"Those are the ones I mean," went on the manager. "In this play you are supposed to be a country girl. Your father falls ill and can't cut the hay. It has to be cut and sold to pay a pressing debt, and no hired men can be had in a hurry. So you hitch up the horses to the mower and drive them to cut the grass. It's only for a little while. Think you can do it?"
"Well, I never drove a mowing machine; but I can try. I don't know about hitching up the horses, though."
"Better practice a little with Sandy, then," the manager advised. "He'll show you how."
He gave Alice some written instructions, and then went over Ruth's part in the play. Alice, resolving to learn how to hitch up a team, went out to find Sandy.
It was much easier than she had expected to find it, to attach the slow and patient horses to the mowing machine, and the young farmer took her for a turn with it about the barn yard, so she would be familiar with its operation.
"I think I can do it," said Alice, and two days later, the rehearsals were ended and all was in readiness for making the film of the new rural play.
Alice took her place on the seat of the machine, and began to guide the horses around the edge of the hay field. The mower has a long knife extending out from one side, and as the machine is driven along the wheels work the mechanism that sends this knife—or, rather a series of knives—vibrating back and forth inside a sort of toothed guard, thus cutting the hay or grain.
"All ready, now," called Mr. Pertell to Russ, who was at the camera.
"Go 'long!" cried Alice to the horses, and the animals began their slow walk. For a time all went well, and then a dog, coming from no one knew where, ran at the heels of the horses, barking and worrying them. In an instant one of the steeds leaped forward in fright and the other caught the alarm.
"Hold them in, Alice!" cried Russ. But it was too late, and the horses started to run away, dragging with them the frightened girl on the seat of the mowing machine.