Of course the greatest thing of all would be to make one's own plays out of one's own circumstances or out of the things that one is thinking about every day. In making a play one must first choose a hero or a heroine; then imagine something that this hero wishes to do. After that some great difficulty is to be planned that he must meet, some opposition he must overcome. In constructing a drama you tell the story of a struggle or endeavor of this kind, putting it all into the words the people speak and nothing at all into any account of the action, the gesture, or the dress. All those things must be seen to by the people who take the parts. And the background may be selected that will come nearest to being the right and fit one for the people and action suggested by the words of the play.
There is an infinite possibility before those who will make the attempt to let the playing of plays have part in the amusements in the farm home. All ages can be suited with plays, the simple ones for the smallest children, the more complex and finished for the older ones, the great ones for the oldest and most educated among the members of the family. As drama is one expression of the play spirit (using the word here in its meaning of "recreation"), and the satisfaction that comes with the feeding of this hunger in people of all ages, has but to be once known for us to seek earnestly for its food another and yet another time.
To show how this instinct has been made effective in one home I quote, with kind permission, a play made by one little girl of eleven years old. In reading it over the reader will see what the child has been reading and where she got the material of the thoughts she has embodied in the action and atmosphere of this naïve and delightful little play.
TRUE LOVERS
A PLAY IN SEVEN SCENES
By Julia Carolyn Horne
THE CAST
| King Eric | Betsy Horne | |
| Princess Elaine, his daughter | Harriet Benger | |
| Sir Constantine, knight, in love with Princess Elaine | Julia Horne | |
| Omar, a page | Billie Horne | |
| Three ladies in waiting to the Princess | Jessielyn Lucas, Helen Ecker, Helene Timmerman. |
Scene I.—Court of King Eric.
King seated on throne. Princess Elaine beside him, attended by her three maids of honor. A loud knocking is heard. Omar goes to the door and returns.