, while
Professor Ware put them through their musical parts. Most of the song
numbers had become familiar to the young performers. Even Dot Kenway's
class went through with their part quite successfully. And if they had
all been "buzzing" as indefatigably as the smallest Corner House girl at
home and abroad, it was not surprising that they were letter perfect.
The dancing was another matter entirely. To teach a few pupils at a time
certain steps, and then to try to combine those companies in a single
regiment, each individual of which must keep perfect time, is a greater
task than the inexperienced would imagine.
The training of the girls and boys to whom had been assigned the roles
of the more or less important characters in the play, was an unhappy
task in some instances. While most children can be taught to sing, and
many take naturally to dancing, to instruct them in the mysteries of
elocution is a task to try the patience of the angels themselves.
None of the professional principals in the cast were present at this
rehearsal save the gracious lady who was to represent The Carnation
Countess. She was both cheerful and obliging; but she did lose her
temper in one instance and spoke sharply.
A certain portion of the first act had been gone over and over again. It
had been wrecked each time by one certain actor. They had left it and
gone on with further scenes, and had then gone back to the hard part
again. It was no use; the girl who did not express her part properly
balked them all.
"I declare, Professor," the professional said tartly, "you must have
selected this Innocent Delight with your eyes shut. In the first place,
_why_ a brunette when the part calls for a blonde, if any part ever
called for one? It distresses me to say it, but if this Innocent Delight
is a sample of what your Milton girls can do in a play, you would much
better change your plans and put on _Puss in Boots_, instead of a piece
like _The Carnation Countess_. The former would compass the calibre of
your talent, I should say."
"What did I tell you?" hissed Eva in Agnes' ear. "Trix Severn will spoil
the whole show!"