The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-03-03
CHAPTER VIII

LIN Will
In Which Hero and Heroine In the
Role of Play-Actors Win the Viii
lage Applause and There Comes
Dance Afterward in which a
Strand of Soft Hair Brushes a
Rough-shaven Cheek.
The great night of the play arrived.
At eight o'clock high school boys in
their old-fashioned Sunday go-to-
meetih' clothes were ushering fathers,
mothers and brothers and sisters and
aunts and uncles and spinsters and
bachelors and the strangers within
the gates, to their places. In the big
auditorium there was much dumping
down of seats and ladies unwinding
scarfs from the head dresses and men
standing up here and there to pull
off overcoats and much rustling of
programs printed that afternoon at
our little printing office and the town
crank danning the house and per-
Torrance and solar system generally
because he'd been given seat with
a broken wire hat rack beneath, his
cosmos, to hold a hat that at home
was hung up on the floor
But if there was hustle and hustle
and thrilling expectancy out in front,
+ what was it behind on the stage?
Mrs. Christopher Stacy had been
given Lady Audrey's part because
she had the proper tragedy in her
temperament by special endowment
& rom nature, and not much else, and
Willingness to stay where she was
put and not offer advice. She was
weak in the knees and i'll in the
tomach because she was the first
Person to go on and every line of her
part had fled from her head and
GOULD not return regardless of how
much she applied herself to her man.
script.
Mrs. Whipple was moving around
r1ong the players and stagehands in
er makeup and people who had
nown her since infancy were star
G at her and asking who the strange
oman was anyhow; for the sallow
Glow of Mrs. Whipple's counter
ice had fled before the application
grease-paint and penciling and
rs. Blake Whipple was not Mrs.
axe Whipple at all, but girl of
rect sixteen whose youth had been
newed like the eagles and some of
women were asking hastily where
had ever learned to make up like
Rt and she must have had past.
Chubb Barber the shoeman, who a.
eed with everybody and never run
ad in our paper that cost more
In forty cents, and who was to
y the irate foster parent, was
nopolizing the peekhole in the cur
h and behoiding the size of the
Hence ever growing greater, and
eeing with everybody and whet-
his lips and wishing to Gawd he
home. Mrs. Hoadley the BARRIERS
e was there, sitting around on
stage and dwaddling on her ner-
S knee the momentous little Roll
Hoadley who was the cause of it
and who was to be carried right
and right back very carefully and
oh had been loaned after much
king. Most of the boys were out
he fire-escapes smoking in the re-
ng GOODNESS of the evening and
flying themselves for the ordeal
ID. Everywhere was confusion
the giving of orders which no one
uted and proferring of help
re- it was least needed and advice
sarcasm and turmoil and a time
rouble such as there never has
since there was nation.
t George was there! And
gle was boss! But alas!-how
" is public honor. For never in
he lengths and breadths and
Is of time or infnity had there
such an occasion as this where
answer to every snarl was that
coined phrase: "Let George do
prge was doing it or it didn't get
d hired old Peter Ferguson to
in and help with the aprops.n "
before showing up for work
had stopped en- route and look
on the wine when it was red and
Id it to sting him like serpent