THE EVENTFUL EVENING
IF the U. S. C.'s had thought themselves busy before they undertook
their entertainment they concluded as they rushed from one duty to
another in the ten days of preparation for that function that they had
not learned the A B C of busy-ness. Mrs. Morton always insisted that,
whatever was on foot, school work must not be slighted.
"Your education is your preparation for life," she said. "While you are
young you must lay down a good foundation for the later years to build
on. You know what happens when a foundation is poor."
They did. A building in Rosemont had fallen into a heap of ruins not
long before, to the shame of the contractor who had put in poor work.
So all the school duties were attended to faithfully, and the
out-of-door time was not skimped though the out-of-door time was largely
devoted to doing errands connected with the "show," and the home lessons
were learned as thoroughly as usual. But sewing went by the board for
ten days except such sewing as was necessary for the making of costumes.
"Here's a chance for your Club to try out some of Roger's ideas of
system," said Grandfather Emerson as he listened to the plans which were
always on the lips of the club members whenever he met them.
"I think we're doing it all pretty systematically," Helen defended.
"Each one of us is responsible for doing certain things and our work
doesn't overlap. When we come together for a general rehearsal I believe
we're going to find that all the parts will fit together like a cut-out
puzzle."
[Illustration: Costume for Butterfly Dance]
Mr. Emerson said that he hoped so in a tone of such doubt that Helen was
more than ever determined that all should run smoothly. To that end she
made a diplomatic investigation into every number of the program. Every
one she found to be going on well. Her own address was already blocked
out in her mind. Dorothy had taken bodily a singing class that Mrs.
Smith had started at the Rosemont Settlement and, with the knowledge of
singing that the children already had, they soon were drilled in their
special songs and in the motions that enlivened them. Mrs. Smith and
Dorothy were also preparing the costumes and they reported that the
mothers of the children were helping, some of them providing actual
peasant costumes that had come from the old country.
With four girls who already knew the butterfly dance the drilling of
another quartette was swiftly done, and the Ethels were willing to put
their flock of butterflies on the stage four days after they had begun
to practice. Because every one of them had a white dress their costumes
required almost no work beyond the cutting lengthwise of a yard and a
quarter of cheesecloth. When they had gathered one end and attached the
safety pin which was to fasten it to the shoulder, and gathered the
other end and sewed on a loop which was to go over the little
finger--all of which took about five minutes--that costume was finished.
About the boys' club swinging Helen could not obtain any information
beyond the assurance that all was well. With that she had to content
herself.
The old ladies at the Home were delighted to be able to help and also
delighted at the excitement of taking part in the entertainment. They
voted for the trio who should represent them in the tableaux and
generously selected three who were the most handicapped of all of them.
One was lame and always sat with her crutch beside her; one was blind,
though her fast flying fingers did not betray it; and the third lived in
a wheel-chair. They demurred strongly to their companions' choice, but
the other old ladies were insistent and the appointees could not resist
the fun. Mr. Emerson agreed to provide transportation for them,
wheel-chair and all, and Doctor Hancock was to send over a wagonette
from Glen Point so that the rest of the inmates of the Home might take
advantage of the tickets that some mysterious giver had sent to every
one of them. For the inner picture Dicky and two of his kindergarten
friends were to be posed, clad in rags.
"It's no trouble to provide Dicky with a ragged suit," said Mrs. Morton.
"The difficulty is going to be to make him look serious and poorly fed."
"A little artistic shading under his eyes and on his cheeks will make
his plumpness disappear. I'll 'make up' the children," offered Mrs.
Emerson.
Most difficult of all were the silhouettes. This was because the
children who were to take part were so tiny that they could not quite
remember the sequence of the story they were to act out. There were
moments when the Ethels were almost disposed to give up the youngsters
and try the shadows with larger children.
"The little ones make so much cunninger cats and dogs than the bigger
children I don't want to do it unless we have to," said Ethel Brown, and
they found at last that perseverance won the day. Here, too, the
children's mothers helped with the costumes, and turned out a creditable
collection of animal coverings, not one of them with a bit of fur.
"They're another help to your cotton crusade," Ethel Blue told
Dorothy.
Grey flannelette made a soft maltese pussy; the same material in brown
covered a dog; a white coat splashed with brown spots out of the family
coffee pot was the covering of another Fido, while another white garment
stained with black and yellow ornamented a tortoise-shell cat. The
rabbits all wore white.
As with the butterfly dance so many of the performers knew the minuet
that it needed only two rehearsals. The new boy worked in without any
trouble and was so graceful and dignified that the U. S. C. boys found
themselves emulating his excellent manner.
Helen herself took charge of "The Pied Piper" and so few were the
speaking parts and so short and so natural the pantomime that she
drilled her company in three rehearsals, though she herself worked
longer in private over the manipulation of certain stage "properties,"
and had one or two special sessions with Dr. Edward Watkins who was to
take the principal part.
Friday evening was chosen for the performance. The Rosemont young people
usually had their evening festivities on Fridays because they could sit
up later than usual without being disturbed about school work the next
morning. The special Friday proved to be clear with a brilliant moon and
the old ladies driving over from the Home felt themselves to be out on a
grand lark. Evidently the boys had done their publicity work thoroughly,
for not only did they see a goodly number of Rosemont people approaching
the schoolhouse, but, just as they drove up to the door, a special car
from Glen Point stopped to let off a crowd of friends of the Hancocks
who had come over to see "what the children were doing for the war
orphans."
The school hall held 300 people and no seats were reserved except those
for the old ladies. They found themselves in front where they could see
well and where they were near enough to appreciate the care with which
the edge of the platform was decorated. That had been Margaret Hancock's
work and she had remembered the success of the Service Club in preparing
the platform for the Old First Night exercises at Chautauqua.
Tom had insisted that the Club should go to the extra expense of having
tickets printed. James had objected.
"This old treasury of ours is almost an empty box," he growled. "We
can't afford to spend cold cash on printing."
"It will pay in the end, believe me," insisted Tom slangily. "You know
there are always a lot of people who think they'll go to a show and then
at the last minute think they won't if something more amusing turns up.
If you sell tickets beforehand you've got their contribution to the
cause even if they don't appear themselves."
"Tom's right," agreed Margaret. "They won't mind losing so small a sum
as a quarter if they don't go."
"And they'd think it was too small an amount to bother themselves about
by hunting up the treasurer and paying it in if they didn't have a
ticket," said Roger.
"And there are some people who'd be sure to come and swell the audience
just because they had spent a quarter on a ticket," said Ethel Brown.
"What does the president think?" asked Ethel Blue.
Helen agreed with Tom and the tickets were printed. After all they came
to only a small sum and Roger, peeking through a hole in the curtain,
saw with satisfaction that if there were going to be any vacant seats at
all they would not be many. When one of the old ladies turned about just
before the curtain went up she saw a solid room behind her and people
standing against the wall.
There was music before the curtain rose. This enrichment of the program
was a surprise to the performers themselves. Young Doctor Edward Watkins
had become so interested in the United Service Club when he met them at
the French Line Pier that he had insisted on helping with their work for
the orphans.
"If Mademoiselle really sends you that Belgian baby you may need a
special physician for it," he said. "So you'd better stand in with one
whose practice isn't big enough yet to take all his time."
He said this to Helen when he appeared with Tom and Della on the evening
of the performance and announced that not only did he know his part in
the "Piper" but he had brought his violin and would be glad to be a part
of the orchestra.
"But we haven't an orchestra," objected Helen. "I wish we had."
"Who's going to play for the dances?"
"Aunt Louise."
"Why can't she and I do something at the beginning? It will seem a
little less cold than just having the curtain go up without any
preliminaries."
Mrs. Smith proved to be delighted to go over with Doctor Watkins the
music he had brought and they selected one or two lively bits that would
set the mood of the audience for the evening. So Mrs. Morton and the
Emersons and the younger members of the cast were greatly surprised to
hear an overture from a well-played violin accompanied by the piano.
While the applause was dying away the curtain rose on Helen seated at a
desk reading from a blank exercise book filled with Ethel Blue's neat
writing.
"This is the report of the Secretary of the United Service Club," began
Helen when the applause that greeted her appearance had subsided. She
was looking very pretty, wearing a straight, plain pink frock and having
her hair bound with a narrow pink fillet.
"Perhaps you don't know what the United Service Club is," she went on,
and then she told in the simplest manner of the beginning of the Club at
Chautauqua the summer before.
"What we're trying to do is to help other people whether we want to or
not," she declared earnestly.
A soft laugh went over the audience at this contradictory statement.
"I mean," continued Helen, somewhat confused, "that we mean to do things
that will help people even if we don't get any fun out of it ourselves.
We want to improve our characters, you see," she added artlessly. "So
far we haven't had much chance to improve our characters because all the
things that have come our way to do have been things that were great
fun--like to-night.
"To-night," she went on earnestly, "you have come here to see a little
entertainment that we've gotten up to make some money so that we could
send a bigger bundle to the Christmas Ship that is going to sail for
Europe early in November. We thought we could make a good many presents
for the war orphans but we found that our allowances didn't go as far as
we thought they would, although we have a very careful treasurer," she
added with a smiling glance at the wings of the stage where James
greeted her compliment with a wry face.
"We made a rule that we would make all the money we needed and not
accept presents, so this show is the result, and we hope you'll like it.
Anyway, we've had lots of fun getting it up."
She bowed her thanks to the applause that greeted her girlish
explanation and stepped behind the scenes.
Immediately a gay march sounded from the piano. It was a medley of
well-known national songs and in time with its notes a group of children
led by Dorothy ran upon the stage. Dorothy stepped to the front and sang
a few lines of introduction to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."
"Here we are from Fatherland,
From Russia and from France,
From Japan and from Ireland
We all together dance.
"At home they are not dancing now;
There's war and awful slaughter;
We here in Rosemont make our bow,
Each one Columbia's daughter."
Then a flaxen-haired little girl stepped forward and sang a German folk
song and after it she and two other children dressed in German peasant
costume danced a merry folk dance. Representatives of the other
countries which Dorothy's verses had named sang in turn. Then each group
sang its national song, at the end uniting in "The Star Spangled
Banner," in which the standing audience joined.
There was a great clapping when the curtain fell, but the managers had
decided that there should be no encores, so the curtain merely rose once
upon a bowing, smiling group and then fell with a decision that was
understood to be final.
"Whatever we do wrong, the thing we must do right," Helen had insisted
when she was drilling her performers, "is to have promptness in putting
on our 'acts.'"
"That's so," agreed Tom, "there's nothing an audience hates more than to
wait everlastingly between 'turns' while whispering and giggling goes on
behind the scenes."
As a result of Helen's sternness the butterflies were waiting when the
little internationals went off, and, as those of the children who were
not to appear again filed quietly down into the audience where they
could see the remainder of the performance, waving wings of soft pink
and blue and green and yellow fluttered in from the sides. There was
nothing intricate about the steps of this pretty dance. There were
movements forward and back and to one side and another, with an
occasional turn, but the slowly waving hands with their delicate burden
of color made the whole effect entirely charming.
When Tom and Roger, jersey clad, stepped on to the stage for the
club-swinging act all the other performers were clustered in the wings,
for it had roused their curiosity. Evidently Roger was to swing first
for he stepped to the front while Tom beckoned to the janitor of the
hall who came forward and attached electric light wires to a plug in the
edge of the platform. Tom made a connection with wires that ran up under
the back of Roger's jersey and down his sleeves and through holes bored
into his clubs, and then he stepped forward to the front.
"While Roger Morton is swinging his clubs the lights of the hall will be
turned off," he explained. "I mention it so that no one will be startled
when they go out."
Out they went, and in a flash Roger's clubs, made of red and white
striped cotton stretched over wire frames which covered electric light
bulbs screwed to a sawed-off pair of clubs, were illuminated from
within. The beauty of the movements as the clubs flashed here and there
in simple or elaborate curves and whirls drew exclamations of enjoyment
from the audience.
"That's one of the prettiest stunts I ever saw," exclaimed Doctor
Hancock, and Doctor Watkins led the vigorous applause that begged Roger
to go on. True to his agreement with Helen, however, Roger stepped aside
as soon as he was freed from his apparatus and the lights were turned on
once more in the hall, and prepared to help Tom.
It was clear that Tom, too, was not going to do ordinary club-swinging.
He took up his position in the centre of the stage and Roger brought
forward a box which he deposited beside him. The actors behind the
scenes craned their heads forward until they were visible to the
audience, so eager were they to see what the box contained.
"My friend, Tom Watkins," said Roger gravely, "is something of a
naturalist. In the course of his travels and studies he has come across
a curious animal whose chief characteristic is what I may be permitted
to call its adhesive power. So closely does it cling to anything to
which it attaches itself that it can be detached only with great
difficulty. So marked is this peculiarity of the _Canis Taurus_--"
A peculiar grunt of amusement from certain high school members of the
audience interrupted Roger's oration. "_Canis_, dog; _taurus_, bull,"
they whispered.
"--of the _Canis Taurus_," he went on, "that Watkins has been able to
train two of his specimens to do the very remarkable act that you are
about to see."
As he ended he threw back the top of the box and there popped up over
the edge the infinitely ugly heads of Cupid's two pup's, Amor and
Amorette. A howl of laughter greeted their silly, solemn countenances.
Tom whistled sharply and they sprang from their narrow quarters and ran
to him. He stroked them, and faced them toward the footlights so that
their eyes should not be dazzled by seeing them suddenly. Then he began
to play with them, pushing them about and shoving them gently with the
ravelled ends of two short pieces of knotted rope. When he had teased
them for a minute he stood upright and Amor and Amorette were hanging
each from a rope! It was a trick he had taught them as soon as their
teeth were strong enough.
Slowly he swung them back and forth, and then in semi-circles constantly
increasing in sweep, until in a flash they rose over his head and
described regular simple Indian club evolutions. Every move was slow and
steady with no jerks that would break the dogs' hold and Amor and
Amorette held on with a firmness that did credit to their inheritance of
jaw muscle and determination.
"Good for the _Canis Taurus_," laughed Mr. Wheeler, the high school
teacher, from the back of the hall as the swinging died rhythmically
away.
"Speak to the ladies and gentlemen," commanded Tom as he dropped the
ropes and their attachments to the floor. Each dog was still holding
firmly to his bit of rope and manifested no desire to part from it. At
their master's order, however, they let go of their handles and uttered
two sharp barks. Then they picked them up again and trotted off the
stage.
All this was so unusual that it aroused the most fervent enthusiasm that
had yet been shown. Feet stamped and canes rapped but Tom would do no
more than walk on with a dog on each side of him and bow as they barked.
With the announcement of the knitting tableau there was a flutter among
the old ladies from the Home. Here was an act in which they felt a
personal interest. It was almost embarrassing to be so nearly related to
a number on the program!
The curtain rose very slowly to soft music thrilling through the hall.
It was a homely scene--just such a room as any one of the old ladies may
have had when she still had a home of her own. There was a table with a
lamp upon it and around the table were the three old ladies, one with
her crutch and one in her wheel chair, and one sitting in the darkness
that was daylight to her--the shining of a contented heart. All of them
were knitting.
Slowly there grew into view behind them on the wall the picture of the
thoughts that were in their minds--the picture of three children, pale,
thin, tear-stained, trudging along a weary road. Each one carried a
bundle far too heavy for him and each looked unsmilingly out of the
frame, though Mrs. Morton breathed a sigh of relief when the touching
scene faded and she knew that there was no longer any danger of Dicky's
spoiling the effect by a burst of laughter or a genial call to some
acquaintance in the audience.
Slowly the curtain fell and the old ladies were lost to view. Then the
old ladies in front breathed a sigh of satisfaction. It had been simply
perfect!