CHAPTER I.
TWO AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS.
Two eager heads bent over a small, square, black object that stood on the stone post at the foot of the doorsteps.
“‘Hold the camera steady and push the lever,’” read the brown-eyed girl with the long, dark braid, from the little pamphlet she held in her hand. “Look down in the little round hole, Cricket; you can see the picture perfectly. Isn’t it the cutest thing?”
Cricket squinted down critically.
“It’s going to be perfectly jolly,” she cried enthusiastically. “Now stand still as mice, children, while I count three.”
“Stand still as a mice, Helen,” immediately admonished the small girl in the dark red coat, giving a great pinch to the little golden-haired, brown-clad lassie who stood beside her, by way of emphasising her older sister’s words. “Stand still as a mice, Johnnie-goat,” giving the third member of the group a tickle on the back that made him drop his curved horns for more.
“Keep still ‘as a mice,’ yourself,” said Cricket, tapping Miss Red-coat briskly on the head. “All ready, Eunice. ‘You push the button, and we’ll do the rest,’” she quoted, clapping her hands in her favourite fashion. “Hooray! there she goes! Oh, I hope it will be good! That’s all, Zaidie and Helen. You stood beautifully. Run along now. Can’t you go around to the stable and take Johnnie-goat back, ’Liza?”
Eunice swept the trio a low bow.
“Thank you, Mr. Johnnie-goat, for standing still so long,” she said, addressing the horned member of the party. “I hope your picture will be very good,” she added, picking up the camera with a highly professional air.
“Take me again,” demanded Zaidie instantly, when Cricket told her once more that they were through with this wonderful process, and that they might go. “I like having my picture tooken. Don’t you, Helen? Let’s sit on Johnnie-goat, and be tooken again,” and Zaidie tried to climb upon the goat’s white back. This, however, was a familiarity which Johnnie could not think of permitting, even from his best friends. He instantly sidled off, not wishing to hurt her feelings by a direct butt. Zaidie unexpectedly sat down on the ground.
“No, we don’t want any more pictures of you now, thank you,” said Eunice, examining her Kodak, while Zaidie demanded a view of the one already taken.
“She thinks it’s like putting a penny in the slot and a picture drops out. This isn’t that kind, my dear. There’s a lot of hard, hard work before you see that picture,” said Cricket importantly.
The day before had been Eunice’s birthday, and this Kodak, which had been a long-desired possession, was a birthday present. As it was given to them entirely ready for use, they had literally nothing to do but “press the button.”
Papa had been too busy that morning to explain the mysterious little affair very particularly, but he told the children to study the pamphlet carefully, and follow directions closely. Eunice and Cricket promptly sat down and read the pamphlet from title-page to finis.
Both looked a little blank when they had finished. Could they ever remember all those instructions?
“It’s all plain enough,” said Eunice meditatively, “but the question is, how are we going to remember it all at important times? Now, for instance, about the stops. Listen: ‘Snapshots can only be made when the largest stop is in the lens.’ Will you remember that, Cricket?”
“We might just sit down and learn the whole thing off by heart,” suggested Cricket, wrinkling her forehead thoughtfully.
“Horrors, no!” returned Eunice. “Learn all that? Let’s just carry the pamphlet around with us all the time. If we take the camera anywhere, we can certainly take the book, too. Now let’s go and take a picture.”
“It’s easier to take them out doors, everybody says,” answered Cricket, jumping up. “There’s ’Liza starting out to walk with the twins. Let’s go and take them sitting on the front doorsteps.”
The twins, of course, were perfectly delighted at the idea of having their pictures taken. Zaidie straightway sat herself down on the lowest step, with her hands firmly folded in her lap, and her feet out straight before her, trying vainly to keep the smile out of her dimpled face.
“I don’t want you that way,” said Eunice, laughing, as she turned around. “You must get in some romantic attitude. No, I don’t mean romantic, but picturesque.”
“Couldn’t I be sliding down the railing?” suggested Zaidie eagerly, thinking she saw a chance to indulge in her favourite amusement. “Wouldn’t that be pick-chesk?”
“You can’t slide down no railings, pick-chesk or no pick-chesk,” put in Eliza, promptly.
“You couldn’t, anyway,” said Cricket, “because you have to sit still, Zaidie. You can’t hop around when you have your picture taken. Don’t you remember?”
“Zaidie, you stand up by the post,” began Eunice, when Cricket interrupted her.
“Look! There’s Johnnie-goat trotting up the street. Do let’s have him in. He would be picturesque.”
“S’pose he’d stand still?” asked Eunice doubtfully. “I don’t want to spoil my picture.”
Johnnie-goat was a very celebrated character in the neighbourhood. He belonged to a livery-stable that was on the square back of the Wards. He was famous for eating off his rope and running away. He was a big white goat, with unusually long horns, and a very inquiring disposition. He was such a ridiculous fellow, too, sometimes munching sedately at a stray banana-skin or orange-peel, then kicking up his heels as if an invisible imp had tickled him, and walking off on his forefeet. He was a very discerning goat, also, and knew perfectly well his friends from his enemies. He had goodwill for the one, and butts for the other. One way that he knew his friends was that they always wore dresses, while his enemies were clad in trousers. That was one invariable mark. Then, his friends gave him apples to eat, and scratched the sensitive place between his horns that he couldn’t possibly reach himself, and which, therefore, was seldom properly scratched. His enemies usually saluted him with stones, and offered him tin cans to eat. Now Johnnie-goat was perfectly willing to acknowledge that he could eat tin cans on occasions, but they were not his favourite diet, and he didn’t care much for them. He regarded it as something of an insult to be constantly offered them. It was one thing, if he chose occasionally to pick one up himself and see if he liked the brand, but he decidedly objected to having them so often forced on his attention.
The result of all this was, that Johnnie-goat’s disposition was somewhat mixed. Like some people whom we have known, when he was good he was very good indeed, but when he was bad he was simply terrific. He seemed to know no middle course.
I do not know why he was not called Billy, in accordance with all traditions. His full title was John O’Rafferty, Esq., and on many occasions he got the whole benefit of it.
He was great friends with all the Ward children, who, from having so many pets of their own at Kayuna, had a special predilection for any stray animal. Johnnie-goat perfectly understood this fact—for any one who thinks that a goat is not a highly discriminating creature, is not acquainted with his peculiarities.
On this particular morning, Johnnie-goat was quite willing to be treated to some banana-skins, which the cook brought out to tempt him with. He fully realised that it was a very solemn occasion, for he stood like a sentinel, and only blinked once.
“We must take all sorts of things, Cricket,” said Eunice, when the children had trooped away down the street, with Johnnie-goat marching sedately behind them, with now and then a sudden frisk of his hind legs in the air, and then such an instant return of his composure, that you doubted the evidence of your eyes.
“There are only a dozen pictures on one roll, you know, and we want a good variety. Aren’t you just wild to develop them? I am. It sounds so grown-up to talk of the chemicals and the ‘hypo.’”
“What is the ‘hypo?’” asked Cricket, as they went down the street in search of a good subject.
“Why, just hypo, I suppose. I don’t believe it’s anything in particular,” said Eunice vaguely.
“Donald said Marjorie had the hypo yesterday,” said Cricket thoughtfully, “when she was sort of dumpy all day. But I suppose it isn’t the same kind.”
“No, of course not, goosie. The hypo is that white powder that comes with all the things. Didn’t you notice it? Perhaps Donald meant that Marjorie had been taking some. Oh, look! wouldn’t that corner of the little park make the sweetest picture? Let’s take it!”
“Yes, let’s! and that’s two,” added Cricket, when the picture was secured. “Isn’t this exciting? Can’t I take the next one, Eunice? Just let me look at the pamphlet a moment to see something.”
Cricket buried herself in the book of instructions for a moment, then darted tragically at the camera.
“Oh, Eunice! See! the pamphlet says that after you take a picture, you must turn the key around three or four times, till the next number appears before the little window, and that will put a new film ready; and we never did it! What do you s’pose it will be?”
The two girls stared at each other in dismay.
“Oh, dear! dear!” exclaimed Eunice. “Then we’ve taken another picture right on top of Johnnie-goat and the twins, and they were so cunning!”
“There isn’t any way to untake it, is there?” asked Cricket, in real Mrs. Peterkin fashion.
“I’m afraid not. I wonder what it will look like! It will be a composite photograph, I suppose, like Marjorie’s class picture.”
“Perhaps it won’t be bad,” said Cricket, the hopeful. “You see, this last picture is trees and shrubbery, and there may be a glimpse of Johnnie-goat and the twins behind them. It may look as if we did it on purpose. I shouldn’t wonder if it would be lovely. Perhaps we’ll want to take more that way.”
“Perhaps,” assented Eunice, doubtfully. “It makes me think of Kenneth this morning. I was in mamma’s room while you were practising, and Kenneth was there too. He brought a piece of paper to mamma and asked her to draw a man, and she drew the side face of one—and Kenneth asked her where the other side of his face was, and if it was on the other side of the paper. Mamma told him the other side of the face was there, but he couldn’t see it; and then she turned him her side face to show him. Well, Kenneth took the paper and ran off, but came back in a moment with some straight lines across it, and told mamma that that was a kitty and a fence, and mamma said she saw the fence, but where was the kitten? And what do you think the baby said?—that the kitten was behind the fence! That it was really there, only she couldn’t see it. Wasn’t that cute?”
“He’s just the dearest, smartest baby that ever was!” cried Cricket, always enthusiastical over her beloved small brother. “We’ll just tell people, then, that the children are behind the trees, even if they can’t see them. There, now, I’ve turned the film ready, this time. See! there’s the figure 2 in the little window at the back. Now, we are all ready. What shall we take?”
“Let’s take each other,” suggested Eunice. “I’ll stand here by the park fence. Am I all right?”
The picture-taking went on merrily after that. They got a fine snap at papa just getting out of his buggy, and one of mamma, as she came home from market. They got another dear little picture of the twins as they came down the street hand in hand. It did not take long to use up all the films at this rate, and at luncheon they were able to announce, triumphantly, that they were ready to develop their pictures that afternoon.
“But you don’t know how,” objected papa; “and I have to be out all the afternoon and can’t help you.”
“Please let us try it by ourselves,” pleaded Eunice. “We can read the directions, and they’re terribly plain. A cat could use them. Do let us!”
“Better not do it alone, youngsters,” advised Donald. “I’d show you, myself, if I were going to be home, but I can’t wait.”
Donald was in college this year, but, being so near, he often came home to lunch on Saturday, and sometimes spent Sunday there also.
“Of course we can do it,” returned Cricket, confidently. “We’ve read the directions a million times already, and I pretty nearly know them by heart. Listen: ‘Open one of the developer powders, then put the contents (two chemicals) into the beaker and fill it up to the brim with water. Stir, till dissolved, with wooden stirring spoon. Next take—’”
“Spare us,” begged Marjorie. “We’re willing to take your knowledge for granted.”
“We can use the linen closet for a dark room,” said Eunice.
“By no manner of means,” put in mamma promptly. “I don’t fancy having every sheet and pillow-case I own deluged with chemicals. You can have the bathroom closet, though, if you’ll promise to put everything you take out of it back very carefully. But children, I decidedly think you should wait for papa or Don to show you how.”
“Do let them, mamma,” advised Marjorie. “Of course they will make a frightful mess, and ruin the whole roll, but they will have the experience.”
“The idea!” cried Eunice, much injured. “We’ve done everything right thus far—or almost right,” with a sudden, guilty recollection of the double exposure of the first film.
“Almost everything!” laughed Donald. “Considering you only have to aim the thing and press the button, it would be strange if you hadn’t. Did you aim the wrong end of it and try to take something out of the little back window?”
“Of course we didn’t,” said Eunice and Cricket, in an indignant breath. Then they exchanged guilty, conscious glances.
“We’ll promise about the closet,” said Eunice hastily, to prevent further inconvenient questions. “We’ll take the things out carefully; and may we take the little nursery table to lay our trays on? It’s just large enough to fit.”
These matters being settled, the two girls, as soon as luncheon was over, eagerly began their preparations. They had a free field, for mamma and Marjorie had gone to a matinée, and Eliza had taken the children to the park for the afternoon. The housemaid’s closet in the bathroom was soon cleared of its brooms and dustpans, and the small, low table from the nursery was brought in. The little trays that came with the outfit, the bottles of chemicals and “hypo” were duly arranged on it.
“There!” said Eunice, surveying the preparations with a professional eye. “Everything is ready, I think. Let me see,” consulting the pamphlet. “‘Also provide a pair of shears, a pitcher of cold water, and a dark room having a shelf or table’—yes, all here. Trays, stirring rod, chemicals, and when we shut the door we have our dark room—why, Cricket!” with a sudden exclamation of dismay.