_Dear Kate_:
Say, but I am having a good time! And what do you think? I am having my
picture painted. Some artist people blew into the cafe the other night,
and after I had danced a couple of times they talked to the manager,
then they asked me to come over and talk to them. I set down to the
table and they were awful nice to me, didn't get fresh, but asked me a
lot of questions about myself and where I learned to dance. I told them
I could dance ever since I could walk, that I danced as a kid at Coney
Island, and Miner's theatre had got in trouble twice with the Children's
Society because of me. I laughed and said, "Why, I never _learned_ to
dance, I just _danced_." The artist man said he wanted to paint my
picture. It is a funny idea it seems to me. He wants to paint me in this
dirty cabaret with the tables all around me and the bum men setting
around and me a dancing in the center with the lights on me. He said he
is going to call it "Youth." He said to one of the men that was with
him, "Can't you see it, Phillip, can't you see it? That pretty girl the
very spirit of youth with her gold hair around her face and her
wonderful body swaying to the time of the music and all those bloated
beasts looking up at her through the smoke?" I don't see how he is going
to paint the picture, but that is his business. Mine is to go to his
studio every day at ten o'clock.
Do you remember Will Henderson who used to play in the orchestra in the
Grand Opera and who lived next to us when we was at 129? Well, what do
you think? He is playing the piano in this joint here. Isn't that a
come-down? He got to taking coke and he couldn't be trusted to keep his
dates and he lost all his good jobs and now he can only get a place in
the joints, but he does play wonderful! And when he is not too dopey, he
sets down at the piano and makes music that draws the heart right out
of you. He won't touch his violin cause it makes him remember, he says.
It is a lucky thing for me in a way, as he likes me and he has wrote
some music for me to dance by. He wrote a piece for me called "The
Poppy," and that artist chap who is painting my picture got me a dress
made for the dance, and oh, Kate, it is grand! It is red chiffon, and
over it green chiffon like the leaves of the poppy, and I wear red
slippers with pale green silk stockings that are so thin I can hardly
get them on, and he had my hair all fluffed out and piled on top of my
head, where it made a "golden halo," whatever that is. Him and Will
explained to me about the dance. It seems that opium is made out of the
flower, and they wanted me to show by dancing all the beautiful dreams
that come with opium, and then the sleep afterward. I have known a lot
of people who hit the pipe, and I don't know as they have ever had many
beautiful dreams, but anyway the dance is awful pretty. The artist gave
a party the other night, and had me come and do it. All the lights in
the room was turned off and a greenish light was thrown on me and I
danced fast at first and then I went slower and slower until at the last
I dropped down on the stage and the lights went out and I run away in
the dark. Everybody was crazy about it, and one of the big restaurants
on Broadway is going to have me give the dance every night at midnight.
Do you see, Kate, I told you if I got a chance I would get away from
Seventh Avenue. I begun at 14th Street, and I am working up. I am up to
42nd and one of these days, I tell you, I am going to be dancing at the
Winter Garden. I don't see why I shouldn't, I can dance as well as any
girl in New York City, and now that Jim and your gang ain't around to
queer me, there ain't no reason why I shouldn't be in the best places in
town. I have had to stick to a lot of bum joints just because the
managers of decent places didn't want to have a person who was mixed up
with the crowd that I was in, around their place.
I am really having an awful good time. I get home about three in the
morning and I sleep until about nine. I make my breakfast in my room
yet, cause I like my own coffee, and then Jim Kelly who is my dancing
partner now, comes up and we practise steps or else Will Henderson and
Jim and me go over to Mamie Callahan's who has got a piano, and we work
at some new thing. I don't have to be at the cafe till night and most
every afternoon, I go around to some of the other places or to the shows
to see what the other girls are dancing. I thought I would take some
lessons from some of the swell teachers, but Lord, I can dance as well
as any of them so what is the use of me spending my money.
I bought a swell new suit yesterday, and I sure do look some going up
the avenue and, hear _me_, it is Fifth Avenue instead of Seventh. Oh,
there is some class to your sister, Kate, and when I get on the new lid
that the milliner made me, well--I should worry.
I went up to a party the other night at Rose Fisher's. I couldn't blow
in until after work, but even as late as it was, I won $4.90 at penny
ante, and it tickled me most to death. I have been trying to learn a new
game called bridge that the girls are crazy about. I guess it is not in
my line cause it is a thinking part. I can't remember what cards are out
or what is trumps or what is anything else, and set sort of making over
my old clothes or thinking up new steps when we are playing, and you
can't do that with bridge. I lost a lot of money the other afternoon,
and what is worse, Katie Regan was my partner and she took it hard and
gave me an awful call-down. I got sore and felt like slapping her face,
but I guess she is right. Don't play a game with other people's money
unless you attend to business.
Do you remember that fat old brewer that use to come hanging around you?
Well, he blew in while I was dancing the other night, and claimed to be
a long lost friend. He come down every night for about a week, and then
tried that old gag of putting some money for me in a wheat deal or some
such thing where it was tails I win and heads you lose. I told him I was
on to that chorus trick, and wasn't at all crazy about it. You see,
whether he won or lost he would have handed me over three or four
hundred dollars and kinda felt he owned me body and soul. I simply
laughed at him, and said with a voice of a Wall Street broker, "Man, I
am making so much money that it is quite impossible to find investments
for my income, so I am planting it around the yard in tin cans." I even
offered to make him a loan if business was bad. He went away in a huff,
and I got a call-down from the manager because the brewer owns the bar
the same as he does all the other saloons around our district, and the
saloon-keeper is only in on a percentage. If the temperance people would
only go after the brewer and the distiller, instead of the poor devil of
a saloon-keeper, they might do something worth while, cause there ain't
one bar in twenty in New York that is owned by the man who keeps it.
Well, good-bye, I am going to dinner in a place in 39th Street where
they say they have an awful pretty dancer. I am saving up my money,
Kate, so when you come out, you will have enough to live on for awhile
until you find out what you want to do. Now don't worry, and don't write
me any more letters like that last one. Everything is fine and dandy.
Billy is all right, and I am as happy as a clam and getting fat. I have
put on two pounds in three months. I weigh 118 now, which is a lot for
me, and if I keep on like this I will look like Taft one of these days.
I am coming down to see you next week, and I have got something for you.
Oh, Kate, I am fond of you and I get just crazy to see you.
Yours,
_Nan_.