Rumbling behind the carryall was the farm wagon containing the trunks, and in less than the half-hour stipulated by Sandy, Oak Farm was reached. Ruth, Alice and their father fell in love with the place at first sight. Mr. Pertell and Russ had seen it before, and most of the others admired it.

There was a big, old-fashioned farmhouse, setting back from the road, and fronted by a wide stretch of green lawn. The house was white, with green shutters, and was well kept. Back of it were barns and other farm buildings, some of which were rather dilapidated.

"Welcome to Oak Farm!" cried Sandy. "There's Pa Felix and Ma Nance lookin' for ye! Here they are, Ma!" he called. "All ready for your chicken."

"Bring 'em right in!" the mother invited, cordially.

Ruth and Alice liked the farmer's wife at once. There was a stoop to her shoulders that told of many weary days of work, and she looked worn and tired, but there was a bright welcome in her eyes as she greeted the visitors. "Pa Felix," as Sandy called his father, was rather old and feeble.

"Come right in and make yourselves to home," urged Mrs. Apgar. "Your rooms is all ready for ye!"

"Where is the bell-boy?" asked Miss Pennington, with uptilted head and powdered nose. "I want him to take my valise to my room at once.

And I shall want a bath before dinner."

"Isn't she horrid, to try to put on such airs here?" said Alice to Ruth, nodding in the direction of the vaudeville actress.

"Yes. She only does it to make trouble."

Sandy and his father were talking together in low tones in one corner of the big parlor.

"You didn't get any word; did you?" asked the old man.

"No, Pa. There wasn't no letter."

"Then we won't git th' money."

"It don't look so."

"And we'll have to lose th' place?"

"I--I'm afraid so," replied Sandy.

"Gosh! That--that's hard, in my old age," said the elderly farmer, softly. "I hoped your ma and I'd be able to end our days here. But I guess it ain't to be. However, this company will help us pay some of the claims. We'll do the best we can, Sandy."

"That's what we will!"

Alice wondered what secret trouble could be worrying the farmer and his son. Mrs. Apgar, too, had an anxious look on her face, but she tried to make her visitors feel at home.

CHAPTER IV

A QUEER PROPOSAL

Oak Farm was a most delightful place. Ruth and Alice agreed to this even before the first meal was served. They stood at the window of their room--a large one with two beds--and gazed across the green meadows, off to the greener woodland and then to the distant hills which girt the valley holding Oak Farm in its clasp.

The hills were purple now with the coming of night--a deep purple like the depth of a woodland violet--and their tops were shrouded in mist.

At the foot of the hills ran a little river, and now it looked like some ribbon of silver, twining in and out amid the green carpet of the fields.

"Oh, isn't it beautiful--just beautiful!" sighed Ruth.

"Do you mean the odor of that fried chicken?" asked Alice, with a frank laugh, as she let down her hair, preparatory to putting it up again, in the general process of "dressing." "It is delightful; but I would hardly call it 'beautiful.'"

"Oh, you know what I mean!" returned Ruth, not turning from the window which gave a view of the distant hills. "I'm speaking of the scenery."

"Oh, yes, I suppose it is beautiful," agreed Alice, who, truth to tell, was not gifted with a very strong aesthetic sense. "But I suppose Mr. Pertell came here because it was so practical for the rural dramas."

"Beauty counts in them, too," said Ruth, softly. "Oh, just look at the purple light on those hills, Alice!"

"Can't, my dear. I've dropped a hairpin and I can't see it in the dark. Gracious, I never thought! We won't have any electric lights here, and no gas. I wonder if we'll have to go back to candle days."

"They weren't so bad," observed Ruth. "I think it must have been fine in the Colonial days, to have the candles all aglow, and----"

"Candle fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Alice, who could be very outspoken at times. "Give me an incandescent light, every time. It's getting dark here. I wonder what system of illumination they have?"

"Kerosene lamps," replied Ruth. "There's one on the mantel. I'll light it."

"Do, that's a dear. I've dropped another hairpin, and I need every one."

There was silence in the bedroom of the old-fashioned country house for a s.p.a.ce. Ruth lighted the lamp, and drew down the window shades.

The girls freshened themselves up after their journey, and prepared to descend to the dining room. From the kitchen came more delicious odors as Mrs. Apgar and her helper finished preparing the evening meal.

Scattered about, in other apartments of the big farmhouse, were the other members of the film theatrical company. Mr. DeVere had been given a room near his daughters', and they could hear him talking in his husky voice to Mr. Pertell, who was across the hall.

"When are they going to begin taking the pictures?" asked Ruth, as she helped Alice hook up a waist that fastened in the back.

"Oh, not for some days yet, I fancy," was the answer. "Mr. Pertell will have to look around, and pick out the best backgrounds for the different scenes. I wonder what sort of parts I'll get? Something funny, I hope; like tumbling into the river and being rescued."

"Alice! You wouldn't want anything like that!" cried Ruth, much shocked.

"Wouldn't I, though! Just give me a chance. I can swim, you know!"

"Yes, I know, but tumbling into the river--with your clothes on--it might be dangerous!"

"Oh, well, if we're in the moving picture business we will have to learn to take chances. I read in the paper the other day how a couple leaped from the Brooklyn Bridge with a parachute--a man and woman."

"Yes, I know; but we're not going to do anything like _that_! Papa wouldn't let us."

"No, I suppose not," and Alice sighed as though she really wanted to indulge in some such daring "stunt" as a bridge leap.

"I know one part you're going to have, Ruth," went on Alice, as she surveyed herself in the gla.s.s.

"What is it?" asked Ruth, eagerly. "Shall I like it?"