“Well, anyway, she could have a wash-boiler brought in from the kitchen, couldn’t she?”
Tommy thought mebbe she could, but would she?
Mrs. Vickery did not interfere. She had an idea that Mrs. Jerrems could be trusted to see to it that Ophelia had an extra-dry drowning. Mrs. Jerrems was rather fond of her furniture.
Money to buy gold paper for the crowns, and silver paper to make canes look like swords and curtain-poles like spears, nearly wrecked the project. But Tommy thought that by patience and assiduity he could shake out of the patent savings-bank his father had given him enough dimes to subsidize the institution, on condition that he might reimburse himself out of the first moneys that were bound to flood the box-office.
There was earnest debate over the price of admission. Clyde Burbage suggested five pins, but Sheila turned up her nose at this; it sounded amateurish. She said that her father and mother would never play in any but two-dollar theaters—or “fe-aters,” as she still called them. Still, she supposed that since the comp’ny was all juveniles they’d better not charge more than a dollar for seats, and fifty cents for the nigger-heaven.
Tommy Jerrems, who had some bitter acquaintance with the ductile qualities of that community, emitted a long, low “Whew!” He said that they would be lucky to get five cents a head in that town, and not many heads at that. This sum was reluctantly accepted by Sheila, and the syndicate moved to adjourn.
Sheila put her hand in Mrs. Vickery’s and ducked one knee respectfully. But Mrs. Vickery, with an impulse of curious subservience, knelt down and embraced the child and kissed her.
She had an odd feeling that some day she would say, “Sheila Kemble? Oh yes, I knew her when she was a tiny child. I always said she would startle the world.”
She seemed even now to hear her own voice echoing faintly back from the future.
The guests made a quiet exit at the door, but they stampeded down the steps like a scamper of sheep. Sheila’s piercing cry came back. It was wildly poignant, though it expressed only her excitement in a game of tag.