"Little girl, what is your name?"
Some one standing near him volunteered: "Her name is Clara Morris, or Morrissey or Morrison, or something like that." At once he had written down Morris—dropping the last syllable from her rightful name. So when Mr. Ellsler asked, "Don't you know your name?" it was the moment to have set the matter straight, but the young person was far too shy. She made no reply, but signed up and received two weeks' salary as Clara Morris, by which name she was known ever afterward.
In her story of life on the stage, she says, "After having gratefully accepted my two weeks' earnings, Mr. Ellsler asked me why I had not come the week before. I told him I preferred to wait because it would seem so much more if I got both weeks' salary all at one time. He nodded gravely, 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 theater. 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 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.'"
She says, "Looking back and speaking calmly, I must admit that I do not now believe 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 every one must have thought who saw me tearing through the streets on that ninety-in-the-shade day.... One man ran out hatless and coatless and looked anxiously up the street in the direction from which I came. A big boy on the corner yelled after me: 'Sa-ay, sis, where's the fire?' But, you see they did not know that I was carrying home my first real earnings, that I was clutching six damp one-dollar bills in the hands that had been so empty all my life!
"I had meant to take off my hat and smooth my hair, and with a proper little speech approach my mother, 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:
"'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 and said, 'No, you have earned this money yourself—you are to do with it exactly as you please.'"