But Sadie’s mamma did not see it so. Sadie’s mamma had provided the handkerchiefs. Tears were Sadie’s feature in the play.
Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou wore each an anxious seriousness of countenance, but it was a variant seriousness.
Hattie’s tense expression breathed a determination which might have been interpreted do or die; to Hattie life was a battling foe to be overcome and trodden beneath a victorious heel; Hattie was an infantile St. George always on the look for The Dragon, and to-day The Exhibition was The Dragon.
Sadie’s seriousness was a complacent realization of large responsibility. Her weeping was a feature. Sadie remembered she had histrionic talent.
Emmy Lou’s anxiety was because there loomed ahead the awful moment of mounting the platform. It was terrible on mere Fridays to mount the platform and, after vain swallowing to overcome a labial dryness and a lingual taste of copper, try to suit the action to the word, but to mount the platform for The Play—Emmy Lou was trying not to look that far ahead. But as the hour approached, the solemn importance of the occasion was stealing brainward, and she even began to feel glad she was a part of The Exhibition, for to have been left out would have been worse even than the moment of mounting the platform.
“My grown-up brother’s coming,” said Hattie, “an’ my mamma an’ gran’ma an’ the rest.”
“My Aunt Cordelia has invited the visiting lady next door,” said Emmy Lou.
But it was Sadie’s hour. “Our minister’s coming,” said Sadie.
“Oh, Sadie,” said Hattie, and while there was despair in her voice one knew that in Hattie’s heart there was exultation at the very awfulness of it.
“Oh, Sadie,” said Emmy Lou, and there was no exultation in the tones of Emmy Lou’s despair. Not that Emmy Lou had much to do—hers was mostly the suiting of the action to some other’s word. She was chosen largely because of Hattie and Sadie who had wanted her. And then, too, Emmy Lou’s Uncle Charlie was the owner of a newspaper. The Exhibition might get into its columns. Not that Miss Carrie cared for this herself—she was thinking of the good it might do the school.