"Why not?" I asked.
"'Cause we're too poor," she replied, which was certainly the oddest
reason I ever heard advanced for not accepting offered money. I was
compelled to hurry to my dressing-room to prepare for the next act; but
I saw with what disappointed eyes she followed me, and as I kept
thinking of her and her queer answer I told my maid to go out and see if
the pretty, very clean little girl was still there, and, if so, to send
her to my room. Presently a faint tap, low down on the door, told me my
expected visitor had arrived. Wide-eyed and smiling she entered, and
having some cough drops on my dressing-table, I did the honours. Cough
drops of strength and potency they were, too, but sweet, and therefore
acceptable to a small girl. She looked at them in her wistful way, and
then very prettily asked, "Please might she eat one right then?"
I consented to that seemingly grave breach of etiquette, and then asked
if her mother was with her.
"Oh, no! Sam had brought her." (Sam was the gas man.)
"Why," I went on, "did you not take that money, dear?" (her eyes
instantly became regretful). "Don't you want it?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am," she eagerly answered. "Yes, ma'am, I want it, thank
you; but you see I might get smacked again--like I did last week."
Our conversation at this embarrassing point was interrupted by the
appearance of Sam, who came for the little one. I sent her out with a
message for the maid, and then questioned Sam, who, red and apologetic,
explained that "the child had never seen no theatre before; but he knew
that the fifty cents would be a godsend to them all, and an honest
earned fifty cents, too, and he hoped the kid hadn't given me no
trouble," and he beamed when I said she was charming and so
well-mannered.
"Yes," he reckoned, "they aimed to bring her up right. Yer see," he
went on, "her father's my pal, and he married the girl that--a
girl--well, the best kind of a girl yer can think of" (poor Sam), "and
they both worked hard and was gettin' along fine, until sickness come,
and then he lost his job, and it's plumb four months now that he's been
idle; and that girl, the wife, was thin as a rail, and they would die
all together in a heap before they'd let any one help 'em except with
work."
"What," I asked, "did the child mean by getting a smacking last week?"
"Oh," he answered, "the kid gets pretty hungry, I suppose, and t'other
day when she was playin' with the Jones child, there in the same house,
Mrs. Jones asks her to come in and have some dinner; and as she lifted
one of the covers from the cooking-stove, the kid says: 'My, you must be
awful rich, you make a fire at both ends of your stove at once. My mamma
only makes a fire under just one hole, 'cause we don't have anything
much to cook now 'cept tea.' The speech reached the mother's ears, and
she smacked the child for lettin' on to any one how poor they are. Lord,
no, Miss, she dar'sent take no money, though God knows they need it bad
enough."
With dim eyes I hurriedly scribbled a line on a bit of wrapping paper,
saying:--"This little girl has played her part so nicely that I want her
to have something to remember the occasion by, and since I shall not be
in the city to-morrow, and cannot select anything myself, I must ask you
to act for me." Then I folded it about a green note, and calling back
the child, I turned her about and pinned both written message and money
to the back of her apron. The little creature understood the whole thing
in a flash. She danced about joyously: "Oh, Sam," she cried, "the lady's
gived me a present, and I can't help myself, can I?"
And Sam wiped his hand on his breeches leg, and, clearing his throat
hard, asked "if I'd mind shakin' hands?"
And I didn't mind it a bit. Then, with clumsy care, he wrapped the child
in her thin bit of a cape, and led her back to that home which gave
lodgement to both poverty and pride.
While the play was new, in the very first engagement outside of New
York, I had a very little child for that scene. She was flaxen blond,
and her mother had dressed her in bright sky-blue, which was in itself
an odd colour for a little boy to wear. Then the small breeches were so
evidently mother-made, the tiny bits of legs surmounted with such an
enormous breadth of seat, the wee Dutch-looking blue jacket, and the
queer blue cap on top of the flaxen curls, gave the little creature the
appearance of a Dutch doll. The first sight of her, or, perhaps, I
should say "him," the first sight of him provoked a ripple of merriment;
but when he turned full about on his bits of legs and toddled up stage,
giving a full, perfect view of those trousers to a keenly observant
public, people laughed the tears into their eyes. And this baby noted
the laughter, and resented it with a thrust-out lip and a frowning knit
of his level brows that was funnier than even his blue clothing--and
after that one Parthian glance at the audience, he invariably toddled to
me, and hid his face in my dress. From the very first night the child
was called "Little Breeches," and to this day I know her by no other
name.
Time passed by fast--so fast; years came, years went. "Miss Multon" had
been lying by for a number of seasons. "Renée de Moray," "Odette,"
"Raymonde," etc., had been in use; then some one asked for "Miss
Multon," and she rose obediently from her trunk, took her manuscript
from the shelf, and presented herself at command. One evening, in a
Southern California city, as I left my room ready for the first act of
this play, the door-man told me a young woman had coaxed so hard to see
me, for just one moment, that ignoring orders he had come to ask me if
he might bring her in; she was not begging for anything, just a moment's
interview. Rather wearily I gave permission, and in a few moments I saw
him directing her toward me. A very slender, very young bit of a woman,
a mere girl, in fact, though she held in her arms a small white bundle.
As she came smilingly up to me, I perceived that she was very blond. I
bowed and said "Good evening" to her, but she kept looking in smiling
silence at me for a moment or two, then said eagerly, "Don't you know
me, Miss Morris?"
I looked hard at her. "No," I said; "and if I have met you before, it's
strange, for while I cannot remember names, my memory for faces is
remarkable."
"Oh," she said, in deep disappointment, "can't you remember me at
all--not at all?"
Her face fell, she pushed out her nether lip, she knit her level,
flaxen brows.
I leaned forward suddenly and touched her hand, saying, "You are
not--you can't be--my little--"
"Yes, I am," she answered delightedly. "I am Little Breeches."
"And this?" I asked, touching the white bundle.
"Oh," she cried, "this is _my_ Little Breeches; but I shan't dress him
in bright blue."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "how old are you, and how old am I?"
"Well," she replied, "I'm almost eighteen, and as you look just exactly
as you did when I saw you last, it doesn't matter, so far as I can see,
how many years have passed." (Oh, clever Little Breeches!)
Then, having had Little Breeches 2d kissed and honestly admired, she
trotted away satisfied; and only as I made my entrance on the stage did
it occur to me that I had not asked her name; so she ends as she began,
simply Little Breeches.
_CHAPTER XII