246 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



They will foster the artistic power any one of them may possess 

 and will welcome art of all kinds, grateful for the uplifting 

 pleasure and the beauty it brings into their lives. Again and 

 again American pageants, large and small, have proved this true. 



And the artistry revealed in those who never suspected that 

 they even possessed it ! I remember one quiet, self-contained 

 farmer of nearly seventy who, though willingness itself to help 

 in every way, bewailed his inexperience and probable lack of all 

 ability. Even in the first rehearsal of a scene arranged to illus- 

 trate MacDowell's "Deserted Farm" he caught exactly the re- 

 quired spirit of delicate, wistful pathos. He "lived his part," 

 though it had to be expressed in the art most difficult for the 

 inexpressive New Englander, the art of pantomime. A hint, a 

 suggestion, he took instantly and developed with keen intelli- 

 gence. At the end of the first rehearsal, when he came for some 

 directions, I said: "How did you know so quickly exactly what 

 that man should do ? " 



"Ah," he said sadly, "years ago it was no uncommon thing 

 for me to be saying 'Good-by' to old friends that were going 

 westward to the Middle States or California, and so I just re- 

 membered and let go." 



Day by day, filled with growing enthusiasm, he came to me 

 with illuminating suggestions of business which characterized his 

 part. My task was merely helping him to express largely enough 

 for an audience of a thousand people what he felt perfectly and 

 even at the outset expressed adequately for those within short 

 range. And his is the story of many men, women and children 

 in all these pageants. 



He is a foolish pageant master, indeed, who does not encourage 

 his actors to suggest business and even lines for the scenes in 

 which they take part. What will come to them, absorbed as they 

 are in their work, is often far more vivid and right than the 

 lines of the author, no matter how carefully selected. One of 

 the most effective details in a Revolutionary scene was entirely 

 rephrased and infinitely bettered by an old man of eighty-seven 

 playing a part. He had never acted before. At first he looked 

 on the whole experiment a little doubtfully ; but, once stirred by 

 what had meant so much to his forebears, he quickened in imag- 

 ination. Enthusiastically living the scene over and over both at 



