Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People Part 4

UNCLE NED (with a sigh of happiness).

I certainly do love music. Nothing cheers the heart like singing-- unless it's the voice of the fiddle.

SUSY (hopping up and down).

Play to us, Uncle Ned, play to us!

[Uncle Ned tucks his fiddle under his chin and begins to play. At first the air is chant-like, and has a strain of melancholy, then it grows gayer and gayer, until it turns into a dance tune. The children first stand about Uncle Ned in a circle, listening. Then they begin to dance, with swaying bodies and cries of delight. Here and there a girl and boy dance opposite each other, hands on hips. There should be five or six dancing groups in all. Uncle Ned finishes with a flourish, and turns towards left.

THE CHILDREN.

Play us another tune, Uncle Ned! Play us another tune!

UNCLE NED (to a little girl who is especially imploring).

No, no, honey. There's work for me to do up yonder at the house.

[Goes off, left background.

AUNT RACHEL (still swaying a little and nodding her head).

It certainly does take the fiddle to make old bones feel young again.

Where are you going, Susy?

SUSY (taking up her basket and indicating left).

Off to the stables.

AUNT RACHEL (center).

And where are you going, Lucy?

LUCY.

Up to the house with this bunch of roses for Mistress Washington.

SUSY.

Look! Here comes Nelly from the house now.

NELLY (running down from background).

Have you-all heard the news? This is the day that Master George is leaving for his surveying trip with Lord Fairfax. See! Mistress Washington is coming to speak to us now!

[All look in the direction of house. Madam Washington is seen approaching from the background, center, a stately figure in Colonial dress, her hair slightly touched with gray. Cries of "Good-morning, Mistress Washington! Good-morning!" Children skip up and down. Baskets, hoe, and rake are alike forgotten. Madam Washington stands in center, and the plantation children are grouped in a wide semicircle about her, so that all she does is in full view of audience. Lucy presents Madam Washington with a bunch of roses. Madam Washington takes them, bows, and smiles. Lucy drops a courtesy.

MADAM WASHINGTON.

How is your fever, Aunt Rachel?

AUNT RACHEL.

Better, better, I thank you.

LUCY.

Is this the day that Master George is starting for--

PETER (as he comes running down from background).

Mistress Washington! Mistress Washington! Lord Fairfax has come, and Master George's horse is all saddled and waiting.

[Madam Washington turns and, follows Peter back to the house.

AUNT RACHEL (indicating left).

Come, children! You can see the road from here. There he is on his horse!

[Young George Washington, in tan-colored frontiersman's garb, is seen dimly through the trees. With him a stately figure that is Lord Fairfax. They wave and bow in direction of house. Then George waves in direction of plantation group in foreground.

SAMBO (shielding his eyes with his hand).

I can see him! I can see him!

ALL (looking off towards left, waving, gesticulating).

Good-by, good-by, Master George!

OTHERS.

Come back soon, Master George. Good-by! Good-by!

AUNT RACHEL (sadly shaking her head).

He is gone! How we will miss him!

[An instant's dejection falls on the group. They stand saggingly, joy gone from them.

AUNT RACHEL (brightening).

It's only for a short time. Only for a short time. He'll be back. He'll surely be back.

[The group brightens. A tambourine drops jinglingly. It is picked up.

Baskets and hoe are resumed. The group starts towards background, leisurely, tunefully singing:

(Air: Chorus of "Down Where the Cotton Blossoms Grow.")

Bright shines the sun, the clover-fields are white, Through the woods the happy children go: As gay are our hearts as flowers swinging light, When balmy airs of Springtime blow.

Gaily we work with spade and rake and hoe, Golden shines the burnished sun of noon; Then in the fields the shadows longer grow, Time to be looking for the moon!

Then twilight comes, and then the velvet night, Stars shine like a beacon through the gloam, The old cabin road is gray beneath their light, The long road that leads us to our home.

[As they sing the darkies move towards background. The voices grow fainter and fainter. The scene ends.

COSTUMES

LORD FAIRFAX. Plum-colored velvet. Three-cornered black hat. White wig with cue.

GEORGE WASHINGTON. Frontiersman's suit of cotton khaki, made on Indian lines, with Indian tunic, and knee-breeches. Tan stockings, with strappings of khaki wound round them, and moccasins.

MADAM WASHINGTON. Dark green quilted petticoat. Overdress and bodice of dark green, flowered in old rose. Elbow sleeves. White ruffles of lace.

White lawn fichu. Powdered hair.

The plantation negroes wear tropically bright colors. All the colors are solid. Aunt Rachel has a bright blue dress with a white ap.r.o.n and kerchief, and a black cloak across her shoulders. She wears a scarlet and yellow turban, and huge gold hoops in her ears. The negro girls wear red and blue and green cotton dresses with white kerchiefs, and colored ap.r.o.ns--a yellow ap.r.o.n with a red dress, and so on. Some of them wear gay little turbans. Their feet are bare. The boys wear black knee-breeches, and bright-colored shirts, open at the neck. Uncle Ned wears black knee-breeches, low black shoes, and a faded scarlet vest with gilt b.u.t.tons opening over a soft white shirt.