THE STUNT'S THE THING
"Where would a shipwreck look best, right by the dock, or farther up the
shore?" Sahwah's forehead puckered up with the force of her reflection.
"Oh, not right by the dock," said Jo Severance decidely. "That would be
too modern and--commonplace. It's lots more epic to be dashed against a
rocky cliff. All the shipwrecks in the books happen on stern and
rockbound coasts and things like that."
"It might be more epic for those who are looking on, but for the one
that gets shipwrecked," Sahwah reminded her. "As long as I'm the one
that get's wrecked I'm going to pick out a soft spot to get wrecked on."
"Why not capsize some distance out in the water and swim ashore?"
suggested Migwan.
"Of course!" exclaimed Sahwah. "Why didn't we think of that before?
Geese!"
"This is the way we'll start, then," said Migwan, taking out her
notebook and scribbling in it with a pencil. "Scene One. Sinbad the
Sailor clinging to wreckage of vessel out in the water. He drifts ashore
and lands in the kingdom of the Keewaydins." She paused and bit the end
of her pencil, seeking inspiration. "Then, what will you do when you
land, Sahwah?"
"Oh, I'll just poke around a bit, and then discover the Keewaydins in
their native wilds," replied Sahwah easily. "Then I'll go around with
you while you go through the events of a day in camp. O, I think it's
the grandest idea!" she interrupted herself in a burst of rapture.
"We'll get the stunt prize as easy as pie. The Avenue will never be able
to think up anything nearly as good. How did you ever manage to think of
it, Migs?"
"Why, it just came all by itself," replied Migwan modestly.
Anyone who had ever spent a summer at Camp Keewaydin, passing at that
moment, and hearing the conversation, would have known exactly what week
of the year it was without consulting a calendar. It was the second week
in August--the week of Camp Keewaydin's annual Stunt Night, when the
Avenue and the Alley matched their talents in a contest to see which one
could put on the best original stunt. Next to Regatta Day, when the two
struggled for the final supremacy in aquatics, Stunt Night was the
biggest event of the camping season. Rivalry was intense. It was a fair
test of the talents of the girls themselves, for the councilors were
not allowed to participate, nor to give the slightest aid or advice. The
boys from Camp Altamont came over with their councilors, and together
with the directors and councilors of Camp Keewaydin they voted on which
stunt was the best. Originality counted most; finish in working out the
details next.
The Alley's stunt this year was a sketch entitled THE LAST VOYAGE OF
SINBAD THE SAILOR, and was a burlesque on Camp life. The idea had come
to Migwan in a flash of inspiration one night when Dr. Grayson was
reading the Arabian Nights aloud before the fire in the bungalow. She
communicated her idea to the rest of the Alley and they received it with
whoops of joy.
Now it lacked but three days until Stunt Night, and the Alleyites, over
on Whaleback, where they would be safe from detection, were deep in the
throes of rehearsing. Sahwah, of course, was picked for the role of the
shipwrecked Sinbad, for she was the only one who could be depended upon
to stage the shipweck in a thrilling manner.
"What kind of a costume do I wear?" she inquired, when the location of
the shipwreck itself had finally been settled. "What nationality was
Sinbad, anyhow?"
"He came from Bagdad," replied Sahwah brilliantly.
"But where was Bagdad?"
"In Syria," declared Oh-Pshaw.
"Asia," promptly answered Gladys.
"Turkey," said Katherine, somewhat doubtfully, and "Persia," said Agony
in the same breath.
Then they all looked at each other a little sheepishly.
"The extent to which I don't know geography," remarked Sahwah, "is
something appalling."
"Well, if _we_ don't know what country Bagdad was in, it's pretty sure
that none of the others will either," said Hinpoha brightly, "so it
doesn't make much difference what kind of a costume you wear. Something
Turkish is what you want, I suppose. A turban and some great big
bloomers, you know the kind, with yards and yards of goods in them."
"But you can't swim in such awfully full bloomers," Sahwah protested.
"That's so, too," Hinpoha assented.
"Well, get them as big as you _can_ swim in," said Migwan pacifically.
"Who's going to make them?" Sahwah wanted to know. "We haven't much
time."
"Oh, just borrow Tiny Armstrong's regular ones," Migwan replied.
"They'll look like Turkish bloomers on you."
"Won't she suspect what we're going to do if I borrow them?" Sahwah
demurred.
"Nonsense! What could she suspect? She will know of course that you
want them for the stunt, but she couldn't guess _what_ for."
"We've got to have her other pair, too, for the person who is going to
impersonate Tiny," Agony reminded Migwan.
"So we do," replied Migwan, making a note in her book. "And her
stockings, too, those red and black ones. We're going to do that snake
business over again. Somebody will have to get these without Tiny's
knowing it, or she'll suspect about the snake. Who's in her tent?"
"We are," replied Katherine and Oh-Pshaw. "We'll manage to get them for
you. Who's going to impersonate Tiny Armstrong?"
Migwan squinted her eyes in a calculating manner and surveyed the girls
grouped around her. "It'll have to be Katherine, I guess," she finally
announced. "She's the biggest of us all. But even she isn't nearly as
big as Tiny," she added regretfully.
"Couldn't we put two of us together?" suggested Sahwah. "Carmen Chadwick
is as light as a feather and she could get up on Katherin's shoulders as
easy as not."
"But we need Katherine to impersonate the Lone Wolf. She's the only one
who can do it well," objected Migwan. "Somebody else will have to be the
bottom half of Tiny. Hinpoha, you'll do for that part. Gladys, you'll be
Pom-pom, of course. There, that's three councilors taken care of. As
soon as your parts are assigned will you please step over to that side,
girls. Then I can see what I have left. Now, who'll be Miss Peckham?"
There was a silence, and all the eligibles looked at one another
doubtfully. Nobody quite dared impersonate Miss Peckham--and nobody
wanted to, for that matter.
"Jo?" Migwan began hesitatingly. "You're such a good mimic--no--" she
broke off decidely, "you have to be Dr. Grayson, of course, because you
can play men's parts so beautifully."
She looked from one to the other inquiringly. Her eye fell upon Bengal
Virden. "Bengal, dear--"
Bengal looked up with a jerk and a grimace of distaste. "I wouldn't be
Pecky for a thousand dollars," she declared flatly. "I hate her, I tell
you." Then something seemed to occur to her, and a mischievous twinkle
came into her eyes. "Oh, I'll be her," she exclaimed, throwing grammar
to the winds in her eagerness. "Please let me. I want to be, I want to
be."
"All right," said Migwan relievedly, putting the entry down in her
notebook and proceeding with the assignment of parts. But Agony, having
seen the mischievous gleam that came into Bengal's eyes when she so
suddenly changed her mind about impersonating Miss Peckham, wondered as
to its meaning.
She called Bengal to come aside with her, and Bengal, enraptured at
being noticed by her divinity, trotted after her like a delighted
Newfoundland puppy, bestowing clumsy caresses upon her as they
proceeded.
"Oh, I've got the best joke on Pecky!" she gurgled, before Agony had had
a chance to broach the subject herself.
"Yes?" said Agony.
"Did you know," confided Bengal, with a fresh burst of giggles, "that
Pecky shaves?"
Then, as Agony gave a little incredulous exclamation, she hastened on.
"Really she does, her whole chin, with a razor, every morning. I found
it out a couple of days ago. I guess she'd have a regular beard if she
didn't. You've noticed how kind of hairy her chin is, haven't you? I
found a little safety razor among her things one day--"
"Bengal! You weren't rummaging among her things, were you?"
"No, of course not. But once when we were all up in the bungalow she
found that she'd forgotten her watch, and sent me back to get it out of
her bathrobe pocket, and there was a little safety razor in where the
watch was. I didn't think anything about it then, but after that I
noticed that she always went off by herself in the woods. While the rest
of us went for morning dip. Yesterday I followed her and saw what she
did. She shaved her chin with that safety razor. Oh, won't it be great
fun when I do that in the stunt? Won't she be hopping mad, though!"
Bengal hopped up and down and chortled with anticipatory glee.
"Bengal!" said Agony firmly, "don't you _dare_ do anything like that?
Don't you know that it's terribly bad taste to make fun of people's
personal blemishes?"
"But she deserves it," Bengal persisted, still chuckling. "She's such a
prune."
"That has nothing whatever to do with the matter," Agony replied
sternly. "Do you want to ruin our stunt for us? That's what will happen
if you do anything as ill-bred as that. It would take away every chance
we have of winning the prize."
"Well, if _you_ say I shouldn't do it I won't," said Bengal rather
sulkily. "But wouldn't it have been the best joke!" she added
regretfully.
"Bengal," Agony continued, realizing that even if Bengal could be
suppressed as far as the stunt went, she would still have plenty of
opportunity for making life miserable for Miss Peckham now that she had
learned her embarrassing secret, "you won't mention this to any of the
other girls, will you? You see, it must be very embarrassing for Miss
Peckham to have to do that, and naturally she would feel highly
uncomfortable if the camp found it out. You see, you found it out by
accident; she didn't tell you of her own free will, so you have no right
to tell it any further. A girl with a nice sense of honor would never
think of telling anything she found out in that way, when she knew it
would cause embarrassment if told. So you'll give me your promise, won't
you, Bengal dear, that you will never mention this matter to anybody
around camp?"
Bengal flushed and looked down, maintaining an obstinate silence.
"Please, won't you, Bengal dear?" coaxed Agony in her most irresistible
manner. "Will you do it for me if you won't do it for Miss Peckham?"
Bengal could not hold out against the coaxing of her adored one, but she
still hesitated, bargaining her promise for a reward. "If you'll let me
wear your ring for the rest of the summer, and come and kiss me
goodnight every night after I'm in bed--"
"All right," Agony agreed hastily, with a sigh of resignation for this
departure from her fixed principles regarding the lending of jewelry and
about promiscuous demonstrations of affection, but peace in camp was
worth the price.
Bengal claimed the ring at once, and then, after pawing Agony over like
a bear cub, said a little shamefacedly, "I wish I were as good as you
are. You're so honorable. How do you get such a 'nice sense of honor' as
you have? I think I'd like to have one."
"Such a nice sense of honor as you have!" Agony jerked up as though she
had been jabbed with a red hot needle. "Such a nice sense of honor as
you have!" The words lingered in her ears like a mocking echo. The smile
faded from her lips; her arm stiffened and dropped from Bengal's
shoulder. The frank admiration in the younger girl's eyes cut her to the
quick. With a haggard look she turned away from Bengal and wandered away
to the other part of the island, away from the girls. Just now she could
not bear to hear their gay, carefree voices. What would she not give,
she thought to herself, to have nothing on her mind. She even envied
rabbit-brained little Carmen Chadwick, who, if she had nothing in her
head, had nothing on her conscience either.
"Who am I to talk of a 'nice sense of honor' to Bengal Virden?" she
thought miserably. "I'm a whole lot worse than she. She's only a
mischievous child, and doesn't know any better, but I do. I'm no better
than Jane Pratt, either, even though I told Mrs. Grayson about her going
out at night with boys from Camp Altamont." This matter of Jane Pratt
had tormented Agony without ceasing. True to her contemptuous attitude
toward Agony's plea that she break bonds no more, she had refused to
tell Mrs. Grayson about her nocturnal canoe rides and thus had forced
Agony to make good her threat and tell Mrs. Grayson herself. She had
hoped and prayed that Jane would take the better course and confess her
own wrong doing, but Jane did nothing of the kind, and there was only
one course open to Agony. It was the rule of the camp that anyone seeing
another breaking the rules must first give the offender the opportunity
to confess, and if that failed must report the matter herself to the
Doctor or Mrs. Grayson. So Agony was obliged to tell Mrs. Grayson that
Jane was breaking the rules by slipping out nights and setting a bad
example to the younger girls if any of them knew about it.
The matter caused more of a stir than Agony had expected, and much more
than she had wished for. Dr. Grayson prided himself upon the high
standard of conduct which was maintained at his camp, and he knew that
the mothers of his girls gave their daughters into his keeping with
implicit faith that they would meet with no harmful influences while
they were at Camp Keewaydin. If a rumor should ever get about that the
girls from his camp went out in canoes after hours Keewaydin's
reputation would suffer considerably. Dr. Grayson was outraged and
thoroughly angry. He decided at once that Jane should be sent home in
disgrace. That very day, however, Mrs. Grayson had received a letter
saying that Jane's mother was quite ill in a sanatarium and that all
upsetting news was being carefully kept away from her. She particularly
desired that Jane should not come home, as there was no place for her to
stay, and she was so much better taken care of in camp than she would be
in a large city with no one to look after her. It was this letter that
brought about a three-hour conference between the Doctor and Mrs.
Grayson. Dr. Grayson was firm about sending Jane home in disgrace; Mrs.
Grayson, filled with concern about her well loved friend, could not bear
to risk upsetting her at this critical time by turning loose her unruly
daughter. In the end Mrs. Grayson won her point, and Jane was allowed to
stay in camp, but she was deprived of all canoe privileges for the
remainder of the summer and forbidden to go on any of the trips with the
camp. She was taken away from the easy-going, sound-sleeping councilor
whose chaperonage she had succeeded in eluding, and placed in a tent
with Mrs. Grayson herself. Dr. Grayson called the whole camp together in
council and explained the matter to the girls, dwelling upon the
dishonorableness of breaking rules, and when he finished his talk there
was small danger that even the smallest rule would be broken again
during the summer. The sight of Jane Pratt called out in public to be
censured was not one to be soon forgotten. Agony was commended by the
Doctor for her firm stand in the matter, and praised because she did not
take the easier course of remaining silent about it and running the risk
of letting the reputation of the camp suffer.
Since then Jane, though somewhat subdued, had treated Agony with such
marked animosity of manner that Agony hardly dared look at her. Added
to her natural embarrassment at having been the in-former--a role which
no one ever really enjoys--was the matter which lay like lead on Agony's
own conscience and which tortured her out of all proportion to its real
significance.
"Pretender!" the whole world seemed to shriek at her wherever she went.
Thus, although Agony apparently was throwing herself heart and soul into
the preparations for Stunt Night, her mind was not on it half of the
time and at times she was hardly conscious of the bustle and excitement
around her.
These last three days the camp were as a house divided against itself,
as far as the Avenue and the Alley were concerned. Such a gathering of
groups into corners, such whispering and giggling, such sudden
scattering at the approach of one from the other side! Sahwah spent two
whole afternoons over on the far side of Whaleback, rehearsing her
shipwreck, while the rest of the Alleyites worked up their parts on
shore, trying to imitate the voices and characteristics of the various
councilors. All went fairly well except the combination Tiny Armstrong.
Carmen Chadwick, on top of Hinpoha, and draped up in Tiny's clothes,
made a truly imposing figure that drew involuntary applause from the
rest of the cast, but when Tiny spoke, the weak, piping voice that
issued from the gigantic figure promptly threw them all into hysterics.
The real Tiny's voice was as deep and resonant as a fog horn.
"That'll never do!" gasped Migwan through her tears of merriment. "That
doesn't sound any more like Tiny than a chipping sparrow sounds like a
lion. We'll have to get somebody with a deeper voice for the upper half
of Tiny."
"But there isn't anybody else as light as Carmen," Hinpoha protested,
"and I can't carry anybody that's any heavier."
Migwan wrinkled her brows and considered the matter.
"Oh, leave it the way it is," proposed Jo Severance. "They'll never
notice a little thing like that."
"Yes, they will too," Gladys declared. "Anyway, you can't hear what
Carmen says, and we want the folks to hear Tiny's speech, because it's
so funny."
"But what are we going to do about it?" asked Migwan in perplexity.
"I know," said Katherine, rising to the occasion, as usual, "let the
other half of Tiny do the talking. Hinpoha can make her voice quite deep
and loud. It doesn't make any difference which half of Tiny talks, as
long as the people hear it."
"Just the thing!" exclaimed Migwan delightedly. "Katherine, that head of
yours will make your fortune yet. All right, Hinpoha, you speak Tiny's
lines."
Hinpoha complied, and the effect of her voice coming apparently from
beneath Tiny's ribs, while Tiny's mouth up above remained closed, was a
great deal funnier than the first way.
"Never mind," said Migwan firmly, while the rest wept with laughter on
each other's shoulders, "it sounds more like Tiny than the other way.
You might stand with your back turned while you talk if Sinbad can't
keep his face straight when he looks at you. You'd all better practice
keeping your faces straight though. Katherine, you won't forget to get
that gaudy blanket off the Lone Wolf's bed, will you?"
Migwan, her classic forehead streaked with perspiration and red color
from the notebook in her hands, directed the rehearsal of her production
all through the hot afternoon, until the lengthening shadows on the
island warned them that is was time to get back to camp and prepare for
the real performance. The stunts were to begin at six-thirty, and would
be held in the open space in front of Mateka, overlooking the river. The
Avenue's stunt was to go on first, as the long end had fallen to them in
the drawing of the cuts.
There was a great scurrying around after props after the Alleyites came
back from the Island after that last rehearsal. Migwan, checking up her
list, was constantly coming upon things that had been forgotten.
"Did somebody get Tiny Armstrong's red striped stockings?" she asked
anxiously.
Nobody had remembered to get them. Katherine departed forthwith in quest
of the necessary hosiery and found one of the stockings hanging out on
the tent rope. The other was not in evidence. She was about to depart
quietly without going into the tent, for one stocking was all that she
needed, when a toothbrush suddenly whizzed past her ear, coming from the
tent door. Laughing, she turned and went into the tent, first hastily
concealing Tony's stocking in the front of her middy.
The flinger of the toothbrush turned out to be Tiny herself, who was
sitting up in bed with her nightgown on.
"What's the matter, Tiny?" Katherine asked solicitously. "Are you sick?
Aren't you going to get up to see the Stunts?"
"Get up!" shouted Tiny wrathfully. "I _can't_ get up--I haven't any
clothes."
"No clothes?" murmured Katherine in a puzzled tone.
"Everything's gone," continued Tiny plaintively, "bloomers, middies,
shoes, stockings, hat, everything. Somebody has taken and hidden them
for a joke, I suppose. I went to sleep here this afternoon, and when I
woke up everything was gone."
Katherine suddenly grew very non-committal, although she wanted to
shriek with laughter. Oh-Pshaw, who had been sent after a suit of
Tiny's that afternoon, had apparently made a pretty thorough job of it.
"Somebody must be playing a joke on you," Katherine remarked tranquilly,
although she was conscious of the lump that Tiny's one remaining
stocking made under her middy. "Never mind. Tiny, I'll go out and borrow
some things for you to wear."
"But there's nothing of anybody's here that I can get into," mourned
Tiny. "I'm four sizes bigger than the biggest of you. You'll have to
find out who's hidden my things and bring them back."
Katherine was touched by Tiny's predicament, but the stunt had first
claim on her. She came back presently with Tiny's bathing suit, which
she had hanging on a nearby tree, and a long raincoat of Dr. Grayson's,
together with his tennis shoes. She even had to beg a pair of his socks
from Mrs. Grayson, for all of Tiny's that had not been borrowed were
away at the laundry. And in that collection of clothes Tiny had to go
and sit in the Judges' box at the Stunts, but her good nature was not
ruffled one whit on account of it.
Katherine was still getting Tiny into her improvised wardrobe when a
loud hubbub proclaimed the arrival of the boys from Camp Altamont, and
at the same time the bugle sounded the assembly call for the girls. The
Alleyites, bursting with impatience for the time of their own stunt to
arrive, settled themselves in their places to watch the Avenue stunt.
The bugle sounded again, and the chairman of the Avenue stunt stood up.
"Our stunt tonight," she announced, "tells a hitherto unpublished one of
Gulliver's Travels, namely, his voyage to the Land of the Keewaydins."
The Alley sat up with one convulsive jerk. "Gulliver's Travels!" That
sounded nearly like their own idea.
Then the stunt proceeded, beginning with Gulliver wrecked on the shore
of the Land of the Keewaydins. Undine Girelle was Gulliver, and her
shipwreck was trully a thrilling one. She finally landed, spent with
swimming, on the shore, and was taken in hand by the friendly
Keewaydins, who proceeded to show him their customs. The Alley gradually
turned to stone as they saw practically the very same things they were
planning to do, being performed before their eyes by the Avenue. There
was Miss Peckham and the stocking-snake (that explained to Katherine why
she had only been able to find one of Tiny's red and black stockings);
there was Tiny herself, and made out of two girls, just as they were
going to do it! There was Dr. Grayson, there were all the other
councilors; there was a burlesque on camp life almost exactly as they
had planned to do it!
The boys and the councilors applauded wildly, but the Alleyites, too
surprised and taken back to be appreciative, merely looked at each
other in mute consternation.
"Somebody gave away our secret!" was the first indignant thought that
flashed into the minds of the Alleyites, but the utter astonishment of
the Avenue when the Alley said that their stunt was practically the
same, soon convinced them that the whole thing was a mere co-incidence.
"It's a wonder I didn't suspect anything when I found that all of Tiny's
clothes were gone," said Katherine. "That should have told me that
someone else was impersonating her."
The Alley at first declined to put on their stunt, since it was so
nearly the same as the other, but the audience refused to let them off,
insisting that they had come to see two stunts, and they were going to
see two, even if they _were_ alike.
"We can still judge which is the best," said Dr. Grayson. "In fact, it
is an unusual opportunity. Usually the stunts are so different that it
is hard to tell which is the better, but having two performances on the
same subject gives a rare chance to consider the fine points."
So the Alley went ahead with their stunt just as if nothing out of the
way had occurred, and the judges applauded them just as wildly as they
had the others. In the end, the honors had to be evenly divided between
the two, for the judges declared that one was just as good as the other
and it was impossible to decide between them.
"And we were so dead sure that the Avenue would never be able to think
up anything nearly as clever as ours," remarked Sahwah ruefully, as she
prepared for bed that night.
"I'm beginning to come to the conclusion," replied Hinpoha with a sleepy
yawn, "that it isn't safe to be too sure of anything. You never can tell
from the outside of people what they are likely to have inside of them."
"No, you can't" echoed Agony soberly.