Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School: The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen GirlsChase, Josephine
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Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School: The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls
Chase, Josephine
High school students -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
Two curtains had been stretched across the door opening above and below
and two hung down at each side, leaving an oblong space in the middle in
which stood a little doll theater nearly a yard and a half long and a
yard high. A row of footlights across the miniature stage presently
blossomed into light, and the freshman girls smiled as they recognized
some of those same little bulbs that had served to illuminate the
pumpkin face of Miss Leece's effigy. The music ceased and the curtains
rolled back. There sat Cinderella by the kitchen fire, very stiff and
straight, but weeping audibly with her little fists in her eyes. She was
ten inches high and, on careful examination, it could be seen that two
threads attached to her arms, and another to the back of her neck, made
it possible for her to move about and use her hands in a remarkably
life-like manner.
Wild applause from the audience. Well there might be, for the scene was
perfect, from the old brick fireplace with an iron pot steaming on the
coals to the rows of shining pans and blue dishes on a shelf at the
side, all of which came from a toy shop, along with a little kitchen
bench and chairs.
The cruel sisters swept in, dressed for the ball. When they spoke there
were convulsive titters among the guests for the voices of the cruel
step-sisters were those of Nora and Hippy. Anne read the lines of
Cinderella so plaintively that Mrs. Gray shed a secret tear or two when
Cinderella was left alone in the gloomy old kitchen. When the fairy
godmother appeared, in a peaked red hat and a long red cape, it was
Jessica who spoke the lines in a sweet, musical voice. How Cinderella
rolled out the pumpkin and displayed six white mice in a trap, and how,
after a brief interval of total darkness, could be seen through the open
door a coach of gold in which sat Cinderella in a silken gown, need not
be related here. It all took place without a single slip and the dolls
went through their parts with such funny life-like motions that the boys
and girls forgot they were not watching real actors.
It was the scene of the ballroom, however, which was the real triumph of
the evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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