Maim Lik. rditc: de»t. Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2007 witin funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/barnstormersaccoOOaleyricli HE LOOKED QUITE TERRIBLE, AND I THINK HE SCARED HER- BERT A LITTLE WHEN THE BLINDFOLD WAS TAKEN OFF -Page i6o THE BARNSTORMERS AN ACCOUNT OF THE BARNSTORMING OF THE BARNSTORMERS OF THE BARNVILLE EDITED FROM THE RECORD KEPT BY "BOB" BY MAX ALEY ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1914 COFYKIGHT. Zgi4, BT CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published April, 19x4 C4ttc a^^^' "BOB" WISHES TO DEDICATE THIS RECORD TO THE THREE WHO, WITH HIMSELF, FORMED THE ORIGINAL BARNSTORMERS* DRAMATIC CLUB H. B. J., H. L. M., AND E. J. 308877 A NOTE BY "BOB'' The Barnstormers are all "grown-up" now, and the four original members of the club are scat- tered in widely separated parts of the United States. Strange to say, not one of them has the remotest connection with the theatre. The Barnville, when I saw it last, had gone back to its original purpose. Its loft was filled with hay, and a horse occupied the dressing-room where Zara and Bianca had donned their flowing robes; the ticket-window was gone; the scenic splendors of the loft had disap- peared — rude hands had torn away the last vestiges of its theatrical glory. But from a beam hung a few tatters of brown cambric, once part of the front curtain; and I found one time-stained hand- bill announcing * ' Bianca. ' ^ Over in a corner of the loft was a hidden niche under the eaves, and as my hand crept back into it and closed over a dusty old volume, memories of long, hot summer days came back to me — days when Hal and I toiled over viii A NOTE BY '>BOB" our writing of "Rupert the Red Ranger/' or I sat alone, carefully recording the Barnstorming of the Barnstormers of the Barnville. And when I brought the book forth from its hiding-place, there was that same record — a cumbersome old ledger filled with my own boyish handwriting. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS He looked quite terrible, and I think he scared Herbert a little when the blindfold was taken off . Frontispiece FACINO PAGE They were so surprised that they didn't even have sense enough to run loo John's voice was high and cracked, and he made the lines, sound their awfulest 184 Jglma^s cave was about the only new setting for the play. It was lots of work to get fixed, but we didn't mind that 244 THE BARNSTORMERS THE BARNSTORMERS CHAPTER I Saturday y February i8. Hal and I were up in the hay-loft of our old barn this afternoon, and I had a real hunch. Hunches are funny things — they come to you just like a wink — so quick that you don't know what made them. But if they are really, truly, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die hunches, straight from your inside, why, they are worth considering. Well, mine was a really hunch. It was raining, and a rainy Saturday is nearly as bad as a rainy picnic day. We had tried al- most everything, and we were feeling rather glum and tired out and grouchy. Rainy Saturdays make you that way. We had come up in the barn loft to do stunts on the flying rings. Hal is a corker on the flying rings. He can do about anything — backward flops and double flops and 4 •' '■'''. / 'il^^ : BAPiT STORMERS skin-the-cats with fancy variations, and a great many other stunts that have no regular names. I can't do much on the flying rings. I've tried, but it just isn't in me. Hal hasn't given up try- ing to teach me to do the backward flop — ^he says that any one who can swim like I can ought to be able to learn to do a simple Httle thing like a backward flop — ^but I get scared every time. Last summer I fell from the rings and sprained my wrist so that I had to wear it in a sHng, same as if my arm was broken, for a week. I've been yellow when it comes to flying rings ever since that. Well, as I said, it was raining. Hal had done everything he knew on the flying rings, with me looking on, and then we had settled down to rest on a pile of hay over in one comer of the loft. Neither one of us said much. We just didn't want to talk — we both get that way sometimes. If I had wanted to talk it wouldn't have done any good, for Hal didn't want to, and you might as well try to pry open a river mussel as to get Hal to talk when he doesn't feel like talking. The rain came pattering down on the roof with THE BARNSTORMERS $ 2L nice, drizzly, sleepy sound, and the hay was so comfortable that I nearly went to sleep. I felt like Lady Jane Gray — she's our cat — ^when she curls up in her basket behind the stove and purrs. That is the way to get a hunch — ^just curl up and purr! Hunches won't come if you try to make them. They pop up before your mind's eye when you are feehng real satisfied and think- ing of nothing in particular. It's just like Lady Jane Gray when she's purring behind the stove and a mouse comes along the kitchen floor; she isn't expecting it, she hasn't tried to coax it out, but if she gives one big jump she can land it sure. Well, I was purring — not really purring, of course, but all comfortable and sleepy, and as near to purring as a fellow gets — ^when I sat up stiff and straight in the hay and gave Hal a kick in the ribs. The hunch had come to me: "Why not have a show?" I guess I thought it out loud, for Hal heard me. "Too much trouble," he said. "Takes too much time. Shows are for little kids, an)rway." We are going on fourteen and are in the eighth grade. 6 THE BARNSTORMERS "But I mean a real show," I said. "A play like they have at a real theatre." Hal just grunted. He didn't seem very much taken with the hunch I had had. But I wouldn't give up. "If we gave a real play/' I said, "we could charge five cents to get in, and maybe we could make some money." Hal thought a minute. "Where are you going to get a play we could give?" he asked. Now that had been part of my hunch. We had all read "Little Women," even if it is a girls' book. I had been thinking about the plays the girls used to give in their bam, when the idea struck me that if they could do it we could. Larry Donovan's sister has a book with all those plays in it. I read it last year when I had the chicken-pox. The plays are good plays, too — all about knights, and lords, and girls that were as brave as boys. Jo and Meg wrote the plays when they weren't much older than Hal and I, and then after Jo wrote " Little Women," and it was pub- lished, why, these plays were made into a book, too. I knew Hal had read the "Comic Trag- THE BARNSTORMERS 7 edies" — that's what they are called — ^because Hal reads all the books in the neighborhood. So I re- minded him of them and he was interested right away. '*We could make a theatre out of this barn," I said, "and give one of the * Comic Tragedies.' Jo and Meg gave their plays in a barn — and from the picture of it in that book it wasn't half as good a bam as this one." Hal seemed to be thinking about what I had said, but he didn't say anything himself for quite a while. He has funny, winky, little blue eyes that all close up into knots when he thinks and then open up wide and surprise you when he is ready to say something. His nose wriggles, too, when he's thinking, and if you know the signs, why you keep still till his eyes open and his nose gets peaceful. "Do you remember the 'Palace'?" Hal asked at last. I did. The "Palace" was a theatre in Larry Donovan's grandfather's carriage-house loft. It happened last summer while I was away with mother on a visit to Aunt Meta at her cottage 8 THE BARNSTORMERS up on Lake Michigan. I had to wear white duck sailor suits and keep clean, and couldn't go bare- footed. Hal and his brother John and Larry Donovan fixed up the "Palace" while I was away, and I missed all the fun. Only they never did give a show. They were going to have a real vaudeville show — acrobatic stunts and some music. The show was to be on Wednesday. The Thursday before, they took in Cribby Mc- Cormack and Billy Winters, because Cribby played a harmonica and Billy could walk on his hands. On Saturday they all had an iron-weed fight down in the crick bottom where the old lime-kiln is. The old lime-kiln is just like a fort, so you can have better fights down there than 'most anywhere around here. But this time Cribby McCormack fell off the top of the lime- kiln on his head. Only it didn't kill him, because he landed on top of Larry. He knocked the wind out of Larry, and both of them had to be carried home. And then everybody's fathers and moth- ers got all worked up, and talked over the back fences about how it was a wonder kids ever lived to grow up; and of course Larry's grandfather THE BARNSTORMERS 9 said there couldn't be no such goin's-on as a show in his carriage-house loft; somebody might get killed for sure. School began in a week and a half, so folks forgot all about Cribby falling off the lime-kiln; only the town marshal posted a sign down there that said, '^Five Dollars Fine For Trespassing," so we can't use the lime-kiln for a fort any more. We are all sore at Cribby every time we see that sign. He ought to have known that if he went and fell off the top of the thing there'd be a rumpus, and it would be posted just like it was! "WeU," I said to Hal, "Cribby McCormack doesn't have to break his head and put a crimp in this show!" Hal laughed. "But do you suppose they will let us?" he asked. He meant our fathers and mothers. "Sure," I said. "If we give a real play they will come to see it." "Do you think they would?" Hal asked. I wasn't real sure, but I said yes, I thought they would. You can never tell about grown-up people. Sometimes they get real crazy about the lo THE BARNSTORMERS things you do — like shows — and again they tell you to go along and don't bother them. "They go to see the plays the High School Dramatic Club gives," I told Hal. Hal said "Yes/' doubtfully, and then his eyes winked and went into little knots, and his nose wriggled. I got up and looked at the loft. It is quite a big loft and just about right to give plays in. The part over the carriage room is raised, so that the ceiling below will be higher, and that makes a platform at one end. Of course that would be the stage. The other part, where we could have the seats, is more than half of the loft and would give room for all the people who would come. While I was looking around the bam Hal sat there thinking. But he was looking around, too. That's one other thing about Hal; he takes every- thing in for himself. I knew he was figuring it all out, and that when he got ready to talk he'd talk — ^but not before. That's the advantage of growing up with a fellow. You know just how to take him and just how to act when he's around. Hal and I — why, THE BARNSTORMERS ii we have known each other ever since we started to school — eight long years! Hal has brains. As long as IVe known what brains were, IVe known Hal had them. But any- how, most boys have more brains than they get credit for having. After a while we got to talking about the plays in the book of "Comic Tragedies." "We will give *The Captive of Castile' first," Hal said. "It's one of the best in the book, and it doesn't look very hard." "But we have to have the theatre before we give the play, don't we?" I asked. Hal laughed. "Yes," he said, "that's what we did when we had the 'Palace.' We spent a whole week getting the place ready for a show we never gave." "Did you spend any money?" Money is pretty scarce with all of us. "No," said Hal, "didn't spend any. Just threw away a week of perfectly good time." That made me think. I guess Hal was right. We'd better be sure of the show before we fix up the barn. 12 THE BARNSTORMERS We fell to talking then about how we would fix it up when the time came. We both think it will make a corking good theatre. Of course, we will have the stage on the raised part over the carriage room. The part for the audience will take up the rest of the loft. We^U have seats made out of boards laid across from boxes. And down-stairs we're going to fix up a ticket office just like they have in a real theatre. "How many people does it take to give 'The Captive of Castile'?'' I asked Hal. He thought for a minute. "Four, I think," he said. "It's written so that two people can take all the parts if necessary. Don't you re- member in 'Little Women,' Jo and Meg acted all the parts in the plays they gave?" I had forgotten that, but when he spoke of it I remembered. "Then we don't need but two more, do we?" "That's all." "Larry Donovan?" "Sure," said Hal, "we must have Larry Dono- van." "And how about John?" THE BARNSTORMERS 13 Hal shook his head. "Can't say about John. Larry will be in for it right away, but John may not be." If Hal is for anything, John is usually against it. That's the way with brothers. Makes me glad, sometimes, I haven't any — still I miss mine that I haven't got, and I wish I had one, even if he didn't always want to do just what I did. We knew we could count on Larry. He's al- ways in for everything. He sticks, too. Last year when we dug a cave in the clay-bank, Larry stuck by it when the rest of us all gave it up because it got water in it. Larry baled the water out with a tin coffee-can, and then put boards down to walk on. We all came back feehng pretty small. We elected Larry Heap Big Chief of the cave-dwellers, and that evened things up, because the Heap Big Chief had the power of life and death over all his subjects. (Not really life and death, of course. Just pretended kind. We'd all read a book called, "Captured by the Cave- Dwellers," so we dug a cave, and played we were cave-dwellers like those it told about in the book.) Hal and I decided not to ask any one but John 14 THE BARNSTORMERS and Larry to be in our show. When you get too many you always have trouble. After a while we can ask another fellow or so if we wish. "We can make it a regular club/' said Hal, "a dramatic club, like the one they have in high school. Then we can give it a name, and have a president and a treasurer, and hold meetings. If we take in any new members we can initiate them just Hke the High School Dramatic Club does." The part about the name made the biggest hit with me. I hadn't thought about that. "What will we name it?" I asked. Hal wrinkled his nose and thought real hard. Then he looked up and his eyes opened wide. "I've got it!" he said at last. "I was reading some old magazines up in the attic the other day, and I found something by Joe Jejfferson — the man who plays Rip Van Winkle. He was telling about how it was when he was a Httle boy, and his mother and father were acting in a traveUing com- pany. They were going through the South, and since there were no theatres in that part of the country in those days, the actors would find a THE BARNSTORMERS 15 big barn in the town where they were going to play, and set up their scenery and give their play in it. People called the actors who did this, 'Barnstormers.'" "Well?" I said. "That's what we'd call ourselves," said Hal, "for we'd be playing in a barn just like those actors did when Joseph Jefferson was a little boy." "The Barnstormers," I said to myself, "that's a good name." "Then we must have a name for our theatre," said Hal. I thought a minute. "Why not 'Barnville'?" I asked. "Good!" said Hal. "Fine!" So we fixed it up. We, the Barnstormers, are going to barnstorm in the Barnville! CHAPTER II Tuesday, February 21. Well, the Barnstormers are! We have organ- ized (that is what Hal calls it) the Barnstormers' Dramatic Club. I told John all about my hunch that we could make a theatre out of our old barn. I didn't mention Hal at all, and John thought he was in on the ground floor. He said he would be for it strong, and that he thought it was the best hunch ever. Father and mother and I were invited to the Jamesons' for dinner Sunday, and in the after- noon, when dinner was over, Hal and John and I went up to their room to talk about the Barn- stormers. We telephoned for Larry to come over, and when he came we told him all about it, and then organized the club. I am president, Hal is treasurer, John is to play the hero parts, and Larry is stage-manager. i6 THE BARNSTORMERS 17 Our first play is to be "The Captive of Castile" from the book of "Comic Tragedies" — ^just like Hal and I decided that day in the barn. Larry's sister let us have her copy of the book, and we are going to write out each part from it. There are five characters: Bernardo, Lord of Castile; Ernest U Estrange, an EngHsh lord; Her- nando, a priest; Selim, a slave; and Zara, Ber- nardo^ s daughter. Hal is to be Bernardo, who is fierce and very cruel. John is to play Ernest UEstrange, the hero. Larry is to play two parts — Hernando and Selim, They aren't very long parts and they don't come in at the same time. I am to be Zaral I don't like the idea of being a girl. Boys are boys and girls are girls, and I'm quite satisfied where I am. But somebody has to be Zara — or we will have to take a girl into the Barnstormers. We don't want to do that, so I guess it is up to me. I told mother I was going to be the girl in our show, and she laughed and seemed to think it was very fimny. But she's going to fix me up some clothes out of some old evening dresses Aunt Meta left here. One is blue satin, and mother says i8 THE BARNSTORMERS she'll make me my costume out of that, and then if I have to have another one she'll make that out of an old pink dress. Then there's a cloak, or a sort of cape, I am to wear in the woods when I'm lost. And I'm to have a wig made out of brown burlap ravelled out so as to look like hair. After aU, I think it will be fun to play the part of Zara. Mother thinks it's great we are going to give a play. And Mrs. Jameson is interested, too. I heard mother talking to her over the telephone, and they were both laughing, but they seemed real proud of us because we had organized the Barnstormers. It's just like I said. You never can tell about grown folks! Thursday y February 23. Hal and John and Larry and I met over at Larry's last night and took turns reading until we had read "The Captive of Castile." It is a good play, all right! Zara, the heroine, gets lost in the woods and is rescued by Ernest^ the hero, who is an Enghsh THE BARNSTORMERS 19 soldier. Zara^s father is a Moorish lord and on the opposite side in the war. Some time later, Ernest is taken prisoner by the Moors and is sentenced to die. He is locked up in the donjon of Bernardo^s castle with the other prisoners who are going to have their heads cut off. Zara sees his name on the list of prisoners and tells her father: "It was he who saved me from a bitter death in yonder forest." But Bernardo is cruel and hard-hearted, and he refuses to save the man who saved his daughter's Hfe. But Zara is different from her father. She makes up her mind to save Ernest no matter what happens. She calls old Selim, who has charge of the donjon, and gets the keys from him by promising him that his daugh- ter shall be made free, and be a slave no longer. Ernest is in the donjon thinking about the lovely lady he rescued from the woods, when Zara, all disguised, comes to his cell. She pretends to be a slave, and tells Ernest that her mistress is the lady he saved from the forest and that now she would save him. But Ernest is brave and honor- able, and he says: "It cannot be. Much as I love my life, I love my honor more, and I am bound un- 20 THE BARNSTORMERS til my conqueror shall give back my plighted word to seek no freedom till he shall bid me go." Zara tells him: "If there be power in woman's grati- tude, thou shalt yet be free, and with thine honor yet imstained." Then as she starts to go her veil falls, and Ernest sees that it is really the lovely Zara, They have a mushy love-scene — I don't know how John and I will ever do that — and then Zara goes. The next day Bernardo brings home the death-warrant for the prisoners — Ernest among them. Zara begs him to yet save the English lord, but he is a mean old cuss and he won't Hsten to her at all. So that night she steals the death-warrant from imder his pillow, and when he wakes up the next morning it is "burnt to ashes and scattered to the winds." Of course Bernardo is mad as can be. Zara pleads and begs for Ernesfs life, because Bernardo says it doesn't matter about the old death-warrant any- way, he'll chop off the prisoners' heads just the same. But finally he agrees to spare Ernest if Zara will swear by her dead mother's spirit never to wed a man but of her own race. That is pretty tough on Zara, but she is brave, so she swears, THE BARNSTORMERS 21 and Ernest is saved. She goes to his cell and tells him all about it, and they have another mushy love-scene and then say good-by forever. Zara says her heart is broken and she wishes she was dead. So she "seeks out" Hernando, an old priest, whom she hopes can comfort her. It is a good thing she goes to him, for Hernando knows the secret of her Hfe, and when she tells him all, why, her troubles go away Hke a puff of smoke. Hernando says she isn't Bernardo^s daughter at all. Her father was an English lord and her mother was a Moorish lady. They both died and left her to him, and he took her to Bernardo to raise, because Bernardo had been a friend of her mother's. Zara is very happy, because now her vow doesn't hold and she can marry Ernest if she wants to. She goes home and finds a letter from Ernest waiting for her. He tells her that Bernardo is going to betray the city to the Span- ish king, but instead of his Hfe and Hberty, which the king has promised him, he will be slain. Er- nest tells her to bid Bernardo flee and to go with him. So Zara tells Bernardo that she knows he isn't her father, and that he is an old traitor be- 22 THE BARNSTORMERS sides. He goes all to pieces and says: "Lost! Lost! Fool that I was to trust the promise of a king! Disgraced, dishonored, and betrayed! Where find a friend to help me now?" Then Zara, who is too noble to go off and leave him taking on like that, says: "Here — ^in the child who cHngs to thee through danger, treachery, and death. Trust to the love of one whom once thou loved, and who still longs to win thee back to happiness and honor." So they fix it all up, and Bernardo goes off to get ready to leave and Zara is alone. A messenger comes from Ernest with a letter teUing Zara the bearer will lead her to safety. But Zara has promised to help Bernardo escape, and she isn't the sort to go back on her word. She says: "What shall I do? Oh, Ernest, where art thou now?" And then the messenger, who was Ernest all the time, throws off his dis- guise and says: "Here, dearest Zara! Here at thy feet to offer thee a true heart's fond devo- tion." And so they do get each other after all, and are married and Hve happy ever after. Only first they get old Bernardo, and all leave together for "another and a happier home." THE BARNSTORMERS 23 Friday, February 24. I have copied all my part, which was quite a task. At first I wanted to copy all the play, but Hal said there wasn't any sense to that, for all you needed to do was to copy your own speeches and the cues. Of course I didn't know what cues were, but I kept quiet and waited till Hal showed me how he had started to copy his part. Then I found out that cues are the last words of the speech that comes just before your own. You write out three or four words, like this: Ernest. . . . not trust me? That is the cue for Zara^s next speech: Zara. Ernest, thou knowest my heart is thine, and that to thee I trust with joy my life and happiness. No vow stands now between us. I am thine. Ernest. ... let me lead thee. Zara. I come, etc. Then when you learn the part you learn the cues as well as your own lines, and that way you know when your time comes to speak. 24 THE BARNSTORMERS I am afraid I shall never learn all Zara has to say. She certainly did like to talk! — but then I guess all girls and women are that way. Zara does most of the talking in the play — and that is forty-five pages long. Still, I can get things by heart pretty easily. I just about know all of my first act now. Ernest has the first speech, and then he hears some one coming and hides. Zara enters crying, and says: "Heaven shield me! Whither shall I turn? Alone in this wild forest, where may I find a friend to help. The dark storm-cloud gathers and I am shelterless" — etc. It's very fine writing. Jo and Meg were differ- ent from most girls. But then Jo grew up and wrote books, and there aren't many girls do that. I wish I could have been a boy then instead of now, and played the villain in their plays. Next week we are to have rehearsals of the play — the first three acts to begin on. Then if it goes all right, we can begin to fix up the Bamville. The weather is too cold now, but by the time we are ready to give the play it will be warm enough. Hal thinks we can give it Easter vacation. School is out for a week then. I have it all marked off THE BARNSTORMERS 25 on the calendar. Vacation begins Friday, March 31, and school starts again Monday, April 9. Hal and Larry want us to give the play on Wednes- day of vacation week. Larry's cousin, Edgar Donovan, is in the High School Dramatic Club. He is a senior this year. Larry told him all about the Barnstormers, and he has promised to help us some. He let Larry have a book called "Hints to Amateur Thespians." Larry showed it to us to-day at noon-hour. None of us knew what Thespians meant, but the book was all about giving plays in double parlors, and how to make curtains and scenery, and so on. I think the book will be quite a help to us. That word Thespians made me curious, so I looked it up in the big dictionary on teacher's desk. That said it came from Thespis, founder of the Greek drama, and that Thespians were actors. But I still wanted to know more, so at supper I asked dad if he knew anything about Thespis. He looked funny, and said something to mother, and they both smiled. He told me to wait till I was through supper, and then I could read about 26 THE BARNSTORMERS Thespis for myself. So we got the Sou-Vit vol- ume of the encyclopaedia, and I found Thespis, but it said to look under drama. So I got the Chi-Ele volume. That article on drama was full of terribly big words, and had a lot of stuff in it I didn't under- stand, but I managed to get a little out of it. They had something Hke plays way back even in Old Testament times, so this said, and then when it came down to Greek times, the Greeks had all sorts of plays. These plays started through people singing in choruses. Thespis put speeches in between the songs, so they call him the father of Greek drama. Then nothing much happened in a dramatic way during the Middle Ages until about the twelfth century when the churches began having httle plays at Easter time. These were all about Christ's birth, and were part of the service. After a while they began giving these plays outside the church in the churchyard, and they became so popular that they had them for all the other holidays and saints' days. Then people began to write Httle plays about Bible char- acters, and these were given on wagons, like the THE BARNSTORMERS 27 floats we have in parades to-day. Finally, real theatres were built, and then Shakespeare came, and he wrote real plays like the ones we have at the present time. Dad talked to me a lot about plays after I had read that article on drama. He seemed to be quite proud of me because I wanted to know about such things. He promised that if I made good grades at school and kept up my deport- ment grade to where it ought to be, that the next time he went to the city I should go along and he would take me to the theatre. Wouldn't that be great! Sunday, February 26. It's a nasty Sunday — rain and snow all mixed up. I have a cold, and can't go out. Hal prom- ised to come over, but he hasn't. T have been reading the "Hints to Amateur Thespians." I think it will help us quite a bit. In the "Introductory Remarks," it says that, "It must be understood that this work is intended to aid where there are none of the facilities of a theatre, to assist an intelligent Httle company 28 THE BARNSTORMERS who are forced to change a parlor, lodge room, or other large apartment into a place of amusement with a stage and its accessories." I reckon a bam will serve just as well as a "parlor, lodge room, or other large apartment"! We have the inteUigent little company, anyway. Then the "Hints" goes on to tell how to make the curtain go up and down, and how to make scenery, and a wind machine, and a thunder sheet, and all sorts of things. The fimniest part is the chapter "To the Stage-Manager." It says your company should be divided into: Male Leading man. Juvenile man, Heavy man. Old man and characters. Light comedian, Walking gentleman, Low comedian, Utility. Female Leading lady. Juvenile lady, Soubrette and ingenue, Old lady. Aren't those names funny? I understood what the leading man was, but the "heavy" sounded THE BARNSTORMERS 29 queer. It says later that he is the one who plays the villain parts. So Hal is our "heavy." I didn't know what the "walking gentleman" could be, but it says he's an actor to whom you can give responsible parts of any sort. Larry is our "walking gentleman," I suppose. Of course, I am the leading lady. He-haw! Then the "Hints" tells all about rehearsals and what you should do at them. First it says you should have "reading rehearsals." Each person reads from his own part. That is to help you be- fore you begin to learn the lines. You can have as many of these as you think necessary. I think we will need four or five, at least. Then, when you have learned your hues, you have regular re- hearsals. Somebody acts as prompter, keeping the play before him ready to tell you if you make a mistake. When you start on these regular re- hearsals you begin to work out your positions on the stage, and you try to remember them, just as you would your Knes. Say, I am sure glad I had my hunch! We are going to have more fun out of the Barnstormers than anything we ever did before! CHAPTER III Monday, February 27. It is ten o'clock! I ought to be in bed, but we have just finished a reading rehearsal of the play, and I want to "write it up." We did pretty well, I think, considering that it was our first rehearsal. We each read from our parts, and I kept the book before me to see that we had the lines the same as they are there. It took an hour to get through the play, and after that we talked about our plans for another hour. We never would have quit, I guess, if Mrs. Jame- son hadn't called up mother by 'phone and asked her to send Hal and John home. Larry says he will not be stage-manager — ^he doesn't like the things the stage-manager has to do. Hal has agreed to take the job off his hands, and Larry is to be property-man instead. The "Hints to Amateur Thespians" tells all about the property-man and what he has to do. He is 30 THE BARNSTORMERS 31 the one who looks after the properties, and the properties are everything you use in the play, Kke the keys Zara gets from Selim, and the scroll with the death-warrant, and the necklace Bernardo brings Zara, and so on, even to the furniture. Who would ever think you would have to have somebody just to look after little things hke those! Still, if they weren't there at the right time you couldn't go on with the show. Before the reading rehearsal we had a meeting of the Barnstormers' Dramatic Club. I asked dad at supper how we ought to do, and he said the meeting shoidd be run according to parKa- mentary rules. That didn't mean much to me, and I guess I showed my ignorance, for he went on to explain all about it. A president has charge of the meeting and calls it to order. Then if a member wants to talk he says, "Mr. President!" and if the president wants him to talk he says, "Mr. So-and-so!" whatever the member's name is, and then that member "has the floor," and nobody can talk till he gets through. If you want to vote on anything you must first make a motion, which has to be seconded by another 32 THE BARNSTORMERS member, after which you vote, and if more people are for it than against it, it is carried. I had my doubts about us being able to run a meeting according to parliamentary rules, but John knew exactly how it should be done. He's in the first year of high school and has been attending the Senior Senate every Friday after- noon. John said that if we'd start out he would see that we kept going. I sat behind the table and pounded on it with a ruler to "bring the house to order,'' which is what John said I should do. Then next we were supposed to call the roll — only we had to make out a roll and have a secretary. So Hal got up and said: "Mr. President, I move Larry be sec- retary." John said that wasn't the way to do it, that he must say: "Mr. President, I nominate Mr. Don- ovan for secretary." Then Hal said he didn't see what difference it made, and John said he ought to see if he had any brains. I was afraid they would get into one of their brotherly fights and stop the meeting, so I pounded THE BARNSTORMERS 33 on the table for order and said: "Mr. Larry Donovan has been nominated for secretary. Are you ready to vote on him?" They all said they were ready to vote, so we passed out Httle sHps of paper and wrote yes or no on them. There were three yeses and one no — that was Larry's own vote, I suppose. It isn't considered proper to ever vote for yourself. Then John said I must announce that Mr. Donovan had been elected secretary, so I did, and he came up and sat on the opposite side of the table. He made out a roll and called it, and everybody answered "here," and then we were ready to go on with the meeting. John said Larry must keep the minutes of the meeting, and Larry said he didn't see how he could when he didn't have them. Then we all laughed, and John said that the minutes were the record of what happened during the meeting, and that the secretary was supposed to write them down while the meeting was going on. So I gave Larry a sheet of paper to write the minutes on, and Larry said he supposed he ought to tick them out sixty seconds at a time; and then 34 THE BARNSTORMERS we all laughed again, and John said it was a rum joke ; but Larry didn't get mad — ^just grinned like he always does. Hal said, "Let's drive on," so we did. Then John said, "Mr. President," and I said, "Mr. Jameson," just like I was supposed to do, and he asked if he had the floor, and I said I reckoned he did if he wanted it. Then John looked important and began: "We should have a constitution for the Barnstormers' Dramatic Club, so I wish to present the following: "Article One "The name of this organization shall be known as the Barnstormers' Dramatic Club. "Article Two "The purpose of the Barnstormers' Dramatic Club is to give plays. "Article Three "When they wish, the charter members may take other members into the club, but each new member must be voted on by all the old members, THE BARNSTORMERS 35 and all must be in favor of him before he can be taken into the club. "Article Four "Each new member shall be required to pay an initiation fee of twenty-five ceiits and monthly dues of five cents. "Article Five "The membership is limited to ten. "Article Six "The money taken in at plays may be spent as the members see fit. "Article Seven "Meetings shall be held every Monday night." John stopped and looked around. "What do you think of it? " he asked. "Pretty good for a girl to do," said Larry. John got red in the face and asked Larry what he meant. "Why," said Larry, "your sister Elizabeth did most of it, didn't she?" 36 THE BARNSTORMERS John looked funny, and then he said we ought to be glad she did, because she knew more about it than all of us put together. I said I thought John was right, and that we ought to vote on the new constitution. So we voted, and everybody was for it, and we signed it, beginning with myself, like this: "Robert Brewster Archer." "Harold Jameson." "John James Jameson." "Lawrence Bartlett Donovan." When we had all signed, Larry moved that we adjourn, which is the way you say "Let's quit," and we voted on it. Everybody was for adjourn- ing, so the meeting came to a close, and we began the reading rehearsal. That took about an hour, and after that was over we spent another hour talking about how we were going to fix up the Bamville. "We will have to have some money first," said Larry. "How much do you suppose it will cost us to buy stuff for the curtain and scenery?" THE BARNSTORMERS 37 Hal said he had been figuring on that, and he thought we could buy everything for three dol- lars. "Seventy-five cents from each one of us," I said. " Gee ! " said Larry. " That's a lot of money ! " Hal went on to explain that he had been mak- ing some measurements in the barn. He said that if we made the stage opening ten feet wide we could have it nine feet high. That would mean that for the curtain we would need ten yards of stuff a yard wide. Then we must have a drop-curtain to use at the back of the stage. That would have to be nearly as big as the other one — say nine yards for it. Then we would need six wings to use along the sides of the stage. They would need to be three feet wide and six feet high, and would take twelve yards of stuff. So, adding it all up, we found we would have to buy thirty-one yards of material. Hal thought we could get it for five cents a yard, which would make it cost us a dollar and fifty-five cents. For the costumes we would have to buy more material, and Hal thought we could get all of it 38 THE BARNSTORMERS for a dollar. We wouldn't need to buy any lights, because we could get old lamps from home, and the oil for them could come from home, too. But there'd be sure to be other things we hadn't counted on. Larry started us on the parliamentary business again by saying: '^Mr. President, I move we each pay seventy-five cents into the treasury.'' John seconded the motion, and we voted on it. It was passed, because everybody voted yes. But we decided not to pay in the money till we have the play all ready and can begin work on the Bamville. Wednesday, March i. We had another reading rehearsal this after- noon. It went better. But Larry was so funny! Larry is always funny. He was just made that way — with a grin that won't come off. The first thing I can remember about Larry is that grin. The day I started to school — ^we had just moved here that August and I started in September — Larry sat in front of me. I was scared because I didn't know anybody, and I felt THE BARNSTORMERS 39 lonesome. The teacher put some letters on the board and pointed to an A and asked me what letter it was — did I know? I said, "Yes'm, it was A." Then she asked me where it came in the alphabet, and I said I didn^t know — because I had learned to read by asking what printed words meant, and then by pointing out letters and ask- ing anybody who would tell me what they were. I hadn't learned the alphabet in order at all. So I told the teacher it was just A, and that was all. Then they laughed at me, and I wanted to cry, but Larry turned around and grinned real friendly- like, and I grinned back, and everything was all right, because I knew we were friends. Larry never could read well, so it's funny to hear him read his part. He reads it all in one tone — not one word any different from the others, and with a funny little pause in between each one. Like this (which is one of SelinCs speeches to Zara): "Lady — thou — hast — made — a — slave's — life — happy — by — thy — care — and — through — the — long — years — I — have — served — thee — hast — never — bid — me — do — aught — that — was — not — right." 40 THE BARNSTORMERS It does sound funny, but he will do better when he has learned the lines. Hal is just the opposite. He gets his lines out so fast that you can scarcely tell when he is through, for you think he surely can't have reached the end in such a short time. John reads his off in real actor style — ^very im- pressive and dignified and fine. He is going to make a good hero, all right. I try to say mine like I think a girl would — ^but it isn't easy! My voice has begun to change, so I can't tell what it is going to do next. One time it's real ladylike, and the next minute it sounds hke a bass viol. I know that if I come out and say, "Heaven help me," way up high, and then finish up "whither shall I turn," way down low, that everybody will roar. But I simply can't help it. We haven't told anybody about the Barn- stormers yet — except our own famihes, of course. We are planning to keep it all a secret until a week before the play, and then Hal will tell all about it in the GimleL The Gimlet is Hal's newspaper. He has a press THE BARNSTORMERS 41 that his Uncle Jim, who owns a big paper in Chi- cago, gave him, and he prints the Gimlet on it every week. It costs five cents a month, or two cents a copy. He has fifty subscriptions and sells several extra copies every week, but he doesn't make any money, because it takes all that the paper brings in to buy ink and the other things he must have to get it out. And then some peo- ple don't pay their subscriptions either! Mr. Wharton, who is editor of the Jordan Blade — that's the paper here in town — copies from the Gimlet every week and calls it "our leading ju- venile journal," and he gives Hal old type and old cuts to run, and helps him lots of ways. Some day Hal is going to grow up and own a paper Hke his uncle in Chicago. When Hal prints the Gimlet for March 24, he will fill it up with the story of " The Captive of Castile," and the cast, and all about the Barn- stormers. Then before the play comes off we will print some bills, and take those around all over town to the people we know. We do not want any strangers at our show because they might make trouble. We aren't going to sell any tickets , 42 THE BARNSTORMERS to the West-Enders because they would make trouble sure. They have been sore ever since the East-End beat them in football last fall and Larry played on the East-End team. We are to have printed tickets with a little blank to fill in with the number of the seat. All the seats will be reserved, just Hke they are at the Masonic Hall for the lecture course. Oh, the Barnstormers are going to have some show! CHAPTER IV Sunday, March 5. Yesterday was a fine, warm day, so we had a rehearsal in the Barnville. Of course it isn't any- thing but a barn now, but we call it the Barn- ville, because that is to be the name of it when it is made into a theatre. The rehearsal was our first without using parts. We went through three of the eight scenes. We marked off the size of the stage and the entrances with chalk, and used a soap box for a chair. The *^ Hints to Amateur Thespians'' says you should "rehearse as soon as possible, and as many times as possible, on the stage where your play is to be given." We are trying to follow instructions. When you begin to rehearse without parts it seems much more Hke a play. But all sorts of things you never thought of before come up. First of all you must find out which side you 43 44 THE BARNSTORMERS come in from, and then you must know just where you are to be for every speech, and just what you are to do. You can^t stand and say your lines as if you were a wooden Indian. You have to act — and it isn't easy. But it comes easier than you would think. Somehow, when you get the swing of the thing, you just act with- out thinking much about it. In "The Captive of Castile" there are never more than two people on the stage at one time, and that makes the play much easier for us. The book says that the plays were written so that Jo and Meg could take all the parts, and because of that you never have more than two characters appearing at once. Jo took all the male parts and Meg took all the female parts. If two male characters came in one scene, Jo would change from one to the other while Meg said a long speech. I think, though, it is better to divide the parts up as we have done, because then no one has so much to learn. Giving plays is great fim. We had a perfect circus yesterday, because we all felt funny, and we put funny lines into our parts. John said we THE BARNSTORMERS 45 shouldn't do it, that it wasn't the thing to do at all. I suppose it isn't. But we can't be seri- ous all the time; and Hal was so funny that even John had to laugh. The fun started in the second scene. John doesn't come in that scene at all, so he sat down in front of us and kept the book before him to prompt. Hal and I start the scene, and then later Larry comes in as Selim. I had the first speech. I said that right. It is all about how Zara longs to see Ernest again. Those two surely had a case of love at first sight, because they just couldn't forget each other. Why, Zara didn't seem to think about anything but seeing Ernest again. And Ernest was just the same way about Zara. Well, after Zara has told all about how she longs to see the noble English stranger, Ber- nardo — Hal — comes in. He is supposed to say: "Joyful tidings, Zara! Grenada is free. Here, love, are gems for thee. They have shone on many a fair lady's neck, but none more fair than thine." What he really said was something like this: 46 THE BARNSTORMERS " Halloo, kid ! Come kiss papa ! Cheer up ! The country's saved. Here, little one, are some gum- drops — " and he reached in his pocket and brought out a pink one and put it in my mouth. But that was all the further he got with the speech. John was yelling at him to stop, and Larry was on his back in a pile of hay laughing till the tears rolled down his face. I sat down on the soap box and laughed till I choked on the gum-drop. John couldn't help himself and laughed too. Hal was the only serious one of the bunch. "Well, what's the matter?" he asked. "Nothing funny to that. I just couldn't think of my first speech, so I fixed it up to suit myself." After we had all laughed till we couldn't laugh any more, and they had pounded me in the back to get the gum-drop out of my Sunday throat, we went back to the beginning and started the scene all over. This time we did it right, be- cause Hal was serious and said his Unes as they were written. Everything went well imtil Hal was ready to make his exit. He is supposed to say "Adieu, love; I must to the council." I am sure I don't know what made him do it, but THE BARNSTORMERS 47 what he really said was "Adieu, love; I must to the pig-pen!" Of course, that broke up the show again. But we went back a few speeches and did the finish right, and so John was satisfied. After Bernardo leaves, Selim comes in. Of course, Larry thought he must do something funny, too, since everybody else had tried it. But he couldn't think of any funny fines to put in place of the real ones, so he just said some of those so they sounded funny. John didn't like it, be- cause he thinks we should do the whole thing very seriously. Of course, he is right, but we have to have a fittle fun as we go along. When my last speech came I tried to be serious. It goes: "Oh, Ernest, Ernest! Thy brave heart shall pine no longer. Another hour, and thou art free. Chains cannot bind, nor donjons hold, when woman's love and gratitude are thine." But Larry and Hal spoiled it for me. They both pretended to be shedding tears in their handker- chiefs, and then wrung them out as if they were soaked with water. No one could be serious with all that going on. 48 THE BARNSTORMERS The third scene is in Ernesfs cell. John said his first speech in real actor style, and Hal and Larry hstened without bothering him. Then I came in. At first Ernest thinks Zara is a slave girl and the servant of the lovely lady he res- cued from the forest. Then, when she turns to go, her veil falls, and he sees that it is none other than Zara herself. Of course Ernest and Zara have to have a love-scene then — ^it just couldn't be prevented. Well, John and I tried to do the love-making as we thought it should be done, but we couldn't, because Hal and Larry made noises like kisses, and giggled and snickered. I thought the whole business was funny, too, and I wanted to laugh, but John was mad. He told them they didn't know how to behave at all — they carried on just like little kids in the pri- mary grades, and he didn't know what would ever happen to them when they got into high school and had to act grown-up and civilized. Then they behaved for a while, and we finished the scene. But we were all ready for some fun, so we gave a show that we made up as we went along. THE BARNSTORMERS 49 It was a Western drama — like one that came here to the Opera House once. We decided that I should be the heroine, so as to get in practice, and, of course, John was the hero and Hal the villain, while Larry was to play several characters. We planned what we were to do in each act before we gave it. The first act was in a mining-camp. We put the soap box to mark where the hotel was — there always is a hotel in mining-camps in shows, Hal says. Then we needed something for a stage- coach, because you have to have a stage-coach and a hold-up in a Western drama, or it wouldn't be one. So we got my little old express-wagon, which was down-stairs in one of the stalls. The show started with three miners — Tender- foot Ted, the hero, played by John; Pizen Pete, a greaser, who was the villain, and acted by Hal; and Hold-up Harry, a friend of Pizen Pete's, played by Larry. Pizen Pete and Hold-up Harry are planning to carry off Susie, the Fairest Flower of the Rockies, who is the heroine of the play. They are sitting on the porch of the hotel — which means they 50 THE BARNSTORMERS were sitting on the soap box — ^and talking about how they can get away with Susie. Pizen Pete has found out that Susie^ the Fairest Flower of the Rockies, has the deed to a mine that has never been any good, but is going to make her fortune right away, because he has found a place in it where you can dig out the pure gold by the shovelful. Only Susie doesn't know this, so Pizen Pete is going to marry her, and get the deed, and then leave her to wander an outcast and alone. But Tenderfoot Ted overhears their vil- lainous plans, because he is hiding in a barrel, and so he comes up and says: "Villains, you shall not have the lovely maid. On the honor of a gentleman, I shall defend her with my poor life!'' Then Pizen Pete and Hold-up Harry draw their guns and say they will kill Tenderfoot Ted, be- cause "Dead men tell no tales." Only the Sherif — that's me, because I wasn't Susie, the Fairest Flower of the Rockies, yet — comes up and tells them to leave town at once, or they will be hung. So they have to go, but Pizen Pete says to Ten- THE BARNSTORMERS 51 derfoot Ted: "You — you — ^you t-t-tenderfoot-t-t! I— I'U get-t-t you yet-t-t-t-t!" But the Sheriff says, "Go!" and stands point- ing south till they are out of sight. After that I went off as the Sheriffs and waited for Tenderfoot Ted to say a long speech about "Will I ever see this lovely flower, she they call the Fairest Flower of the Rockies? Ah, lovely Susan! Little dost thou know what a noble heart beats beneath my flannel shirt! Little dost thou know that I am the Lord of Grenville in disguise! Yet, lovely Susan, thou fairest flower, I would make thee mistress of my title and my lands, though I have never looked upon thy loveliness!'' Then I came in as Susie, Fairest Flower of the Rockies. Susie says: "WTio can yonder stranger be? He is new to this rough life, and yet, methinks, a noble heart beats beneath his tenderfoot outside. How- dy-do, sir?" Then Tenderfoot Ted looks at her, and knows that she could be none other than herself. So he says: "Is she real, or do my eyes deceive me? Lovely maid, a thousand pardons, but are you 52 THE BARNSTORMERS not Susie, whom men call Fairest Flower of the Rockies?" She says she is, and he tells her his name, and then they are acquainted. He tells her about the plots of Pizen Pete and Hold-up Harry to rob her of her mine. "Those men will stop at nothing!" says Susie. "Oh, Theodore, I am afraid!" "Do not fear, dearest," he says. "Naught shall harm you while my strong arm isn't broken." "My brave hero!" she cries, and throws her- self into his arms. Then the curtain goes down — only this time there was none to go. The scene of the second act is a pass in the mountains. Pizen Pete and Hold-up Harry come in, planning to hold up the stage-coach. They know that Tenderfoot Ted and Susie, the Fairest Flower of the Rockies, are in the stage-coach going to look at Susie^s mine, because Tender- foot Ted is a mining engineer, hke HaFs and John's grown-up brother, and he can tell whether the mine will pay or not. Pizen Pete and Hold-up Harry hide behind some rocks — soap box again — and wait for the stage- THE BARNSTORMERS 53 coach to come. They talk about what they will do with Susie^s money when it is theirs, and how they will get even with Tenderfoot Ted, At last the stage-coach comes. (John and I sat astrad- dle of the wagon and pushed it with our feet.) As the stage-coach gets near the rocks, up pop the villains with guns levelled at the heads of their innocent victims. But Tenderfoot Ted is a real hero, and Susie, Fairest Flower of the Rockies, is a heroine of nerve and bravery. "No!" cries Tenderfoot Ted, "NO! ViUains, you shall not have the lovely Susan while Kfe remains in my body. Take that and THAT ! " and he shoots them dead, while Susie screams bloody murder. In the last act Lord and Lady Grenville — our former friends, Susie, Fairest Flower of the Rockies, and Tenderfoot Ted, the fearless hero, have built a palace at the mining-camp, and live there in the summer, but spend the rest of the year in Lord Grenville's castle in England. Only the mining-camp isn't a mining-camp any more. It has grown up to be a big city, with electric lights and trolley-cars and prominent citizens. S4 THE BARNSTORMERS Two of these last are Pizen Pete and Hold-up Harry, who weren't killed, after all, and have reformed and become millionaires. And so every- body lives happy ever after. I guess we made a lot of noise in that act where the villains hold up the stage-coach, because Mrs. Strong, who lives next door to us and has nerves, called mother on the telephone and asked who was being murdered in our bam. Wednesday, March 8. We had another rehearsal after school this after- noon. We know our parts through the fourth scene now. That is doing pretty well, I think. Anyway, we feel siu-e that the play will really be given, so we are planning to buy the cambric for the curtain and scenery on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday make the barn into the Bamville. We have each paid seventy-five cents into the treasury, so we have three dollars to buy the cur- tain, scenery, and costumes. Each of us made the money by doing some sort of work. Larry took Jean Andrew's paper route for a week while Jean was sick. Hal did some "job "-printing on his THE BARNSTORMERS 55 press, and John did some typewriting, which he does very nicely, for some of the seniors in high school. I am washing dishes for a week. Moth- er's hired girl left, and we will not have the new one till next Monday. The weather is fine, and the newspaper says that some man by the name of Ricks, who is a weather prophet out in Kansas, prophesies an early spring. I hope the old fraud is right this once. But it is warm enough now for us to use the Bamville for rehearsals. So, as I said, we are going Friday afternoon to the Bee Hive store, which is the biggest dry-goods store in town, and buy the stuff for our curtain and scenery. Hal went there yesterday to look at the goods. We can get cambric a yard wide for five cents. They have it in all colors. We have decided on dark brown for the front curtain, gray for the back drop, and dark green for the wings. I didn't quite understand what the wings were, but Hal got the "Hints to Amateur Thespians," and explained them to me yesterday. The wings are single Uttle screens three feet wide and six feet high. You put three on each side. They 56 THE BARNSTORMERS are set front side to the audience, but turned so that they slant a little toward the back drop. They are placed about three feet apart, leaving a space for the actors to go in and out. We need quite a few long, narrow strips of wood to use in making the frames for the wings, and for various other uses about the Barnville, so Larry and John are going to the planing-mill to- morrow and get a quarter's worth of edgings. Edgings are what they cut off the edges of boards when they plane them, and are nice, long strips, just a bit rough on one side. Well, I guess we really are going to give a show! And have a theatre, too! All I can say is that I am glad. We never have had so much fun out of anything before — tree-houses, caves in the clay-bank, the fort in the lime-kiln, or any- thing at all! CHAPTER V Sunday, March 12. We have done a great deal in the last few days. The Barnville is almost a theatre. Of course, it hasn't lights nor seats yet, but it has a curtain now, and scenery, and those go a long way to- ward making it seem hke a real theatre. We bought the cambric for the curtain and scenery Friday afternoon after school. We all went together to the Bee Hive store, and Hal, who had been there before to look at the stuff, did the buying. We had figured out just how much we needed, and knew the colors we wanted, and all, so we went right to Miss Peterson, whose mother does sewing at our house sometimes, and she waited on us. She was quite interested when we began to buy all those yards and yards of cambric, and of course she wanted to know what it was all for. So we told her we were going to give a play in 57 58 THE BARNSTORMERS a real theatre we were making out of our bam, and she was more interested than ever, and we had to tell her all about it. Then Mr. Vamer came along — ^he's a man clerk, and manager, or something Uke that, of the store. He looks as if he had just got a bad pain in his stomach. He wanted to know of Miss Peterson why she was wasting so much time on a bunch of kids when there were customers waiting; and she said she guessed she wasn^t wasting it, we were buying a lot of stuff; and then he looked as if the pain in his stomach had grown much worse, and he turned around and went off with- out saying anything. When he was gone we all laughed, and Miss Peterson laughed and made a face after him. Hal said. Gee, he was a crummy one ; and Miss Peterson laughed, and said she guessed Hal had it down right, and some folks were just natch- ully bom with mean dispositions, and it was awful what a lady in a store had to put up with. While she was measuring out those thirty-one yards of cambric we told her all about "The Cap- tive of Castile," and who was going to play the THE BARNSTORMERS 59 different parts, and how we were planning to fix up the Barnville. She said it was just too cute for anything, and she and her ma would surely come to see the play. She said she thought I would make an awfully sweet girl — and I got red in the face, and we all laughed. Well, finally she did the cambric up in three big bundles, and we started off home with it. When we came out of the store. Hen Perkins, one of that West-End gang, saw us, and said to Pete McGann, who is another West-Ender: "Look, Pete, the Httle darHngs have been shop- ping for their mammas." Hal and Larry were for stopping right there and cleaning up the pair, but John said no, it wasn't the thing to do, that fighting on the pub- lic square was bad form. Which was true, but I wish we'd had that pair in the Barnville! Hal said, loud enough for them to hear, that he should think that as long as our End could put it all over a certain football team, that certain par- ties ought not to get too smart. Something might have happened, only Timmy 6o THE BARNSTORMERS McManus came along just then. He's the town marshal, and he had on his new uniform with brass buttons down the front and a big star on the breast. Pete and Hen turned their backs and began pointing to the fish that is the weather- vane on top of the court-house, and we went on down the street. When we reached home we took our bundles to the kitchen, where mother helped us cut the brown cambric into three ten-foot lengths. Then we took it up to the sewing room, and she showed us how to run the straight seams on the sewing- machine, and stayed with us till we had the two long seams all done. Then she said we must hem the edges, so that they wouldn't ravel out, and we did that. It was supper time when we had finished the hems, so we couldn't do any more. That evening I went over to Hal's and John's, and Larry came over, too, and we talked about how we would fix the curtain to pull up and down. The "Hints to Amateur Thespians" shows three ways you can do it, but we figured out still a better way for the Barnville. THE BARNSTORMERS 6i The next morning — Saturday — Hal came over as soon as he had had breakfast, and we sewed the seams in the back drop. We had just finished when John and Larry came. They had been down-town buying a ball of heavy cord, some small brass rings, and four pulleys, all of which we needed for the curtain. We wanted to see it up so badly that we could hardly wait; so we hurried down to the bam and started to work. But it took us all the rest of the morning to get that curtain in working order. First we found we had no tacks, and I couldn't find any at the house; so Larry had to go home for them. Then sewing on the brass rings took a long time. We had to sew on four rows of them, with twelve rings to each row. Putting them on was a good deal like work. Each of us sewed a row, and we ran a race to see who could get his row on first. Each ring had to be sewed on good and tight, and at just the right place. Not being girls, we couldn't sew well. I stuck my fingers till they bled, and John had a worse time yet and said several things he should not have said. 62 THE BARNSTORMERS Finally we did get them all sewed on though — a row up each side, and two rows, three feet apart, up the middle. Hal came out ahead in the race, but John said he hadn't sewed his rings on tight enough, and they nearly had a scrap. We marked either side of the stage opening, which is about nine and a half feet wide, with strips of edging, which run up to a beam nine feet from the floor. That makes our stage open- ing nine and a half by nine feet. The spaces at either side we intend to fill in with old wall- paper, or some old curtains. From the beam above the stage, and just inside the two strips running to the floor, we stretched two heavy wires, one on each side, and threaded them through the two rows of rings on the out- side edges of the curtain. Meanwhile, Hal got a step-ladder and cHmbed up to where he could tack the top edge of the curtain to the beam. Then we cut the heavy cord into two equal lengths and tied one to each of the bottom rings of the inside rows, running the cords on up through the rings to the top of the curtain. Hal was up on the step-ladder putting the pulleys in place while THE BARNSTORMERS 63 we were fixing the cords, so that by the time we had that done, he was ready to put the cords through the pulley-wheels. We were all as excited as if that curtain was the first one ever hung. Hal jumped down from the ladder and took the two cord ends in his hands. He pulled — and the curtain went up! It looped itself into nice folds, and looked so fine we all cheered. I think we never realized what the Barnstormers meant to all of us till we saw that curtain go up ! We pulled it up and let it down a dozen times, and patted each other on the back, and were just crazy — we were so happy. Then Hal put up the other two pulleys at the back of the stage so that the curtain could be worked from back there, and when we got that done, we each had to try working the curtain again. Three of us would sit out in front, and the other fellow would work the curtain from behind, so that we could all see how it looked. We were going to give another show Hke the Western play we gave last Saturday, because we wanted to see how a show would go when we had 64 THE BARNSTORMERS a real curtain to raise and lower. Only, just when we were going to start on the first act, the noon whistles blew and we all had to hurry home to dinner. We were back by a quarter of one. We just couldn't stay away. The first thing we did was to put up the back drop. That was easy, for we tacked it to a cross-beam, and that was all we had to do. But when it came to the wings, we had quite a Httle job ahead of us. We intended at first to make a frame for each wing and cover it with the cloth. But Larry had an idea that saved us a great deal of work, and made it possible to get the wings in place much sooner than if we had made the frames as we originally intended. He said that all we needed to do was to put a strip three feet wide at the top, and another one the same width at the bottom, and then hang the wings from a wire stretched tight along the side of the stage from front to back. If we needed to do so, we could nail the bottom strip of each wing to the floor, or we could leave it free so that it could be rolled up out of the way when not in use. THE BARNSTORMERS 65 We all thought Larry's idea a good one, and so decided not to make frames for the wings. Of course we were able to get them up in half the time. By three o'clock we had all of them in place. They made the stage-setting complete — except for one thing. We needed what the "Hints" calls a sky border — a strip of cloth to hang overhead across the stage, and to look Hke the ceiHng, or the sky, as the case might be. Also, in the Barnville, a sky border will serve to hide the rafters, and the ropes that work the curtain. But we were all too tired to bother with it then, so we sat around admiring the Barnville, and finally rehearsed the acts of the play we knew, just to see how they would go on our real stage with its real scenery and curtain. Of course, we did much better than ever before. We felt that we had to do better. Our show will have to live up to the Barnville. None of us have been able to stay away from the Barnville to-day. I went down after din- ner this afternoon, and I hadn't been there long till Hal came, and then Larry, and then John. We just sat around and talked the whole afternoon. 66 THE BARNSTORMERS We talked about how we could improve the Barnville later on when we had made some money from plays, and about what other plays we could give, and how we would light the stage, and the properties we would use in the different acts of "The Captive of Castile." We were all surprised when it began to get dark outside, and we knew it was time to go home. Tuesday, March 14. Rehearsals are going much better now that we have a regular stage. We are more serious about our rehearsing, too. Hal got a book in the li- brary that tells something about acting, and we have all read parts of it, and are trying to do some of the things it says. Of course, it's a terribly hard book to understand, for us, at least, but I think it has helped us some. It talks about "getting under the skin" of a character, and "intensifying real life for the pur- poses of art," and other things that are beyond me. Hal made up his mind he would understand some of it, though, so he took the book to one of THE BARNSTORMERS 67 the English teachers in the high school — a fellow his brother knew in college — and this Mr. Scotney explained a lot of it, and told Hal lots of other things about acting, too. Now Hal thinks he knows a great deal about it, and I suppose he does. He says that we must do a lot of things when we act if we want the audience to enjoy our act- ing. We must be careful to say our lines in a way that will make them sound as if they came from the inside of us, and weren't just learned and said off. And then we have to try to feel just as we think the person we are supposed to be would feel when the things that happen in the play happen to him. Besides that there is a great deal more that I don't remember. But it looks as though we were going to give a real play and be real amateur Thespians! Who would ever have thought we could? All our fathers and mothers are interested, and some of the other people in the neighborhood, too. I guess we will have a crowd all right when the time comes for our play. None of the other boys at school have seen the 68 THE BARNSTORMERS Bamville yet. We don't want them bothering around. John and Hal and Larry and I have been such good friends always that we haven't many real good friends besides, so there aren't many fellows we want aroimd when we are making a theatre and getting ready to give a play. Later, just before vacation, Hal says he is going to ask up several of the boys and show them the Barn- ville. He thinks it will be a good advertisement for the show. We are going to give a school- children's matinee, just Uke the shows that come to the Opera House. It will bring in a little money and be good practice. We will charge just two cents for the matin6e, but the evening prices will be five. Three weeks now imtil the show! CHAPTER VI Sunday, March 19. Busy days! But we are having the time of our lives. I never had so much fun out of any- thing as I am having out of the Barnstormers. Some of the costumes are all ready now, and they are quite fine, and we look very fine in them, too. John has a doublet made of red cambric slashed with yellow, and a yellow tunic to go with it that is trimmed in red. Then he wears an old black-velvet cape that he found at home in the attic. He says he thinks it was his Aunt Ella's — she died — ^but he guesses it isn't haunted. His rig is completed by a very fine sword that be- longs to his father. It is a Knight Templar sword, I think, or else Knights of Pythias, or some- thing like that. For tights he wears long black stockings — I nearly forgot to mention those. His make-up is fine. He has a little mustache that glues on, and also a little goatee for his chin. He 69 70 THE BARNSTORMERS has a "Tarn o' Shanter" cap made out of red stuff and ornamented with an old ostrich-plume. He is very heroic when he gets all of his costume on, and struts about saying his Unes. Hal wears black because he's the villain. The villains in plays that come to the Opera House al- ways wear black and smoke cigarettes. Of course, Hal doesn't smoke, but he wears black, and has a droopy black mustache, and hisses when he speaks. His doublet and tunic are of black cam- bric, and he wears black stockings for tights just as John does. Then, since he and John are never on at the same time, he wears the black velvet cape that goes with John's costume. Larry has two costiunes — one for Selim and one for Hernando. As Selim, he wears a doublet and timic of gray cambric with black stockings for tights. Hernando is a priest, and we had some trouble in finding how to fix him up. Larry was for asking Father O'Connor to give us one of his old robes, but, since none of us belongs to his church, we thought better of doing it. Any- way, I don't suppose priests dressed then like they do now. We didn't quite know what to do THE BARNSTORMERS 71 about it, but mother said she thought she could make us the right sort of a robe for Hernando, so we left it to her. It is made out of brown burlap and has a hood that can be pulled down almost over your face or thrown back like the hood to a golf cape. Around the waist it is tied with a piece of rope, and from this hangs a string of wooden beads with a wooden crucifix on one end. Mother said he should wear sandals, but we haven't been able to fix those yet. Larry says he is sure he will grin all the time, and he doesn't think that will go very well with being a priest. Still, everybody who knows Larry will know he just can't help grinning, and let it go at that. I nearly forgot my own costume! It's quite the finest of the lot, too. Mother made me a dress out of that old party dress of Aunt Meta's I spoke of before. It is blue satin and has a long train that I fall over when I walk. Hal says I'll have to practise a lot or everybody will laugh at me. I don't care. They know I'm not a girl, an)rway, just as they know Larry can't help grinning, and they won't expect me to trail 72 THE BARNSTORMERS around in a long train just as if I'd done it all my life! When I^m lost in the woods in the first act I wear a dark-red kimono over my blue dress and have on a black scarf that almost hides my face. Then in one act, the one where I steal the death-warrant from under Bernardo^s pillow, I wear a nightgown with the red kimono over it. When I go to Ernesfs cell disguised as a slave girl I am to wear a pink dress of some sort of cotton stuff. Mother is making it for me out of an old dress of hers. Then I wear a veil in that act, too. It doesn't come all over my face — just across my nose, like those in the pictures you see of Turkish ladies. It has to be fixed so that it will fall off when I turn to leave, and we are going to have a string underneath that I can pull to make the veil fall. I have a wig, too! We were going to make it out of brown burlap ravelled out, but mother had a lot of old combings, and we washed those and straightened them out and sewed them on to a little pink skull-cap made just to fit my head. We are going to make up our faces, too, just like they do in plays at the Opera House. You THE BARNSTORMERS 73 put black lines under your eyelashes and a little red on your lips and cheeks, and if you're sup- posed to be old you make some lines for wrinkles. Hal and I tried making up yesterday afternoon. We used our water-color paints — they are the kind that say "non-poisonous" on the box — and we fixed ourselves up as we thought we should look in the play. Hal put a great deal of black around his eyes, so that they looked quite simken and bright. I put Hght lines of black imder my lashes and lots of red on my lips and cheeks. We did look funny! But when we stood off and looked at each other the effect was fine — at least Hal looked just like I should think a villain ought, and he said I was quite the proper thing for a leading lady. We gave another make-believe show yesterday morning after we had finished the rehearsal of the first six scenes of the play. This one was better than the first because we had a real stage and scenery. We called it "Susie, the Milkmaid." It was a Down-East drama, like " The Old Home- stead." Larry saw "The Old Homestead" when he visited his cousin in the city at Christmas 74 THE BARNSTORMERS time. None of the rest of us had seen it, but we could imagine what ''Susie, the Milkmaid" should be like after Larry had told us all about "The Old Homestead." Most of our play takes place on a farm, but one act is in New York City. I wish we could write it out, but that would be too much trouble. We thought it was a mighty good play, though, when we gave it. I was the heroine and Hal the villain — a brand- new kind of villain, too. John was the hero, who is a country boy whose father owns a store. Larry was the father; also, he played the part of the old farmer for whom Susie worked. The story is something like this: Susie, the milkmaid, comes in from milking the cows and has a love-scene with Lijy, who is the hero. The old farmer Susie works for finds Lijy making love to Susie, and he gets mad and says. Gosh duml Sech things can't happen 'round his place. And Lijy goes off feeUng sore, but still very much in love with Susie. Then the villain, who is a drummer from the city, comes to Squire Weather- bee^s farm — the Squire is the one Susie works for THE BARNSTORMERS 75 — and this drummer, Mr. James Arnold, wants to get Susie out of the way because he is in love with her cruel stepmother, who is a widow, and these two want to get all the money that really belongs to Susie. So Mr. James Arnold tries to lure Susie to the city, but she won't lure worth a cent, and Lijy tells him he'd better leave her alone, because she's his girl, and they 'most get into a fight, but Squire Weatherbee stops them. Then Mr. James Arnold robs the store and makes it look like Lijy had done it. So Lijy has to flee. Susie knows he is innocent, and she loves him so much she goes after him. But she can't find him, even though she looks all night and nearly dies in a snow-storm. When she gets back to the Squire's he's awful mad, because he had to milk the cows, and he says she is an ungrateful girl and turns her out in the snow. The villain pur- sues her to a place where they keep dynamite for a quarry, and is going to blow her up, but she escapes just in time. The next act is in New York City. Lijy has gone there to look for work, but he can't get any, and he tries to drown his sorrows in drink. He is rescued by the Salva- 76 THE BARNSTORMERS tion Army, and his father comes after him and forgives him. They get home, and Susie, who has been an outcast, meets them at the train. Just then the villain shows up again and tries to get Lijy arrested. But Lijy^s father now knows the truth, and he says, "There is the real thief!" — and Mr. James Arnold gets arrested and sent to the lockup, and Susie and Lijy are married, and Susie gets all the money that is really hers, and they buy a farm and live happy ever after. Thursday, March 23. We know all the play now and have rehearsed every act — not all of them at one time yet, but two or three every afternoon. Saturday we will rehearse the whole play. John and I have had trouble doing our love- making scenes as they should be done. John says it's no fun making love to a boy. In the last act where he is supposed to embrace me, he comes at me Hke we were playing football, and I had the ball, and he was going to tackle me. Hal says it isn't at all artistic, whatever that is. Hal thinks he knows how it should be done, so THE BARNSTORMERS 77 he tried to show us yesterday. He says Ernest should put one arm around Zara^s waist and the other under her far arm, and draw her tenderly toward him, looking down lovingly into her face. She should put one arm aroimd his neck and let the other go about his shoulders as he draws her toward him. Then she should bury her head on his manly bosom for a moment and finally turn her face up to be kissed. All this should take place with the two turned sideways to the audience so that both can be seen. I know that is the way they do it in shows at the Opera House, and all of our best noveUsts end up their books that way. But wouldn't it give you a pain? Rot ! If it wasn't for the love-making, plays would be a great deal easier to do and not half so silly. Hal played Ernest for a few minutes yesterday, and showed John how all the above was done. Larry lay over in one comer laughing at us as though the thing was the funniest ever. I couldn't see any fun in it. But I suppose it did look queer to see Hal and me up there hugging each other. Then John tried, and did a little better. At 78 THE BARNSTORMERS least it wasn't quite so much like a tackle as the way he did it at first. But I'm here to tell any one no girl would ever stand for the kind of love- making poor Zara gets! We have fixed the Hghts for the Bamville and can now use it at night. We thought of candles first, but they cost money, and our Httle pile is about all gone. So each of us brought over all the old lamps we could get at home. We filled each lamp before we brought it to the Barnville, be- cause we don't want to spend any money on coal- oil. We have ten lamps and a lantern. The lantern hangs down-stairs so that people can see to get into the Barnville. One lamp is on a bracket over the stairway. Another lamp fights the part where the audience is to sit. Six of them serve as footHghts. We made tin reflectors for these out of bright new tin we got at Mr. Mooney's — he is the tin man — down-town. The other two Hghts are at either side of the stage behind the first wings. They have tin reflectors, too. They Hght the sides of the stage and the part where we must wait for our cues to enter. The dressing-rooms are down-stairs in the old THE BARNSTORMERS 79 horse stalls. We have swept them out nice and clean and fixed them up the best we could. Since there are four of them, each of us has his own dressing-room. Each dressing-room has some nails driven in the wall to hang clothes on, and ^r4)ox to serve as a dressing-table with an old mirror hung above it. We have begged candle- ends enough to give us plenty of light. To get from the dressing-rooms to the up-stairs, you cHmb a ladder that leads up the hay chute. That makes it so we don't have to go up the same stairway the audience use. The chute comes out at one side of the stage back of the wings. Hal says it is a shame it doesn't come out on the stage, for then we could use it for a trap-door and have people disappear into the ground. But we don't need any mysterious disappearances in "The Cap- tive of Castile," so I guess it is a good thing the chute comes out off the stage. Some of us would be sure to tumble down it at the wrong time if it was on the stage. We have put a raiHng around it to prevent any one from going down it except when they want to. We have two rows of seats put in already, and 8o THE BARNSTORMERS we hope to get the others in soon. We are a Uttle short on boards, but Hal says we can beg or borrow — or find some just lying around. The trouble is that we need good ones — nice clean ones — that people will not be afraid to sit on. We have had no difl&culty getting boxes. Larry's uncle runs a grocery store, and he lets Larry have all the boxes he wants. The time for the play is getting nearer and nearer. Next week is the last before vacation. We have examinations at school, so we are not planning to do much to the Barnville. Saturday, April I, however, we will give a school-chil- dren's matinee. No grown-up people will be al- lowed unless they are especially asked to come. The matinee will be a trial performance for us, and the real show will come the following Wednes- day night. It is getting so close that we are coimting the days. CHAPTER VII Sunday^ March 26. Yesterday was a busy day for the Barnstorm- ers. As I said before, this week we have exam- inations at school, and of course we will be too busy for any barnstorming. So yesterday we had a rehearsal of the whole play, at which we wore our costumes and had the stage set for each act just about as it will be on the night of the show. We will not try to have any rehears- als this week imtil Friday afternoon. Saturday afternoon comes the school-children^s matinee, but I think we can get along all right at that, even if we haven't had many rehearsals just be- fore it. Anyway, it doesn't matter if we do make a few mistakes, for there will be no one there but kids. The rehearsal yesterday went very well. The scenes looked better than we had expected, and our acting was a great deal better than ever be- 81 82 THE BARNSTORMERS fore. We made fewer mistakes, and we were all quite serious, without any of the usual monkey- business that has spoiled so many of our rehears- als. John quite approved of us. The first scene is in a forest. That is the only one we didn't have fixed just as it will be for the show. We are going to bank the stage with ever- green boughs then, and we want them to be nice and fresh, so we were afraid to cut them this far ahead of time. But we have the scene all planned, and we know it is going to look good. I think we can make the stage quite like a forest with big boughs set all around, and a few small evergreen trees standing up just as though they were growing out of the ground. We are going to scatter dead leaves around over the floor, too, and then when you walk across the stage you can hear them crunch up under your feet, just as they do out in the woods. We have a big forked branch of a tree that we use for a seat in this first scene. When you turn it so that the end and the two forks rest on the floor you have a seat just the right height for Zara to sit on while she and Ernest are talking. THE BARNSTORMERS 83 We really wanted a log, but we couldn't find any logs lying around in the woods that were light enough to carry away. The second scene is a room in Bernardo^ s house. That is easy to fix — much easier than the forest. But I am afraid there will be quite a long wait between the first and second scenes. We will have to get all those evergreen boughs out of the way, and sweep the stage, and then bring in all the things we use in the second scene. For the room scene we use the gray back drop and the green wings. Against the back drop is a long seat, made from a large box covered with an old couch cover. Above this hangs a big picture — one of those old chromo affairs that look like oil- paintings. This one shows a waterfall in the mountains, with a sunset, and a party of gypsies camped around a fire. Some picture! Larry found it in the attic at home. At the left side of the stage is a small table on which we are going to have a fancy lamp borrowed for the night of the show. Two old chairs, and some cushions for the long seat at the back, complete the prop- erties for the second scene. 84 THE BARNSTORMERS While I am talking about properties, I mustn't forget to put down that Larry is now the prop- erty-man. He feels quite important about it, too. But he is making a good one, so he can feel just as important as he wishes, and we won't bother him about it. He has written lists of the properties we use in each scene. He keeps these lists down in his dressing-room, each one on a separate nail in the wall. The night of the show he is going to check up all the "props" before the curtain goes up on each scene. That way there will be no chance for something to be miss- ing. I can tell you, there's some system to the barnstorming of the Barnstormers — thanks to the "Hints to Amateur Thespians." The third scene is in Ernesfs cell in the donjon. The stage is bare except for the big box which served as a seat in the second act. We take the couch cover off of it and cover it with straw and it becomes Ernest^s bed. We scatter straw on the floor, too, because in all the stories you read of heroes being imprisoned, they are always put into cells littered with dirty straw. Over by the bed is a pitcher of water and a crust of bread on THE BARNSTORMERS 85 a plate — which are all, supposedly, that Ernest gets for food. It looks hke a description by one of our best novelists. When the curtain goes up John is seated on the bed with his head bowed on his heavily manacled hands. Wo-0-0-0! Doesn't that sound romantic? The audience will surely Hke that prison scene. It is to be all dark, too, except for a "spot light" thrown on Ernest. The "spot light" was Larry's idea. He saw Walker Whitesides in " Robert of Sicily " at Christ- mas time, and he said that when the stage was dark they threw a bright light on the person who was acting. So we brought down my old magic lantern to use for the "spot Hght," and it works to perfection. We have it just inside the front wing on the right side of the stage, and from there can follow John about with a patch of light large enough to bring out his figure. When Zara comes in they act together nearly all the time, and are both in the bright light. I think the " spot light" will make quite a hit with the audience. Larry says it is only done in the best theatres, and for the highest-priced stars. Well, there's nothing too good for the Barnstormers. 86 THE BARNSTORMERS The handcuffs John wears are the real thing. Hal got them from Mr. Bradford, who Hves next door to them. He was in the Civil War — secret service, or something like that — and he has a big collection of handcuffs and old pistols and gims that he captured. The pair of handcuffs he let us have are all rusty and old-looking, and cer- tainly show they have been used. If we just had a ball and chain and could chain Ernest down with that, he would look hke an old-time prisoner for sure. The handcuffs are terribly big for John — he can sHp his hands right through them — ^but they are the real thing, and that is what we are after. The fourth scene is the same as the second. The fifth scene is Bernardo^s bedroom, or his chamber, as it calls it in the play. The stage is to be quite dark, so we do not change it much from the scene that goes before. The big picture is taken down, and the two chairs put back against the wings, while the table is put near the seat, which in this scene serves as Bernardo^s bed. Hal lies down on it, and we cover him all up so that he looks as though he were in bed. THE BARNSTORMERS 87 When the curtain goes up, Zara enters carrying a candle with a red shade. She puts this candle do^vn on the table, reaches under Bernardo^ s pil- low and gets the death-warrant, and then slips away. I wanted to Hght the death-warrant from the candle, and then burn it up right there be- fore the eyes of the audience, but Hal said no, we'd have a fire and a panic, or maybe a panic without the fire, and it would be a second Iro- quois disaster, and somebody would be killed, and goodness knows what might happen. Then I said we could fix up a brazier, which is a thing people used to have just for the purpose of burn- ing up death-warrants and such things. I read about oM in "Henry Esmond." It's the piil Where the Jesuit burWs lip some jpapers before hfe flees. But Hal didn't Hke the idea of that either. He said that if I was burning up that death-war- rant he could never lay there and pretend to be asleep. He'd just have to look, and that would spoil the show. And besides, he said, no one could be expected to sleep with a death-warrant being burned up in his bedroom, right under his very nose. And furthermore — ^it wasn't artistic! SS THE BARNSTORMERS Whenever Hal can't think of any other reason for or against a thing he wants to do, or does not want to do, as the case may be, he says it is or it is not artistic! Piffle! An3rway, I'm not going to bum up the death-warrant. Mrs. Strong, or somebody else with nerves, might throw a fit out in the audience and spoil the show. The sixth scene is the same as the second and fifth. It is the one where Bernardo finds out about the death-warrant and gives Zara thunder about it, and then makes her take that vow about never wedding anybody but one of her own race. The seventh scene is in Hernando^s cell — ^not a prison cell, but a sort of little chapel where the old priest goes to pray and meditate. (That is a new word John rung in on us at rehearsal. The dictionary says it means to contemplate — looked that up, too, and it means to consider, or think studiously. Poor Larry! He says he might do some things, but he was never built for a meditator.) Well, meditation aside, the seventh scene is the best in the play. It's the most interesting to hear, too, because in it Zara learns the secret of her fife, and the vow that THE BARNSTORMERS 89 has stood between the lovers is wiped away. For a setting we use the gray drop and wings, and against the drop, about the centre of the stage, we put an altar made of two boxes. One forms the base, while the other is the altar itself. Over this hangs a big wooden cross, and on it two candles are burning, giving out the only Ught for the whole scene. When the curtain goes up Hernando is kneeKng at the altar in prayer. Then Zara comes in and tells him all her troubles. They sit on the box forming the altar base. After Zara has told him about her love for Ernest and the vow that stands between them, the old priest tells her the secret of her life — that she is not really Bernardo^s daughter, and that her father was an EngHsh lord. The last scene is the same as the second, fourth, and sixth. Ernest and Zara at last get together and live happy ever after. Wednesday, March 29. Exams! I haven't dared to do more than look into the Bamville all week. I have to make good 90 THE BARNSTORMERS grades in all my studies, or I can't go on to high school next year. It would be terrible to have to come back into the eighth grade and have every- body know that you hadn't been smart enough to get through. I am here to tell any one that it isn't easy to pass examinations on arithmetic — all about men- suration, and cord-wood, and how many cows somebody has, and if two men did a piece of work in so long, how many hours would it take ten men to do it — and other things quite as silly. I sup- pose problems Kke that are necessary, but they don't seem to be so to me. I am sure I don't care how long it takes the ten men to do the work, or how many cords of wood A has, or how many cows B has, if he gets so many quarts of milk a day, and half the cows give so many quarts, and the other half give a different number. They wouldn't do it that way anyhow, but then the people who write arithmetics don't know the dif- ference. The English isn't half bad. We have been reading Scott's "Lady of the Lake." It is very THE BARNSTORMERS 91 thrilling, and would make a first-rate play for us to give in the Barnville. Fitz James and Roderick Dhu were brave men, and Ellen was a lovely lady, and brave too, just Uke Zara, It isn't hard to remember all about them, but the arithmetic is too much for me. Physiology isn't just the easiest thing in the world, either. We had an examination on it to- day. Had to tell all about the circulation of the blood. IVe been studying that till I dreamed I was a red corpuscle floating around in a vein. I wish I were one for a while — long enough to get the route they take fixed in my memory. But even at that I am dreaming Barnville more than red corpuscles, or cows, or how many hours it will take to do a certain piece of work. It's hard to sit writing on a long sheet of ruled exam- ination paper when the sun shines in warm and bright, and you just know the Barnville would be fine and warm for a rehearsal, or a make- believe play that you made up as you went along. Sometimes I forget all about the old exam and sit thinking about the Barnville till, when I 92 THE BARNSTORMERS come to myself, I have to hurry to finish my paper. But more often I stick to the exam and then think about the Bamville after I am through. I either know the answers to the questions or I don't know them, and I don't waste time beating aroimd the bush trying to make teacher think I know when I don't. So I usually get done before the others. You have to spend the whole time that is given you, though, because the teacher thinks you haven't worked hard if you pass in your paper before the end of the hour. So I have been writing out the stories of make-beHeve plays on my pad of scratch paper while I wait for the end of the hour to come. Oh, I've thought out some corking good ones ! This summer I am going to write a real play, just like Jo and Meg did. Then the Barnstormers can give it, and I'll be a real playwright, just like Charles Klein, and David Belasco, and all the others you read about in the dramatic news of the Sunday paper. Maybe some day I'll be a real one for sure, just like those big bugs are. Gee! THE BARNSTORMERS 93 Other times this week when I have had noth- ing to do I have thought through my Hnes in the play. You know it's really funny how you can think through a play. I know nearly the whole thing now, for IVe learned other people's Hnes besides my own just Hstening to them said. I can sit and think and act 'most as if I were right there acting it. To-day I was sitting there thinking through my scene with Bernardo — the last one in the play — where Zara tells him she will stand by him even if he hasn't treated her right, and I got so inter- ested in it I didn't notice that the hour was up and that every one was passing their papers in. So I didn't take my paper up to the desk; but I woke up just in time to save my skin. The teacher looked suspicious and asked me why I was so late bringing my paper up to the desk. I told her the truth — that I had finished it before the others were through and was thinking about something else and forgot. She looked at me with a queer little twinkle in her eyes, and said something about she wouldn't take such an explanation from most 94 THE BARNSTORMERS boys, but I was "different." I don't know quite what she meant. Two more days of exams, and then Saturday! And then a whole glorious week! CHAPTER VIII Sunday, April 2. We have had one performance of our play. The school-children's matinee came off yesterday afternoon and was a great success. But we had quite an exciting time along with it, because some of that West-End gang tried to break up the show. We had twenty-two people at the matinee, which meant fourty-four cents for us. EHzabeth Thomas and her Httle brother wanted to get in on pins, because they said that is all you ever paid to get into shows in bams, but we told her she could stay away unless she paid the full price — two cents apiece. So she went back home and finally returned with two postage-stamps. We had to take them, though Hal thought we should not have done it. Several of the kids we know at school came, 95 96 THE BARNSTORMERS and all the little youngsters in the neighborhood. There were three grown-up people: mother, Mrs. Jameson, and the Petersons' hired girl, who brought the three Peterson kids. Larry thought we should charge these grown-up people five cents, but we decided it wouldn't be the best thing to do, and so let them in for two. The show started off beautifully. In the morn- ing we cut those evergreen boughs for the first act from some trees back in one corner of the big pasture that lies about a block away from where we live. Old Mr. Durgan owns that pas- ture, and we were scared as green as the trees themselves for fear he'd see us and send Huggins, his hired man, out after us. Because if he had taken it into his head, he might have sent us all to the lockup, and sued our fathers, or done something awful. Old Durgan is soured on the world, and when folks get in that fix there's no teUing what they will do. The first act looked fine. We darkened the Bamville because we were afraid things wouldn't look right in dayhght, and we wanted to use the regular lights. Making the barn dark was easy THE BARNSTORMERS 97 enough, for the windows of the loft are just wooden shutters, and when you close them the loft is black as night. That evergreen forest in the first act was some forest all right, and will be still better when we fix it up for Wednesday night, because we will have about twice as many evergreen boughs. Everything went all right till the third act. We had just come to the place where Zara loses her veil and Ernest recognizes her as the lovely lady he saved from the forest. He had just said, "Lady! — and is it thou?'' when a rock hit the side of the bam. Some of the little kids giggled, and John stopped for a moment before going on. Nothing more happened, so he started the speech over. Then another rock hit the barn, and an- other, and another. Somebody outside began to yell, and the rocks came faster and faster. John and I were left standing in the middle of the stage imable to finish our scene. I knew what it was the minute the first rock hit the bam. The only thing that worried me was how many of the West-End gang were out- side. 98 THE BARNSTORMERS The little kids, and the others, too, were begin- ning to get frightened. Mrs. Jameson and mother moved close together and seemed to be talking about what to do, for I think they had an idea of what was up. I didn't know what to do at first, but after several rocks had hit the barn I walked to the front of the stage and made a Httle speech. I said something about, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are sorry for this interruption, and if you will kindly be patient we will ring down the curtain and see what can be done." So the curtain was let down, and we all got together to decide how we should get rid of the West-Enders. We were afraid the people in the audience would leave if we didn't do something quick. So Larry shd down the chute to the first floor and got some lengths of old hose and attached one end to the water spigot. Hal, John, and I followed and armed ourselves with some rotten apples from the bottom of a barrel that had just been moved from the cellar. What we planned was a quick attack with water and apples. Hal THE BARNSTORMERS 99 and I went up-stairs and peeped out of a crack in the back window that overlooks the alley. John and Larry got ready to open fire from below. The signal was to be a yell. When it came, Hal and I flung open the window and let drive with the apples. At the same time Larry turned loose with the water and Hal pasted one of the West-Enders with an apple. We certainly did take those two by surprise; for there were only two of them, Hen Perkins and Pete McGann, the same two who made fun of us that day when we were buying the stuff for the scenery and drops. They weren't more than ten feet from the back of the barn, so it was easy to hit them. John's apple took Pete right in the mouth, and at the §:ame time th^ Stteam of water Wt him full in the face. Hal landed one on Hen Perkins's head and mine took him in the stomach. They weren't hard, and so, of course, they didn't hurt, but they did make those two look pretty mussy. They were so sur- prised that they didn't even have sense enough to run until we had them nicely plastered up with loo THE BARNSTORMERS rotten apples and had soaked them with water to boot. I'd like to know what story they told when they had to go through town m such a fix! Well, after this little interruption we went back and started the third act over again. We were all just the least bit worked up over what had happened, but we didn't let that make any difference. We did the rest of the show up in style. Everybody seemed pleased with it. The grown- up people thought we did splendidly. Just wait till Wednesday night! Then is when we will show them what we can do. Oh, I forgot one fimny thing! Yesterday was April I St, April FooFs Day. Of course, some- body would be sure to play a joke down at the BamviUe. I suppose we might say that was what the West-Enders were trying, but theirs didn't work very well. But this other joke was all right. Hal played it and carried it off to perfection. About one o'clock, when we were ready for the matinee and were expecting to have some of the people come any minute, Hal arrived. He said THEY WERE SO SURPRISED THAT THEY DIDN T EVEN HAVE SENSE ENOUGH TO RUN THE BARNSTORMERS thr he was sorry to be so late, but something of great importance had come up. Right away all of us wanted to know what it was. "Well/* said Hal, "there's a law in this State that says all theatres must be properly licensed, and if they aren't the owners and all persons con- nected with them will be liable to arrest and im- prisonment not exceeding two years. We'd bet- ter call off the show till we get a license." "Honest?" said Larry. "I don't believe it," said John. Hal laughed. "Believe it or not," he said, " you can go over and read it in Mr. Lawson's law books. I saw the whole thing there myself. I think we had better be careful." We were all quite worked up over that old license business, and Hal seemed the most ex- cited of anybody. He let it go just as far as he wanted to and then began to laugh. "April fool! April fool!" he yeUed. "Did ever a lot of people bite like you have!" We were so mad we could have pounded him, only it was about time for people to begin com- ;wi'1>\l.:;,' tHE BASlNSTORMERS ing, so we couldn't stop for a scrap. We just laughed instead and told him we would get even when the right time came. But it was funny! Tuesday, April 4. The Barnstormers are about the busiest little bees that ever buzzed. We are getting ready for that performance to-morrow night, and we find there is a great deal to do. But it is vacation, which is a blessing in more ways than one. Our time is our own, and we don't have to stop and hurry off to school just about the time we get anything started. To-morrow is the great day. I can hardly wait for to-morrow night to cornel 1 just know \V6 are going to make the show go as ia show never went before. Last night we sold twenty-five tickets. Think — a whole dollar and twenty-five cents' worth. And we had a lot of fun doing it, too. Hal printed some handbills like the one I have pasted in below. THE BARNSTORMERS 103 THE BARNSTORMERS IN THE CAPTIVE OF CASTILE A Play BY LOUISA ALCOTT The Barnville Theatre Wed., April 5. 7:30 PM Reserved Seats, 5 cts. BEAUTIFUL PRODUCTION Do Not Miss It! Come One, Come All! (Jameson, Print) I04 THE BARNSTORMERS We have tickets, too, like this: Section d THE BARNSTORMERS ADMIT ONE Row J^ Seat y Date, Wed., April 5. I think those tickets are corkers. They look just like the ones they have at the Opera House. I guess the stunt we worked to sell tickets was some stunt all right ! We dressed up in the clothes we are to wear in the play and went around to the houses of different people we know and made calls. We went to Judge Ring's first, and we were real scared, because we didn't know how they would take our coming there. We rang the door- bell and the girl came to the door. She certainly did look surprised. We told her we would Hke to see the judge. I guess she told him there were a THE BARNSTORMERS 105 lot of crazy people at the door, because he came out looking real fierce. But when he saw us he just ha-hawed. He asked us in, and we sat down in the parlor, and Mrs. Ring and Miss Elsa came in, and they laughed, too. We gave each one of them a handbill and then told them about the show. The judge took three tickets, and said he surely would be there Wednesday night, no mat- ter what might happen. Next we went to Mr. Tilson's. They let us in and seemed just as tickled as the Rings had been. We sold two tickets there. We went on to six other houses, and altogether we sold twenty-five tickets. I felt so funny dressed up in my dress. I didn't want to wear it, but they all said I had to. I kept my veil on all the time, though, so it wasn't so bad, for that hid my face, and I could grin as much as I wanted. Only I couldn't see through the veil, and John had to lead me. While I am pasting things in, I guess I'll put in a copy of The Gimlet, It's last week's copy that came out Saturday. It tells all about the Barnstormers. io6 THE BARNSTORMERS THE GIMLET April I. DON'T MISS THE CAPTIVE OF CASTILE THE BARNSTORMERS IN A GREAT PLAY It is with pleasure that The Gimlet announces the first performance of a famous play by the new theatrical company known as the Barn- stormers. The Barnstormers is an or- ganization of very talented juvenile players, and much is to be expected of them in the future. We are sure that those of our readers who at- tend the first play will be greatly pleased. "The Captive of Castile" tells the story of man's brav- ery and woman's true hero- ism. The leading parts will be played by Mr. John Jame- son and Mr. Robert Archer. Mr. Archer is especially fine in the part of Zara, the much wronged heroine. Mr. Jame- son is a very handsome and convincing hero. The other THE BARNSTORMERS IN THE CAPTIVE OF CASTILE A Romantic Drama by Louisa Alcott. THE BARNVILLE THEATRE School Children's Matinee Saturday, Ap. ist Admission, 2 cts. REGULAR PERFORMANCE Wednesday April 5, at 7 : 30 P. M. Admission, 5 cents. THE BARNSTORMERS 107 April I. THE GIMLET Page 2. Continued from first page parts of the play are taken by- Mr. Harold Jameson and Mr. Lawrence Donovan. The scenery for the pro- duction is very elaborate. The Bamville management has spared no expense or trouble in the efifort to make the play successful in every way. The Barnville, Jordan's new juvenile theatre, is a model of convenience and beauty. It will prove to be an agreeable surprise to those who visit it. We urge all our patrons to support the noble cause of the drama by buying tickets and attending the forthcom- ing production. o We wish to call attention to the fact that many sub- scriptions are due. We can't print the paper unless you pay in, Mr. Subscriber. o Hurrah for vacation! The Gimlet Press is now prepared to print cards and advertising circulars at the lowest prices in town. Give us a trial. THE GIMLET Volume II, Number 6. Published weekly at The Gim- let Press, 246 East Second Street. Subscription, 2 cts per copy, fifty cents per year, five cents per month. Harold Jameson, printer and publisher. Editor in Chief, Harold Jameson. Subscription manager, Harold Jameson. Sporting Editor, Harold Jame- son. Newsboy, Harold Jameson. O DUST FROM THE GIMLET Who said being an actor was an easy job? We are going to start a puzzle department, and offer a prize for the guy that will solve the puzzle of how to get money out of subscribers. Money talks. So do sub- scribers. But we would rather hear the Money. Advertise in The Gimlet. It is read by fifty people every week. We know this is a bum is- sue, but we can't act and print both. Come see Ye Editor as the villain. He's a better villain than an editor. 168 THE BARNSTORMERS I guess The Gimlet is some newspaper all right! Hal has been so busy that this number isn't quite as good as usual, but I wanted to keep it because it is all about the Barnstormers. I helped to print it, too. We did it Thursday afternoon. Hal had the type all set and the form in the press, and I helped run off the printed copies. I also helped write the article about the Barn- stormers. We got an old bill that told about "The All-Star Stock Company" that visited this town some months ago, and we took our adjec- tives from that and from an accoimt in the Mitch- ell paper about the opening of the new Opera House there. Sometimes Hal draws pictures on the front page of The Gimlet, He does some that are very funny. When Judge Winton was elected last fall Hal had a picture on the front page showing a man, sup- posed to be the judge, standing on top of another man, who was supposed to be Mr. Land, who was the fellow the judge defeated in the election. That copy of the paper was given over to poHtical news. Hal sent a copy to Judge Winton himself, and the judge wrote him a letter thanking him for it. THE BARNSTORMERS 109 But Hal doesn't have many front-page draw- ings these days, because now that the subscrip- tion is up to fifty copies it takes too long to draw a picture on each one, even if it is just sketched in with a pencil. With fifty subscribers Hal ought to make some money, but so few of them pay that he is usually in debt for paper and ink. I suppose I must go to bed, because to-morrow is the Big day, and we will all be up late to- morrow night. Wo-o-o-o-o! I just can't wait for to-morrow! CHAPTER IX Wednesday, April 5. To-day has seemed dreadfully long. We haven't had much to do because everything is ready for the show to-night, and we couldn't give make-believe plays, because the stage is all set with the forest scene, and we mustn't disturb that. Besides, we all thought we should rest this afternoon so that we would be fresh for to-night, but it is twice as hard to rest as it is to work. I just don't know what to do with myself. I feel weak in the knees, too, when I think about all of those people who are coming to the show to-night. Suppose something should go wrong! Or suppose I should forget some of my lines! There are so many awful supposes that I just can't sit still for thinking about them. I know it is silly to worry, but I can't help it. Hal, John, and Larry spent the morning over here, and we put the last touches to the Bamville. no THE BARNSTORMERS iii It is all swept out as clean as a new pin so that none of the ladies will soil their dresses on the floor. We have put sofa pillows on the board seats, so they will be soft to sit on, and so people will not get tired and want to go home before the show is over. And we have five Japanese lan- terns put along from the front gate to the bam so that no one can possibly miss the way. If there is anything else we might do I don't know what it is. We ought really to have some one who is not in the show to act as ticket-taker and usher. But since we have only four members, and all of us are in the play, we can't very well do that. So Larry is going to take the tickets and show peo- ple to their seats. He doesn't come in until the second act, and he can get ready for that while the first act is going on. The seats are all numbered with chalk on the floor imder each one. Each seat is reserved, and the ticket marked with the section, row, and num- ber. There are two sections, A and B. A is at the right, B is at the left. There are five rows of seats in each section, and we have allowed four 112 THE BARNSTORMERS seats to each row. That means we have room for forty people. There are thirty seats sold now, so if all those people come, we will not have room for many more. I do wish we could have music of some sort before the curtain goes up and in between each act. They always have it in a regular theatre, and the Barnville ought to have it, too. Maybe by the time we give our next show we can borrow a phonograph or get somebody who plays the vioHn or the harmonica. Only a harmonica wouldn't be very nice to have at a show where grown-up people come. I hope we can have a phonograph. Perhaps if we make a great suc- cess, some one will lend us a phonograph for the next show we give. Nearly five o'clock now! I am going to have my supper in half an hour, and at six Hal, Larry, and John are coming. Then we will make up, dress, and be ready for the show at seven-thirty. I wish it was all over. I am glad we are hav- ing it, but I feel so queer inside! All trembly, and as if I had several hearts beating at the same time. I suppose I have what they call stage fright THE BARNSTORMERS 113 But the "Hints to Amateur Thespians" says that stage fright always passes after you begin to act, so I guess there is some hope for me. Thursday, April 6. This is the morning after of the night before. But I don't care if I am tired, for we certainly put one over last night. The show went ever so well, and people Hked it. When things really come out right you don't care if you are tired afterward. The audience began to come about seven-fif- teen. First Mr. and Mrs. Jameson and father and mother came down. Then Larry's father and mother arrived, and after that a whole string of people. We had every last seat full, and sev- eral people standing. We took in two dollars and twenty cents. We are rich — ^we have a reg- ular young fortune! Larry took tickets and showed people to their seats, just as I said he was going to do, and then came up to dress. We waited till about a quar- ter of eight before we began. We thought it was best to wait until we were sure everybody was 114 THE BARNSTORMERS there. And then, too, it isn't the thing to begin shows when they are advertised to begin. They never do it at the Opera House, or at the lecture course in the Masonic Hall. We were all pretty much scared while we were waiting to begin the first scene. When I peeped out through the slit at the side of the curtain and saw all those forty-four grown-up people looking as solemn as a funeral, I was about ready to turn turkey and run. I was terribly weak and trem- bly, and I felt again as though I had about a dozen hearts all beating at the same time. I was sure I would never be able to say a word when I got out before the crowd. It was lots worse than saying pieces at a church cantata at Christmas time. Well, finally we were ready to begin. Hal thumped three times with a stick of wood on the floor, and the people out front quieted down. The curtain went up. John, looking quite as scared as I did, made his way on the stage. I don't know how he said his fines. AU I do know is that after what seemed hours I heard my cue, and somehow got out in the centre of the stage THE BARNSTORMERS 115 where I belonged. I felt as if I should die, but I didn't. I gave an awful gulp, and then I heard myself saying the first few lines of my speech, and my voice soimded as though it were miles away. Then I began to feel better, and by the time John came on again I was all right. We finished up the act as well as we ever had done it, and I think possibly somewhat better. When the curtain went down the audience clapped their hands until we had to raise it again so that John and I could go out and bow. After that there was more clapping, and a great buzz of people talking and laughing together. But we couldn't stop to Hsten to that. We had to get busy, and do it quick at that, clearing the stage and reset- ting it for the next scene. We all felt happy because the audience seemed so well pleased with the show. We took time for a Httle joUification all our own while the ap- plause was still going on. We pounded each other in the back and had a regular young jubilee back there behind the curtain. But we didn't have any time to spare for even that, so we set to work at once clearing out the evergreen boughs ii6 THE BARNSTORMERS and changing the stage from a forest to a room in Bernardo^ s house. The second scene went quite as well as the first. Hal made a great hit. He ran in lots of little things he had never done before, but they were all good and helped out his part. People seemed to think he was very funny, for they laughed at him all the time. I had a hard time to keep serious during some of my speeches. When Hal came to that part where he says, "Adieu, love, I must to the coun- cil," I thought about that silly speech he always had put in about "Adieu, love, I must to the pig- pen," and it was all I could do to keep from burst- ing out laughing. The worst of it was that Hal nearly said pig-pen instead of council. He had said it wrong for so long a time that he was in the habit of it. He got as far as the sound of the letter p in pig before he caught himself and changed to coimcil. Our eyes met, and for a minute I thought the game was up, and we would both have to stop and laugh. But Hal just winked, as serious as could be, and went off through the wings. To keep from laughing, I buried my face THE BARNSTORMERS 117 in my hands and pretended I was crying. It happened to fit in very well, and quite saved the day for me. After Bernardo leaves, Zara calls for Sdim, and when he comes on they have quite a little scene together before she gets the keys of the prison from him. Larry has been bragging about his wonderful system as property-man, by which nothing would ever be missed when needed. The joke was on him, I guess, for he forgot the keys. Zara has quite a time to get old Selim to let her have the keys to the donjon, but at last he gives in, kneels before her, and offers her the whole bunch of keys he carries at his belt. Larry got down on his knees all right, but when he reached for the keys they weren't there. He looked up at me with the blankest look I ever saw on any one's face. Even his grin was gone. But it came back in a minute. His back was to the audience, and he winked at me and said: "A moment, lady. I crave a thousand pardons. The keys are in the bag I left without." Then he whispered: "Say something while I get 'em!" So I had to make up a speech to fit. I'm afraid ii8 THE BARNSTORMERS it was silly, but it got by. I clasped my hands and looked up to the rafters and said: "At last fate leads me to thee, Ernest! Oh, how I long to see thy face again!" Then Larry came back on the stage, knelt, gave me the keys, and we went on with the scene. I guess that was "saving the beans" in a pretty neat manner! The third scene, the one in Ernesfs cell, made quite a hit. We turned the footHghts out and had the stage quite dark, with the only light coming from the magic lantern. When the curtain went up John was sitting on his bed of straw, his head bowed on his manacled hands, and the only Hght for the scene coming from the "spot." Hal said it was "artistic." Whatever it was, the audience liked it and clapped their hands. That gave John and me quite a little encouragement, and we did the best we could. The only trouble we had in the whole scene came when I tried to make my veil fall. I thought I should never get the thing to come loose. But it did, and I guess the audience didn't see that I had to fairly pull it off. THE BARNSTORMERS 119 I had a curtain call on the fourth scene. At the end of it Zara, after having made up her mind to steal the death-warrant from beneath the pil- low of her sleeping father, says: "Ernest, 'tis for thee! For thee!" That seemed to make quite a hit. The fifth scene, where Zara steals the death- warrant, also pleased the audience. They clapped a lot after it, but I didn't go out before the curtain. I don't think it looks well to do it too often. Hal just ran away with the sixth scene. That is where he accuses Zara of destro3dng the death- warrant and she confesses to the crime. Hal was terribly villainous and very fierce. The au- dience seemed to think he was about the fimniest thing they had ever seen. They just wouldn't take us seriously. The more serious we got, the funnier they seemed to think it was. When Hal said: "Ha! Is it so?" and stood glowering at me, everybody laughed. We didn't quite know what to do, but we still kept serious, and finally the people quieted down. When Bernardo tells Zara that if she wishes to save Ernest she must I20 THE BARNSTORMERS swear never to wed one other than of her own people, I threw myself at his feet and embraced his knees, just Hke you read about the heroines doing in "Ivanhoe" and other romantic novels, and cried: "O father, father, anything but this!" The audience sobered up then, and we went on with the scene in the most theatrical manner. When it comes to the place where Zara takes the oath, you could have heard a pin drop. I can hear myself yet saying: "I swear; and may the spirit of that mother look in pity on the child whose love hath made her Ufe so dark a path to tread." My last speech in the scene is one of the best in the play. When I said the last line of it, "Now, farewell, love; my poor heart may grieve for its lost joy, and look for comfort but in heaven," I raised both my hands up over my head and fell back on the divan in a dead faint. (Not a real faint, you know, for it was just part of the acting.) The audience clapped and clapped, and Hal and I had to bow twice, and then I had to bow alone and Hal had to bow alone. It made me feel good all over — sort of tingly and happy clear to my toes. THE BARNSTORMERS 121 The stage-setting for the seventh scene, which is Hernando^s cell, looked just as good as we had hoped it would, and the audience applauded it when the curtain went up, showing Larry seated there at the foot of the altar. Larry did the part of Hernando much better than he had ever done it at rehearsal. And he didn't grin! By the end of that seventh scene we were all f eeUng pretty happy. We had only one more act, and so far everything had gone all right. The last was no exception. Hal and I got some applause along about the middle of the scene. When Zara shows Bernardo the paper that proves to him he is betrayed, he says: "Lost! lost! Fool that I was to trust the promise of a king! Disgraced, dishonored, and betrayed! Where find a friend to help me now? " Then Zara says: "Here — ^in the child who clings to thee through danger, treachery, and death. Trust to the love of one whom once thou loved and who still longs to win thee back to happiness and honor." Of course it was bully of Zara to look at it that way, especially after all Bernardo had done. I 122 THE BARNSTORMERS am not real sure but that she ought to have let the old villain take his medicine. But it pleased the audience because she was so generous, and they applauded the lines. The last part of the scene, where Ernest em- braces Zara, was a ticklish place for John and me. We did get through with it some way, though, and the curtain went down, and the audience clapped their hands till we all had to go out and bow for the last time. We left the curtain up then, and went out to shake hands with the peo- ple who had come to see our show. They made an awful fuss over us and said all sorts of nice things. I guess the Barnstormers have made a good start. Well, after we had shaken hands all around, Mr. Osterman got us all on the stage and took some flash-Kght pictures of us in our costumes. I hope the pictures turn out to be good. The surprise of the evening came when we left the bam and went up to the house. Mother and father and Mr. and Mrs. Jameson and Mr. and Mrs. Donovan were in the dining- room waiting for us, and there was ice-cream and THE BARNSTORMERS 123 cake for everybody, and coffee for the grown-ups and candy for us. We sat around and had a good time for about three-quarters of an hour, and then the others left, and I knew all at once that I was very tired and sleepy and wanted to go to bed. Yesterday was some day! We are talking about our next show already. John wants us to give "The Greek Slave," which is the next play in the " Comic Tragedies." Hal wants "Bianca," because there is such a per- fectly good villain in it, and Larry wants a modern play with a good fimhy part in it that he can take. I think I am for "Bianca." It gives me a chance to die and come back to earth as a ghost, which would be most thrilling. And the villain is the awfullest villain I ever came across. It's a real tragedy, too. Everybody gets killed, and the villain who does the foul murders finally dies of remorse, which is the way he ought to die. There is a witch, who has a boiling caldron, like a real fairy-story witch, and she and the villain plot the kilHng of some of the others. The play 124 THE BARNSTORMERS is short, which is in its favor, for we will not have so much to learn. I hope Hal and I can get the others to agree with us on "Bianca." CHAPTER X Saturday, April 8. Vacation is over! I hardly know where the week has gone. It seemed such a long time when I thought about it and now that it is all over it seems very short. But it has been a great week just the same. We Barnstormers have stuck pretty close to- gether all the time. First, of course, was the play, and since that we have been at work on the Barn- ville, making it into a still better theatre. We have a new scene made out of wall-paper. It is to use when we want a room scene, or a "hall in the palace," or a "chamber in the palace," or any other inside setting. This new scene cost us only fifty cents, which was very cheap, and hardly makes a hole in the money we took in at the play. But if that new scene didn't cost much in money, we made up for that in work. The first MS 126 THE BARNSTORMERS thing we did was to make a frame, ten feet long and eight feet wide, out of edging strips from the mill. In the centre of this we made a doorway opening three feet wide. We braced the whole frame with crosspieces, and then fixed it in place at the back of the stage. We left a passage three feet wide back of it, and that made it come just imder the beam to which the back drop is tacked. When we want to use the back drop we let it down in front of the frame, and when we want to use the room scene, we pull the back drop up and let it rest on top of the beam. Yesterday afternoon, after we had the frame made, we went down to Charley Strang's wall- paper store and told him what we were going to do, and that we wanted some plain, dark-green wall-paper. He had two rolls left of just the sort we wanted, and he sold us these for twenty- five cents and threw in enough border paper to go clear across the top of our scene. The border paper is all gilded up, and shows great big pink roses on a background of green clouds. It is very fancy and wiU make our scene look 'most as grand as those they have at the Opera House. THE BARNSTORMERS 127 To-day we put the paper on the frame and finished the scene. Hal and I made a big pot of paste — the cooked-flour-and-water kind, Kke Charley Strang uses when he comes here to hang wall-paper — and then we all set to work to get the paper pasted to the frame. We put paste all over the back of the paper with an old whitewash brush, and then we folded the pasty sides together, just like the real paper-hangers do. After we had all the strips pasted I got up on a step-ladder and we opened up one strip. Then I pasted it to the top of the frame, folding part of it over, and rubbing it hard so it would stick, and John and Hal stretched it and pasted the outside edge to the up-and-down edge of the frame and the bottom to the bottom edge. The second strip was harder to put up because part of it came over the door opening and had to be cut and fitted. Another thing that made it hard to paste was the joining of the edge with the edge of the first strip. There was nothing back of these two edges to make a firm place to rub them together, so one of us had to stand behind 128 THE BARNSTORMERS and another in front, and just press the edges together until they stuck. Finally we got the other two strips up and were ready to put on the border. That wasn't so hard to do, for it was all in one piece, and it stuck to the other paper quite easily. As the paper dried, it drew up and stretched on the frame as tight as a drumhead. It looks great! The only trouble is that we will have to be very careful not to punch holes in it. We masked — that's what the "Hints to Ama- teur Thespians" would call it — we masked the part at the back of the door opening with an old portiere that Larry foimd at home in the attic. When the door is supposed to open outdoors we can put a few branches back of it to look Kke a tree. The new scene certainly does look good. When you look at it you can hardly beUeve it cost only fifty cents. But that was all. The edging strips were a quarter, and the wall-paper the same. We still have over two dollars in the treasury which we intend to save and use for the next show. THE BARNSTORMERS 129 What that next show is to be we have not yet decided, but I think Hal and I will carry our point, and the Barnstormers will give "Bianca." The other plays in the "Comic Tragedies" are too long or too hard for us just at present. " Bianca " is short and easy, and the parts are all pretty good. John doesn't Hke the part of Adalbert — he is the hero — ^because Adelhert has so little to do. The main thing he does is to die. But dy- ing would be quite thrilHng — the make-believe kind, I mean. The only part for Larry is a witch, but he says he would rather not have a part this time, but be stage-manager and property-man and run the show while the rest of us do the acting. Anyway, he will make the East-End baseball team and he won't have much time from now on to give to the Barnstormers. I suppose John will have to "double" on the part of the witch if we give "Bianca," because he is about the only one who will be free during that act. He doesn't appear at the same time as the witch, and could "double" just as well as not on the hero part and that. I30 THE BARNSTORMERS I do not know when we will give "Bianca" if we do decide to give it. Some time, I suppose, in about a month. It is short enough to get ready without so very much work. Wednesday, April 12. School again! Two months more of it, then vacation, and after that I will start to high school. You always think when vacation comes that you never want to see school again, but it always seems good to get back and see everybody. Every one at school has heard about our play. If we are not careful the whole school will be want- ing to join the Barnstormers. We had a short meeting to-night and talked about our next play. We have about decided on "Bianca." John and Larry have come around and are in favor of it, because they see it is the only thing we can give now. The story of "Bianca^' is very thrilling. It is a real tragedy, which means that the people all get killed off. Of course, it is very serious, but that doesn^t matter. We all prefer serious plays. There are five characters. Bianca, who is the heroine, is a Spanish lady. Adelbert is her lover. THE BARNSTORMERS ' 131 Htum, the villain, is also in love with Bianca, but she does not Hke him and will not listen to his suit. Then there's the witch Hilda, and Jtuin, who is Bianca^s page. In the first act, which takes place in a wood, Huon enters and tells of his love for Bianca and his hatred for Adelbert. He knows that the lovers are to meet on that very spot later in the evening, so he hides in the bushes to watch them. Bianca and Adelbert come, and with Huon listening to them they pHght their everlasting love. They use beautiful language, and the scene is very fine. At last Adelbert says he must go, but first prom- ises to sing beneath Bianca^s window on the fol- lowing night. The lovers are supposed to sing a duet at parting, because the play is an operatic tragedy, but we are going to cut out the singing — all except that which is absolutely necessary. Well, Adelbert leaves, and Bianca starts to go home. As she turns to go she says : " Ah, love, thou magic power, thus ever make my breast thy home. Adieu, dear spot! I fly to happiness and " Then Huon steps out and says "Me!" Bianca shrieks and tries to escape. Huon makes her listen to his words of love, 132 THE BARNSTORMERS but she will not have anything to do with him. She tells him she hates him and she wishes never to see him more. That makes him awfully mad, and when she is gone he swears to win her and at the same time take a deep revenge. The second scene is old Hilda's cave in the forest. Hilda is supposed to be bending over a caldron when the curtain rises. That will give us a fine opportunity for a good setting. We can pile up wood, and stuff the chinks with red paper, and have a small lamp inside to make it look like fire. Then on top of this we can put an old iron kettle and fill it with boihng water. I don't know yet how we can make the entrance to the cave, but we will figure it out some way. Huon comes to old Hilda for a love philter which will make the person to whom he gives it fall madly in love with him. His plan is to give this to Bianca, so she will cease to love Adelbert and fall in love with him. Hilda gives him a little bottle of blood-red stuff that she says will do the work. He goes off quite happy because he thinks that now he can make Bianca his. But old Hilda laughs when he is gone because she THE BARNSTORMERS 133 has given him a deadly draught of poison. "Poor fool," she says, "thou little thinkest thy love- charm is a deadly draught, and they who quaff it die. When thou shalt seek thy lady, hoping for her love, a dead bride thou wilt win. Ha! ha! Old Eilda^s spells work silently and well." In the third scene Huon stops Juan, who is Bi- anca^s page, as he is taking wine to his lady. Hiwn asks the page to stoop down and fasten his shoe, and while the boy is kneehng he empties the little bottle into the glass of wine. He thinks now that he has won Bianca, and so he says, or sings, whichever he wants to do: "Ha! ha! 't is done! 't is done! My vengeance now is won. And ere to-morrow's sun shall set, Thou, haughty lady, shall forget The lover who now hastes to thee, And smile alone, alone on me." The fourth scene is in Bianca^ s castle — "A moonHt balcony." Bianca is waiting for AdelberL Soon she hears him singing beneath the balcony. 134 THE BARNSTORMERS "The moon is up, wake, lady, wake! My bark is moored on yonder lake, The stars' soft eyes alone can see My meeting, dear one, here with thee. " Wake, dearest, wake ! Lean from thy bower, The moonlight gleams on tree and flower, The summer sky smiles soft above; Look down on me, thou star of love." We didn't know how we would manage to have this simg, because John doesn't sing, but Hal thought of a way out of the difficulty. Larry's cousin sings very well, and has been quite interested in the Barnstormers, so we are going to ask him to sing the song to a mandoHn accompaniment. I will play that, for I can play the mandoHn fairly well. I am fixing up an air now to go with the song. Hal thinks I ought to play before the cur- tain goes up, but I think differently, and, since I am the one who would have to do the playing, I guess my "think" will go. Well, after Adelbert has sung this song he climbs up on the balcony and joins Bianca. They get THE BARNSTORMERS 135 quite spooney, and tell each other how deep their love is, and all that sort of thing. Adelhert says he is weary — not of making love, I guess, but just general weariness, maybe from rowing across the lake — so Bianca offers him the wine Juan has just brought her, and he drinks it. But it is the wine that Euon poisoned with the supposed love philter. Adelhert has barely swallowed it when he cries out: "Ah! What is this? — a deadly pang hath seized me. All grows dark before mine eyes. I cannot see thee. Yon cup — 't was poisoned! I am dying! dying!" That drives Bianca about crazy. She tries to save him, but it is no use. Old Hilda's poison is too strong. Then she wishes to join him in death, but the cup is empty and she cannot die by the same draught. So she faints on Adelherfs dead body, and the curtain goes down. The fifth scene is the garden of Bianca^ s castle. Bianca is mourning for her lost Adelhert. She sings a song about some faded flowers that are all that remain of a bouquet he once gave her. "Faded flowers, faded flowers. They are all now left to cherish; 136 THE BARNSTORMERS For the hopes and joys of my young life's spring I have seen so darkly perish. "Cold, ah, cold, in the lone, dark grave, My murdered love lies low, And death alone can bring sure rest To this broken heart's deep woe. "Faded flowers, faded flowers. They are all now left to cherish; For ah, his dear hand gathered them, And my love can never perish." I am afraid I shall have a hard time singing this, but I am going to try, and I mean to play my own accompaniment, too. That ought to make quite a hit. Maybe if I play well people will npt notice that I sing badly. Just as Bianca finishes this song, Emm comes in. Bianca does not want to have anything to do with him. "Fiend! Demon!" she says. "Touch me not with hands that murdered him. Hence! Out of my sight— away!" But Eiwn will not go. He tries to make Bi- THE BARNSTORMERS 137 anca listen to his love, and when she will not he tells her that he did not murder Adelhert on pur- pose, but that he put a supposed love philter in her wine, Httle dreaming that it was poison. Bianca does not beUeve him, and tells him she will betray him as the murderer of AdelberL This makes him very angry and he stabs her. She dies crying: "Adelbert, I come, I come!" Then Huon is very sorry and doesn't know what to do. But he hears some one coming, so he flees. The last act is in Elton's room. He is asleep. Blanco's ghost enters and touches him. He starts up wildly, sees that it is the spirit of Bianca, and, after begging her to leave him, dies of remorse and fright. I think that is some tragedy all right. Wo- 0-0-0-0! It will be great to come back as the ghost. We are going to fix up the stage in the best way we can. We have the new scene to use, and we are planning to fix up a garden scene that will be a corker. We will get plants in pots to put about, and have a balustrade, like you see in garden scenes on the stage, and have a rustic bench for 138 THE BARNSTORMERS Bianca to sit on. It will be a very pretty scene, I think. The witch's cave gives us another fine chance for a good scene. We haven't been able to de- cide how we will fix it yet, but we will find a way. Next week we intend to copy off the parts and start learning them. We will have a few reading rehearsals and then begin on the regular ones. We ought to be able to have the show ready in a month. We do not know who to have for Juan, Bianca^s page. It ought to be a Kttle kid, but I don't know any Httle kids that I would want around. Hal suggested Herbert Hilton, who is in the seventh grade and small for his age. Probably we will have him, since we all Hke him pretty well. Of course, "Bianca" isn't a sure thing yet, but I think it will be. It is a good play, and not too long. If we give it within a month we will prob- ably not give any more shows till after school is out. Say, it will be great this summer when we have a fine, long vacation with nothing to do but mow the lawns and sprinkle the streets and give shows! CHAPTER XI Tuesday, April i8. Sunday I had a talk with dad about the Barn- stormers, and I told him I didn't like this busi- ness of playing girls' parts all the time. He laughed and said he didn't blame me, but that I shouldn't feel badly because I had historical prec- edent for doing it. Historical precedent didn't console me much because I had no idea what it meant. But dad explained that it meant that other people had done a thing before you did it — that it had once been the common way of doing a thing. "Well," I said, "was it ever common for boys to play girls' parts in plays?" "Not only common," said dad, "but the rule. There were no women on the stage at one time, and all the female parts were taken by boys and young men." "When was that?" I asked. "Must have been a long time ago." 139 140 THE BARNSTORMERS "Yes," dad said, "it was a long time ago. About three hundred years ago, to be exact. When Shakespeare wrote his plays, and they were given in the old Globe theatre in Southwark, which is across the Thames from London, the * leading ladies' were boys very little older than yourself. Ophelia, and Desdemona, and Lady Macbeth, and all the other great heroines of Shakespeare, were 'created' — as we say to-day when a role is played for the first time — ^by boys; and none of them were ever played by women until long after Shakespeare was dead.'' Then dad took down a book he has which tells about the companies of actors in Shakespeare's time, and about the boys who played the female parts in the plays. Most often these boys be- longed to some of the men in the company — that is, they were children of these men, or had been adopted by them. So, in the old playbills, some of which were given in the book, the boys who played the female parts are not named, but just put down as So-and-so's "boy. " Fimny, isn't it? I doubt if they were always well treated, and yet on the whole they must have had a pretty THE BARNSTORMERS 141 good time of it. The actors were a happy-go- lucky lot who oftentimes didn't know where their next meal was to come from, but shared what they had with one another, and took their good fortime and bad fortime smilingly. So I imagine the boys in the companies liked the life and en- joyed themselves, though they had to work hard learning long speeches and rehearsing plays. The crowds that came to the theatres were a jolly lot, too, and the boys probably had friends among the apprentices in the pit. The way the theatres were built then they were open to the sky in the centre, and only the stage and the rows of galleries were roofed over. The open part was called the pit, and ran back from the stage to the rows of galleries at the sides and rear. This was the cheapest part of the theatre, for it had neither seats nor roof. The appren- tices were boys who were "boxmd out'' to learn trades. They didn't have much money, but they liked the theatre, and so they saw the play from the pit, standing just as near the stage as they could crowd. People who wanted to pay more sat in the galleries, and those who wanted the 142 THE BARNSTORMERS most expensive seats sat on chairs which were placed right on the stage, though over to one side, so as not to bother the actors. But the theatrical companies didn't always stay in London. They went on tours just as they do to-day. Only there were no railroads then, so the players had to travel in wagons from town to town. The people outside of Lon- don looked on the actors in these travelling com- panies as no better than tramps and vagabonds, and often the mayor of a town wouldn't let them play in it at all. Maybe they were not any too honest, but that old saying dad and I found in that book seems a Httle hard on them. The women used to call to one another: "Take in your washing! The players are coming!" There were no regular theatres outside of Lon- don, but the courtyards of the inns, as the hotels were called then, made fine places for plays to be given, for they were square, or oblong, with gal- leries, or porches, running all around, one above the other. When a company wanted to give a play, a platform was put up at one end of the courtyard, the curtains which served as scenery THE BARNSTORMERS 143 were hung, and the audience sat in the galleries, or stood about in the yard itself. In our copy of "Pickwick" one of the illustrations shows an old inn courtyard, and from that it is easy to see how these courtyards were fine places to give plays. In addition to the companies of grown-up ac- tors there were children's companies in Shake- speare's time, too. The companies of regular ac- tors didn't Hke these children's companies at all, because they took business away from them and were favorites at court, where they appeared be- fore the queen more often than the grown-up actors did. One of these companies was called "Paul's Boys," because it was made up of the choir-boys of Saint Paul's cathedral in London. These boys lived together at the expense of the church, many of them being orphans, and others coming from poor families. A choirmaster had charge of them, and to take up their spare time he trained them to give plays. Many of these plays were musical, but often they were just straight dramatic per- formances. 144 THE BARNSTORMERS Another company was known as the " Children of the Chapel Royal," because it was made up of the choir-boys of the queen^s chapel. This com- pany performed quite often at court before Eliza- beth. But it was quite different from the way the Barnstormers give plays, because these choir-boys were trained by the choirmaster, and their per- formances were very serious affairs. Still, I im- agine they had some good times, too. They wouldn't have been kids if they hadn't. It must have been fun acting at the queen's revels, and having Elizabeth herself, maybe, come up and pat you on the head when the show was over, and tell you what a nice boy you were, and maybe give you cakes and sweetmeats. But I guess she didn't always do that, for the book tells about one time when the Children of the Chapel Royal acted before EHzabeth at Christmas, and some- thing in the play was so displeasing to her that she went into a fit of temper then and there. She refused to let the play go on, and the poor kids had to go home without any pat on the head, or any cakes, or anything. It was several years be- THE BARNSTORMERS 145 fore Elizabeth would have this company appear before her again, but later the Children of the Chapel Royal gave a play at court every Christ- mas. Like the companies of grown-up actors, the children's companies made tours, giving their plays in all the towns near London. They were better received by the townspeople, because they were kids I suppose. They gave their perform- ances in the inn courtyards, Kke the other com- panies, for there were no other places where plays could be given. Sometimes, however, they were invited to give a private performance at the house of a great noble, and then the play would be given in the big hall of the house. In addition to the Children of the Chapel Royal and Paul's Boys, there were several other chil- dren's companies in Shakespeare's time. When Queen Elizabeth visited Windsor Castle the choir- boys of the chapel gave a play, but they didn't make a business of doing it as some of the other boys' choirs did. Three of the boys' schools of London had dra- matic companies, too. These were known as the 146 THE BARNSTORMERS "Children of Westminster School," the "Children of the Merchant Tailors' School," and the "Chil- dren of Eton." Later, after Elizabeth's death, when King James I came to the throne, a company known as the "Children of the Queen's Revels" gave plays at court. About the same time, or maybe a little later, a company called "Beeston's Boys," from a man named Bees ton who ran it, gave plays in one of the regular London theatres. These boys were picked up off the street, and a few were kidnapped. They were all practically owned by Beeston, who was accused of treating them pretty badly. The company was quite pop- ular in London for a time, but finally went to pieces because Beeston got into trouble with the king over something that was said in one of the plays. Beeston's Boys were the last children's company of any importance. In 1649, when King Charles I was executed, and the Round Heads came into power, the theatres were all closed, not to open again imtil King Charles II came to the throne in 1660. When the theatres did reopen, women THE BARNSTORMERS 147 began to appear on the stage, and female parts were no longer taken by boys. It does make me feel different to know all this. I don't think I shall mind playing Bianca at all now. And somehow the Barnstormers mean a great deal more to me. That was a big hunch I had up in the bam loft that rainy Saturday after- noon! Sunday April 23. "Bianca'* is coming along well, even with all the other things we are doing. Baseball takes a lot of our time, and other things take it, too. When the weather is nice you can do so many things you can't do when it's bad. You just feel, some- times, as though you must go fishing; and then again you feel like you had to find out whether the brown thrush that nested in the wild-rose bush back in the pasture is there again this year; and the bluebird in the old orchard has the same branch in the same apple-tree. Saturdays just go without your hardly knowing that they have happened at all. You work in the garden, and rake the leaves off the lawn in the morning, and 148 THE BARNSTORMERS play baseball in the afternoon — and Saturday is gone! Still, as I said, "Bianca" is coming along. Hal is just great as the villain. He likes the part better than that of Bernardo in our first play. Euon is such a bloody old customer that it is great sport to act the part. Hal growls and rumbles through it like a real stage villain. Of his two parts, John likes the witch better than the hero. He is going to be good as old Hilda, too. He gets his voice way up, so that it soimds cracked and shrill, and when he laughs he cackles in the most horrible way you could imagine. He makes the cold chills fairly do a cake-walk up and down your back-bone. We find "Bianca" much easier than we found "The Captive of Castile." Maybe it is because this is not our first attempt, and that was. But there are other reasons, too, chief of which is the fact that the play is only about half as long. We know the first and second scenes and are learning the third. Since there are only six scenes in the play, we can soon have it ready. We are planning to give it May 6th. THE BARNSTORMERS 149 Hal and I made a change in the Bamville the other day that will give us more room for dress- ing and an easier way to reach the second floor than the way we have been going, which was by a ladder up the hay chute. We cut a hole into the carriage house from the rear of the stage and put a ladder up to that. We moved the dressing- rooms then from the old stalls, which had clay floors and were still smelly, out to the carriage house, which has a wooden floor and is much nicer. I mustn't forget to mention that the part of Juan is to be played by Herbert Hilton. We asked him yesterday. He is to become a real Barnstormer at the initiation next Saturday. We are planning a great time. We are going to have a thing you call a ritual, which Hal says is necessary in all secret societies, and then we are going to have a second degree followed by a spread. The second degree is where you do the funny stunts. Of course we are not going to hurt Her- bert, but we intend to have some fun. Hal says he has planned a goat, made out of a rocking- I50 THE BARNSTORMERS chair and a fur rug, that ought to make a live goat seem as tame as a pet canary. Hal and John and I are going to write the ritual, which is to be very solemn and awful, some time this week. Hal got the idea from a book about the Knights of the Golden Circle, who used to have meetings in caves back during the time of the Civil War. Our high potentate is to be called Thespis, and Shakespeare is to be the guide and friend of the "candidate.'' The initiation is to be held in the barn — I mean the Bamville — but the spread will come off in my room up at the house. We are going to have ice-cream and cake and grape juice. Larry wanted mince pie, but John said we would prob- ably dream of our grandmothers' ghosts without it, and he didn't care to have any other ghosts brought on the scene, not to mention feehng like you never wanted to get up the morning after. So the mince pie is left out. CHAPTER XII Thursday, April 27 Hal and I have been working on our ritual during all the spare moments we could get, and this afternoon we finished it. We are quite proud of our job. The ritual soimds fine and is writ- ten in most beautiful language. But I mustn't brag, because Hal did most of the writing. We couldn't decide at first whether to write the ritual in poetry or not, but we finally decided it would sound better rhymed. Rhyming isn't hard to do at all. Since trying it I quite have a notion to be a poet instead of a dramatist. Only, the newspapers say poetry is out of date, and all dramatists are becoming millionaires, so I guess I had better stick to the first ambition. When you want to write poetry all you have to do is to turn to the rhyming dictionary, which is found in the back part of most regular dictionaries, and start in. Of course, what you write won't always sound hke Tennyson or Longfellow, but 151 152 THE BARNSTORMERS it will be quite as good as the poetry that is on the inside of the town newspaper every Satur- day. Before we began to write, Hal and I planned just what was to happen and about how long the ritual was to be. There are four persons in it— Shakespeare, who is the guide of the candidate; Thespis, who is the chief high exalted ruler; and two actors who give advice and counsel to the candidate. Before the ritual begins the candidate is to be bHndfolded. Then we are going to walk him around in circles till he doesn't know where he is. After that he is to be left for five minutes' silent "meditation" — ^which we think will get him properly scared. About the time he is be- ginning to think of making a break for home, Shakespeare, his friend and guide, enters. He knocks three times on the floor with his staff, and then speaks: " Greetings, my friend, but first, I'll give my name, Which may, perhaps, be not imknown to fame; For I am William Shakespeare, and your friend. THE BARNSTORMERS 153 Who comes to lead you to your journey's end. For IVe been told a Barnstormer you'd be, And this night all the mysteries would see. Come — let me guide you." Then he takes the candidate's arm and they walk aroimd in a circle. After that Shakespeare knocks three times on the floor with his staff. Thespis, the chief high exalted ruler of the Ancient Order of Barnstormers, is seated on a throne. He is all draped up in a sheet and has a long white beard. The two actors, each in a black mask, stand on either side of him. Thespis speaks: "What ho! And who doth wish to enter here? If he be worthy, bid him then good cheer." Shakespeare says: "I bring a would-be Thespian to your throne; I found him waiting friendless and alone; I brought him thither, and I beg to bring Him in unto yom: feet, oh mighty King! " 154 THE BARNSTORMERS Then Thespis, after a pause, speaks again. John is to play Thespis, and we want him to do the speeches in his best actor manner. "If he be worthy, let him then into The presence of the royal, chosen few." Shakespeare brings in the candidate. They walk about in a circle again. The First Actor stops them. He says: "What ho, and who is this? The password, stand!" Shakespeare says: Barnstormers' Barnville ! ' " (This is the pass- word, and is given in a whisper.) "One who'd join your band." First Actor. Before he is admitted to our King, He first must know one sacred, secret thing: The password, which in whispers must be spoke: "Barnstormers' Barnville," and it is no joke! Pass on your way, take care not to forget: "Barnstormers' Barnville"; friend, I'm glad we've met. THE BARNSTORMERS 155 Shakespeare says: " Come now, my friend, we must be on our way, And reach the end of this, our noble play." They walk around in a circle again. The Sec- ond Actor hails them: "What ho! Friends, travellers, 't is the King ye seek? Shakespeare. Even so; we go in spirit mild and meek. Second Actor. Before the throne you are al- lowed to reach, I have three things I unto you must teach. First, know the actor 's art's a noble thing; Second, that Thespis, who is here our King, In Greece first introduced the actor's art In which each man must play his Httle part. Thirds that here each man must be loyal and true. And always strive his very best to do." Once more they pass on. This time they come up to Thespis, The candidate has his bhndfold taken off and is made to bow before the throne. Then Thespis speaks: iS6 THE BARNSTORMERS "Greetings, traveller, greetings, loyal friend; At last you now have reached your journey's end. A Barnstormer you are, or soon will be. When you have had the second high degree." Then the candidate is blindfolded again and the fun starts. We do not know yet just what we will do in the second degree, but it is to be funny and harmless. Hal is quite sure that his patent goat will be an improvement over anything else that ever existed, live goats included. He first intended to use only one rocker, but he uses two in the improved model. The part where you ride is covered with a fur rug so it will feel nice and woolly. We have not yet decided on the other stimts. Friday, April 28. Another week gone! I am glad to-morrow is Saturday. "Bianca" is coming along fine, so we have de- cided to give it a week from to-morrow night. That means we will have to hustle, but I am sure we can have the play ready. Most of the work THE BARNSTORMERS 157 will fall to Hal and me, for John, being in high school, has all sorts of things to take up his time, and Larry is so busy with baseball that the Barnstormers hardly count. We will have Her- bert to help us, and, since he is a new member, we intend to make him do a Httle more than his share. That may not sound very nice, but I think it is quite right that he should earn his member- ship in the Barnstormers. Herbert has been to rehearsals this week and has done very well with the part of Juan. He is a nice little kid, and we all like him. We are going to tell about "Bianca" in to- morrow's Gimlet, I helped write the stuff and also helped Hal set up the paper to-day. We have written the "copy" for the bills and pro- gramme, but those are not set up yet. Herbert's first appearance on any stage is good advertising dope, and we are going to use it to the Hmit. The fact is announced in the bills and on the programme, and will be announced from the stage the night of the show. The scenery for "Bianca'' is 'most all ready, except the garden scene and the witch's cavern. 158 THE BARNSTORMERS Hal and I are going to make a balustrade out of pasteboard colored with crayons to use in the garden scene. We wanted some steps and a plat- form at the back of the stage, but I am afraid we can't have them. An3rway, the leaves are all out on the trees now, and we can have lots of green branches to bank in the back of the stage. The garden scene will be easy compared with that witch's cavern. There is supposed to be a sort of entrance to a cave at one side of the stage. In this stands the caldron where old Hilda mixes her magic potions. How we are to make that cave is beyond me. Hal thinks we can make a frame out of edging strips and cover it with some roofing paper we foimd in the bam. But that would take a lot of time, and I don't think the result would look much like a cave. But we will find a way — we always do. Sunday, April 30. The initiation last night was a great success. I told Herbert before the thing started that he needn't be afraid, because we were not go- ing to hurt him. I thought it was best. You THE BARNSTORMERS 159 never know about little kids. Herbert is only twelve. The ritual went off pretty well, even if we did have to read our parts, not having had time to learn them. Hal was Shakespeare; John was Thespis; Larry was the First Actor, and I was the second one. We all had trouble to keep from laughing. It seemed so funny to be going through all that sol- emn stuff. None of us really meant to laugh — not even Larry, though he made us all do it once. Larry would laugh at his own funeral. The laugh happened when Larry started to read the part of the First Actor. He began it singsong style, which is just his natural way of reading. When he came to the part about the password — "The password, which in whispers must be spoke: * Barnstormers' Bamville,' and it is no joke." — ^he added a "he-haw" of his own. We all laughed — even Herbert. We had been wanting to laugh before, because the whole ritual sounded sort of silly. It wasn't nearly as solemn as Hal and I thought it would be. I guess we all should i6o THE BARNSTORMERS be glad Larry tacked on that "he-haw," because it is hard on you to hold in a laugh that wants to come out, and that gave us an excuse. John, although he laughed, too, said it was very unfortunate that the laugh was made necessary, because the dignity of the occasion — whatever that is — ^was quite spoiled. John read the part of Thespis very well. He sat behind a table with two candles on it, and he was all draped up in a sheet and had a long beard made out of cotton-wool. He looked quite ter- rible, and I think he scared Herbert a Httle when the blindfold was taken off and Herbert saw John in all his glory. The second degree was great sport. HaPs goat lived up to its full reputation and was much bet- ter than a live one, being quite as funny and less trouble to handle. We put the candidate on the goat and started it to rock, with the result that Herbert thought he was going to be thrown into the air or tossed against the side of the bam. The two rockers, out of which the goat is made, are put together in such a way that you rock over in one direction so far, get a terrible jolt. THE BARNSTORMERS i6i and start back in the other direction. When you are sitting astraddle of the thing and it is started in motion, you get a very funny feeling. We had all tried it before Herbert did, so we knew just how it felt. Herbert couldn't help laughing — in fact, we all just yelled. I don't think he was really scared, because he is a plucky little kid and you can't scare him very easily. The "baptismal well" was the other part of the initiation. I invented that, and I think it was a first-rate idea. We put a tub full of water at the bottom of the old hay chute. When the time came to use the "well" we let a bucket down on a rope and brought it up full of water, all of which we let Herbert, who was still bUndfolded, hear us do. We talked about the old well that had been under the bam since the bam was built, and Hal told about having fished snakes and toads and rats out of it. When we brought up the bucket we each took a drink out of it — or rather pretended to take a drink — and then offered some to Herbert. John said the snake flavor was very strong — ^he thought rattlers must Hve in the well, since the water tasted like rattlesnake oil smelled. i62 THE B.\RXSTORMERS Lany said he amid get the taste ol dead lats, and he thoi^g^t there must be more cats than nttios in Ae ndL I said I dMN^^ there were more toads^ b ec au s e I coald taste a nice flavor JDSt fike a cellar that had been shut up far a, long time. Hal had a bottle ol some teniMy stinlgr stnff begot at the drag-store^ and wfafle he opened this under Herbert's "SmdL the Im/ffy smeai" said Jc^ul ''That soidy is i^ water down in that weQ. No woo- der it has a flavarf Then we <tf creel Hexfoert a g^ass of it — which leaSy came out c^ a pitfhfr of drinking water instead of the bucket. Of comse he wouldn't take it— we knew he wouldn't. "rn ten yoa what,** said Hal, "there's only one thing to do with hrm, since he wcm't dnnk it. Well pot a rope mider his aims and kt him down into the well itsetf." ^fme!*' said Larry, and we all agreed. Tlien Herbert said he woold drink the water M we only wouldn't pot him in the wefl. But we were firm. THE BARNSTORJVIERS 163 "Down he goes!" said Hal. "It's too good a chance to find out what's really down there. Maybe he can bring ns up a live rattler or so and some choice rats to roast for the feast," Herbert kicked and fought, though I think he knew it was all a joke, while we tied a rope under his arms and got ready to let him down the chute. I went below so that I could tell the others when to pull up on the rope. We had taken off Herbert's shoes and stockings, and we only intended to let his feet touch the water and then pull him back. Evetything went all right imtil I gave the sig- nal to puU back. Herbert really was scared when his toes touched that cold water in the tub. He kicked and squirmed aroimd so that the rope got away from the boj-s up above, and down he came in the tub of water. For a wonder he landed standing up — ^which was a good thing, since he only got wet to his knees. Eveiybody laughed, including Herbert, and we hauled him up and wiped his feet and legs on an old sack, and helped him put on his shoes and stockings. It was so late by that time that we had to give i64 THE BARNSTORMERS up the rest of the initiation and go up to the house to have our spread. We did have the mince pie, after all. Larry got Aunt Pepy, their nigger cook, to make him one, and he brought it over done up in a news- paper. It was ever so good — and I didn't dream about my great-grandmother's ghost, or any other ghost, afterward. CHAPTER XIII Wednesday, May 3. I am pasting in last Saturday's Gimlet, which has in it the announcement of our play. We are not going to have any trouble getting a crowd this time. Looks as though we would have more of a crowd than we could take care of. We are going to have a matinee Saturday after- noon. No more two-cent rates, though. The price will be five cents straight. A lot of kids from school are coming, and teacher, and some of the little youngsters in the neighborhood. It isn't easy to give two shows in one day, but regular actors often do it, and I guess we can. Well, here's the The Gimlet: 16s i66 THE BARNSTORMERS THE GIMLET April 29. Vol. II, No. 10. THE BARNSTORMERS IN BIANCA A Tragedy by Louisa Alcott BARNVILLE THEATER Matinee and night, May 6 Admission, 5 cents BIANCA The Gimlet wishes to call the attention of its readers to the performance of "Bianca" by the famous Barnstormer's Dramatic Club. Theater-go- ers will remember the great success of "The Captive of Castile" a month ago. "Bi- anca" is a shorter play, but very thrilling. The same ex- cellent cast as presented the company's first efifort, "The Captive of Castile," will be seen in " Bianca " ; and in ad- dition, Mr. Herbert Hilton will make his first appearance on any stage in the part of Juan, Bianca^s page. The play tells the story of woman's love and constancy and man's perfidity. The villain meets a tragic end, which he well deserves. The cast is as follows: Adelbert, betrothed to Bianca, Mr. John Jameson. Huon, his rival, Mr. Harold Jameson. Juan, Bianca's page, Mr. Herbert Hilton. Bianca, a Spanish lady, Mr. Robert Archer. Hilda, a witch, Mr. John Jameson. THE BARNSTORMERS 167 THE GIMLET April 29 Page 2 Vol. II, No. 10 BIANCA {Cont.from page i.) The settings for this produc- tion will be very elaborate. The Barnstormers have built entirely new scenery, includ- ing a handsome interior, a garden scene, and a witch's cavern, where wierd Kghting effects will inspire the audi- ences with breathless awe. Seats for this elaborate pro- duction of a great play are now on sale. EAST-END DEFEATS WEST-END The East-End base ball team defeated the West-End team on Thursday afternoon. The score was five to three. Donovan knocked a home run for the East-End in the sixth. BUY YOUR ATHLETIC SUPPLIES AT HANLON'S DRUG STORE ADVERTISE IN THE GIMLET THE GIMLET Vol. II, No. 10. Published weekly at the Gim- let Press, 246 East 2d St. Subscription, 2 cts per copy, 5 cts per month, 50 cts per yr. Harold Jameson, printer and publisher. Editor in chief, Harold Jame- son. Subscription manager, Harold Jameson. Sporting Editor, Harold Jame- son. Newsboy, Harold Jameson. o DUST FROM THE GIMLET All the world's a stage, so why not a barn for a theater? Subscribers come, subscrib- ers go, but we go on forever. Six slim, slick, sleek sap- lings arent in it when the Barnstormers' barnstorming batallion beautifully barn- storm beautiful "Bianca." LOCALS The grass on the court-house lawn was cut for the first time this year on Wednesday. Mr. Herbert Hilton has been taken into the Barnstormers' Dramatic Club. SEE BIANCA i68 THE BARNSTORMERS Hal and I think our article about the Barn- stormers is quite a good one. We have been saving clippings about real theatrical companies, and we read those all over before we began to write. We borrowed big words from some of the clippings, but we looked all of them up first in the dictionary so we wouldn't use any of them wrong. The programmes and bills are also printed. I am pasting them in, too. THE BARNSTORMERS PRESENT BIANCA A Tragedy, by Louisa Alcott Barnville Theater May Sixth Matinee at 2 P. M. Evening at 7:30 P. M. Admission 5 cents First appearance on Any stage of Mr. Herbert Hilton THE BARNSTORMERS 169 Here is the programme: BIANCA A Tragedy by Louisa Alcoit. Presented by THE BARNSTORMERS at the BARNVILLE THEATER Saturday, May 6 at Two and Seven-thirty P. M. CAST Adelbert, betrothed to Bianca, Mr. John Jameson. Huon, his rival, Mr. Harold Jameson. Juan, Bianca's page, Mr. Herbert Hilton. Bianca, a Spanish lady, Mr. Robert Archer. Hilda, a witch, Mr. John Jameson. SYNOPSIS Scene I. A wood, night. Scene II, Hilda's cave in the forest. Scene III. Room in Bianca's house. Scene IV . K moonlit balcony on Bianca's castle. Scene V. Bianca's garden. Scene VI. Huon's chamber. I70 THE BARNSTORMERS The stage-settings for "Bianca" are coming along all right. Herbert is helping us. He doesn't know much about it, but he can run errands for us and do what we tell him to do. That witch's cave is the hardest thing in the scenery Hne that we have had to tackle so far. We wanted it up a httle way off the stage level so that it would look like a real entrance to a real cave. To raise it we took a big flat box, which is about four feet square and two feet high, and made the top of it all lumpy by tacking on some pieces of an old comforter. A smaller box fixed the same way makes a step up to this. The trouble now is to know how to make the upper part of the cave. We have the floor but we have no cave to go over it. The floor is a great success, and looks very cavey — ^like rock, I mean — when we cover up its lumpiness with an old tarpaulin that has turned all gray and spotted from being out in the weather. Hal thinks we can make the cave out of a frame and some building-paper, but I don't be- lieve we can. However we make it, it will have to be made soon, since the show is only two days off. THE BARNSTORMERS 171 The witch's caldron and the fire to go under it are all ready. We have an old iron soap pot for the caldron itself. We make the fire by pil- ing up some stove wood and putting a little red- globed night-lamp on the inside of the pile. Then we stuff up some of the chinks with red and orange tissue-paper, and the thing just looks great. The only other light for the scene is to come from the two lamps which are placed back of the first wings on either side of the stage. These are to give a blue light, which we make by standing a shield of oiled blue tissue-paper in front of each lamp. When John, as old Hilda, stirs the boil- ing caldron in that red-and-blue lighted scene we will have the audience spellbound. We are planning to use the gray back drop with plenty of green branches against it to give a forest effect to the scene. We are going to scatter leaves around on the floor, too, and give the whole setting what Hal calls a real David Belasco look. When he sprung that I said I didn't see how a stage-setting could look like a man, but Hal said that whether it could or not, the highest compliment you could pay to a stage- 172 THE BARNSTORMERS setting was to say it looked Belascoey. I sup- pose Hal knows. If we only had that pesky cave fixed I wouldn't care beans about anything else. If I had time I would take a trip out to Truitt's Cave, which is five miles southwest of town, and get some real cave-Hke ideas on the question. As it is, I have that cave on my mind all the time — ^not Truitt's, but the one in the play — and a cave is a good deal to be carrying about in your head! The garden scene hasn't been half so much trouble as that cave. Hal and I made a balus- trade for it which is also to serve on the moonlit balcony in the fourth scene. We cut the spin- dles for the balustrade out of pasteboard — shoe boxes, old suit boxes, just anything, in fact, that we could get. Then we made an oblong frame of edging strips that is two feet wide and seven feet long. We covered the long pieces with strips of pasteboard and pasted the spindles to these. At one end we made a square sort of pedestal to hold a flower-pot. This is just a box covered with pasteboard. We colored the balustrade and the pedestal with crayons, using purple and black THE BARNSTORMERS 173 and shading with these two colors to give a stone- color. The balustrade is to be placed on the left side of the stage, coming out from the middle wing. We will use the gray drop and lots of green branches behind it. Some flowers in pots and a rustic bench will complete the scene. The moonht balcony was almost as much trouble to us as the cave has been, but we have it all worked out now. Moonlight was what stumped us all. John finally suggested the magic lantern with a slide of plain blue glass. The blue Hght serves for moonlight very well. For the front of this scene we use the new room set which has a wide door at the back. We are going to set it forward a little so there will be plenty of space back of it for the balcony. Then we will run the balustrade across, put some cush- ions and rugs down, ''mask" in back of this with green branches, turn on the blue moonlight, and be ready for Bianca and Adelhert to make love. In the room itself we are going to have nothing but that little red night-lamp. The footlights will be off, and only the blue moonlight, the red 174 THE BARNSTORMERS night-lamp, and the blue-shaded lamps in the side wings will be used to light the scene. It seems as though most of "Bianca" happens in the dark; but so much the better, for it makes the play much more romantic and weird. We have had rehearsals every night this week. We know the entire play now, but we still need all the practice we can get. Herbert is doing well as the page, but he says he will be scared to death when the play comes off. John is better as Hilda, the witch, than he has been in any other part he has yet tried. His make-up is fine. He is padded out so that he looks humpbacked, and he stoops way over and leans on a cane. He wears an old black skirt and a moth-eaten shawl which comes up over his head and covers the part where his false face leaves off. The false face is a good one all right! It is a real witch's face with a hooked nose and chin that nearly meet. In the dim light, I don't beHeve any one will know it's just a false face. These "artistic" Hghting effects that Hal is so strong for cover a multitude of defects that would never get by in full Hght. THE BARNSTORMERS 175 I wear the same clothes I did in "The Captive of Castile." We had to make some clothes for Herbert. He has a timic and doublet of bright blue cambric and wears stockings for tights. Hal and John wear the same things as before. Thursday, May 4. I could shout with joy! We have the cave! Hal and I rigged one up this afternoon. It's just as cavey as can be and looks great. I came to HaFs plan of a frame and building-paper at last, and I am glad I did; but that isn't all we used. We have some old chenille curtains that have faded out from dark blue to no color in par- ticular, and these are hung over the outside of the frame to form the outer part of the cave. They blend in nicely with the gray back drop. The frame is oblong — ^five feet wide and nine high. Over the top of it is a four-foot width of building- paper with the edges all slashed up and jagged, just like rocks. The frame stands up in one cor- ner of the stage — ^it happens to be the left rear one — ^and there is a top frame, four by five feet, that lays across from the upright frame to the 176 THE BARNSTORMERS rear beam of the bam. A lot of jagged pieces of paper hang down on the inside to look like the things that hang down from the roofs of caves — stalactites, I think you call them. We have three of the old curtains, which we drape at the sides and over the top. The padded box, covered with the old tarpaulin, goes inside all this to serve as the floor. The caldron, with the "fire" that goes imder it, is placed on this floor just inside the mouth of the cave. When Hal and I finished making the thing this afternoon we just danced around and yelled, we were so pleased with it. We tried the Hghts at rehearsal to-night, and John and Larry and Her- bert were as pleased as we had been. To-morrow night is the dress rehearsal. Friday, May 5. I wish to-morrow was over! Yes, I do! That dress rehearsal to-night went as rotten as anything could go. We forgot and had to be prompted, and we didn't get in on our "cues," and we were always in the wrong instead of the right place on the stage. We even skipped whole speeches and had to go back to them. THE BARNSTORMERS 177 Larry said he was ashamed of us. That made John sore, and he told him he didn't have any cause to kick when he hadn't had anything to do with getting the show ready. And then Larry said he guessed he had been doing something better — defending the honor of the East-End against the West-End. They nearly had a fight, only we made them shake hands before they did. We can't have any scraps the night before a show. But it is the truth that the dress rehearsal was terrible. Those pesky songs were the worst part of it all. We didn't have any one to sing Adel- bert^s song at all, though I think Larry's cousin will do it for us to-morrow night. No one liked the time I had fixed up for my "Faded Flowers" song, and then I got all mixed up on it besides. Poor Herbert was scared stiff, and says he never will be able to speak when the show comes off to-morrow. I 'most wish we didn't have any Barnstormers, or any Bamville, or any show! — no I don't, either! It'll all come out all right! Anyway, I'm going to bed and have a good night's sleep. CHAPTER XIV Sunday, May 7. It's all over! We have given another play! I think it was a success. Anyway, the people liked the scenery, and that made them forget the acting. But we really did much better than we had hoped. You always do when the time comes. The matinee didn't go any too well, but the kids Uked it and teacher thought it was great. I am sorry she didn't see the night show, because we all did very much better at that. The afternoon crowd was quite large. We sold thirty-one tickets. About half of the crowd was made up of kids from school — Hal's and my room, and Herbert's. They clapped and clapped after every scene, and we all had to take curtain calls, and Hal made a speech at the end of the fourth scene. He said that the Barnstormers greatly appreciated the enthusiasm of the splendid and brilHant audience in behalf of their histrionic ef- 178 THE BARNSTORMERS 179 forts. (He used perfectly immense words !) That it was a source of great satisfaction to be thus enthusiastically received after the long and ardu- ous weeks spent in preparation. He hoped to see all of the same faces back at our next production, which would take place early in the summer va- cation. They all laughed and cheered, and then we went on with the show. Since nearly all of "Bianca" takes place in the dark, with blue and red Hght effects, we had to have the Barnville dark for the afternoon show. That was fairly easy to do, though. We darkened it like we did for the matinee of "The Captive of Castile,'^ and the light effects showed up nearly as well as they did at the night show. It's queer how all of us brace up and do our best when a lot of people are out in front watch- ing the show. There is something about it you can't quite explain. You feel so different from what you do when you are giving the show to a row of empty seats. You're all wound up, and you feel sort of excited and yet calm, too. Your head is clear, and the lines you are to say and the things you are to do stand out there more clearly i8o THE BARNSTORMERS than they ever have before. You feel a sort of throb-throb going on partly in you and partly in the people who are watching you. I can't quite say all I mean, because it's one of those things that won't go into words. Just the same, the throb feeHng is there, and you never will quite forget how it made you feel. We were a Uttle bit afraid that we might have trouble at the afternoon show, with all those kids we knew sitting out in the audience watching us. John said they would be sure to laugh at the love- scenes. I was sure that when they saw me dressed up as a girl they would all laugh, but they didn't. The Barnville, all as neat as a pin, and the stage, with its curtain and scenery, took the laugh out of them. They saw we weren't giving just a pre- tend, make-up-as-you-go-along, three-pin-admis- sion, kid show, but a real-for-sure play, and that made them take us seriously. We only had one thing happen to spoil the show, and that really wasn't so bad. Lettie Carter, who is just five years old, came with her brother John, who is seven, and their darky nurse, Cassie. Let- tie didn't mind at all about Adelbert dying of THE BARNSTORMERS i8i poison, though she did get sort of excited when he writhed around on the floor; but when Hiion stabbed Bianca — myself — it was too much for Lettie. She set up a terrible howl. Everybody laughed, and we pulled down the curtain, and I came out and bowed. That stopped Lettie's grief, because she saw that I wasn't hurt, after all. The crowd in the afternoon behaved better than the crowd at night. "Bianca" was so tragic that the grown-up people found it funny. Maybe the name on the book — "Comic Tragedies" — isn't wrong, after all. Our audience laughed and laughed at the end of each scene, but they seemed to like the play, so we didn't care. Our stage-settings were certainly a big success. In the first scene, which is a wood, we used the gray back drop and a great many green branches, maple and beech mostly, with a few evergreens mixed in. We made a Httle thicket at the back where Huon was to hide. Then we put the forked branch, that we used in the first show, down in front for Bianca and Adelbert to sit on. The footlights were not Hghted, but we had "moon- light" made by the magic lantern and the light i82 THE BARNSTORMERS that came from the blue-shaded lights at the side of the stage. The scene looked fine, and the au- dience clapped for it when the curtain went up. But our second, the witch's cavern, was the best. We didn't have to do much to the stage but move the branches around and put up the cave. We used the magic lantern again, but with a red glass sHde this time, throwing the light into the cave entrance so it would look like the glow from the fire. When the curtain went up John, as old Hilda, was bending over the caldron stir- ring it with a long iron spoon. Hal and I, off stage, made a noise like wind whistling through the trees. Old Hilda stirred the caldron and sang a weird chant. This lasted nearly a minute, and then the audience applauded. After they were quiet Hilda reached down under the cal- dron and brought up a handful of things which she dropped into the mixture one by one, sa3dng that speech from the witches' scene in "Macbeth": "Round about the caldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone THE BARNSTORMERS 183 Days and nights has thirty-one Swelt'red venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire bum and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and bHnd-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howlet's wing. For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire biurn and caldron bubble. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches' mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock, digged i' the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat and slips of yew Sliver'd in the moon's ecHpse, Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe, i84 THE BARNSTORMERS Ditch-deliver'd by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab. Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingredients of our caldron. Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire bum and caldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon's blood. Then the charm is firm and good." John's voice was high and cracked, and he made the lines sound their awfullest. Where he said, "Double, double, toil and trouble, fire bum and caldron bubble," he stirred with the big spoon, and we flickered the fight from the magic lantern. John had something to throw in for each thing he mentioned, and he did it in a fitting manner for each one. He was the one who suggested that we put these fines into the scene. He is reading "Mac- beth" at school now. I am glad he did it, for they fit into "Bianca" just as though they be- longed to the play. When Huon leaves Hilda after getting the sup- posed love draught, she teUs about it being a THE BARNSTORMERS 185 deadly poison and says that when he goes to claim his love, he will find a dead bride awaiting him. The scene is supposed to end there, but John fixed up some more Hnes. The last of Hilda's speech goes: "Ha! ha! ha! old Hilda's spells work silently and well!" John added: "Ha! ha! ha! And now that I have done my worst, I'll call my devil demons curst, And till the breaking of the day, We'll gambol in our heUish play. Up to the moon and back we'll ride We'll cross the mighty ocean wide. We'll do all mischief we can do — Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ho-o-o-o-o-o-o! Come Bittlescritch and Bittlescratch! Come Wattloo and Hacklehatch! Come all ye brood of Satan's halls — Ha! ha! Old HHda caUs!" Then off stage, Larry, Hal, Herbert, and I made the noises of the demons. At first the sound was i86 THE BARNSTORMERS very faint — ^just a rumbling. Then it got louder and louder — shrill calls, screeches, hoots, and howls — and at last the curtain fell. Never did we make such a hit. The audience applauded and applauded, and we took four cur- tain calls — the entire cast coming out on the last one. It was great — I shall remember it al- ways. The third scene is where Huon puts the poison, which he thinks is a love philter, into Bianca^s glass of wine. That is the scene where Herbert comes in as the page. He wasn't really scared as he thought he would be. He did well, too. It wasn't easy to stoop down, holding a wine-glass on a tray, and fasten Euan's shoe. Herbert did it all very well, and he and Hal took a curtain call at the end of the scene. The fourth scene was the moonlit balcony. It certainly did look beautiful. We acted our parts fairly well, too, though those pesky love-making scenes always do get my goat. Larry's cousin sang the song about: "The moon is up, wake, lady, wake!" THE BARNSTORMERS 187 He stood down in the carriage house so that his voice would sound far away. Some fellow he knows in high school — I forget his name — ^played his accompaniment on the mandoHn. When John, as Adelbert, came chmbing over the balcony, he had my mandolin hanging from a ribbon around his neck, just as though he had been playing. He didn^t die with it on, for it would have been in the way, and might have gotten squashed, but took it off and laid it aside. In the fifth scene I had to sing my song. I don't know how I ever did it! I played the air on my mandolin and talked the song — at least I think I talked it. I can't quite say what I did do. It was the only time during the whole play that I was the least bit scared. I died as gracefully as I could. Hal and I had practised that part together times without num- ber, but I think we did it differently from what we ever had done it before. Where Hal says: "Wouldst thou betray me? Never! Yield thou to my love, or I will sheathe my dagger in thy heart, and silence thee forever!" — he forced me to my knees before him and stood over me with the dagger in his hand. i88 THE BARNSTORMERS Then I straightened up a little and faced him proudly. "I will not yield! The world shall know thy guilt, and then sweet death shall be a blessing.'' Then he seized me by the wrist, forced me back, and sheathed the dagger in my heart. (What he really did was to run it imder my arm.) To make my death seem more real, I tore open my dress at the neck to show a smear of red paint that had been carefully put there to look like blood. As Huon did the stabbing he cried: "Then die, and free me from the love and fear that hang Uke clouds above me!" I sank back on the floor, gasped, raised myself on one arm, and said: "Thy sin will yet — ^be — ^known! {Gasp, gasp) And — may — God — pardon — thee!" Then I looked about the garden scene, gasping meanwhile, and took my last farewell of earth. "Oh earth fare- well! {Gasp, gasp.) My — Adelbert— I come — I come!" Then I gave a convulsive shudder and stiffened out. I don't suppose that is the way people really die, though I can't say, never having seen any THE BARNSTORMERS 189 one do it; but they always die that way in novels, unless they just "go to sleep, and pass into that bourne from which no traveller returns." Having been murdered, I didn't think I would just go to sleep, because sleeping deaths always happen in bed — ^hke little Eva's — ^whereas those who meet their end by violent means always die with a con- vulsive shudder, having first said a thing or two to their murderer. It was great fun plajdng the ghost in the last scene. I put flour all over my face, just as thick as I could make it stick. Then I draped myself up in a sheet. I was certainly white enough. John, who manages the magic lantern better than any of us, followed me with a spot of white light, keeping it. always on my head. When I entered, Hal, as Huon, was lying on a pile of straw. We let him moan and groan in his sleep for a moment while the ghost stood over him. At last he started up, saw me, let out a wild cry of fear, crouched, came to a standing position, and advanced toward me. "Ha! Spirit of the dead, what wouldst thou now?" (I came closer to him. He moved back.) ipo THE BARNSTORMERS "For long, long nights why hast thou haunted me? " (Again I came closer, extending my hand.) "Cannot my agony, remorse, and tears lead thee to forget? " (I came still closer, and put my hand on his head. He shrieked wildly.) "Ah, touch me not! Away! Away!'^ (He moved off . I fol- lowed.) " See, how the vision follows! It holds me fast! *' (He threw himself at my feet.) " Bi- anca, save me! Save me!" And he fell dead be- fore me, while I stood above him, pointing upward. We let the tableau last a full minute, and then John put his hand over the lens of the magic lan- tern, which shut off the only light, and Larry let the curtain fall. We had forty-two people at the night show. That meant two dollars and ten cents. Thirty- one at the afternoon show brought in a dollar fifty-five, so that altogether "Bianca" made us three dollars and sixty-five cents. The Barn- stormers will soon have to start a bank account! CHAPTER XV Tuesday, May 9. Luck is with the Barnstormers — real luck with money in its pocket! Mrs. Cawdor MacAnnaly, who is the richest woman in town, has asked us to give a play at her house-party next Friday night to "amuse" the guests. (I don't Uke that word "amuse"!) It seems that she heard about us through some one who was at the play Saturday, and the idea struck her that we woidd be a "brand new sensa- tion" for the people she's going to have down from the city. So Monday she called up Mrs. Jameson by 'phone, and told her she would like to see some of us, and after school Hal and I went over to her house. I had never been there before; neither had Hal. We both felt a Kttle bit scared. You see Mrs. MacAnnaly is hardly ever here, and when she is she doesn't "mix" a great deal with the people who live here all the time. So we felt just a little 191 192 THE BARNSTORMERS like turning and running after we had rung the bell to the front door and stood waiting for some one to come. Finally the door was opened by an oldish man who wore a blue coat with brass buttons. I guess Mrs. MacAnnaly hadn't told him we were coming, for he didn't act as if he was glad to see us, or intended to let us in. He just stood wait- ing in the doorway and acted as though he didn't see us at all. Finally I said: "I am Robert Archer and this is Harold Jameson. Mrs. MacAnnaly wished to see us." He acted as if he didn't believe it, but he said he'd "see," and he went so far as to ask us into the hall. The hall was big and dark, with things that caught the Hght standing out brightly here and there. Some spears and a big brass shield were over the fireplace. Hal whispered to me that they would be great to use in a play. We waited about five minutes, and then there was a swishy, rusthng sound, and Mrs. MacAn- naly came down the stairs. We both stood up, THE BARNSTORMERS 193 which I think was good manners, though I felt too scared to remember what I should do. Mrs. MacAnnaly came toward us, and she smiled so pleasantly that we quite forgot to be afraid of her. "This is Robert Archer and Harold Jameson?" she asked. "Now, tell me, which is which?" "I'm Robert," I said, "and this is Harold." She shook hands with us as solemnly as though we were grown up and as rich as she is. "Now suppose," she said, "we all go out in the Hbrary, and I have Jenkins bring us some tea and cakes and things, and you can tell me all about the Barnstormers." We said we thought that would be very nice, so Mrs. MacAnnaly led the way to the library, which was a big room hned with books. We sat in a bay window in big, soft, comfy leather chairs that made you feel just as you felt when you dreamed you had j&nally got your wish and were riding one of those big white clouds that float across the sky on hot summer days. Mrs. MacAnnaly rang a bell, and Jenkins came, looking Kke he'd lost his last friend — because of us, I guess — and Mrs. MacAnnaly told him 194 THE BARNSTORMERS what to bring, and he looked still more abused and disgusted. It must be awfully uncomfortable to have Jenkins around. I should think Mrs. MacAnnaly would fire him and get another hired girl. While Jenkins was getting the tea and cakes and things, Mrs. MacAnnaly asked us how old we were, and what grade we were in at school, and how we liked our teacher, and all those ques- tions kids always get asked. Then Jenkins brought the tea and a second tray with little sandwiches and cakes and mar- malade and candy. He put all these things on a funny little table that had a top that tilted up when you weren't using it. Mrs. MacAnnaly asked us how we would have our tea — ^with cream ? — and we both said yes; and with sugar — two lumps? — and we both said yes to that, too. You see, I don't get tea at home, and I don't think Hal does either. It isn't considered good for chil- dren. But we liked it, and had two cups, not to mention three sandwiches, six cakes, and five pieces of candy. Mrs. MacAnnaly seemed to enjoy feeding us very much. THE BARNSTORMERS 195 We told her about the Barnstormers, and "The Captive of Castile," and "Bianca." She said she was very sorry she didn't get to see "Bianca*' Saturday night, and she thought we were naughty boys not to come around and tell her about it. Then she told us about the party she is to have this coming Friday night, and asked us if we thought we could give "Bianca" to help her ' * amuse ' ' her guests. We weren't real sure about giving a play away from the Barnville, but Mrs. MacAnnaly said she would fix everything up all right. Off the Hbrary is a music-room with folding doors that when open give a space about the width of our stage. That is where we are to perform. The folding doors will be the curtain, and the scenery is to be brought from the Barnville and Mrs. Mac- Annaly is to have it put up. We can't bring the new green wall-paper room scene, for it wouldn't stand moving, so some carpenters are to make a new room-scene frame for us, and it is to be cov- ered with old chintz curtains which Mrs. Mac- Annaly has put away in the attic. The cave will be no trouble to move, so that is 196 THE BARNSTORMERS to be brought over. There are to be real electric footlights and side-lights, just Kke they have in a real theatre. Then the orchestra that is to play for the dance, which comes after our play, is to furnish the music between each scene. Hal and I both got home late for supper, but we didn^t mind, each being pretty full of the cakes and tea and sandwiches, and so not very himgry. John and Larry and Herbert joined us at the Bamville after supper, and we had a meeting to talk about giving the play at Mrs. MacAnnaly's. We all thought it was too good a chance to let go, so it was voted that we do it. I don't know yet what we are to get for giving the play, but Mrs. MacAnnaly will do the square thing by us, I am sure. Thursday, May 11. The play is going j5ne. We had a rehearsal at Mrs. MacAnnaly's last night, and she was pleased as could be with it. She said she thought we were " awfully clever " — whatever that is. Jenkins didn't seem so well pleased. He's a grouch of the grouchiest sort. THE BARNSTORMERS 197 This afternoon Hal and I went up to Mrs. Mac- Annaly's again, this time to see about the stage in the music-room. The platform was all made. It is about a foot high and has a nice sunken place for the footlights. "Red" Hays, the elec- trician, put those in yesterday morning. They are all blue ones, because there is only one scene where we use full light on the stage — that's the third — and then we can have it coming from the side or else put some white bulbs into the row of foots. The frame for the room scene is all made and covered. It looks very nice. There are wings to go with it, so that the set matches. Our gray drop and side wings have been put up, too, so that the stage is all ready now. Jenkins and the gardener, whose name is McTavish, are to bring in the branches for the forest scene to-morrow afternoon. We are all to come up right after school and get things ready for the show. We are to have our suppers there. I'll bet we have lots of good things to eat. 198 THE BARNSTORMERS Saturday, May 13. I feel like I was a real actor — or should I say actress? I guess I'm what Hal calls an "actor- ine." Anyway, whatever it is, I feel just like that. And I know now how the kids in those companies of Shakespeare's time must have felt after they had given a play at court. I'm all "feels" to-day — so many to the square inch I can't keep track of them. We gave "Bianca" at Mrs. Cawdor MacAn- naly's yesterday evening, and that is the reason for my present state. I wish I had words to express myself. I wish I could tell about every- thing in nice, large dictionary language. It should be done in very fine writing — ^just like the charac- ters in novels speak when they tell about some- thing big. But I can't do it! I'll just have to write it like I think it. After school we all went home and put on our Sunday clothes and packed our costumes in suit-cases, and then met at Hal's and John's, which is nearest Mrs. MacAnnaly's house. We felt sort of scared — ^you know, like your heart was THE BARNSTORMERS 199 beating in your shoes instead of in its right place. Larry partially lost his grin, which is a sure sign that something inside of him has gone wrong. We walked up to the MacAnnaly house as solemn as if we were going to a fxmeral. Nobody had a thing to say. Once Larry said Mrs. MacAnnaly must have scads of dough, and Hal said it was vulgar to speculate upon the wealth of our benefactress. Hal knows how to say things just as if they had been written by one of our best novelists. I was sure Larry would get mad and he and Hal would have a fight. But Larry didn't — I guess he didn't know the meaning of the words Hal used. Finally we reached the house. It seemed very large and we felt very small. Jenkins opened the door. He looked much bigger than ever before and quite terrifying in his blue coat with its brass buttons. He was quite solemn, too. Herbert held on to my hand as though he was afraid he'd run if he didn't hold on to some one. Jenkins said that his mistress would see us in a few minutes. Would we step to the music-room? 200 THE BARNSTORMERS We stepped. John and Larry and Herbert went from rug to rug as though the rugs were cakes of ice in a river and it was a matter of life and death to get from one to the other. Hal and I, having had tea with Mrs. Cawdor MacAnnaly, were not so timid. John pretended he wasn't, but he was. When Jenkins left us in the music-room, which had been turned into the stage, we all felt better. The gray drop and green wings from the Bam- ville were all up, and the place had a sort of home- like look that the big, beautiful rooms we had passed through didn't have. The branches to use in the outdoor scenes were piled out on the ter- race, and the new chintz room scene, and the witch's cave were in the part of the music- room behind the raised platform. John and Herbert and Larry were delighted with the electric footlights, which worked from a switch at the side, and we all fell to talking quite as if we weren't in the MacAnnaly house at all, but back in the Bamville. We were going it full tilt when Hal looked up and saw Mrs. MacAnnaly in the door. Then I saw THE BARNSTORMERS 201 her, too. She had on a wonderful-looking dress, all white, with silvery things on it, and diamonds at her throat and in her hair. She looked just like you imagined your fairy godmother would. She smiled and came toward us. "And how are "Bobby and Hal?'' she asked. We shook hands and said we were all right. "And now," said Mrs. MacAnnaly, "you must introduce me to the other Barnstormers.'' So I did, but I don't know whether I did it right or not. I just said: "This is John Jameson and this is Larry Donovan and this is Herbert Hilton." She made us all feel at home right away, and we were soon talking about how things were to be for the play. A part of the back hall had been screened off for our dressing-room, and a Httle lavatory opened off of this. A table was to be set in the music-room, and that was where we were to eat our supper. "And after the play," she added, as she turned to go, "I want all my young actors to come out and meet the ladies and gentlemen who have seen them perform." 202 THE BARNSTORMERS That wasn't very pleasant to look forward to. We talked about it after she had gone, but we didn't see any way out of it. Before supper was brought in we got the stage all ready for the first scene. And, in order that it wouldn't take so long to change for the second scene, we put up the witch's cave in its corner, and covered it with green branches. We had the caldron and the fire all ready, so that when it came time for the second scene there was very little to do to get the stage ready. Supper was great. We decided before it came in that we mustn't eat too much, because if we did we wouldn't be able to act to the best of our ability. Only Larry said that it didn't matter about him and he would eat all he wanted. Jenkins didn't serve it, for which we were all very glad. A girl who works in the kitchen brought the things in to us. We had soup and fish and chicken and vegetables, and salad and ice-cream and candy. We found it very hard not to fill up just as full as we wanted to; but we didn't — except Larry, and he ate so much that he THE BARNSTORMERS 203 might just as well have gone home for all the good he did us afterward. When supper was over we dressed and got our- selves ready for the show. I wished all the time that everything we had was ten times as good as it was, and that we could act better than we could — and that everything could be improved upon. When you are to act before rich folks it makes you feel that everything you have is worse than it is. But since Mrs. MacAnnaly had told Hal and me that she wanted everything just as it would be in the Barnville, we let it go at that, and let the rich folks from the city take things in true Barnville style. We wouldn't have been Barnstormers if we had tried to change our way of doing things. Just a little before eight o'clock the orchestra came into the music-room and began to tune up. Wow! My heart began to go pitty-pat then. There were six of them — ^real musicians that had been brought down from the city to furnish music for the dance. We were all ready, so we came on the stage and sat around, waiting till it was time for the show 204 THE BARNSTORMERS to begin. The director of the orchestra came in and asked if there were any "cues" for music, and we fixed it up that he was to play a love- song while John said the words of AdelherVs song in the fourth scene. You see we had forgotten all about that song, and Larry's cousin was no- where to be had, ha\dng gone off on a trip with the high-school baseball team. Then in the last scene the director said he would play something spooky while the ghost performed. He was very nice about everything, and didn't laugh at all, though I think he was laughing inside. Well, we showed him anyway! Those rich folks from the dty didn't care a straw about his old orchestra, but they were just crazy about us. At eight o'clock Mrs. MacAnnaly came in to see if everything was ready. We had the lights all on and the splotch of moonlight from the magic lantern turned on the rustic seat. Mrs. MacAnnaly said it looked "lovely," and she was just too pleased for anything. "Now you must be good boys and do your best!" she said as we turned to go, and we all felt like we would do anything for a person as beautiful as she was. THE BARNSTORMERS 205 The orchestra played a long and very fancy " overture/' and then a short, solemn sort of piece. Just as this finished, John and Larry pulled back the folding doors. The lights in the big library had been turned low, so we couldn't see the people very clearly, but I could tell that there was quite a crowd and that the men had on dress suits and the ladies were all low-necked and sparkly like Mrs. MacAnnaly. Hal was seated on the rustic seat, his head bent forward, and the villainous look on his face brought out clearly by the blue moonhght. A Uttle whispering sound went through the crowd and then they clapped their hands. The scene must have looked very nice, indeed. Then Hal spoke. Never had he said his lines so well. I was so interested I almost forgot when it came time for me to go on with John. The whole scene went well. We seemed to get into it as we never had before. At the end the people clapped and clapped, and we all had to take curtain calls. Of course the second scene — the witch scene — 2o6 THE BARNSTORMERS went well. It just couldn't help it. John played old Hilda better than he did at our other two per- formances, and in the lines from Shakespeare he simply did himself proud. Nothing that really mattered went wrong in the whole play. It was over, it seemed to me, almost before I could reaUze that it had even started. At the end we had to bow and bow, and sev- eral of the ladies threw their bouquets to us, and then everybody clapped some more. Mrs. MacAnnaly came rushing back to see us. "You dear boys!" she cried. "I'm proud of you! The play amused us as nothing else could have! Now get into your clothes and come out into the library. The people are just dying to meet you." We washed the paint off of our faces and dressed, but it was ever so hard to get up cour- age to go out and meet all those people. Hal and I finally led the way. Mrs. Mac- Annaly came toward us as we entered the room. About thirty people were standing about talking. They stopped and all looked in our direction. I could have gone through the floor! THE BARNSTORMERS 207 "These boys/* said Mrs. MacAimaly, "are the Barnstormers — Bobby Archer, Hal Jameson, John Jameson, Herbert Hilton, and Larry Dono- van." Then a young fellow, with taffy-colored hair and a round eye-glass on a black ribbon and no chin, jumped up on a chair and said: "I say now, three cheers for the Barnstormers!" That made us feel a Httle more at home. Larry found his grin, and John forgot his dignity, and we all felt more comfortable. Then a nice, tall, gray-haired gentleman got me off in one corner and began to ask me about the Barnstormers. He wanted to know first where we got the name, and when I told him from Joseph Jefferson's auto- biography, he certainly looked surprised. "And, er, the idea-r?" he asked. "Oh, that was just a hunch," I said. "A what?" he asked. "Just a hunch — a thing that pops into your head when you're not looking for it. But you know," I went on, "we have historical precedent for a children's company of players. There were 2o8 THE BARNSTORMERS the boys who acted women's parts in Shakespeare's time, and then PauFs Boys, and the Children of the Chapel Royal, and Beeston's Boys " "Good Lord!'* said the gray-haired gentleman to Mrs. MacAnnaly, who came up just then, "Adelaide, where did you ever find such children? Why, this youngster knows the whole history of the stage!*' Mrs. MacAnnaly laughed and put her arm around me, and said we were just natural boys who had followed our own "bent" — ^whatever that is — and learned a thing or two as we went along. We were sent home in the automobile — a great big one that held us all without crowding. And when the driver left us at the Jamesons' he gave each one of us an envelope with our name on it, and me another that said: "For the Barn- stormers." We could hardly wait till we got up to Hal's and John's room to see what was inside. And what do you suppose? — a dollar bill for each one of us and five for the Barnstormers' Dramatic Club! We are rich! rich! THE BARNSTORMERS 209 Sunday, May 14. We have become really famous! We can't be- lieve it, but we have. We are in the Sunday- paper, which tells all about the "unique enter- tainment" Mrs. Cawdor MacAnnaly furnished her house-party guests on Friday evening. I nearly fell over when I saw the paper this morn- ing. Here's the chpping: UNIQUE ENTERTAINMENT Juvenile Players Give Tragedy at Mrs. Cawdor MacAnnaly's House-Party Last Friday evening the week-end house-party guests at Mrs. Cawdor MacAnnaly's estate, Cawdor House, Jordan, enjoyed one of the most unique entertainments furnished by a hostess this season. This was nothing less than a " Comic Tragedy " presented by a cast of Jordan boys who have organized a dramatic club and call themselves the Barnstormers. These youth- ful actors are all under fourteen, but the staging, acting and producing of their plays is done en- tirely by themselves. The usual place of per- formance is the " Bamville," a bam converted by the bo^s themselves into a miniature theater; but for Friday's performance, a stage was built into the music room of Cawdor House. The play was "Bianca," an operatic tragedy taken from Louisa Alcott's well-known book of "Comic Tragedies." The boys who took part in the play were John and Harold Jameson, Robert Archer, Herbert Hilton, and Lawrence Donovan. The play was followed by a dance. The guests at the house-party included the Misses Ida and I am not quite sure that this is real. I'm afraid I shall get the swell head and explode ! Whoever thought we should get into a real newspaper! CHAPTER XVI Sunday, May 21. Hal and I have decided to write a play! We don't know yet what it will be about, but we think we will take "King Arthur's Round Table" or "Robin Hood and His Merry Men" for a subject. Either will be easier than making up a story out of our own heads. The chief trouble is that for either one we would need more people than we have. There were so many knights of King Arthur's court, not to mention ladies, that we would have to make all the kids in town into Barnstormers to take the parts. And the same thing is true of Robin Hood's men. There are too many of them. It would spoil the Barnstormers if we took in a mess of new members. Of course Hal and John and Larry and I would want to nm things, which we would have a perfect right to do, having started the Barnstormers; and of course the new mem- 2ZO THE BARNSTORMERS 211 bers would want to run things, too, and there would be fights. It would be just like it was the summer we had a fort in the Jamesons' back yard and called it "New France." We had a governor and colo- nists, and some of us played we were Indians who wanted to drive the palefaces back to the land of the rising sun. Sometimes one boy would be a whole tribe of Indians and scalp colonists when they went to work in their gardens at the edge of the deep woods. We had a house made out of old matting tacked to a frame of poles which was the shelter for all of us inside the fort. Then in the far comer of the yard we had a wigwam where the tribe of Indians Uved. It was all great sport. Hal, and John, and Larry, and myself, and Sarah and EUzabeth Jameson started it. We didn't have girls right at first, but we decided we would have to have some if we had a regular col- ony. So we had a ship-load come over and we bought 'em, just like they did that time at James- town. Well, after "New France " was a sure thing and we had put a brick furnace inside the matting house (it smoked, but that didn't matter, for we 212 THE BARNSTORMERS felt we must have modern conveniences) — after all this had been done, Cribby McCormack, and Jimmy Ames, and some girls came around and wanted to be new colonists. We pretended they came over in a ship from France, and we wel- comed them by firing a salute of one firecracker, and generally did the thing up right. But they busted up the whole colony. That very day they had a revolution, like those they have in South America, and tried to put Cribby in as governor. There was a sham fight, which got to be a real one, and Larry knocked in one of Cribby's teeth, and everybody went home mad, and everybody's fathers and mothers said they didn't know what children were coming to, because there weren't any such goings-on when they were kids. Well, to return to the play. We don't know quite how to go about writing a play, but we think that if we try hard enough maybe we can write one. We want it to be full of fine language and thriUing deeds, and have the hero and the heroine brought together in the end to five happy ever after. We want to make it about as long as "The Captive of Castile." I expect Hal will have THE BARNSTORMERS 213 to do most of the writing, since he can use bigger words than I can. He has read more, too, which helps your imagination. We have been reading some plays this week to see how they are put together. We read "Mac- beth/' because of the witches, and liked it very much. Then we got another play at the Ubrary, called "Hedda Gabler,'' which was by a man named Ibsen. We thought it was stupid, and couldn't understand it at all, but the Kbrarian, who is a young lady with puffs, said we ought to like the play because Ibsen was quite fashionable now. Anyway, we didn't, which I suppose wasn't Ibsen's fault, but ours. "Macbeth" is all divided up into scenes — too many for us. We will have to write our play more like the "Comic Tragedies," which have about eight scenes for a whole play. We want a witch in it, because witches' caves make such a hit with the audience. And we want a priest, because when we had Hernando^s cell in "The Captive of Castile" that was the best part of the whole play. I don't see how we can get a witch's cave and 214 THE BARNSTORMERS a priest's cell into the story of either King Arthur or Robin Hood; but Hal says there is always a way. As soon as we decide on our story we are go- ing to begin writing the play. As I said, we don't know how plays are written, but we want to write one, so we are going to make a try at it. We were talking about play writing yesterday, and we de- cided that when we wrote ours we would take turn about as different characters and act out the play, making up the speeches as we went along. Then afterward we could write them off as we remembered them. That is, we would have a pretend show first and write that up into a real one afterward. That may not be the best way to write a play, but we are going to try it out and see how it works. Thursday, May 25. Hal and I have given up both King Arthur and Robin Hood and made up a plot of our own for our play. The hero is something Hke Robin Hood, because he is an outlaw and a very brave man. The play is all to happen in a great THE BARNSTORMERS 215 forest, like Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood lived. The heroine is the daughter of an English lord, who is the outlaw's enemy and is planning to capture him and have him hung. We thought first about having her a gypsy girl, but we de- cided a lord's daughter gave more tone to the play, and since we could have her one just as easy as the other, why, it's a lord's daughter she is to be. We haven't named her yet, but we think Rosalind sounds quite fitting. "The Lady Rosalind" has a very romantic sound to it and will make a nice fine in the play every time it has to be said. Her father is to be called Lord Graf- ton de Vere. The outlaw isn't named yet. We have talked of several names for him, but we haven't found one yet. "John of the Forest" soimds too plain, and wouldn't do, since the John in our company is to play the part. We have thought about "The Red Ranger," and if we take that for his name we will have him dress all in red. Then his first name could be Rupert — which is a nice name and goes well with Rosalind, The trouble with "Rupert the Red Ranger," is that it sounds like the title to a penny dreadful. " Red 2i6 THE BARNSTORMERS Roland" might do, or "Red Rudolph" — except that the last one sounds too Dutch. I think, though, that we want a "Red" before it and want it to begin with R. Calling the hero "Red" gives us such a good chance to dress him up in a new style. The plot is not very well worked out yet, but we are certain about a few things. Lady Rosa- lindas father, Lord Crafton de Vere, is to be the outlaw's worst enemy and always seeking to have him hung. This is because the outlaw knows the deep secret of Lord Grafton's life. There is an old priest who knows still more about this secret; he is the outlaw's friend. Then Jglma, a druid witch and priestess, — some name! — is leagued with Lord Crafton, who gives her gold for poisons and charms. Lord Crafton tries to make Lady Rosalind wed an old man who has a great deal of money, but she refuses, and escapes to the forest, to her out- law lover, disguised as a boy. Lord Crafton comes after her, and in the fight is slain. Then Rosalind is torn 'twixt love and duty. How can she wed her father's slayer? In her dis- THE BARNSTORMERS 217 tress she seeks the cell of Friar Joseph, an old priest, and to him lays bare her heart. But, as I said before, the priest knows the secret of the dead Lord Crafton^s Hfe. "Know, daughter, ^^ he says, "Lord Crafton was not thy father. True, thou art a de Vere, but he whom thou hast called father was in reaHty a cousin of your father. While yet you were a babe in arms, Lord Crafton waged war upon your father, Gerald de Vere, burned his castle to the ground, and put all to the sword but you, a babe of seven months." So Rosalind can marry her outlaw lover, after all, and everything ends happily. I think that will make a very thrilUng play, and I am glad I can wear boy's clothes for once, even though I am supposed to be a girl dressed up. Sunday, May 28. The play is coming along. We have done two scenes and hope to write two more this week. We are very well pleased with the two scenes already finished, for they are most romantic and soimd very fine. 2i8 THE BARNSTORMERS We have decided to call the hero "Rupert the Red Ranger/' after all, and make that the name of the play, too. It do^s sound a bit Uke the ti- tle of a penny dreadful, but that doesn't matter. It will look very good on the bills. In the first scene Rosalind is waiting for Rupert the Red Ranger, They have planned a meeting in the garden, for they dare not meet other than in secret because of the cruel wickedness of Lord Crafton de Vere, Rosalind's father. Rosalind is seated in the garden wishing that Rupert would come, when a peddler enters and offers her his wares. She tells him she does not care for the things he has; that she fain would be in the greenwood where his laces and jewels would be of little use. Then the peddler says how he thinks she must be in love, and she says yes, she is; and he wants to know if the man is worthy of so fair a flower, and she tells him that her lover is the finest man that ever Hved. She ends up by saying that she wishes he were there before her now. And then Rupert, who was the peddler all the time, throws off his disguise and stands before her. THE BARNSTORMERS 219 Then they have a mushy love-scene which we wrote to sound just Hke those in the *' Comic Tragedies." We would have Uked to leave that part out, but you just can't have a play without a lot of that sort of slush in it. Your audience won't stand for it being left out. Rosalind and Rupert are interrupted by Lord Crafton de Vere, The old man has a regular je- whimminy-fit when he finds Rupert there in his garden making love to his daughter. He draws his sword and is going to slay Rupert on the spot, but he does not reckon on his man. In the fight that follows, Rupert disarms Lord Crafton and could have killed him very easily, only he is too noble to slay a defenceless man. So he just tells the old boy to keep his mouth shut and not dare call for help or he'll run him through. Then he bids Rosalind farewell and goes. Lord Crafton is mad as a wet hen. He drags Rosalind off and swears that he will see her mar- ried to old Lord Grogermere, of Grogermere Hall, the very next day. The second scene is quite as thrilling as a wild- west film at a moving-picture show. Rosalind 220 THE BARNSTORMERS proves herself to be the bravest of the brave. Hal and I are very proud of her. The scene is Rosalind's chamber, which has a balcony at the back like Bianca^s chamber had. The time is the day following Scene One. Rosalind has sent word to Rupert that her father is forcing her to wed Lord Grogermere and that he must save her at once. She fears he has not gotten the message, for it is almost time for the wedding, and still there has come no word from Rupert. But all at once an arrow comes flying into the room. Fastened to it is a silken cord and a note. Rupert has shot the arrow! The note tells her to draw in the cord until she comes to a rope which is fastened to it; then to draw in the rope until she secures a package which contains a disguise for her and the end of a rope ladder which she is to fasten to the balcony and use as a means of escape. Rosalind does as she is told. First comes the rope, which she draws in until she comes to the package. She stops to open that, and finds that the disguise is a suit of red just like that Red Ru- pert himself wears. She is to escape disguised as THE BARNSTORMERS 221 a boy! Then she pulls up the rope ladder and fastens it to the balcony. And it is none too soon, for a knock comes at the door. Lord Crafton de Vere and Lord Grogermere enter. They have come to take Rosalind to the church where she is to marry Lord Grogermere. Rosalind tells them she is not yet ready — they must give her time to dress. So she goes into her bedroom. Lord Crafton de Vere and Lord Grogermere have a scrap about how much Lord Grogermere is to pay for Rosalind. Crafton finally makes Grogermere agree to three thousand ducats. Then Rosalind calls to her father and tells him to go get her jewels from the tower where they are kept. As soon as he is gone she slips out, unseen by Grogermere, and before he knows what has hap- pened has tied him to his chair. Then she escapes by the rope ladder and joins Rupert. Meanwhile Lord Grogermere is calling for help, and Lord Craf- ton hears him and returns. When he discovers Rosalindas flight, Crafton is pretty much upset. But he and Grogermere vow to capture her and wreak a deep revenge on Rupert the Red Ranger. We have changed the plot quite a Httle from 222 THE BARNSTORMERS the way we doped it out at first. The next scene is to be the cell of Friar Joseph, a priest. We are going to have the wedding take place there. Hal and I think that will be quite a stunt — a wedding as part of the play. I've been to one wedding, my cousin Elsie's, and Hal has been to two; so we think we can remember enough about how those were done to fix up a wedding scene in the play. School will be out for the summer vacation this week! Friday! We are getting ready now for our commencement, which comes Friday night. We have been rehearsing our parts for a month. Neither Hal, nor Larry, nor myself have any- thing to do except sing in the chorus. Brander Edgecomb is the only one who has to speak. He is a thing you call a "valedictorian,'' which is quite as bad as it sounds. He has written his own speech, with teacher's help. It's about "What the Future Holds." We have kidded him about it, but he doesn't care. He's awful smart. He's going to be a lawyer, Hke his father, and keep people who should go to the penitentiary from having to do it. Besides Brander's speech, Mary Wallace is to THE BARNSTORMERS 223 play a violin solo, and Ella Andrews is to play a piece on the piano, and we are all going to sing "Sweet and Low," and "The Stars and Stripes Forever." To-night we have what you call the "Bacca- laureate." (I know that's spelled right, because I've spelled it five times and looked it up in the dictionary.) Larry calls it the "Tobacco-laure- ate." It's a sermon. I don't like sermons. But we have to go. The Methodist preacher, who has a long neck and a big Adam's apple, is going to do the preaching. I know I'll have to watch his Adam's apple all the time. It jumps up and down in the funniest way. Makes me think of a tin monkey I had once that climbed a string! After the sermon we all have to sing a hynm, after which we get to go home. The "Baccalau- reate" is to be in Masonic Hall. All who are being graduated are to sit up in front on the plat- form. And that makes me think! I can't see Rever- end Jimson's Adam's apple, either, because his back will be toward us all the time! CHAPTER XVII Sunday, June 4. I am now graduated from the eighth grade. Next fall I will start in high school. I can hardly beUeve it is all true, and I feel very old and grown up. Friday night we had our commencement. It was what the newspaper calls a "great occasion. *' For myself, I would just as soon have had the whole thing left out, and been passed on to high school without all the fuss and feathers. But the girls and our fathers and mothers would never have been satisfied without commencement ex- ercises. Some of those who graduated from the eighth grade with me will not go into high school next year, but to work, and so this is the only commencement they will ever have. That seems queer! I am just half through going to school, for I have four years of high school and four years of college ahead of me, while John Stearns and 224 THE BARNSTORMERS 225 Betty Proctor and several others are through going to school now. Commencement was in the Masonic Hall. It started at seven-thirty and lasted two hours. First, we all met in a Httle room that opens off the back corridor of the assembly hall and waited there until the time came to march in. We had practised getting up to the stage several times that afternoon; so we weren't trying it for the first time. At seven-thirty-five, by my new watch, which father gave me for a graduating present, the high-school orchestra began to play. Teacher Uned us up ready, and we counted ^^left, right" several times and were off. Ella Aherns and I were the first ones, because our names begin with A. I wished then that my name was Zaring! Ella was all fluffy ruffles and pink hair ribbons. I had on my new serge suit. (It should have been long pants, because I am quite taU enough for them, but it isn't. It is just a knicker suit like those I have always worn.) Ella and I went quite slowly, keeping perfect step, and doing our best to keep time with the music, which wasn't very smooth, but went fast 226 THE BARNSTORMERS one minute, and slow the next. It wasn't easy to lead the procession up that aisle with everybody looking at us as if we were a bride and groom marching up a church aisle. I know now just how it feels to get married. You have an all-gone feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you hope your legs will keep on moving, but you doubt it, because they feel like they might get cramps be- fore they carried you the rest of the way up the long, long aisle. But Ella and I did get up to that platform at last. When we came to it we turned, one to the left and one to the right, going up the steps at either side. We met then and stood up before the two middle seats of the front row. After every one else had marched up we all sat down. Then the Reverend Jimson prayed for our "young souls,'' and we had some more music. After that Brander Edgecomb gave his valedic- tory about "What the Future Holds." He was terribly scared, and his voice sounded as small as "the still, small voice" Reverend Jimson talked about in the Baccalaureate sermon. But it got a little louder, and Brander did pretty well be- THE BARNSTORMERS 227 fore he came to the grand finish. The end was very flowery, and sounded just Hke the speeches his father gives on Decoration Day and Fourth of July. He used very fine language, most of which none of us understood. I don't think he understood it himself. We had some other stunts, and then the super- intendent of the city schools, Mr. Hanson, gave a talk, and handed out our diplomas, which were tied with blue and white ribbon. After that everybody shook hands with everybody else and everybody else's fathers and mothers and broth- ers and sisters and cousins, and then we all went home. I was glad when it was over. That pesky commencement made it impossible for Hal and me to do anything to "Rupert the Red Ranger," but now we will have all sorts of time, and can be real dramatists. We have fitted up a study in the Bamville, where we are going to do our writing. We have a dictionary, pens, ink, and paper, and a desk made out of a packing-box. To-morrow we begin work. 228 THE BARNSTORMERS Friday, June 9. "Rupert the Red Ranger" is really becoming a play. It is very thrilling, and quite poetic. I am writing this in the Barnville at our dra- matic desk. The other day I brought down the old ledger in which I have been keeping this record of the Barnstormers. I have a little niche under the eaves where I hide it. I have been keeping the book under the window-seat in my room, but I was always afraid some one would find it there. Here it is safe. No one, not even Hal, knows I have been keeping a record of the Barnstormers. It would be most embarrassing to have any one read it. I am sorry now that I didn't have a better book when I started the record. This old ledger is very heavy and cumbersome, and then I'm always having to cut out pages that have been used, and scratch out lines that spoil pages which are perfectly good otherwise. Hal left just before I began to write. We have been working on "Rupert" all afternoon, and have just finished the fourth scene. It's dread- fully hot up here, and we had to shed most of our clothes in order to stand the heat. But we can't THE BARNSTORMERS 229 sit out under the apple-tree in the garden, be- cause the ants and mosquitoes bite us, and there's a partly tame snake that is apt to spoil the most thriUing part of our writing by suddenly crawling over our bare legs. This is our study, and here we will write until we melt. "Rupert'' isn't like we planned it at all. We discovered a more thrilling way to finish it than that we had at first. And Jglma, the witch, has much more to do than before. The fifth and seventh scenes are to be in her cave and the third and sixth in Friar JosepKs cell. That makes two cave scenes and two cell scenes! The play is sure to be a great success. And we have changed the name of Rosalind and her father to Vere de VerCj because, it's a much finer-sound- ing name than just de Vere. In the third scene Rupert and Rosalind come to Friar Joseph to be married. The old Friar is quite surprised when Rupert brings Rosalind in and he sees what he thinks is a boy. He says: "What? — methought thou saidst a bride — and here I see only a pretty boy — such a page, truly, as well might serve a queen." 230 THE BARNSTORMERS Then Rosalind speaks up. "Oh, father, forgive me," she says. "But 't is I who am the bride. To escape my cruel father I fled thus disguised. Here soon I hope to put on my woman's garments and as my dear Ruperfs wife make a home in these forest glades. But for the present you must take me as I am." The Friar tells Rosalind he is proud of her courage and bravery and that he will be happy to perform the ceremony that will make her Ru- perfs wife. So she and Rupert are married and leave to seek out their forest home. The fourth scene is in the forest. Rupert and Rosalind are on their way to join Ruperfs fol- lowers. Rosalind is very tired, for they have come a long way since she fled from her father's castle. So she decides to he down and rest while Rupert goes to Ught the signal-fire that will tell his men they are coming. He leaves her, and she goes to sleep. Lord Crafton and Lord Grogermere come in. They cannot see Rosalind, for she is concealed by some bushes. They have become separated from their guard and are wandering about in the forest trying to find a way out. Old' Grogermere is so THE BARNSTORMERS 231 badly scared that he hasn't any sense left. He is afraid some of Ruperfs men will capture him and make him their prisoner. He and Crafton talk about what is the best way for them to es- cape from the forest, and finally make up their minds to go to old Jglma and get her aid. So they start, but before they have gone far they stumble over the sleeping Rosalind. Grogermere thinks he's lost for sure because he doesn't rec- ognize Rosalind, But Crafton knows his daugh- ter and he binds her fast before she can awake. When Rosalind comes to her senses and finds that she is a captive, and that her father and Grogermere are the captors, she is quite upset. She tells them that Rupert will have revenge upon them. Then the crafty Crafton makes up a wicked lie to suit the occasion, and tells Rosalind that he has slain Rupert and that the revenge of which she speaks will never be taken. Rosalind is broken-hearted. Crafton and Grogermere drag her off toward Jglma's cave. Then Rupert^s voice is heard singing a love- song. He enters, looking for Rosalind, He finds her gone, and the signs of a struggle. "Gone! 232 THE BARNSTORMERS Gone!'' he cries. "Do my eyes deceive me? Nay! There has been a struggle. 'T is her father and old Grogermere have done this deed.'' (He blows three times on his pipe.) "Now come, my men! We will win the lady back and punish her rash captors! RosaUnd! Rosalind!" Wednesday, June 14. "Rupert the Red- Ranger" is now a play. We have finished it. But Hal and I didn't do it all. John wrote the witch scenes for himself, because he thought he could do them better than we and because he became interested in the play and wanted to have a hand in it. The play is quite as long as any of those we have given, and sounds very much like them, too. We think it's better in some ways, though. It is more thriUing, and thrills are what you want in plays nowadays. Then the witch's cave scenes are written in poetry, which gives a higher tone to the whole play and is Kke Shakespeare. The fifth scene is the first of the two cave scenes. It is quite a thriller, but not equal to the seventh, where Jglma^s power is broken. THE BARNSTORMERS 233 Hal and I planned these scenes and John did most of the writing. When the curtain rises on the fifth scene, Jglma is bending over her caldron mixing up a spell. She puts all sorts of things into the "pot of boil- ing blood," including "a wicked Ue, nipped in the bud," "the wriggling wiggles of a typhoid germ," and a "hangman's smile." She cools the whole mess with poison rank, and has just finished this when the fire's blaze tells her that something evil comes that way, but worse — for her — that a per- son who is innocent and brave and true is also coming to her cave. This terrifies the old witch and she cries out: "Haste! Haste ye devils! Come and aid me quick. For goodness breaks my power and makes me sick!" Then some one knocks and asks to be let into the cave. It is Crafton with Lord Grogermere and Rosalind, Jglma knows Lord Crafton of old, so she lets him in. Rosalind has pulled herself to- 234 THE BARNSTORMERS gether, for now she knows Rupert is not dead, having heard his song in the distance as her father dragged her off. Crafton tells Jglma he wishes her to work a charm on Rosalind that will make her forget Ru- pert and love Grogermere. Rosalind defies them to do their worst and says she will never love any one but Rupert. Jglma is a bit upset herself, as you may see from her next speech: "Ha! — ^Rupert! I do fear that man! 'T was long ago foretold that when my power Broke, and I faced my last stem reckoning hour, And all my magic from me far had fled, Vengeance would come upon me clad in red!" But, in spite of her fears, Jglma decides to do her worst. She goes to the caldron and dips her fingers into it, scattering the drops of its vile liquid in a circle about Rosalind. She mutters some charm as she does this. The spell works, for Rosalind is bound fast. Jglma tells her she shall never move from that charmed circle till she leaves it as Grogermere^ s bride. Rosalind says THE BARNSTORMERS 235 she will never leave it then until death releases her. Then Jglma tries a new plan and puts Ro- sdind to sleep. As our heroine falls unconscious, the vile witch cries out: "Ha! ha! Morpheus' bride thou art, And slumbering, mine to use will be thy heart!" In the sixth scene Rupert goes to Friar Joseph to learn how he may rescue Rosalind from Jglma^s power. It is very lucky he goes to Friar Joseph^ for the old priest knows the very trick that will put Jglma out of business. He has heard from the old hermit who lived in his cell before he came to it that Jglma^s power is in the great oak-tree before her cave, and that as long as it Hves she will live, but that when it dies she will die and her power will cease to be. That is all the cue Rupert needs. Off he hastens to gather his men and attack the ancient oak. Meanwhile, poor Rosalind still sleeps, and the wicked Jglma works her vile magic to turn the trusting maiden's love to the ancient Grogermere, She has completed her spell, and nothing now 236 THE BARNSTORMERS remains but for Lord Grogermere to wake Rosa- lind and make her his. The charm has been so worked that whoever she first looks on upon awakening, him will she love. But old Groger- mere is scared 'most out of his senses by the things that have been happening in Jglma^s cave, and, being a coward by nature, he hasn't wits enough left to wake Rosalind and complete the charm. Old Jglma is clear out of patience with him for his cowardly delay. She finally gets him to the place where he is to say: "Wake, lady, wake to be all mine!" This is to be repeated three times. Grogermere says it once, when the blows of an axe are heard. Jglma lets out a wild scream. They have begun to chop down her tree! In vain she implores the powers of evil to help her. The blows strike deeper into the oak, and each blow strikes into the witch's heart. At last they have cut far into the tree and it is ready to fall. Jglma sees her finish and cries out: "The end hath come! The end! I die!— I die! Ha! ha! Ye heavens, split with my last cry! Ha—! Ha—! Ha—!" THE BARNSTORMERS 237 She rushes off, screaming wildly. There is a crash. The fire beneath the caldron goes out. The cave is in complete darkness. Crafton and Grogermere flee from it. Without is the sound of fighting. Then silence. And then about the head of the sleeping Rosalind appears a halo of light. Rupert, sword in hand, rushes in. He finds Rosalinda but he cannot move her from the spot where she lies. He takes from his leather pouch a flask of holy water. This was given him by Friar Joseph to use in breaking up any charms that might be of bother in the cave. Rupert drops three drops into the caldron. There is an explo- sion. "Ha!" cries Rupert, "The power of that vile hatchery of wickedness is o'er." Then he sprinkles the remaining drops about Rosalind, That breaks the charm, and she awakes to find herself in Ruperfs arms. The last scene, the eighth, is a forest glade, where Rosalind and Rupert hold court. Rosalind is herself once more, clad in garments that become the wife of Rupert. Word is brought to them of the prisoners. Lord Crafton and Lord Grogermere, by John of Ardmore, one of Ruperfs men. Craf- 238 THE BARNSTORMERS ton, so John says, is brave, but Grogermere is the biggest coward on record. Rosalind begs Rupert to be kind to her father, and he tells her that the prisoners are hers to do with as she pleases. So John is sent to bring the two lords in before them, and while they are wait- ing for him to come back they decide to send both Crafton and Grogermere back to their homes. But John does not return. Friar Joseph com- ing in his place. The worthy friar has a long story to tell. He says Lord Crafton bid him come to him, and when he entered the place where the prisoners were confined he found Crafton stretched on his cot, with his face strangely drawn. Then to the friar Lord Crafton told his tale. He was not Rosalindas father, but a cousin of her father. While yet she was a babe, he had raided her father's castle, burned it, and put all to the sword but herself. He took her to his own castle and brought her up as his daughter. "But,'' says Friar Joseph, "he repented him of his cruelty, and as death stole the breath from out him " "Death!" says Rosalind. "Say ye death?'' "Death, my child," says the friar, "for he THE BARNSTORMERS 239 wished it, and a phial of poison which he had with him brought painless death." Then Friar Joseph goes on to tell how Crafton begged that Rosalind forgive him, and left to her all that he died possessed of. At last, to make all happy for Rupert and Rosa- lind, a messenger comes from the king, granting Rupert forgiveness and restoring him to his lands. And then the play ends. Rupert says: " But ever here, within these forest glades, Will be my best-loved seat. Here shall I bide, And here erect a castle for my bride. Now Heaven be thanked that sees this happy day. When justice, love, and mercy end our play! " CHAPTER XVIII Sunday, July 9. It has been a long time since I have written in my Barnstormer record. But now that "Rupert the Red Ranger" is over, I have very little to do; in fact, I have more time than anything else. I am afraid "Rupert" will be our last show this summer. Here I had looked forward to the Barnstormers giving five or six shows anyway, and now — ^now it seems like the whole thing is over. That is what brought me back to this record, I guess; I wanted to tell somebody about how badly I felt, and I didn't have any one to tell; so writ- ing my misery down on paper seemed the only way. It's like this. Larry has gone to work as a water boy down at Stephen's quarry. He makes five dollars a week, which is lots of money, and he doesn't really have to work so very hard. John and Hal have gone to spend the rest of va- cation with an aunt who is an old maid and lives THE BARNSTORMERS 241 alone. She wrote to their mother, and wanted some of the children for the summer, and since Hal and John were the only ones old enough to send who weren't too busy to go, why, off they went last Tuesday. They did get to stay over until after we had given "Rupert" but they had to beg hard for that. So here I am — the only Barnstormer left! Of course, Herbert is still here, but he doesn't count hardly, for he is so much younger and wasn't one of the original Barnstormers. The Barnville is the lonesomest place I ever saw; just like a house where folks have died and you are the only one left. I feel 'most like there were ghosts about as I sit here at our "dramatic desk," writing away in my record. I can hear old Ber- nardo rumbling out his lines, and Ernest saying high and noble speeches, and Selim telling Zara she may have the keys to the donjon. And then there is the ill-fated Adelbert, d3dng of the poisoned wine, and Huon, his slayer, and old Hilda, with her high, cracked voice. And last of all — Rupert the Red Ranger, and Lord Crafton, and Lord Grog- ermere, and Jglma, and Friar Joseph. Woo-0-0! 242 THE BARNSTORMERS It's a spooky place! But I like those ghosts — they are friendly ghosts of parts we all Uked and knew 'most as if they were real people. Before I go any further, I must tell about "Rupert the Red Ranger" and what a great success it was. We gave it last Monday night. It was the biggest, best play yet — even if I did help write it — ^and it made the biggest hit. That is something to remember, if "Rupert" is to be our last play. We made an outdoor theatre which was better than we had hoped, and which people Uked ever so much, too. We certainly did fix it up in style. It looked "classy," as John said, and I think that is the word to describe it. We found that we couldn't move the seats down from up-stairs without quite wrecking the Bamville, so we rented fifty of those folding chairs they use at funerals. Mr. Bury, the undertaker, let us have them, because no one was dead, and he didn't need them that day. They cost us two dollars; and because of that we had to charge ten cents admission to the show. But people paid it, for they like our shows so well they THE BARNSTORMERS 243 don't grumble about the price. We had a string of Jap lanterns hung outside to give Ught enough for the audience to see the way to their seats. The yard in front of the carriage house slopes down just enough to make each row of seats a little higher than the one in front of it, like seats are in a theatre. We put sawdust on the ground to make it look neat and clean. Making a stage in the carriage house wasn't such a great deal of work. We moved down the curtain, the back drop, the wings, and the green room scene. For the forest settings we used green branches, just as we had always done before. Jglma's cave was about the only new setting for the play. But that was a corker, all right! It was lots of work to get fixed, but we didn't mind that. Hal thought of how we could make the setting, and as soon as he told us of his plan we knew it was exactly the thing to do. Jglma^s cave is different from the one we had in "Bianca," for that was just a cave entrance, while this was supposed to be the whole inside of the cave. We wanted it to look Hke a rocky cavern — like the Httle cave on the hillside at 244 THE BARNSTORMERS Leonard's Springs picnic grounds. We wanted it low around the sides and high in the middle, with bumpy, irregular places, and those stalactite things hanging down. But how could we do it? That was a big question. And Hal found the way. He and John have a tent ten by ten feet that they used to have for camping. It leaks now, so it isn't much good for camping trips any more. But the idea came to Hal that it would be just the thing to use for a cave, and when he told us of his plan, we saw it was a first-rate one, and we all fell for it on the double-quick. What we did was to fasten a rope to the cen- tre of the top, and several other ropes to other parts of the roof of the thing. These we tied to the beams above, and they held it up, but let it hang unevenly, like the roof of a cave. The sides, all but the front one, were fastened down here and there to make them stay. When we weren't using the setting, we loosened the sides and laid the whole tent up over a beam out of the way. But when it was all fastened down, and the floor was covered with the old tarpaulin, made bumpy by things stuffed under it; and when the caldron, 'JGLMA S" CAVE WAS ABOUT THE ONLY NEW SETTING FOR THE PLAY. IT WAS LOTS OF WORK TO GET FIXED, BUT WE didn't mind that THE BARNSTORMERS 245 with its red fire, was in the centre of the stage, the effect was great. The only light came from that red fire under the caldron, and from the spot- light, which had a red glass sHde over it and was fixed on the caldron itself. The scene was the best we have had yet. We acted our parts better in "Rupert" than we have done in the other plays. Now that we have had so much experience, we are getting to be 'most professional actors. And then, too, we knew it was our last play for a long time — maybe forever! — and we went into it for all we were worth. That scene where Jglma^s power is broken — dad says it is the "cHmax" of the play — ^was our high-water mark. John as Jglma was great. He fairly scared me when the first blow of the axe soimded and he let out that awful screech. When he finally rushed off screaming, and the tree fell, it was the most thrilling thing you could imagine. Herbert had to manage all those noises, but he certainly did do them as they should have been done. For the axe blows he chopped at a big piece of wood, and when the tree was supposed 246 THE BARNSTORMERS to fall he threw ofif a lot of heavy things from the top of an old box where oats used to be kept. Then, while John was out hurriedly changing from Jglma to Ruperty the two of them made all sorts of unearthly noises. When Hal and Larry joined them the noises grew worse, and then came quiet as the spot-light fell on Rosalind^ lying in a death- like sleep, while Rupert gazed spellboimd at her from the entrance to the cave. I don't need to say much about the other scenes, though they certainly did please people, for they all worked out well. Mrs. MacAnnaly was at the play, and she just bragged on us. And now it is all over! I can't believe it as I sit here at the desk where Hal and I worked on "Rupert." The stage of the Bamville is all j&xed up again, and I have swept it and made it look so nice. It seems as though Hal and John and Larry should be coming up the stairs to a re- hearsal — and here Hal and John are clear off in a little town in New York and Larry is down at the quarry carrying water. I wish I had a job! I've got it! I will have! I'll write some plays for us to give when Hal and John come back THE BARNSTORMERS 247 home and Larry's job is through. 1*11 start at once and write a whole book of plays just like the "Comic Tragedies." I know how now. And then the time will go so quickly that before I know it we will be back in school again, and we can give plays — ^my plays! — all winter. Why didn't I think of it before? But I'll not lose any time. I'm in for beginning right off! What will I call them — ? Let me see. Ah — "Barnstorming Tragedies!" Hurrah! Here goes! The End RUPERT THE RED RANGER A BARNSTORMING TRAGEDY BY "BOB" CHARACTERS Rupert the Red Ranger, an otUlaw, Lord Crapton Vere de Vere. Lord Grogermere, of Grogermere Hall, Friar Joseph, a hermit. John of Ardmore, one of Ruperfs men. Lady Rosalind Vere de Vere, Lord Grafton's daughter. Jglma, a druid priestess and witch. A messenger from the King. RUPERT THE RED RANGER Scene I A garden. When the curtain rises, Rosalind is discovered seated on a rustic bench, Rosalind. Oh, why does he not come? I grow impatient waiting here. Each moment without him seems an age, and when we are together time flies so I know not where it goes. Oh, Rupert, Rupert! How I love thee! And yet thou art an outlaw! But if an outlaw, still a noble man, brave, true, and generous, giving thy booty to the worthy poor and aiding all those who suffer and are in distress. Come, dear Rupert, come! The moments are like hours. Hist! Some one ap- proaches! Perhaps 'tis he! Enter Rupert disguised as a peddler, Rupert. Ha, fairest lady, are ye not she whom men call Lady Rosalind Vere de Vere? 251 252 THE BARNSTORMERS Rosalind. The same, sir. And what would ye? Rupert. [Opening his pack] Here, my sweet lady, are gems and silks, perfumes and spices — luxuries quite fit for one so fair as thou. Will ye not look, my lady? Rosalind. Ah, sir, I have no desire for such bawbles. Fain would I be in the sweet greenwood, where jewels and silks are of but Httle use and nature herself furnishes the perfumes. My heart, good peddler, is set on other things. Rupert. Ah, lady, I have guessed it! You are in love. Rosalind. How knew ye that, my man? But sooth, ye speak true. Though why I should admit it to you is beyond me. Rupert. Your very look doth tell you are in love. And is he brave and noble — ^fitting the de- votion of one so fair and true as thou? Rosalind. Ah, stranger, he is the noblest man who ever lived. He is brave, he is strong, he is true. We love each other very much. Ah, that I might only see him now! Rupert. [Removing disguise] Look, dearest lady, here he stands before thee! THE BARNSTORMERS 253 Rosalind. Rupert! Ah, thou hast given me such a fright! I thought thou wouldst never come. But why this strange disguise? Would you test my love by your fooHsh questions? Rupert. Nay, lady, nay. I doubt not thy love and devotion. But a man with a price upon his head may not come and go as he Hst. Tis a time of danger for me. Were I to come hither known to all men as Rupert the Red Ranger by my scarlet suit, my Hfe would not be worth a battered farthing and our love might all too soon be brought to a bitter end. Ere long we must fly together, dearest Rosalind, and in our forest glades find happiness and safety. Father Joseph, the hermit, will wed us, and once deep in the track- less forest, we will forget the trials that have beset our love and Hve but for each other. Rosalind. Andmay that time soon come! My father grows more impatient every day to bring about my marriage with old Lord Grogermere. My father is in great need of money, and Lord Grogermere hath offered a goodly sum to buy me for his wife. Rupert. The wretches! And your father 254 THE BARNSTORMERS would wed you to that ancient coward when he knows that your love is another^s? Rosalind. Blame him not. He is in great need. But though I have always obeyed him, in this must I disobey. I will not be sold. Rupert. You do no wrong in disobeying, dear- est Rosalind. Your love is your own to bestow. It cannot be bought and sold. It is a sacred thing, and I to whom it hath been given shall cherish it as a gift of Heaven. Rosalind. And when, dear Rupert, shall we take our flight together? Rupert. Soon, dear Rosalind. A few days, per- haps. I must first make ready a place for my bride. Rosalind. Dost thou not know that what serves thee would serve me? That whatever shelter your greenwood offers, I would ask noth- ing better? Rupert. Only a few days Rosalind. But I am afraid, Rupert. My fa- ther will stop at nothing to bring about this wed- ding with Lord Grogermere. Should he decide to force me into it some time when you were far distant THE BARNSTORMERS 255 Rupert. Fear not, dear one, you shall never be another's. Lord Crafton parts hushes and observes pair. Rosalind. But I do fear, dear Rupert. The thought that I should lose you is torture. The thought that I might be another's Crafton. [Coming forward] Odd's hfe! What have we here! Wretch, you shall hang for this! Get thee into the castle, girl, and leave me to settle with this villain. Rupert draws sword. Rosalind. I will not go! Crafton. What? Thou wouldst defy me? An- other song wilt thou sing when this wretch's body swings from the gibbet where the bodies of all such villains belong. Rupert. Yes, when, my lord! Crafton. Impudent villain! [Draws sword] Hence, out of my garden. What ho! Garford, William, John — ^where are the knaves! Rupert. [Disarms him] Another word and ye die! Crafton. [Glares at him in baffled rage] B-r-r- r-r-r! 256 THE BARNSTORMERS Rupert. [Embraces Rosalind] Fear not, dear lady. Should ye need me, send word by some trusted messenger. Adieu, dearest love. Rosalind. Farewell! And if I need thee thou wilt come? Rupert. Though a thousand deaths stood between! Adieu — I go, but soon we will meet again! Exit Rupert. Crafton. B-r-r-r-r-r! I shall put an end to this, girl! To hold secret meetings with an outr law! It is unthinkable! But I shall put an end to it! To-morrow you wed Lord Grogermere! Rosalind. Oh, father! — ^To-morrow? Crafton. Yes, to-morrow! I am weary of this nonsense. Grogermere can give you all that heart could desire — and at the same time repair my shattered fortunes. Come, why do you object? Rosalind. Oh, father, have pity on me! I do not love him. Crafton. Love! Bah! This outlaw again! But come! Into the castle with you, and pre- pare for the wedding. No tears — ^you must be beautiful! THE BARNSTORMERS 257 Rosalind. Oh, Rupert, Rupert! My Red Ran- ger! Come, save me from this dreaded danger! Curtain, Scene II Rosalind's chamber. Balcony at rear. Rosalind. My wedding day! It should be a day of gladness, but I find it one of sorrow. Oh, that Rupert knew! I sent word to him, but I fear me the messenger hath failed to reach him. But if he knows of my present peril, he will not fail to rescue me from it, though a thousand Lord Grogermeres and Craftons oppose him. An arrow, to which is tied a silken thread, is shot into the room through the window opening on rear balcony. Rosalind. [Starting up] What is this? Ah, can it be from him? [Picks up arrow] A silken thread is fastened to it, and here upon the head a note is tied! 'Tis from Rupert! I am saved. Opens note and reads. 258 THE BARNSTORMERS Dear Lady: Draw the silken thread in through your window. To it is fastened a rope. Then draw up the rope till you have secured a package and a rope ladder which are fastened to the end of it. In the pack- age is a disguise for you. Don it and escape by the rope ladder. I wait below in the disguise of a beggar, which I have donned over my suit of red. Make haste. Ever your Rupert. Rosalind. Heaven hath heard my prayers and I am saved! Now let me make haste, for soon my father and that cruel man who would be my husband will knock on the door and call me forth to my wedding. But they shall knock in vain! For she whom they would lead forth to a fate worse than death will be with the man of her choice in the merry greenwood! She draws up the silken cord, the rope, and secures the package and ladder, Rosalind. And now for my disguise! [Opens package, A boy^s suit of scarlet is disclosed] Dis- guise, indeed! But what care I? If that will bring me safely to my Rupert, then shall I fling THE BARNSTORMERS 259 false modesty away, for I must escape this living death that waits me, and gain the love that is my own true right. A knock is heard. Rosalind. They come! Oh, Heaven shield me! Let not all be lost when sweet success is quite within my grasp ! But all will not be lost! I will not yield! Yet will I find a way to win my end and join Rupert there at the base of the castle wall! The knock is heard again, Rosalind. Enter, my lords. Lord Crafton and Lord Grogermere enter, Grogermere. Good morrow, sweet lady. Rosalind. Greetings, my lord. Grafton. Not ready yet, girl? Rosalind. Have patience, father. My tiring- woman hath not yet finished the wedding gown. Remember, this, my wedding, came most unex- pectedly upon us, and to make fit preparation to become the bride of one so noble, so great, and so much to be honored as Lord Grogermere requires time. 26o THE BARNSTORMERS Bows to Lord Grogermere, who is much flattered. Grogermere. No hurry, sweet child. I have waited long, and a few minutes more or less, now, do not matter. Rosalind. Then, my lords, excuse me. I will to my tiring-woman and make haste to prepare myself for the wedding. She exits, having secured the scarlet suit unseen, Grafton. As to the sum we named, my lord, I find it not sufficient for my needs. Three thou- sand ducats is the price of thy bride. Grogermere. Three thousand ducats! Grafton. Not one penny less! Grogermere. You rob me, sir! Grafton. Is not the lady worth three thousand ducats? She is fair. Grogermere. Aye, but there are other maids as fair. Grafton. But not well bom as she. Think twice, my lord, before you dare refuse. Remem- ber, the lady is a noble daughter of the lords of Vere de Vere! THE BARNSTORMERS 261 Grogermere. Three thousand ducats! Grafton. Gome, sign me the paper — she is yours. Refuse, and I will hold her for a higher price. Grogeraiere. I yield. Though know that once she is my wife, all claim you have upon her must quite cease. And should I wish to slay her with my sword, that is my right! Grafton. Quite so, my lord! I yield her to your keeping. But the price — three thousand ducats. Here is the paper — sign. They sit at table and Grogermere signs paper. Grogermere. There! Now yield me up my bride. Rosalind. [From without] A moment, sweet, my lords! My father, pray go to the warden, and bid him bring me here my jewels which are locked safe in the tower. Grafton. I go, dear RosaHnd. Make haste, I beg, and be quite ready when I do return. Await me here. Lord Grogermere. Exit Grafton. Rosalind, hearing a length of rope looped at 262 THE BARNSTORMERS the end, steals in from rear wing. She is dressed as a hoy in the red suit. She throws the loop over Lord Grogermere's head, and before he is aware of what has hap- pened, has tied him to the chair. Grogermere. Thieves, murder, help! What ho! Heigh! What is this? Who art thou with an angel's lovely face and the demeanor of a devil red? Rosalind. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Sweet bridegroom, stay! I would have been thy bride this very day! But other plans prevent our wedding, so I really fear that I will have to go! Adieu! And when we hap to meet again, I hope you'll suffer less chagrin and pain! She disappears over the balcony, Grogermere. Help! Help! I say I'm robbed! Help, thieves! Murder! Fire! Lady Rosalind hath escaped! Three thousand ducats! My duc- ats! My bride! What ho! You villains of Lord Grafton! Come! Lord Grogermere calls! Come! Save me! Save my bride! Save my duc- ats! Help! Help! THE BARNSTORMERS 263 Enter Crafton. Crafton. Ha! What is this? Why all this outcry? What's amiss? What — tied? Grogermere. The bird hath flown. My bride is gone! Crafton. Ha! Red Rupert is at the bottom of this! But come. [Unties hirri] Come! We will have revenge! We'll gather all my men and search the forest till we find thy bride and that red villain who hath led her oJ0F. And not alone on might of men will we lean, but on the power- ful, deep, unknown, unseen. For Jglma, the druid witch and priestess shall aid us with her spells. Come! Let us seek Revenge! Grogermere. Revenge! Crafton. Re\^nge! Curtain, Scene III Friar Joseph's cell. The Friar at prayers before his altar, A knock is heard. Friar. Enter, if ye come in peace. And if ye 264 THE BARNSTORMERS come in war, know that here dwells only a poor man of God, without treasure or wealth, save that which he hath laid up in heaven. Rupert. [Without] Fear not, worthy father. 'Tis I — Rupert the Red Ranger, and I bring my bride thither for you to make us one. Friar. My blessings on thee. Enter! [They come in] What? — Methought thou saidst a bride, and here I see only a pretty boy — such a page, truly, as well might serve a queen. Rosalind. Oh, father, forgive me, but 'tis I who am the bride. To escape my cruel father I fled thus disguised. Here soon I hope to don my woman's garments, and as my dear Rupert's wife make a home in these forest glades. But for the present you must take me as I am. Friar. Welcome, my child, and may Heaven bless thee for thy courage that hath led thee to such brave deeds for the man thou lovest. Rupert. And now, father, we would have thee wed us. Friar. Even so, my children. Kneel thou be- fore me. [He stands by altar. They kneel.] Do thou, Rupert, take this maid to be thy THE BARNSTORMERS 265 wedded wife, to watch over and guard, to love and honor, to care for in health and illness, in happiness and sorrow, and to cherish as thine own till death do you part? Rupert. I do. Friar. And thou, Rosalind, do thou take this man to be thy wedded husband, to honor, love, and obey till death do you part? Rosalind. I do. Rupert. With this ring I thee wed. Puts it on her finger. Friar. What God hath joined, let not man put asunder. I pronounce thee man and wife. Rise, children, and may happiness and peace attend thee in thy path through life. The bless- ings of an old man upon thee. Rupert. Thank thee, father. Rosalind. The rewards of Heaven be thine!* Rupert. Now we must go to seek our rustic shelter, soon, I hope, to be replaced by a home more worthy of my bride. Fare thee well, and my heart's deepest thanks for what thou hast done for us. Rosalind. Farewell, father. 266 THE BARNSTORMERS Friar. Farewell, my children. My prayers and blessings go with thee. Rupert and Rosalind exit. Friar goes to altar ^ where he kneels. Curtain, Scene IV A wood. Enter Rupert and Rosalind. Rupert. And now that we are safe in my own greenwood, and Friar Joseph hath made us one, we need no longer fear. But woe to thy father and old Lord Grogermere should they seek to fol- low us here. Rosalind. But, dear Rupert, remember. Lord Crafton is my father. Though he hath been un- naturally cruel, still do I keep within my heart a daughter's love and respect. Remember, should he fall into our hands, we must not use him too unkindly. Rupert. Yes, dear one. But should he seek to take thee from me, my heart will know no mercy. Now await me here while I go to yonder hilltop THE BARNSTORMERS 267 to light the signal-fire that will let my men know we are within the forest. Rosalind. Oh, Rupert, I am afraid! Should anything happen to take thee from me — or me from thee ! Rupert. Fear not, dear one. Blow thrice upon this pipe should danger threaten, and I will hasten to thy aid. Adieu, my love. Rosalind. Adieu, dear one, and may you come soon back to me. Exit Rupert. Rosalind. Ah, I am weary, for we have come so far. I will couch me here upon this leafy bed, and rest my weary limbs till Rupert comes. And if, perchance, a gentle slumber steals my senses, then in my dreams I'll see dear Rupert's noble face. Oh, I am weary! Heaven guard me well. Lies down at side. She is partly hidden. Soft music. Crafton and Grogermere steal in. Grogermere. Sh — ! Methought I heard a noise! Ugh! I am afraid! Since we did lose our guard I shudder when the wind sighs through the trees. 268 • THE BARNSTORMERS Crafton. Brace up! Brace up! This is no time for cowards! We deal with red-clad Rupert and his band. 'Tis said they bum their captives at the stake, like to wild Indians in the far new world. Grogermere. I — I — I — I well b-b-believe they may! Oh, that I ne'er had left the castle gates! Now Heaven keep us from their prowling bands, and bring me safe again to Grogermere Hall! Crafton. I doubt if ever you do see its walls again. Grogermere. Oh — oh — s-s-say not so. I trem- ble like a leaf. [He lets out a yell, Crafton. Ha! Silence, fool! Grogermere. I thought I heard a noise. Crafton. Doth wish to bring all of Red Ru- pert's band to haul us 'fore their chief? Another sound from out thy coward throat, and like a menial low I'll run thee through, and say thou wert killed by Rupert and his band. Grogermere. Have mercy pray! I — I — I am so m-m-much afraid I know not what I do! Crafton. Coward! Sit down. We must take counsel here, and find some way out of our desper- THE BARNSTORMERS 269 ate case. Should we fall into Rupert's hands, our lives are worse than forfeit. If we are not killed, he'll make of us low menials for his men and have us serve them till we die. Grogermere. You think he will not kill us? Crafton. You, perhaps, he'll torture, since you seem so much afraid. It hath ever been great sport to torture cowards. Me — ^well, perchance my daughter will save me. Grogermere. T-t-t- torture! Ugh! Grafton. One way remains to escape the vil- lain's hands. A league from here there is a hid- den cave wherein an ancient crone hath dwelt long since. Men know not when she came nor whence. 'Tis said she ne'er will die, but lives until some greater power shall break her druid charms. We'll seek her out, and get some power- ful charm, or, perchance, a demon guide to lead us safely from the forest. Grogermere. A witch! And how shall we know she will not do us harm? She may e'en change us into demons curst! Crafton. We'll take our chances. Come, let's away! 270 THE BARNSTORMERS They start across stage. Cratton stumbles over the sleeping Rosalind. Ha! Ha! Grogermere. Help! Craeton. Silence, fool! 'Tis RosaKnd herself! And sound asleep. Give me thy scarf. [Binds her arms. Rosalind. [Awakening Oh, Rupert, is it thou? [Screams] My father! Grogermere! Lost! lam undone! But touch me not! I'm his! I'm his, I say ! For we are wed, and all your cruelty can't take me from him! Grogermere. Ha, ha! We'll see! Craeton. Silence! [Seizes Rosalind] Nay; struggle not! Here, Grogermere, lend a hand. Rosalind. Help! Help! Oh, Rupert, help! Craeton. [Stops her mouth] Nay; not so loud, my lady, not so loud ! He cannot hear thee though thou shout. We laid him low while sweetly thou didst sleep, and death alone will bring him back to thee! Rosalind. Oh, say not so! Cruel man that thou art! Dead? Nay! It cannot be. But if it's true, then let me die! Oh, Rupert! Rupert! THE BARNSTORMERS 271 Crafton. Here, take her feet! We^U carry her to ancient Jglma's cave. He'll search long ere he finds his lady there. Rosalind. Oh, Rupert! Rupert! Dead? Nay; 'tis a lie! Crafton. Ha, ha, ha! Revenge, revenge! Grogermere. Revenge! Exit all. Rupert of stage sings, Rupert. Out of the forest I come, my love, Out of the fair greenwood. And I love thee, darling lady fair, Who art fair as thou art good. [Calls] Rosahnd! Rosalind! [Enters] Rosalind! Where art thou? Gone! Gone! Do my eyes deceive me? Nay; there hath been a struggle. 'Tis her father and old Grogermere have done this deed. [Blows thrice on pipe] Now come, my men! We will win the lady back and punish her rash captors. Oh, Rosahnd! Rosahnd! Curtain. 272 THE BARNSTORMERS Scene V Jglma's cave, Jglma bending over a caldron, Jglma. Ha, ha! I weave a spell to hold quite fast Whoe'er shall underneath its power be cast. First, now, into this pot of boiHng blood I drop a wicked lie nipped in the bud. I let it boil, and boil, and boil, and boil, And in the caldron bubble, steam, and moil. Ha, ha! Old Jglma knows to weave a charm Of wicked worth, and muckle deal of harm! Now thereunto I add a dried bat's eye; The whiskers of a buzzing bottle fly; The wriggling wiggles of a typhoid germ; The sightless eyes of an earth-tunnelling worm; The thousandth leg from off a centipede; The triple essence of a miser's greed; The last Ufe of a nine-Uved black tom-cat; A hangman's smile; an o'erfed monkey's fat; And all of this with poison rank I cool, For deadly poison is my rigid rule. Ha, ha! And now the fire's blaze doth say. THE BARNSTORMERS 273 That something vile and evil comes this way; But all my charms defend me! There comes, too, A something innocent, and good, and true! Haste, all ye devils ! Come and aid me quick ! For goodness breaks my power, and makes me sick. A knock. Who's there? 'Tis Jglma challenges! Be- ware! Crafton. a friend, sweet witch. Let us come in, I pray. Jglma. A friend? Ha, ha! I have no friends, they say! Crafton. 'Tis one to whom thou oft hath sold thy charms. 'Tis Crafton, lord of ancient Crafton Hall. With me I bring Lord Grogermere and a brazen maid I once did call my daughter. Much do we need thy aid. Jglma. Devils help me! I do feel afraid! Enter, I say, but seek to do me harm. And each I'll wither with a deadly charm. Enter Crafton and Grogermere with Rosalind. 274 THE BARNSTORMERS Rosalind. Pray, what dread place is this? Why do you bring me here? Heavens! That vile-faced hag! She makes me afraid. Oh, father — you whom I once loved, and who once loved me, deliver me not into the power of this creature. Jglma. Ha, ha! Crafton. Silence! Grogermere. Indeed, sweet Rosalind, I — I — I do fear her myself. She hath a most unlovely face! Crafton. Silence, fool! Sweet Jglma, I do come to see what thou canst do to break my daughter's will. She hath eloped with Rupert the Red Ranger, and swears that they are wed. I told her we had slain him, but as we left the copse where we had found her hiding, Rupert's voice, tuned to a love-song, echoed through the woods. Then, when my daughter knew that Ru- pert Hved, her obstinacy was doubled. My wish is to wed her to Lord Grogermere. I come to thee for some right powerful charm that will make her look on Grogermere with favor. Grogermere. For, troth, am I not a man to win most any lady? THE BARNSTORMERS 275 Crafton. Silence, fool! [To Jglma] If she will not wed him, then I leave the rest to you. Rosalind. Oh, father, mercy! Crafton. Do what thou wilt with her. She will no longer be mine. Rosalind. Father, have mercy! Let me return to my husband. Deal with me less cruelly, father, I beg of thee! Crafton. Silence, girl! I will not hear thee more. Rosalind. Rupert, my Red Ranger, will yet have revenge on all of you for this! Jglma. [Aside] Ha! Rupert! I do fear that man! 'Twas long ago foretold that when my power Broke, and I faced my last, stern, reckoning hour. And all my magic from me far had fled. Vengeance would come upon me clad in red! Crafton. Come, come, a charm! Work with thy magic on the maid. Jglma. Quite as you say, my lord. Yet I'm afraid! To Rosalind. Ha, my pretty, do not flee; 276 THE BARNSTORMERS In yonder man I'll make thee see Him whom thou dost love the most In all the world's unnumbered host. Close thy eyes, and when anew, Yonder ancient lord they view. Thou wilt find him perfect quite For thy own true loving knight! Rosalind. I do not fear thy charms! E'en magic cannot make me look on any man other than Rupert and see in him one whom I love! Jglma. Ha! That name again! But I will bind thee with a magic chain That even Rupert cannot break. Goes to caldron. Takes up some of contents in hands. Sprinkles drops about Rosa- lind in a circle. Thus from my magic pot these drops I take. Ha, ha ! My lady, sweet, thou art bound fast ! And till I do release thee will it last. Rosalind. I cannot move! Oh, father, bid her loose me from these cruel charms. Here am I fast, chained by some unseen power. Oh, say the word and have her set me free! Crafton. Nay, girl, thou shalt not go hence till thou goest as Lord Grogermere's bride. THE BARNSTORMERS 277 Rosalind. Then here I stay until sweet, wel- come death shall free me. Death I fear not. I fear not any danger, While I am true to Rupert, my Red Ranger! Jglma. Ha, ha! [Makes motions at Rosalind with hands] Morpheus' bride thou art. And slumbering, mine to use will be thy heart! Rosalind. Rupert! [She falls. Jglma catches her, Jglma. Ha, ha! Old Jglma now may work her way And make her yours. Lord Grogermere, ere the day! Curtain. Scene VI Frlar Joseph's cell. Friar. A strange imrest disturbs my very soul, a feeling that some strange thing's in the wind. Pray Heaven it be not that harm hath come to that brave lad and his fair RosaHnd. Rupert. [Without] Father! Father! Friar. Enter, my son! [Rupert comes in] Ha! 278 THE BARNSTORMERS What's amiss? Why these wild looks? Why this unseemly haste? Rupert. Oh, father, she is gone! RosaHnd! My RosaHnd! Friar. Come, calm thyself and tell me all. Rupert. I left her but to Ught my signal-fire to tell my men we were within the forest, and when I did return, the maid had disappeared. I called my men. We searched. The tracks were plain. Lord Grafton and old Grogermere, the villains, had found her resting and had carried her off. But, worst of all, the tracks led plain enough to that dread place — the cave of Jglma old. Oh, much I fear I ne'er will see her more! My Rosalind! Entrance I sought. A wall of liv- ing fire blazed up between the witch's den and me, and through it, faint, I heard my lady call: "Rupert, Rupert, my Red Ranger, Gome save me from this dreaded danger!" Friar. Despair not! There may yet be found a way to break the power of this dread druid witch! Rupert. There must be found a way! Lord Grafton seeks by charms to win his daughter's THE BARNSTORMERS 279 heart from me and give it to old Grogermere. E'en now she may have been so charmed that she forgets her husband and on Lord Grogermere looks and sees not what he is but what old Jglma wishes her to see! Oh, Heavens! It shall not be! That wall of fire — old Jglma's charms — the devil himself — I fear them not! For I will win my lady back or die! Friar. Nay, nay, my son, be not so hasty. I think, perchance, there is another way. Grows there not there before old Jglma's cave a mighty oak, 'fore which stands an altar rude, carved over with the signs of druid charms, and on which old Jglma daily burns an offering? Rupert. Ay, 'tis there! The altar shows the marks of recent fire. The oak, a mighty tree, spreads out its leaves and makes a shade at noon like twilight deep. And men avoid the spot. 'Tis said strange ghosts do haunt it and strange spells have fallen on those who rested 'neath its shade. But what of this same tree? Friar. Long ere I came to dwell within these forest solitudes, in this same cell there lived an- other man — a holy man, deep versed in holy lore. 28o THE BARNSTORMERS Well he remembered when within this wood the druid mysteries were yearly held. Beneath that oak was placed the altar where the highest priests their human offerings slew and burned. He told me ere he died that in that tree dwelt all the power old Jglma exercised; that while the tree lived on, old Jglma lived; that when it died her power died with it and she likewise would die. Now go, my son! Call all your men. Then arm yourselves with axes and lay low that mighty monarch of our forest glades. Rupert. It shall be done and Rosalind be saved! Friar. Stay! A moment! Take this flask of holy water, for perchance it will be needed to re- lease thy lady fair from any charms old Jglma may have worked. Now go! My blessings and. my earnest prayers go with thee! Rupert. How can I thank thee, father? Thou hast saved us both! And Jglma shall no longer nile these glades with her dread power. I go! And Heaven help me win the day I Curtain, THE BARNSTORMERS 281 Scene VII Jglma's cave. Rosalind still sleeping. Jglma is stirring the caldron. Crafton and Groger- MERE are together on opposite side of stage. Jglma. Ha, ha! My pretty lady, slumber still. While the spell lasts on thee I'll work my will. Sleep sweetly — and in Grogermere wake to see All of perfection that a man should be! Ha, ha! Ha, ha! Ha, ha! And you, who crouch there fearful 'gainst the wall, Fearing on thee my charms jnight hap to fall. Come hither — ^help me win for you the maid. Coward that you are, of me be not afraid. Grogermere. Jglma, sweet Jglma, harm me not! Jglma. Ha, ha! I hope thy creaking bones may rot! Grogermere. Oh, Jglma, Jglma, pity, mercy, pray! Jglma. I doubt, coward, if thou livest to see the day! 282 THE BARNSTORMERS Grogermere. Heaven defend me! Deep I curse the hour That put me in this wicked creature's power! Jglma. Revile me not! Thou fool! I but as- sayed To find how much thou really wert afraid. Come hither, now, take Rosalind's hand in thine; Thrice say: "Wake, lady, wake to be all mine!" Crafton. Be not afraid, Lord Grogermere. I am here to see that no harm comes to thee. Grogermere. A strange, cold fear clutches my very heart, and steals throughout my Hmbs. Oh, that I ne'er had followed thee to Jglma's cell! Crafton. Come, come, man! Everything will yet be well! Jglma. Ha! Hasten, fool, or troth, the spell will break. And other spells I will be forced to make! Grogermere. Then I obey. And now I take her hand. "Wake, dear lady, w-w-w-w-w-wake to be all mine!" THE BARNSTORMERS 283 Jglma. [Screams] Ha! What is this! [Blows of an axe are heard] A dagger strikes my heart! I'm being murdered! Now is all my art But useless quite! I am undone, I say! Oh, druid gods ! Your help, your succor, pray ! [Screams] Ha! — the blows! Each is at me, at me! They kill my body, set my spirit free! 'Twill wander curst throughout eternal years! Mercy! Have mercy! Spare me! Misery! Tears! I am undone! My Hfe, my oak-tree falls! Oh, gods and devils! It is Jglma calls! Stop them! Prevent the felling of that tree! — They hear me not, and neither do they see! The end hath come! The end! — I die — I die ! — Ha, ha ! Ye heavens, spHt with my last cry! Ha—! Ha—! Ha ! All lights of, Jglma goes screaming from the cave. The sound of the oak-tree falling. Wild noises. Grogermere. Oh, Heaven, save us! What hath happened? Are we, too, undone? 284 THE BARNSTORMERS Crafton. Lost! Lost! The spell is broken! We must flee! It can be no other than Red Rupert who has done this deed! Come, Grogermere, draw thy sword and follow me! We'll fight our way, and yet we shall be free! Both exit. Sound of fighting. Yells. Spot- light on face of Rosalind. Rupert, sword in hand, hursts into the cave. Rupert. Rosalind! Rosalind! Ah! Thank Heaven, she lives. Wake, my dear lady, it is Rupert calls! She stirs not! Is it death? Is this pure light that round her like a halo spreads the sign of a sweet spirit passing? Perchance she still is under Jglma's charms, though that cruel hag lies spent and Hfeless quite, stretched by the fallen tree that was her Ufe. Ha! What foul drops are these? A charm — a charm! They circle her. Perchance they hold her fast. Ay, she is fast! I cannot move her though my strength is great! Stay! The holy water! First, within the caldron I will drop three drops. [Explosion in caldron] Ha! The power of that vile hatchery of wicked- THE BARNSTORMERS 285 ness is o'er! Now here about my lady on the floor I make another circle. On her hps I sprinkle what is left. She stirs, she wakes! Oh, RosaUnd, 'tis I— thy Rupert! Rosalind. Rupert! Rupert! Rupert. Here am I, dearest lady, at thy side. Now fear no more, for Jglma's power is broken and Grogermere and thy father are captives. Rosalind. Oh, Rupert! Rupert! I am safe at last! Rupert. Safe always, for my love shall hold you fast. Curtain. Scene VIH A forest glade. Rupert and Rosalind seated on rustic chairs at rustic table. Rosalind is again dressed as a girl. Rupert. At last, dear RosaHnd, we find that peace for which we long have wished. No more must we those stolen moments sweet have as our only meetings. Never again will Jglma work her magic black against our love. Henceforth within 286 THE BARNSTORMERS these forest glades we dwell, and peace shall be our lot, and happiness. Rosalind. It seems, dear Rupert, almost like a dream — a lovely dream from which I soon may wake to find myself a captive in old Jglma's cave, or locked in some fast tower of Grogermere Hall. Rupert. Fear not, my loved one. It is true — quite true. No more shall danger threat thee. Thou art safe. But who comes here? 'Tis John of Ardmore. Enter, we bid thee. And what brings thee here? Enter John of Ardmore. John. I come, my lord, to ask what's to be done with those two prisoners taken in the fight when Jglma's cave we stormed and did destroy. Rupert. Do they rest easy? Have ye done my bidding and made them quite as comfortable as can be here in our forest? John. Ay, my lord. But one says not a word and only stares before him with a silent, fixed stare. The other grovels 'fore each man he sees and begs but that we spare him. Such a coward methinks I ne'er have seen in all the years I've ranged the forest. THE BARNSTORMERS 287 Rosalind. The other — he is brave? John. He is a brave man, lady, though me- thinks he now repents him of the wrongs he's done, or else the blackness of his heart may come from disappointment deep, and longing deeper still to yet attain revenge for capture. Sometimes, when alone, he mutters to himself. Again he calls the other captive coward and fool, a grovelling weak- ling not e'en fit to die, and so in truth this other captive is. We have sent the worthy Friar Jo- seph to them to see if holy consolation may ease their present pain. Rosalind. Oh, Rupert, though my father hath been cruel, though he hath done against us all a man could do, yet now I would that we might show him mercy, for never will I joy in this, our joy, as fully as I might, if, like a cloud, his misery casts a shadow over all. Grogermere I grieve not for. Unworthy he of pity or of love. But Graf- ton is a man of bravery, and in happier times he was a kind and loving father to me. Rupert. John of Ardmore, go and bring the prisoners to us. RosaHnd, to make your happi- ness, which is my own, all that it should be, unto you I leave the judgment of these prisoners. 288 THE BARNSTORMERS Exit John of Ardmore. Rosalind. I thank thee, Rupert! Thou art ever kind. And I shall seek to temper justice with sweet mercy. We would not spoil our joy by hurting any Hving thing — and he is my father. Though unnatural, cruel, and changed from him I knew as father, still I do remember him as kind to me when yet I was a child. Rupert. Do as thou wilt, sweet Rosalind. Send him back free, but let him know that if again he stoops to cruelty such as he oft hath practised, we will raid his castle and leave not one stone standing on the next. Rosalind. And Grogermere? Rupert. Him I ignore. Weak fool and coward, he is not worthy death or punishment. The ter- rors that beset him are enough. Send him back to his castle. There, no doubt, he will brag that he hath met and vanquished Rupert and his band. Rosalind. See — 'tis Friar Joseph comes this way. He comes alone; his mien is strangely sad. Some dim foreboding says his news is bad. Enter Friar. Rupert. Welcome, holy father. THE BARNSTORMERS 289 Rosalind. Welcome. Friar. Greetings, my children, greetings. I do come from the two captives, and I bring strange news. When I entered the rude shelter where they lay. Lord Grafton bid me come to him. The man had changed. Upon a cot his body was stretched out. His face was pale and drawn. He drew me close. The smell of some strange stuff was on his lips. Rosalind. My father! Friar. Nay, my child, be calm. Whispering, Lord Grafton did unfold a tale of his own cunning and past cruelty. Know, Rosalind, that he is not your father. Rosalind. Ah! Friar. When yet you were a Kttle babe in arms. Lord Grafton and his men waged cruel war upon your father, Gerald Vere de Vere. And when the castle fell, all in it felt the sword, and thus met death, save you, a babe of seven months. Grafton was childless, so he bore you home, for Gerald was his cousin, and some strange compunction seized him when he saw you helpless in your cradle. He reared you as his daughter, and was kind imtil 290 THE BARNSTORMERS the question of your marriage rose. But he hath now repented of his cruelty, for, as death stole the breath from out him, he Rosalind. Death? Say ye death? Friar. Death, my child, for he wished it, and a phial of poison which he had with him brought painless death. Rosalind. It grieves me sore. Friar. Grieve not! He is at peace, for ere he died he sought to right the wrongs which he had done thee. Here I have his will, and unto you he leaves his castles, land, and whole estate. Rosalind. I would I might have seen him ere he died. Friar. Grieve not, for he is gone. But seek to feel that in his going he did much repent, and ere he went he sought to right with Heaven the wrongs of a most ill-spent, ill-lived life. Rupert. May he forgiveness find! Peace to his soul! [The blast of a trumpet.] Ha! What is this? Enter John of Ardmore. John. A messenger from the King. Enter Messenger. THE BARNSTORMERS 291 Messenger. Know ye, my lord, whom men have called Rupert the Red Ranger, the King hath, on advice of all his lords, decided to restore your titles, lands, and all thereto pertaining. He hath found that grievous wrong was done thee and now seeks to make full restitution. 'Tis the royal command that to the court you come to kiss his hand and there receive full pardon. Rupert. My thanks unto his Highness. I shall come. But ever here, within these forest glades. Will be my best-loved seat. Here shall I bide, And here erect a castle for my bride. Now Heaven be thanked that sees this happy day. When justice, love, and mercy end our play! Curtain. ^TA I I.ki6 U& .C^^ 306877 I UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY