The tableaux did not consume any length of time, scarcely longer than it requires in the telling, nevertheless the entire drama of Odysseus could not be unfurled in a single afternoon"s pageant.
The meeting of Odysseus with the faithful steward, Eumaeus, played by Mr. Fenton, was presented without the details one finds in the story.
Immediately after the son of Odysseus, Telemachus, makes his appearance.
Neither Lance McClain nor Donald had ever acted until to-day.
They had both been fearful that playing together would have its drawbacks, as one is inclined to be more nervous and critical with regard to one"s own family. Actually the brothers were more surprised by each other than they could have surprised their audience.
The change in costume, the gray in his hair, the lines of makeup on his handsome boyish face, gave Donald a look of maturity, while Lance"s slenderness and the fact that he was several inches smaller carried with it the necessary suggestion of graceful youth.
Together the father and son set forth to their home, crowded with the suitors who, believing Odysseus dead, have come to seek the hand of Penelope.
Instead of going directly to the palace they retire toward the woods to suggest a lapse of time.
So far the Greek tableaux had been dominated by single figures, chiefly the hero of the poem.
Now a change occurs.
In the courtyard before the palace Penelope is seen to appear accompanied by her maidens.
A serene and stately Penelope robed in ivory and gold, her ash-brown hair braided and coiled low on her neck, a gold band in her hair, Joan Peters had never looked so handsome.
About her the troop of maidens like a swarm of brilliant, many-colored flowers.
They moved from the yard and onto a broad s.p.a.ce of ground untouched by tree or shrub. Here the gra.s.s had been closely cut so that it formed a velvet greensward.
Penelope stands in the background and her maidens advance.
They were sixteen in number and represented the four seasons.
As Kara"s illness made it impossible for her to be of their number, the sixteen girls were not alone Girl Scouts from the camp in Beechwood Forest. Four of them were gowned in white, four in pale green, four in blue and four in scarlet.
Their costumes were like the simple, flowing draperies of the Greek dancing girls seen upon the friezes of the ancient Parthenon at Athens.
Carefully Mrs. Phillips had made a study of every detail of Greek dancing and costuming. Anxious to impress the people of Westhaven with her ability as a teacher of dancing, she appreciated that no such opportunity as the present one would be offered her again.
Evan Phillips was to lead the Greek Dance of the Four Seasons; one of the dancers representing winter, she was dressed in white and silver.
Advancing, the entire line made a streak of rainbow beauty upon the farther edge of the silver stream of water.
The line recedes, forming a crescent about the solitary dancer.
Then Evan danced alone. Her dancing was a series of graceful gestures, of movements of her arms and postures of her body, not toe dancing or a skilful employment of her feet, such as we a.s.sociate with modern dancing.
In the midst of her dancing she summons the four seasons to advance.
Winter comes first. They seem to be blown forward by a gust of winter wind that sets them dancing and shivering forward. Supposedly the snow falls and their arms, partly covered by delicate white draperies, are raised as a shield.
The sun shines, the snow melts and they move backward to give place to the birth of spring, the four Girl Scouts in shimmering green costumes.
The dance of the Spring recalled Evan Phillips" dance of the young beech trees, save that it was more stately. As far as possible her mother had adapted her idea to the Greek model.
Summer follows spring and the dance suggests the blossoming of the flowers. The scarlet succeeds the blue and autumn comes with its portents of flying leaves and birds moving southward.
The dance ends and for the first time the audience broke into enthusiastic applause. Nothing so beautiful had ever been witnessed in Westhaven!
Penelope and her maidens return to the palace. Later Odysseus wanders into his own home, unrecognized by his family and friends.
The Girl Scouts composed the household of Penelope, the Boy Scouts found their opportunity as the impatient suitors of the lady Penelope.
They remain about her palace, playing at games, feasting and wasting her substance and that of her son, Telemachus. The hour must be near when she shall make up her mind who is to fill the place of her lost husband, Odysseus.
In the games that took place the Boy Scouts found their chance to exhibit their prowess in outdoor sports.
Penelope fetches the bow and the quiver full of deadly arrows. She then goes to meet the princes, her attendants following carrying the axes.
To the suitor who wins at the trial of the bow Penelope vows to give herself in marriage.
Odysseus, with as little trouble as a minstrel fits a new cord to his lyre, bends the mighty bow with an arrow caught up from the table at his side.
Even when the bronze-tipped shaft goes clean through twelve axes set up in a row, the blinded Penelope fails to know her lord.
The last scene reveals Odysseus, his shabby coat cast aside, his figure no longer bent and aged, a shining hero seated opposite Penelope in the courtyard of his home, united at last after long parting.
The Greek tableaux were over. Within a quarter of an hour the audience departed for their homes, the Girl Scouts to their own camp and the boys to theirs on the other side of the hill. Yet not until bed-time was any other subject discussed by the players and their audience than the surprising success of the Greek pageant given that afternoon in the familiar setting of the New England woods.
So the beauty of the past held its re-birth in the present.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE Pa.s.sING
Outside the opening into her tent Teresa Peterson sat presumably playing upon the banjo. The sounds she was making were not particularly pleasing. Yet the camp was fairly deserted. Only a few of the other girls were to be seen and they were busy and nowhere near Teresa.
In fact, the camp in Beechwood Forest would be vacant within the next few days. Summer was closing with the soft loveliness that makes one forgive and forget her less charming moods.
Already the evergreen house, which had been the center of the camp life, was being dismantled.
Katherine Moore had returned to the Gray House on the Hill. After the performance of the Greek tableaux she had not been so well and Dr.
McClain had additional reasons for desiring her presence in town at this time.
Impatient always to fulfill his own wishes, no sooner was Mr. Hammond aware of Kara"s departure to town than he requested permission to have the floor of the old cabin removed and the search begun. Kara was not to be told of the effort until the work was accomplished. Not one chance in a thousand, Mr. Hammond agreed, that any trace of Kara"s past history be located here, therefore she had best not be excited or worried until the task was finished.
This afternoon, as Teresa tw.a.n.ged at her banjo strings, she looked oftener than was good for her music at the group of men who were at work in the evergreen cabin.
So far they had only started the removal of the old boards.