Out beyond the curtain the Kind Friends were waxing impatient and the juvenile contingent was showing violent symptoms of descending prematurely upon the glittering little fir tree which stood in a corner next the stage.  Back near the door, feet were scuffling audibly upon the bare floor and a suppressed whistle occasionally cut into the hum of subdued voices.  Miss Satterly was growing nervous at the delay, and she repeated her question impatiently to Annie, who was staring at nothing very intently, as she had a fashion of doing.

“Yes, ma’am,” she answered absently.  Then, as an afterthought, “He’s outside, talking to Happy Jack.”

Annie was mistaken; Happy Jack was talking to Johnny.  The schoolma’am tried to look through a frosted window.

“I do wish they’d hurry in; it’s getting late, and everybody’s here and waiting.”  She looked at her watch.  The suppressed whistle back near the door was gaining volume and insistence.

“Can’t we turn her loose, Girlie?” Weary came up and laid a hand caressingly upon her shoulder.

“Johnny isn’t here, yet, and he’s to give the address of welcome. Why must people whistle and make a fuss like that, Will?”

“They’re just mad because they aren’t in the show,” said Weary.  “Say, can’t we cut out the welcome and sail in anyway?  I’m getting kinda shaky, dreading it.”

The schoolma’am shook her head.  It would not do to leave out Johnny—­and besides, country entertainments demanded the usual Address of Welcome.  It is never pleasant to trifle with an unwritten law like that.  She looked again at her watch and waited; the audience, being perfectly helpless, waited also.

Weary, listening to the whistling and the shuffling of feet, felt a queer, qualmy feeling in the region of his diaphragm, and he yielded to a hunger for consolation and company in his misery.  He edged over to where Chip and Cal were amusing themselves by peeping at the audience from behind the tree.

“Say, how do yuh stack up, Cal?” he whispered, forlornly.

“Pretty lucky,” Cal told him inattentively, and the cheerfulness of his whole aspect grieved Weary sorely.  But then, he explained to himself, Cal always did have the nerve of a mule.

Weary sighed and wondered what in thunder ailed him, anyway; he was uncertain whether he was sick, or just plain scared.  “Feel all right, Chip?” he pursued; anxiously.

“Sure,” said Chip, with characteristic brevity.  “I wonder who those silver-mounted spurs are for, there on the tree?  They’ve been put on since this afternoon—­can’t yuh stretch your neck enough to read the name, Cal?  They’re the real thing, all right.”

Weary’s dejection became more pronounced.  “Oh, mamma! am I the only knock-kneed son-of-a-gun in this crowd?” he murmured, and turned disconsolately away.  His spine was creepy cold with stage fright; he listened to the sounds beyond the shielding curtain and shivered.