The scene around the long sewing table under the trees, when the ladies’ aid was at work with needle and tongue, should be the principal incident of this reel devoted to the picnic.
The heroine, to the amazement of the village gossips, has run away with the schoolmaster and married him in the next county. A certain character in the picture runs in with this bombshell of news and explodes it in the midst of the group about the sewing table.
The day before this point had failed to make much impression upon the amateur members of the company engaged in this typical scene. The Herringport ladies were not at all interested in such a thing happening to the town’s schoolmaster, for to tell the truth the local schoolmaster was an old married man with a house full of children and nothing at all romantic about him.
Ruth took Mr. Hooley aside and showed him the copy of the Harpoon she had had printed, and whispered to him her idea of the change in the action of the scenario. He seized upon the scheme—and the paper—with gusto.
“You are a jewel, Miss Fielding!” he declared. “If this doesn’t make those old tabbies come to life and act naturally, nothing ever will!”
Ruth left the matter in the director’s hands and retired from the location. She had no intention herself of appearing in the picture. She found Mr. Hammond sitting in his automobile in a state of good-humor.
“You seem quite sure that the work will go better to-day, Mr. Hammond,” Ruth observed, with curiosity as to the reason for his apparent enjoyment.
“Whether it does or not, Miss Ruth,” he responded. “There is something that I fancy is going to be more than a little amusing.”
He tapped a package wrapped in a soiled newspaper which lay on the seat beside him. “Thank goodness, I can still enjoy a joke.”
“What is the joke? Let me enjoy it, too,” she said.