Recompense enough, that note, for all a loving mother's sacrifices and attempts to give her daughter understanding sympathy and love—and it is small wonder if that Christmas gift always remained one of her most precious possessions.

Six hundred copies of the little "Flower Fables" were published, and the book sold very well, although their author only received the sum of $32 for them, which was in sharp contrast, she says in her journal, "to the receipts of six months only in 1886, being eight thousand dollars for the sale of books and no new one; but" she adds, "I was prouder over the thirty-two dollars than the eight thousand."

Louisa Alcott was now headed toward her destiny, although she was still a long way from the shining goal of literary success, and had many weary hills yet to climb.

As soon as Flower Fables was published, she began to plan for a new volume of fairy tales, and as she was invited to spend the next summer in the lovely New Hampshire village of Walpole, she thankfully accepted the invitation, and decided to write the new book there in the bracing air of the hill town. In Walpole, she met delightful people, who were all attracted to the versatile, amusing young woman, and she was in great demand when there was any entertainment on foot. One evening she gave a burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position, by Oronthy Bluggage," which created such a gale of merriment that she was asked to repeat it for money, which she did; and so there was added to her store of accomplishments another, from which she was to reap some rewards in coming years.

Her enjoyment of Walpole was so great that her family decided to try its fine air, as they were tired of city life and needed a change of scene. A friend offered them a house there, rent free, and in their usual impromptu way they left Boston and arrived in the country village, bag and baggage. Mr. Alcott was overjoyed to have a garden in which to work, and Mrs. Alcott was glad to be near her niece, whose guest Louisa had been up to that time.

Louisa's comment on their arrival in her diary was:

"Busy and happy times as we settle in the little house in the lane, near by my dear ravine—plays, picnics, pleasant people and good neighbors." Despite the good times, it is evident that she was not idle, for she says, "Finished fairy book in September.... Better than Flower Fables. Now, I must try to sell it."

In September Anna had an offer to become a teacher in the great idiot asylum in Syracuse. Her sensitive nature shrank from the work, but with real self-sacrifice she accepted it for the sake of the family, and went off in October. Meanwhile Louisa had been thinking deeply about her future, and her diary tells the story of a decision she made, quite the most important one of her life. She writes:

"November; decided to seek my fortune, so with my little trunk of home-made clothes, $40 earned by stories sent to the Gazette, and my MSS., I set forth with mother's blessing one rainy day in the dullest month in the year."

She went straight to Boston, where she writes:

"Found it too late to do anything with the book (the new one she had written at Walpole) so put it away and tried for teaching, sewing, or any honest work. Won't go home to sit idle while I have a head and a pair of hands."

Good for you, Louisa—you are the stuff that success is made of! That her courage had its reward is shown by the fact that her cousins, the Sewalls, generously offered her a home for the winter with them which she gratefully accepted, but insisted on paying for her board by doing a great deal of sewing for them. She says in her diary: "I sew for Mollie and others and write stories. C. gave me books to notice. Heard Thackeray. Anxious times; Anna very home-sick. Walpole very cold and dull, now the summer butterflies have gone. Got $5 for a tale and $12 for sewing; sent home a Christmas box to cheer the dear souls in the snow-banks."

In January she writes: "C. paid $6 for A Sister's Trial, gave me more books to notice, and wants more tales." The entries that follow give a vivid picture of her pluck and perseverance in that first winter of fortune-seeking, and no record of deeds could be more graphic than the following entries:

"Sewed for L. W. Sewall and others. Mr. Field took my farce to Mobile to bring out; Mr. Barry of the Boston Theater has the play. Heard Curtis lecture. Began a book for summer, Beach Bubbles. Mr. F. of the Courier printed a poem of mine on 'Little Nell'. Got $10 for 'Bertha' and saw great yellow placards stuck up announcing it. Acted at the W's. March; got $10 for 'Genevieve'. Prices go up as people like the tales and ask who wrote them.... Sewed a great deal, and got very tired; one job for Mr. G. of a dozen pillow-cases, one dozen sheets, six fine cambric neck-ties, and two dozen handkerchiefs, at which I had to work all one night to get them done, ... I got only $4.00." The brave, young fortune-seeker adds sensibly, "Sewing won't make my fortune, but I can plan my stories while I work."

In May she had a welcome visit from Anna on her way home from Syracuse, as the work there was too hard for her, and the sisters spent some happy days together in Boston. Then they were obliged to go home, as dear little Beth was very sick with scarlet-fever which she caught from some poor children Mrs. Alcott had been nursing. Both Beth and May had the dangerous disease, and Beth never recovered from the effects of it, although she lived for two years, a serene, patient invalid, who shed a benediction on the sorrowing household. That summer was an anxious time for the family. In her usual way Louisa plunged headlong into housework and nursing, and when night came she would scribble one of the stories which the papers were now glad to accept whenever she could send them. So with varying degrees of apprehension and rejoicing, the weary months passed, and as Beth was slowly improving and she was not needed at home, Louisa decided to spend another winter in the city. Her diary says:

"There I can support myself and help the family. C. offers $10 a month and perhaps more.... Others have plenty of sewing; the play may come out, and Mrs. R. will give me a sky-parlor for $3 a week, with fire and board. I sew for her also." With practical forethought, she adds, "If I can get A. L. to governess I shall be all right."

Then in a burst of the real spirit which had animated her ever since she first began to write and sew and teach and act, and make over old clothes given her by rich friends that she need not spend any money on herself, she declares in her diary:

"I was born with a boy's spirit under my bib and tucker. I can't wait when I can work; so I took my little talent in my hand and forced the world again, braver than before, and wiser for my failures."

That the decision was no light one, and that the winter in Boston was not merely an adventure, is shown by her declaration:

"I don't often pray in words; but when I set out that day with all my worldly goods in the little old trunk, my own earnings ($25) in my pocket, and much hope and resolution in my soul, my heart was very full, and I said to the Lord, 'Help us all, and keep us for one another,' as I never said it before, while I looked back at the dear faces watching me, so full of love, and hope, and faith."

Louisa Alcott's childhood and girlhood, with all the hardships and joys which went into the passing years, had been merged in a triumphant young womanhood—a fitting preface to the years of fame and fortune which were to follow. A brave, interesting girl had become a courageous older woman, who faced the untried future with her small earnings in her pocket, her worldly goods in her trunk, and hopeful determination in her heart to do some worth-while thing in the world, for the sake of those she dearly loved. She had started up the steep slope of her life's real adventuring, and despite the rough paths over which she must still travel before reaching her goal, she was more and more a sympathetic comrade to the weak or weary, ever a gallant soldier, and a noble woman, born to do great deeds. So enthusiastic was she in playing her part in the world's work, that when she was twenty-seven years old, and still toiling on, with a scant measure of either wealth or fame, she exclaimed at a small success:

"Hurrah! My story was accepted and Lowell asked if it was not a translation from the German, it was so unlike other tales. I felt much set up, and my fifty dollars will be very happy money.... I have not been pegging away all these years in vain, and I may yet have books and publishers, and a fortune of my own. Success has gone to my head, and I wander a little.

"Twenty-seven years old and very happy!"

The prediction of "books, publishers and a fortune" came true in 1868, when a Boston firm urged her to write a story for girls, and she had the idea of describing the early life of her own home, with its many episodes and incidents. She wrote the book and called it Little Women, and was the most surprised person in the world, when from her cozy corner of Concord she watched edition after edition being published, and found that she had become famous. From that moment Louisa Alcott belonged to the public, and one has but to turn to the pages of her ably edited Life, Letters and Journals, to realize the source from which she got the material for her "simple story of simple girls," bound by a beautiful tie of family love, that neither poverty, sorrow nor death could sever. Four little pilgrims, struggling onward and upward through all the difficulties that beset them on their way, in Concord, Boston, Walpole and elsewhere, had provided human documents which the genius of Louisa Alcott made into an imperishable story for the delight and inspiration of succeeding generations of girls.

Little Women was followed by Little Men, Old Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Under the Lilacs, and a long line of other charming books for young people. And, although the incidents in them were not all taken from real life as were those of her first "immortal," yet was each and every book a faithful picture of every-day life. That is where the genius of Louisa Alcott came in. From the depicting of fairies and gnomes, princes and kings, she early turned to paint the real, the vital and the heroic, which is being lived in so many households where there is little money and no luxury, but much light-hearted laughter, tender affection for one another, and a deep and abiding love of humanity.

Well may all aspiring young Americans take example from the author of Little Women, and when longing to set the world on fire in the expression of their genius, learn not to despise or to turn away from the simple, commonplace details of every-day life.

And for successful life and work, there is no better inspiration than the three rules given Louisa Alcott in girlhood for her daily guidance:

CLARA MORRIS: THE GIRL WHO WON FAME AS AN ACTRESS

A certain young person who lived in a boarding-house in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was approaching her thirteenth birthday, which fact made her feel very old, and also very anxious to do some kind of work, as she saw her mother busily engaged from morning to night, in an effort to earn a living for her young daughter and herself.

Spring came in that year with furious heat, and the young person, seeing her mother cruelly over-worked, felt hopelessly big and helpless. The humiliation of having some one working to support her—and with the dignity of thirteen years close upon her, was more than she could bear. Locking herself into her small room, she flung herself on her knees and with a passion of tears prayed that God would help her.

"Dear God," she cried, "just pity me and show me what to do. Please!" Her entreaty was that of the child who has perfect confidence in the Father to whom she is speaking. "Help me to help my mother. If you will, I'll never say 'No!' to any woman who comes to me all my life long!"

In her story of her life, which the young person wrote many years later, she says, in telling of that agonized plea: "My error in trying to barter with my Maker must have been forgiven, for my prayer was answered within a week.... I have tried faithfully to keep my part of the bargain, for no woman who has ever sought my aid has ever been answered with a 'No!'"

Somewhat relieved at having made known her longing to Some One whom she believed would understand and surely help, the young person went through the dreary routine of boarding-house days more cheerfully, to her mother's joy. And at night, when she lay tossing and trying to sleep despite the scorching heat, she seemed to be reviewing the thirteen years of her existence as if she were getting ready to pigeon-hole the past, to make ready for a fuller future.

With clear distinctness she remembered having been told by her mother, in the manner of old-fashioned tellers, that, "Once upon a time, in the Canadian city of Toronto, in the year 1849, on the 17th of March—the day of celebrating the birth of good old St. Patrick, in a quiet house not far from the sound of the marching paraders, the rioting of revelers and the blare of brass bands, a young person was born." Memory carried on the story, as she lay there in the dark, still hours of the night, and she repeated to herself the oft-told tale of those few months she and her mother spent in the Canadian city before they journeyed back to the United States, where in Cleveland the mother tried many different kinds of occupations by which to support the child and herself. It was a strange life the young person remembered in those early days. She and her mother had to flit so often—suddenly, noiselessly. Often she remembered being roused from a sound sleep, sometimes being simply wrapped up without being dressed, and carried through the dark to some other place of refuge. Then, too, when other children walked in the streets or played, bare-headed or only with hat on, she wore a tormenting and heavy veil over her face. At an early age she began to notice that if a strange lady spoke to her the mother seemed pleased, but if a man noticed her she looked frightened, and hurried her away as fast as possible. At first this was all a mystery to the child, but later she understood that the great fear in her mother's eyes, and the hasty flights, were all to be traced to a father who had not been good to the brave mother, and so she had taken her little girl and fled from him. But he always found her and begged for the child. Only too well the young person remembered some of those scenes of frantic appeal on the father's side, of angry refusal by her mother, followed always by another hasty retreat to some new place of concealment. At last—never-to-be forgotten day—there was a vivid recollection of the time when the father asserted brutally that "he would make life a misery to her until she gave up the child"—that "by fair means or foul he would gain his end." Soon afterward he did kidnap the young person, but the mother was too quick for him, and almost immediately her child was in her own arms again.

This necessary habit of concealment, and also the mother's need to earn her own living, made life anything but an easy matter for them both. The mother's terror lest her child be taken from her again made her fear to allow the little girl to walk out alone, even for a short distance, and in such positions as the older woman was able to secure, it was always with the promise that the child should be no nuisance. And so the young person grew up in a habit of self-effacement, and of sitting quietly in corners where she could not be seen or heard, instead of playing with other children of her own age. Then came a great hope, which even as she lay in bed and thought about it, brought the tears to her eyes, she had so longed to have it come true.

When she was six years old, she and her mother had been living in a boarding-house in Cleveland, where there was a good-natured actress boarding, who took such a fancy to the shy little girl who was always sitting in a corner reading a book, that one day she approached the astonished mother with a proposition to adopt her daughter. Seeing surprise on the mother's face, she frankly told of her position, her income and her intention to give the girl a fine education. She thought a convent school would be desirable, from then, say, until the young person was seventeen.

The mother was really tempted by the offer of a good education, which she saw no way to give her daughter, and might have accepted it if the actress had not added:

"When she reaches the age of seventeen, I will place her on the stage."

That ended the matter. The mother was horror-stricken, and could hardly make her refusal clear and decided enough. Even when her employer tried to make her see that by her refusal she might be doing her daughter a great injustice, she said, sharply: "It would be better for her to starve trying to lead an honorable life, than to be exposed to such publicity and such awful temptations." And thus, in ignorance of what the future had in store for her child, did she close the door on a golden opportunity for developing her greatest talent, and the young person's first dream of freedom and a fascinating career had come to grief. As she reviewed her disappointment and the dreary days that followed, a flood of self-pity welled up in the girl's heart, and she felt as if she must do something desperate to quiet her restless nature.

Fortunately the disappointment was followed by a welcome change of scene, for mother and daughter left Cleveland and went to try their fortunes in what was then "the far west." After a long trip by rail and a thirty-mile drive across the prairie, they arrived at their journey's end, and the marvelous quiet of the early May night in the country soothed the older woman's sore heart and filled the child with the joy of a real adventure.

They remained in that beautiful world beyond the prairie for two years, and never did the charm of the backwoods's life pall on the growing girl, who did not miss the city sights and sounds, but exulted in the new experiences as, "with the other children on the farm, she dropped corn in the sun-warmed furrows, while a man followed behind with a hoe covering it up; and when it had sprouted and was a tempting morsel for certain black robbers of the field, she made a very active and energetic young scarecrow."

While the out-of-door life was a fine thing for the young person, still more to her advantage was it that she was now thrown with other children, who were happy, hearty, rollicking youngsters, and, seeing that the stranger was new to farm-life, had rare fun at her expense. For instance, as she later told:

"They led me forth to a pasture, shortly after our arrival at the farm, and, catching a horse, they hoisted me up on to its bare, slippery back. I have learned a good bit about horses since then," she says, "have hired, borrowed and bought them, but never since have I seen a horse of such appalling aspect. His eyes were the size of soup-plates, large clouds of smoke came from his nostrils. He had a glass-enamelled surface, and if he was half as tall as he felt, some museum manager missed a fortune. Then the young fiends, leaving me on my slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off and stood against the fence, and gave me plenty of room to fall off. But when I suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild shriek—clenched my hands in the animal's black hair and, madly flinging propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be behind me, I cast one pantalette over the enameled back, and thus astride safely crossed the pasture—and lo, it was not I who fell, but their faces instead! When they came to take me down somehow the animal seemed shrunken, and I hesitated about leaving it, whereupon the biggest boy said I had 'pluck.' I had been frightened nearly to death, but I always could be silent at the proper moment; I was silent then, and he would teach me to ride sideways, for my mother would surely punish me if I sat astride like that. In a few weeks, thanks to him, I was the one who was oftenest trusted to take the horses to water at noon, riding sideways and always bare-back, mounted on one horse and leading a second to the creek, until all had had their drink. Which habit of riding—from balance—" the young person adds, "has made me quite independent of stirrups since those far-away days."

Besides the riding, there were many other delightful pastimes which were a part of life on the farm, and on rainy days, when the children could not play out of doors, they would flock to the big barn, and listen eagerly to stories told by the city girl, who had read them in books. Two precious years passed all too swiftly on the farm, and the young person was fast shooting up into a tall, slender girl, who had learned a love of nature in all its forms, which never left her. She had also grown stronger, which satisfied her mother that the experiment had been successful. But now there was education to be thought of, and when news came of the death of that father, who had been the haunting specter of the mother's life, they went back at once to Cleveland, where the mother obtained employment, and the growing daughter was sent to a public school. But at best it gave a meager course of study to one who had always been a reader of every book on which she could lay her hands. To make the dreary, daily routine less tiresome, she supplemented it by a series of "thinks." These usually took place at night after her candle had been blown out, and the young person generally fell asleep in a white robe and a crown of flowers, before she had gathered up all the prizes and diplomas and things she had earned in the world of reverie, where her dream self had been roving.

And now came the approach of her thirteenth birthday, and her plea that she might be made more useful in the world. And then, came this:

In the boarding-house where she and her mother were living, the mother acting as assistant to the manager, the young person occupied with enduring her monotonous existence and with watching the boarders, there were two actresses, a mother and daughter. The daughter, whose name was Blanche, was only a year or two older than the young person whose eyes followed her so eagerly, because Blanche was one of those marvelous creatures whose real life was lived behind the foot-lights.

Something in the silent, keen-eyed girl who was so near her own age attracted Blanche, and the two became good friends, spending many an hour together when the young person was not in school. In exchange for her thrilling stories of stage life, Blanche's new friend would tell vivid tales which she had read in books, to all of which good-natured Blanche would listen with lazy interest, and at the finish of the narrative often exclaimed:

"You ought to be in a theater. You could act!"

Although this assertion was always met by determined silence, as her friend thought she was being made fun of, yet the young person did not fail to brood over the statement when she was alone. Could there be any truth in the statement, she wondered? Then came a marvelous event. Blanche hurried home from the theater one day to tell her young friend that extra ballet girls were wanted in their company. She must go at once and get engaged.

"But," gasped the young person, "maybe they won't take me!"

"Well," answered Blanche, "I've coaxed your mother, and my mother says she'll look out for you—so at any rate, go and see. I'll take you to-morrow."

To-morrow! "Dimly the agitated and awed young person seemed to see a way opening out before her, and again behind her locked door she knelt down and said 'Dear God! Dear God!' and got no further, because grief has so many words, and joy has so few."

That was Friday, and the school term had closed that day. The next morning, with a heart beating almost to suffocation, the young person found herself on the way to the theater, with self-possessed Blanche, who led the way to the old Academy of Music. Entering the building, the girls went up-stairs, and as they reached the top step Blanche called to a small, dark man who was hurrying across the hall:

"Oh, Mr. Ellsler—wait a moment, please—I want to speak to you."

The man stopped, but with an impatient frown, for as he himself afterward said in relating the story:

"I was much put out about a business matter, and was hastily crossing the corridor when Blanche called me, and I saw she had another girl in tow, a girl whose appearance in a theater was so droll I must have laughed had I not been more than a little cross. Her dress was quite short—she wore a pale-blue apron buttoned up the back, long braids tied at the ends with ribbons, and a brown straw hat, while she clutched desperately at the handle of the biggest umbrella I ever saw. Her eyes were distinctly blue and big with fright. Blanche gave her name, and said she wanted to go in the ballet. I instantly answered that she was too small—I wanted women, not children. Blanche was voluble, but the girl herself never spoke a single word. I glanced toward her and stopped. The hands that clutched the umbrella trembled—she raised her eyes and looked at me. I had noticed their blueness a moment before, now they were almost black, so swiftly had their pupils dilated, and slowly the tears rose in them. All the father in me shrank under the child's bitter disappointment; all the actor in me thrilled at the power of expression in the girl's face, and I hastily added:

"'Oh, well, you may come back in a day or two, and if any one appears meantime who is short enough to march with you, I'll take you on.' Not until I had reached my office did I remember that the girl had not spoken a single word, but had won an engagement—for I knew I should engage her—with a pair of tear-filled eyes."

As a result of his half-promise, three days later, the young person again presented herself at the theater, and was engaged for the term of two weeks to go on the stage in the marches and dances of a play called "The Seven Sisters," for which she was to receive the large sum of fifty cents a night. She, who was later to be known as one of the great emotional actresses of her day, whose name was to be on every lip where the finest in dramatic art was appreciated, had begun to mount the ladder toward fame and fortune.

Very curiously and cautiously she picked her way around the stage at first, looking at the scenes, so fine on one side, so bare and cheap on the other; at the tarletan "glass windows," at the green calico sea lying flat and waveless on the floor. At last she asked Blanche:

"Is everything only make-believe in a theater?"

And Blanche, with the indifference of her lackadaisical nature answered, "Yes, everything's make-believe, except salary day."

Then came the novice's first rehearsal, which included a Zouave drill to learn, as well as a couple of dances. She went through her part with keen relish and learned the drill so quickly that on the second day she sat watching the others, while they struggled to learn the movements. As she sat watching the star came along and angrily demanded, "Why are you not drilling with the rest?"

"The gentleman sent me out of the ranks, sir," she answered, "because he said I knew the manual and the drill."

The star refused to believe this and, catching up a rifle, he cried: "Here, take hold, and let's see how much you know. Now, then, shoulder arms!"

Standing alone, burning with blushes, blinded with tears of mortification, she was put through her paces, but she really did know the drill, and it was no small reward for her misery when her persecutor took the rifle from her and exclaimed:

"Well, saucer-eyes, you do know it! I'm sorry, little girl, I spoke so roughly to you!" Holding out his hand to her, he added, "You ought to stay in this business—you've got your head with you!"

Stay in it! The question was would the manager want her when the fatal night of her first stage appearance had come and gone!

In those days of rehearsals, costumes were one of her most vital interests; for a ballet girl's dress is most important, as there is so little of it, that it must be perfect of its kind. The ballet of which the young person was now a member were supposed to be fairies in one dance. For the second act they wore dancing-skirts, and for the Zouave drill, they wore the regular Fire Zouave uniform.

At last, the first performance of the play came. It was a very hot night, and so crowded was the tiny dressing-room occupied by the ballet corps, that some of the girls had to stand on the one chair while they put their skirts on. The confusion was great, and the new-comer dressed as quickly as possible, escaped down-stairs, and showed herself to Blanche and her mother, to see if her make-up was all right.

To her surprise, after a moment of tense silence they both burst into loud laughter, their eyes staring into her face. In telling of that night later, she said; "I knew you had to put on powder, because the gas made you yellow, and red because the powder made you ghastly, but it had not occurred to me that skill was required in applying the same, and I was a sight to make any kindly disposed angel weep! I had not even sense enough to free my eyelashes from the powder clinging to them. My face was chalk white, and low down on my cheeks were nice round, bright red spots.

"Mrs. Bradshaw said: 'With your round blue eyes and your round white and red face, you look like a cheap china doll. Come here, my dear!'

"She dusted off a few thicknesses of the powder, removed the hard red spots, and while she worked she remarked; 'To-morrow, after you have walked to get a color, go to your glass and see where the color shows itself.... Of course, when you are making up for a character part you go by a different rule, but when you are just trying to look pretty, be guided by Nature.' As she talked, I felt the soft touch of a hare's foot on my burning cheeks and she continued her work until my face was as it should be to make the proper effect.

"That lesson was the beginning and the ending of my theatrical instruction. What I learned later was learned by observation, study, and direct inquiry—but never by instruction, either free or paid for."

And now the moment of stage entry had arrived. "One act of the play represented the back of a stage during a performance. The scenes were turned around with their unpainted sides to the audience. The scene-shifters and gas-men were standing about; everything was supposed to be going up. The manager was giving orders wildly, and then a dancer was late. She was called frantically, and finally, when she appeared on the run, the manager caught her by the shoulders, rushed her across the stage, and fairly pitched her onto the imaginary stage, to the great amusement of the audience. The tallest and prettiest girl in the ballet had been picked out to do this bit of work, and she had been rehearsed day after day with the greatest care for the small part.

"All were gathered together ready for their first entrance and dance, which followed a few moments after the scene already described. The tall girl had a queer look on her face as she stood in her place; her cue came, but she never moved.

"I heard the rushing footsteps of the stage-manager; 'That's you,' he shouted; 'Go on! Go on! Run! Run!' Run? She seemed to have grown fast to the floor....

"'Are you going on?' cried the frantic prompter.

"She dropped her arms limply at her sides and whispered; 'I—I—c-a-n't.'

"He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each girl shrank back from it. He reached me. I had no fear, and he saw it.

"'Can you go on there?' he cried. I nodded.

"'Then for God's sake go—go!'

"I gave a bound and a rush that carried me half across the stage before the manager caught me, and so, I made my first entrance on the stage, and danced and marched and sang with the rest, and all unconsciously took my first step on the path that I was to follow through shadow and through sunshine—to follow by steep and stony places, over threatening bogs, through green and pleasant meadows—to follow steadily and faithfully for many and many a year to come."

To the surprise of every one, when salary day came around the new ballet girl did not go to claim her week's pay. Even on the second she was the last one to appear at the box-office window. Mr. Ellsler himself was there, and he opened the door and asked her to come in. As she signed her name, she paused so noticeably that he laughed, and said, "Don't you know your own name?"

The fact was, on the first day of rehearsal, when the stage-manager had taken down all names, he called out to the latest comer, who was staring at the scenery and did not hear him:

"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.'"

And that was why, the next morning, a much-excited and very rich young person took a journey to the stores, and as a result bought a lavender-flowered muslin dress which, when paid for, had made quite a large hole in the six dollars. By her expression and manner she plainly showed how proud and happy she was to be buying a dress for the mother who for thirteen years had been doing and buying for two. "Undoubtedly," says Miss Morris, "had there been a fire just then I would have risked my life to save that flowered muslin gown."

Up to that time, the only world Clara Morris had known had been narrow and sordid, and lay chill under the shadow of poverty.... Now, standing humbly at the knee of Shakespeare, she began to learn something of another world—fairy-like in fascination, marvelous in reality. A world of sunny days and jeweled nights, of splendid palaces, caves, of horrors, forests of mystery, and meadows of smiling candor. All people, too, with such soldiers, statesmen, lovers, clowns, such women of splendid honor, fierce ambition, thistle-down lightness, as makes the heart beat fast to think of.

That was the era of Shakesperian performances, and out of twenty-eight stars who played with the support of Mr. Ellsler's company, eighteen acted in the famous classic plays. All stars played a week's engagement, some two, so at least half of the season of forty-two weeks was given over to Shakespeare's plays, and every actor and actress had his lines at their tongues' tips, while there were endless discussions about the best rendering of famous passages.

"I well remember," says Miss Morris, "my first step into theatrical controversy. 'Macbeth' was being rehearsed, and the star had just exclaimed: 'Hang out our banners on the outward walls!' That was enough—argument was on. It grew animated. Some were for: 'Hang out our banners! On the outward walls the cry is still, they come!' while one or two were with the star's reading.

"I stood listening, and looking on, and fairly sizzling with hot desire to speak, but dared not take the liberty. Presently an actor, noticing my eagerness, laughingly said:

"'Well, what is it, Clara? You'll have a fit if you don't ease your mind with speech.'

"'Oh, Uncle Dick,' I answered, my words fairly tripping over one another in my haste, 'I have a picture home, I cut out of a paper; it's a picture of a great castle with towers and moats and things, and on the outer walls are men with spears and shields, and they seem to be looking for the enemy, and, Uncle Dick, the banner is floating over the high tower! So, don't you think it ought to be read: "Hang out our banners! On the outward walls"—the outward wall, you know, is where the lookouts are standing—"the cry is still, they come!"'

"A general laugh followed my excited explanation, but Uncle Dick patted me on the shoulder and said:

"'Good girl, you stick to your picture—it's right, and so are you. Many people read that line that way, but you have worked it out for yourself, and that's a good plan to follow.'

"And," says Miss Morris, "I swelled and swelled, it seemed to me, I was so proud of the gentle old man's approval. But that same night I came woefully to grief. I had been one of the crowd of 'witches.' Later, being off duty, I was, as usual, planted in the entrance, watching the acting of the grown-ups and grown-greats. Lady Macbeth was giving the sleep-walking scene, in a way that jarred upon my feelings. I could not have told why, but it did. I believed myself alone, and when the memory-haunted woman roared out:

"'Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?' I remarked, under my breath. 'Did you expect to find ink in him?'

"A sharp 'ahem' right at my shoulder told me I had been overheard, and I turned to face—oh, horror! the stage-manager. He glared angrily at me and demanded my ideas on the speech, which in sheer desperation at last I gave, saying:

"'I thought Lady Macbeth was amazed at the quantity of blood that flowed from the body of such an old man—for when you get old, you know, sir, you don't have so much blood as you used to, and I only thought that, as the "sleeping men were laced, and the knives smeared and her hands bathed with it," she might perhaps have whispered, "Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?"' I didn't mean an impertinence. Down fell the tears, for I could not talk and hold them back at the same time.

"He looked at me in dead silence for a few moments, then he said: 'Humph!' and walked away, while I rushed to the dressing-room and cried and cried, and vowed that never, never again would I talk to myself—in the theater, at all events.

"Only a short time afterward I had a proud moment when I was allowed to go on as the longest witch in the caldron scene in 'Macbeth.' Perhaps I might have come to grief over it had I not overheard the leading man say: 'That child will never speak those lines in the world!' And the leading man was six feet tall and handsome, and I was thirteen and a half years old, and to be called a child!

"I was in a secret rage, and I went over and over my lines at all hours, under all circumstances, so that nothing should be able to frighten me at night. And then, with my pasteboard crown and white sheet and petticoat, I boiled up in the caldron and gave my lines well enough for the manager to say low:

"'Good! Good!' and the leading man next night asked me to take care of his watch and chain during his combat scene, and," says Miss Morris, "my pride of bearing was unseemly, and the other girls loved me not at all, for, you see, they, too, knew he was six feet tall and handsome."

The theatrical company of which Clara Morris had become a member was what was called by the profession, a "family theater," in which the best parts are apt to be absorbed by the manager and his family, while all the poor ones are placed with strict justice where they belong. At that time, outside of the star who was being supported, men and women were engaged each for a special line of business, to which "line" they were strictly kept. However much the "family theater" was disliked by her comrades in the profession, it was indeed an ideal place for a young girl to begin her stage life in. The manager, Mr. Ellsler, was an excellent character actor; his wife, Mrs. Ellsler, was his leading woman—his daughter, Effie, though not out of school at that time, acted whenever there was a very good part that suited her. Other members of the company were mostly related in some way, and so it came about that there was not even the "pink flush of a flirtation over the first season," in fact, says Miss Morris, "during all the years I served in that old theater, no real scandal ever smirched it." She adds: "I can never be grateful enough for having come under the influence of the dear woman who watched over me that first season, Mrs. Bradshaw, the mother of Blanche, one of the most devoted actresses I ever saw, and a good woman besides. From her I learned that because one is an actress it is not necessary to be a slattern. She used to say:

"'You know at night the hour of morning rehearsal—then get up fifteen minutes earlier, and leave your room in order. Everything an actress does is commented on, and as she is more or less an object of suspicion, her conduct should be even more correct than that of other women.' She also repeated again and again, 'Study your lines—speak them just as they are written. Don't just gather the idea of a speech, and then use your own words—that's an infamous habit. The author knew what he wanted you to say. If he says, "My lord, the carriage waits," don't you go on and say, "My lord, the carriage is waiting!"'"

These and many other pieces of valuable advice were stored up in Clara Morris's mind, and she made such good use of them that they bore rich fruit in later years.

There was great consternation for mother and daughter, on a certain day when Clara brought home the startling news that the company was to be transferred to Columbus, Ohio, for the remainder of the season. It was a great event in the young actress's life, as it meant leaving her mother and standing alone. But as she confesses: "I felt every now and then my grief and fright pierced through and through with a delicious thrill of importance; I was going to be just like a grown-up, and would decide for myself what I should wear. I might even, if I chose to become so reckless, wear my Sunday hat to a rehearsal, and when my cheap little trunk came, with C. M. on the end, showing it was my very own, I stooped down and hugged it." But she adds with honesty, "Later, when my mother, with a sad face, separated my garments from her own, I burst into sobs of utter forlornness."

The salary of the ballet corps was now raised to $5 a week, and all set to work to try to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board bill, her basket bill, her washing bill, and all the small expenses of the theater—powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc.—to say nothing of shoes and clothing, out of her earnings. Clara Morris and the Bradshaws solved the problem in the only possible way by rooming together in a large top-floor room, where they lived with a comparative degree of comfort, and with less loneliness for Clara than she could have felt elsewhere.

During that first season she learned to manage her affairs and to take care of herself and her small belongings, without admonition from any one. At the same time she was learning much of the technique of the profession, and was deeply interested as she began to understand how illusions are produced. She declares that one of the proofs that she was meant to be an actress was her enjoyment of the mechanism of stage effects.

"I was always on hand when a storm had to be worked," she says, "and would grind away with a will at a crank that, turning against a tight band of silk, made the sound of a tremendously shrieking wind. And no one sitting in front of the house, looking at a white-robed woman ascending to heaven, apparently floating upward through the blue clouds, enjoyed the spectacle more than I enjoyed looking at the ascent from the rear, where I could see the tiny iron support for her feet, the rod at her back with the belt holding her securely about the waist, and the men hoisting her through the air, with a painted, sometimes moving sky behind her.

"This reminds me," says Miss Morris, "that Mrs. Bradshaw had several times to go to heaven (dramatically speaking), and as her figure and weight made the support useless, she always went to heaven on the entire gallery, as it is called, a long platform the whole width of the stage, which is raised and lowered by windlass. The enormous affair would be cleaned and hung about with nice white clouds, and then Mrs. Bradshaw, draped in long white robes, with hands meekly crossed upon her breast and eyes piously uplifted, would rise heavenward, slowly, as so heavy an angel should. But alas! There was one drawback to this otherwise perfect ascension. Never, so long as the theater stood, could that windlass be made to work silently. It always moved up or down to a succession of screaks, unoilable, blood-curdling, that were intensified by Mrs. Bradshaw's weight, so that she ascended to the blue tarletan heaven accompanied by such chugs and long-drawn yowlings as suggested a trip to the infernal regions. Her face remained calm and unmoved, but now and then an agonized moan escaped her, lest even the orchestra's effort to cover up the support's protesting cries should prove useless. Poor woman, when she had been lowered again to terra firma and stepped off, the whole paint frame would give a kind of joyous upward spring. She noticed it, and one evening looked back and said; 'Oh, you're not one bit more glad than I am, you screaking wretch!'"

Having successfully existed through the Columbus season, in the spring the company was again in Cleveland, playing for a few weeks before disbanding for that horror of all theatrical persons—the summer vacation.

As her mother was in a position, and could not be with Clara, the young actress spent the sweltering months in a cheap boarding-house, where a kindly landlady was willing to let her board bill run over until the fall, when salaries should begin again. Clara never forgot that kindness, for she was in real need of rest after her first season of continuous work. Although her bright eyes, clear skin, and round face gave an impression of perfect health, yet she was far from strong, owing partly to the privations of her earlier life and to a slight injury to her back in babyhood. Because of this, she was facing a life of hard work handicapped by that most cruel of torments, a spinal trouble, which an endless number of different treatments failed to cure.

Vacation ended, to her unspeakable joy she began work again as a member of the ballet corps, and during that season and the next her ability to play a part at short notice came to be such an accepted fact that more than once she was called on for work outside of her regular "line," to the envy of the other girls, who began to talk of "Clara's luck." "But," says Clara, "there was no luck about it. My small success can be explained in two words—extra work." While the others were content if they could repeat a part perfectly to themselves in their rooms, that was only the beginning of work to their more determined companion. "I would repeat those lines," said Miss Morris, "until, had the very roof blown off the theater at night, I should not have missed one." And so it was that the youngest member of the ballet corps came to be looked on as a general-utility person, who could be called on at a moment's notice to play the part of queen or clown, boy or elderly woman, as was required.

Mr. Ellsler considered that the young girl had a real gift for comedy, and when Mr. Dan Setchell, the comedian, played with the company, she was given a small part, which she played with such keen perception of the points where a "hit" could be made, that at last the audience broke into a storm of laughter and applause. Mr. Setchell had another speech, but the applause was so insistent that he knew it would be an anti-climax and signaled the prompter to ring down the curtain. But Clara Morris knew that he ought to speak, and was much frightened by the effect of her business, which had so captured the fancy of the audience, for she knew that the applause belonged to the star as a matter of professional etiquette. She stood trembling like a leaf, until the comedian came and patted her kindly on the shoulder, saying:

"Don't be frightened, my girl—that applause was for you. You won't be fined or scolded—you've made a hit, that's all!"

But even the pleasant words did not soothe the tempest of emotion surging in the young girl's heart. She says:

"I went to my room, I sat down with my head in my hands. Great drops of sweat came out on my temples. My hands were icy cold, my mouth was dry—that applause rang in my ears. A cold terror seized on me—a terror of what? Ah, a tender mouth was bitted and bridled at last! The reins were in the hands of the public, and it would drive me, where?"

As she sat there, in her hideous make-up, in a state of despair and panic, she suddenly broke into shrill laughter. Two women came in, and one said; "Why, what on earth's the matter? Have they blown you up for your didoes to-night? What need you care. You pleased the audience." The other said, quietly: "Just get a glass of water for her; she has a touch of hysteria. I wonder who caused it?" No person had caused it. Clara Morris was merely waking from a sound sleep, unconsciously visioning that woman of the dim future who was to conquer the public in her portrayal of great elemental human emotion.

With incessant work and study, and a firm determination to stop short of nothing less than the perfection of art, those early years of Clara Morris's life on the stage went swiftly by, and in her third season she was more than ever what she herself called "the dramatic scrape-goat of the company," one who was able to play any part at a moment's notice.

"This reputation was heightened when one day, an actor falling suddenly sick, Mr. Ellsler, with a furrowed brow, begged Clara to play the part. Nothing daunted, the challenge was calmly accepted, and in one afternoon she studied the part of King Charles, in 'Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady,' and played it in borrowed clothes and without any rehearsal whatever, other than finding the situations plainly marked in the book! It was an astonishing thing to do, and she was showered with praise for the performance; but even this success did not better her fortunes, and she went on playing the part of boys and old women, or singing songs when forced to it, going on for poor leading parts even, and between times dropping back into the ballet, standing about in crowds, or taking part in a village dance."

It was certainly an anomalous position she held in Mr. Ellsler's company—but she accepted its ups and downs without resistance, taking whatever part came to hand, gaining valuable experience from every new rôle assigned her, and hoping for a time when the returns from her work would be less meager.

She was not yet seventeen when the German star, Herr Daniel Bandmann, came to play with the company. He was to open with "Hamlet," and Mrs. Bradshaw, who by right should have played the part of Queen Mother, was laid up with a broken ankle. Miss Morris says: "It took a good deal in the way of being asked to do strange parts to startle me, but the Queen Mother did it. I was just nicely past sixteen, and I was to go on the stage for the serious Shakesperian mother of a star. Oh, I couldn't!"

"Can't be helped—no one else," growled Mr. Ellsler; "Just study your lines, right away, and do the best you can."

"I had been brought up to obey," says Miss Morris, "and I obeyed. The dreaded morning of rehearsal came. There came a call for the Queen. I came forward. Herr Bandmann glanced at me, half smiled, waved his arms, and said, 'Not you, not the Player-Queen, but GERTRUDE.'

"I faintly answered, 'I'm sorry, sir, but I have to play Gertrude!'

"'Oh no, you won't!' he cried, 'not with me!' Then, turning to Mr. Ellsler, he lost his temper and only controlled it when he was told that there was no one else to take the part; if he would not play with me, the theater must be closed for the night. Then he calmed down and condescended to look the girl over who was to play such an inappropriate rôle.

"The night came—a big house, too, I remember," says Miss Morris. "I wore long and loose garments to make me look more matronly, but, alas, the drapery Queen Gertrude wears was particularly becoming to me and brought me uncommonly near to prettiness. Mr. Ellsler groaned, but said nothing, while Mr. Bandmann sneered out an 'Ach Himmel!' and shrugged his shoulders, as if dismissing the matter as hopeless."

But it was not. "As Bandmann's great scene advanced to its climax, so well did the young Queen Mother play up to Hamlet, that the applause was rapturous. The curtain fell, and to her utter amaze she found herself lifted high in the air and crushed to Hamlet's bosom, with a crackling sound of breaking Roman pearls and in a whirlwind of German exclamations, kissed on brow, cheeks and eyes. Then disjointed English came forth; 'Oh, you are so great, you kleine apple-cheeked girl! You maker of the fraud—you so great, nobody. Ach, you are fire—you have pride—you are a Gertrude who have shame!' More kisses, then suddenly realizing that the audience was still applauding, he dragged her before the curtain, he bowed, he waved his hands, he threw one arm around my shoulders. 'He isn't going to do it all over again—out here, is he?' thought the victim of his enthusiasm, and began backing out of sight as quickly as possible."

That amusing experience led to one of the most precious memories of Clara Morris's career, when, a month after the departure of the impetuous German, who should be announced to play with the company but Mr. Edwin Booth. As Clara Morris read the cast of characters, she says, "I felt my eyes growing wider as I saw—