Emily started up like a condemned prisoner who is pardoned on the way to execution. "I"ll pay it back," she cried, "if I have to go out scrubbing to earn the money. And you won"t say anything about the picture," she said, clasping her hands beseechingly, "if I put it back where I got it?"
"No," said Hinpoha, with all the conviction of her loyal young nature, "I give you my word of honor that I will never say anything about it."
"Oh, you"re an angel straight from heaven," exclaimed Emily.
"First time I"ve heard of a red-headed angel," laughed Hinpoha.
Emily stooped to pick up the painting and restore it to its place, when she caught her breath in dismay. She had dropped a tear on the picture and made a light spot on the dark brown trunk of a tree. It was conspicuously noticeable, and would be sure to call forth the strictest inquiry. Emily covered her face with her hands. "It"s my punishment,"
she groaned, "for trying to steal. Now I"ve ruined the honor of the school. We promised to send those pictures back unharmed if Mr. White would let us have them." Her dismay was intense.
Hinpoha examined the spot carefully. "Do you know," she said, "I believe I could fill in that place with dark color so it would never be noticed?
The bark of the tree has a rough appearance and the slight unevenness around the edges of the spot will never be noticed. Don"t worry, all will yet be well." If Hinpoha would have let her, Emily would have gone down on her knees to her. "Come, we must make haste," said Hinpoha. "You go right home and I will take the picture into our club room and fix it up and then slip upstairs with it and n.o.body will ever be any the wiser.
It"s a good thing there"s n.o.body up there now."
Emily took her departure, vowing undying grat.i.tude to Hinpoha, and Hinpoha took her paints from her desk and went into her own club room, which was on the third floor, and with infinite pains matched the shade of the tree trunk and repaired the damage. Her efforts were crowned with better success even than she had hoped for, and with thankfulness in her heart at the talent which could thus be turned to account to help a friend out of trouble, she surveyed the little painting, looking just as it did when loaned to the school. She carried it carefully upstairs, but at the door of the exhibition room she paused in dismay. A whole group of teachers and their friends were looking at the paintings and it was impossible to put the one back without being noticed. Irresolutely she turned away and retraced her steps to the third floor, intending to wait in her club room until the coast was clear. But alas! In coming out Hinpoha had left the door open. The club rooms were generally kept locked. While she was going upstairs a number of students coming out from late practice in the gymnasium spied the open door and went in to look around. It was impossible for Hinpoha to go in there with that picture in her hand. The only thing to do if she did not wish to get into trouble, was to get rid of it immediately. Delay was getting dangerous. She was standing near the back entrance of the stage when she was looking for a place to hide the picture. Beside the stage entrance there was a little room containing all the lighting switches for the stage, various battery boxes and other electrical equipment, together with a motley collection of stage properties. Quick as a flash Hinpoha opened the door of this room, darted in and hid the picture in a roll of cheesecloth. When she came out one of the teachers was standing directly before the door, pointing out to a friend the construction of the stage.
"Have we a new electrician?" he inquired genially, as he saw her coming out of the electric room. Hinpoha laughed at his pleasantry, but she was flushed and uncomfortable from the excitement of the last moment.
Hinpoha was a poor dissembler. She went upstairs until the art room was empty of visitors and then returned swiftly to the electric room for the picture. She slipped it under her middy blouse, where it was safe from detection, and sped upstairs with it. As she crossed the hall to the stairs she met the same teacher the second time. "Well, you must be an electrician," he said; "that"s twice you"ve rushed out of there in such a businesslike manner," Hinpoha laughed, but flushed painfully. It seemed to her that his eyes could look right through her middy and see the picture underneath. This time the coast was clear in the room where the pictures were and she deposited the adventurous water color safely.
She heaved a great sigh of relief when she realized that the danger was over and she had nothing more to conceal. She trudged home through the snow light-heartedly, with a warm feeling that she had been the means of saving a friend from disgrace.
Sahwah, who was in the play and had a right to go up on the stage, which was all ready set for the first scene, ran in to see how things looked late in the afternoon. The school was practically empty. All the rest of the cast had gone home to get some sleep to fit them for the ordeal of the coming performance, and the teachers who had been looking at the paintings had also left. The rest of the building was in darkness, as twilight had already fallen. One set of lights was burning on the stage.
Sahwah had no special business on the stage, she was simply curious to see what it looked like. Sahwah never stopped to a.n.a.lyze her motives for doing things. She paused to admire the statue of Joan of Arc, standing in all the majesty of its nine-foot height. This was the first chance she had had to examine it leisurely. In the rehearsal the night before she had merely seen it in a general way as she whisked off and on the stage in her part.
The construction of the thing fascinated her, and she opened the door in the skirt to satisfy her curiosity about the inner workings of the miraculous halo. She saw how the thing was done and then became interested in the inside of the statue itself. There was plenty of room in it to conceal a person. Just for the fun of the thing Sahwah got inside and drew the door shut after her, trying to imagine herself a fugitive hiding in there. There were no openings in the skirt part, but up above the waist line there were various holes to admit air. "It"s no fun hiding in a statue if you can"t see what"s going on outside,"
thought Sahwah, and so she stood up straight, as in this position her eyes would come on a level with one of the holes. She could see out without being seen herself, just as if she were looking through the face piece of a suit of armor. The fun she got out of this sport, however, soon changed to dismay when she tried to get down again. It had taken some squeezing to get her head into the upper s.p.a.ce, and now she found that she was wedged securely in. She could not move her head one particle. What was worse, a quant.i.ty of cotton wool, which had been put inside the upper part of the body for some reason or other, was dislodged by her squeezing in and pressed against her mouth, forming an effective silencer. Thus, while she could see out over the stage, she could not call out for help. Her hands were pinioned down at her sides, and by standing up she had brought her knees into a narrow place so that they were wedged together and she could not attract attention by kicking. Here was a pretty state of affairs. The benign Maid of Orleans had Sahwah in as merciless a grip as that with which the famous Iron Maiden of medieval times crushed out the lives of its victims.
Sahwah knew that her failure to come from school would call out a search, but who would ever look for her in the statue on the stage? Her only hope was to wait until the play was in progress and the door was opened to conceal the child. Then another thought startled her into a perspiration. She was in the opening scene of the play. If she was not there, the play could not commence. They would spend the evening searching for her and the statue would not be opened. What would they do about the play? The house was sold out and the people would come to see the performance and there would be none. All on account of her stupidity in wedging herself inside of the statue. Sahwah called herself severe names as she languished in her prison. Fortunately there were enough holes in the thing to supply plenty of ventilation, otherwise it might have gone hard with her. The cramped position became exceedingly tiresome. She tried, by forcing her weight against the one side or the other, to throw the statue over, thinking that it would attract attention in this way and some one would be likely to open it, but the heavy wooden base to which it was fastened held it secure. Sahwah was caught like a rat in a trap. The minutes pa.s.sed like hours. Sounds died away in the building, as the last of the lingerers on the downstairs floor took themselves off through the front entrance. She could hear the slam of the heavy door and then a shout as one boy hailed another in greeting. Then silence over everything.
A quarter, or maybe a half, hour dragged by on leaden feet. Suddenly, without noise or warning, two figures appeared on the stage, coming on through the back entrance. Sahwah"s heart beat joyfully. Here was some one to look over the scenery again and if she could only attract their attention they would liberate her. She made a desperate effort and wrenched her mouth open to call, only to get it full of fuzzy cotton wool that nearly choked her. There was no hope then, but that they would open the door of the statue and find her accidentally. She could hear the sound of talking in low voices. The boys were on the other side of the statue, where she could not see them.
"Let it down easy," she heard one of them say.
"Better get around on the other side," said a second voice.
The boy thus spoken to moved around until he was directly before the opening in front of Sahwah"s eyes. With a start she recognized Joe Lanning. What business had Joe Lanning on the stage at this time? He was not in the play and he did not belong to the Thessalonian Society. There was only one explanation--Joe was up to some mischief again. She had not the slightest doubt that the other voice belonged to Abraham Goldstein, and thus indeed it proved, for a moment later he moved around so as to come into range of her vision. The two withdrew a few paces and looked at the statue, holding a hasty colloquy in inaudible tones, and then Joe, mounting a chair, laid hold of the Maid just above the waist line, while Abraham seized the wooden base. Sahwah felt her head going down and her feet going up. The boys were carrying the statue off the stage and out through the back entrance, over the little bridge at the back of the stage and into the hall. It was the queerest ride Sahwah had ever taken.
The boys paused before the elevator, which seemed to be standing ready with the door open. "Will she go in?" asked Abraham.
"I"m afraid not," answered Joe. "Well have to carry her downstairs."
Sahwah shuddered. Would she go down head first or feet first? They carried her head first and she was dizzy with the rush of blood to her head before the two long flights were accomplished. At the foot of the last flight they laid the statue down. The hall was in total darkness.
"What are you doing?" asked the voice of Joe. Abraham was apparently producing something from somewhere. In a minute Joe was laughing. "Good stunt," he said approvingly. "Where did you get them?"
"Swiped them out of Room 22, where all the stuff for the play is." Joe flashed a small pocket electric light and by its glimmer Sahwah could see him adjusting a false beard--the one that was to be worn by the villain in the play. Abraham was apparently disguising himself in a similar fashion. This accomplished they picked up the statue again and carried it down the half flight of stairs to the back entrance of the school. For some mysterious reason this door was open. Just outside stood an automobile truck. At the back of the school lay the wide athletic field, extending for several acres. The nearest street was all of four blocks away. In the darkness it was impossible to see across this stretch of s.p.a.ce and distinguish the actions of the two conspirators in the event people should be pa.s.sing along this street.
Even if the truck itself were seen that would cause no comment, for deliveries were constantly being made at the rear entrance of the school.
The statue was lifted into the truck, covered with a piece of canvas, and Joe and Abraham sprang to the driver"s seat and started the machine.
Sahwah very nearly suffocated under that canvas. Fortunately the ride was a short one. In about seven or eight minutes she felt the b.u.mp as they turned into a driveway, and then the truck came to a stop. The boys jumped down from the seat, opened a door which slid back with a sc.r.a.ping noise like a barn door and then lifted the statue from the truck and carried it into a building. From the light of their pocket flashes Sahwah could make out that she was in a barn, which was evidently unused. It was entirely empty. Setting the statue in a corner, the boys went out, closing the door after them. Sahwah was left in total darkness, and in a ten times worse position than she had been in before.
On the stage at school there was some hope of the statue"s being opened eventually, but here she could remain for weeks before being discovered.
Sahwah began to wonder just how long she could hold out before she starved. She was hungry already.
She closed her eyes with weariness from her strained position, and it is possible that she dozed off for a few moments. In fact, that was what she did do. She dreamed that she was at the circus and all the wild animals had broken loose and were running about the audience. She could hear the roar of the lions and the screeching of the tigers. She woke up with a start and thought for a moment that her dream was true. The barn was full of wild animals which were roaring and chasing each other around. Then her senses cleared and she recognized the heavy bark of a large dog and the startled mi-ou of a cat. The dog was chasing the cat around the barn. She felt the slight thud as the cat leaped up and found refuge on top of the statue. She could hear it spitting at the dog and knew that its back was arched in an att.i.tude of defiance. The dog barked furiously down below. Then, overcome by rage, he made a wild jump for the cat and lunged his heavy body against the side of the statue. It toppled over against the corner. For an instant Sahwah thought she was going to be killed. But the corner of the barn saved the statue from falling over altogether. It simply leaned back at a slight angle. But there was something different in her position now. At first she did not know what it was. Before this her feet were standing squarely on the wooden base of the statue, but now they were slipping around and seemed to be dangling. Then she realized what had happened. The shock of the dog"s onslaught had knocked the statue clear off the base, and had also contrived to loosen her knees a little. To her joy she found that she could move her feet--could walk. For all the statue was immense, it was light, and wedged into it as she was she balanced the upper part of it perfectly. She moved out from the corner.
The dog was still barking furiously and circling around the barn after the cat. Then the cat found a paneless window by which she had entered and disappeared into the night. The dog, who had also entered by that window when chasing the cat, had been helped on the outside by a box which stood under the sill, but there was no such aid on the inside and he did not attempt to make the jump from the floor, but stood barking until the place shook. Just then a voice was heard on the outside.
"Lion, Lion," it called, "where are you?" Lion barked in answer. "Come out of that barn," commanded the voice of a small boy. Lion answered again in the only way he knew how. "Wait a minute, Lion, I"m coming,"
said the small boy. Sahwah heard some one fumbling at the door and then it was drawn open. The light from a street lamp streamed in. It fell directly on the statue as Sahwah took another step forward. The boy saw the apparition and fled in terror, followed by the dog, leaving the door wide open. Sahwah hastened to the door. Here she encountered a difficulty. The statue was nine feet high and the door was only about eight. Naturally the statue could not bend. It had been carried in in a horizontal position. Sahwah reflected a moment. Her powers of observation were remarkably good and she could sense things that went on around her without having to see them. She had noticed that when the boys carried the statue into the barn they had had to climb up into the doorway. The inclined entrance approach had undoubtedly rotted away. She figured that this step up had been a foot at least. Her ingenious mind told her that by standing close to the edge of the doorway and jumping down she would come clear of the doorway. She put this theory to trial immediately. The scheme worked. She landed on her feet on the snow-covered ground, with the top of the statue free in the air.
As fast as she could she made her way up the driveway. Her hands were still pinioned at her sides. As she pa.s.sed the house in front of the barn she could see by the street light that it was empty. A grand scheme it would have been indeed, if it had worked, hiding the statue in the unused barn where it would not have been discovered for weeks, or possibly months. Of course, Sahwah readily admitted, Joe did not know that she was in the statue; his object had merely been to spoil the play. And a very effective method he had taken, too, for the play without the statue of Joan of Arc would have been nothing.
Sahwah stood still on the street and tried to get her bearings. She was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. She walked up the street. Coming toward her was a man. Sahwah breathed a sigh of relief. Without a doubt he would see the trouble she was in and free her. Now Sahwah did not know it, but in the scramble with the dog the b.u.t.ton had been pushed which worked the halo. The neighborhood she was in was largely inhabited by foreigners, and the man coming toward her was a Hungarian who had not been long in this country. Taking his way homeward with never a thought in his mind but his dinner, he suddenly looked up to see the gigantic figure of a woman bearing down on him, brandishing a gleaming sword and with a dim halo playing around her head. For an instant he stood rooted to the spot, and then with a wild yell he ran across the street, darted between two houses and disappeared over the back fence. Then began a series of encounters which threw Sahwah into hysterics twenty years later when she happened to remember them. Intent only on her own liberation she was at the time unconscious of the terrifying figure she presented, and hastened along at the top of her speed. Everywhere the people fled before her in the extremity of terror. On all sides she could hear shrieks of "War!" "War!" "It is a sign of war!"
In one street through which she pa.s.sed lived a simple Slovak priest. He was sorely torn over the sad conflict raging in Europe and was undecided whether he should preach a sermon advocating peace at all costs or preparation for fighting. He debated the question back and forth in his mind, and, unable to come to any decision in the narrow confines of his little house, walked up and down on the cold porch seeking for light in the matter. "Oh, for a sign from heaven," he sighed, "such as came to the saints of old to solve their troublesome questions!" Scarcely had the wish pa.s.sed through his mind when a vision appeared. Down the dark street came rushing the heroic image of Joan of Arc, with sword uplifted, her head shining with the refulgence of the halo. At his gate she paused and stood a long time looking at him. Sahwah thought that he would come down and help her out. Instead he fell on his knees on the porch and bowed his head, crying out something in a foreign tongue.
Seeing that expectation of help from that quarter was useless, Sahwah ran on and turned a nearby corner. When the priest lifted his head again the vision was gone. "It is to be war, then," he muttered. "I have a divine command to bid my people take up arms in battle." This was the origin of the military demonstration which took place in the Slovak settlement the following Sunday, which ended in such serious rioting.
Sahwah, running onward, suddenly found herself in the very middle of the road where two carlines crossed each other. This was a very congested corner and a policeman was stationed there to direct the traffic. This policeman, however, on this cold February day, found Mike McCarty"s saloon on the corner a much pleasanter place than the middle of the road, and paid one visit after another, while the traffic directed itself. This last time he had stayed inside much longer than he had intended to, having become involved in an argument with the proprietor of the place, and coming to himself with a guilty start he hurried out to resume his duties. On the sidewalk he stood as if paralyzed. In the middle of the road, in his place, stood an enormously tall woman, directing the traffic with a gleaming sword. "Mother av Hiven," he muttered superst.i.tiously, "it"s one of the saints come down to look after the job I jumped, and waiting to strike me dead when I come back."
He turned on his heel and fled up the street without once looking over his shoulder.
And thus Sahwah went from place to place, vainly looking for some one who would pull her out of the statue, and leaving everywhere she went a trail of superst.i.tious terror, such as had never been known in the annals of the city. For a week the papers were full of the mysterious appearance of the armed woman, which was taken as a presumptive augury of war. Many affirmed that she had stopped them on the street and commanded them in tones of thunder to take up arms to save the country from destruction, and promising to lead them to victory when the time for battle came. Many of the foreigners believed to their dying day that they had seen a vision from heaven. Sahwah at last got her bearings and found that she was not a great distance from the school, so she took her way thither where she might encounter some one who was connected with the play and knew of the existence of the statue, a secret which was being closely guarded from the public, that the effect might be greater.
She nearly wept with joy when she saw d.i.c.k Albright just about to enter the building. Although he was startled almost out of a year"s growth at the sight of the statue, which he supposed to be standing on the stage in the building, running up the front steps after him, he did not disappear into s.p.a.ce as had all of the others she had met. After the first fright he suspected some practical joke and stood still to see what would happen next. Sahwah knew that the only thing visible of her was her feet and that she could not explain matters with her voice, so, coming close to d.i.c.k, she stretched out her foot as far as possible. Now Sahwah, with her riotous love of color, had bright red b.u.t.tons on her black shoes, the only set like them in the school. d.i.c.k recognized the b.u.t.tons and knew that it was Sahwah in the statue. He still thought she was playing a joke, and laughed uproariously. Sahwah grew desperate. She must make him understand that she wanted him to pull her out. The broad stone terrace before the door was covered with a light fall of snow.
With the point of her toe she traced in the snow the words
"PULL ME OUT."
d.i.c.k now took in the situation. He opened the door of the statue and with some difficulty succeeded in extricating Sahwah from her precarious position. Together they carried the much-traveled Maid into the building and up the stairs and set her in place on the stage. She had just been missed by the arriving players and the place was in an uproar. Sahwah told what had happened that afternoon and the adventures she had had in getting back to the school, while her listeners exclaimed incredulously.
There was no longer time to go home for supper so Sahwah ran off to the green room to begin making up for her part in the play.
CHAPTER X.
WHO CUT THE WIRE?
The house was packed on this the first night of the Thessalonian play.
It was already long past time for the performance to begin. The orchestra finished the overture and waited a few minutes; then began another selection. They played this through, and there was still no indication of the curtain going up. They played a third piece. The house became restless and began to clap for the appearance of the performers.
No sign from the stage. Behind the curtain there was pandemonium. When everything was about ready to begin it was discovered that none of the stage lights would work. Neither the foot lights nor the big cl.u.s.ter up over the center of the stage nor any of the side lights could be turned on. A hasty examination of the wiring led to the discovery that the wires which supplied the current had been cut in the room where the switchboard was. The plaster had been broken into in order to reach them. This was the reason that the play was not beginning. The President of the Thessalonians came out in front and explained to the audience that something had gone wrong with the lights, which would cause a delay in the rising of the curtain, but the trouble was being fixed and he begged the indulgence of the house for a few minutes. The orchestra filled in the time by playing lively marches, while the boys behind the scenes worked feverishly to mend the severed wires, and the curtain went up a whole hour after scheduled time.
The first act went off famously. Gladys was a born actress and sustained the difficult role of _Marie Latour_ well. The part where she defies her tyrannical father brought down the house. Sahwah came in for her share of applause too. Seeing her composed manner and hearing her calm voice, no one in the audience could ever have guessed the strenuous experience she had just been through. In the second scene Marie, driven from her home, wanders around in the streets with her child, until, faint from hunger, she sinks to the ground. The scene is laid before the wall of her father"s large estate and she falls at his very gates. Gladys made the scene very realistic, and the audience sat tense and sympathetic.
"_Food, food_," moaned Marie Latour, "_only a crust to keep the life in me and my child!"_ She lay weakly in the road, unable to rise. "_Food, food_," she moaned again. At this moment there suddenly descended, as from the very heavens, a ham sandwich on the end of a string. It dangled within an inch of her nose. Gladys was petrified. The audience sat up in surprise, and a ripple of laughter ran through the house. It was such an unexpected anticlimax. That some one was playing a practical joke Gladys did not for a moment doubt, and she was furious at this ridiculous interruption of her big scene. In the play Marie loses consciousness and is found by a peasant, and it is on this occurrence that the rest of the play hinges. The sudden appearance of the ham sandwich in response to her cry for food was fatal to the pathos of the scene. The rest of the cast, standing in the wings, saw what had happened and were at their wits" end. But Gladys was equal to the occasion.
Moving her head wearily and pa.s.sing her hand over her eyes she murmured faintly but audibly, "Cruel, cruel mirage to taunt me thus! Vanish, thou image of a fevered brain, thou absurd memory! Come not to mock me!" The actors in the wings, taking their cue from her speech, found the string to which the sandwich was tied and jerked it. The sandwich vanished from the sight of the audience. The scene was saved. The spectators simply pa.s.sed it over as a more or less clumsy attempt to portray a vision of a disordered brain. The string on the sandwich had been pa.s.sed over certain rigging above the stage that moved the scenery, and on through a little ventilator that came out on the fourth floor, from which point the manipulator had been able to listen to the speeches on the stage and time the drop of the sandwich. By the time the Thessalonian boys had traced the string to its end the perpetrator of the joke was nowhere to be found. He had fled as soon as the thing had been lowered. The scene ended without further calamity.
In the third scene--the one in the peasant"s hut--there is a cat on the stage. The presence of this cat was the signal for further trouble. In one of the tense pa.s.sages, where Marie Latour is pleading with the son of the peasant to flee for his life before the agents of her father come and capture them both, and the cat lies asleep on the hearth, there was a sudden uproar, and a dog bounded through the entrance of the stage.
The cat rushed around in terror and finally ran up the curtain. The lovers parted hastily and tried to capture the dog, but eluding their pursuit he jumped over the footlights into the orchestra, landing with a crash on the keys of the piano, and then out into the audience. Nyoda and three or four of the Winnebagos, sitting together near the front on the first floor of the auditorium, recognized the dog with a good deal of surprise. It was Mr. Bob, Hinpoha"s black c.o.c.ker spaniel. How he had gotten in was a mystery, for Hinpoha herself was not there. Nyoda called to him sharply and he came to her wagging his tail, and allowed himself to be put out with the best nature in the world. But the scene had been spoiled.
During the rest of the evening Nyoda, as well as a number of the other teachers, sat with brows knitted, going over the various things that had happened to interrupt that play. As yet they did not know about the attempt to steal the statue, which Sahwah had accidentally nipped in the bud. But the following week, when the play was all over, and the various occurrences had been made known, there was a day of reckoning at Washington High School. Joe Lanning and Abraham Goldstein were called up before the princ.i.p.al and confronted with Sahwah, who told, to their infinite amazement, every move they had made in carrying off the statue.