to the company. Besides Ruth, Alice and their
father, there were Miss Laura Dixon and Miss Pearl Pennington, former
vaudeville stars, between whom and the DeVere girls there was not the
best of feeling. Ruth and Alice thought that the two actresses were of a
rather too "showy" type, and Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon rather
looked down on Alice and Ruth as being "slow" and old-fashioned.

Pop Snooks, as I have intimated, was the efficient property man. Paul
Ardite, whom Alice liked very much, was the juvenile leading man.

Wellington Bunn was the "old school" actor already mentioned. He and
Pepper Sneed were rather alike in one way--they made many objections
when called on to do "stunts" out of the ordinary. Mr. Bunn always
wanted to play Shakespearean parts, and Mr. Sneed was always fearful
that something was going to happen.

Of a contrasting disposition was Carl Switzer, the jolly German
comedian. Nothing came amiss to him, and he was always ready for
whatever was on the program, making a joke of even hard and dangerous
work.

Mrs. Maguire was the "mother" of the company. She often played "old
woman" parts, and her two grandchildren, Tommy and Nellie, were
sometimes used in child sketches.

Ruth and Alice really got into moving picture work by accident. One day
two extra actresses failed to appear when needed, and Mr. Pertell, who
was in a hurry, appealed to Mr. DeVere to allow his daughters to "fill
in." They did so well that they were engaged permanently, and very much
did they like their work.

Alice was like her dead mother, happy, full of life and jollity, and her
brown eyes generally sparkled with laughter. She was a rather
matter-of-fact nature, whereas Ruth was more romantic. Ruth was a deal
like her father, inclined to look on the more serious side of life. But
her blue eyes could be laughing and jolly, too, and between the two
girls there was really not so much difference after all.

Soon after getting into moving picture work they became aware of a bold
attempt to get away from Russ Dalwood an invention he had made for a
camera. How Ruth and Alice frustrated this, and how they "made good," as
Mr. Pertell put it, in an important drama, is fully told in the first
book.

The second volume was entitled "The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm;
Or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays." The manager had made the
acquaintance of Sandy Apgar in New York. Sandy managed his father's
farm, in New Jersey,