PLAYING THEATER AT RIVERMOUTH

"Now, boys, what shall we do?" I asked, addressing a thoughtful conclave of seven, assembled in our barn one dismal, rainy afternoon.

66

Let's have a theater," suggested Binny Wallace.

The very thing! But where? The loft of the stable was ready to burst with hay provided for Gypsy, but the long room over the carriage-house was unoccupied. The place of all places! My eye saw at once its possibilities for a theater. So here, in due time, was set up some extraordinary scenery of my own painting. The curtain, I recollect, though it worked smoothly enough on other occasions, invariably hitched during the performances; and it often required the united energies of the Prince of Denmark, the King, and the Grave-digger, with an occasional hand from "the fair Ophelia " (Pepper Whitcomb in a low-necked dress), to hoist that bit of green cambric.

The theater however, was a success, as far as it went. I retired from the business with no fewer than fifteen hundred pins, after deducting the headless, the pointless, and the crooked. pins. From first to last we took in a great deal of this counterfeit money. The price of admission to the "Rivermouth Theater " was twenty pins. I played all the principal parts myself, not that I was a finer actor than the other boys, but because I owned the establishment.

At the tenth representation, my dramatic career was brought to a close by an unfortunate circumstance. We were playing the drama of "William Tell, the Hero of Switzerland." Of course I was William Tell in spite of Fred Langdon, who wanted to act the character himself. I would not let him, so

he withdrew from the company, taking the only bow and arrow we had. I made a cross-bow out of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without him.

We had reached that exciting scene where Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son's head. Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women parts, was my son. To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the upper part of Whitcomb's face, while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its russet cheek fairly towards me.

I can see poor little Pepper now, as he stood without flinching, waiting for me to perform my great feat. I raised my cross-bow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience, -consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way with a clothes-pin. I raised the bow, I repeat. Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper Whitcomb's mouth, which happened to be open at the time, and destroyed my aim.

I shall never be able to banish that moment from my memory. Pepper's roar, expressive of astonishment, indignation, pain, is still ringing in my ears. I looked upon him as a corpse, and glancing not far into the dreary future, pictured myself led forth to execution in the presence of the very same spectators then assembled.

Luckily poor Pepper was not seriously hurt; but Grandfather Nutter, appearing in the midst of the confusion (attracted by the howls of young Tell), issued an order against all theatricals hereafter, and the place was closed; not, however,

without a farewell speech from me, in which I said that this would have been the proudest moment of my life, if I had not hit Pepper Whitcomb in the mouth.

Thereupon the audience (assisted, I am glad to state, by Pepper) cried "Hear! hear!" I then attributed the accident to Pepper himself, whose mouth, being open at the instant I fired, acted upon the arrow much after the fashion of a whirlpool, and drew in the fatal shaft. I was about to explain how a comparatively small whirlpool could suck in the largest ship, when the curtain fell of its own accord, amid the shouts of the audience.

This was my last appearance on the stage. It was some time,

though, before I heard the end of the William Tell business. Malicious little boys, who had not been allowed to buy tickets to my theater, used to cry after me in the street,—

"Who killed Cock Robin ?

'I' said the sparrer,
'With my bow and arrer,

I killed Cock Robin.""

The sarcasm of this verse was more than I could stand. And it made Pepper Whitcomb pretty angry to be called Cock Robin, I can tell you!

con'clave, a private meeting. coun'ter-feit, not true or genuine. in-vaʼri-a-bly, always.

dra-mat'ic, relating to a play or

drama.

ex-cluʼsive, not taking account of.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

ex-e-cu'tion, a putting to death, as a penalty.

spec-ta'tors, those who look on. at-trib'u-ted, assigned as a cause. ma-li'cious, with evil intention. sar'casm, cutting wit.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH is an American poet and novelist. He was born in New Hampshire in 1836. From 1881 to 1890 he was the

editor of the Atlantic Monthly. His writings include novels, poetry and essays. Some of his books have a strain of humor in them that is very likable. He knows, too, how to give his readers interesting surprises. If you would like to prove this assertion, read his little novel, "Marjorie Daw." "The Queen of Sheba" is another of his novels. Some of his poems are widely known and greatly liked by young readers. "Playing Theatre at Monmouth" is taken from the "Story of a Bad Boy."

HELENA OF BRITAIN

I

This little girl of fourteen, Helena, was a princess. Her father was Coel, second prince of Britain and king of that part of ancient England which includes the present shires of Essex and Suffolk, about the river Colne.

Not a very large kingdom this, but even as small as it was, King Coel did not hold it in undisputed sway. For he was one of the tributary princes of Britain, in the days when Roman arms, and Roman law, and Roman dress, and Roman manners, had place and power throughout England, from the Isle of Wight, to the Northern highlands, behind whose forestcrowned hills those savage natives known as the Picts—“ the tattooed folk," held possession of ancient Scotland, and defied the eagles of Rome.

It was, indeed, a curious state of affairs in England. It is doubtful whether many girls and boys, no matter how well they stand in their history classes, have ever thought of the England of Hereward and Ivanhoe, of Paul Dombey and Tom Brown, as a Roman land.

And yet at the time of this little princess, the island of Britain, in at least its southern part, was almost as Roman in

manner, custom, and speech as was Rome itself. For nearly five hundred years, from the days of Cæsar the conqueror, to those of Honorius the Unfortunate, was England, or Britain as it was called, a Roman province. At this date, the year 255 A.D., the beautiful island had so far grown out of the barbarisms of ancient Britain as to have long since forgotten the gloomy rites and open-air altars of the Druids, and all the half-savage surroundings of those stern old priests.

Throughout the land, south of the massive wall which the great Emperor Hadrian had stretched across the island from the mouth of the Solway to the mouth of the Tyne, the people themselves had gathered into or about the thirty growing Roman cities, founded and beautified by the conquerors. The educational influence of Rome, always following the course of her conquering eagles, had planted schools and colleges throughout the land.

As Helena was the only daughter of King Coel, he had given her the finest education that Rome could offer. She was, so we are told, a fine musician, a marvelous worker in tapestry, in hammered brass and pottery, and was altogether as wise and wonderful a young person as even these later centuries can show.

But for all this grand education, she loved to hear the legends and stories of her people which in various ways would come to her ears, either as the simple tales of her British nurse, or in the wild songs of the wandering bards, or singers.

As she listened to these, she thought less of the crude and barbaric ways of her ancestors than of their national independence and freedom from the galling yoke of Rome. As was natural, she cherished the memory of Boadicea, the warrior queen, and made a hero of the fiery young Caractacus.