They returned from their expedition in high spirits. The girls had acquitted themselves fairly well at the shuffleboard, which they thought fine fun, and Walter had shown them over the pretty club-house, and had kept them laughing all the way home by his flow of nonsense.
“Now, children,” Mrs. Dixon said, when, after a late dinner, all adjourned to the library, “what do you want to do,—read, play games, have some music, or what?”
“Let’s get up an impromptu play,” suggested Walter. “I am capable of taking half a dozen characters at once, and if one of the girls will help, we can have some fun.”
“I’d much rather be audience,” said Connie; “indeed I should.”
Persis’s eyes sparkled, for there was nothing she enjoyed more than just such a performance, which would give play to her imagination, and in which she could exercise her wit, and she nodded a ready assent when Walter looked at her inquiringly.
“Then Connie and I can keep each other company,” Mrs. Dixon said. “The doctor is a very uncertain quantity, and we can never depend upon having his society, although he may be in at any moment. You know, Walter, that you are welcome to any of the household possessions in reason, and you always have a pile of properties to draw upon, I know. He has a way of utilizing the most unusual articles,” she informed the girls, “so you need not be surprised at anything he may produce.”
Using the library as a stage, the players sent the audience to the adjoining room, and after many journeys to and from the stage were taken and sundry thuds were heard, the curtain rose upon the first scene. This discovered Persis as an old woman at a washtub, while Walter, as an antiquated specimen of rusticity, carried on a violent altercation with his partner upon the subject of taking summer boarders. The rosy Persis was such a very mirthful old woman, in spite of her queer cap and whitened hair, that the old man with the sheep-skin “chin-whiskers,” old straw hat, and dejected-looking appearance generally, was obliged to frown down her merriment continually, while Mrs. Dixon and Connie laughed till the tears came.
The next scene presented Walter as the boarder, who was also the villain of the play, and pretended to be scheming to win the affection of a country maid—represented by Persis—in order to gain possession of the property belonging to the old people whose daughter Persis was supposed to be. After a dramatic interview, in which the villain vowed vengeance upon an unfortunate individual named Willie, who was the lover of the country maid, Walter in a monologue planned how he should get rid of the simple-hearted Willie, and decided that he would shoot him while the two were out hunting together, pretending that it should be considered an accident. The dénouement came when, after a startling report, Walter staggered in bearing the form of his victim.
The appearance of the figure, far from causing tears from the audience, caused them to laugh uncontrolledly, for the cumbersome and unwieldy lay-figure which Walter had constructed out of brooms and pillows, dressed in a suit of old clothes, and surmounted with a false-face and a wig of astrachan cloth, was such a ludicrous object that Persis, as the broken-hearted maid, shook with laughter as she buried her face in her hands. She recovered, however, and her simulated agony over such a ridiculous-looking creature nearly upset even Walter’s gravity. So when the scene concluded with Persis propping up the luckless Willie and announcing in ecstatic tones that he still lived, while she gazed tenderly at the simpering false-face, such laughter ensued that the play was pronounced ended.
“My goodness! we’ve taken up nearly the whole evening,” exclaimed Persis. “I’m all tired out with my agonizing. Did I do well, Mrs. Dixon?”