章节正文
on front steps and spoon. Become engaged. Lover
hitches up team, girl climbs into wagon, they drive to
town. Ten scenes of driving to town. Lover gets out,
ties team in front of courthouse. Goes in and gets
license. Three scenes of license business. Goes out.
Two scenes of driving to minister and hitching team
to gate. One scene of getting to door. One scene getting
inside the house. One scene preachercalling his
wife and hired girl. One scene `Do you take this
woman,' one scene `I do.' Fifteen scenes getting team
untied and driving back to ranch. That's about as
much pep as there is in real life in the far West, these
days. Something like that would suit you, maybe. It
don't suit the people who pay good nickels and dimes to
get a thrill, though."
"Neither does this sort of junk, if they've got any
sense. Think of paying nickel after nickel to see Lee
Milligan rush to the girl's door, knock, learn the fatal
news, stagger back and clap his hand to his brow and
say `Great Heaven! GONE!'" Jean, stirred to combat
by the sarcasm of Robert Grant Burns, did the
stagger and the hand-to-brow and great-heaven scene with a
realism that made Pete Lowry turn his back suddenly.
"They've seen Gil abduct me or Muriel seven times in a
perfectly impossible manner, and they--oh, why don't
you give them something REAL? Things that are thrilling
and dangerous and terrible do happen out here,
Mr. Burns. Real adventures and real tragedies--"
She stopped, and Burns turned his eyes involuntarily
toward the kitchen. He had heard all about the history
of the Lazy A, though he had been very careful to hide
the fact that he had heard it. Jean's glance, following
that of her director, was a revealing one. She bit her
lip; and in a moment she went on, with her chin held
a shade higher and her pride revolting against subterfuge.
"I didn't mean that," she said quietly. "But--
well, up to a certain point, I don't mind if you put in
real things, if it will be good picture-stuff. You're
featuring me, anyway, it seems. Listen." Jean's face
changed. Her eyes took that farseeing look of the
dreamer. She was looking full at Burns, but he knew
that she did not see him at all. She was looking at a
mental picture of her own conjuring, he judged. He
stood still and waited curiously, wondering, to use his
manner of speech, what the girl was going to spring
now.
"Listen: Instead of all this impossible piffle, let's
start a real story. I--I've--"
"What kind of a real story?" The tone of Robert
Grant Burns was carefully non-committal, but his eyes
betrayed his eagerness. The girl did have some real
ideas, sometimes! And Robert Grant Burns was not
the one to refuse a real idea because it did not come from
his own brain.
"Well," Jean flushed with an adorable shyness at
the apparent egotism of her idea, "since you seem to
want me for the central figure in everything, suppose
we start a story like this: Suppose I am left here at
the Lazy A with my mother to take care of and a ranch
and a lot of cattle; and suppose it's a hard proposition,
because there's really a gang of rustlers that have been
running off stock and never getting caught, and they
have a grudge against my family and grab our cattle
every chance they get. Suppose--suppose they killed
my brother when he was about to round them up, and
they want to drive me and my mother out of the country.
Scare us out, you know. Well,--" she hesitated
and glanced diffidently at the boys who had edged up to
listen,--"that would leave room for all kinds of feature
stuff. Say that I have just one or two boys that I
can depend on, boys that I know are loyal. With an
outfit the size of ours, that keeps me in the saddle every
day and all day; and I would have some narrow escapes,
I reckon. You've got your rustlers all made to
order,--only I'd make them up differently, if I were
doing it. Have them look real, you know, instead of
stagey." (Whereat Robert Grant Burns winced.)
"Lee could be one of my loyal cowboys; you'd want
some dramaticacting, I reckon, and he could do that.
But I'd want one puncher who can ride and shoot and
handle a rope. For that, to help me do the real work
in the picture, I want Lite Avery. There are things
I can do that you have never had me do, for the simple
reason that you don't know the life well enough ever
to think of them. Real stunts, not these made-to-order,
shoot-the-villain-and-run-to-the-arms-of-the-hero stuff.
I'd have to have Lite Avery; I wouldn't start without
him."
"Well, go on." Robert Grant Burns still tried to
sound non-committal, but he was plainly eager to hear
all that she had to say.
"Well, that's the idea. They're trying to drive us
out of the country, without really hurting me. And
I've got my mind set on staying. Not only that, but
I believe they killed my brother, and I'm going to hunt
them down and break up their gang or die in the
attempt. There's your plot. It needn't be overdone in
the least, to have thrills enough. And there would be
all kinds of chance for real range-stuff, like the handling
of cattle and all that.
"We can use this ranch just as it is, and have the
outlaws down next the river. I'm glad you haven't
taken any scenes that show the ranch as a whole.
You've stuck to your close-up, great-heaven scenes so
much," she went on with mercilessfrankness, "that
you've really not cheapened the place by showing more
than a little bit at a time.
"You might start by making Lee up for my brother,
and kill him in the first reel; show the outlaws when
they shoot him and run off with a bunch of stock they're
after. Lite can find him and bring him home. Lite
would know just how to do that sort of thing, and make
people see it's real stuff. I believe he'd show he was
a real cow-puncher, even to the people who never saw
one. There's an awful lot of difference between the
real thing and your actors." She was so perfectly
sincere and so matter-of-fact that the men she criticised
could do no more than grin.
"You might, for the sake of complications, put a
traitor and spy on the ranch. Oh, I tell you! Have
Hepsibah be the mother of one of the outlaws. She
wouldn't need to do any acting; you could show her
sneaking out in the dark to meet her son and tell him
what she has overheard. And show her listening, perhaps,
through the crack in a door. Mrs. Gay would
have to be the mother. Gil says that Hepsibah has the
figure of a comedy cook and what he calls a character
face. I believe we could manage her all right, for what
little she would have to do, don't you?"
Jean having poured out her inspiration with a fluency
born of her first enthusiasm, began to feel that she
had been somewhat presumptuous in thus offering advice
wholesale to the highest paid director of the Great
Western Film Company. She blushed and laughed a
little, and shrugged her shoulders.
"That's just a suggestion," she said with forced
lightness. "I'm subject to attacks of acute imagination,
sometimes. Don't mind me, Mr. Burns. Your
scenario is a very nice scenario, I'm sure. Do you want
me to be a braid-down-the-back girl in this? Or a
curls-around-the-face girl?"
Robert Grant Burns stood absent-mindedly tapping
his left palm with the folded scenario which Jean had
just damned by calling it a very nice scenario. Nice
was not the adjective one would apply to it in sincere
admiration. Robert Grant Burns himself had mentally
called it a hummer. He did not reply to Jean's tentative
apology for her own plot-idea. He was thinking
about the idea itself.
Robert Grant Burns was not what one would call
petty. He would not, for instance, stick to his own
story if he considered that Jean's was a better one.
And, after all, Jean was now his leading woman, and
it is not unusual for a leading woman to manufacture
her own plots, especially when she is being featured
by her company. There was no question of hurt pride
to be debated within the mind of him, therefore. He
was just weighing the idea itself for what it was worth.
"Seems to me your plot-idea isn't so much tamer
than mine, after all." He tested her shrewdly after
a prolonged pause. "You've got a killing in the first
five hundred feet, and outlaws and rustling--"
"Oh, but don't you see, it isn't the skeleton that
makes the difference; it's the kind of meat you put on
the bones! Paradise Lost would be a howling melodrama,
if some of you picture-people tried to make it.
You'd take this plot of mine and make it just like these
pictures I've been working in, Mr. Burns: Exciting
and all that, but not the real West after all; spectacular
without being probable. What I mean,--I can't
explain it to you, I'm afraid; but I have it in my head."
She looked at him with that lightening of the eyes which
was not a smile, really, but rather the amusement which
might grow into laughter later on.
"You'd better fine me for insubordination," she
drawled whimsically, "and tell me whether it's to be
braids or curls, so I can go and make up." At that
moment she saw Gil Huntley beckoning to her with a frantic
kind of furtiveness that was a fair mixture of
pinched-together eyebrows and slight jerkings of the
head, and a guarded movement of his hand that hung
at his side. Gil, she thought, was trying to draw her
away before she went too far with her trouble-inviting
freedom of speech. She laughed lazily.
"Braids or curls?" she insisted. "And please, sir,
I won't do so no more, honest."
Robert Grant Burns looked at her from under his
eyebrows and made a sound between his grunt of
indignation and his chuckle of amusement. "Sure you
won't?" he queried shortly. "Stay the way you are,
if you want to; chances are you won't go to work right
away, anyhow."
Jean flashed him a glance of inquiry. Did that mean
that she had at last gone beyond the limit? Was Robert
Grant Burns going to FIRE her? She looked at Gil,
who was sauntering off with the perfectlyapparent
expectation that she would follow him; and Mrs. Gay,
who was regarding her with a certain melancholy
conviction that Jean's time as leading woman was short
indeed. She pursed her lips with a rueful resignation,
and followed Gil to the spring behind the house.
hitches up team, girl climbs into wagon, they drive to
town. Ten scenes of driving to town. Lover gets out,
ties team in front of courthouse. Goes in and gets
license. Three scenes of license business. Goes out.
Two scenes of driving to minister and hitching team
to gate. One scene of getting to door. One scene getting
inside the house. One scene preachercalling his
wife and hired girl. One scene `Do you take this
woman,' one scene `I do.' Fifteen scenes getting team
untied and driving back to ranch. That's about as
much pep as there is in real life in the far West, these
days. Something like that would suit you, maybe. It
don't suit the people who pay good nickels and dimes to
get a thrill, though."
"Neither does this sort of junk, if they've got any
sense. Think of paying nickel after nickel to see Lee
Milligan rush to the girl's door, knock, learn the fatal
news, stagger back and clap his hand to his brow and
say `Great Heaven! GONE!'" Jean, stirred to combat
by the sarcasm of Robert Grant Burns, did the
stagger and the hand-to-brow and great-heaven scene with a
realism that made Pete Lowry turn his back suddenly.
"They've seen Gil abduct me or Muriel seven times in a
perfectly impossible manner, and they--oh, why don't
you give them something REAL? Things that are thrilling
and dangerous and terrible do happen out here,
Mr. Burns. Real adventures and real tragedies--"
She stopped, and Burns turned his eyes involuntarily
toward the kitchen. He had heard all about the history
of the Lazy A, though he had been very careful to hide
the fact that he had heard it. Jean's glance, following
that of her director, was a revealing one. She bit her
lip; and in a moment she went on, with her chin held
a shade higher and her pride revolting against subterfuge.
"I didn't mean that," she said quietly. "But--
well, up to a certain point, I don't mind if you put in
real things, if it will be good picture-stuff. You're
featuring me, anyway, it seems. Listen." Jean's face
changed. Her eyes took that farseeing look of the
dreamer. She was looking full at Burns, but he knew
that she did not see him at all. She was looking at a
mental picture of her own conjuring, he judged. He
stood still and waited curiously, wondering, to use his
manner of speech, what the girl was going to spring
now.
"Listen: Instead of all this impossible piffle, let's
start a real story. I--I've--"
"What kind of a real story?" The tone of Robert
Grant Burns was carefully non-committal, but his eyes
betrayed his eagerness. The girl did have some real
ideas, sometimes! And Robert Grant Burns was not
the one to refuse a real idea because it did not come from
his own brain.
"Well," Jean flushed with an adorable shyness at
the apparent egotism of her idea, "since you seem to
want me for the central figure in everything, suppose
we start a story like this: Suppose I am left here at
the Lazy A with my mother to take care of and a ranch
and a lot of cattle; and suppose it's a hard proposition,
because there's really a gang of rustlers that have been
running off stock and never getting caught, and they
have a grudge against my family and grab our cattle
every chance they get. Suppose--suppose they killed
my brother when he was about to round them up, and
they want to drive me and my mother out of the country.
Scare us out, you know. Well,--" she hesitated
and glanced diffidently at the boys who had edged up to
listen,--"that would leave room for all kinds of feature
stuff. Say that I have just one or two boys that I
can depend on, boys that I know are loyal. With an
outfit the size of ours, that keeps me in the saddle every
day and all day; and I would have some narrow escapes,
I reckon. You've got your rustlers all made to
order,--only I'd make them up differently, if I were
doing it. Have them look real, you know, instead of
stagey." (Whereat Robert Grant Burns winced.)
"Lee could be one of my loyal cowboys; you'd want
some dramaticacting, I reckon, and he could do that.
But I'd want one puncher who can ride and shoot and
handle a rope. For that, to help me do the real work
in the picture, I want Lite Avery. There are things
I can do that you have never had me do, for the simple
reason that you don't know the life well enough ever
to think of them. Real stunts, not these made-to-order,
shoot-the-villain-and-run-to-the-arms-of-the-hero stuff.
I'd have to have Lite Avery; I wouldn't start without
him."
"Well, go on." Robert Grant Burns still tried to
sound non-committal, but he was plainly eager to hear
all that she had to say.
"Well, that's the idea. They're trying to drive us
out of the country, without really hurting me. And
I've got my mind set on staying. Not only that, but
I believe they killed my brother, and I'm going to hunt
them down and break up their gang or die in the
attempt. There's your plot. It needn't be overdone in
the least, to have thrills enough. And there would be
all kinds of chance for real range-stuff, like the handling
of cattle and all that.
"We can use this ranch just as it is, and have the
outlaws down next the river. I'm glad you haven't
taken any scenes that show the ranch as a whole.
You've stuck to your close-up, great-heaven scenes so
much," she went on with mercilessfrankness, "that
you've really not cheapened the place by showing more
than a little bit at a time.
"You might start by making Lee up for my brother,
and kill him in the first reel; show the outlaws when
they shoot him and run off with a bunch of stock they're
after. Lite can find him and bring him home. Lite
would know just how to do that sort of thing, and make
people see it's real stuff. I believe he'd show he was
a real cow-puncher, even to the people who never saw
one. There's an awful lot of difference between the
real thing and your actors." She was so perfectly
sincere and so matter-of-fact that the men she criticised
could do no more than grin.
"You might, for the sake of complications, put a
traitor and spy on the ranch. Oh, I tell you! Have
Hepsibah be the mother of one of the outlaws. She
wouldn't need to do any acting; you could show her
sneaking out in the dark to meet her son and tell him
what she has overheard. And show her listening, perhaps,
through the crack in a door. Mrs. Gay would
have to be the mother. Gil says that Hepsibah has the
figure of a comedy cook and what he calls a character
face. I believe we could manage her all right, for what
little she would have to do, don't you?"
Jean having poured out her inspiration with a fluency
born of her first enthusiasm, began to feel that she
had been somewhat presumptuous in thus offering advice
wholesale to the highest paid director of the Great
Western Film Company. She blushed and laughed a
little, and shrugged her shoulders.
"That's just a suggestion," she said with forced
lightness. "I'm subject to attacks of acute imagination,
sometimes. Don't mind me, Mr. Burns. Your
scenario is a very nice scenario, I'm sure. Do you want
me to be a braid-down-the-back girl in this? Or a
curls-around-the-face girl?"
Robert Grant Burns stood absent-mindedly tapping
his left palm with the folded scenario which Jean had
just damned by calling it a very nice scenario. Nice
was not the adjective one would apply to it in sincere
admiration. Robert Grant Burns himself had mentally
called it a hummer. He did not reply to Jean's tentative
apology for her own plot-idea. He was thinking
about the idea itself.
Robert Grant Burns was not what one would call
petty. He would not, for instance, stick to his own
story if he considered that Jean's was a better one.
And, after all, Jean was now his leading woman, and
it is not unusual for a leading woman to manufacture
her own plots, especially when she is being featured
by her company. There was no question of hurt pride
to be debated within the mind of him, therefore. He
was just weighing the idea itself for what it was worth.
"Seems to me your plot-idea isn't so much tamer
than mine, after all." He tested her shrewdly after
a prolonged pause. "You've got a killing in the first
five hundred feet, and outlaws and rustling--"
"Oh, but don't you see, it isn't the skeleton that
makes the difference; it's the kind of meat you put on
the bones! Paradise Lost would be a howling melodrama,
if some of you picture-people tried to make it.
You'd take this plot of mine and make it just like these
pictures I've been working in, Mr. Burns: Exciting
and all that, but not the real West after all; spectacular
without being probable. What I mean,--I can't
explain it to you, I'm afraid; but I have it in my head."
She looked at him with that lightening of the eyes which
was not a smile, really, but rather the amusement which
might grow into laughter later on.
"You'd better fine me for insubordination," she
drawled whimsically, "and tell me whether it's to be
braids or curls, so I can go and make up." At that
moment she saw Gil Huntley beckoning to her with a frantic
kind of furtiveness that was a fair mixture of
pinched-together eyebrows and slight jerkings of the
head, and a guarded movement of his hand that hung
at his side. Gil, she thought, was trying to draw her
away before she went too far with her trouble-inviting
freedom of speech. She laughed lazily.
"Braids or curls?" she insisted. "And please, sir,
I won't do so no more, honest."
Robert Grant Burns looked at her from under his
eyebrows and made a sound between his grunt of
indignation and his chuckle of amusement. "Sure you
won't?" he queried shortly. "Stay the way you are,
if you want to; chances are you won't go to work right
away, anyhow."
Jean flashed him a glance of inquiry. Did that mean
that she had at last gone beyond the limit? Was Robert
Grant Burns going to FIRE her? She looked at Gil,
who was sauntering off with the perfectlyapparent
expectation that she would follow him; and Mrs. Gay,
who was regarding her with a certain melancholy
conviction that Jean's time as leading woman was short
indeed. She pursed her lips with a rueful resignation,
and followed Gil to the spring behind the house.
- minister [´ministə]
n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词) - thrill [θril] v.震惊；激动；刺激 (初中英语单词)
- stagger [´stægə] v.&n.(使)蹒跚(震惊) (初中英语单词)
- director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
- curiously [´kjuəriəsli] ad.好奇地；稀奇古怪地 (初中英语单词)
- apparent [ə´pærənt] a.显然的；表面上的 (初中英语单词)
- saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- dramatic [drə´mætik] a.戏剧的；戏剧般的 (初中英语单词)
- acting [´æktiŋ] a.代理的 n.演戏 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- enthusiasm [in´θju:ziæzəm] n.热心；狂热；爱好 (初中英语单词)
- instance [´instəns] n.例子，实例，例证 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- paradise [´pærədais] n.天堂；乐园 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- probable [´prɔbəbəl] a.大概的n.很可能的事 (初中英语单词)
- amusement [ə´mju:zmənt] n.娱乐；文娱设施 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- mixture [´mikstʃə] n.混合；混合比；混合物 (初中英语单词)
- movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
- shortly [´ʃɔ:tli] ad.立刻，马上；不久 (初中英语单词)
- inquiry [in´kwaiəri] n.询问；质询；调查 (初中英语单词)
- preacher [´pri:tʃə] n.讲道者，传教士 (高中英语单词)
- nickel [´nikəl] n.镍 vt.把...镀镍 (高中英语单词)
- eagerness [´i:gənis] n.渴望；热忱 (高中英语单词)
- grudge [grʌdʒ] vt.&n.吝啬；怨恨 (高中英语单词)
- differently [´difrentli] ad.不同地，有差别地 (高中英语单词)
- comedy [´kɔmidi] n.喜剧；喜剧场面 (高中英语单词)
- inspiration [,inspi´reiʃən] n.鼓舞；灵感；启发 (高中英语单词)
- offering [´ɔfəriŋ] n.提供；礼物；捐献 (高中英语单词)
- damned [dæmd] a.该死的 ad.非常，极 (高中英语单词)
- skeleton [´skelitən] n.骨骼；骷髅 (高中英语单词)
- chuckle [´tʃʌkl] vi.&n.轻声笑；暗自笑 (高中英语单词)
- perfectly [´pə:fiktli] ad.理想地；完美地 (高中英语单词)
- regarding [ri´gɑ:diŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- adjective [´ædʒiktiv] n.形容词 (英语四级单词)
- courthouse [´kɔ:thaus] n.法院大楼 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- merciless [´mə:siləs] a.残忍的；无情的 (英语六级单词)
- frankness [´fræŋknis] n.坦白，直率，真诚 (英语六级单词)
- matter-of-fact [mætərɔv´fækt] a.实事求是的 (英语六级单词)
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