The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest Part 21

In front was the court yard of the palace. The furnis.h.i.+ngs were severely simple, a long bench and a table, a few straight chairs, little more than stools, and painted white to suggest marble.

No other paraphernalia of the approaching performance was visible.

Now and then a figure appeared from the background of trees, never one of the players, only some a.s.sistant bent upon an errand.

Not upon the sh.o.r.e-line supposed to represent ancient Greece, but immediately facing the audience waved a giant American flag. On either side were the Scout flags, one bearing the imprint of an eagle's wing, the insignia of the Girl Scouts, the other an elm tree, the flag of the boys.

At four o'clock in the afternoon the pageant began.

Before that hour not only were the seats filled but a number of people were standing.

A guest of honor of the occasion was one of the distinguished men who originated the Scout movement for boys in the United States. Another guest of honor was a member of the National Girl Council, who had come up from the headquarters in New York for no other reason than to be present at the pageant.

With simple Scout ceremonies the entertainment opened.

A few moments after the applause had subsided, a beautiful resonant voice read aloud the first lines describing the Odyssey:

"Sing us the song of the hero, steadfast, skilful and strong, Taker of Troy's high towers who wandered for ten years long Over the perilous waters, through unknown cities of men, Leading his comrades onward, seeking his home again.

Sing us the song of the Wanderer, sing us the wonderful song."

A moment later slowly rowing down the stream appeared a solitary figure, Odysseus, seated upon a raft to which were fixed sails and a rudder.

Before reaching the place along the sh.o.r.e where the boat, built by Odysseus on the island of Calypso, was to land, a storm was supposed to beset the hero. The audience beholds him struggle with the storm and then reach a safe harbor.

On the sh.o.r.e he piles up branches and lies down upon a bed of leaves.

A short time pa.s.ses and Odysseus sleeps.

This opening scene in the tableaux Donald McClain insisted was the most difficult in the entire program. During the rehearsals he had been possessed by the fear that he would not be able to produce the illusion, so that his audience would not take him seriously.

Therefore, the tableaux would begin and end in disaster.

Don need not have troubled. Very handsome and heroic he appeared, his dark hair grayed to represent the age of the Greek hero who had wandered so many weary years after the siege of Troy.

While Odysseus slumbers the Princess Nausicaa and her maidens come down toward the river. Unaware of the sleeper, they begin was.h.i.+ng their clothes in the river and afterwards spread them out to dry in the sun.

Victoria Drew, as the Princess Nausicaa, wore a gown of bright blue with a Greek design in silver braid. Her bright red-gold hair was bound in a silver fillet. Her maids were Margaret Hale, Edith Linder, Martha Greaves and Julia Murray. Their costumes were white and crimson, yellow and green.

In making a careful study of the costumes worn by the early Greeks, Miss Frean and the Troop Captain had been surprised to find that white did not play so important a part in their dress as they had supposed.

Together with their love for the beauty of line and form the Greeks possessed an equal love for color.

Nausicaa and her maidens begin a game of ball on the sands. The princess misses the ball and as it rolls into the water she gives a cry that awakes Odysseus.

He comes forward and asks Nausicaa's aid.

Together they move toward the palace of the Sea-kings, when the first tableau ends.

The second scene shows Odysseus seated inside the tent narrating his adventures to the good King Alcinous and his wife, Queen Arete.

Again the voice of the interpreter recited further lines from the Greek poem:

"Hither, come hither and hearken awhile, Odysseus, far-famed king!

No sailor ever has pa.s.sed this way but has paused to hear us sing.

Our song is sweeter than honey, and he that can hear it knows What he never has learnt from another, and has joy before he goes; We know what the heroes bore at Troy in the ten long years of strife We know what happens in all the world, and the secret things of life."

A thrill of appreciation and sympathy stirred the larger portion of the audience at the outset of the next tableau.

Strangers, slightly puzzled to guess the cause, found that a few hurried words made the situation clearer.

Odysseus has sailed from Crete and comes at last to his own land.

No change of scenery was possible. The hearers learned from the recitation that he had reached the island of Ithaca. Here his s.h.i.+p was moored in a haven between two steep headlands near a shadowy cave, where the water-fairies come to look after their bees and weave their sea-blue garments on the hanging looms.

Odysseus, knowing not that he has reached his home at last, walks up the steep incline from the sh.o.r.e. Here he meets the G.o.ddess of wisdom, Pallas Athena.

Contrary to her own judgment Katherine Moore had agreed finally to represent Athena; in spite of the difficulties to be surmounted not to have accepted would have been too ungracious.

From beyond in the grove of trees the G.o.ddess advances. She is seated in a chariot drawn by four children. The children wore costumes of white, short skirts to their knees and sandals on their feet.

The G.o.ddess herself was clad in white with a wreath of green leaves about her hair. Had the audience been closer she would have appeared a pale and fragile G.o.ddess with wide gray eyes set in a delicate, bravely smiling face. For the old-time Kara had been doing her best to return these days in order to cast no gloom upon the pleasure of her friends.

Better for Kara perhaps that the general effect of the tableau was what was desired and not a too apparent view of details!

This, however, was not true concerning the little group of children who drew the chariot.

So startling was Lucy Martin's beauty that not only the Girl Scouts and their older friends discussed it among themselves, the Boy Scouts, not so apt to notice a little girl's appearance, also spoke of it to one another privately.

Fortunately Lucy, in spite of her wilfulness, was not self-conscious.

To-day evidently she was thinking not of herself but of Katherine Moore and Billy, her former friends from the Gray House on the Hill.

A blond Cupid grown slightly older and thinner, Billy Duncan appeared, with his blond hair and large childish blue eyes and his somewhat expressionless face.

Either the performance of the Greek tableaux or the presence of the little girl who had so dominated him during the years they had spent together at the Gray House made Billy dazed and speechless.

There was no need, however, that he should use any intelligence save to do what Lucy commanded.

Her dark eyes sparkled with a brilliant excitement, her rose cheeks glowed. The stiff aureole of her dark hair made a striking contrast to the whiteness of her childish costume.

The other two children were acquaintances of Lucy's from the Gray House and equally ready to do her bidding.

So, whatever the others may have believed, Lucy Martin was convinced that she had taken complete charge of Kara's tableau.

Watching the little girl, Kara in a measure forgot what she felt to be her own unfitness for her distinguished role.

Athena touches Odysseus with her magic wand and he changes into an old man, not wis.h.i.+ng to be recognized on his return to his own palace.

Athena's chariot is then drawn back into the grove of trees and Odysseus, now disguised as a beggar, once more sets out for his home.

The G.o.ddess has presented him with a worn coat which he places over his former costume.