That night Florence dreamed of herself as a gray-haired woman in a drab shawl selling papers on Christmas Eve.
The bright sun of next day drove all such dark fancies from her mind.
“Jeanne!” she exclaimed as she bounced out of bed, “Today we rehearse. Tomorrow we rehearse again. And that night comes the big show!”
As the hours passed, Florence found herself losing all thought that she was simply to make a little six-minute talk into a microphone. The feeling grew upon her with every passing moment that she was to be a part of a truly big thing.
And why not? Was she not preparing to speak to a million people? Would the opportunity ever come again? Perhaps not. And would not her friends be listening? Crowded about their radios on Isle Royale, in Chicago, in far-away Alaska, would they not be saying, “That’s Florence! How natural her voice sounds!” Ah, yes, it was to be wonderful.
Nor did Tim O’Hara allow a single member of his cast to forget the importance of his part. Every moment of rehearsal found them keyed up to a high pitch.
There were individual rehearsals, general rehearsals, a rehearsal for recording. And then, on the second day, Florence caught her breath as she was ushered into a large theater.
“Is this the place?” she asked, staring at a “mike” in the center of the stage.
“This is the place,” was the answer.
“And will there be people here?”