The Moving Picture Girls; Or, First Appearances in Photo Dramas Read online

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  The

  Moving Picture Girls

  OR

  First Appearances in Photo Dramas

  BY

  LAURA LEE HOPE

  AUTHOR OF THE BOBBSEY TWINS, THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY,THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE, THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE,THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE, ETC.

  _ILLUSTRATED_

  IN ONE SCENE ALICE AND RUTH HOLD THE STAGE ALONE._The Moving Picture Girls.--Page 157._]

  THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.

  CLEVELAND NEW YORK Made in U. S. A.

  COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PRESS OF THE COMMERCIAL BOOKBINDING CO. CLEVELAND

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I AN UNCEREMONIOUS DEPARTURE 1

  II RUSS DALWOOD APOLOGIZES 11

  III THE OLD TROUBLE 20

  IV DESPONDENCY 33

  V REPLACED 43

  VI A NEW PROPOSITION 51

  VII ALICE CHANGES HER MIND 60

  VIII "PAY YOUR RENT, OR----" 70

  IX MR. DEVERE DECIDES 78

  X THE MAN IN THE KITCHEN 87

  XI RUSS IS WORRIED 96

  XII THE PHOTO DRAMA 106

  XIII MR. DEVERE'S SUCCESS 113

  XIV AN EMERGENCY 124

  XV JEALOUSIES 132

  XVI THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS 140

  XVII A PROMISE 151

  XVIII A HIT 159

  XIX A BIT OF OUTDOORS 170

  XX FARMER SANDY APGAR 181

  XXI OVERHEARD 189

  XXII THE WARNING 197

  XXIII THE MISSING MODEL 205

  XXIV THE PURSUIT 214

  XXV THE CAPTURE 221

  CHAPTER I

  AN UNCEREMONIOUS DEPARTURE

  "Oh, isn't it just splendid, Ruth? Don't you feel like singing anddancing? Come on, let's have a two-step! I'll whistle!"

  "Alice! How can you be so--so boisterous?" expostulated the taller oftwo girls, who stood in the middle of their small and rather shabbyparlor.

  "Boisterous! Weren't you going to say--rude?" laughingly asked theone who had first spoken. "Come, now, 'fess up! Weren't you?" and theshorter of the twain, a girl rather plump and pretty, with merrybrown eyes, put her arm about the waist of her sister and endeavoredto lead her through the maze of chairs in the whirl of a dance,whistling, meanwhile, a joyous strain from one of the latest Broadwaysuccesses.

  "Oh, Alice!" came in rather fretful tones. "I don't--"

  "You don't know what to make of me? That's it; isn't it, sister mine?Oh, I can read you like a book. But, Ruth, why aren't you jolly oncein a while? Why always that 'maiden all forlorn' look on your face?Why that far-away, distant look in your eyes--'Anne, Sister Anne,dost see anyone approaching?' Talk about Bluebeard! Come on, do oneturn with me. I'm learning the one-step, you know, and it's lovely!

  "Come on, laugh and sing! Really, aren't you glad that dad has anengagement at last? A real engagement that will bring in some realmoney! Aren't you glad? It will mean so much to us! Money! Why, Ihaven't seen enough real money of late to have a speakingacquaintance with it. We've been trusted for everything, exceptcarfare, and it would have come to that pretty soon. Say you're glad,Ruth!"

  The younger girl gave up the attempt to entice her sister into adance, and stood facing her, arm still about her waist, the laughingbrown eyes gazing mischievously up into the rather sad blue ones ofthe taller girl.

  "Glad? Of course I'm glad, Alice DeVere, and you know it. I'm just asglad as you are that daddy has an engagement. He's waited long enoughfor one, goodness knows!"

  "You have a queer way of showing your gladness," commented the otherdrily, shrugging her shapely shoulders. "Why, I can hardly keepstill. La-la-la-la! La-la-la-la! La-la-la!" She hummed the air of aViennese waltz song, meanwhile whirling gracefully about withextended arms, her dress floating about her balloonwise.

  "Oh, Alice! Don't!" objected her sister.

  "Can't help it, Ruth. I've just got to dance. La-la!"

  She stopped suddenly as a vase crashed to the floor from a table,shattering into many pieces.

  "Oh!" cried Alice, aghast, as she stood looking at the ruin she hadunwittingly wrought. "Oh, dear, and daddy was so fond of that vase!"

  "There, you see what you've done!" exclaimed Ruth, who, though onlyseventeen, and but two years older than her sister, was of a muchmore sedate disposition. "I told you not to dance!"

  "You did nothing of the sort, Ruth DeVere. You just stood and lookedat me, and you wouldn't join in, and maybe if you had this wouldn'thave happened--and--and--"

  She did not finish, her voice trailing off rather dismally as shestooped to pick up the pieces of the vase.

  "It can't be mended, either," she went on, and when she looked up themerry brown eyes were veiled in a mist of tears. Ruth's heartsoftened at once.

  "There, dear!" she said in consoling tones. "Of course you couldn'thelp it. Don't worry. Daddy won't mind when you tell him you werejust doing a little waltz of happiness because he has an engagementat last."

  She, too, stooped and her light hair mingled with the dark browntresses of her sister as they gathered up the fragments.

  "I don't care!" announced Alice, finally, as she sank into a chair."I'll tell dad myself. I'm glad, anyhow, even if the vase is broken.I never liked it. I don't see why dad set such store by the oldthing."

  "You forget, Alice, that it was one of--"

  "Mother's--yes, I know," and she sighed. "Father gave it to her whenthey were married, but really, mother was like me--she never caredfor it."

  "Yes, Alice, you are much as mother was," returned Ruth, with gentledignity. "You are growing more like her every day."

  "Am I, really?" and in delight the younger girl sprang up, her griefover the vase for the moment forgotten. "Am I really like her, Ruth?I'm so glad! Tell me more of her. I scarcely remember her. I was onlyseven when she died, Ruth."

  "Eight, my dear. You were eight years old, but such a tiny littlething! I could hold you in my arms."

  "You couldn't do it now!" laughed Alice, with a downward glance ather plump figure. Yet she was not over-plump, but with the roundingcurves and graces of coming womanhood.

  "Well, I couldn't hold you long," laughed Ruth. "But I wonder what iskeeping daddy? He telephoned that he would come right home. I'm soanxious to have him tell us all about it!"

  "So am I. Probably he had to stay to arrange about rehearsals,"replied Alice. "What theater did he say he was going to open at?"

  "The New Columbia. It's one of the nicest in New York, too."

  "Oh, I'm so glad. Now we can go to a play once in a while--I'm almoststarved for the sight of the footlights, and to hear the orchestratuning up. And you know, while he had no engagement dad wouldn't letus take advantage of his professional privilege, and present his cardat the box office."

  "Yes, I know he is peculiar that way. But I shall be glad, too, toattend a play now and again. I'm getting quite rusty. I did so wantto see Maude Adams when she was here. But--"

  "I'd never have g
one in the dress I had!" broke in Alice. "I wantsomething pretty to wear; don't you?"

  "Of course I do, dear. But with things the way they were--"

  "We had to eat our prospective dresses," laughed Alice. "It was likebeing shipwrecked, when the sailors have to cut their boots intolengths and make a stew of them."

  "Alice!" cried Ruth, rather shocked.

  "It was so!" affirmed the other. "Why, you must have read of itdozens of times in those novels you're always poring over. The heroand heroine on a raft--she looks up into his eyes and sighs. 'Haveanother morsel of boot soup, darling!' Why, the time dad had to usethe money he had half promised me for that charmeuse, and we boughtthe supper at the delicatessen--you know, when Mr. Blake stopped andyou asked him to stay to tea, when there wasn't a thing in the houseto eat--do you remember that?"

  "Yes, but I don't see what it has to do with shipwrecked sailorseating their boots. Really, Alice--"

  "Of course it was just the same," explained the younger girl,merrily. "There was nothing fit to give Mr. Blake, and I took themoney that was to have been paid for my charmeuse, and slipped out toMr. Dinkelspatcher's--or whatever his name is--and bought a meal.Well, we ate my dress, that's all, Ruth."

  "Why, Alice!"

  "And I wish we had it to eat over again," went on the other, with ahalf sigh. "I don't know what we are going to do for supper. How muchhave we in the purse?"

  "Only a few dollars."

  "And we must save that, I suppose, until dad gets some salary, whichwon't be for a time yet. And we really ought to celebrate in someway, now that he's had this bit of good luck! Oh, isn't it just awfulto be poor!"

  "Hush, Alice! The neighbors will hear you. The walls of thisapartment house are so terribly thin!"

  "I don't care if they do hear. They all know dad hasn't had atheatrical engagement for ever so long. And they know we haven't anywhat you might call--resources--or we wouldn't live here. Of coursethey know we're poor--that's no news!"

  "I know, my dear. But you are so--so out-spoken."

  "I'm glad of it. Oh, Ruth, when will you ever give up trying topretend we are what we are not? You're a dear, nice, sweet, romanticsister, and some day I hope the Fairy Prince will come riding past onhis milk-white steed--and, say, Ruth, why should a prince always ridea milk-white steed? There's something that's never been explained.

  "All the novels and fairy stories have milk-white steeds for the heroto prance up on when he rescues the doleful maiden. And if there'sany color that gets dirtier sooner, and makes a horse look most likea lost hope, it's white. Of course I know they can keep a circushorse milk-white, but it isn't practical for princes or heroes. Thefirst mud puddle he splashed through--And, oh, say! If the princeshould fail in his fortunes later, and have to hire out to drive acoal wagon! Wouldn't his milk-white steed look sweet then? There goesone now," and she pointed out of the window to the street below.

  "Do, Ruth, if your prince comes, insist on his changing his steed forone of sober brown. It will wear better."

  "Don't be silly, Alice!"

  "Oh, I can't help it. Hark, is that dad's step?"

  The two girls listened, turning their heads toward the hall entrancedoor.

  "No, it's someone over at the Dalwoods'--across the corridor."

  The noise in the hallway increased. There were hasty footsteps, andthen rather loud voices.

  "I tell you I won't have anything to do with you, and you needn'tcome sneaking around here any more. I'm done with you!"

  "That's Russ," whispered Alice.

  "Yes," agreed Ruth, and her sister noted a slight flush on her faircheeks.

  Then came a voice in expostulation:

  "But I tell you I can market it for you, and get you something forit. If you try to go it alone--"

  "Well, that's just what I'm going to do--go it alone, and I don'twant to hear any more from you. Now you get out!"

  "But look here--"

  There was a sound of a scuffle, and a body crashed up against thedoor of the DeVere apartment.

  "Oh!" cried Ruth and Alice together.

  Their door swung open, for someone had seemingly caught at the knobto save himself from falling. The girls had a glimpse of theirneighbor across the hall, Russ Dalwood by name, pushing a strange mantoward the head of the stairs.

  "Now you get out!" cried Russ, and the man left ratherunceremoniously, slipping down two or three steps before he couldrecover his balance and grasp the railing.

  "Oh, shut the door, quickly, Alice!" gasped Ruth.