"No, just cut them."
"Well, that's good. We'll charge a nickel for two tickets, and give it in your shed next Wednesday. Get to work now. I've just thought of Montie Fry and his trick dog, and Dick Sullivan and his mouth-organ. I am going right over and see if they will take part."
She was as good as her word, and when the following Wednesday afternoon arrived it would have been hard to tell which was the largest, the audience in the carriage shed, or the company of participants arranged on the platform which Leonard had built for just such gatherings; but every one of the fifty tickets had been sold, and late arrivals had to present cash, at the door, where Hector presided.
The program, was certainly original and varied, if somewhat lengthy, and the audience was kept in a thrill of expectation from one number to the next, for Peace was a master hand at arranging her numbers, and instinctively had saved the best for the last. Just as she herself had taken her place in front of the motley gathering to give an exhibition of her whistling, the big door swung noiselessly, and the company from the great house arrived in a body,—the Judge's wife and daughter, their guests, the Sherrars, and the minister and his small family. They looked very much surprised to find the place crowded to its utmost capacity, but were even more astonished when, after a preliminary bar or so on the mouth-organ, Dick Sullivan began softly to play The Blue-bells of Scotland, and Peace's red lips took up the melody, whistling with beautiful accuracy and clearness, trilling through measure after measure with bird-like notes, following all of Dick's variations, and adding a few of her own under the inspiration lent by the presence of her beloved friends.
"Cecile," exclaimed her friend Frances, "why didn't you tell me you had such a genius in your midst? I'd have been out here the first one to hear the whole program. Why, she looks like an angel, and her whistling is divine. Who is she?"
"Peace Greenfield," answered Cecile, almost too amazed for speech, for this was the first time she herself had ever heard the young whistler. "Father calls her the dearest little nuisance in town. She is one of the most original pieces I ever saw in my life—always into mischief, and always trying to help someone. But truly, I had no idea she could whistle like that. Mr. Strong, what do you think of it?"
"She is doing splendidly!" he whispered enthusiastically. "She is a regular genius at it. Why, a year ago she came to me and begged me to teach her."
"So she is a pupil of yours?" asked Mrs. Sherrar, as much enchanted with the musician as were her young people.
"Not exactly. I helped her what I could, but I think most of the credit belongs to Mike O'Hara and the birds in the woods. He set her to imitating them; and she is an apt mimic, you will find. Clap with all your might."
The very rafters rang with the applause of the enthusiastic audience, as the small whistler took her seat among her mates on the platform, and she was forced to give another selection, and a third. Allee came to her aid in the fourth, and sang to a whistled accompaniment, but the applause was more tremendous and insistent than before; and poor, weary Peace rose to her feet for the fifth time, but instead of pouring forth the torrent of melody they expected, she faced the audience belligerently, and cried in exasperation, "My pucker is tired out and my throat aches. Do you 'xpect me to stand here all night? Victor Sherrar will play on his cornet now and then you can go home."