From his place behind the curtain Billy Webster wonders how he was ever able even at the beginning of their acquaintance to confuse the twin sisters. Polly in all her existence has never looked so pretty as this and probably never will, and then Billy comes to his senses in a hurry, realizing that it is now his duty to assist in letting the curtain drop on this second scene in the Camp Fire allegory.
In the last act the Christmas tree is all a-blaze with pure white candles and silver tinsel and above it is suspended a great silver star, while the girls in their many colored costumes are seen dancing before it. Then at the close of the dance Polly again enters. She is to recite the epilogue, to make plainer the ideals of the Camp Fire. But some change has come over her since the first scene, her color is entirely gone, her eyes are rimmed and, worst of all, she feels that a deadly weight is settling on her chest and that her voice is nowhere to be found. She is having an attack of stage fright, but Polly does not yet know it by that name. The truth is that she has grown desperately tired, the strain and excitement of waiting after the long day’s pleasure with the very foolish thought that her fate is probably to be decided by one person’s judgment of her abilities has proved too much for her. She tries pulling herself together, she sees many eyes turned up toward her, with one face shining a little farther off like a star. Polly opens her mouth to speak, but there is a great darkness about her, the world is slowly slipping away. She puts out both arms with a pathetic appeal for silence and patience and then suddenly some one is holding her up and the other girls are forming a rainbow circle about her so that she is safely hidden from view.
For in a flash Betty Ashton has guessed at Polly’s faintness, has signaled her companions and then reached her first, so that the curtain finally fell on perhaps the prettiest scene of all.
CHAPTER XIII
An Indian Love Song
Although Polly O’Neill could never afterwards be persuaded that her failure had not marred the Camp Fire play, nevertheless there were many members of the audience who never realized that anything had gone wrong, so promptly had the other girls acted and so swiftly had the curtain been rung down.
And then, within a remarkably short space of time, Esther had reappeared to close the entertainment with her song. The stage had been left as it was in the final act, the piano was already there, and almost immediately the accompanist, Esther’s music teacher in the village, seated herself before it.
The only delay was of a few minutes, caused by the fact that Esther had insisted on wearing her ordinary clothes. A week before, therefore, Betty had had made for her a simple white dress and this Miss McMurtry very quickly helped her into, braiding her red hair into a kind of crown about her head. Her toilet was of course made in a great hurry, but then Esther was so convinced of her own homeliness that she cared very little except to look neatly and appropriately dressed.
Herr Crippen and Esther then walked out on the platform together, the man leading the girl with one hand and carrying his violin with the other, and it was curious the similarity in their coloring.
Very little of the Indian idea had the girls thus far brought into their Christmas Camp Fire entertainment, but now Esther’s song was to bring with it this suggestion, although it had been chosen chiefly because of its beauty and suitability to Esther’s voice. It was, however, a wonderful Indian love song, which Dick had found quite by accident the summer before for his sister’s friend.
Esther was also dreadfully nervous and frightened at the beginning of her song, but fortunately for her she was thinking more of the music itself than of the effect she was to produce. Nevertheless, it was with sensations of disappointment that the friends, who cared most for her singing, listened to the first verse of her song. Dick Ashton, who had found himself a seat in the back of the room, when he was no longer needed to assist with the management of the curtain, moved impatiently several times, thinking that Betty had probably been making unnecessary sacrifices to cultivate her friend’s voice and that they had all probably been mistaken in the degree of Esther’s talent.