SCHOOL THEATRICALS.
It seemed very lonely the next day, when Edith and Hilda had gone. The
spare room was shorn of its two cots, and was restored to its usual
dainty order. Will and Archie left also, as their school began the next
Monday, and they went to board, in the neighbourhood of their house,
till Edna was sufficiently recovered for them to be at home. She had had
a very light attack of scarlet fever, fortunately, and was already
improving. As soon as the boys left, Eunice and Cricket returned to
their own domains. College opened and Don was off. On Tuesday, the
girls’ school, St. Agatha’s, was in session again, so now they all
settled down to the busy time that lies between Christmas and Easter.
At the close of the half-year at St. Agatha’s, early in February, came
the great excitement of the year. This was an exhibition, consisting of
a play, given in French by some of the older girls, and a short play in
English by some of the children in the junior department. As only the
girls whose scholarship was high, and deportment uniformly good, were
allowed to take part in the plays, of course it was one of the chief
honours of the year to be selected. The announcement of the favoured
girls was eagerly awaited.
The French play was learned as class work during the fall term by all
the senior girls in the French classes. The list of those chosen to give
the plays was read on the first day of school after the Christmas
holidays.
Much rehearsing and genuine hard work on the part of the actors, as well
as of the teachers, went into this yearly exhibition, but the honour
paid for all the extra hours, and the names of the girls who took the
parts were preserved in the school year-book.
As Marjorie had been in the French play the year before, she could not
be in it again, this year, although her marks were well up. Since Eunice
and Cricket had only entered St. Agatha’s this year, they never thought
of the possibility of either of them being in the play. Therefore you
can imagine Eunice’s blank amazement when her name was read among the
others:
“Miss Eunice Ward is assigned the part of Sallie, the maid.”
“_Eunice?_” said Cricket, right out loud, her eyes shining like two
stars. “Oh, do you think she _can_?”
Apparently Eunice’s teachers thought she could, for they had given her
the very good part of a little housemaid. The “cast” were requested to
wait after school, to be given their books and be instructed in their
parts.
Cricket was on tiptoe with excitement when Eunice came home, trying to
look unconcerned and every-day-ish. Cricket flew at her with a little
shriek of delight, and squeezed her eagerly.
“Eunice! _Eunice!_ think of your being given a part in a _real_ play!
What will you wear? Will it be hard to learn? When do you have to know
it? Do they begin rehearsing soon? Could I go to the rehearsals, do you
think?”
“I don’t know _every_thing yet, Cricket. I don’t know what I’m to wear.
We must know our parts perfectly in one week, and next Tuesday will be
our first rehearsal. I don’t know about their letting you in, but I’m
afraid they won’t. I don’t think they let anybody be there but Miss
Raymond and Miss Emmet, and us actors,” with supreme importance.
“How horrid! I’ll just go somewhere and _peek_, then. I _must_ see you.”
“I’ll ask Miss Emmet if you can’t come, though. She knows we are always
together. But, you see, if they let in one outside girl, any number may
want to come in,” said Eunice, wisely.
“That’s so,” said Cricket, with a sigh. “You tell them I’ll make myself
_very_ small and not get in anybody’s way. Where’s your book?”
“Here it is. Sallie is my part, you know.”
Cricket took the book and dropped down on the window-seat.
“Isn’t this _delicious_? ‘Curtain rising, discloses Sallie dusting.’ Oh,
what cunning little short sentences you have to say!” After a moment’s
silence: “Eunice, this won’t be anything to learn. I just about know the
first page already,” and Cricket rattled it off.
For a week the family had to lunch and dine on the famous play. A
stranger could not have told which was to take part, Eunice or Cricket,
for the two knew it equally well. Indeed, in a week’s time, Cricket knew
the whole play by heart, from reading the other characters, when she was
hearing Eunice. The play was short, of course, only being about
twenty-five minutes in length. The children declaimed it on the stairs;
they spouted it in the parlour after dinner, and they interlarded their
conversation with quotations from it. They talked professionally of
entrances and exits, of wings and flies and scenery and cues, till their
long-suffering family protested in a body.
Eunice had a private interview with Miss Emmet, the principal, regarding
Cricket’s presence at the rehearsals. At first Miss Emmet said
positively, as Eunice had feared she would, that it was against the
rules for any one to be present save herself and the teacher who drilled
the girls. But Eunice’s pleading face, as she urged that she and Cricket
were always together in everything, and she could do it _so_ much better
if Cricket were there, because she could rehearse it with her at home,
finally made Miss Emmet say, smiling:
“Well, my dear, on second thoughts, we’ll admit Jean. Only please do not
tell the girls that you asked for her to be present.”
Eunice promised, radiantly, and flew off to Cricket with the coveted
permission.
The rehearsals went on swimmingly for a time. Then, after the novelty
was over, the little actors began to realise that the extra time
required of them interfered, now and then, with their own plans for
amusement. There began to be absences from rehearsals. The rehearsals
themselves began to be a bore, for any one who has ever trained children
for any exhibition knows the tiresome repetition of scenes and sentences
that is necessary to ensure success in the simplest performance.
Eunice and Cricket felt it, with the others. They wanted to go skating,
to go down-town with mamma, or made plans with their schoolmates, only
to remember, at the last minute, that there was a rehearsal that
afternoon.
Eunice was very faithful, however, for her mother would not permit
anything to interfere with these rehearsals. Cricket, of course, was
free, but, as her father said, she would “never desert Mr. Micawber.”
“No; you agreed to take a part in the play, dear,” said mamma firmly,
when the children begged to “cut just _once_, for the other girls did
sometimes,” since something unusual had come up; “what you agreed to do,
you must do, at any cost of inconvenience or disappointment to yourself.
No amusements, of any kind, must prevent your being punctual at every
rehearsal.”
“Just sometimes, mamma,” begged Eunice.
“Not even once. Your teachers are taking all this trouble for your
benefit, and the least you can do is to be depended upon for your
punctual presence. You know how provoking you say it is when any one is
absent, and how badly the rehearsal goes on then.”
“That’s so: like a chicken on one leg,” said Cricket, thoughtfully.
“Everything hitches. But I do wish I were _in_ the play. I know all
Isabel Fleming’s part _much_ better than she does. Miss Raymond scolds
her all the time.”
“How did she get in if she is stupid?” asked Marjorie.
“She isn’t stupid. I believe she’s lazy. She just stumbles along, and it
makes me so mad when she gets all mixed up in her best speeches. There’s
one part, with Eunice, that she spoils entirely, every time. That about
the bonnet, Eunice, when you come in and find her trying it on. She’s
all alone before the glass first, and she has some awfully funny things
to say, and she just forgets half of them, every time.”
“You do it lots better, Cricket,” said Eunice. “She really does, mamma.
She’s practised it with me, you know, up-stairs. Let’s do it now,
Cricket.”
And Cricket, nothing loath, jumped up, and the children went through the
scene. Cricket was always such an enthusiastic little soul about
everything she did, that she made herself literally the character she
was acting.
“Oh, I’m just pining away to be in the play,” she said, sinking down on
a couch and fanning herself, amid the applause of the family.
“You look pretty healthy for one who is in that state,” said Doctor
Ward.
They were all in the parlour for the jolly half-hour after dinner.
“I don’t show it much, I suppose,” said Cricket thoughtfully, “but,
really, it just pines inside all the time.”
“Do you remember, mamma,” put in Marjorie, “how Eunice, when she was a
little thing, used to like to sit up at the piano and sing, and pretend
to play her accompaniments? There was one particular song she always
tried. It had a chorus, ‘Maggie, dear Maggie, I’m _pinning_ for thee!’
as Eunice used to say it. Cricket might sing now, ‘Oh, Nancy, dear
Nancy, I’m pining for _thee_!’”
“By the way, what is that ghostly song you are so fond of singing about
the house, Marjorie?” asked Doctor Ward, looking up from his evening
paper. “I only can make out the chorus, ‘Repack, repack, repack my body
to me,—to me.’”
There was a shout of laughter that nearly drowned Marjorie’s astonished
protest that she never sang anything so sepulchral.
“You certainly do, often,” insisted Doctor Ward. “This very afternoon,
not long before dinner, I heard you and two or three of your friends, in
the music-room, singing, and one of the things you sang was that very
song, only you sang it this way: ‘Repack my body to me,—same old body.’”
There was another shout.
“Oh, papa, you _funny_!” cried Marjorie. “It isn’t _body_ at all. It’s
‘Bring back my _Bonny_ to me.’ It’s a girl’s name. The first line is,
‘My Bonny lies over the ocean!’”
“That’s it,” said the doctor. “When you sang, ‘My _body_ lies over the
ocean,’ I thought it was a strange thing to mislay.”
Whereupon Marjorie went to the piano and insisted on playing the whole
thing through, and having Eunice join her in singing it.
The next rehearsal day, Eunice and Cricket were promptly on hand.
Presently all the girls were there but Isabel Fleming. Miss Raymond, the
elocution teacher, came in, herself, at the last moment.
“I was unexpectedly detained. All here? Isabel Fleming isn’t missing
again to-day, is she? What a provoking child! This is the third time she
has been absent, and she really needs more drill than any one of you,
for she is so careless.” Miss Raymond’s black eyes snapped impatiently,
and the girls were glad they were not the delinquent Isabel. “Wouldn’t
she catch it the next day?” the girls’ silent exchange of glances said.
“Here _I_ leave pressing work to come here and drill you, for your own
benefit and advantage, outside of school hours,” went on Miss Raymond,
indignantly; “I often give up engagements that I wish to make, for
ungrateful girls who are not even responsible for what they undertake.
You ought to be as ashamed to break an engagement as you would be to
tell a lie.”
“That is very true,” said Miss Emmet quietly. “However, we won’t scold
the girls who _are_ here, on account of those who are not. I will see
Isabel to-morrow.”
“They all need a talking-to, though,” cried irate Miss Raymond. “They
all happen to be here to-day; but I believe every one of them has missed
rehearsals, with the exception of Eunice Ward.”
“Mamma won’t let me,” said Eunice honestly.
“Your mother’s a sensible woman, then,” said Miss Raymond. “Now, Miss
Emmet, what are we to do? It spoils the play so, to have me read
Isabel’s part. I can’t drill them properly, and they don’t do justice to
their own parts.”
“If you like, Miss Emmet, I will take Isabel’s part,” said Cricket, in
her bright, unconscious way, after a telegraphic despatch to Eunice,
with her eyebrows.
“But you don’t know it, child, and it’s the reading it at all that I
object to. Not acting it, puts the others out,” said Miss Raymond,
pulling off her gloves.
“I mean, I can say it,” explained Cricket. “I can’t act it very well, of
course, but perhaps it would do. I know all the part.”
“Do you? Well, then, you can try it. It won’t be worse, at any rate,
than my reading it, and keeping my eye on the girls at the same time.
Stand here, and be ready for your cue.”
The speech was ungracious, for Miss Raymond was always sharp-tongued,
but she patted Cricket’s cheek, approvingly.
The rehearsal began. Cricket was excited, but she had her wits about
her, for this work was what she loved.
“You are doing very well, child,” said Miss Raymond, when she went off
the stage. Cricket was so eager to fill in just right, that she never
thought of herself. The little play was rehearsed twice through, and the
second time Cricket did still better. Of course not as well as the girls
who had been drilling for two weeks already, for she did not always get
the right position on the stage, sometimes turned her back to the
imaginary audience, did not leave at the right moment, every time, and
never spoke loud enough.
Nevertheless, on the whole, the rehearsal was very satisfactory.
Miss Raymond said a few words to Miss Emmet while the children were
resting. Miss Emmet nodded assent. When the girls were leaving, Miss
Emmet detained Eunice and Cricket a moment.
“Miss Raymond and I spoke of replacing Isabel Fleming two or three days
ago,” she said. “I told her, the last time she was absent, that I should
fill her place if she failed again. Now, Jean, I wish you would ask your
mother if she has any objection to your taking the part of Nancy. You
know the part already, and we can soon train you in the acting.”
Cricket’s eyes grew bigger and bigger. To act a part in that wonderful
play!
“Will your mother permit her, do you think?” Miss Emmet asked Eunice.
“Jean is rather younger than the girls are when they first take part,
usually, but I think she will do.”
“Yes, indeed, I think mamma will be willing,” beamed Eunice.
“I come to all the rehearsals now,” said Cricket, eagerly, “and I know
the part perfectly, and I am sure mamma will let me.”
The girls almost danced down the street.
“I’d rehearse every day in the week, and all night too,” said Cricket,
fervently, to mamma, when the latter warned her again that she must not
let anything interfere with rehearsing. “We will not ask to shirk it
once, no matter what we want to do.”
“That’s the only condition you can undertake it on,” said mamma. “If you
do it at all, you must do it thoroughly, you know.”
The condition seemed a very small one to the children, as only a week
remained before the eventful Friday night. The rehearsals were never
more than an hour long, and generally not more than three-quarters of an
hour at a time, but they came every other day.
It was Monday afternoon,—the Monday before the play. A rehearsal was
appointed for three o’clock. As the girls came out into the street from
school, one of their friends joined them, begging them to come and see
her in the afternoon. Her mother, she said, had just come home from New
York, and brought her many pretty things, as well as a great box of
Huyler’s candy. She wanted Eunice and Cricket to see the things and help
eat the candy. Eunice, remembering the rehearsal, said no very firmly,
though her resolution was somewhat shaken when she learned that most of
the candy was chocolate.
“It’s so far over there that we wouldn’t have time to come before
rehearsal, but we might go over at four, couldn’t we, Eunice?” asked
Cricket, hopefully.
“Oh, how provoking! You see, I have a music lesson at four, and Mr.
Schwarz is _so_ cross if I’m a minute late; and I know there won’t be
anything left of that candy to offer you, after the children get hold of
it. Can’t you skip rehearsal, just once?”
“No, we’ve engaged not to,” said Eunice. “It would be nice, but we
mustn’t, Elsie. Good-bye. Cricket, we’ll be late to luncheon if we don’t
hurry.”
It chanced that mamma had an engagement at the dentist’s, and had to
hurry away from the luncheon table.
“And I shan’t be home till late in the afternoon, girls,” she added,
“for, after I leave the dentist, I have several people to see on Guild
business. Be prompt with Miss Raymond, my little maids, and do well.”
She was hardly out of sight when a group of little school friends
trooped up the steps. Eunice and Cricket, standing in the window, saw
them coming, and flew down to the hall to meet them.
“Get your things on right away,” they cried, in a chorus. “They say
there is splendid skating on the lake, and we’re all going out there. It
will probably be gone by to-morrow, they say. Do hurry, girls!”
“Oh, jolly!” cried Cricket, flying away. Then she stopped short, and
looked at Eunice.
“We can’t go, girls,” said Eunice, soberly. “We have rehearsal at
three.”
“Oh, cut for once! All the girls have cut sometime, you know. You can’t
be there always.”
“It’s such a nuisance when everybody isn’t there, though. But I’m just
dying for a skate,” said Cricket, wistfully. “How I wish we _could_ go!”
“Come, _do_ cut,” some one urged. “Let Miss Raymond scold. Ask your
mother. She’ll let you.” Eunice wavered. Wouldn’t mamma let her if she
only knew about this? Such a _very_ special occasion! They had been so
very punctual and regular,—not a single time had they missed rehearsal,
and they knew their parts perfectly. Indeed, this was an extra
rehearsal, appointed for the special benefit of some girl who had been
absent twice. _Could_ not they let it go for once? Eunice and Cricket
looked at each other wistfully.
“I believe—” began Eunice, slowly.
“Oh, goody! fly up-stairs _fast_, and get your things on. It’s getting
awfully late, now, to get off.”
Eunice still hesitated; then she suddenly braced herself.
“No,” she said, backing off, with her hands behind her back, as though
there were something she was forbidden to touch. Then she spoke very
fast, lest her determination should waver again.
“We can’t possibly go. We’ve promised mamma we wouldn’t shirk once, no
matter what came up, and we can’t. We’re awfully sorry, but we can’t.
You go on, girls. It’s getting late.”
It certainly required much resolution to say this, in the face of those
glittering skates and beseeching eyes, but Eunice’s tone was so firm
that the girls wasted no further coaxing, and went off with many an
expression of regret.
Eunice and Cricket each drew a long breath, and looked at each other
resignedly.
“Now let’s get ready to go straight off before anything else happens,”
said Eunice, with assumed briskness.
“I don’t feel as if the self-denying part of me could do that again.
It’s most worn out,” said Cricket, mournfully, as they went up-stairs.
“Think! the skating will surely be gone to-morrow! It never lasts but
two or three days.”
As they finally shut the front door behind them and went down the steps,
Mrs. Drayton’s carriage drew up before the house, and Emily’s eager head
popped itself forward.
“Girls! girls! where are you going? I’m _so_ glad I’m in time to catch
you. I want you to go for a drive.”
“Oh, _Emily!_” cried Eunice, despairingly. “Don’t say one word about
anything. I’m just about crazy! _Every_thing nice is happening this
afternoon, when we’ve just _got_ to go to rehearsal.”
“_Must_ you go?” said Emily, disappointedly. “I’d made up my mind to
have a nice, long drive. I’ve had such a cold that I have not been out
for a week, but to-day is _so_ clear and bright that mamma said I might
come out and get you both, and I want you _so_ much!”
“I’m _just_ as much disappointed as you, Emily,” sighed Eunice. “I’m
tired to death of rehearsals, but we _must_ go, because we promised
mamma we wouldn’t shirk.”
“You can get some one else to go with you, Emily,” said Cricket, who had
waited, younger-sister fashion, for Eunice to decide the matter.
“Of course I can get plenty of people,” said Emily, petulantly; “but I
want _you_. Oh, _do_ come! We’ll stop at the school and say I wouldn’t
let you get out.”
Emily was very used to having her own way. Eunice opened her eyes wide.
“Oh, we couldn’t tell Miss Raymond _that_!” she exclaimed, in great
surprise. “Please don’t coax, Emily. It makes it so hard.”
“There’s three o’clock now,” put in Cricket, as the hour struck from a
neighbouring tower. “Rehearsal is at three, and we’ve never been late
before.”
Emily looked ready to cry.
“It’s too bad of you. You might come if you wanted to. You’d rather go
to a mean old rehearsal than come with me. I know you would.”
“Emily, how silly!” cried Cricket, in despair. “As if we wouldn’t rather
go with you a billion times,—yes, a virgintillion. Don’t you see? We’ve
_promised_.”
“Please don’t be cross about it,” begged Eunice. “You can get somebody
and have a lovely drive, and we have to miss everything and be scolded
for being late, besides. We _must_ go, Cricket, or we’ll have our heads
taken off.” And Eunice, as she spoke, sprang up on the carriage steps
and kissed her little friend, coaxingly.
Emily sighed.
“Can you drive to-morrow then? I’ll come early.”
“If we don’t have rehearsal. We’ll ride with you now as far as the
school, if you’ll take us.”
“All this trial and temptation,” sighed Cricket, soberly, as they went
up the school steps, “and probably being scolded for being late into the
bargain.”
Fortunately, however, when they reached the room, Miss Raymond herself
was late, having been detained by some lesson. All the girls were
already there, and soon they were at work.
“This has been a thoroughly satisfactory rehearsal,” said Miss Raymond,
with unusual cordiality. “Everybody is on hand, and you’ve all done
well. I thought last Saturday you would have to rehearse every day this
week, but now we will do no more till the dress-rehearsal on Thursday.
You’ve done _splendidly_.”
Praise from Miss Raymond was so rare that the girls beamed.
“_Isn’t_ it fortunate that we didn’t cut?” said Eunice, as they went
homewards. “Now we can go to-morrow with a clear conscience, and this
afternoon we would have felt guilty all the time.”
“Yes, and had to rehearse to-morrow, too, if we’d cut this afternoon.”
The eventful Friday evening arrived in due course of time, and an
enthusiastic and expectant audience crowded the schoolroom at St.
Agatha’s. The juniors’ play was first on the programme. Eunice, in her
part of maid, was very taking in her becoming costume, with its little
mob-cap and jaunty apron. Cricket, as saucy Nancy, who was always
listening behind doors, and getting into trouble, made a decided hit.
The other girls were all so good in their parts that it was hard to say,
after all, which was best. Everything went smoothly, as it should with a
well-trained, well-disciplined set of girls. The French play was
beautifully given by the seniors.
The programme closed with some pretty drills and marches, for which they
had been trained by their teacher of physical culture, as part of their
school work. For this they had had no other preparation than their
regular daily half-hour in the gymnasium.
“All this means much work on your part, Miss Emmet,” Mrs. Ward said,
appreciatively, to the head of the school, as people were congratulating
her on her beautifully trained girls.
“And much on the girls’ part, as well,” answered Miss Emmet, cordially.
“They learn many valuable lessons, during the time we take to prepare
all this, besides their school work.”
“Certainly lessons in self-denial and persistency and promptness,” said
Mrs. Ward, smiling. “My little girls have certainly learned the
necessity of keeping engagements, no matter what more interesting things
come up.” And she told Miss Emmet of the Monday before, and its
accumulation of disappointments.
Miss Emmet laughed, but she looked sympathising, also.
“That’s exactly what I mean. It all goes into character-building.”