The Little Colonel's Hero Part 20

"Especially," said the Little Colonel, with dignity, "when mothah and Papa Jack are goin' to do so much. My pa'ht is longah than anybody's."

Next morning at the depot, the post-office, and the blacksmith shop a sign was displayed which everybody stopped to read. Similar announcements nailed on various trees throughout the Valley caused many an old farmer to pull up his team and adjust his spectacles for a closer view of this novel poster.

They were all Miss Allison's work. Each one bore at the top a crayon sketch of a huge St. Bernard, with a Red Cross on its collar and shoulder-bags. Underneath was a notice to the effect that an entertainment would be given the following Friday night in the college hall, a short concert, followed by a play called "The Princess Winsome's Rescue," in which _Hero_, the Red Cross dog recently brought from Switzerland, would take a prominent part. The proceeds were to be given to the cause of the Red Cross.

That announcement alone would have drawn a large crowd, but added to that was the fact that twenty families in the Valley had each contributed a child to the fairy chorus or the group of flower messengers, and were thus personally interested in the success of the entertainment.

There was scarcely standing-room when the doors were opened Friday evening. Papa Jack felt well repaid for his part in the hurried preparations when, after the musical part of the programme, he heard the buzz of admiration that went around the room, as the curtain rose on the first scene of the play. It was the dimly lighted witch's orchard.

Across the stage, five feet back from the footlights, ran a snaky-looking fence with high-spiked posts. It had taken him all morning to build it, even with Alec's and Walker's help. Above this peered a thicket of small trees and underbrush bearing a marvellous crop of gold and silver apples and plums. Real gold and silver fruit it looked to be in the dim light, and not the discarded ornaments of a score of old Christmas-trees. A stuffed owl kept guard on one high gate-post, and a huge black velvet cat on the other.

In the centre of the stage, showing plainly through the open double gates, the witch's caldron hung on a tripod, over a fire of f.a.gots. Here Kitty, dressed like an old hag, leaned on her blackened broomstick, stirring the brew, and muttering to herself.

At one side of the stage could be seen the door leading into the ogre's tower, and above it a tiny cas.e.m.e.nt window.

Mrs. Walton gave a nod of satisfaction over her work, when the ogre came roaring in. His costume was of her making, even to the bludgeon which he carried. "n.o.body could guess that it was only an old Indian club painted red to hide the lumps of sealing-wax I had to stick on to make the regulation knots," she whispered to Keith's father, who sat next her. "And no one would ever dream that the ogre is Joe Clark. I had hard work to persuade him to take the part, but an invitation to my camping party next week proved to be effective bait. And such a time as I had to get Ra.n.a.ld's costume! I was about to ask Betty to change his name, when Elise found that Mardi Gras frog at some costumer's. Those webbed feet and hideous eyes are enough to strike terror to any one's soul."

It was a play in which every one was pleased with the part given him.

Allison and Rob swept up and down in their gilt crowns and ermine-trimmed robes of royal purple, feeling that as king and queen they had the most important parts of all. Keith looked every inch the charming Prince Hero he personated, and Malcolm made such a dashing knight that there was a burst of applause every time he appeared.

Betty made a dear old G.o.dmother, and Elise, with crown and star-tipped wand, filmy spangled wings, and big red bubble of a balloon, was supremely happy as Queen of the Fairies. But it was the Little Colonel who won the greatest laurels, in the tower room, making the prettiest picture of all as she bent over the great St. Bernard, bewailing their fate.

The scenery had been changed with little delay between acts. Three tall screens, hastily unfolded just in front of the spiked fence, hid the orchard from view, and a fourth screen served the double purpose of forming the side wall of the room, and hiding the ogre's tower. The narrow s.p.a.ce between the screens and the footlights was ample for the scene that took place there, and the arrangement saved much trouble. For in the last act, the screens had only to be carried away, to leave the stage with its original setting.

"Lloyd never looked so pretty before, in her life," said Mr. Sherman to his wife, as they watched the Princess Winsome tread back and forth beside the spinning-wheel, the golden cord held lightly in her white fingers. But she was even prettier in the next scene, when with the dove in her hands she stood at the window, twining the slender gold chain about its neck and singing in a high, sweet voice, clear as a crystal bell:

"Flutter and fly, flutter and fly, Bear him my heart of gold.

Bid him be brave, little carrier dove, Bid him be brave and bold."

Twice many hands called her back, and many eyes looked admiringly as she sang the song again, holding the dove to her breast and smoothing its white feathers as she repeated the words:

"Tell him that I at my spinning-wheel Will sing while it turns and hums, And think all day of his love so leal Until with the flute he comes."

"Jack," said some one in a low tone to Mr. Sherman, as the applause died away for the third time, "Jack, when the Princess Winsome is a little older, you'd be wise to call in the ogre's help. You'll have more than one Kentucky Knight trying to carry her away if you don't."

Mr. Sherman made some laughing reply, but turned away so absorbed by a thought that his friend's words had suggested that he lost all of the flower messengers' speeches. That some knight might want to carry off his little Princess Winsome was a thought that had never occurred to him except as some remote possibility far in the future. But looking at her as she stood in her long court train, he realised that in a few more months she would be in her teens, and then--time goes so fast! He sighed, thinking with a heavy sinking of the heart that it might be only a few years until she would be counting the daisy petals in earnest.

The curtain hitched just at the last, so that it would not go down, so with their rainbow bubbles bright the fairies ran off the stage toward various points in the audience, for the coveted admiration and praise which they knew was their due.

"Wasn't Hero fine? Didn't he do his part beautifully?" cried Lloyd, as her father, with one long step, raised himself up to a place beside her on the stage, where the children were holding an informal reception.

"Show him the money-box," cried Keith, pressing down through the crowds from the outer door whither he had gone after the entrance receipts.

"Just look, old fellow. There's dollars and dollars in there. See what you've done for the Red Cross. If it hadn't been for you, Betty never would have written the play."

"And if it hadn't been for Betty's writing the play you never would have sent me this heart of gold," said Malcolm in an aside to Lloyd, as he unfastened her locket and chain from his shield. "Am I to keep it always, fair princess?"

"No, indeed!" she answered, laughingly, holding out her hand to take it.

"Papa Jack gave me that, and I wouldn't give it up to any knight undah the sun."

"That's right, little daughter," whispered her father, "I am not in such a hurry to give up my Princess Winsome as the old king was. Come, dear, help me find Betty. I want to tell her what a grand success it was."

Lloyd slipped a hand in her father's and led him toward a wing whither the shy little G.o.dmother had fled, without a glance in Malcolm's direction.

But afterward, when she came out of the dressing-room, wrapped in her long party-cloak, she saw him standing by the door. "Good night!" he said, waving his plumed helmet. Then, with a mischievous smile, he sang in an undertone:

"Go bid the princess in the tower Forget all thought of sorrow.

Her true knight will return to her With joy, on some glad morrow."

CHAPTER XIV.

IN CAMP

Several miles from Lloydsboro Valley, where a rapid brook runs by the ruins of an old paper-mill, a roaring waterfall foams and splashes. Even in the long droughts of midsummer it is green and cool there, for the spray, breaking on the slippery stones, freshens the ferns on the bank, and turns its moss to the vivid hue of an emerald. Near by, in an open pasture, sloping down from a circle of wooded hills, lies an ideal spot for a small camp.

It was here that Mrs. Walton and Miss Allison came one warm afternoon, the Monday following the entertainment, with a wagonette full of children.

Ra.n.a.ld, Malcolm, Keith, and Rob Moore had ridden over earlier in the day to superintend the coloured men who dug the trenches and pitched the tents. By the time the wagonette arrived, fuel enough to last a week was piled near the stones where the camp-fire was laid, and everything was in readiness for the gay party. Flags floated from the tent poles, and Dinah, the young coloured woman who was to be the cook, came up from the spring, balancing a pail of water on her head, smiling broadly.

As the boys and girls swarmed out and scurried away in every direction like a horde of busy ants, Mrs. Walton turned to her sister with a laugh.

"Did we lose any of them on the way, Allison? We'd better count noses."

"No, we are all here: eight girls, four boys, the four already on the field, Dinah and her baby, and ourselves, twenty in all."

"Twenty-one, counting Hero," corrected Mrs. Walton, as the great St.

Bernard went leaping after Lloyd, sniffing at the tents, and barking occasionally to express his interest in the frolic. "He seems to be enjoying it as much as any of us."

"I wish that they were all as able to take care of themselves as he is. It would save us a world of anxiety. Do you begin to realise, Mary, what a load of responsibility we have taken on our shoulders? Sixteen boys and girls to keep out of harm's way for a week in the woods is no easy matter."

"We'll keep them so busy that they'll have no time for mischief. The wagonette isn't unloaded yet. Wait till you see the games I've brought, and the fishing-tackle. There's an old curtain that can be hung between those two trees any time we want to play charades."

"Swing that hammock over there, Ra.n.a.ld," she called, nodding to a clump of trees near the spring. "Then some of you boys can carry this chest back to Dinah." She pointed to the old army mess-chest, that always accompanied them on their picnics and outings.

"The Ogre can do that," said the Little Captain, nodding toward Joe Clark, who stood leaning lazily against a tree.

"Do it yourself, Frog-Eye Fearsome," retorted Joe, at the same time coming forward to help carry the chest to the place a.s.signed it.

"They'll never be able to get away from those names," said Miss Allison.

"Well, what is it, my Princess Winsome?" she asked, as Lloyd came running up to her.

"Please take care of these for me, Miss Allison," answered Lloyd, holding out Hero's shoulder-bags, which she had just taken from him. "I put on his things when we started, for mothah says n.o.body evah knows what's goin' to happen in camp, and we might need those bandages." Tumbling them into Miss Allison's lap, she was off again in breathless haste, to follow the other girls, who were exploring the tents, and exclaiming over all the queer make-shifts of camp life. Then they raced down to the waterfall, and, taking off shoes and stockings, waded up and down in the brook. These early fall days were as warm as August, so wading was not yet one of the forbidden pastimes. They splashed up and down until the Little Captain's bugle sent a ringing call for their return to camp. Katie was one of the last to leave the water. Lloyd waited for her while she hurriedly laced her shoes, and as they followed the others she said, in a confidential tone, "Do you think you are goin' to like to stay out heah till next Sata'day?"

"Like it!" echoed Katie, "I could stay here a year!"

"But at night, I mean. Sleepin' in those narrow little cots, with nothin'

ovah ou' heads but the tents, and no floah. Ugh! What if a snake or a liz'ad should wiggle in, and you'd heah it rustlin' around in the gra.s.s undah you! There's suah to be bugs and ants and cattahpillahs. I like camp in the daylight, but it would be moah comfortable to have a house to sleep in at night. I wish I could wish myself back home till mawnin'."