The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays | Page 2

dress. And if you took care of your things and
didn't let your laces and ribbons get strewn about so, they would last
longer and look fresher. I don't want to lecture----"
"I know you don't, you old dear!" and Alice leaned over--they were

both sitting on the floor in front of trunks--and made a motion as
though to embrace her sister. But a warning rip caused her to desist,
and, looking over her shoulder, she found her skirt caught on a corner
of the trunk.
"There! Did you ever?" she cried. "I can't even give you a sisterly hug
without pulling myself to pieces. I'm all
upset--excited--unstrung--Wellington Bunn doing Hamlet isn't to be
compared to me. I must get straightened out."
"I guess that's it--you're all tangled up in your packing," said Ruth, with
a laugh. "Truly, I don't mean to lecture, Alice, but you must go a bit
slower."
"Not with this packing--I can't, and be ready in time. Why! you are all
prepared to go. I'll just throw the things into my trunk and----"
"Now, don't do that. Don't throw things in. You can put in twice as
much if you lay the things in neatly. I'll help you. But--oh, dear----!"
Ruth made a gesture of despair.
"What's the matter now? What are you registering?" and Alice used the
moving picture term for depicting one of the standard emotions. The
girls were both moving picture actresses.
"I'm trying to register dismay at the muddy state of those scout shoes,
as you call them, Alice. They may be nice and comfortable, as you say,
and really they do look so. And I have no doubt you will find them
useful if we have to do much tramping over the hills of Oak Farm.
But----"
"Oh, we'll have to do plenty of hiking, as Russ Dalwood warned us,"
Alice put in. "You know, there are to be several Civil War plays filmed,
and they didn't have automobiles or motor cycles to get about on in
those days. So we'll have to walk. And it will be over rough ground, so
I thought these shoes would be just the thing."

"They will, Alice. I must get a pair myself, I think. But I was just
wondering how you got them so terribly muddy. How did you?"
"Oh, Paul Ardite and I were in that Central Park scene the other day.
You know, 'A Daughter of the Woods,' and some of the scenes were
filmed in the park. It was muddy, and I didn't get a chance to have the
brogans cleaned, for I had to jump from the park into the ballroom
scene of 'His Own Enemy,' and there was no time. We had to retake in
that scene because one of the extras was wearing white canvas shoes
instead of ballroom slippers, and the director didn't notice it until the
film was run out in the projection room.
"So that accounts for the mud on the shoes, Ruth. But I suppose I can
'phone down to the janitor and have him send them out to the Italian at
the corner. He'll take the mud off."
"No, I don't know that you can do that, Alice. We haven't any too much
time. If I had an old newspaper, I could wrap the shoes up in that for
you, and pack them in the bottom of your trunk. Then the mud wouldn't
soil your clothes."
"An old newspaper? Here's a stack of them. Daddy just brought them
from his room. Guess he's going to throw them away."
Alice reached up to a table and lifted the top paper from a pile near the
edge. She opened it with a flirt of her hand and was about to wrap the
muddy shoes in it when some headlines on one page caught her
attention. She leaned eagerly forward to read them, and spent more than
a minute going over the article beneath.
"Well," remarked Ruth finally, with a smile, "if you're going to do that,
Alice, you'll never get packed. What is it that interests you?"
"This, about a missing girl. Why, look here, Ruth, there's a reward of
ten thousand dollars offered for news of her! Why, I don't remember
seeing this before. Look, it's quite startling. A San Francisco
girl--Mildred Passamore--mysteriously disappears while on a train
bound for Seattle--can't find any trace of her--parents

distracted--they've got detectives on the trail--going to flood the
country with photographs of her--all sorts of things feared--but think of
it!--ten thousand dollars reward!"
"Let me see," and in spite of the necessity for haste in the packing,
Ruth DeVere forgot it for the moment and came to look over her
sister's shoulder to read the account of the missing California girl.
"It is strange," murmured Ruth. "I don't remember