CHAPTER VI
The stairs were broad and easy, and the girls ran up after Uncle Robert who proceeded to fit a large key in the lock of the big door at the head of the stairs. It was a very fine stable, built many, many years ago, and finished outside and inside with great care. The walls were all sealed or finished with narrow strips of varnished wood. As the door swung open, the three girls stood dumb with amazement. Then “Oh, darling Uncle Robert!” cried Rosanna, and threw herself into his arms.
Uncle Robert looked over her head at Miss Hooker and smiled.
“Glad if you like it, kiddie,” he said. “It is my contribution to little Gwenny. And Doctor Rick told me to tell you that he would send some music for his share.”
“Oh, Helen, Helen, isn’t that splendid?” cried Rosanna. “Now we won’t have to have a Victrola! It will be like a real theatre.”
“Just exactly,” said Helen absently. She could not give very much thought to the orchestra when the little theatre claimed her attention.
There was a real stage, and before it a long green tin that the girls knew concealed the footlights. A splendid curtain hung before them, painted in a splashy way with a landscape. To the girls it seemed a rare work of art. Well, the sign painter who had done it was rather proud of himself, so it must have been all right.
They walked down the aisle between rows of nice new benches, made with comfortable backs. Mr. Horton left them and went around back of the stage. Immediately there was a sound of ropes squeaking, and the curtain rose as majestically as though it was the curtain of a real theatre. And there was the stage! The same accommodating sign painter had painted a back drop and “flies” as they are called. It was a woodland scene. Trees were the thing that accommodating sign painter could do best, and he had made lots of them, as green as green! He had also painted two canvas covered boxes so that you could scarcely tell them from real rocks.
“Isn’t that pretty nifty looking scenery?” asked Uncle Robert proudly. “It only goes to show that there is a lot of kindness floating around loose in this work-a-day old world. The man who painted all this knew Gwenny’s mother when she was a girl, and when I asked for his bill he said he had done it all Sundays and nights and it was his contribution. He wouldn’t take a cent. Doing it nights is why some of the trees look sort of bluish but I don’t think it hurts, do you?”