He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each
girl shrank back from it. He reached me--I had no fear, and he saw it.
"Can you go on there?" he cried. I nodded. "Then for God's sake go!"
I gave a bound and a rush that carried me half, across the stage before
the manager caught me--and so I made my entrance on the stage, and danced
and marched and sang with the rest, and all unconsciously took my first
step upon the path that I was to follow through shadow and through
sunshine--to follow by steep and stony places, over threatening bogs,
through green and pleasant meadows--to follow steadily and faithfully for
many and many a year to come.
On our first salary day, to the surprise of all concerned, I did not go
to claim my week's pay. To everyone who spoke to me of the matter, I
simply answered: "Oh, that will be all right." When the second day came I
was the last to present myself at the box-office window. Mr. Ellsler was
there and he opened the door and asked me to come in. As I signed my name
on the salary list I hesitated perceptibly and he laughingly said: "Don't
you know your own name?" Now on the first day of all, when the
stage-manager had taken down our names, I had been gazing at the scenery
and when he called out: "Little girl, what is your name?" I had not
heard, and someone standing by had said: "Her name is Clara--Clara
Morris, or Morrisey, or Morrison, or something like that," and he dropped
the last syllable from my name Morrison, and wrote me down Morris; so
when Mr. Ellsler put his question, "Don't you know your name?" that was
certainly the moment when I should have spoken--but I was too shy, and
there and thereafter held my peace, and have been in consequence Clara
Morris ever since.
I having signed for and received my two weeks' salary, Mr. Ellsler asked
why I had not come the week before, and I told him I preferred to wait
because it would seem so much more if I got both weeks' salary all at one
time. And he gravely nodded and said "it was rather a large sum to have
in hand at one time"--and, though I was very sensitive to ridicule, I did
not suspect him of making fun of me.
Then he said: "You are a very intelligent little girl, and when you went
on alone and unrehearsed the other night you proved you had both
adaptability and courage. I'd like to keep you in the theatre. Will you
come and be a regular member of the company for the season that begins in
September next?"
I think it must have been my ears that finally stopped my ever-widening
smile while I made answer that I must ask my mother first.
"To be sure," said he, "to be sure! Well, suppose you ask her, then, and
let me know whether you can or not."
Looking back and speaking calmly, I must admit that I do not now believe
that Mr. Ellsler's financial future depended entirely upon the yes or no
of my mother and myself; but that I was on an errand of life or death
everyone must have thought who saw me tearing through the streets on that
90-in-the-shade summer day, racing along in a whirl of short skirts, with
the boyish, self-kicking gait peculiar to running girls of thirteen.
One man, a tailor, ran out hatless and coatless and looked up the street
anxiously in the direction from which I came. A big boy on the corner
yelled after me: "S-a-a-y, Sis, where's the fire?" but you see they did
not know that I was carrying home my first earnings--that I was clutching
six damp one-dollar bills in the hands that had been so empty all my
life! Poor little hands that had never held a greater sum than one big
Canadian penny, that had never held a dollar bill till they had first
earned it. But if the boy was blind to what I held, so was I blind to
what the future held--which made us equal.
I had meant to take off my hat and smooth my hair, and in a decorous and
proper manner approach my mother and deliver my nice little speech, and
then hand her the money. But, alas! as I rushed into the house I came
upon her unexpectedly--for, fearing dinner was going to be late, she was
hurrying things by shelling a great basket of peas as she sat by the
dining-room window. At sight of her tired face, all my nicely planned
speech disappeared. I flung my arm about her neck, dropped the bills on
top of the empty pods, and cried with beautiful lucidity: "Oh, mother!
that's mine--and it's all yours!"
She kissed me, but to my grieved amazement put the money back into my
hand, folding my four stiff, unwilling fingers over it, as she said: "No,
you have earned this money yourself--you are the only one who has the
right to use it--you are to do with it exactly as you please."
And while tears of disappointment were yet swimming in my eyes, triumph
sprang up in my heart at her last words; for if I could do exactly as I
pleased, why, after all, she should have the new summer dress she needed
so badly. So I took the money to our room, and having secreted it in the
most intricate and involved manner I could think of, I returned and laid
Mr. Ellsler's offer before my mother, who at first hesitated, but
learning that Mrs. Bradshaw was engaged for another season, she finally
consented, and I rushed back to the theatre, where, red and hot and out
of breath, I was engaged for the ballet for the next season. After this I
was conscious of a new feeling, which I would have found it very hard to
explain then. It was not importance, it was not vanity, it was a pleasant
feeling, it lifted the head and gave one patience to bear calmly many
things that had been very hard to bear. I know now it was the
self-respect that comes to everyone who is a bread-winner.
Directly after breakfast next day I was off to get my mother's dress. I
went quite alone, and my head was well in the air; for this was indeed an
important occasion. I looked long and felt gravely at the edges of the
goods, I did not know what for, but I had seen other people do it, and
when my lavender-flowered muslin was cut off, done up and paid for, I
found quite a large hole in my six dollars; for it was war time, and
anything made of cotton cost a dreadful price. But, good Heaven! how
happy I was, and how proud that I should get a dress for my mother,
instead of her getting one for me! Undoubtedly, had there been a fire
just then, I would have risked my life to save that flowered muslin gown.
I had not been more than two or three days in the theatre when I
discovered that its people seemed to be divided into two distinct
parties--the guyers and the guyed--those who laughed and those who were
laughed at. All my life I have had a horror of practical joking, and I
very quickly decided I would not be among the guyed. I had borrowed many
of Mrs. Bradshaw's play books to read, and often found in the directions
for costumes the old word "ibid." "Count Rudolph--black velvet doublet,
hose and short cloak. Count Adolph, ibid." So when the property-man, an
incorrigible joker, asked me to go home and borrow Mrs. Bradshaw's ibid
for him, I simply looked at him and smiled a broad, silent smile and
never moved a peg. He gave me a sharp look, then affecting great anger at
my laziness, he wrote a request for an ibid and gave it to the fattest
girl in the crowd, and she carried it to Mrs. Bradshaw, who wrote on it
that her ibid was at Mrs. Dickson's, and the fat girl went to Mrs.
Dickson's, who said she had lent it to Mr. Lewis--so the poor fat goose
was kept waddling through the heat, from one place to another, until she
was half dead, to the great enjoyment of the property-man.
Next day he was very busy, when, glancing up, he saw me looking on at his
work. Instantly he caught up a bottle, and said: "Run upstairs to the
paint-frame (three flights up) and ask the painter to put a little
ad-libitum in this bottle for me--there's a good girl!"
Now I did not yet know what ad-libitum meant, but I was a very close
observer, and I saw the same malicious twinkle in his eye that had shone
there when he had sent the fat girl on her hot journey, and once more I
slowly chewed my gum, and smiled my wide, unbelieving smile. He waited a
moment, but as I did not touch the bottle he tossed it aside, saying:
"What a suspicious little devil you are!"
But when a man wanted me to blow down a gun-barrel next morning, the
property-man exclaimed: "Here, you! let saucer-eyes alone! I don't know
whether she gets her _savey_ out of her head or chews it out of her gum,
but she don't guy worth a cent, so you needn't try to put anything on to
her!"
And from that day to this I have been free from the attacks of the
practical joker.