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CHAPTER XXIII
SWIFTWING, THE HUMMINGBIRD

The orchestra burst into a low hum of sweet sounds. Agnes had heard them tuning up under the stage for some time; but back in the little hall where the amateur performers were gathered in readiness for their cues, she had not realized that the orchestra members had taken their places.

Having watched the rehearsals so closely since they began, she could now imagine the tall director with his baton, beating time for the opening bars.

The overture swelled into the grand march, and then went on, giving a taste of the marches, dances, and singing numbers, finally with a crash of sound, announcing the moment when the curtain, at the real performance, would go up.

"Now!" hissed the stage manager, beckoning on the first chorus.

Innocent Delight was in it. Innocent Delight went up the steps and into the wings with the others, as in a dream. As she had not rehearsed with the chorus before, she made a little mistake in her position in the line; and she failed to keep quite good time in the dancing step.

"Oh, dear me!" gasped Carrie Poole. "Now you're going to spoil it all, Aggie Kenway! You'll be worse than Trix, I suppose!"

Agnes merely smiled at her. Nothing could disturb her poise just then. She was going to act!

They saw the boys across the stage, ready, too, to enter – some of them grinning and foolish looking; others very serious. Neale smiled at Agnes and waved his hand encouragingly. Her confident pose delighted him.

Now they were on! It was easy, after all, to keep step with the music. She knew the words of the opening song perfectly. Agnes had a clear, if light contralto voice; the alto part was easy for her to sing.

With a vim that seemed not to have been in the chorus before, the number came to a finish. The girls and boys fell back. Innocent Delight was in the centre of the stage, ready to welcome the Carnation Countess.

Agnes was slow in speaking; her words seemed to drag a bit. Madam Shaw was waiting impatiently to come on. But the stage manager whispered shrilly:

"Quite right, my dear! quite right! The Countess is supposed to come on in a sedan chair, and you must give her time."

The professionals noted the girl's familiarity with the stage instructions; always, wherever the manager had explained in the earlier rehearsals the reason for some stage change, Innocent Delight had the matter pat. The action of the play was not retarded in any particular for the new girl. And her ability in handling the character of the blithe, joyous, light-hearted girl was most natural.

Somehow, this chief amateur part going so well, pulled the others up to the mark. But there was still much to be wished for in the case of Cheerful Grigg, the twins, Sunbeam and Moonbeam, and Lily White.

"I'd like to get hold of some of those other girls that Mr. Marks considers it his duty to punish," growled the professor. "What's all this foolishness about, anyway? Doesn't he want the play to be a success?"

He said this to Miss Lederer, the principal's assistant. She shook her head, sadly.

"I am sorry that you can't have them, Professor," she said. "But of course, this is only temporary for Agnes."

"What's that?" he demanded angrily.

"Why, she cannot play Innocent Delight for you," the teacher said firmly. "I am not sure that Mr. Marks will like it as it is."

"He's got to like it!" interrupted the professor. "I've just got to have the girl – there are no two ways about it. I tell you, without her the schools might as well give up trying to put on the play. That other girl, who was wished on me, is not fitted for the part at all."

"But you have given it to her."

"And I can take it away; you watch me!" snapped the director. "And I am going to have this Agnes, as you call her, Marks or no Marks!"

"Is that a pun?" the teacher asked archly. "For that is why Agnes Kenway cannot act in the play. Bad marks."

"What's her heinous crime?" demanded the professor.

"Stealing," said the assistant principal, with twinkling eyes.

"Stealing! What did she steal?"

"Strawberries."

"My goodness! I'll pay for them," rejoined the director, quickly.

"I am afraid that will not satisfy Mr. Marks."

"What will satisfy him, then?" demanded the professor. "For I am determined to have that girl play Innocent Delight for me, or else I will not put on the play. I would rather shoulder the expense thus far incurred – all of it – than to go on with a lot of numskulls such as seem to have been selected for many of these important rôles. For pity's sake let me have at least one girl who shows talent."

Meanwhile Madam Shaw, the prima donna, came to Agnes after it was all over and put her arms tight around the young girl's shoulders.

"Who are you, my dear?" she asked, looking kindly down upon Agnes' blushing face.

"Agnes Kenway, ma'am."

"Oh! one of the Corner House girls!" cried the lady. "I have heard of you sisters. Three of you were in the play from the first. And why not you, before?"

"Oh!" fluttered Agnes, now waking up from the beautiful dream in which she had lived from two o'clock till five. "I am not in it – really. I cannot play the part in the opera house."

"Why not, pray?" demanded Madam Shaw in some surprise.

"Because I have broken some rules and am being punished," admitted Agnes.

Madam Shaw hid a smile quickly. "Punished at home?" she asked gravely.

"Oh, no! There is nobody to punish us at home."

"No?"

"No. We have no mother or father. There is only Ruth, and we none of us want to displease Ruth. It wouldn't be fair."

"Who is Ruth?"

"The oldest," said Agnes. "She is in the play. But she hasn't a very important part. I think she might have been given a better one!"

"But you? Who is punishing you? Your teacher?"

"Mr. Marks."

"No? Not really?"

"Yes. The basket ball team and some other girls can only look on – we can't act. He said so. And – and we deserve it," stammered Agnes.

"Oh, indeed! But does the poor Carnation Countess deserve it?" demanded Madam Shaw, with asperity. "I wonder what Mr. Marks can be thinking of?"

However, everybody seemed to feel happier and less discouraged about the play when this rehearsal was over; and Agnes went home in a seventh heaven of delight.

"I don't care so much now if I never have a chance again," she said, over and over again. "I've shown them that I can act."

But Ruth began to be anxious. She said to Mrs. MacCall that evening: "Suppose, when Agnes gets older, she should determine to be a player? Wouldn't it be awful?"

The old Scotch woman bit off her thread reflectively. "Tut, tut!" she said, at last. "That's borrowing trouble, my dear. And you're a bit old-fashioned, Ruthie Kenway. Perhaps being an actress isn't so awful a thing as we used to think. 'Tis at least a way of earning one's living; and it seems now that all girls must work."

"Didn't they work in your day, Mrs. MacCall?" asked Ruth, slyly.

"Not to be called so," was the prompt reply. "Those that had to go into mills and factories were looked down upon a wee bit, I am afraid. Others of us only learned to scrub and cook and sew and stand a man's tantrums for our living. It was considered more respectable to marry a bad man than to work for an honest wage."

Saturday Agnes was not called upon at all. She heard that Trix was at home again; but there were no rehearsals of the speaking parts of The Carnation Countess. Only the dances and ensembles of the choruses were tried out in the afternoon.

The girls heard nothing further regarding the re-distribution of the parts – if there were to be such changes made. They only understood that the play would be given, in spite of the director's recent despairing words.

And it was known, too, that the following rehearsals would be given on the stage of the opera house itself. The scenery was ready, and on Saturday morning of the next week the first costume rehearsal would be undertaken.

Dot and her little friends were quite over-wrought about their bee dresses. They had learned to dance and "drone" in unison; now they were all to be turned into fat brown bees, with yellow heads and stripes on their papier-maché bodies, and transparent wings.

Tess, as Swiftwing, the chief hummingbird, was a brilliant sight indeed. Only one thing marred Tess Kenway's complete happiness. It was Miss Pepperill's illness.

For the unfortunate teacher was very ill at her boarding house. Her head had been hurt when the automobile knocked her down. And while her broken bones might mend well, Dr. Forsyth was much troubled regarding the patient.

The Corner House girls heard that Miss Pepperill was quite out of her head. She babbled about things that she never would have spoken of in her right mind. And while she had so vigorously refused to be taken to the Women's and Children's Hospital when she was hurt, she talked about Mrs. Eland, the matron, a good deal of the time.

"I'm going to see my Mrs. Eland and tell her that Miss Pepperill asks for her and if she has found her sister," Tess announced, after a long conference with the teacher's landlady, who was a kindly, if not very wise maiden lady.

"I see no harm in your telling Mrs. Eland," Ruth agreed. "Perhaps Mrs. Eland would go to see her, if it would do the poor thing any good."

"Why do you say 'poor thing' about Miss Pepperill, Ruthie?" demanded Dot, the inquisitive. "Has she lost all her money?"

"Goodness me! no, child," replied the oldest Corner House girl; nor did she explain why she had said "poor thing" in referring to the sick teacher. But everybody was saying the same; they did not expect her to live.

The substitute teacher who took Miss Pepperill's place in school had possibly been warned against Sammy Pinkney; for that embryo pirate found, at the end of the first day of such substitution, that he was no better off than he had been under Miss Pepperill's régime.

Tess was very serious these days. She was troubled about the teacher who was ill (for it was the child's nature to love whether she was loved in return or no), her lessons had to be kept up to the mark, and, in addition, there was her part as Swiftwing.

She knew her steps and her songs and her speeches, perfectly. But upon the Saturday morning when the dances were rehearsed, Tess found that there was more to the part than she had at first supposed.

There was to be a tableau in which – at the back of the stage – Swiftwing in glistening raiment, was the central figure. A light scaffolding was built behind a gaudy lace "drop" and to the steps of this scaffolding, from the wings on either side of the stage, the birds and butterflies flew in their brilliant costumes to group themselves back of the gauze of the painted drop.

Tess was a bit terrified when she was first taken into the flies, for Swiftwing first of all was to come floating down from above to hover over and finally to rest upon a great carnation.

Of course, Tess saw that she was to stand quite securely upon the very top step of the scaffolding. A strong wire was attached to her belt at the back so that she could not possibly fall.

Below, and on either side of Tess, was a smaller girl, each costumed as a butterfly. These were tossed up to their stations by the strong arms of stage-hands. They could not be held by wires as Tess was, for their wings were made to vibrate slowly all through the scene.

On lower steps others of the brilliantly dressed children – all butterflies and winged insects – were grouped. From the front the picture thus formed was a very beautiful one indeed; but the children had to go over and over the scene to learn to do their part skillfully and to secure the right effect from the front.

"Aren't you scared up there, little girl?" one of the women playing in the piece asked Tess.

"No-o," said the Corner House girl, slowly. "I'm not scared. But I shall be glad each time when the tableau is over. You see, these other little girls have no belt and wire to hold them, as I have."

"But you are so much higher than the others!"

"No, ma'am. It only looks so. It's what the stage man said was an optical delusion," Tess replied, meaning "illusion." "I can touch those other girls on either side of me – yes, ma'am."

And she did touch them. Each time that she went through the scene, and the butterflies' wings vibrated as they bent forward, Tess' hands, which were out of sight of the audience, clutched at the other girls' sashes.

Tess was a sturdy girl for her age. Her hands at the waists of the two butterflies steadied them as they posed on this day for the final rehearsal of the difficult tableau.

"That's it!" called out the manager. "Now! Hold it! Lights!"

The glare of the spotlight shot down upon the grouped children from above the proscenium arch.

"Steady!" shouted the stage manager again, for the whole group behind the gauze drop seemed to be wavering.

"Hold that pose!" repeated the man, commandingly.

But it was not the children who moved. There was the creaking sound of parting timbers. Somebody from the back shouted a warning – but too late.

"Down! All of you down to the stage!"

Those on the lower steps of the scaffolding jumped. The stage hands ran in to catch the others; but the higher little girls could not leap without risking both life and limb!

A pandemonium of warning cries and shrieks of alarm followed. The scaffolding pulled apart slowly, falling forward through the drop which retarded it at first, but finally tearing the drop from its fastenings in the flies.

Swiftwing, the hummingbird, did not add her little voice to the general uproar. She was safely held by the wire cable hooked to her belt at the back.

But the butterflies were helpless. The men who tried to seize them from the rear could not do so at first because the scaffolding structure fell out upon the stage.

The Corner House girl, frightened as she was, miraculously preserved her presence of mind. As she had already done before during the rehearsals, she seized the sashes of her two smaller schoolmates at the first alarm. Their feet slipped from the foothold, but Tess held them.

Neale had taught Tess, and even Dot, how to use their strength to better advantage than most little girls. Tess was sure of her own safety in this emergency, and she allowed her body to bend forward almost double, as the two frightened little butterflies slipped from the falling scaffolding.

For a dreadful moment or two, their entire weight hung from Tess Kenway's clutching hands. Her shoulders felt as though they were being dislocated; but she gritted her teeth and held on.

And then two of the men caught the little, fluttering butterflies by their ankles.

"Let 'em come!" yelled one of the men.

Tess loosed her grasp as the scaffolding crashed to the stage. The last to be lowered, Swiftwing came down, so frightened she could not think for a moment where she was.

"Oh, Tess, darling!" gasped Agnes.

"Sister's brave little girl!" murmured Ruth.

"I – I didn't spoil the tableau, did I?" Tess asked.

"Spoil it? My goodness, Tess Kenway," shouted Neale O'Neil, who, likewise, had run to her, "you made the biggest hit of the whole show! If you could do that at every performance The Carnation Countess would certain sure be a big success!"

CHAPTER XXIV
THE FINAL REHEARSAL

Before the tableau in which Tess Kenway had so covered herself with glory was again rehearsed, the scaffolding was rebuilt as a series of broad steps and made much lower.

Tess was not to be frightened out of playing her part as Swiftwing, the hummingbird.

"No. I was not in danger," she reported to Mrs. Eland, when she and Dot went to see the gray lady as usual the next Monday afternoon. "The wire held me up so that I could not possibly fall. It was only the other two girls who might have fallen. But they hurt my arms."

"If you had been a real hummingbird," put in the practical Dot, "you could have caught one of them with your beak and the other in your claws. Butterflies aren't very heavy."

"Those butterflies were heavy enough," sighed her sister.

"It was splendid of you, Tess!" cried Mrs. Eland. "I am proud of you."

"So are we," announced Dot. "But Aunt Sarah says we ought not to praise her too much or maybe she'll get biggity. What's 'biggity'?"

"Something I'm sure Tess will never be," said the matron, hugging Tess again. "Why so sober, dear? You ought to be glad you helped save those two little girls from a serious fall."

"I am," Tess replied.

"Then, what is the matter?"

"It's Miss Pepperill."

"Oh, dear me!" murmured Dot. "She fusses over that old Miss Pepperpot as though she were one of the family."

"Is she really worse, dear?" asked Mrs. Eland, softly, of Tess.

"They think she is. And – and, Mrs. Eland! She does call for you so pitifully! Miss Lippit told me so."

"Calls for me?" gasped the matron, paling.

"Yes, ma'am. Miss Lippit says she doesn't know why. Miss Pepperill never knew you very well before she was hurt. But I told Miss Lippit that I could understand it well enough," went on Tess, eagerly. "You'd be just the person I'd want to nurse me if I were sick."

"Thank you, my dear," smiled Mrs. Eland, beginning to breathe freely once more.

"You see, Miss Lippit knows Miss Pepperill pretty well. She knew her out West."

"Out West?" repeated Mrs. Eland.

"Yes, ma'am. Miss Lippit says that isn't her real name. She was a 'dopted child."

"Who was?" demanded the matron, all in a flutter again.

"Miss Pepperill. She was brought up by a family named Pepperill. Seems funny," said Tess, gravely. "She lost her mother and father in a fire."

"I guess that's why her hair is red," said Dot, not believing her own reasoning, but desiring to be in the conversation.

Mrs. Eland was silent for some minutes. "She isn't mad, is she?" whispered Dot to Tess.

But the latter respected her friend's silence. Finally the matron said pleasantly enough: "I am going out when you children go home. You must show me where this school teacher of yours lives. If I can be of any service – "

She put on her bonnet and the long gray cloak in a few minutes, and the three set forth from the hospital. Dot clung to one hand and Tess to the other of the little gray woman, as they went to Miss Lippit's boarding house.

"This is Mrs. Eland," Tess said to the spinster, who was both landlady and friend of the injured school teacher. "She is my friend and the matron of the hospital where Miss Pepperill went with us one day."

"When she carried my flowers and gave some to the children," muttered Dot, who had never gotten over that.

"I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Eland," said Miss Lippit. "I do not know why Miss Pepperill calls for you so much. She is a singularly friendless woman."

"I thought she had always lived in Milton?" said the matron, in an inquiring way.

"Oh, no, ma'am. She lived in the town I came from. We children always thought she was Mr. and Mrs. Pepperill's granddaughter; but it seemed not. She was picked up by them wandering about in Liston after the big fire."

Mrs. Eland repeated the name of the Western city, holding hard to a chairback the while, and watching Miss Lippit hungrily.

"Yes, ma'am," said the landlady. "We learned all about it. Miss Pepperill was so small she didn't know her own name – only 'Teeny.'"

"'Teeny'!" repeated Mrs. Eland, pale to her lips.

"She had a sister. She remembered her quite plainly. Marion. When Miss Pepperill was younger she was always expecting to meet that sister somewhere. But I haven't heard her say anything about it of late years."

"Show – show me where the poor thing lies," murmured Mrs. Eland.

They went into the bedroom. Miss Pepperill, her head looking very strange indeed with nothing but bandages upon it, sat up suddenly in bed.

"Mrs. Eland! isn't it?" she said weakly. "Pleased to meet you. You are little Tess Kenway's friend. Tell me!" she cried, clasping her hands, "did you find your sister, Mrs. Eland?"

The matron ran with streaming eyes to the bed and folded the poor, pain-racked body in her arms. "Yes, yes!" she sobbed. "I've found her! I've found her!"

The two smallest Corner House girls did not see this meeting; but they brought home the report from Miss Lippit that Mrs. Eland was going to make arrangements to stay all night with Miss Pepperill, and perhaps longer. Her work at the hospital would have to be neglected for a time.

These busy days, however, the young folk were neglecting nothing which was connected with the forthcoming benefit for the Women's and Children's Hospital. The Carnation Countess was not to be a failure.

The changes made in the assignment of the speaking parts caused some little heartburnings; but the director was determined in the matter. First of all he brought Mr. Marks to his way of thinking.

"I won't give the play if I can't have my own Innocent Delight, Cheerful Grigg, and some of the others," said the director, firmly.

There was good reason for taking the rôle away from Trix Severn – she had neglected rehearsals. Nevertheless, she was very much excited when she learned that the part had been given to Agnes Kenway, who was making such a success of it.

Miss Severn, in tears, went to the principal of the Milton High School and laid her trouble before him. Mr. Marks listened grimly and then showed her the letter purporting to come from the proprietor of Strawberry Farm, in which the girls who had raided the farmer's patch were named – excluding herself.

Beside this letter he put a specimen of Trix's own handwriting. It chanced to be the note which had suggested Trix for the part of Innocent Delight in the play.

"It strikes me, Miss Severn," said the principal, sourly, "that you are getting to be a ready letter writer. Don't deny the authorship of these scripts. Your teachers are all agreed that you wrote them both.

"This one to the professor is reprehensible enough. I am sorry that a girl of the Milton High School should write such a note. But this other," and his voice grew very stern, "is criminal – yes, criminal!

"I have learned from Mr. Buckham personally, that your father's automobile was stalled one day in front of his house and that you went in and met his wife, who is an invalid.

"You must have had it in your mind then to make trouble for your schoolmates, and learning that Mr. Buckham did not write himself, you stole a sheet of his letter paper, and wrote this contemptible screed.

"I shall tell your parents of your action. I do not feel that it is within my province to punish you for such a contemptible thing. However, knowing that you have been a traitor to your mates, I withdraw my order for their punishment on the spot. I never have, and never will, accept the evidence of a traitor in a matter of this character.

"As Mr. Buckham himself holds no hard feelings about the foolish prank of last May, I shall say no more about it. But the contempt in which your schoolmates must hold you, if they learn that you wrote this letter, should be its own punishment."

Agnes and the others, however, paid little attention to Trix Severn. Agnes knew, and the others suspected, that Trix was the one who had told; but the Corner House girl felt that she had deserved the punishment she received, and was deeply grateful to Mr. Marks for withdrawing the order against her playing in The Carnation Countess.

Eva got the part of Cheerful Grigg; some of the other members of the basket ball team obtained good parts, too. They studied hard and were able to act creditably at the final and dress rehearsal.

The play was to be given on three nights and one afternoon of Christmas week. School was closed for the holidays, and little was talked of or thought about among the Corner House girls and their mates, but the play.

"I hope I won't spoil the play," said Tess, with a worried air. "And I hope we will make – oh! lots and lots of money for the hospital, so that Mrs. Eland can stay there. For now, you know, with her sister sick, she'll need her salary more than ever."