community round about began to be excited.

Mrs. Tanner talked much about it. Was not Bud to be a prominent
character? Mr. Tanner talked about it everywhere he went. The mothers
and fathers and sisters talked about it, and the work of preparing the
play went on.

Margaret had discovered that one of the men at the bunk-house played a
flute, and she was working hard to teach him and Fiddling Boss and
Croaker to play a portion of the elfin dance to accompany the players.
The work of making costumes and training the actors became more and more
strenuous, and in this Gardley proved a fine assistant. He undertook to
train some of the older boys for their parts, and did it so well that he
was presently in the forefront of the battle of preparation and working
almost as hard as Margaret herself.

The beauty of the whole thing was that every boy in the school adored
him, even Jed and Timothy, and life took on a different aspect to them
in company with this high-born college-bred, Eastern young man who yet
could ride and shoot with the daringest among the Westerners.

Far and wide went forth the fame of the play that was to be. The news of
it reached to the fort and the ranches, and brought offers of assistance
and costumes and orders for tickets. Margaret purchased a small
duplicator and set her school to printing tickets and selling them, and
before the play was half ready to be acted tickets enough were sold for
two performances, and people were planning to come from fifty miles
around. The young teacher began to quake at the thought of her big
audience and her poor little amateur players; and yet for children they
were doing wonderfully well, and were growing quite Shakespearian in
their manner of conversation.

"What say you, sweet Amanda?" would be a form of frequent address to
that stolid maiden Amanda Bounds; and Jed, instead of shouting for
"Delicate" at recess, as in former times, would say, "My good Timothy, I
swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow; by his best arrow with the
golden head"--until all the school-yard rang with classic phrases; and
the whole country round was being addressed in phrases of another
century by the younger members of their households.

Then Rosa Rogers's father one day stopped at the Tanners' and left a
contribution with the teacher of fifty dollars toward the new piano; and
after that it was rumored that the teacher said the piano could be sent
for in time to be used at the play. Then