“Ella Painter, you’re a-bustin’ up the show!” admonished a motherly old person at the end of the table.
But Mrs. Painter did not notice these hushed remarks. She read the item in the paper aloud—and so extravagantly did she mouth the astonishing words that Ruth feared they might be read on her lips when shown on the screen.
“Listen!” Mrs. Painter cried. “Right at the top of the marriage notices! ‘Garside—Smythe. At Perleyvale, Maine, on August twenty-second, the Reverend Elton Garside, of Herringport, and Miss Amy Smythe, of Perleyvale.’ What do you know about that?”
The gasp of amazement that went up from the women of the Herringport Union Church was almost a chorus of anguish. The paper was snatched from hand to hand. Nobody could accuse the amateurs now of being “wooden.”
Not until Mrs. Paisley in the character of Ma Bassett, at the signal from Mr. Hooley, fell back in her chair, exclaiming: “My mercy me! Luella Sprague and the teacher! Who’d have thought it?” did the company in general suspect that something had been “put over on them.”
“All right! All right!” shouted Jim Hooley in high delight, stopping his camera men. “That’s fine! It’s great! Miss Fielding, your scheme worked like a charm.”
The members of the sewing circle began to ask questions.
“Do you mean to say this is in the play?” demanded Mrs. Ella Painter, waving the newspaper and inclined to be indignant.
“Yes, Mrs. Painter. That marriage notice is just a joke,” the director told her. “It certainly gave you ladies a start and—— Well, wait till you see this scene on the screen!”
“But ain’t it so?” cried another. “Why, Mr. Garside—— Why! it’s in the Harpoon.”