THE ENTERTAINMENT.
Aunt Stanshy, as she looked down upon the sitting-room table, saw
Charlie's curly head bending over pen, ink, and card-board. He had cut the
card-board into strips three inches long and two inches wide.
"What have you there?"
Charlie was too much occupied to notice this remark.
"What are you doing?"
"Making tickets."
"Tickets?"
"Yes, will you buy one?"
"I want to see first what I am going to buy."
"You may."
Aunt Stanshy then read these lines on a slip of card-board:
-------------------------------------------
| Ticket to the Up-the-Ladder Boys' |
| ENTERTAINMENT. |
| Admission, 2 nails. Seat, 10 nails. |
| Elders' admission, 1 cent. Seat, 2 cents. |
-------------------------------------------
"O, that is it I Could I go in for nails, or a cent?"
"For a cent."
"Then I'm an 'elder.'"
"Yes, aunty."
"Well, I'll engage a seat."
"Goody! That will be two cents. We did think of breaking up the club, but
this will cheer them up. Wouldn't it be too bad to give up? Our new silk
badges that our teacher promised, we have this week."
"The shields?"
"Yes, spick and span new."
"I hope my two cents will encourage them to be good knights."
"O it will. You will be on hand this afternoon, after school?"
"Certainly."
After school, Aunt Stanshy was on hand promptly, and she judged by the
noises issuing from the barn that all the others were on hand also. She
climbed the, stairs and was about stepping into the chamber, when Pip, the
assistant sentinel, came forward. He looked very formidable. A scarlet cap
was on his head, a white belt tied round his body, and red flannel
epaulets decorated his shoulders. He bore a terrible broom, and Aunt
Stanshy recalled the fact that it had served as mast for the _Neponset_.
"Who goeth there?" cried the valorous Pip.
"Aunt Stanshy," said a feeble voice.
"Advanth and give the counterthign?"
"I can't."
Pip leveled his broom at once. Poor Stanshy, how she wished she had made
her will.
"Bang!" he shouted.
Could she survive this?
"Thay pertatoeth!" he whispered.
"Pertatoes," she fortunately shrieked.
"All right," said Pip, and she was spared a second shot.
"I'm thankful to get through safe, and now I have not to pay, after all
that risk?"
"Certainly, madam," politely replied Charlie, the treasurer, who now met
her. "I'll take your ticket and punch it."
Having punched her ticket, he retired. Aunt Stanshy looked about the
chamber. She noticed that an old thin sheet served for curtain, as before,
and another was strung across a corner and separated it from the rest of
the chamber. This second curtain not being long enough to reach the
desired distance, was pieced out by a strip of wire netting in one corner.
Looking over this corner curtain, Aunt Stanshy saw eight pieces of
carpeting on the floor, each member of the club having furnished a piece.
Inside this sanctuary were a barrel and a saw-horse.
"What is this for?" asked Aunt Stanshy.
"O for meetings," said Charlie. "Only the four principals can go in
there."
"Who are they?"
"The president, the governor, the first treasury, and the keeper of the
great seal. We stand on the barrel and saw-horse, and make laws to the
other members of the club, who stand outside."
Aunt Stanshy now turned to inspect the other parts of the chamber.
"This is our whipping-post," said Charlie, calling attention to a post
against which leaned the ladder that sloped up to the cupola.
"Have you whipped any one?"
"Yes; Pip deserted once."
Aunt Stanshy read three notices nailed to the post: "First, no cross
words; no swearing and vulgar words; nobody but the treasurer to climb
this ladder to go up into the cupola, unless the club say so."
This was in Charlie's handwriting.
"Why not go?" asked Aunt Stanshy.
"O we keep our funds up there in a dipper."
"It looks unsafe to me, for somebody climbing up there might reach into
the cup and steal the money."
"O no, I guess not."
Sid Waters now stepped forward. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "two more
individuals having arrived"--these were nail patrons--"we will begin our
entertainment. First is the dialogue called 'The Spy.'"
The curtain rose and there stood the inheritor of the warlike name of
Jugurtha. He was rather sober and melancholy, and was dressed in a
semi-military style that betrayed not in the least the fact to what flag
he might possibly be attached. Sid was crouching down, hiding behind a
barrel.
"What am I?" Juggie now asked in low tones, "American or British?"
"Of course," Sid was heard to say, "you are an American, or ought to be.
Hush up!"
Juggie now strode over the floor, an exiled broom-handle resting on his
shoulder. Suddenly a step was heard. From the rear of a box crept out the
governor. He wore a farmer's dress, and was half smothered under his
father's tall hat.
"Advance!" shouted Juggie, "and gib de count--count--"
"Countersign!" whispered the prompter behind the barrel.
"Count-de-sign!" shouted Juggie, pompously, at the same time presenting
the broom-handle threateningly.
"George Washington!" answered the farmer.
"All right. Go 'long dar!"
"No, no!" whispered Sid. "Let me see your papers, friend!"
"Let me see your papers, friend!"
The farmer reads his pass.
"Is dat all?"
"All."
"Knock off his hat," whispered Sid.
"What's de matter wid your hat?" and as Juggie shouted this, he fetched
the governor's hat a merciless rap, one that would have been serious had
not the governors head luckily been in the first story of the hat. As the
hat dropped, Juggie seized a paper that fell out, and exclaimed, "A spy, a
spy! A note to de British commander!"
"Seize him! That is the next thing," suggested Sid, in smothered tones.
But the British spy was too much for Juggie, and the defender of the
continental name was obliged to resort to severe measures. Presenting the
broom-handle, he shouted, "Aim! Fire! Bang!" but the spy was not
considerate enough to fall.
"Drop! drop, why don't you?" whispered Juggie. "You've been shot."
The spy, _alias_ the governor, showed his usual firmness, and continued to
stand.
"Drop!" besought Sid, in a suppressed voice. "Shoot him again, Juggie!"
But the spy did not care to be riddled again and he prudently fell.
"Drag him out, Juggie!" was the prompting of an unknown voice. Juggie
seized one of the spy's fat legs, but pulled in vain. It was an impossible
_feet_. Sid and Charlie now appeared as continentals, supposed to be armed
with guns, and were helping Juggie, when the cry was raised, "The British
army is coming!" At the head of the stairs appeared Wort Wentworth, his
head decorated with a red paper helmet, and carrying on his body various
insignia of war. He now made a fierce charge across the floor.
"Into the fort!" shouted Sid, rushing toward the closet, and, as usual,
striving after the first chance to retreat. "Into the fort, my men!"
After him scrambled Charlie and Juggie, the dead "spy" manifesting an
unusual energy and scrambling after them, forgetting that his friends were
in his rear and not in the closet. The next moment all heard an ominous
descent from the second to the first story.
"Massy!" shouted Aunt Stanshy. "Somebody has gone down that fodder-box
agin!"
She rushed down stairs, followed by the "British army," and all the
members of the Up-the Ladder Club that could move one leg before the
other.
"I know those legs! I guess they will stand it," said Aunt Stanshy, as she
reached the lower floor and caught a glimpse of the fodder-box. It was the
British spy, whose stout pedestals were sticking out, and he only needed
to be once more seized and dragged forward by Juggie and the other
"continentals" to give proof of his vigorous, embalmed condition.
"Sakes, boy!" said Aunt Stanshy. "I thought you were shot, but you
manifest an immense amount of vitality for a dead man."
"I came down rather sudden," said the governor.
"Yes, and it's the last time," exclaimed Aunt Stanshy, "that thing is
going to happen. I will go up myself and fix that floor, and do it
thoroughly."
In a few moments her hammer was heard vigorously pounding in the closet
and securing the club against future harm.
"We didn't do all we intended," said Charlie. "We were going to have a
reconciliation, aunty."
"Between whom?"
"The British and Americans. We were going to have the President of the
United States and Queen Victoria walk arm in arm up and down the floor,
and never have war any more."
In the confusion attendant upon the fall of the "spy," the programme was
not carried out as planned, and the shadows of those two eminent rulers
never darkened the floor of the barn chamber.
"May war never happen, just the same!" said Aunt Stanshy.
Amen! so say we all of us.