NATE'S CAVE
The little teacher went back to her school the very next day. It was a hard thing, but she knew her parents desired it. Her proud head was lowered; she could not meet the eyes of the children, who seemed to be trying their best not to laugh. At last she spoke:—
"I got frightened yesterday. I was not very brave; now was I? Hark! The people in the mine are blasting rocks again, but we won't run away, will we?"
They laughed, and she tried to laugh, too. Then she called the classes into the floor; and no more did she ever say to the scholars about the earthquake. She helped Nate in his arithmetic, and he treated her like a queen. He was coming to Aunt Vi's room that evening to show his knee-buckles and cocked hat and find out just what he was to do on the stage.
Kyzie wanted to see the cocked hat and felt interested in her own white cap which Mrs. McQuilken was making. It was a good thing for Katharine that she had "Jimmy's play" to think of just now. It helped her through that long forenoon. After this the forenoons did not drag; school went on as usual, and Kyzie was glad she had had the courage to go back and "live down" her foolish behavior.
When they met in Aunt Vi's room that evening it was decided not to have "Jimmy's play" on the tailings, for that was a place free to all. People would not buy tickets for an entertainment out of doors.
"My tent is the thing," said Uncle James, and so they all thought It was a large white one, and the children agreed to decorate it with evergreens. It would hold all the people who were likely to come and many more.
During the week Uncle James set up the tent not far from the hotel and in one corner of it built a staging. He did not mind taking trouble for his beloved namesake, James Sanford Dunlee. The stage was made to look like a room in an old-fashioned house. It had a make-believe door and window and a make-believe fireplace with andirons and wood and shovel and tongs. There was a rag rug on the floor, and on the three-legged stand stood the hour-glass with candles in iron candlesticks. The fiddle-backed chairs were there and two hard "easy-chairs" and an old wooden "settle." Lucy and Bab said it looked "like somebody's house," and they wanted to go and live in it.
On the Saturday afternoon appointed the play had been well learned by the four actors. Everything being ready, this cosy little sitting-room was now shut off from view by a calico curtain which was stretched across the stage by long strings run through brass rings.
The play would begin at half-past two. Jimmy was dressed neatly in his very best clothes. He had a roll of paper and a pencil in one of his pockets and during the play he meant to add up the number of people present and find out how much money had been taken.