Country life -- Juvenile fiction; Orphans -- Juvenile fiction
"Why, of course they will for such a bang-up program as we'll give them.
Mamma and Cecile and Mrs. Sherrar and Frances will go; and Nancy and
Marie, the girls. That makes six right there. Of course we can't charge
Victor anything if he takes part. I bet Miss Truesdale would buy a
ticket, too. You ask her, or get Allee to. Allee is in her room now. The
minister and his family are coming over some night for dinner while the
Sherrars are here, and I'll get mamma to invite them Wednesday, and you
tell them to come early enough for the program. They'll be glad to. Mr.
Strong was here the day we boys had our time in the carriage shed, and
he clapped and stamped the loudest of anyone."
"Have you written the tickets yet?"
"No, just cut them."
"Well, that's good. We'll charge a nickel for two tickets, and give it
in your shed next Wednesday. Get to work now. I've just thought of
Montie Fry and his trick dog, and Dick Sullivan and his mouth-organ. I
am going right over and see if they will take part."
She was as good as her word, and when the following Wednesday afternoon
arrived it would have been hard to tell which was the largest, the
audience in the carriage shed, or the company of participants arranged
on the platform which Leonard had built for just such gatherings; but
every one of the fifty tickets had been sold, and late arrivals had to
present cash, at the door, where Hector presided.
The program, was certainly original and varied, if somewhat lengthy, and
the audience was kept in a thrill of expectation from one number to the
next, for Peace was a master hand at arranging her numbers, and
instinctively had saved the best for the last. Just as she herself had
taken her place in front of the motley gathering to give an exhibition
of her whistling, the big door swung noiselessly, and the company from
the great house arrived in a body,--the Judge's wife and daughter, their
guests, the Sherrars, and the minister and his small family. They looked
very much surprised to find the place crowded to its utmost capacity,
but were even more astonished when, after a preliminary bar or so on the
mouth-organ, Dick Sullivan began softly to play _The Blue-bells of
Scotland_, and Peace's red lips took up the melody, whistling with
beautiful accuracy and clearness, trilling through measure after measure
with bird-like notes, following all of Dick's variations, and adding a
few of her own under the inspiration lent by the presence of her beloved
friends.
"Cecile," exclaimed her friend Frances, "why didn't you tell me you had
such a genius in your midst? I'd have been out here the first one to
hear the whole program. Why, she looks like an angel, and her whistling
is divine. Who is she?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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