Just as I was a getting ready to go up to the Winter Garden for our try out, I got a letter from Mrs. Smith saying that Billy had the diptheria. She said, "don't come," that she would let me know all the time how he was. Fred come to take me up and I told him I was not going, that I was going to Billy, and he almost went crazy. He said, "Why, Nan, don't you see you will lose your chance if you don't show up now, they will never give it to you again." I said, "I don't care, I am going to Billy." He nearly cried. He said, "Nan, you have been working two years trying to get on Broadway, and if they had told you six months ago that you had a chance to go on at the Garden, you would a said they were liars or you would a died for joy. And now you throw it all over for a kid." I said, I didn't care, I was a going to Billy. He talked and he talked and then he went down and phoned for Will Henderson who come over and talked to me. They made me feel that I was doing them a rotten trick, cause Will wrote the music and was going to have his name on the program, and he said that if I didn't show up, he would lose the biggest chance he ever had, to get back decent again. So I gave in if they would promise to get me to the train as soon as our turn was over.
Well, we went and the dance sure did go. I came back eight times and I never saw anybody so tickled in his life as Will to think that he can have his name on a program again. He says he will go out to that dope joint in White Plains to-morrow, cause he believes he still has got a chance of making good. It does put heart into you when you are down and out to feel that perhaps there is something still ahead of you if you will only buck up.
After my turn the manager came into the dressing room and offered us season's work. I think it was the happiest minit of my life. I have worked for it ever since I was a kid and I just seemed to know that some day I would be on top. Why, think of it, Kate, I am going to have my name, Nancy Lane, on a program of the biggest dancing place in America, and I will be dancing along side of girls from Europe and real actresses. I felt all choked up and I was dead scared that fat manager would see how tickled I was. I am going to do three dances, and talk about wages—no, it is salary now—say, when I die I will leave a Foundation fund for poor dancers who have caught rheumatism in their lower limbs. I'll bet you to-morrow that everybody from 14th Street to 42nd Street will be trying to give me a touch. That is a sure sign you are getting along well in the world, when your friends try to borrow money off you, but Hetty Green will be a willful waster compared to me, cause I am going to plant it all in the saving's bank for you and Billy.
Good-bye, old lady, I am off for New Jersey. Even when I was a dancing and the people was a giving me a hand, I was a wondering how Billy was, and every once in a while his face would come before me and nearly shut out the lights.
XXI
Dear Kate:
We are out of quarantine. I sent you word twice that Billy was all right, and he is getting well, but poor little Paul died. When I got out here that Monday night, the doctor was in the house and told me that if I come in he would have to put me in quarantine and I couldn't leave. It kinda paralyzed me for a minit, cause I thought of that fat Garden contract, and how all my chances would be gone because you can't talk to theatre managers about kids or diptheria, as that don't fill the house. Then I thought of Will and Fred and how it would knock Fred out of a job and I kinda got sick and set down quick. I asked the doctor how Billy was, and he said they was both pretty sick, then I said, "To Hell with contracts," and I took off my hat and I'm here.
Oh, it has been awful, Kate. Did you ever see a sick baby, when he couldn't tell what was the matter with him and lay just fighting for his breath and you not able to help him, just a standing by with helpless hands, promising God that if your kid ain't took this time you will sure do something for Him if you ever get a chance? Billy was much worse than Paul for a time, and I was scared when I seen him lyin' on the pillow with his face all red with fever, and he didn't seem to know me. The doctor put a tube in their throats and it worked all right with Billy, but it was no good for Paul, and he died just at daylight, Wednesday morning. Oh, Kate, my heart just broke for his mother. She didn't cry nor nothing, and when they got her away from the baby she come in my room where Billy was and she looked down at him for a long time and then—she cursed him. It would a made your blood run cold to hear her talk. She said in a low, hate voice, "You, a child of the streets, a baby nobody wants, you are left and my baby is taken. You,—you will grow up to be a professional thief like your father. They say your mother is in prison, and yet God leaves you. There ain't no God! I tell you it is all a lie, there ain't no God!" I was a setting in a chair at the foot of the bed and she turned and looked at me as if she didn't know me. Then all at once she dropped on her knees at my feet and put her face in my lap and said, "Oh, Nannie, why didn't God take me too? How can I live the to-morrows." And Oh, Kate, if you have never seen a mother when her only baby is lying in the next room white and cold, you ain't never seen real sorrow. She set on the floor at my feet nearly an hour then she wanted me to go in and help her dress little Paul. We put on the new suit I bought him for his birthday, and he looked just as if he was asleep.