The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm | Page 8

Nance
lookin' for ye! Here they are, Ma!" he called. "All ready for your
chicken."
"Bring 'em right in!" the mother invited, cordially.
Ruth and Alice liked the farmer's wife at once. There was a stoop to her
shoulders that told of many weary days of work, and she looked worn
and tired, but there was a bright welcome in her eyes as she greeted the
visitors. "Pa Felix," as Sandy called his father, was rather old and
feeble.
"Come right in and make yourselves to home," urged Mrs. Apgar.
"Your rooms is all ready for ye!"
"Where is the bell-boy?" asked Miss Pennington, with uptilted head
and powdered nose. "I want him to take my valise to my room at once.
And I shall want a bath before dinner."
"Isn't she horrid, to try to put on such airs here?" said Alice to Ruth,
nodding in the direction of the vaudeville actress.
"Yes. She only does it to make trouble."
Sandy and his father were talking together in low tones in one corner of
the big parlor.
"You didn't get any word; did you?" asked the old man.
"No, Pa. There wasn't no letter."

"Then we won't git th' money."
"It don't look so."
"And we'll have to lose th' place?"
"I--I'm afraid so," replied Sandy.
"Gosh! That--that's hard, in my old age," said the elderly farmer, softly.
"I hoped your ma and I'd be able to end our days here. But I guess it
ain't to be. However, this company will help us pay some of the claims.
We'll do the best we can, Sandy."
"That's what we will!"
Alice wondered what secret trouble could be worrying the farmer and
his son. Mrs. Apgar, too, had an anxious look on her face, but she tried
to make her visitors feel at home.
CHAPTER IV
A QUEER PROPOSAL
Oak Farm was a most delightful place. Ruth and Alice agreed to this
even before the first meal was served. They stood at the window of
their room--a large one with two beds--and gazed across the green
meadows, off to the greener woodland and then to the distant hills
which girt the valley holding Oak Farm in its clasp.
The hills were purple now with the coming of night--a deep purple like
the depth of a woodland violet--and their tops were shrouded in mist.
At the foot of the hills ran a little river, and now it looked like some
ribbon of silver, twining in and out amid the green carpet of the fields.
"Oh, isn't it beautiful--just beautiful!" sighed Ruth.
"Do you mean the odor of that fried chicken?" asked Alice, with a
frank laugh, as she let down her hair, preparatory to putting it up again,

in the general process of "dressing." "It is delightful; but I would hardly
call it 'beautiful.'"
"Oh, you know what I mean!" returned Ruth, not turning from the
window which gave a view of the distant hills. "I'm speaking of the
scenery."
"Oh, yes, I suppose it is beautiful," agreed Alice, who, truth to tell, was
not gifted with a very strong æsthetic sense. "But I suppose Mr. Pertell
came here because it was so practical for the rural dramas."
"Beauty counts in them, too," said Ruth, softly. "Oh, just look at the
purple light on those hills, Alice!"
"Can't, my dear. I've dropped a hairpin and I can't see it in the dark.
Gracious, I never thought! We won't have any electric lights here, and
no gas. I wonder if we'll have to go back to candle days."
"They weren't so bad," observed Ruth. "I think it must have been fine
in the Colonial days, to have the candles all aglow, and----"
"Candle fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Alice, who could be very outspoken
at times. "Give me an incandescent light, every time. It's getting dark
here. I wonder what system of illumination they have?"
"Kerosene lamps," replied Ruth. "There's one on the mantel. I'll light
it."
"Do, that's a dear. I've dropped another hairpin, and I need every one."
There was silence in the bedroom of the old-fashioned country house
for a space. Ruth lighted the lamp, and drew down the window shades.
The girls freshened themselves up after their journey, and prepared to
descend to the dining room. From the kitchen came more delicious
odors as Mrs. Apgar and her helper finished preparing the evening
meal.
Scattered about, in other apartments of the big farmhouse, were the

other members of the film theatrical company. Mr. DeVere had been
given a room near his daughters', and they could hear him talking in his
husky voice to Mr. Pertell, who was across the hall.
"When are they going to begin taking the pictures?" asked Ruth, as she
helped Alice hook up a waist that fastened in the back.