The Corner House Girls in a Play

Dot and her little friends were quite over-wrought about their bee dresses. They had learned to dance and "drone" in unison; now they were all to be turned into fat brown bees, with yellow heads and stripes on their papier-maché bodies, and transparent wings.

Tess, as Swiftwing, the chief hummingbird, was a brilliant sight indeed. Only one thing marred Tess Kenway's complete happiness. It was Miss Pepperill's illness.

For the unfortunate teacher was very ill at her boarding house. Her head had been hurt when the automobile knocked her down. And while her broken bones might mend well, Dr. Forsyth was much troubled regarding the patient.

The Corner House girls heard that Miss Pepperill was quite out of her head. She babbled about things that she never would have spoken of in her right mind. And while she had so vigorously refused to be taken to the Women's and Children's Hospital when she was hurt, she talked about Mrs. Eland, the matron, a good deal of the time.

"I'm going to see my Mrs. Eland and tell her that Miss Pepperill asks for her and if she has found her sister," Tess announced, after a long conference with the teacher's landlady, who was a kindly, if not very wise maiden lady.

"I see no harm in your telling Mrs. Eland," Ruth agreed. "Perhaps Mrs. Eland would go to see her, if it would do the poor thing any good."

"Why do you say 'poor thing' about Miss Pepperill, Ruthie?" demanded Dot, the inquisitive. "Has she lost all her money?"

"Goodness me! no, child," replied the oldest Corner House girl; nor did she explain why she had said "poor thing" in referring to the sick teacher. But everybody was saying the same; they did not expect her to live.

The substitute teacher who took Miss Pepperill's place in school had possibly been warned against Sammy Pinkney; for that embryo pirate found, at the end of the first day of such substitution, that he was no better off than he had been under Miss Pepperill's régime.

Tess was very serious these days. She was troubled about the teacher who was ill (for it was the child's nature to love whether she was loved in return or no), her lessons had to be kept up to the mark, and, in addition, there was her part as Swiftwing.

She knew her steps and her songs and her speeches, perfectly. But upon the Saturday morning when the dances were rehearsed, Tess found that there was more to the part than she had at first supposed.

There was to be a tableau in which – at the back of the stage – Swiftwing in glistening raiment, was the central figure. A light scaffolding was built behind a gaudy lace "drop" and to the steps of this scaffolding, from the wings on either side of the stage, the birds and butterflies flew in their brilliant costumes to group themselves back of the gauze of the painted drop.

Tess was a bit terrified when she was first taken into the flies, for Swiftwing first of all was to come floating down from above to hover over and finally to rest upon a great carnation.

Of course, Tess saw that she was to stand quite securely upon the very top step of the scaffolding. A strong wire was attached to her belt at the back so that she could not possibly fall.

Below, and on either side of Tess, was a smaller girl, each costumed as a butterfly. These were tossed up to their stations by the strong arms of stage-hands. They could not be held by wires as Tess was, for their wings were made to vibrate slowly all through the scene.

On lower steps others of the brilliantly dressed children – all butterflies and winged insects – were grouped. From the front the picture thus formed was a very beautiful one indeed; but the children had to go over and over the scene to learn to do their part skillfully and to secure the right effect from the front.

"Aren't you scared up there, little girl?" one of the women playing in the piece asked Tess.

"No-o," said the Corner House girl, slowly. "I'm not scared. But I shall be glad each time when the tableau is over. You see, these other little girls have no belt and wire to hold them, as I have."

"But you are so much higher than the others!"

"No, ma'am. It only looks so. It's what the stage man said was an optical delusion," Tess replied, meaning "illusion." "I can touch those other girls on either side of me – yes, ma'am."

And she did touch them. Each time that she went through the scene, and the butterflies' wings vibrated as they bent forward, Tess' hands, which were out of sight of the audience, clutched at the other girls' sashes.

Tess was a sturdy girl for her age. Her hands at the waists of the two butterflies steadied them as they posed on this day for the final rehearsal of the difficult tableau.

"That's it!" called out the manager. "Now! Hold it! Lights!"

The glare of the spotlight shot down upon the grouped children from above the proscenium arch.

"Steady!" shouted the stage manager again, for the whole group behind the gauze drop seemed to be wavering.

"Hold that pose!" repeated the man, commandingly.

But it was not the children who moved. There was the creaking sound of parting timbers. Somebody from the back shouted a warning – but too late.

"Down! All of you down to the stage!"

Those on the lower steps of the scaffolding jumped. The stage hands ran in to catch the others; but the higher little girls could not leap without risking both life and limb!

A pandemonium of warning cries and shrieks of alarm followed. The scaffolding pulled apart slowly, falling forward through the drop which retarded it at first, but finally tearing the drop from its fastenings in the flies.

Swiftwing, the hummingbird, did not add her little voice to the general uproar. She was safely held by the wire cable hooked to her belt at the back.

But the butterflies were helpless. The men who tried to seize them from the rear could not do so at first because the scaffolding structure fell out upon the stage.

The Corner House girl, frightened as she was, miraculously preserved her presence of mind. As she had already done before during the rehearsals, she seized the sashes of her two smaller schoolmates at the first alarm. Their feet slipped from the foothold, but Tess held them.

Neale had taught Tess, and even Dot, how to use their strength to better advantage than most little girls. Tess was sure of her own safety in this emergency, and she allowed her body to bend forward almost double, as the two frightened little butterflies slipped from the falling scaffolding.

For a dreadful moment or two, their entire weight hung from Tess Kenway's clutching hands. Her shoulders felt as though they were being dislocated; but she gritted her teeth and held on.

And then two of the men caught the little, fluttering butterflies by their ankles.

"Let 'em come!" yelled one of the men.

Tess loosed her grasp as the scaffolding crashed to the stage. The last to be lowered, Swiftwing came down, so frightened she could not think for a moment where she was.

"Oh, Tess, darling!" gasped Agnes.

"Sister's brave little girl!" murmured Ruth.

"I – I didn't spoil the tableau, did I?" Tess asked.

"Spoil it? My goodness, Tess Kenway," shouted Neale O'Neil, who, likewise, had run to her, "you made the biggest hit of the whole show! If you could do that at every performance The Carnation Countess would certain sure be a big success!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FINAL REHEARSAL

Before the tableau in which Tess Kenway had so covered herself with glory was again rehearsed, the scaffolding was rebuilt as a series of broad steps and made much lower.

Tess was not to be frightened out of playing her part as Swiftwing, the hummingbird.

"No. I was not in danger," she reported to Mrs. Eland, when she and Dot went to see the gray lady as usual the next Monday afternoon. "The wire held me up so that I could not possibly fall. It was only the other two girls who might have fallen. But they hurt my arms."

"If you had been a real hummingbird," put in the practical Dot, "you could have caught one of them with your beak and the other in your claws. Butterflies aren't very heavy."

"Those butterflies were heavy enough," sighed her sister.

"It was splendid of you, Tess!" cried Mrs. Eland. "I am proud of you."