Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West

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Most of them were workmen in flannel shirts, their

sleeves rolled up, their hands grimy with toil. These stood before a

brick building that seemed like a factory, while from its doors other

crowds of workmen and some shopgirls were rushing into the street and

several policemen were shaking their clubs and running here and there in

a sort of panic. At first Beth and I stopped and hesitated to go on, but

as the sidewalk seemed open and fairly free I pulled Beth along, thinking

we might discover what the row was about. Just as we got opposite the

building a big workman rushed at us and shouted: 'Go back--go back! The

wall is falling.'

"Well, Uncle, you can imagine our dismay. We both screamed, for we

thought our time had come, for sure. My legs were so weak that Beth had

to drag me away and her face was white as a sheet and full of terror.

Somehow we managed to stagger into the street, where a dozen men caught

us and hurried us away. I hardly thought we were in a safe place when the

big workman cried: 'There, young ladies; that will do. Your expression

was simply immense and if this doesn't turn out to be the best film of

the year, I'll miss my guess! Your terror-stricken features will make a

regular hit, for the terror wasn't assumed, you know. Thank you very much

for happening along just then.'"

Patsy stopped her recital to laugh once more, with genuine merriment, but

her cousin Beth seemed annoyed and Uncle John was frankly bewildered.

"But--what--what--was it all about?" he inquired.

"Why, they were taking a moving picture, that was all, and the workmen

and shopgirls and policemen were all actors. There must have been a

hundred of them, all told, and when we recovered from our scare I could

hear the machine beside me clicking away as it took the picture."

"Did the wall fall?" asked Uncle John.

"Not just then. They first got the picture of the rush-out and the

panic, and then they stopped the camera and moved the people to a safe

distance away. We watched them set up some dummy figures of girls and

workmen, closer in, and then in some way they toppled over the big brick

wall.

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