The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays Part 4

"The well has to be out in the open."

"But what about water?" asked Sandy. "Hang me if I ever heard of a well without water!"

"We'll run a hose up to this one," explained Pop Snooks. "A man will lie down behind the well-curb, where he won't show in the camera. As fast as Ruth lowers her bucket into the well the man'll fill the pail with water for the soldiers to drink. It'll be quicker than a real well, and if we find we don't like it in one place we can move it to another. This is a movable well."

"Well, I'll be----" began Sandy, but words failed him. "This is sure a queer business," he murmured as he strode off.

The hard work of preparation continued. All about the farm queer parts of buildings were being erected, extra barns, out-houses, bits of fence, and the like.

In what are called close-up scenes only a small part of an object shows in the camera, and often when a magnificent entrance to a marble house is shown, it is only a plaster-of-Paris imitation of a door with a little frame around it.

What is outside of that would not photograph; so what is the use of building it? Of course in many scenes real buildings figure, but they are not built for the purpose.

In one of the war plays a small barn was to be shown, and a soldier was supposed to jump through the window of this to escape pursuit. As none of the regular buildings at Oak Farm was in the proper location, Pop Snooks had been ordered to build a barn.

He did. That is, he built one side of it, propping it up with braces from behind, where they would not show. The window was there, and some boards; so that, seen through the camera, it looked like a small part of a big out-building.

Some hay was piled on the ground to one side, away from the camera, and it was on this hay that the escaping soldier would land. Then Ruth was to come to him, and go through some scenes. But these would be interior views, which would be taken in the improvised studio erected on the farm for this purpose.

Mr. Switzer was to be the soldier, and would plunge through the barn window head first. He was called on to rehea.r.s.e the scenes a few days after the semblance of a barn had been put in position and the hay laid out to make his landing safe.

"Are you ready?" asked Mr. Pertell, who was directing the scene. "All ready, there, Switzer?"

"Sure, as ready as I ever shall be."

"All right, then. Now, you understand, you come running out of those bushes over there, and when you get out you stop for a minute and register caution. Look on all sides of you. Then you see the barn and the open window. Register surprise and hope. You say, 'Ah, I shall be safe in there!'

"Then you run, look back once or twice to see if you are pursued, and make a dive, head first, through the open window on to the hay. All ready now?"

"Sure, I'm ready!"

"How about you, Russ?"

"Let her go."

"All ready, then! Camera!"

Russ began to grind away at the film. Mr. Switzer had taken his place in the clump of bushes, his ragged Union garments flapping in the wind. He came out, looked furtively around, and then, giving the proper "registration," he advanced cautiously toward the barn.

"Go on now--run!" cried Mr. Pertell through his megaphone.

The German actor ran. He made a beautiful leap through the window, and the next moment there came from him howls of dismay.

"Donner vetter! Ach Himmel! Ach! My face! My hands! Hey, somebody! bring a pail of water! Quick!"

CHAPTER IV

A REHEARSAL

Mingled in German and English came the shouts of dismay from Herr Switzer inside the dummy shed, through the window of which he had leaped on to the hay.

"Oh, what is it?" cried Ruth, clasping her hands and registering "dismay" unconsciously.

"He must have fallen and hurt himself," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Alice. "Do, Paul, go and see what it is."

"Stop the camera!" yelled Mr. Pertell through his megaphone. "Don't spoil the film, Russ. You got a good scene there. He went through the window all right, and his yells won't register. Stop the camera!"

"Stopped she is," reported Russ.

Then those of the players who had been looking on and wondering at Mr.

Switzer's cries could hurry to his rescue.

For it is a crime out of the ordinary in the annals of moving pictures for any one not in the scene to get within range of the camera when an act is being filmed. It means not only the spoiling of the reel, perhaps, but a retaking of that particular action. When Russ ceased to grind at the camera crank, however, it was the same as when the shutter of an ordinary camera is closed. No more views can be taken. It was safe for others to cross the field of vision.

"What's the matter?" cried Paul, who, with Ruth and Alice and some of the others trailing after him, was hurrying toward the false front of boards that represented a shed.

"Did a cow critter or a sheep step on you?" Russ questioned.

"Ach! My face! My clothes! Ruined!" came in accents of deep disgust from the actor. "Never again will I leap through a window without knowing into what I am going to land. Ach!"

"What happened?" asked Paul, trying to keep from laughing, for the player's voice was so funnily tragic.

"What happened? Come and see!" cried Mr. Switzer. "I have into a chicken's home invaded myself already!"

"Invaded himself into a chicken's home!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell. "What in the world does he mean?"

"I guess he means he sat down in a hen's nest!" chuckled Paul, and this proved to be the case.

Going around to the other side of the erected boards, the players and others saw a curious sight.

Seated on the hay, his face, his hair, his hands, and his clothing a ma.s.s of the whites and yellows of eggs, was Carl Switzer. He held up his fingers, dripping with the ingredients of half a dozen omelets.

"The chicken's home was right here, in the hay--where I jumped. I landed right in among the eggs--head first. Get me some water--quick!" implored the player.

"Didn't you see the eggs before you jumped among 'em?" asked Mr.

Pertell.

"See them? I should say not! Think you I would have precipitated myself into their midst had I done so?" indignantly demanded Mr. Switzer, relapsing into his formally-learned English. "I have no desire to be a part of a scrambled egg," he went on. "Some water--quick!"

While one of the extra players was bringing the water, Sandy Apgar strolled past. He was told what had happened.

"Plumped himself down in a hen's nest, did he?" exclaimed the young proprietor of Oak Farm. "Wa'al, now, if you folks go to upsettin' the domestic arrangements of my fowls that way I'll have t' be charging you higher prices," and he laughed good-naturedly.

"Ach! Dat is better," said Mr. Switzer, when he had cleansed himself.

"How came it, do you think, Mr. Apgar, that the hen laid her eggs right where I was to make my landing when escaping from the Confederates?"