And a scene in the neat living room with its old-fashioned furniture made it all too clear that every effort would be required to save the little home. The cruel money-lender, a lawyer with mean-looking whiskers, confronted the three shrinking inmates to warn them that he must have his money by a certain day or out they would go into the streets. The old mother wept at this, and the earnest boy took her in his arms. The little sister, terrified by the man's rough words, also flew to this shelter, and thus he defied the intruder, calm, fearless, dignified. The money would be paid and the intruder would now please remember that, until the day named, this little home was their very own.
The scoundrel left with a final menacing wave of his gnarled hand;left the group facing ruin unless the invention could be perfected, unless Mother could sell an extraordinary quantity of fruit or improved grape juice to the city folks, or, indeed, unless the little sister could do something wonderful.
She, it now seemed, was confident she also could help. She stood apart from them and prettily promised to do something wonderful. She asked them to remember that she was no longer a mere girl, but a woman with a woman's determination. They both patted the little thing encouragingly on the back.
The interiors possible on the Holden lot having been finished, they motored each day to a remote edge of the city where outside locations had been found for the humble farmhouse and the grand hotel. The farmhouse was excellently chosen, Merton thought, being the neat, unpretentious abode of honest, hard-working people; but the hotel, some distance off, was not so grand, he thought, as Baird's new play seemed to demand. It was plainly a hotel, a wooden structure with balconies; but it seemed hardly to afford those attractions that would draw wealthier element from New York. He forebore to warn Baird of this, however, fearing to discourage a manager who was honestly striving for the serious in photodrama.
His first exterior scene saw him, with the help of Mother and little sister, loading the one poor motor car which the family possessed with Mother's products. These were then driven to the hotel. The Montague girl drove the car, and scenes of it in motion were shot from a car that preceded them.
They arrived before the hotel; Merton was directed to take from the car an iron weight attached to a rope and running to a connection forward on the hood. He was to throw the weight to the ground, plainly with the notion that he would thus prevent the car from running away. The simple device was, in fact, similar to that used, at Gashwiler's strict orders, on the delivery wagon back in Simsbury, for Gashwiler had believed that Dexter would run away if untethered. But of course it was absurd, Merton saw, to anchor a motor car in such a manner, and he was somewhat taken aback when Baird directed this action.
"It's all right," Baird assured him. "You're a simple country boy, and don't know any better, so do it plumb serious. You'll be smart enough before the show's over. Go ahead, get out, grab the weight, throw it down, and don't look at it again, as if you did this every time. That's it. You're not being funny; just a simple country boy like Wayne was at first." He performed the action, still with some slight misgiving. Followed scenes of brother and sister offering Mother's wares to the city folks idling on the porch of the hotel.
Each bearing a basket they were caught submitting the jellies and jams. The brother was laughed at, even sneered at, by the supercilious rich, the handsomely gowned women and the dissipated looking men. No one appeared to wish his jellies.
The little sister had better luck. The women turned from her, but the men gathered about her and quickly bought out the stock. She went to the car for more and the men followed her. To Merton, who watched these scenes, the dramatist's intention was plain. These men did not really care for jellies and jams, they were attracted solely by the wild-rose beauty of the little country girl. And they were plainly the sort of men whose attentions could mean no good to such as she.
Left on the porch, he was now directed to approach a distinguished looking old gentleman, probably a banker and a power in Wall Street, who read his morning papers. Timidly he stood before this person, thrusting forward his basket. The old gentleman glanced up in annoyance and brutally rebuffed the country boy with an angry flourish of the paper he read.
"You're hurt by this treatment," called Baird, "and almost discouraged. You look back over your shoulder to where sister is doing a good business with her stuff, and you see the old mother back in her kitchen, working her fingers to the bone--we'll have a flash of that, see?--and you try again. Take out that bottle in the corner of the basket, uncork it, and try again. The old man looks up-he's smelled something. You hold the bottle toward him and you're saying so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, 'Oh, Mister, if you knew how hard my poor old mother works to make this stuff! Won't you please take a little taste of her improved grape juice and see if you don't want to buy a few shillings' worth'--so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so--see what I mean? That's it, look pleading. Think how the little home depends on it."The old gentleman, first so rude, consented to taste the improved grape juice. He put the bottle to his lips and tilted it. A camera was brought up to record closely the look of pleased astonishment that enlivened his face. He arose to his feet, tilted the bottle again, this time drinking abundantly. He smacked his lips with relish, glanced furtively at the group of women in the background, caught the country boy by a sleeve and drew him farther along the porch.
