“I forgot to tell you. I recited my piece.”
“Oh, yes,” said the president, “and she was a great success, too.”
My mother asked for explanations.
The president then told her: “During an interval between the exercises, Loie climbed up on the platform, made a pretty bow as she had seen orators do, and then, kneeling down, she recited a little prayer. What this prayer was I don’t remember.”
But my mother interrupted him.
“Oh, I know. It is the prayer she says every evening when I put her to bed.”
And I had recited that in a Sunday School thronged by free-thinkers!
“After that Loie arose, and saluted the audience once more. Then immense difficulties arose. She did not dare to descend the steps in the usual way. So she sat down and let herself slide from one step to another until she reached the floor of the house. During this exercise the whole hall laughed loudly at the sight of her little yellow flannel petticoat, and her copper-toed boots beating the air. But Loie got on her feet again, and, hearing the laughter, raised her right hand and said in a shrill voice: ‘Hush! Keep quiet. I am going to recite my poem.’ She would not stir until silence was restored. Loie then recited her poem as she had promised, and returned to her seat with the air of having done the most natural thing in the world.”
The following Sunday I went as usual to the Lyceum with my brothers. My mother came, too, in the course of the afternoon, and took her seat at the end of a settee among the invited guests who took no part in our exercises. She was thinking how much she had missed in not being there the preceding Sunday to witness my “success,” when she saw a woman rise and approach the platform. The woman began to read a little paper which she held in her hand. After she had finished reading my mother heard her say:
“And now we are going to have the pleasure of hearing our little friend Loie Fuller recite a poem entitled: ‘Mary had a little Lamb.’”