“Yes, the same one. She’s our leading lady as Mr. Portnay is our leading man.”
“You stay here with the children, my dear,” said Mr. Martin to his wife, “and I’ll go and ask Mr. Birch if he knows anything of my box of albums that Mr. Portnay took. I’ll be right back.”
The Curlytops watched their father cross a field and approach a group of movie folk who were being filmed in some scene that had to do with the fowls, of which there were a large number on the Dawson Farm. From where they sat in the auto the Curlytops and their mother could see and hear something of what went on. Trouble had gotten down out of the car and was playing with a little puppy at one side, so he was accounted for for the time being.
As Mr. Martin approached the scene at the chicken houses he could see Miss Marcell tossing grain to the hens and roosters. In front of her, and to one side of a movie camera, was a man with a megaphone in his hands. Through this he called directions to the actress as the man at the camera ground the crank.
“Not so fast! Not so fast!” cried Tony Birch, for it was the director who was managing matters. “Don’t throw the chickens corn so fast, Miss Marcell! You’ll make them have indigestion. Do it slowly, as if you were a girl on a farm.”
“All right,” was the smiling answer, and she began to scatter fewer grains.
“Oh, you’ll have to give them more than that or they’ll think you’re stingy!” exclaimed the director. “There—that’s better. Shoot!” he called to the camera man, and the latter, who had ceased grinding out the film while the actress was being corrected, began again.
When the scene was over Mr. Martin asked the director:
“Did Mr. Portnay leave behind him a red box belonging to me? He took it by mistake yesterday when you were at Cresco.”
The director thought for a moment and answered: