girl scouts in the magic city

Contents

A Dream Come TRUE. . Ro emake

UNEXPECTED SLAPSTICK WorK .

Just FILvers

Chapter I A Dream Come True

“JULIE, had you said to me not less than a month ago that we would be winning our greatest desire— getting in the movies to produce girl scout pictures —TI should have said with a jeer: ‘Dream on, fair maiden’. And now! Just fancy—here we are really going to turn the trick.”

It was Joan speaking, and she was so thrilled at the prospect of going to Hollywood to be starred in a film that she spoke of nothing else to her friends in the scout Troop. But Joan wasn’t the only one so elated over the offer of the Stellar Picture Company. There were the other members of Dandelion Troop, that had toured all that summer in California; and there were certain young male admirers of these scouts—all rejoiced at the prospects of having the company of the girls for an extended time. Of these boys there were Sandy, the handsome young Forest Ranger, who had played a main lead in the trip of the girls to the Southwest one season; then there was Rex Hamilton, the screen favorite, who had made this dream come true for the scouts; and young Fairfax, only son of the well-known lumber chief of the East; and the two Henderson boys, both claiming to be in love with all girl scouts and two in particular—but more of this anon, because Mrs. Vernon, the Captain of the Troop, has a great deal to say about such matters.

“I suppose we ought to feel very grateful to Rex for managing this offer so neatly?” ventured Julie. “However, I’d love to think we won the offer on our own merits, eh?”

“Tt really was our own merit that opened the way —if I am any sort of a judge of human nature. Why, in the name of goodness, no one has thought of a feature picture of girl scouts before, I can’t understand,” said Joan.

‘Have you stopped to think that it is a lucky thing for us that no one has produced a Girl Scout thriller before? It gives us the big chance—that of driving the wedge of an entirely new plot and picture. Everyone wants to see something different from the same old pictures, all of which run along the same old line and turn out in the same old way. Now we will show the world a thing or two, or I lose my bet on this film,” declared Julie positively.

At this point in the conversation between Juliet Lee and her friend, Joan Allison, a third girl joined them. It was Betty Lee, Julie’s twin sister, and strange to say, as different from Julie in all ways as dark is from light: complexion, temperament, and preferences.

“Girls, Verny sent me to tell you to hurry with your dressing. Breakfast is waiting, and the boys say they want an early start from here, in order to find a good camp for the night, before dark,” was Betty’s message.

“Is Sandy going with us?” asked Julie wonder-

ingly. ' “JT don’t think so,” returned Betty. “I heard Faxy coaxing him to do so, but Sandy says he has to straighten out a lot of things in the Station, before he can expect to leave to be gone for several weeks.”

“Several weeks! Perhaps he means several — months! If he believes he can rush a picture through as he wants to in a few weeks, he has another guess coming,” laughed Joan.

“Well, I did what I was told; and now I’m going back to eat some of that delicious-smelling bacon and toast,” announced Betty, as she turned to leave the tent, where the girls had camped for the night up on the mountain.

Julie and Joan hastened with the rest of their morning’s toilette, and then appeared looking as sweet and attractive as young girls can look, when they are bubbling over with perfect health and harmony in body, mind and spirit.

“Good morning, girls,” greeted Mrs. Vernon, as she saw the two scouts coming from back of the

-row of tents, “have you used ‘Bear’s Soap’?”

A titter rewarded this query, and the two tardy members of the party came up and dropped upon the grass, in the vacant places left for them around the breakfast spread.

“We may have forgotten to use ‘Bear’s Soap’, but we haven’t forgotten to come to breakfast with Bears’ appetites, after a long winter’s fast,” declared Julie, pouncing upon the plate of toast which happened to be right in front of her. “Here, Jo, I'll share this my portion with you.” As she spoke, the irrepressible girl pushed several slices of beautifully browned toast to one side of the huge platter and appropriated the remainder for herself.

“Why, Julie!’ cried Betty, horrified at her sister’s lack of courtesy. “How can you act so? Besides you couldn’t possibly eat all that toast. It is meant for all of us.”

The laughter of the circle of friends urged Julie to reply seriously. “But you haven’t any idea of the vacancy inside me, which waits to be filled, Betzy. If those present feel as I do they will have to ask the cook to send in just such a platter full of nice toast for each one. Here goes for my share!’ And the scout lifted the platter and placed it upon her knees. Betty gasped and turned to the Captain.

“Verny, I never knew Julie to act so selfish before. Why, it is as bad as though she were a glutton !”

Betty’s real distress over the matter brought forth a peal of laughter from the others, but Mrs. Vernon controlled her face and assured the concerned sister that Julie was only teasing.

“Don’t be so sure of that, Verny,” retorted Julie. While she turned to address this remark to the Captain, Judith Blake slyly thrust her hands forth and captured the prize. In the fray that immediately followed, you might have said the toast ran dreadful risks of being scattered far and wide; but the girls prided themselves upon their gift of accurate balancing, and finally, the platter was deposited upon the oil-cloth exactly where Julie had found it—and its contents was as presentable, though not so warm and crisp, as it had been when Julie spied it.

“Girls, I wish you’d try to realize that your time is not your own now,” said Mrs. Vernon. “If you are going to work for the Stellar Picture Company, you owe it to them to give all your time, as well as consideration to them.”

“We will, Verny, but we have not signed up yet. And this one last day ought to be allowed us for getting rid of all our silly ideas and bear play,” explained Julie.

“Betty said that Sandy would not travel with us to-day. Is that so, Sandy?” asked Joan.

“You can’t possibly miss me, when there are so many eager and brave cavaliers to escort you,” retorted the Forest Ranger. “So permit me to stay and arrange all my affairs here, in order to give me the vacation, in Hollywood, necessary to produce the pictures I want done.”

“How long will it be before you join us there ?”’| asked Jo. f

“A few days at the most,”’ answered Sandy. But he sent a pertinent glance at Julie, to learn if she felt sorry to find that he would not accompany the

A Dream Come True is group. Since Sandy would be safe at the Lookout for the time being, Julie could afford to express a polite regret at the fact.

“That’s too bad, Sandy. You will be lonely on your ride to Hollywood; and we will miss your companionship a lot.”

Sandy said nothing, because he felt that Julie’s speech was more perfunctory than regretful. Faxy instantly changed the subject.

“Gilly hasn’t slept a wink since he heard the welcome tidings that he might have a chance to show himself in a picture.”

Everyone laughed and turned to study Mr. Gilroy’s face. And he, delighting to please the Dandelioners, nodded his head approvingly, as he said: “I’m sure of being in the foreground of many scenes of these Girl Scouts’ pictures, because without me they never can follow the theme of the story.”

“But we might select a proxy to act for you, if you show any tendency to pose always in the center of the stage, and thus cast the rest of us in shadow,” retorted the Captain.

“Well, poor Gilly will have to occupy a much larger section of the stage than the others, because he is no successful a dietitian as I am,” bragged

Mr. Vernon, glancing at Mr. Gilroy’s well-rounded figure.

As this subject of Gilly’s rotundity was the standing joke between Mr. Vernon and his friend, the girls laughed merrily at the remark. Such encouragement usually made the sparring with words between the two combatants a lively one. Now, however, the Captain’s interference ended the prospect of such teasing.

“Gilly, if you and V. are not ready to start with us, you will be left here to come on later with Sandy!”

_ “Why, my dear, we are not laggards,” protested

Mr. Vernon.

“But you both require so much food, and you have only started your first installment. Before you call for the second, we shall be quite through, and ready to leave,” explained the Captain.

“So stop your talking and ply knife and fork,” advised Joan.

During the remainder of the breakfast time both men pretended obedience and not a word would they utter—not even when Mrs. Vernon asked Gilly if he would have another cup of coffee. He merely made signs with his fingers, such as mutes are wont to do.

Finally the scout party was ready to start on the way to Hollywood. The Forest Rangers, who had played hosts so agreeably, were thanked most sincerely by the girls and their Captain, and the other friends in the party invited the hosts to be sure and visit them at their homes, if they ever happened to be within visiting distance. Then the party rode away, Sandy watching till the last sign of Julie had disappeared.

I am sure the reader is acquainted with the group of Girl Scouts, known as the Dandelion Troop. Nevertheless it might be well to give you a short synopsis of the doings of the Dandelioners before this event. In the first volume, Girl Scouts of Dandelion Camp, Mrs. Vernon, the Captain, and the girls, Juliet and Betty Lee, Joan Allison and Ruth Bentley, plan a scout group. They enlist the interests of several friends, Judith and Edith Blake, Hester Wynant, Anne Bailey, and other girls of Elmertown, and enjoy their first summer’s camp on the mountain range a few miles from the village. Here they learn their first lessons in scoutdom, and strive to win the reward of being enrolled as a Troop in regular standing with the national organization. This they achieved before it was time to break camp, to return home and resume school work.

But certain thrilling events, that occurred to the girls during their camplife on the-mountain, were never known at Headquarters. One of these events was the rescue of Mr. Gilroy from two escaped convicts near Blue Beard’s Cave on the ridge of the mountain; and later, the capture of these two convicts. The gratitude of Mr. Gilroy then expressed itself in the invitation for the girl scouts to spend ‘their second summer on his wonderful estate, on the shores of a lake, of the Fulton Chain in the Adirondacks.

The second volume of the series, Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks, tells how the girls competed with the boys; the girls’ scout camp on one side of the Gilroy estate, and the boys’ scout camp on the other side. In all the camp lore, in things made for camping, in testing for honors for various traits of character, such as courage, endurance, observation, etc., the girls had far the best records. Then Mr. Gilroy invited the girls to join the canoeing party planned by the boy scouts, and the climax of that season’s thrills happened. It was the fire which threatened to destroy the summer resort at the end of Racquet Lake, where the scouts, with great presence of mind and bravery, saved the lives and property of several guests at the hotel.

A Dream Come True It

Before the end of that summer Mr. Gilroy became so attached to the girls that he invited them to visit with him the Rocky Mountains the following summer. And so the girls of Dandelion Troop started with this well-read geologist and mineralogist for their host to tour the famous range in the West. The narrow escapes of Julie and Joan, in their zeal to get a hundred per cent of fun out of that life in the Rockies, provided thrills enough to last their friends at home many a day thereafter. The Elmertown Record, an up and coming weekly newspaper in the slow and sleepy little Jersey town, printed in its columns all the varied experiences of the Girl Scouts in the Rockies. And paid the girls for this contribution of their literary efforts, too !

Through the items read in the Record, other girls in Elmertown insisted upon joining the Scout Organization, and finally there were a number of flourishing Troops in the town. Enough, at least, to rouse the parents of the scouts to a sense of the importance of scoutdom.

The next summer Mr, Gilroy notified the scouts that he had to travel over New Mexico and Arizona in search of specimens of ancient deposits for the National Museum, and he invited the girls to accompany him during this trip. Gladly they accepted the wonderful invitation; and that summer found them enjoying all kinds of novel experiences —mesas, deserts, Indian Reservations, petrified forests, Grand Canyon, and other thrilling interests such as only New Mexico and Arizona can provide. So this was the substance of the fourth book, Gzz7l Scouts in New Mexico and Arizona.

Then followed the fifth book, Girl Scouts in the Redwoods; when the girls were the wards of Mr. Vernon, a lumber dealer, who had planned to attend the Convention in California. Mr. Gilroy refused to be left at home, so he joined his friend, Vernon, and all sailed from New York to the Panama Canal; through that to the Pacific Ocean, and then on to San Francisco. Not the least amusing experience afforded them that summer was the time Gilly tried to overpower a number of supposed outlaws in the woods near Lake Tahoe, and succeeded in being filmed in the foreground of a picture, which was being photographed by the camera, that was screened by the bushes on the opposite side of the woodland road, This scene led to the offer to the girl scouts of the contract to produce a serial picture featuring the Girl Scouts of America. As this was the heart’s desire of every scout it was hailed as a direct gift from a wise Providence. And of course it was gladly accepted. a

So now, in the sixth volume of their experiences, the Dandelioners are on their way to Hollywood, , anticipating with great excitement all the wonderful, things they will see and have to act and to do before their picture can be released to an impatient public.

As they were driven rapidly over a good hard road in the direction of Mentone, the scouts in the first car were jotting down notes of certain amusing. incidents in their summer excursions to the mountains, to be used for ‘“‘Stills.”

“We want to crowd in all the comedy we can remember,’ was Julie’s suggestion; “because I notice that pictures with plenty of good, wholesome laughs in them make big hits with the public. It’s all right to show our hair-breadth escapes, such as that canoe trip down the rapids, and riding across the desert in the face of a sandstorm, and getting lost on top of a Rocky Mountain peak, and such like, but we must always sprinkle enough laughter over all to make a palatable seasoning.”

“Julie’s right,” declared Joan. “Just compare the two Chaplin’s pictures, or some of the other comedians’ productions, to the classy ones with fine names. Mary Pickford and Chaplins and Lloyd draw millions, whereas the other kind draw thousands. We want to draw the Billions.”

“And so she shall,—the nice littly dirl stout!’’ said Faxy, in a teasing voice, and with a babyish accent.

“Whose a little stout? Not me, I’ll have you know!’ exclaimed Joan, pretending to be furious at the intimation.

“No, Faxy; Jo’s neither stout nor nice, as you say,’ was Julie’s quick rejoinder.

“Oh, Julie! We all think Jo is as nice as she can be,’”’ was Betty’s shocked contradiction to her sister’s words. “If you were half as nice, all the time, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.”

All but Julie laughed merrily, and Julie patted her twin sister on the head, and said condolingly, “T wish I were, if ’twere only to relieve your poor harassed mind of its worry over my short-comings. But I have so many other noble qualities, Betty, that it would be selfish if I took your share of virtues, too, you see.”

Betty had to ponder this statement of her sister’s and that kept her occupied for some time. The others in that merry group of tourists laughed uproariously at Julie’s good opinion of herself.

“T wonder if there will be any chance of getting Miss Pringle to attend the movies the day our picture is shown in Elmertown,”’ now asked Judith.

“Who is Miss Pringle? The name sounds intriguing,” was Junior’s reply.

“She is just as much so as her name suggests,” said Joan.

Then Julie proceeded to tell the story about the doughnuts, which Betty had had to carry so carefully until she got on board the steamer. And how the disapproving old woman played a practical joke on them, of sending doughnuts at least two or three months old, hard enough to use for baseballs!

“No,” decided Faxy at the end of the story, “such a woman would consent to be electrocuted before she’d go to see a picture of anything so worth while as girl scouts on an excursion.”

“Then we shall have to get her there to witness our shocking appearance in public in riding breeches. And how we climbed over crags and cliffs in company with Gilly; and how we actually kept house in a tent, way up on the peaks, with no house to lock up around us at night, for gossips’ sake,” said Judith.

“Tt’s the ‘Miss Pringles’ of the world that take the joy out of Nature,” remarked Faxy, and the scouts agreed heartily with him.

It was unanimously voted to camp out that night, and get away early in the morning, to arrive in Los Angeles in ample time to go to Hollywood, and meet the officers of the Stellar Company, to discuss the forth-coming serial.

During the preparation of the Camp supper the absence of Tally, the Indian guide, was lamented, because Tally was a wonderful cook. Now he would be in Los Angeles, arranging for the trip Mr. Vernon and Mr. Gilroy planned to take during the time the Dandelioners were engaged in doing their first pictures of the summer in camp on Verny’s Mountain.

Chapter II The Magic City

So keen was the general anticipation of the scouts, of the imminent thrills of motion picture life ,that the drive in the morning to Los Angeles seemed three times the distance it was said to be. At last, however, the cars drove up to the offices of the Stellar Producing Company, and waited while the chaperon, Mrs. Vernon, with the girls and boys, got out. Then Mr. Gilroy, and Mr. Vernon, drove back to the city to secure hotel accommodations for the party.

The first thing that attracted the attention of the girls, as the cars turned and sped away, was the very forbidding wall which enclosed the Stellar City, to keep prying eyes from beholding such events as were none of their business.

Mrs. Vernon led the way for her soon-to-be screen-stars across the open space in front of an impressive iron gate, before which sat a stout prizefighting guardian. Only the elect may enter there, and even the elect has to have a passing acquaint- 7, ance with the watchful guard—because he knows that his salary depends upon recognizing the talent that makes the Stellar Pictures so popular with the public.

The Scout Captain was not aware of the red tape to be unwound at the gates before one could gain admittance, so she merely bowed politely to the guard and was about to pass him by and lift the peculiar latch on the gate, when he suddenly dropped his daily paper and sprang to his feet. In another moment he had taken a second spring and stood between Mrs. Vernon and the gate.

“No one is allowed within, Madame. Not unless you is connected with the pikshers, or with the management. Sorry, but them is my orders, yuh know, and I has to stick to ’em,” said the man.

“Oh, I see,’ remarked the Captain. “I didn’t know we had to have passports to get in; we are supposed to do a picture of scout life, and I expected to find some one here who could direct me around.”

The guard stared doubtfully at the speaker, and then at the group of young folks with her. But he had not been convinced that Mrs. Vernon told the truth. “Yuh see, lots of tourists come here with all sorts of yarns to get by me, and you’se look a hull lot like tourists. And one kin tell you’se ain’t actors.” :

“But we are going to be,” declared Julie, stepping up beside the Captain.

“We have our contracts already signed,’ added Joan.

The man shook his big fat head and answered: “Got a pass? That’s the only contrack what will get you in now.”

Just about this time a most amazing car drove up to the gates, and a gorgeously arrayed young woman leaned forward and nodded to the gatekeeper. In another moment he had bounded forward and opened the gates. As the car rolled through the wide open entrance the girls had a good view of the long street with the “sets” on both sides, where they felt sure different wonderful acts were being screened. And here they were without the charmed city, wondering how they might wheedle this great big fighter to allow them to go inside.

“Yuh all might go to the studio offices and see if they has any orders to let you’se pass in. Ef they has I kin do it; but not unless they O.K.’s your passin’,” said the guard, his heart apparently softened by the disappointed looks of the girls.

“Where is the studio?’ asked Mrs. Vernon.

“It’s over there, where the general waiting room is for all the extrys who wants a part, and hasn’t got it. Ez yuh goes in the first room you'll see a sign over a winder, and over it says ‘Casting Director’. You’se kin ast in there if you, has a passport filed away for your crowd.”

The scouts thanked him and turned to hurry after Faxy and the Captain. No time was to be lost this way, before entering the City and beginning to arrange things for their picture!

In the waiting room they found many people seated on a wooden bench that lined the board walls. Some were young and pretty, some old and ugly. Others were neither one nor the other, but these had their individual claim for the screen: because each had a peculiarity that might be needed in certain character parts.

Faxy marched bravely up to the window and made his wants and wishes known to a shrewd man who seemed to look right through him with gimlet eyes. Apparently he had heard nothing of the famous Girl Scouts of Dandelion Troop, who were about to startle the world by their talented acting before the camera. Faxy wilted in his zeal to secure passes for his friends, and then the Cap-

The Magic City Zs tain joined him and explained how Mr. Rex Hamilton and other stars had attended to all the preliminary matters for them, and they were told to report here—at the Stellar City—that very day.

“Rex Hamilton! Oh, why didn’t you say so before. If he is expecting you, I’ll just send a page out for him. He is to be on a big act to-day, but he will not be called until after noon. Here, boy!” and the man in the office commanded an errand boy to go and page Hamilton.

“Be seated, ladies, while you are waiting. The boy may be gone an hour, or he may be back in a minute—never can tell.” Then the man seemed to think he was through with the scouts.

Well it was for their patience that the scouts had not to wait the hour. In fact, the boy couldn’t have gone thirty steps before he returned, followed by Rex Hamilton himself.

“Hullo, there! I was just going out to the garage for my car, to drive up the boulevard to meet you. I didn’t expect you to get here so early this morning,” said he, shaking hands with every one, but permitting his glance to rove to Judith’s face more than once during his greetings to the others.

“We're early because we could not sleep last night for excitement. We had breakfast and broke camp, then travelled about 50-60 miles per, and here we are,” explained Julie.

“The director who has charge of the scout work is not in to-day, but he left word with his secretary that you were to wander around wherever you chose in the Magic City, and become familiarized with things. He thought it would be a good thing if you studied the sets we use in making pictures, and then you won’t be surprised, or show any concern, when you are doing your own pictures. How about it?” said Rex.

“That’s just what we wanted to do, Rex, but we couldn’t get inside,” said Joan.

“Where’s Sandy—and the other men?” asked Rex now, having just missed them from the group.

“Sandy won’t be here until he finishes his work at the Forest Rangers Lookout; and Gilly went with V. to see about hotel rooms,” explained Mrs. Vernon.

“Well, come with me; we’ll see how much we can see before I have to go to work,” said Rex. Then without any more “red tape” the entire group followed Rex through a side door that gave entrance to a long corridor with doors on both sides. These were the rooms, Rex explained, where all kinds of clerical work had to be attended to.

The Magic City as

Finally they emerged in the open, and such a sight as they beheld! There was a central park of green grass edged with shrubs, and a sparkling fountain in the middle of it. From this central plaza were all kinds of streets radiating outward; but the one wide, main street, which had been seen from the outside of the gate, ran north and south to the extreme ends of the Lot. On both sides of this Main Street were the large, glass-roofed buildings which are so well known as “Movie Studios”. Back and forth, and up and down this Main Street you could see actors hurrying, dressed in all kinds of costumes, all intent upon reaching their destinations for work. Also all kinds of workmen,—carpenters, painters, electricians, mechanicians, scene shifters, and others needed in this vast industry,—mixed with the costumed actors, and made a marvelous picture in itself, for these strangers.

Rex Hamilton now led the scouts down this Main Street, in order to show them the outside of the studios first, and then let them wander around alone during the afternoon, to inspect the side streets with the sets on them.

It took some time to conduct’ the curious girls to the far end of Main Street, where the workshops of the “trade-hands” were located. This was due to the many delays caused by the absorbed scouts in watching the various acts which were under way.

“Oh, girls!” called Joan, as they approached a stage, where a church scene was being done. Music provided by an unseen organ told the audience that there would be a wedding. So they just wanted to wait long enough to see the beautiful bride come in and march up to the altar, where a well-known screen star was the groom waiting to receive. her.

“Look at this magnificent cathedral interior— and how it is made to make the movie fans believe it to be the real thing,” laughed Julie, fully appreciating the cleverness and work that showed a slice of an edifice with open sides and front, and with the great Kleig lights directly overhead, or at places where they were needed.

The next cry of astonishment came from Betty. She stopped short in front of a millionaire’s elegant home—in a great City,—or what was supposed to be that, if you might judge from the front view. There were most impressive stone steps leading up to wrought iron doors that opened to a beautiful vestibule, where green bay trees in large urns could be seen. Even as Betty exclaimed and her companions stopped to see what had attracted her attention, the doors were opened by an obsequious servant, who bowed low before a beautiful young lady; she, chatting happily with a young admirer, passed through the vestibule and came down the steps right towards the scout group.

“Why,” whispered Julie excitedly, “if it isn’t Doria Swansdown. Look, Jo—your favorite screen actress!”