CHAPTER XVII

THE FOUR CHILDREN AROUSE SUSPICION, UNTIL WITH THE MOST MOMENTOUS EVENT IN THIS NARRATIVE, ALL IS MADE CLEAR

“Say, folks,” screamed Bobby, arising and rushing into his own room, “we’re going to have a marriage in our family.”

Then, truly, did pandemonium break loose. There was no need of further explanation: the situation was too clear; one had but to look on Compton and Barbara to know that they were betrothed. The three mothers fell upon Barbara, while the children, who one and all loved the transformed Compton, smothered that embarrassed young gentleman with hugs and kisses.

“Attention!” cried Compton as with kind but firm hands he disengaged himself from the four affectionate aggressors. “Listen, please. Each and every one of you here present is cordially invited to be present at the wedding.”

“When?” cried all.

“Let me see,” and Compton, as he spoke, wrinkled the brow of calculation. “On next Sunday, the banns will be read, also on the second and third Sunday. Then the wedding will follow on some day of that very week. What day shall it be, Barbara?”

“Saturday,” she promptly made answer.

“I don’t want to be critical, Barbara, but why put it to the very end of the week?”

“First, John, Saturday is Our Lady’s day.”

“Good!” said Peggy.

“And secondly, it’s the day when the children are free from school.”

Thereupon the children were by way of initiating a new pandemonium; but the resourceful Compton, bellowing that it was time for the performance, bundled them all out of the room and called for the first number.

Peggy played with taste and feeling. She was of Italian blood, of a race that for art stands, I believe, first and foremost in the modern world; and her art went into her graceful fingers and returned in the sweet notes that rippled from her bow. Francis recited and, of course, acquitted himself to the taste of every one present. Pearl’s dance, under the circumstances, was an incarnation of spring—a spring of smiles and youth and fragrant innocence. Then arose Bobby and brought the spectators out of fairyland.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “I will now give you a correct picture of Uncle John when he is shaving himself.”

Standing without any properties of any sort, Bobby dipped an imaginary brush in imperceptible water, rubbed his face, and then lathered himself with invisible soap. Next he honed an unseen razor upon a similar strop, and proceeded to go through the motions of shaving. To such an extent did he succeed in reproducing the faces Compton was wont to make, that the victim of all this fun lost two buttons from his vest, both of them flying off when Bobby went through the motions of cutting himself.

“That settles it,” said Compton, when Bobby had ended his performance with a caricature of Pearl’s curtsy. “We’ve had enough for to-night. The hour is early—it’s only ten—but to-morrow I am to be received into the Catholic Church, and I think I ought to have a little solitude.”

“Are you going to shave?” asked Francis.

“Why?” asked Compton, restraining himself lest he should loose another button.

“If you were,” answered the youth, “I should like to look on.”

Thereupon the happy party broke up.

“Good night, dear,” said Compton to Barbara, when all had left the room, including Bobby, who had graciously accompanied the departing guests to the street. “Aren’t they a wonderful set of children?”

“They show to some degree what God originally intended us all to be,” said Barbara.

“What a pity that they must all grow up!” said the happy man.

* * * * *

“Is it possible,” asked John Compton two weeks later, “that our four children are getting worldly-minded?”

“I hope not, John,” answered Barbara.

It was a lovely afternoon. The two were seated in Compton’s former suite, which, since the engagement, had remained Barbara’s and Bobby’s temporary home.

“Well, they show such an unusual interest in our wedding clothes,” Compton went on, “that I do not know what to make of it. Every time I go to my tailor, I discover Bobby and Francis either with him or hovering about the neighborhood, and they always look guilty when I come upon them. Once Peggy and Pearl were there, too. I asked the tailor what it all meant, and he laughed and answered that the children were very much interested in my bridal garments. I don’t like to see children of their age making such a fuss about styles.”

“Now that you bring the subject up,” said Barbara, “I recall that Peggy and Pearl every time they come here—and there’s not a day that they don’t—ask to see my trousseau, and show an interest that I cannot account for. They ask all sorts of questions.”

“There’s another thing,” resumed Compton. “Several times I have caught the four of them discussing something or other with intense earnestness; but no sooner am I seen than they grow embarrassed and drop their engrossing subject. For all that, they are, in every other respect, so lovely, they’re all studying so well, that I can’t bring myself to think they are getting worldly.”

“And besides, John, Bobby and Peggy and Francis go to communion every day. Not only that, but they make a longer thanksgiving than most grown people. They are the last to leave the church; so I can’t imagine anything wrong about them. And sweet little Pearl, who reminds me of the Peri at the gate of Paradise, not exactly disconsolate, but wistful, comes every morning with them, and says her little prayers with all the reverence and devotion of childish love and innocence.”

“My idea of Paradise,” John meditated, “is a place like Los Angeles, with beautiful smooth-shaven, green lawns thrown in—flowers and foliage and sunshine to remain ‘as you were.’ But the inhabitants of this Paradise are to be all children in their innocence, unalloyed by the little failings which go to show that they are descended from Adam, and who are never, never to grow up.”

Then in a body entered the little four, who, after a cordial interchange of greetings, timidly begged to see the bridal dress.

The betrothed pair looked at each other. They were mystified.

“Say, Uncle John,” said Bobby, who, with Francis, quickly lost interest in the modiste’s “Creation,” “is it true that you’ve been promoted?”

“I’ve been made a Director for the Lantry Studio, if that’s what you mean, Bobby, and they have accepted my new scenario at a price bigger than what they paid for ‘Imitation.’”

“You’re going to be rich, uncle.”

“I don’t know about that. But whether I’m rich or not, you are provided for, my dear. At least, putting together the money you have earned this summer with what I have added to it, and turning it into Liberty Bonds, which I have been able to buy up at a price yielding six per cent on the investment, the income will yield enough to carry you through your school-days, and when you are done with classes, the principal will be intact and enough to give you a fair start in life.”

“But,” objected Bobby, “I thought the money I earned was going to Mama to help her pay off that debt.”

“You needn’t worry about that, Bobby,” exclaimed Mr. Compton. “Yesterday your mother sent a check canceling the entire obligation. She wasn’t as poor as we imagined.”

“And then, John,” put in Barbara, “when you gave me—”

But Compton smiling amiably put his hand over her mouth.

The two girls were still studying the dress.

“Can it be vanity?” the two asked themselves.

All they could do was to suspend judgment.

* * * * *

It was Saturday morning, brighter, more fragrant, more Paradise-like than any morning, so John and Barbara averred, in the golden weather history of Los Angeles. The wedding was over, the most notable wedding ever held in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. The moving-picture world was there, the moving-picture world, and his wife and daughters, and, to a surprising extent, his sons. The church, a bower of beauty, was filled. All was over, and the happy couple, preceded by a flower girl, no other than Agnes Regan, by the best man, Mr. J. Heneman, and supporting the weeping bridesmaid, Bernadette Vivian, were moving in stately fashion down the aisle. As they left the vestibule, there were, thank goodness, no showers of rice and other idiotic performances, idiotic, because out of place at the church. Nevertheless, there was another form of demonstration. Two camera men from the Lantry Studio were on hand with their moving-picture cameras, and with them Ben Moore, the head of the Scenario Department.

“Stop where you are,” commanded Ben. “We’re going to take you.”

“Don’t object, my own,” whispered Compton. “We really owe it to the Lantry people.—Go on, Ben, and tell us what to do.”

“By the way,” continued the groom, “what on earth has become of the little four? I haven’t seen or heard of them all the morning.”

“They told me they had permission to go up in the choir loft,” answered Mrs. Compton. “Bobby left at six, one hour and three-quarters before we started for church. He had something on his mind.—Well, Ben, why don’t you go on and shoot?”

“Wait,” said Ben severely.

The groom and bride were standing before the main door of the church, with the best man and bridesmaid next them on their proper sides.

“Move back, you two men to one side, and you two women to the other to give place to the procession. Now, boys, shoot,” commanded Ben.

As the bridal party obeyed Moore’s curt injunctions, there issued forth from the church, Bobby, dressed in every detail like Compton; on his arm, Peggy, arrayed like Mrs. Compton. Behind them, came Francis, another Heneman, his arm supporting Pearl, an improved replica of the fair Bernadette Vivian.

“By George,” cried Compton, never for a moment thinking of the cameras now in operation. “This explains the whole thing.—The little monkeys!”

The young mischief-makers, well out of the church, placed themselves in front of the real bridal group, in front of their respective replicas. Four innocent faces then broke into smiles, while their owners made Pearl’s famous curtsy to an imaginary audience.

Upon this, Bobby turned and presenting a rose to Compton, said:

“‘_Imitation._’”

“_Is_,” announced Peggy, presenting the flower to Barbara.

“_The Sincerest_,” added Francis, with a rose for Heneman.

“_Flattery_,” ended Pearl, addressing the fair Bernadette.

Then Compton caught Bobby in his arms; and Barbara caught Peggy in her arms; and Heneman caught Francis in his arms; and Bernadette caught Pearl in her arms; while the cameras clicked furiously, until they stopped, and Ben Moore announced that, without rehearsal, they had shot the finest thing ever seen in any moving picture.

THE END.

PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.