More than one, at least in the crowd that had gathered to watch the movie folk, was almost as much excited as was Mrs. Martin, when they saw the actress jump out of the boat into the river. But Mr. Martin quickly understood that it was all part of the work of making moving pictures, and said:
“It’s all right, Mother! Don’t worry!”
“They’ll get her out!” added Ted. “Look, there goes a man in after her now!”
As he spoke the man in the stern of the boat threw off his coat and leaped with a great splash into the water after the young lady.
“And they’re taking pictures of it all the while!” called out Jan. “Oh, I wish I could see them on the screen!”
What Janet said was true—from the time the boat started up the stream near the white bridge until the moment when the young lady leaped out and the actor leaped after her, men on the bank, and also men in another boat, were quickly turning the handles of their moving picture cameras, filming every action of the actors and actresses.
“Why do they have three cameras, Daddy?” asked Janet, for she noticed at least this number of men, with their caps on backward, grinding away.
“There are two reasons for that,” answered Mr. Martin. “One reason is that one film might be spoiled, and if it was the only one taken all the work would have to be done over again. Another reason is that the pictures give different views of the same scene, and it can not be told, until after the films are developed and printed, which is the best. So they take two or three, the same as a photographer takes more than one picture of you when you go to his studio.”
“Did they take more than one picture of the little twin girls that died?” Janet asked, pointing to where, in a box in the rear of the auto, the two Cardwell albums had been placed. “And did they take two pictures of the boy who was lost at sea?”
“I don’t know about that,” her father answered. “I suppose they did, though the pictures were taken a number of years ago when it wasn’t as easy to make photographs as it is now. When those twin girls and the Cardwell boy sat for their portraits, moving pictures weren’t thought of—at least, not as we see them now.”