“Oh, Uncle Robert, a curtain that goes up and down?”
“Of course,” said Uncle Robert, “and footlights and everything.”
“O-o-o-o-h!” sighed both girls, and Miss Hooker looked at Uncle Robert and smiled and he seemed real pleased.
“I think I must go if you will be kind enough to take me home,” said Miss Hooker. “Rosanna, you must tell the Girl Scouts about Gwenny at the next meeting, and read your play. Then we will get right to work, for the sooner this is staged, the better. We don’t want to interfere with the Christmas work.”
After Mr. Horton had taken the tiny little lady home, the girls raced upstairs and went to bed, but it was a long, long time before they could get to sleep. They finally went off, however, and did not hear Uncle Robert when he came home whistling gaily. They dreamed, however, both of them, of acting before vast audiences that applauded all their speeches. And at last Rosanna woke up with a start to find that Helen was clapping her hands furiously and stamping her feet against the footboard. After Rosanna succeeded in awakening her, they had a good laugh before they went to sleep again.
At breakfast Uncle Robert was full of plans for the Benefit. “Miss Hooker and I went all over your play last night, Rosanna,” he said, “and smoothed out the rough places. You know every manuscript has to be corrected. It is on the table in my room. You had better read it over after school, and if it suits your highness I will have it typewritten for you, and you can go ahead. I am going to see about the barn now, on my way down town, and if Mrs. Hargrave is willing—and I am sure she will be—I will get a carpenter to measure for the staging. I suppose,” he added, “I ought to ask Miss Hooker to look at the place and get some suggestions from her?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bother to wait for her,” said Rosanna, who was wild to see the stage built. “She won’t care what you do. If you like, I will tell her how busy you are and that you won’t bother to come around to her house any more because you can attend to things just as well yourself.”
Uncle Robert looked hard at Rosanna. It was a queer look; sort of the look you would expect from a cannibal uncle who has a little niece that he wants to eat. Rosanna, catching the look, was surprised and quite disturbed. But when Uncle Robert spoke, he merely said, “Thank you, Rosanna; but you see I do need Miss Hooker’s advice very much indeed. The fact is I will never be able to put this thing through as well as I want to put it through unless I can consult with her every day or so. In fact, if I cannot consult as often as I need to, I will certainly have to give it up. And that would be awful, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course it would, Uncle Robert,” answered Rosanna. “I just hated to have you bothered.”
“I will stagger along under the burden,” said Uncle Robert, trying to look like a martyr. “The thing for you to do is to forget how hard I am working and how much help I have to have doing this, and get your girls to studying on their parts.”