_Dear Kate_:
I have been dancing at Rudolph's, it is awful hard work there and the
hours are long, but it is better than it was down at the corner inn. I
am working up, Kate, and I expect one of these days to be dancing on
Broadway. The manager from Casey's come in and watched me dance the
other night, and he said he thought I was the lightest thing on my feet
in New York. Billy Flynn is my partner now, and he is working real hard.
We go mornings to a teacher up at 59th Street who learned me a lot of
new steps. We practise most every afternoon. I have met some of the
other dancers in the cabarets and they are mostly a nice lot of girls.
It ain't so hard for me as it is for some of them, as I have been
dancing all my life, and I only have to see a new step once to be able
to do it. I don't see why the people are against dancing, it is awful
good for everybody. Why, you see old men and women that never done
nothing before but stay at home and read The Christian Advocate, dancing
in the restaurants, and it makes them forget all their troubles. Dancing
makes you say with your body what you would like to say with your
tongue, and you don't know how. Lots of people have beautiful thoughts
and they can't tell them, so they have to read books writ by people who
say just what they think, but can't tell, or they go to the theatre and
hear acted all the love and beautiful things that they would like to
have come to them, but can't. With dancing they can say themselves all
the things they feel and the swaying of their body in time to the music
is just a telling the love and the romance and the poetry that is inside
of them. Why, when I am dancing with a good partner, I forget all the
ugly things of life and it seems to me that if there ever is a God, he
is a speaking to me and I sometimes feel as if I had wings and could
fly right away with them. There is nothing wrong with the dancing
itself, as I keep a telling Mrs. Smith. She wants me to leave it all the
time, and of course in some of the places where I have to dance, there
is a bum crowd and you do have to talk to the men and lots of the women
that you wouldn't choose for your sister. I tell you I am going to work
out of this, I am a good dancer and there ain't no reason why I
shouldn't be working in the better places where the management won't
allow the men to get fresh with the girls. If I live long enough and
don't get paralyzed in my legs, you will see at the Winter Garden "Nancy
Lane" in great big electric lights. I have been around some of them
places and if I ever get a chance, I know I can do as well as the girls
there now. Why, Kate, I would rather dance at the Winter Garden than
have a front seat in Heaven, and I got a mighty poor chance of either
one, but I am going to try for them both. You know I believe when you
want a thing real bad and just keep thinking of it night and day, you
are going to get it some way and when you come out, Kate, I think you
are going to be straight, and you won't queer me as you have so many
times, just when I was beginning to get along.
I am sending you twenty. You ought to own that boarding house you are
in, with the money I've sent you the last year. Mamie Callahan was in
yesterday, she is working in a chorus somewhere. Gee, she does look
swell! She must have cost a thousand just as she stood. She wants me to
go back to Miner's, but the restaurants pay more. One of the boys I met
the other night at Kelley's wants me to join him and go dance out West
somewhere, but I don't want to go so far away from Billy. I know he
would be all right with the Smiths, but I kinda like to see him, and I
am always planning little things about him and what he will say to me
and what I will say to him and what I am going to buy him. I kind of
feel that if I wasn't able to go out there once in two or three weeks,
and touch him and play with his hair and wash his little hands and
notice how he is growing out of his clothes, that I wouldn't care to
live. The money I could earn wouldn't mean nothing without him. I had
just as much happiness out of him when I was earning six dollars a week
and I could only take him out a ten cent jumping jack, as I would if I
was earning fifty and could buy him fur coats. Babies just love, they
don't think of the price of the thing you give them, but they seem to
feel the heart behind it. Billy put his arms just as tight around
Nannie's neck when she didn't have nothing in her hands for him, as when
they was full.
I heard through Long Dave that Jim has been pinched in Chicago, but they
think he will get off. He struck me for fifty but I wouldn't cough up,
he can go to the pen for all I care. I always did tell him that stripes
become his style of beauty. You know he is like a lot of crooks that
even hate to look at a barber's pole cause of the stripes on it, and
when you stop to think about it, you never see a crook wear a striped
suit of clothes. They will wear plain colors, pepper and salts,
cheques, but no stripes for the con man, they make him nervous.
I am coming down next week. I wish I could bring you something but I
don't know what you could use. I am glad you are getting along so well,
Kate, you will get four months off, won't you? I miss you awful, you are
the only one I can talk to, and though you don't see some things my way,
you are my sister, the only mother I ever knew. I wish when you are
quiet there, Kate, you would think things over and decide to do
different. You and me and Billy could go away somewhere. You must see by
this time, Kate, that thieving don't pay. Why you are only thirty-three
years old, and you have had five years in the pen and you are getting
bitter and sour and you will have a grouch against life, and you know
you are awfully clever, if you could only turn your brain to something
honest, I don't see why you couldn't get along. I believe we could save
up some money and go somewhere and start a boarding house. I can cook
real well, and I believe something could be doing in that line.
Billy had a party and it sure was some party. Mrs. Smith asked some of
the farmers' children in, and she gave them cake, and I brought him out
presents and give each of the children a toy. Billy ate too much cake
and was awful sick in the night. Mrs. Smith give him some medicine and
he was all right the next day, and ready to eat more cake. Why, he eats
all the time, Kate, and he is the fattest, biggest boy. We dress him
awful swell. Mrs. Smith makes her boy's clothes and I help her and we
made Billy some funny little linen pants like a Dutch baby, and he is
the cutest looking thing. We cut his hair off square, but it still curls
and don't look Dutch at all.
Good night, I must go to bed.
_Nan_.