d, with a Red Cross on its collar and
shoulder-bags. Underneath was a notice to the effect that an entertainment
would be given the following Friday night in the college hall, a short
concert, followed by a play called "The Princess Winsome's Rescue," in
which _Hero_, the Red Cross dog recently brought from Switzerland, would
take a prominent part. The proceeds were to be given to the cause of the
Red Cross.

That announcement alone would have drawn a large crowd, but added to that
was the fact that twenty families in the Valley had each contributed a
child to the fairy chorus or the group of flower messengers, and were thus
personally interested in the success of the entertainment.

There was scarcely standing-room when the doors were opened Friday
evening. Papa Jack felt well repaid for his part in the hurried
preparations when, after the musical part of the programme, he heard the
buzz of admiration that went around the room, as the curtain rose on the
first scene of the play. It was the dimly lighted witch's orchard.

Across the stage, five feet back from the footlights, ran a snaky-looking
fence with high-spiked posts. It had taken him all morning to build it,
even with Alec's and Walker's help. Above this peered a thicket of small
trees and underbrush bearing a marvellous crop of gold and silver apples
and plums. Real gold and silver fruit it looked to be in the dim light,
and not the discarded ornaments of a score of old Christmas-trees. A
stuffed owl kept guard on one high gate-post, and a huge black velvet cat
on the other.

In the centre of the stage, showing plainly through the open double gates,
the witch's caldron hung on a tripod, over a fire of fagots. Here Kitty,
dressed like an old hag, leaned on her blackened broomstick, stirring the
brew, and muttering to herself.

At one side of the stage could be seen the door leading into the ogre's
tower, and above it a tiny casement window.

Mrs. Walton gave a nod of satisfaction over her work, when the ogre came
roaring in. His costume was of her making, even to the bludgeon which he
carried. "Nobody could guess that it was only an old Indian club painted
red to hide the lumps of sealing-wax I had to stick on to make the
regulation knots," she whispered to Keith's father, who sat next her. "And
no one would ever dream that the ogre is Joe Clark. I had hard work to
persuade him to take the part, but an invitation to my camping party next
week proved to be e