Half a Dozen Girls Part 26

"I'll get them." And Polly vanished.

"You see," Alan went on, as she reappeared. "We know our parts well enough, I suppose; but I wanted to get used to seeing you in full rig, before the time came. I was afraid, if you suddenly appeared to me, I should laugh and spoil our best scene."

"Don't you dare do that!" returned Polly sternly. "If you laugh, I'll let Jean cut off your head, and not try to save you. But it's a good idea to have a chance to go through it, while we are all alone by ourselves. Our parts are best of all, and I want to do them as well as we can for Jean's sake, she has taken so much pains to write it up."

"Yes," added the captain ungratefully, "and I'd like to have you try over that rus.h.i.+ng out and tumbling down on top of me. The last time you did it, you. nearly knocked the breath out of my body.

You'd better go a little slower, Poll, or you'll kill me as surely as Jean would,--and I don't know but what her way would be about as comfortable as yours."

"We've plenty of time and the house to ourselves," said Polly meekly; "so we can try it over and over, till I get it right."

"What a prospect!" groaned Alan. "When we get through, you'll have to take me to the hospital and put me in with those youngsters, where I was to-day."

"All right," returned Polly, laughing; "but if I ever do kill you, don't expect me to tell of it. Now let's come up into mamma's room and dress in front of her long mirror."

The dressing was a prolonged and hilarious operation, for each in turn helped the other to don his costume, stopping now and then to burst out laughing at the results of their labors. Alan, it is true, made a very attractive young captain, though, with a fine disregard for dates, he was attired in the moth-eaten, faded uniform with tarnished bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and epaulettes which one of his ancestors had worn during the Revolutionary War. But the ancestor had been several sizes larger than his nineteenth century descendant, and the uniform lay in generous folds over the back and shoulders, and was turned up at wrist and ankle, while the great c.o.c.ked hat, pushed back to show the yellow hair in front, rested on the boy's shoulders behind. However, a truer, tenderer, more valiant heart never beat in old-time captain, than was throbbing in Alan's breast that day, when he held forlorn little d.i.c.ky Morris on his knee.

But Polly! In arranging her costume, the girls had let their individual tastes have full sway, and beyond the general notion that Indians like bright color, they had paid no attention to the traditional ideas of dress among the n.o.ble red men. Pocahontas, as she is usually pictured in her quill-embroidered tunic and dull, heavy mantle, would have laughed outright at the appearance of this vision of silk and satin, of purple and scarlet and vivid green, which was solemnly parading up and down the room, in all the enjoyment of her finery.

"'Tis splendid, isn't it, Alan?" she asked, turning, with a purely feminine delight, to survey her long red satin train as it swept about her feet.

Alan looked at her doubtfully.

"Why, yes; it's very splendid, Poll, but somehow it doesn't look much like an Indian. I didn't know they wore satin trails a mile long."

Polly's brow clouded.

"But princesses do, Alan, and I'm a princess, just as much as I'm an Indian. It's such fun to wear this. Don't you suppose it will do?"

"Yes, perhaps," said Alan, with an heroic disregard of the truth.

"It isn't just like the pictures; but you look first-rate in it, honestly, Poll. Now let me fix your head."

Polly beamed under his praise, and dropped into a chair where she sat pa.s.sive until he had fastened on the lofty coronet of feathers which would have formed an honorable decoration for the brow of a Sioux brave. A little red chalk supplied the complexion, and a few dashes of blue on the cheeks and forehead added what Alan was pleased to term "a little style" to the whole. Then Polly sprang up, caught her skirt in both hands, and dropped a sweeping courtesy to her friend, saying merrily,--

"Prythee, how now, Captain Smith; is it well with thee?"

And the bold captain returned, in some embarra.s.sment, as he removed his wide-spreading hat,--

"Yes'm. Same to you, ma'am."

There was something at once so quaint and so ridiculous in the pair, that they gazed at each other for a moment, and then, sinking clown on the floor regardless of their finery, they burst out laughing.

"Oh, Alan, you're so absurd!" gasped Polly.

"You're another," responded Alan; "only you're worse." And they went off into a fresh paroxysm of giggles.

At last Polly sprang up with decision.

"How silly you are, Alan!" she said, as she marched up to the gla.s.s once more.

"Am I?" inquired Alan meekly. "How do you like the looks, Polly?"

Polly stared at herself closely and long, and a scornful expression gathered about her lips.

"It doesn't match," she said concisely, as she turned away.

It certainly did not. The face and head-dress, suggestive of the free, roving life of the plains, rose above a gown which was only suited to comic opera. Clearly, Pocahontas had made a mistake when she arranged her costume.

"What shall we do about it?" she asked disconsolately, as she faced Alan once more.

"Do? If I were in your place I'd get myself up as a real genuine Pocahontas, and not go trailing around in any such trumpery as that," returned Alan, scornfully kicking at the end of the train, as it lay across his toes.

"I suppose it would be better," said Polly faintly. "This doesn't seem to suit the part very well, but I did want to wear it." And she gazed regretfully down at her despised finery.

"I'll tell you what," suggested Alan, "why not wear this when you are at court? You'll have your face washed and your feathers off there, and this will be just the thing. When you first come on, you can have a real Indian dress. How would that go?"

"Good, Alan!" And Polly swept up and down the room once more, watching her train, over her shoulder, and listening with a rapturous countenance to the silken swish of her skirts.

"Now," said Alan, who was beginning to be tired of the question of dress, "let's begin and go over our scenes."

"We ought to have Jean here," said Polly, as she regretfully turned away from the mirror.

"No matter, we can do a good deal as 'tis. Let's take this end of the room for a stage." And Alan stretched himself out on the floor, prepared to die heroically, and began a sentimental speech of farewell to his distant home and friends.

"Now, Poll, we'll leave out what comes next. Your word is 'And so farewell! Let the fatal drop fall!'"

The most critical audience could have found no fault with the way Polly rushed in and cast herself upon the neck of the valiant captain, while she alternately defied her father, the irate Powhatan, and in elaborate broken English, cooed loving words into the ear of her "own dear John," who lay coughing and strangling in her clutches. As soon as he could regain his breath, he responded as a gallant Englishman should, and the scene went on smoothly, with many a coquettish bit of by-play on Polly's part, and a stern resolve, on the captain's side, to reduce it all to the footing of high tragedy.

"That went well!" said Polly, when they had reached their closing tableau, with John Smith on his knees, kissing the French kid shoe of Pocahontas. "I do hope it will go all right next week, for mamma says we may each invite four people, and I don't want to fail."

"We're going to have it here, after all, are we?" asked Alan.

"Yes. Florence wanted it, but her mother wasn't willing, so we're going to use the library for a stage, and put the people in the parlor. It will hold ever so many, that way. Tuesday night we're going to rehea.r.s.e it there."

"I wish we could try our parts there, now," said Alan.

"Why not do it?" asked Polly. "We can, just as well as not, for there isn't a soul in the house but ourselves. Come on." And she led the way to the head of the stairs.

"Sure there isn't anybody there?" asked. Alan.

"n.o.body, I am certain."

"All right, here goes, then." And followed by Polly, Alan raced down the stairs, singing at the top of his lungs,--

"'Oh, my wife and my dear children!

Oh, the deaths they both did die!

One got lost, and one got drownded, And one got choked on pumpkin pie!'

Hi-yi-whoop-_ee_!" he added, with a threatening war-whoop, as he opened the parlor door and dashed in.