Part 26 (1/2)
”I'll get them.” And Polly vanished.
”You see,” Alan went on, as she reappeared. ”We know our parts well enough, I suppose; but I wanted to get used to seeing you in full rig, before the time came. I was afraid, if you suddenly appeared to me, I should laugh and spoil our best scene.”
”Don't you dare do that!” returned Polly sternly. ”If you laugh, I'll let Jean cut off your head, and not try to save you. But it's a good idea to have a chance to go through it, while we are all alone by ourselves. Our parts are best of all, and I want to do them as well as we can for Jean's sake, she has taken so much pains to write it up.”
”Yes,” added the captain ungratefully, ”and I'd like to have you try over that rus.h.i.+ng out and tumbling down on top of me. The last time you did it, you. nearly knocked the breath out of my body.
You'd better go a little slower, Poll, or you'll kill me as surely as Jean would,--and I don't know but what her way would be about as comfortable as yours.”
”We've plenty of time and the house to ourselves,” said Polly meekly; ”so we can try it over and over, till I get it right.”
”What a prospect!” groaned Alan. ”When we get through, you'll have to take me to the hospital and put me in with those youngsters, where I was to-day.”
”All right,” returned Polly, laughing; ”but if I ever do kill you, don't expect me to tell of it. Now let's come up into mamma's room and dress in front of her long mirror.”
The dressing was a prolonged and hilarious operation, for each in turn helped the other to don his costume, stopping now and then to burst out laughing at the results of their labors. Alan, it is true, made a very attractive young captain, though, with a fine disregard for dates, he was attired in the moth-eaten, faded uniform with tarnished bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and epaulettes which one of his ancestors had worn during the Revolutionary War. But the ancestor had been several sizes larger than his nineteenth century descendant, and the uniform lay in generous folds over the back and shoulders, and was turned up at wrist and ankle, while the great c.o.c.ked hat, pushed back to show the yellow hair in front, rested on the boy's shoulders behind. However, a truer, tenderer, more valiant heart never beat in old-time captain, than was throbbing in Alan's breast that day, when he held forlorn little d.i.c.ky Morris on his knee.
But Polly! In arranging her costume, the girls had let their individual tastes have full sway, and beyond the general notion that Indians like bright color, they had paid no attention to the traditional ideas of dress among the n.o.ble red men. Pocahontas, as she is usually pictured in her quill-embroidered tunic and dull, heavy mantle, would have laughed outright at the appearance of this vision of silk and satin, of purple and scarlet and vivid green, which was solemnly parading up and down the room, in all the enjoyment of her finery.
”'Tis splendid, isn't it, Alan?” she asked, turning, with a purely feminine delight, to survey her long red satin train as it swept about her feet.
Alan looked at her doubtfully.
”Why, yes; it's very splendid, Poll, but somehow it doesn't look much like an Indian. I didn't know they wore satin trails a mile long.”
Polly's brow clouded.
”But princesses do, Alan, and I'm a princess, just as much as I'm an Indian. It's such fun to wear this. Don't you suppose it will do?”
”Yes, perhaps,” said Alan, with an heroic disregard of the truth.
”It isn't just like the pictures; but you look first-rate in it, honestly, Poll. Now let me fix your head.”
Polly beamed under his praise, and dropped into a chair where she sat pa.s.sive until he had fastened on the lofty coronet of feathers which would have formed an honorable decoration for the brow of a Sioux brave. A little red chalk supplied the complexion, and a few dashes of blue on the cheeks and forehead added what Alan was pleased to term ”a little style” to the whole. Then Polly sprang up, caught her skirt in both hands, and dropped a sweeping courtesy to her friend, saying merrily,--
”Prythee, how now, Captain Smith; is it well with thee?”
And the bold captain returned, in some embarra.s.sment, as he removed his wide-spreading hat,--
”Yes'm. Same to you, ma'am.”
There was something at once so quaint and so ridiculous in the pair, that they gazed at each other for a moment, and then, sinking clown on the floor regardless of their finery, they burst out laughing.
”Oh, Alan, you're so absurd!” gasped Polly.
”You're another,” responded Alan; ”only you're worse.” And they went off into a fresh paroxysm of giggles.
At last Polly sprang up with decision.
”How silly you are, Alan!” she said, as she marched up to the gla.s.s once more.
”Am I?” inquired Alan meekly. ”How do you like the looks, Polly?”