The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays | Page 9

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 steal out to the barn to give the hidden soldier food," he said to Ruth. "You come out from the house, and are astonished to see a man's head sticking out of the shed window. You register surprise, and start to run back to the house, but the soldier implores you to stay, and you reluctantly listen to him. Then he begs for food----"
"But don't bring me a hard-boiled egg, whatever you do!" called Mr. Switzer.
"No funny business now," warned the director, with a laugh. "Go on now, and we'll see how you do it."
After one or two trials Mr. Pertell announced himself as satisfied and the filming of that part of the war drama went on.
So many details in regard to the taking of moving pictures have been given in the previous books of this series that they need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that the pictures of the players in motion are taken on a long celluloid strip of film, just as one picture is taken on a square of celluloid in a snap-shot camera.
This long reel of film, when developed, is a "negative." From it a "positive" strip of film is made, and this is the one that is run through the projection machine throwing the pictures on the white screen in the darkened theatre. The pictures taken are very small, and are greatly magnified on the screen.
So much for the mechanical end of the business. It may interest some to learn that the photo-play, as seen in the theatre, is not taken all at once, nor in the order in which