The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays | Page 9

Herr
Switzer inside the dummy shed, through the window of which he had
leaped on to the hay.
"Oh, what is it?" cried Ruth, clasping her hands and registering
"dismay" unconsciously.
"He must have fallen and hurt himself," ejaculated Alice. "Do, Paul, go
and see what it is."
"Stop the camera!" yelled Mr. Pertell through his megaphone. "Don't
spoil the film, Russ. You got a good scene there. He went through the
window all right, and his yells won't register. Stop the camera!"
"Stopped she is," reported Russ.
Then those of the players who had been looking on and wondering at
Mr. Switzer's cries could hurry to his rescue.
For it is a crime out of the ordinary in the annals of moving pictures for
any one not in the scene to get within range of the camera when an act
is being filmed. It means not only the spoiling of the reel, perhaps, but
a retaking of that particular action. When Russ ceased to grind at the

camera crank, however, it was the same as when the shutter of an
ordinary camera is closed. No more views can be taken. It was safe for
others to cross the field of vision.
"What's the matter?" cried Paul, who, with Ruth and Alice and some of
the others trailing after him, was hurrying toward the false front of
boards that represented a shed.
"Did a cow critter or a sheep step on you?" Russ questioned.
"Ach! My face! My clothes! Ruined!" came in accents of deep disgust
from the actor. "Never again will I leap through a window without
knowing into what I am going to land. Ach!"
"What happened?" asked Paul, trying to keep from laughing, for the
player's voice was so funnily tragic.
"What happened? Come and see!" cried Mr. Switzer. "I have into a
chicken's home invaded myself already!"
"Invaded himself into a chicken's home!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell. "What
in the world does he mean?"
"I guess he means he sat down in a hen's nest!" chuckled Paul, and this
proved to be the case.
Going around to the other side of the erected boards, the players and
others saw a curious sight.
Seated on the hay, his face, his hair, his hands, and his clothing a mass
of the whites and yellows of eggs, was Carl Switzer. He held up his
fingers, dripping with the ingredients of half a dozen omelets.
"The chicken's home was right here, in the hay--where I jumped. I
landed right in among the eggs--head first. Get me some water--quick!"
implored the player.
"Didn't you see the eggs before you jumped among 'em?" asked Mr.
Pertell.

"See them? I should say not! Think you I would have precipitated
myself into their midst had I done so?" indignantly demanded Mr.
Switzer, relapsing into his formally-learned English. "I have no desire
to be a part of a scrambled egg," he went on. "Some water--quick!"
While one of the extra players was bringing the water, Sandy Apgar
strolled past. He was told what had happened.
"Plumped himself down in a hen's nest, did he?" exclaimed the young
proprietor of Oak Farm. "Wa'al, now, if you folks go to upsettin' the
domestic arrangements of my fowls that way I'll have t' be charging
you higher prices," and he laughed good-naturedly.
"Ach! Dat is better," said Mr. Switzer, when he had cleansed himself.
"How came it, do you think, Mr. Apgar, that the hen laid her eggs right
where I was to make my landing when escaping from the
Confederates?"
"Huh! More than one hen laid her eggs there, I reckon," the farmer said.
"There must have been half a dozen of 'em who had rooms in that
apartment. You see, it's this way. Hens love to steal away and lay their
eggs in secret places. After you folks built this make-believe shed and
put the hay in, I s'pose some of my hens seen it and thought it would be
a good place. So they made a nest there, and they've been layin' in it for
the last few days."
"More as a week, I should say!" declared Mr. Switzer in his best
German comedian manner. "There were many eggs!"
"Yes, you did bust quite a few!" said Sandy, critically looking at the
disrupted nest. "But it can't be helped."
"Well, the film wasn't spoiled, anyhow," observed Mr. Pertell. To him
that was all that counted. "You got him all right as he went through the
window, didn't you, Russ?"
"Oh, yes. It wasn't until he was inside, down behind the boards and out
of sight, that the eggs happened."

"No more eggs for me!" declared the comedian. "I shall never look a
chicken in the face again."
"Go on with the scene," ordered the director. "You are supposed to