Katy Summers stood beside Mary, and looked sweet as Titania, in a fairy dress of white tarlatan, with a crown of flowers. Dr. Corliss had been made to represent Prospero, with a long white beard and gray robes. And Mrs. Corliss was one of the witches from “Macbeth.” She wore a dress of smoky gray veiling, with a veil over her long hair, which concealed her face. Some of the children were afraid of her at first, for they did not know who she really was; she looked very bent and witch-like, and acted her part weirdly.
Ralph and James Perry, two members of John’s “Big Four,” came as the two Dromios, the clowns in “A Comedy of Errors.” Their faces were whitened, and they acted like real clowns in a circus, turning somersaults and making grimaces. Whatever one did the other imitated him immediately, and it kept the other children in gales of laughter.
Billy Barton, the fourth member of the “Big Four,” made a hit as Nick Bottom, wearing the Ass’s head, and braying with comical effect; though as Billy had never heard the strange noise which a donkey really makes when it brays, he actually sounded more like a sick rooster. His long-eared head-piece soon grew so hot to wear that Billy took it off and hung it over his arm, which rather spoiled the illusion, but was much more comfortable.
Then there was Charlie Connors, a very fat boy, who dressed as Falstaff, with a fierce mustache and impressive rubber boots, a plumed hat, belt full of pistols, and a sword. There was Lady Macbeth, in a white nightgown with her hair hanging loose, a dangerous dagger in one hand and a lighted candle in the other. But when she nearly set fire to the draperies of the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, Mrs. Corliss made the Lady extinguish her sleep-walking candle.
Hamlet himself was there, too, in melancholy long black stockings, with a waterproof cape flung tragically over one shoulder. He carried one of Aunt Nan’s ostrich eggs in his hand to represent a skull. Indeed, the attic and the “Collections” had helped supply many necessary parts of this Shakespeare masquerade.
There was Cleopatra, in a wonderful red sateen robe hauled out of one of the old chests; and Shylock, with a long beard hanging over a purple dressing-gown of the Early-Victorian period. There was Julius Cæsar in a Roman toga made from some of Aunt Nan’s discarded window-curtains, and Rosalind looking lovely in a blue bathing-suit and tam o’ shanter.
There were also a number of little Grammar-School fairies in mosquito-netting robes, and many other citizens of places earthly and unearthly, who seemed to have wandered out of the books in Mary’s library. Ariel recognized them all, and named them to the company as they came in. They squatted about on the chairs and on the floor till everybody had arrived.
And then they gave the play.
Ever since reading “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Mary had wanted to try the delicious foolery of “Pyramus and Thisbe.” It required no scenery, no other costumes than a shawl or two, to cover up what the actors were already wearing to represent other characters. It was all a huge joke, as the audience soon saw; and throughout the scene the children laughed and squealed with delight, as Mary had thought they would. For the actors must have given the play as ridiculously as Shakespeare himself intended; which was saying a great deal.
Billy Barton, covering himself with a mackintosh, acted Prologue, and introduced Mary, draped as Pyramus, and Katy as Thisbe; John, parted for a time from his wings, and tied up in a gray shawl, with a fringed rope fastened on for a tail, was the horribly roaring Lion. Ralph and Jimmie represented Wall and Moonshine.