_Dear Kate_:
I opened your trunk and got out the clothes you wrote about. I give the
grey dress to Mary, and the coat to Mrs. Keenan. There are a lot of
things that you won't be able to use when you come out. Hadn't I better
give them to some one? It seems a shame to have them laying there no use
to any body.
I had a dandy day yesterday. Mildred Carter met me in a shop and we
spent the whole day together. You know she is married. Married some
swell man and lives in a fine place on Riverside Drive. She is just as
pretty as ever. No wonder she was in all the Broadway shows. She hasn't
a bit of sense, but her tiny figure has the most perfect curves, and her
face and eyes are just like a wondering child. She makes me think of
Billy. She has a baby two years old, and if it wasn't for him, she would
go back to the stage. She is awful lonesome up in her fine home, and she
misses the lights and the fun and the pretty dresses. She is crazy over
the clothes the girls are wearing in the new Field show, and I think she
misses the suppers after the shows when a lot of the girls used to go
with the Johnnies and sort of joy ride. There wasn't nothing wrong with
the parties, but her mother-in-law thinks it is awful to even mention
them. A pretty girl like Mildred could have four suppers a night if she
wanted to, because lots of men like to take a show girl out. They wear
pretty clothes and attract attention and are funny, have lots of
up-to-date slang, know all the new songs, and don't expect a man to be
clever. All that they want of him is to pay the supper. And they are
perfectly willing to pay for it if you don't expect them to talk of art
or the uplifting of the drama. Just look pretty and say fool things and
whistle popular songs and say things that don't make their head ache to
answer. I tell Mrs. Smith who, like so many women, think it is always
wrong to go to supper, that it is done by heaps of girls who are on the
level.
I am kind of sorry for Mildred. She is pretty but nothing but a little
butterfly, and Tom's folks don't like her, and make little dabs at her
about being in the chorus, and they are trying to educate her. Read to
her from a man named Emerson and Tennyson and a lot of high brows that
put a kink in her brain that lasts for days. And they think the theatre
is all wrong except things by Ibsen and Shakespeare and a man named
Shaw, and of course Mildred thinks, and so do I, that a funny show where
the comedian makes a monkey of himself and the girls change their
dresses twenty times, and do stunts under the spot light is a lot
decenter than those nasty shows where people turn their feelings inside
out, especially their private feelings that ought not be talked about
in public. She is bound to go back and I had a long talk with her. I
told her that his folks might take the baby away from her, and she
nearly went crazy. She turned on me like a cat, and said, "What do you
mean?" I said that they would like her and Tom to separate and they
would take the baby. She could not speak for a minute then she blazed at
me:
"Take my baby, take Tommy? But he is mine. He is my baby. No one can
take him away from me. I couldn't live without him." I saw that was the
only way to get her switched off from going back, cause she met some
stage manager the other day who offered her a job, so I rubbed it in; I
don't know whether I am right, but it worked with her all right. After a
while she sat down and talked sense, and I am sorry for her. She said
sort of pitiful, "Tom is in newspaper work, and I am alone nights and I
lay there alone a longing for something to be going on. I hate the dark
and the being alone. Why I never used to be alone. His people don't
look at my side of the question at all. They are not fair to me. I had
no idea when I married Tom that his people would not like me. Every one
always liked me. I had my picture in all the shop windows and people
always jollying and making me laugh.
"His people make me old. All the sun goes out of the room as soon as one
of them come into it. To have dinner with them is awful. I am afraid to
move at the table or ask for more bread. Every one is so polite and so
quiet. You can't laugh and if you should happen to put your elbow on the
table, it would be a tragedy. And I have lived that life two years, and
Tom blames me and looks hurt cause sometimes I want the old life. And,
Nan, I see you are with him and think I am wrong. But remember I am only
calling for my own. I can't help longing for it. I think it is my right
to laugh and to be gay _my_ way. I have tried to make myself over in
Tom's way, but I can't. God did not make me a New England woman. All I
want is the lights and the music and the laughter. I want to snuggle
down in a big chair and have somebody make me laugh, laugh, laugh, and
never be told it is bad form to laugh too loud. Everything I do is bad
form, and oh, Nan, I don't want to do anything wrong, I just want to
live."
Poor little devil, I am sorry for her, but she must stay where she is. I
am going to get hold of Tom some day and tell him to side step so much
family and take Mildred out more and give her a good time _her_ way.
But we had had an awful good time until we got to talking about the
baby, when she got scared and hurried home to see if anything had
happened to him. We had lunch together at Bustanoby's, and went to that
swell Castle Garden for tea. She treated cause it cost $2.50 per and
that was too rich for my blood. I danced with her and she looked awful
cunning, and I learnt her some new steps, altho' I never dance with
women, as I don't think it looks nice. One of the dancers who runs the
place came over and asked me to dance with him, and everybody stopped to
watch us. Gee, I wish I could get a place in one of them swell places,
but I will, you just watch me do it. I had on a pretty new dress and a
hat that is a dream, and silk stockings and new patent Colonials and I
felt _some_. Ain't it funny how everybody is dancing, I wonder how long
it will last. I must get in before everyone gets over the bug. It sure
can't last forever. Seems awful funny to see a lot of old men and
grannies fluffing around a room, when they ought to be home rubbing
their backs with Omega Oil. One old lady, sure she was sixty, danced
with the professional at Bustanoby's, and he told me she had a table
there every day, and about three nights a week, and dances till closing
time. I heard her tell some friends, "I told John that if he didn't want
to learn he could stay home and go to bed, _I_ am going to dance," and
she is sure a dame of her word.
What do you think? Fred Kelly, my dancing partner, is engaged to an
awful nice girl. She is crazy over him, but she is making an awful
mistake. His legs are all right, but his head was just put on his neck
to finish it off. There is nothing in it, and if this dancing craze goes
out, he will have to run a sizzor's grinding machine to earn a living,
as he couldn't even play a thinkin' part.
I went out to see Billy last Sunday and we went to church. I felt awful
jay as I didn't know what to do, but I watched Mrs. Smith and done
everything she done and got through all right. The kids looked so nice
in their little Sunday clothes, and Billy was so good. I didn't think
much of the sermon, as it didn't seem to hit anything, but I am glad the
Smiths take Billy every Sunday. It may do him good, and it can't hurt
him, yet it seems to me that if the preacher talked a little more about
how to get help and how to peg along every day, that it would do people
more good than to talk about some old guy--he called him Isaih--who has
been dead a long time. When Billy gets a little bigger, I would like
him to sing in church. He would look lovely in a long white night dress,
and his eyes and hair would show up wonderful. I asked the Smiths about
it, and they said that they would get both Paul and Billy in the choir
if I wanted them to. I would like it, but still I am kinda scared that
it might put ideas of the stage in his head and no theatre for our
Billy. I want him to be a working man of some kind. A man that builds
things, or invents, or writes. I want him to do something and _be_
something, not just amuse a lot of fool people who can't amuse
themselves. When you come home we will pipe up something great for that
son of yours, and we will stick to it and _make_ him be something. There
is a chance for every one in this nice big fat world of ours, and Billy
will come out on top some way, or his aunt Nan will know the reason why.
Lots of love,
_Nan_.