Pa, thanks to his indomitable energy, had made something of his Lily, a real artiste, at last! And business was moving, too! He had a contract in his pocket for the States, where Lily would no doubt get permission to do her “childish tricks,” seeing that she was traveling with her Pa and Ma. As for Trampy, Pa had no use for Trampy, made no bones about sacking him on some pretext or other:
“Run away and play with your girls, by Jove! Or whatever you please! Good-by! Ta-ta!”
And off for Denver, whence they were to continue the journey up to Chicago.
It was the dive for good and all into the stuffy atmosphere behind the scenes, which Lily was never again to leave, brick walls, where she waited her turn on the elaborate program of the “continuous performances,” amid the thunder of the orchestra and the lightning of the reflectors. No time to go out, meals consumed in your dressing-room on the top of the basket trunk. In the mornings, new tricks to practise on the stage, in the midst of a herd of girls whom gentlemen in their shirtsleeves were training to sing in chorus and to keep step to the strum of the piano. And ever and ever so many new faces, a tumult of tongues which Lily heard on the stage, in the dressing-room, and even in her room at the hotel, through the thin partition walls: a lingo made up of coarse remarks and thick stories, punctuated with spitting and oaths strong enough to carry a tower of Babel. Lily opened her eyes and ears, heaping it all up, storing it all away behind her stubborn forehead....
And new people, new people: “families,” “brothers,” “sisters,” troupes, troupes, troupes! Or else stars by themselves, “bests,” “uniques:” a female-impersonator, a green-eyed boy who wagged his hips like the very devil and took off the girls; Poland, a Warsaw Jewess, a redheaded, overscented beauty, who did the “Parisienne,” and ever and ever so many others. And Lily, so slender and frail, was the pet of them all. They called her their pretty baby, their petit chéri, and, with their painted mugs, kissed her full on the lips.
Pa detested this “rotten lot” and Pa was not always in a good temper. Lily “under age,”—again! Why, there were even managers who informed the police, so as to be on the safe side; “traveling with her parents; childish tricks; nothing difficult.”... Ma’s indignation knew no bounds: what nonsense to prevent a great big girl of fifteen from earning her living! For she aged Lily as much as she could, to obtain the permission, when no papers were asked for; and she had trained Lily to reply to the indiscreet questions of the officials: was her trick hard? Was she forced into doing it? Lily answered mechanically that she liked the bike very much. And then they allowed her to perform.
As for practising, permission or none, that was nobody’s damned business. And if some old sheep took to bleating—“Poor child, you’ll be the death of her!”—Pa sent the old sheep to eat coke; and it was:
“Up, Lily! Get on your bike! Look alive!”
And the bloomers that Lily wore out! Ma was kept busy in the dressing-room mending the rents at the knees and patching the seats: