“I got the same impression. If we can manage to make him forget that strenuous business of his, of making successful motion pictures he’ll be able to build himself up.”
“He’ll find plenty to interest himself in the graduation program,” said Mrs. Hardy, “and if you take him on some fishing and loafing expeditions along the creek he’ll get a fine chance to relax.”
“Unless they send a rush call from the coast for him to return at once like they did a year ago just after he had settled down to a fine vacation. Well, staying up and talking doesn’t help the situation. Scoot for bed, Janet. It’s a good thing you aren’t in the class play, what with keeping such late hours as this.”
Up until the afternoon of the play Janet saw very little of Helen’s father. He was over to the house once, but Helen informed her that he had been sleeping and taking long drives around the countryside with her mother.
“They have so very much to visit about,” explained Helen, who was worn thin by the strain of the last rehearsals. The night before it had been midnight before they rang down the curtain. Janet had been up equally as late for her work on the meager lighting equipment kept her on the job as long as the cast rehearsed.
On Friday afternoon they made a final check of sets and lights and costumes and Miss Williams rehearsed one or two of the minor characters who had been causing more trouble than the leads in getting their lines in just the way she wanted them.
The gymnasium was filled with row upon row of chairs. The old curtain which shielded the stage had been refurbished and looked quite presentable in spite of the landscape scene which it depicted. Someday Janet hoped the school would be able to buy adequate stage equipment. The stage was large enough, but the sets were pitifully few in number and all of them several years old. They had been changed a little here and there by the stagecraft class, but underneath you could detect the same flats and doors and windows of other years.
It was five o’clock before they finally straggled away from the gym and the call for the entire cast and stage crew was 6:30 o’clock for Miss Williams wanted everyone on hand early. Janet had seen the instructor conferring with a rather distinguished looking man that afternoon and guessed that he was the representative of the producing company, there to see the production and make the final decision on offering a job to Miss Williams.
Janet, in spite of the fact that she was only a member of the stage crew, found it hard to eat even though supper that night was especially delicious and her mother, although silent, looked at her reprovingly.
Helen arrived before supper was over and Janet was surprised to see her so calm. Perhaps her father had been coaching her on composure.