Mama answered from the kitchen:
“No, papa, she’s learning elocution and dramatic art from Mr. Davis; but I’m sure she’s not suited to be an actress, for she lisps and her nose is too short. But do make her stop, or the neighbors will think we are quarreling.”
“Stop this minute!” ordered papa, “and don’t let me hear any more such nonsense.”
IX
THE snow was crisp and the air as cold as ice. We were playing the last performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” We had been playing it for two weeks, and I had been given two different parts, Marie Claire, in which, to my joy, I wore a gold wig and a lace tea-gown—which I made from an old pair of lace curtains and a lavender silk dress mama had had when they were rich and she dressed for dinner—and Cassy. I did love that part where Cassy says:
“Simon Legree, you are afraid of me, and you have reason to be, for I have got the devil in me!”
I used to hiss those words at him and glare until the audience clapped me for that. Ada saw me play Cassy one night, and she went home and told mama that I had “sworn like a common woman before all the people on the stage” and that I ought not to be allowed to disgrace the family. But little I cared for Ada in those days. I was learning to be an actress!
On this last night, in fact, I experienced all the sensations of a successful star. Someone had passed up to me, over the footlights if you please, a real bouquet of flowers, and with these clasped to my breast, I had retired smiling and bowing from the stage.
To add to my bliss, Patty Chase, the girl who played Topsy, came running in to say that a gentleman friend of hers was “crazy” to meet me. He was the one who had sent me the flowers. He wanted to know if I wouldn’t take supper with him and a friend and Patty that night.