"I do hope we won"t make any mistakes," said Bunny to his sister one day, as they were talking about the coming play.
"I hope so, too," she answered. "Wouldn"t it be terrible if we got on the stage and forgot what we were going to say?"
"Yes, it would," agreed Bunny. "I"m going to keep on saying my lines over and over again all the while. Then I won"t forget."
"Don"t be too anxious, my dears," said Mrs. Brown, as she heard the children talking this way. "Sometimes the more you try to remember things like that, the more easily you forget. Just do your best, put your whole mind on it, and I"m sure you will remember the right words to say, and the right actions to do."
"It"s easier to remember what to do than what to say," declared Bunny.
"Mr. Treadwell tells us to act just as we would if we weren"t on the stage, but of course we can"t say anything we happen to think of--we have to say the right words."
"I remember once, when I was a little girl," remarked Mrs. Brown, as she threaded her needle, for she was mending one of Sue"s dresses, "I had to speak a piece in school, and I didn"t know it at all well."
"Oh, tell us about it, Mother!" begged Sue.
"Please do!" cried Bunny Brown. For there was a funny little smile on his mother"s face, and whenever the children saw that they knew there was a story back of it.
"Well, it was this way," went on Mrs. Brown. "When I was a little girl I lived in the country, and I went to school in a little red brick schoolhouse about half a mile down the road from our house. We had a very nice teacher, and one day she said we must all learn a piece to speak for the next Friday afternoon.
"Well, of course we children were all excited. Some of us had spoken pieces before, and some of us had not. And I was one that never had, but I was pleased to think I should get up in front of the whole school and speak a piece.
"When I went home that night I asked my mother what I should learn as my recitation. She got down a book that she had used when she was a little school girl, and in it were a number of nice pieces. There was one about Mary and her little lamb, but I thought that was too young for me to take, so I picked out one about a ship being wrecked at sea. There were about ten verses to the piece, and they told how a great storm came up and drove the vessel on the rocks."
"I"d like to see a big storm!" exclaimed Bunny.
"Please keep quiet!" begged Sue. "Mother can"t tell about her speaking in school if you"re going to talk all the while."
"I won"t talk any more," promised Bunny Brown. "Please go on, Mother.
I"ll be quiet."
So Mrs. Brown continued:
"I began to learn this piece about the wreck. I don"t remember now, how it all went, but I know the first two lines were like this:
""The thunder rolls, The lightning flashes!"
"I remember those lines very well," said the children"s mother, "and I thought how wonderful it would be if I could get up there and speak them in a loud voice. I practiced hard, too--as hard as you have practiced for your play. And I thought I had the piece learned perfectly. Finally Friday afternoon came, lessons were finished, books put away and we got ready for the recitations in the main schoolroom.
"I forget the different pieces that were spoken. There were all kinds, but none like mine. Some were sad and some were funny, and some of the boys and girls got up and were so stage-struck that they couldn"t think of a single word of the pieces they had learned.
"Then I was afraid this would happen to me, but when my name was called, and I walked up to the platform, I was glad to find that I could remember every single word--or at least I thought I could.
"But dear me! As soon as I opened my mouth and began to speak it was just as though the bottom had opened and let everything fall out of everything. All I could think of was the first two lines:
""The thunder rolls, The lightning flashes!"
"Over and over again I repeated those lines, and I could not get past them. The teacher looked sorry for me, and some of the boys and girls began to laugh. This made it all the worse for me, and my face grew red.
Over and over again I told about the thunder and lightning, and at last I made up my mind I"d have to do something, or else go to my seat as some of the other girls had done, without finishing. And I didn"t want to do that.
"So I braced my feet on the platform, and then I stood straight up in front of the whole school and fairly shouted out this verse:
""The thunder rolls, The lightning flashes!
It broke Grandmother"s teapot All to smashes!"
"That"s what I gave as my first recitation," went on Mrs. Brown, when Bunny and Sue had finished laughing. "How those words about my grandmother"s teapot popped into my head I don"t know. I don"t even remember my grandmother"s teapot, though I suppose she had one. But that"s the verse I recited. And you should have heard the children laugh!"
"What did the teacher say?" asked Bunny.
"At the time I thought she was rather angry," answered his mother, "thinking I had done it on purpose, to make fun of the speaking. But really I had not. The wrong two lines popped into my head all of a sudden. And of course; they spoiled the piece. I know now, too, that she was trying to keep from laughing, and that made her look stern."
"I hope that doesn"t happen to us," said Sue, as she and Bunny thought over the little story their mother had told them.
"I hope not, either," agreed her brother. "Come on--let"s go up in the attic and practice."
So they did, and for some time they went over the lines they were to speak on the stage. After a while Lucile and Mart came in and helped Bunny and Sue. The older boy and girl said the two little ones were doing very well. Mr. Treadwell, too, who heard Bunny and Sue go through their parts, said they did very well.
"We"ll have a good practice to-morrow," said the impersonator.
Then Mr. Treadwell called a dress rehearsal. That is generally the last one before the show, and it is really a complete performance in itself, though the audience isn"t allowed to come in.
The day before Christmas Bunny, Sue, Lucile, Mart, and the other girls and boys a.s.sembled in the hall over the hardware store for the dress rehearsal. Mr. Treadwell was there, and the men who were to help set up the scenery were on hand.
Just before it was time for the rehearsal to begin George Watson went up to Mr. Treadwell.
"If you please," said he, "couldn"t Peter be in the play?"
"Peter? Who is Peter?" asked the impersonator. "I"m afraid it"s too late to put any one else in, George. They wouldn"t have time to practice, and, besides, we really have all the actors we need."
"Oh, Peter wouldn"t need any practice," said George. "He"d be just fine in the barnyard scene. I brought him with me!"
"Well, I"m sorry, for I"m afraid I"ll have to disappoint your friend Peter," said Mr. Treadwell. "But where is he?"
"Here in this basket," answered George, and he held up a small one in front of the stage manager.
CHAPTER XXI
"WHERE IS BUNNY?"
Mr. Treadwell looked first at George, then at the basket, and once more at George.
"Now look here, George," said the actor. "I don"t mind your making fun or having jokes, but I"m very busy now, for the first act of the rehearsal is going to start. Besides, you shouldn"t bring your baby brother to the hall in a small basket like that."
"My baby brother?" cried George with a laugh. "I haven"t any baby brother! I have a sister Mary, but----"
"But you said Peter was in there," said Mr. Treadwell. "And if Peter is----"