She was instructed how to step out from the wings, where to halt on the stage, how to bow, to step side-wise and backward; and when these lessons had been learned, the manager with a few friends and Jess and her teacher took seats in front, and she walked out once more with her violin. She had expected to be badly scared, but it was all so matter-of-fact, and her deportment considered as of more importance than her playing, that when it came to that it was the easiest of all.
Twice she played the two selections Fritz had decided upon, the first, a medley of Scotch airs, and for an encore, the gem of all she knew—"Annie Laurie."
When she concluded each time, a sincere ripple of applause from the group of men composing her audience encouraged her.
"She'll win 'em," asserted the manager, tersely, when Mona had retired, "if only she can go on once and not wilt."
"I want you to come here daily for a week," he said to Mona, when she was ready to leave, "and get used to this matter. Your playing is excellent, and if you can forget the audience for ten minutes and do as well, you are made!"
But warmer encouragement came from Jess when home was reached that day.
"I'm proud o' ye, girlie," he said, his face glowing and his eyes alight, "I'm proud o' ye, 'n' if ye'll fiddle as ye kin 'n' hold yer head 'fore 'em, I'll shed tears o' joy. We'll rig ye up," he continued, "right away, an' all ye need to do is jist to say to yerself, 'I kin do it,' an' feel it, an' ye will."
How easy to say, but alas, how hard to do!
For a week Mona lived in a trance with only one thought, and that of the awful moment when she must perforce stand alone before that hydra-headed monster—an audience.
Sometimes her heart failed for a moment, and it seemed she could never do it; then a strain of the indomitable will that had come down to her from her Carver ancestors arose, and she said to herself, "I will."