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Page 38
It was by its weird light that the charades were played, when the feast
had been cleared away. Miss Allison arranged them. The actors were all
little negroes, the funniest, blackest little pickaninnies that ever
sung a song or danced a double shuffle.
"It's Sylvia Gibbs's family," explained Miss Allison, to the girls. "Our
circle of King's Daughters had them under its wing all winter, or they
would have starved. When I discovered what heathen they were, I turned
missionary and taught them an hour every Sunday afternoon. They will do
anything for me now, and are such clever little mimics that I know they
can act the charades charmingly. Besides, they will give us a cake-walk
afterward, and sing for us like nightingales."
While Miss Allison marshalled her flock of little darkies behind the
great rock, Mrs. Sherman called the children to seat themselves in a
semicircle on the camp-stools and rugs in front. "This is to be a
guessing contest," she explained, as she passed a card and pencil to
each guest. "There must be no talking, and no comparing notes. As each
syllable is acted, write down the word you think is meant. The one who
guesses the most charades wins the prize. Stir the bonfire, Alec. Now,
all ready!"
Miss Allison came out in front of her audience. "This word is the name
of a favourite book," she announced. "It consists of two words. The
first word is in three syllables, the second in two. They will be given
in five separate acts."
Every eye watched intently, as three little coloured boys came out from
behind the rock and went through the scene of a highway robbery. Little
Jim Gibbs, his white teeth and gleaming eyeballs making his face seem as
black as night by contrast, strode out with a high silk hat, a baggy
umbrella, and an old carpet-bag. He was evidently intended to represent
a lonely traveller, for, as he sauntered along in front of the audience,
two other boys of the Gibbs family sprang out of the bushes in the
background, with white cloth masks over their faces. One carried a dark
lantern and the other a toy pistol, which he held at Jim's head. They
proceeded to go through the traveller's pockets, stealing watch, purse,
carpet-bag, and umbrella. After that they took to their heels, leaving
the poor despoiled traveller looking mournfully at his empty pockets,
which were turned wrong side out.
"Steal" wrote Eugenia on her card, although she could think of no book
beginning with that name. "Thieves" wrote Rob, and any one looking over
the shoulders of the group would have seen several cards which bore the
same word, but more which their puzzled owners had left blank. Betty
tapped her teeth a moment with a pencil and then triumphantly wrote
"rob."
The next act showed a hastily constructed house made of a clothes-horse
and heavy roofing paper. Doors and windows had been roughly outlined in
charcoal. In front, a swinging sign-board announced it as the
"Traveller's Rest" and offered refreshment within for man and beast.
"Inn" wrote Betty, quickly guessing the second syllable. She was sure of
the whole word, now, but the majority of the children sat with their
pencils in their mouths, unable to think of any word that would fit in
place beside the one already written.
"Oh, this is easy," said Betty to herself, writing the name "Robinson
Crusoe" after the last act, as the _crew_ of little pickaninnies, seated
in an old skiff which had been dragged up from the mill stream for that
purpose, took up a piece of patch-work and began to _sew_. Betty was the
only one who had guessed it.
The next charade was easier. Every one wrote "music" on his card, after
the two acts in which plaintive _mews_ floated up from the rocks and the
Gibbs family were taken _sick_. All but Jim, who, in the high silk hat
he had worn before, took the part of doctor.
"If they are all as easy as this," thought Betty, "I can surely take one
of the prizes," and she waited eagerly for the next word. In the first
act 'Tildy Gibbs came out with an envelope in her hands, and all of a
sudden Betty's heart gave a guilty thump as she thought of the letter
she and Eugenia had left lying on the hall table. They had forgotten
their promise.
"But it is Eugenia's fault every bit as much as it is mine," she
thought, looking across the semicircle, where Eugenia sat serenely
unconscious of forgotten promises. "She's just as much to blame as I am.
Oh, well, I'll mail it first thing in the morning."
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