CHAPTER IX
GENIUS BURNS
‟MY hearers,” said Nan, as they all dawdled on the veranda one morning, “a truly magnificent scheme is forming itself in my fertile brain.”
“Pray expound and elucidate,” murmured Marguerite, from the hammock, where she was lazily swaying to and fro.
“Oh, it’s nothing much,” said Nan; “only that we give a play.”
“Is that all?” said Marguerite. “I thought you meant something nice.”
“Let’s do it,” cried Betty. “I just love that sort of thing—‘Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?’ ”
“Shall we hire the town hall, or wouldn’t that be big enough?” inquired Helen.
“And don’t let’s do it half-way,” said Marjorie. “We can get scenery and costumes from New York and give ‘L’Aiglon’ or ‘Faust’ or something worth while.”
“Nonsense!” said Nan. “Do be quiet, girls, until I tell you what I mean. You see, we’ve written such really good and funny things in the ‘Whitecap’ that I’m sure we could write a little play, with songs and things, and then act it; and it would be lots of fun.”
“Oh, you mean an opera,” said Millicent. “Why, of course we could dash off an opera any morning, just as easy as not. Come on; let’s begin.”
“No, wait!” cried Nan; “you don’t understand, and I won’t be made fun of. I’m serious.”
“Of course you are; no one took you for a joke. But, even so, you can’t stop us now we’re started”; and Hester grasped a pencil, and taking the “Whitecap,” began to write:
Time: Midnight.
Scene: A dark corridor.
“We must have it gloomy and mysterious, it’s so much more interesting.”
“Yes,” said Helen, who was hanging over Hester’s shoulder. “Who’ll appear first?”
“You,” said Hester, writing rapidly.
Enter the Wandering Minstrel.
“Oh, I never could! I’d be scared to death!” cried Helen, who had a way of taking things seriously.
“Let her be asleep,” said Marjorie; “then she won’t feel embarrassed, and she’s used to walking in her sleep, you know.”
This was true enough, and Hester rewrote:
Enter the Wandering Minstrel, sound asleep. She sings to her banjo:
THE WANDERING MINSTREL’S SONG
I’ve something weird to tell you—
’Twill make you crawl and creep;
For I love to harrow up your souls
When walking in my sleep.
’Tis something most appalling—
’Twill make you shriek and yell;
But you must not breathe a sentence
Of the tale that I shall tell.
The most awful thing has happened;
There’s a—
“Oh, I can’t go on with this. I don’t know what happened! Somebody else finish it.”
“No; each must finish the song she begins. Wind that up, and then I’ll write my song,” said Marguerite.
So Hester wrote:
The Wandering Minstrel awakens, gives a scared look over her shoulder, and scurries back to her room.
“Oh, that’s no fair!” cried Marguerite, but Helen said:
“Yes, it is; I’ll be glad of a chance to vanish. Go on, Daisy.”
“You know I’m the Chaperon of this crowd,” said Marguerite, “and as such I’ll relate my woes.”
With some assistance from Nan, the rattlepated Chaperon composed her song:
THE CHAPERON’S SONG
I am the unfortunate Chaperon;
I never can call a minute my own:
For the girls treat with mirthful derision
The precision of my kind supervision.
Oh, terribly hard is my luckless lot!
I’m forced to hurry from spot to spot,
And then all the thanks that I get for my trouble
Is that I’m completely ignored.
“Why, that’s fine!” cried Marjorie; “but how can you sing it? Helen’s has a tune to it, ‘Talking in My Sleep,’ you know.”
“Are we really going to sing this thing?” said Marguerite, looking awe-struck.
“Of course,” said Nan, decidedly. “We’ll write the words to tunes we know, and we’ll rehearse the whole thing and give it some evening to an audience composed of our friends next door.”
“And across the street, too,” said Jessie. “The Marlowes and Hillises over there are awfully nice people, and they’d love to be invited.”
“Don’t invite your chickens before the play is hatched,” said Betty. “But, Daisy, you ought to do a dance with your song. You’re a born soubrette.”
“I’ll tell you,” cried Nan. “Write it to the air of the ‘Kerry Dance.’ You sing that so prettily, and you can have a banjo accompaniment and hop around all you like.”
So, with much help from Nan and Hester, Marguerite accomplished a new
CHAPERON’S SONG
I’m the Chaperon gay and frisky,
And the rôle that I have to play
Is decidedly rash and risky,
And I know I’ll slip up some day.
When the girls are all around me,
I’m as staid as a cup of tea;
And my prudish airs astound me,
When I think of what I can be.
Oh, my prudery! Oh, my dignity!
And what I can be!
I’m the Chaperon gay and frisky,
And the rôle that I have to play
Is decidedly rash and risky,
And I know I’ll slip up some day.
Oh, it’s slow when we all sit round in state,
Eyes cast down and faces long and straight;
Prim and staid, our manners quite correct;
All approach to frivolousness checked.
I assume a pedantic pose,
But at heart I feel—
I’m the Chaperon, gay and frisky, etc.
“Oh, that’s awfully pretty!” cried Marjorie, as they tried it over to the accompaniment of Helen’s banjo. “Why, the play will be a howling success if we keep on like this.”
“Indeed it will—a howling, screaming success.”
“Now, Jessie, it’s your turn. Let’s see what a Scullery-maid can do at making a song for herself.”
“Oh, I couldn’t make a rime to save my life,” said Jessie, with such a scared look that everybody laughed.
“But you’ll have to,” cried Betty. “Every one of us must write our own song, whether we can do it or not.”
“Help me out, Nannie,” said Jessie, pleadingly; “you’re a real live Poet, and you ought to teach the art to one who is but a lowly Scullery-maid.”
“Well, we’ll have a duet,” said Nan, good-naturedly, “and I’ll write it for us both, and then you and I will sing it together. Here goes!”
Enter Scullery-maid, carrying under her arm a dictionary, and in her hand a pad and pencil.
Enter Poet, with frying-pan and cake of soap.
SCULLERY-MAID AND POET
(A Duet)
“Where are you going, my Scullery-maid?”
“I seek inspiration, kind Poet,” she said.
“And why inspiration, my Scullery-maid?”
“I want to write verses, like you,” she said.
“We’ll make a good bargain, my Scullery-maid.”
“And what is the bargain, kind Poet?” she said.
“You teach me scouring, my Scullery-maid.”
“And then you can brighten my wits,” she said.
“That’s lovely, and you two girls sing beautifully together,” said Marjorie; “but you must have solos, too; you’re our best singers, and you can’t get off with one duet.”
“All right; I’ll write a solo for Jessie,” said Nan. “It can follow right after this duet, you know. It’s to the tune of ‘My Mother Dear.’ ”
SCULLERY-MAID’S SONG
Do you think I’m asking much of you, my Poet?
I’ve longed to be poetic for a week.
My longings are intense, did you but know it,
And now I come your kind advice to seek.
Each day I’m riming, dictionaries buying;
I cull from books each sweet poetic flower;
But though like any furnace I am sighing,
I really can’t do anything but scour—
Scour, my Poet,
Scour, my Poet,
I really can’t do anything but scour.
“That’s gay,” said Millicent, “and it’s specially funny for Jessie, who really is farther removed from scullery-maidism than any of the rest of us.”
“I don’t care,” said Jessie. “I’ll sing anything you want me to, if I don’t have to write it.”
“I’ll write Nan’s solo,” volunteered Hester. “It’s more fun to write each other’s than our own. This is to the tune of the Burglar Song in ‘The Pirates.’ ”
POET’S SONG
When the interesting Poet’s not composing,
Or rolling round her fine poetic eye,
Oh, she loves to leave her tragic muse a-dozing,
And spend her time in making cake and pie.
But the other girls her aspirations smother,
And will not let her have a bit of fun;
Taking one consideration with another,
The Poet’s life is not a happy one.
Oh, she’d love to make a salad or a fritter,
Or even polish up the parlor grate;
Yet they must suppose she is a helpless critter,
For they bind her to her melancholy fate.
They make her pump out verses, when she’d ruther
Turn out a pie, a pudding, or a bun;
Taking one consideration with another,
The Poet’s life is not a happy one.
“Well, turn about is fair play,” said Nan, with fun in her eyes. “I’ll write Hester’s solo. She’s a fine Stoker for our open fire, but she can’t do much with stoves. I’ve tried her.”
“We always have open fires in England,” said Hester, “and really, girls, you don’t know how much nicer they are than your old registers and radiators.”
“Very well, my loyal Briton,” said Nan; “you shall air those national views of yours to a small but highly appreciative audience. Do you know that old tune, ‘You should see me dance the polka?’ ”
“Yes,” said Hester, laughing. “I’ve known it all my life.”
“ ’Tis well,” said Nan; “your success as a songster is assured.”
Then, amid much laughter and advice from the merry crowd, Nan achieved this masterpiece:
STOKER’S SONG
A fig for the air-tight furnace,
A fig for the shut-up stove;
They may suit the modern stoker,
But I really can’t approve.
A fig for the radiator,
The steam-heat of to-day;
Hot-air pipes, too, may do for you,
But I don’t like that way.
Chorus
But you should see me use the poker,
You should see me shovel coal;
I’m a rattling, raking Stoker,
And that’s my only rôle.
When the fire begins a-burning
I’ll show what I can do,
For the rattling rollicking Stoker
Will be poking fun at you.
I cannot sing the praises
Of the gas-log with its flame—
Although it burns like blazes,
And it gets there just the same.
But when I come in freezing,
And with cold I shiver and shake,
The Yule log bright, with its blazing light,
Is the fire that takes the cake.
Chorus.
Hester’s well-known aversion to slang made this song a good joke, and it was fully appreciated, even by the victim herself.
“Now let’s have a big chorus, so we can all sing together,” said Helen.
“Yes,” said Nan, “with solos in it—a regular descriptive piece.”
“But I can’t sing,” said Millicent.
“Oh, yes, you can,” said Nan. “I’ll write your verse first. How would that tune from ‘Patience’ go? Don’t you know—about the je ne sais quoi young man. Let’s try it anyway.”
A Lamplighter trim you see
Whenever you look at me;
You may sneer, you may flout,
But you can’t put me out,
For I am as bright as can be.
Chorus
The Cooking Club girls are we,
As happy as we can be,
Whether walking or riding
Or skating or sliding,
Or sitting at dinner or tea.
“How absurd!” said Hester. “We can’t skate or slide in September.”
“That’s poetic license,” explained Nan, calmly, “but of course you’re too English to see the joke.”
“Well, it’s a good tune,” said Hester; “let’s write verses for the rest.”
Many heads make light work, and though some of the girls did more than others, all helped, and the result was this fine collection of stanzas:
Oh, I am the Peeler serene,
Though never at peeling I’m seen.
The girls say I’m lazy—
I think they are crazy;
There’s nothing about me that’s green.
Chorus.
A Camera Fiend you see;
A sister to you I’ll be.
We’re both of us making
A business of taking—
I’ll take you, and you can take me.
Chorus.
Oh, I am the Chaperon gay;
I sing and I whistle all day.
And though I don’t shirk
My share of the work,
I’d much rather run out and play.
Chorus
A Wandering Minstrel I—
My voice ’way up in the sky;
My banjo I’m picking,
While others are kicking,
Though I can’t imagine why.
Chorus.
Oh, I am the Scullery-maid;
Of kitchen work I’m afraid;
While I should be scrubbing,
My wits I am rubbing,
To shine in the Poet’s trade.
Chorus.
It seems to be my fate
To be Poet Laureate;
Though I always am shrinking
From doing much thinking,
I’d far rather polish the grate.
Chorus.
I’m a Cook of undoubted skill;
The girls praise my dishes, but still—
I cannot tell why—
After eating my pie
They always are awfully ill.
Chorus.
“That’s a fine chorus; let’s practise it now,” said Marjorie. So Helen played her banjo, and the girls all sang until, to their great surprise, they found it was dinner-time.