and tam o’ shanter.

[104]

There were also a number of little Grammar-School fairies in mosquito-netting robes, and many other citizens of places earthly and unearthly, who seemed to have wandered out of the books in Mary’s library. Ariel recognized them all, and named them to the company as they came in. They squatted about on the chairs and on the floor till everybody had arrived.

And then they gave the play.

Ever since reading “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Mary had wanted to try the delicious foolery of “Pyramus and Thisbe.” It required no scenery, no other costumes than a shawl or two, to cover up what the actors were already wearing to represent other characters. It was all a huge joke, as the audience soon saw; and throughout the scene the children laughed and squealed with delight, as Mary had thought they would. For the actors must have given the[105] play as ridiculously as Shakespeare himself intended; which was saying a great deal.

[105]

Billy Barton, covering himself with a mackintosh, acted Prologue, and introduced Mary, draped as Pyramus, and Katy as Thisbe; John, parted for a time from his wings, and tied up in a gray shawl, with a fringed rope fastened on for a tail, was the horribly roaring Lion. Ralph and Jimmie represented Wall and Moonshine.

It was a very funny thing to see Wall hold up his fingers to make a chink through which Pyramus and Thisbe might kiss each other. And when Lion begged the audience not to be frightened by his roar, the children shrieked with laughter.

But funniest of all was when Jimmy Perry as Moonshine came in with the old tin lantern to represent the Moon, and tried to make Caliban in his green ribbon act the part of the Moon Man’s dog. Caliban didn’t like theatricals. He would not act the part, but lay down in the middle of the floor, with his feet in the air, and his ears laid flat, ready to scratch the Moon Man if he persisted. The Prologue had to rush in again and drag him off.

When the Lion had roared and made Pyramus think he had eaten poor Thisbe, so that the hasty fellow stabbed himself in grief; and when[106] Thisbe had died, too, after sobbing about her lover’s “lily lips” and “cherry nose,” the little play was over, and everybody in a good humor. And the children said, “I didn’t know Shakespeare was so funny, did you?”

[106]

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