“Oh, I can’t!” protested Anne in horror. “I don’t know the children here. They don’t like me. I heard the Maguire children say so one morning when they brought the eggs.”
“They will like you when they know you; when they see you in that lovely dress!” cried Nelly eagerly. And Nancy added her persuasion, saying it would be just the thing to illustrate the fairy-story she was getting ready to tell—about a beautiful fairy who danced at the King’s ball. At first Anne was sure she could not do it. But finally she consented. “I suppose it is time I did do something for my neighbors,” she said, with poor grace.
And Columbine was the hit of the show!
The hall was full of mothers with their little children; about fifty of them, all “natives” of Old Harbor, or at any rate permanent residents there. The “summer people” had been invited, too. But they seemed too busy to come. Anne remembered that she had been asked to the Round Robin party last year, but had not had time even to answer the invitation.
Most of the little faces that gazed eagerly at the doings on the platform were of old Yankee types. But there were several with the broad, good natured features of the Irish, like the four little Maguires. And there were several handsome dark French Canadians; several Poles and Finns, whose fathers worked in the stone quarries.
They loved Norma’s singing, and applauded her rapturously. They burst into squeals of mirth over Hugh and his funny dancing, blacked up as he was and wearing his Unc’ Remus costume. They sat very quiet during Nancy’s fairy-tale, breathless with interest to see what was going to happen to the plain little beggar-girl who was invited to the King’s ball, because she had been kind to a Pussy Cat, who was really the King’s Fairy Godmother.
Anne sat on a little stool at the back of the stage while Nancy told the story. Over her Columbine dress she wore Tante’s long black cape that covered her from top to toe, with the hood drawn over her hair.
“This is Goldie the little beggar girl herself,” Nancy finished her story, stepping aside and pointing a wand at Anne. “Now, I am the Fairy-Godmother—Pussy Cat, who met the beggar girl in the wood. Rise, Goldie, and show me how you will dance at the King’s ball to-night. You will dance so beautifully that he will invite you to be the Queen!”
Nancy waved the wand, and Anne rose slowly, throwing off the cape as she did so. There she stood in the beautiful sparkling dress, a crown of roses on her hair; in dainty stockings and slippers. One, two, three! Beverly at the piano, who had played the accompaniment for Norma’s songs, now began a spirited waltz, and Anne danced her fairy dance on the tips of her toes, circling and pirouetting like a real fairy.
“Oh!” cried the children rapturously. “Oh!” They had never seen anything like it. No professional “shows” ever came to their remote little village. “Do it again!” They begged, so fervently that Anne had to yield. With cheeks flushed at their pleasure, she repeated her steps, better even than at first. So that Norma cried out as she danced off the stage into the dressing-room, “Brava, Anne! I didn’t know you had it in you!”