"John writes full of enthusiasm concerning the contract, and I shall tell him nothing of your absurd doings until you and Winn are safely back here. Ever lovingly your sister,——ELLEN."
CHAPTER XX.
BIM GROWLS.
During the following day, while these letters were on their way to the little Iowa town in which the principal actors in this story were playing at such cross-purposes, active preparations were being made on board the Whatnot for the first exhibition of its panorama. In those days the panorama filled the place now taken by the stereopticon; and though its crude pictures lacked the photographic truth of lantern slides, they were by no means devoid of interest. In fact, their gorgeousness of color, and the vagueness of detail that allowed each to represent several scenes, according to the pleasure of the lecturer, rendered them quite as popular, if not so instructive, as their modern successors.
The success of a panorama, however, depended largely upon the person who explained its pictures. If he were witty, and knew how to tell the good story of which each one was certain to remind him, all went well, and the fame of that panorama spread far and wide. If, on the other hand, he was prosy, and offered only dry explanations of his pictures, the impatient river-town audience did not hesitate to express their dissatisfaction, and the exhibition was apt to close with a riot.
All this was well known to Cap'n Cod; but twenty years of absence from the stage had caused him to lose sight of his first and only humiliating appearance before an audience, and had restored all his youthful confidence in his own abilities. He was therefore to be the lecturer of his own show, while Winn and Solon were to enter the treadmill, and supply, as well as they could, the place of a mule in furnishing power to move the heavy roll of paintings. Sabella was also to remain out of sight, but was to grind out music from the hand-organ whenever it might be needed. This was only a temporary position, and would be filled by either Winn or Solon after a mule had been obtained for the treadmill. Sabella's real duty was to dress Don Blossom, and see that he went on the stage at the proper time.
The hour for giving these arrangements a public test finally arrived. By eight o'clock the exhibition hall of the Whatnot was packed with an audience that contained a number of raftsmen and steamboat hands from the water-front. These were good-naturedly noisy, and indulged in cat-calls, stampings, and other manifestations of their impatience for the curtain to rise. An occasional lull in the tumult allowed the droning notes of the "Sweet By-and-By," then new and extremely popular, to be heard, as they were slowly ground out from the hand-organ by the invisible Sabella.
At length they ceased; the little drop-curtain was slowly rolled up so as to expose the first picture, and Cap'n Cod, pointer in hand, in all the glory of the blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, stepped on the stage. His appearance was greeted with a silence that was almost painful in its contrast with the previous tumult.
Now for the neat introductory speech that the old man had prepared so carefully and rehearsed until he knew every word by heart. He stepped forward, and gazed appealingly at the silent audience; but no word came from his dry lips. He swallowed convulsively, and appeared to be struggling with himself. A titter of laughter sounded from the back of the room. The old man's face became fiery red and then deathly pale. He looked helplessly and pitifully from side to side.