“You notice that beggars never come through that street. They are a nuisance and wealthy people don’t want to see people in rags about their doorsteps. Even the most charitable people are that way, I guess,” added Nan.
“Your mother is so generous, Walter, that if beggars had free access to the street and the house, she could never go out of an afternoon without having to push her way through a throng of the poor and diseased to reach her carriage.”
“Oh, mercy!” cried Bess.
“I guess that is so,” admitted Walter. “You’ve got mother sized up about right.”
“I know it’s so,” said Nan, quickly. “Do you know, I think your mother, Walter, would have made a good chatelaine of a castle in medieval times. Then charitably inclined ladies were besieged by the poor and miserable at their castle gates. The good lady gave them largess as she stepped into her chariot. Their servants threw silver pennies at a distance so that the unfortunates would scramble for the coins and leave a free passage for miladi.
“In those days,” pursued Nan, quite in earnest, “great plagues used to destroy a large portion of the population— sweeping through the castles of the rich as well as the hovels of the poor. That was because the beggars hung so upon the skirts of the rich. Wealth paid for its cruelty to poverty in those days, by suffering epidemics of disease with the poor.”
“Goodness, Nan! I never thought of that,” said Walter. “What a girl you are.”
“She reads everything,” said Bess, proudly; “even statistics.”
Nan laughed heartily. “I did not get that out of a book of statistics, Bess. But that is why we have so many hospitals and institutions for housing poor and ill people. Society has had to make these provisions for the poor, to protect itself.”
“Now you sound like a regular socialist or anarchist or something,” said Bess, somewhat vaguely.
“You’d have heard it all before, if you’d listened to some of Dr. Beulah’s lectures in the classroom,” Nan said. “But we’re far off the subject of Inez. I wish we could find her; but there seems no way.”
“Oh, Nan! are you sure? Put on your thinking-cap,” begged Bess.
“I have thought,” her chum replied. “I thought of trying to trace her through the people who sell flowers to her. I asked Mrs. Beasley, and she told me that the flowers Inez sells come from the hotels and big restaurants where they have been on the tables over night. They are sorted and sold cheap to street pedlers like Inez. Hundreds of little ragamuffins buy and hawk these bouquets about the streets. The men who handle the trade would not be likely to remember one little girl.
“Besides,” added Nan, smiling sadly. “Inez is a bankrupt. She is out of business altogether. The few pennies she saved back every day— rain or shine, whether she went hungry, or was fed— was her capital; and that her aunt took away. I’m dreadfully worried about the poor thing,” concluded Nan, with moist eyes.
She felt so bad about it that she could not bring herself to join the matinée party that had been arranged by Grace for that afternoon. Some of the girls were going to have a box at a musical comedy, with Miss Hagford as chaperon.
Nan did not plead a headache; indeed, she was not given to white lies. She wished to call on the lovely actress whom she had met the day of her adventure in the department store. She wanted to inquire if she had seen or heard anything of the runaways, Sallie and Celia.
“I’d dearly love to go with you,” Bess observed. “Just think of your knowing such a famous woman. You have all the luck, Nan Sherwood.”
“I’m not sure that it was good fortune that brought me in contact with the lady,” Nan returned ruefully.
“Well! it turned out all right, at least,” said Bess. “And my escapades never do. I never have any luck. If it rained soup and I was hungry, you know I wouldn’t have any spoon.”
Nan set forth before the other girls started for the theatre. She knew just how to find the fashionable apartment hotel in which the actress lived, for she and her friends had passed it more than once in the car.
At the desk the clerk telephoned up to the actress’ apartment to see if she was in, and would receive Nan. The maid did not understand who Nan was, and was doubtful; but the moment Madam came to the telephone herself and heard Nan’s name, she cried:
“Send her up— send her up! She is just the one I want to see.”
This greatly excited Nan, for she thought of Sallie and Celia. When she was let out of the elevator on one of the upper floors, the apartment door was open, and Madam herself was holding out a welcoming hand to her, excitedly saying:
“You dear girl! You are as welcome as the flowers in May. Come in and let me talk to you. How surprising, really! I had no thought of seeing you, and yet I desired to— so much.”
Nan was drawn gently into the large and beautiful reception room, while the actress was talking. She saw the woman’s furs and hat thrown carelessly on a couch, and thought that she must have recently come in, even before Madam said:
“I have just come from an exhausting morning in the studio. Oh, dear! everybody seemed so stupid to-day. There are such days, you know— everything goes wrong, and even the patient camera-man loses his temper.
“Yes, Marie, you may bring the tea tray. I am exhausted; nothing but tea will revive this fainting pilgrim.
“And, my dear!” she added, turning to Nan again, “I have news for you— news of those runaway girls.”
“Oh, Madam! Are Sallie and Celia found?” cried Nan. “I want so to make Mrs. Morton happy.”
“We-ell,” said the actress, with less enthusiasm. “I believe I can give you a trace of them. But, of course, I haven’t them shut up in a cage waiting for their parents to come for them,” and she laughed.
“It really is an odd occurrence, my dear. At the time I was telling you the other day that those girls could not be working with my company, that is exactly what they were doing.”
“Oh!” cried Nan, again.
“Yes, my dear. Just fancy! I only learned of it this very morning. Of course, I give no attention to the extra people, save when they are before the camera. My assistant hires them and usually trains the ‘mob’ until I want them.
“Now, fancy!” pursued the lovely woman, “there was a girl, named Jennie Albert, whom we had been using quite a good deal, and she fell ill. So she sent two new girls, and as Mr. Gray needed two extras that day, he let them stay without inquiring too closely into their personal affairs.
“Oh, I blame Mr. Gray, and I told him so. I did not see the girls in question until the big scene we put on this morning. Then the company before the camera was too large; the scene was crowded. I began weeding out the awkward ones, as I always do.
“Why, positively, my dear, there are some girls who do not know how to wear a frock, and yet they wish to appear in my films!
“These two girls of whom I speak I cut out at once. I told Mr. Gray never to put them into costume again. Why! sticks and stones have more grace of movement and naturalness than those two poor creatures— positively!” cried the moving picture director, with emphasis.
“Ah, well! I must not excite myself. This is my time for relaxation, and— a second cup of tea!”
Her light laughter jarred a bit on Nan Sherwood’s troubled mind.
“To think!” the lovely actress said, continuing, “that it never occurred to my mind that those two awkward misses might be your runaways until I was standing on one side watching the scene as they passed out. One was crying. Of course I am sorry I had to order their discharge, but one must sacrifice much for art,” sighed Madam.
“One was crying, and I heard the other call her ‘Celia.’ And then the crying girl said: ’I can’t help it, Sallie. I am discouraged’— or something like that.
“Of course, you understand, my dear, my mind was engaged with far more important matters. My sub-consciousness must have filmed the words, and especially the girls’ names. After the scene suited me, it suddenly came back to me t
hat those names were the real names of the runaway girls. They had given Mr. Gray fictitious names, of course. When I sent him out to find them, he was just too late. The girls had left the premises.”
Other People’s Worries
Nan had written home quite fully about the presentation of the medal. It was the first her father and mother had known of the courage she had displayed so many weeks before in saving the life of the tiny girl at the Junction.
The fact that some of her fellow passengers had seen the act and considered it worthy of commemoration, of course, pleased Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood; but that Nan had been in peril herself on the occasion, naturally worried her mother.
“I hope you will not go about seeking other adventures, my dear child,” wrote her mother, with gentle raillery. “What with your announcement of the presentation of the medal, and Mrs. Mason’s enthusiastic letter, your father and I begin to believe that we have a kind of female knight errant for a daughter. I am afraid we never shall get our little Nan back again.”
Nan did not really need any bubble of self-importance pricked in this way. She was humbly thankful to have been able to save the little girl from the snake, and that the horrid creature had not harmed her, either.
She had hidden the medal away, and would not display it or talk about it. The thought that her name and her exploit were on the Roll of Honor of the National Society actually made Nan’s ears burn.
She had other worries during these brief winter days— mostly other people’s worries, however. The absolute disappearance of Inez was one; another was the whereabouts of the two runaway girls, Sallie and Celia, who should by this time have discovered that they were not destined to be great motion picture actresses.
Nan had come away from the apartment of her friend, “the Moving Picture Queen,” as Walter called her, that afternoon, with the address of the studio and a letter to Madam’s assistant, Mr. Gray. The next morning, she and Bess went to the studio to make inquiries about the runaway girls. They went alone because Grace had much to do before returning to school; and now their day of departure for Lakeview was close at hand.
“And oh! how I hate to go back to those horrid studies again,” groaned Bess.
Nan laughed. “What a ridiculous girl you are, Bess Harley,” she said. “You were just crazy to go to Lakeview in the first place.”
“Yes! wasn’t I?” interposed Bess, gloomily. “But I didn’t know I was crazy.”
When once the chums came to the motion picture studio they had no thought for anything but their errand and the interesting things they saw on every side. At a high grilled gate a man let them into the courtyard after a glance at the outside of the letter Nan carried.
“You’ll find Mr. Gray inside somewhere,” said the gatekeeper. “You’ll have to look for him.”
Nan and Bess were timid, and they hesitated for some moments in the paved yard, uncertain which of the several doors to enter. They saw a number of girls and men enter through the gate as they had, and watched the men hurry to one door, and the women and girls to another.
“Lets follow those girls,” suggested Bess, as a chattering trio went into the building. “We can’t go far wrong, for the sheep and the goats seem to be separated,” and she giggled.
“Meaning the men from the women?” said Nan. “I guess those doors lead to the dressing rooms.”
She was right in this, for when the two friends stepped doubtfully into a long, high, white-plastered passage, which was quite empty, but out of which many doors opened, they heard a confusion of conversation and laughter from somewhere near.
“What are you going to do?” asked Bess, at once— and as usual— shifting all responsibility to her chum’s shoulders. “Knock at all the doors, one after the other, until we find somebody who will direct us further?”
“Maybe that would not be a bad idea, Bess,” Nan returned. “But— ”
Just then a door opened and the confusion of voices burst on the visitors’ ears with startling directness. A girl, dressed as a Gypsy, gaudy of raiment and bejeweled with brilliantly colored glass beads, almost ran the chums down as she tried to pull the door to behind her. The girl’s face was painted with heavy shadows and much white, and so oddly that it looked almost like the make-up for a clown’s part.
“Hello, kids. Going in here?” she asked pleasantly enough, refraining from closing the door entirely.
Nan and Bess obtained a good view of the noisy room. It was lighted by high windows and a skylight. There were rows of lockers for the girls’ clothes along the blank wall of the room. Through the middle and along the sides were long tables and stools. The tables were divided into sections, each of which had its own make-up and toilet outfit.
A mature woman was going about, re-touching many of the girl’s faces and scolding them, as Nan and Bess could hear, for not putting on the grease paint thick enough.
“That nasty stuff!” gasped Bess, in Nan’s ear. “I wouldn’t want to put it on my face.”
Right then and there Bess lost all her desire for posing for the moving picture screen. Nan paid little attention to her, but ran after the girl who was hurrying through the passage toward the rear of the great building.
“Oh, wait, please!” cried Nan. “I want to find Mr. Gray— and I know he can’t be in that dressing-room.”
“Gray? I should say not,” and the girl in costume laughed. Then she saw the letter in Nan’s hand. “Is that for Gray?”
“Yes,” Nan replied.
“Come along then. I expect he’s been waiting for me for half an hour now— and believe me, he’s just as kind and considerate as a wild bull when we keep him waiting. I overslept this morning.”
It was then after ten o’clock, and Nan wondered how one could “oversleep” so late.
“I’m only glad Madam isn’t going to be here this morning. By the way,” the girl added, curiously, “who’s your letter from? You and your friend trying to break into the movies?”
“My goodness, no!” gasped Nan. “I have no desire to act— and I’m sure I have no ability.”
“It might be fun,” Bess said doubtfully. “But do you all have to paint up so awfully?”
“Yes. That’s so we will look right on the screen. Here! that’s Gray— the bald-headed man in the brown suit. I hope you have better luck than two girls from the country who were in here for a couple of days. Gray bounced them yesterday. Who’s your letter from?” added the girl, evidently disbelieving what both Nan and Bess had said when they denied haying any desire to pose for the screen.
“Madam, herself,” said Nan, demurely. “Do you think Mr. Gray will give me a hearing?”
“Well, I guess yes,” cried the girl in costume. “Oh, do give it to him just as he starts in laying me out, will you?”
“Anything to oblige,” Nan said, smiling. “Can we go right over and speak to him?”
“After me,” whispered the girl. “Don’t get into any of the ‘sets,’ or you’ll get a call-down, too.”
They had entered an enormous room, half circular in shape, with the roof and the “flat” side mostly glass. There were countless screens to graduate the light, and that light was all directed toward the several small, slightly raised stages, built in rotation along the curved wall of the studio.
Each of these stages had its own “set” of scenery and was arranged for scenes. On two, action of scenes was taking place while the energetic directors were endeavoring to get out of their people the pantomimic representation of the scenario each had in charge.
One director suddenly clapped his hands and shouted.
“Get this, John! All ready! You dude and cowboy start that scene now. Be sure you run on at the right cue, Miss Legget. Now, John! Ready boys?”
The representation of a tussle between a cowboy and an exquisitely dressed Eastern youth, in which comedy bit the so-called dude disarmed the Westerner and drove him into a corner till his sweetheart bursts in to protect him from the “wild Easterner,” went to a
glorious finish.
The camera clicked steadily, the man working it occasionally calling out the number of feet of blank film left on the spool so that the director might know whether to hasten or retard the action of the picture.
Nan and Bess stopped, as they were warned by the girl dressed in Gypsy costume, and watched the proceedings eagerly. Just as the scene came to an end the bald man in the brown suit strode over to the three girls.
“What do you mean by keeping me waiting, Miss Penny?” he demanded in a tone that made Bess shrink away and tremble. “Your scene has been set an hour. I want— Humph! what do these girls want? Did you bring them in?”
Miss Penny poked Nan sharply in the ribs with her elbow. “Show him the letter,” she whispered. Adding aloud: “Oh, I brought them in, Mr. Gray. That’s what delayed me. When I saw they had a letter for you— ”
“For me?” snorted the director, and took doubtfully enough the epistle Nan held out to him. But when he sighted the superscription he tore it open with an exclamation of impatient surprise.
“Now, what does Madam want?” he muttered, and those few words revealed to Nan Sherwood what she had suspected to be the fact about the director— that she was a very exacting task-mistress.
Miss Penny, nodding slily to Nan and Bess, slipped away to the stage on which the Gypsy camp was set, and around which several men in brigandish looking costumes were lounging.
“What’s this you young ladies want of me?” asked the director, rather puzzled, it seemed, after reading the note. “All she writes is to recommend Miss Sherwood to my attention and then includes a lot of instructions for to-morrow’s work.” He smiled sourly. “She is not explicit. Do you want work?”
“Oh, mercy me! no!” cried Nan.
“I should say not!” murmured Bess.
The director’s worried, querulous face showed relief. He listened attentively while Nan explained about the runaways. She likewise repeated the actress’ version of the discharging of the girls whom she had afterward identified as the two for whom Nan and Bess were in search.
The Big Book of Christmas Page 38