The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays Part 8

"Do bring her!" urged Alice. "We'll try to make her comfortable. And don't fear what they will do," and she nodded toward the two other actresses, who had been in vaudeville before going into motion pictures.

So it was that, later in the evening, Miss Brown brought her trunk to the Apgar farmhouse and was installed in a room near Alice and Ruth.

"Oh, it is _so_ much nicer here!" sighed Estelle Brown, as she admitted Ruth and Alice, who knocked on her door. "I could not have stood the other place much longer. Though every one--except that one man--was very nice to me."

"Let us be your friends!" urged Alice.

"You are very kind," murmured Estelle, and the more the two girls looked at her, the prettier they thought her. She had wonderful hair, a marvelous complexion, and white, even teeth that made her smile a delight.

"Have you been in this business long?" asked Ruth.

"No, not very--in fact, this is my first big play. I have done little ones, but I did not get on very well. I love the work, though."

"Were your people in the profession?" asked Alice.

"I don't know--that is, I'm not sure. I believe some of them were, generations back. Oh, did you hear that?" and she interrupted her reply with the question.

"That" was the voice of some one in the lower hall inquiring if Miss Brown was in.

"It's that--that impertinent Maurice Whitlow!" whispered Estelle to Ruth and Alice. "I thought I could escape him here. Oh, what shall I do?"

"I'll say you are not at home," returned Ruth, in her best "stage society" manner, and, sweeping down the hall, she met the maid who was coming up to tell Miss Brown there was a caller for her below.

"Tell him Miss Brown is not at home," said Ruth.

"Very well," and the maid smiled understandingly.

"Ah! not at home? Tell her I shall call again," came in drawling tones up the stairway, for it was warm, and doors and windows were open.

"Little--snip!" murmured Estelle. "I'm so glad I didn't have to see him.

He's a pest--all the while wanting to take me out and buy ice-cream sodas. He's just starting in at the movies, and he thinks he's a star already. Oh! but don't you just love the guns and horses?" she asked impulsively.

"Well, I can't say that I do," answered Ruth. "I like quieter plays."

"I don't!" cried Alice. "The more excitement the better I like it. I can do my best then."

"So can I," said Estelle. Then they fell to talking of the work, and of many other topics.

"Did Estelle Brown strike you as being peculiar?" asked Ruth of her sister when they were back in their rooms, getting ready for bed.

"Peculiar? What do you mean?"

"I mean she didn't seem to know whether or not her people were in the profession."

"Yes, she did side-step that a bit."

"Side-step, Alice?"

"Well, avoid answering, if you like that better. But my way is shorter.

Say, maybe she has gone into this without her people knowing it, and she wants to keep them from bringing her back."

"Maybe, though it didn't strike me as being that way. It was as though she wasn't quite sure of herself."

"Sure of herself--what do you mean?"

"Well, I can't explain it any better."

"I'll think it over," said Alice, sleepily. "We've got lots to do to-morrow," and she tumbled into bed with a drowsy "good-night."

Miss Laura Dixon and Miss Pearl Pennington most decidedly turned up their noses at the breakfast table when they saw Estelle sitting between Ruth and Alice. And their murmurs of disdain could be plainly heard.

"She here? Then I'm going to leave!"

"The idea of amateurs b.u.t.ting in like this! It's a shame!"

Fortunately Estelle was exchanging some gay banter with Paul and did not hear. But Ruth and Alice did, and the latter could not avoid a thrust at the scornful ones. To Ruth, in an unnecessarily loud voice, Alice remarked:

"Do you remember that funny vaudeville stunt we used to laugh over when we were children--'The Lady Bookseller?'"

"Yes, I remember it very well," answered Ruth. "What about it, Alice?"

for she did not catch her sister's drift.

"Why, I was just wondering how many years ago it was--ten, at least, since it was popular, isn't it?"

"I believe so!"

"It's no such a thing!" came the indignant remonstrance from Miss Pennington. It was in this sketch that she had made her "hit," and as she now claimed several years less than the number to which she was ent.i.tled, this sly reference to her age was not relished. "It was only _six_ years ago that I starred in that," she went on.

"It seems much longer," said Alice, calmly. "We were quite little when we saw you in that. You were so funny with your big feet----"

"Big feet! I had to wear shoes several sizes too large for me! It was in the act. I--I----"

"They're stringing you--keep still!" whispered her chum, and with red cheeks Miss Pennington subsided.

But Alice's remarks had the desired effect, and there were no more references, for the present, directed at pretty Estelle. Miss Dixon and Miss Pennington had a scene with Mr. Pertell, though, in which they threatened to leave unless Estelle were sent back to the bungalow where the other extra players boarded. But the manager remained firm, and the two vaudeville actresses did not quit the company.

Hard work followed, and Estelle made some daring rides, once narrowly escaping injury from the burning wad of a cannon, which went off prematurely as she dashed past the very muzzle. But she put spurs to her horse, who leaped over the spurt of fire and smoke. A few feet of film were spoiled; but this was better than having an actor hurt.

Alice was sitting on the farmhouse porch one afternoon, waiting for Estelle and Ruth to come down, for they were going for a walk together, not being needed in the films. Estelle had been taken into companionship by the two girls, who found her a very charming companion, though little disposed to talk about herself.

Alice, who was reading a motion picture magazine, was startled by hearing a voice saying, almost in her ear:

"Is Miss Brown in?"

"Oh!" and Alice looked up to see Maurice Whitlow smirking at her. He had tiptoed up on the porch and was standing very close to her. She had never been introduced to him, but that is not absolutely insisted on in moving picture circles, particularly when a company is on "location."

"Is Miss Brown in?" repeated Whitlow.