"I can see you, Mary, as a side partner to Douglas Fairbanks. Can you climb up a wall like a fly?" I laughed.
"No-o, not yet but soon! I can't get much practice in wall scaling. I am dying to try this wall outside our window. It is covered with ivy and would be easy as dirt, I know," and she poked her head out the window, gazing longingly at the tempting perpendicularity of the wall beneath.
Mr. Thomas Hawkins, alias Shorty, thought Mary was just about the best chum a fellow could have, and great was his joy when Fate landed him at the same country house with the inimitable Mary. Shorty, too, had made out to grow a bit since first we saw him make the great play in the football game at Hill Top. He was a very engaging lad with his tousled mane, rosy cheeks and clear boy's eyes.
"Is Shorty going to get into the movies, too?" I teased.
"No, – navy!"
"Oh, how splendid! I didn't know he had decided."
"Yes! He has talked to me a lot about it," said Mary quite soberly.
"What do you think about it?"
"Me? Why, I think our navy is going to have to be enlarged and I can't think of anybody better suited to it than Shorty. He is a descendant of Sir John Hawkins, you know, and that means seafaring blood in his veins."
How little did Mary and I think, as we lay in that great four-post bed and wisely discussed preparedness, that our country would really be at war in not so very many months, and that Shorty's entering the navy would be a very serious matter to all of his friends, if not to him.
No thoughts of war were disturbing us. The great war was going on, but then we were used to that and we were too young and thoughtless for it to bother us. It was across the water and no one we knew personally was implicated. Maxton was too peaceful a spot for one to realize that such a thing as bloodshed could go on anywhere in all the world. Our great room with its two huge beds and massive wardrobe, bureau and washstand, had once sheltered Washington and later on Lafayette; and then as the ages had rolled by, General Lee had visited the Prices and had slept in the very bed where Mary and I were lying so sagely and smugly arguing for preparedness. Perhaps the mocking-bird that every now and then gave forth a silvery trill in the holly tree near our window was descended from the same mocking-bird that no doubt had sung to the great warrior as he lay in the four-poster.
How quiet it was! A whippoorwill gave an occasional cry away off in the woods, and once I heard the chugging of a small steamboat puffing its way up the river, and then a little later the swish swash on the shore of the waves made by the stern wheel. But for that, the night was absolutely still.
"Page," whispered Mary, "are you asleep?"
"Fortunately not, or I'd be awake," I laughed.
"I'm thinking about getting up and trying to scale that wall. I am 'most sure I could do it with all that ivy to dig my toes in."
"Why don't you wait until morning?"
"Because I don't want an audience. It is best to practice these stunts without anyone looking."
"Suppose you fall!"
"That's something movie actresses have to expect. I won't fall far if I do fall."
"Will you mind if I look on?"
"No, indeed! I can pretend you are the director."
Everything was as quiet as the grave when Mary bounced out of bed to practice her stunt. I followed, nothing loath to see more of the wonderful night. Some nights are too beautiful to waste in sleeping. It has always seemed such a pity to me that we could not fill up on sleep in disagreeable weather, and then when a glorious moonlight night arrives, be able to draw on that reserve fund of sleep and just sit up all night.
"Isn't it splendid out on the lawn? And only look at the river in the moonlight. I'd certainly like to be out there in a boat this minute with some very nice interesting person to recite poetry to me," I mused.
"I heard Wink White begging you to take a row with him."
"Yes, but I see myself doing it."
"Don't you like him?" asked Mary, sitting in the window ready for the trial descent.
"Of course I like him, but he's such a goose."
"Shorty thinks he is grand."
"So he is – grand, gloomy, and peculiar. If he'd only not be so sad and lonesome when he is with me."
"Of course all of us have noticed how different he is with you, never laughing and joking as he does with us but sighing like a furnace. But here goes! This is no time for analyzing the character of young Doctor Stephen White, – this is a play of action."
"But, Mary, ought you try to climb down in your nighty? It might get tangled around your feet."
"Oh, but the movie ladies always have to get out of windows in their nighties. I must practice in costume to get used to it."
"Barefooted, too?"
"Of course! I need all these toes to hang on by. Next time I am going to have my ch-e-i-ild, but this first time perhaps I had better not try to carry anything."
"I should think not, – but, Mary, do be careful."
I was looking down the perpendicular wall and it began to seem to me to be a crazy undertaking. The vines were very thick and would no doubt offer a foot-rest to the daring girl, but suppose she lost her head or the vine pulled loose from the wall!
It is a much easier matter to climb up and get in a window than it is to get out of one and climb down. There is something very scary about projecting one's bare foot into the unknown. Mary, however, was too serious in her desire to perfect herself for her chosen profession to stop and wiggle her toes with indecision. She was out of the window in a moment. I held my breath.
"Oh, God save her! Oh, God save her!" I whispered.
"Fireman, save my ch-e-i-ild!" came back in sibilant tones from Mary.
I couldn't help laughing although I was trembling with fright. I almost beat Mary to the ground I leaned so far out of the window. Sometimes the thick ivy hid her from my sight and again she would loom out very white in the moonlight.
Down at last! I felt like shouting for joy. Now began the ascent which was a small matter compared to the descent.
When the climber was about half-way up, I suddenly became aware of figures on the edge of the lawn. "The servants returning from church," I thought. Harvie had told me that "big meetin'" was going on and his aunt was quite concerned about her servants, as they had a way of taking French leave at "big meetin'" time. With the house-party in session, a paucity of servants would be quite serious. Extra inducements had been offered and the whole corps had promised to remain, taking turn about in getting off early for night church.
Anyone who has lived in the country, where colored servants are the only ones, knows what a serious time "big meetin'" can be. The whole negro population seems to go mad in a frenzy of religious fervor. Crops that are inconsiderate enough to ripen at that period remain ungathered; the washwoman lets soiled clothes pile up indefinitely; cooks refuse to cook; housemaids have a soul above sweeping; cows go dry for lack of milking; horses go uncurried and vehicles unwashed and ungreased.
I smiled when I saw that straggling group returning from church, knowing they would not be fit for any very arduous tasks the next day. I remembered how Mammy Susan used to berate our darkies for their delinquencies on days following meetings. As the churchgoers approached the house, which they had to pass to reach the quarters on the other side of the great house, they suddenly became aware of Mary's white figure hanging midway between heaven and earth.
Shouts and groans arose! One woman fell to the ground and, regardless of her finery, rolled on the grass imploring her Maker to save her. I trembled for fear Mary would fall, but she clung to the vine and scrambled up and in the window. The darkies ran like frightened rabbits.
"They thought you were a ghost, I believe."
"Well,