Hamlet rolled over on his face, Queen Gertrude (Mrs. Bradshaw) groaned aloud, Polonius (Mr. Ellsler) threatened discharge, under cover of the laughter of the audience, while guilty Blanche grinned in impish enjoyment of her work, and next "Hamlet" I was cast for the Player-Queen, to punish Blanche. To punish her, indeed—she was as merry as a sand-boy, standing about chewing gum and telling stories all the evening.
The "tatting" craze was sweeping over the country then, everybody wore tatting and almost everybody made it. I worked day and night at it, tatting at rehearsal and between scenes, and lady-stars often bought my work, to my great pleasure as well as profit. Blanche wanted a new shuttle, and her mother, who was under extra expense just then, told her she could have it the next week. It was shortly before Christmas, and next morning at rehearsal, with all the company present, Blanche walked up to Mr. Ellsler and asked him if he had any money.
He looked bewildered, and answered somewhat doubtfully that he thought he had a little. "Well," said she, "I want you to give me a quarter, so I can get you a Christmas present."
There was a burst of laughter as Mr. Ellsler handed her the quarter, and after rehearsal this is what she did with it:
On Superior Street a clothing store was being sold out—a forced sale. There she bought a black shoe-string tie for five cents, as a gift for Mr. Ellsler, and elsewhere got for herself a tatting-shuttle and five pieces of chewing-gum, and chuckled over her caper, quite undisturbed by her mother's tears.
One thing only moved her, one thing only she loved, music! She had a charming voice, clear, pure, and cold as crystal, and she sang willingly, nay, even eagerly, whenever she had the opportunity. In after years she became a well-known singer in light opera.
CHAPTER EIGHTH
I Display my New Knowledge—I Return to Cleveland to Face my First Theatrical Vacation, and I Know the very Tragedy of Littleness.
During that first season I learned to stand alone, to take care of myself and my small belongings without admonition from anyone. One of my notions was that, since an immortal soul had to dwell in my body, it became my bounden duty to bestow upon it regular and painstaking care in honor of its tenant. The idea may seem extravagant, yet it served me well, since it did for me what a mother's watchful supervision does for other little girls when habits are being formed.
I had learned, too, most of the technical terms used in the profession. I knew all about footlights, wings, flies, borders, drops, braces, grooves, traps, etc. I understood the queer abbreviations. Knew that O.P. side was opposite the prompt side, where the prompter stood with his book of the play to give the word to any actor whose memory failed him and to ring the two bells for the close of the act—one of warning to the curtain-man up aloft to get ready, the other for him to lower the curtain. Knew that R.U.E. and L.U.E. were right or left upper entrance; C., centre of the stage; R.C., right of centre; CD., centre-door. That to go D.S. or U.S. was an intimation that you would do well to go down stage or up stage, while an X. to C. was a terse request for you to cross to the centre of the stage, and that a whole lot of other letters meant a whole lot of other directions that would only bore a reader.