The tableau was Kenneth, standing in a high chair, buttoned into one of his mother’s corset covers, which reached nearly to his feet. The grown-up audience was wondering what this had to do with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” when Franklin said, “Oh, pshaw! that’s wrong. That part doesn’t come in yet.”
“It does so,” said Eunice, putting her head out from behind the door.
“Does so,” echoed Kenneth from the high chair.
“Aw, you mustn’t talk,” jeered Franklin. “You’re nothing but the nightmare Uncle Tom saw in the last act.”
“Ain’t either!” said Kenneth, bursting a button off the heavenly robe, in his wrath. “I’m little Eva.”
“It’s no fair talking,” said Eunice. “Mother, is it fair talking to the tableau?”
“Let’s have the next scene,” said one of the ladies, applauding very hard.
“Oh, yes,” said Eunice, looking quite pleased. “The next scene is Eliza crossing on the ice, pursued by the fierce bloodhound.”
Eunice was Eliza, and Weejums was the bloodhound, and the cakes of ice were newspapers spread on the floor. Eunice, screaming loudly, clasped her doll to her bosom and jumped from paper to paper, then stopped and wiggled a string, and the fierce bloodhound followed, with gentle pounces and wavings of a tortoise-shell tail.
But when the audience clapped its delight, the tail grew so big with terror that you could scarcely see any kitten at all behind it, and dashed off the stage to hide under the nursery bureau. And the whole audience left their seats and crawled around on hands and knees with the actors, trying to coax the fierce bloodhound out.