The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound | Page 9

confide her fear to Alice.

Morning revealed a new and wonderful scene. For in the night there
had been a heavy storm, and the ground of Central Park was white with
snow. A little rain had fallen, and then had frozen, and the trees were
encased in ice. Then as the sun shone brightly, it flashed as on millions
of diamonds, dazzling and glittering. Winter had come early, and with
more severity than usual in the vicinity of New York.
"Oh, how lovely!" cried Alice, as she looked out. "I must have a slide,
if I can find a place! Ruth, I'm going to wash your face!"
"Don't you dare!"
But Alice raised the window, and from the sill took a handful of snow.
She rushed over to her sister with it.
"Stop it! Stop it! Don't you dare!" screamed Ruth. Then she squealed as
she felt the cold snow on her cheeks.
"What's the matter with you girls in there?" called Mr. DeVere from his
apartment. "You seem merry enough."
"We are," answered Alice. "I've washed Ruth's face, and I'm going to
wash yours in a minute."
"Just as you like," he laughed. And then he sighed, for he recalled a
time when his girlish wife had once challenged him the same way,
when they were on their honeymoon. For Mrs. DeVere had been
vivacious like Alice, and the younger daughter was a constant reminder
to her father of his dead wife--a happy and yet a sad reminder.
Alice came rushing in with more snow, and there was a merry little
scene before breakfast. Then Mr. DeVere hurried to the film studio, for
he was to take part in several dramas that day.
"I know I'll be late," he said, "for the travel will be slow this morning,
on account of the snow. And I have to go part way by surface car, as I
have an errand on the way down town."

"We're coming down, also," Ruth informed him.
"Why, you're not in anything to-day," he remarked, pausing in the act
of putting on his overcoat. "You're not cast for anything until 'The Price
of Honor,' to-morrow."
"But we're going down, just the same," Alice laughed. "We want to see
some of the funny films."
"Come ahead then," invited Mr. DeVere. "Better use the subway all
you can. Even the elevated will have trouble with all this sleet.
Good-bye," and he kissed them as he hurried out.
The girls made short shrift of the housework, and then left for the place
where the moving pictures were made.
As I have described in the first book of this series how moving pictures
are taken, I will not repeat it here, except to say that in a special camera,
made for the purpose, there is a long narrow strip of celluloid film, of
the same nature as in the ordinary camera. The pictures are taken on
this strip, at the rate of sixteen a second. Later this film is developed,
and from that "negative" a "positive" is made. This "positive" is then
run through a specially made projecting lantern which magnifies the
pictures for the screen.
As Alice and Ruth got out at the floor where most of the scenes were
made they heard laughter.
"Something's going on," remarked the younger girl.
"And it doesn't sound like Mr. Sneed, our cheerful 'grouch,' either,"
answered Ruth.
As they went in they saw Carl Switzer, the German comedian, climbing
a high step-ladder with a pail of paste in one hand, and a roll of wall
paper in the other. He was in a scene representing a room, which he
was to decorate.

"Is diss der right vay to do it?" Mr. Switzer asked, as he paused half
way up the ladder, and looked at Mr. Pertell.
"That's it. Now you've got the idea," replied the manager. "Begin over
again, and Russ, I guess you can begin to run the film now," for the
young moving picture operator was in readiness with his camera.
"You must tremble, and shake the ladder," advised the manager, who
was also, in this case, the stage director. "You want to register fear, you
see, because you are an amateur paper hanger."
"Yah. Dot's right. I know so leedle about der papering business alretty
yet dot I could write a big book on vot I don't know," confessed Mr.
Switzer.
"All ready now--tremble and shake!" ordered the manager.
The comic film that was being made was a reproduction of a scene
often played in vaudeville theaters, where an amateur paper hanger gets
into all sorts of ludicrous mishaps with a bucket of paste, rolls of paper
and the step ladder. It was not very new, but had not been done for
moving pictures before.
"Here I goes!" called Mr. Switzer. "I