Look in Your Glass

MY DIARY

(For the year 1014, my Senior Year at Q.H.S.)

January 10. — This afternoon Kay Follett and I went to see Ethel Barrymore in Tante. She is wonderful. I have never seen such superb acting as hers. The whole caste gave marvellously finished work. Miss Barrymore’s costumes were wonderful. The play is the most interesting I have seen this season. Afterwards we were undecided whether we needed a nine cent monocle or a ten cent soda more but we finally went to Bailey’s and indulged in ice cream.

My playgoing days in Boston started when I was two years old. This was not an early New England custom. I was taken because of my parents’ thrift. They had bought seats for themselves and a guest, and the guest had defaulted when it was too late to get someone else. It was not likely that a theatre ticket was going to be wasted, and so I was hastily mustered out. The play was Secret Service, starring William Gillette, and I am sure that I had a good time.

Perhaps on this January afternoon we went in style and sat in the balcony or orchestra. I really do not remember. But all the rest of my Boston playgoing was enjoyed from high up in the gallery. Its more affectionate titles were ‘peanut gallery’ or ‘nigger heaven.’ We know them no more, for, along with the demise of the gallery, they too have gone. Heaven it surely was, but it seems partisan to limit it to any one color, race, or creed. Peanuts I never saw eaten there. Candy was the fashion in the gallery as in all other parts of the theatre. It was considered almost as necessary an adjunct to a matinee as one’s clean handkerchief or best gloves. Many theatres provided boxes of chocolates attached to the backs of the seats, and by dropping ten cents or a quarter in the slot those who had come unprepared were spared by a kindly management from going unnourished during the performance.

Gallery seats cost fifty cents except on rare occasions. I paid only a quarter to see Olive Wyndham in What Happened to Mary, but we were tucked away so close to the ceiling of the Majestic Theatre that it was hard to tell just what did happen to her. Anyway we saw something or other and had the satisfaction of knowing that we were at a play. Besides, it allowed us to put by something towards a fifty-cent ticket, and all in all we had a jolly good time.

Another play that we saw for a quarter was a furious melodrama called The Whip. It was at the old Boston Theatre, and our seats were in the third gallery, which was so high up that only an eagle could have felt comfortable there. It was like looking down on Jeffrey from the top of Mount Monadnock. Fortunately The Whip did not go in for subtlety, although perhaps I was in no position to judge, for about the best we could do was to hang on to our seats and try not to look at the stage too often, because looking down that far made us dizzy. We could distinguish the horse race from the nobility, and that was about all.

The great thrill came when we were lucky enough to get seats in the front row of the gallery, but these were usually sold out in advance, and I never could tell ahead of time when I and my fifty cents were going to catch up with one another.

Seated so high up, I always saw the stage from an odd angle, which lent a curious perspective to a play. Looking down that way gave us a fine view of the actors’ feet, but denied us the top part of the scenery. Probably most of the time the top part looked the same as the rest of it, but in Tante we were handicapped, for the actors kept referring to a statue which seemed to be up over a door. This statue, they claimed, had a curious effect on them, and I dare say it would have had a curious effect on me too if I could have seen it, but even though I got down on the floor and twisted about there, that statue could not be viewed for fifty cents. We knewr it was all right, of course, because Ethel Barrymore, herself, said that it was up there.

January 11. —Today it was cold and windy but I went to church. I didn’t meet Florence Crowell, as she was late, so I sat with Gladys Glover and her mother. Afterwards I went up and saw her pictures of Jane Cowl, Emily Stevens, and Leonore Harris. They are great. We had perfectly terrible lessons in Latin, German, and English so I studied all the rest of the day.

When one is seventeen and stagestruck, mail is magic, for the postman may bring a brown photo mailer in which is a signed picture of an actress.

On my bedroom walls were signed pictures of Billie Burke, Anna Pavlowa, Violet Heming, Gaby Deslys, Julia Sanderson, Hazel Dawn, Doris Olsson, and some others whose names I have forgotten, although I can hardly believe it, for this collection was my dearest possession. The list does not represent all my adored ones. Many of my favorites did not answer my letters, but lack of response did not discourage me. I simply wrote again. ‘The fault lies not in the stars, but in myself,’ was my motto, and to my ensuing letters I gave even more thought, more effort, and more compliments, all genuine and all straight from the heart.

Often my favorites were recalcitrant. I had a hard uphill struggle with Billie Burke, but since she was one of my premier idols, lack of response merely increased my enthusiasm for the task. Anyone who could say ‘Muffins?’ as adorably as she did in The Mind-thePaint Girl should not be expected to answer her mail at once. My second letter brought no more response than the first, but memories of her in The Amazons singing ‘My Otaheitee Lady’ spurred me on to put pen to paper for the third time and begin ‘PLEASE, dear Miss Burke!’ This broke down her resistance. Her signed photograph arrived.

Maude Adams never replied, no matter how many times I wrote, and two years later, when I was a member of her company, I was so awed by her presence that I did not dare to ask for her picture. Instead, I bought it from Moffett, the Chicago photographer. Even then I did not ask her to autograph it. Miss Adams was a queen in her kingdom, and one does not say to royalty, ‘Please sign here.’

This bought picture might seem of little interest, but to me it was precious, for it was the only actress’s picture I had ever owned which toured in a Pullman car, occupied and paid for by ‘the Lady’ herself. I still have it along with two others which are all that remain of my Wollaston collection. For alas, ‘Dust unto dust’; but who could have foreseen that such immediate dust would beshroud my treasures?

When we had to break up our home and I went to New York to see life from a hall bedroom in the Three Arts Club, I had to dispose of all my belongings to the secondhand dealer. Among the things not appreciated by this Cold Heart was my collection of actresses’ pictures. So on one August day I carried them down to the dump on Fayette Street and left them there. That day was made bearable by the knowledge that I was going to New York to become an actress myself.

January 14. — Today I never came so near freezing before. I thought I should die walking home from school with the temperature 4 degrees below. All day it was below zero. I have a dreadful cold and this afternoon Kay Follett came down and we studied, then Mother made tea for us. Going out to the P.O. for the mail we agreed not to go to school tomorrow. Really I’ve got a dreadful cold and it’s so cold at school.

Apparently my own cold and the cold at school were not too dreadful, for, though the thermometer registered below zero, I walked to the post office without any urging, and surely the temperature of our classrooms could not have been below zero. Perhaps I felt that my education might be postponed for a day without doing any damage.

At five-thirty in the evening a late mail arrived at our post office, and this was held over until our postman, Mr. Mullins, delivered it on his morning rounds. Naturally this was unsatisfactory to anyone like myself, expecting such important communications. My actresses’ pictures were my first concern, but there were other worth-while things as well. I might be going to get a letter from Virginia Royall. Suppose Gladys Bain had troubled to write me the latest news from Wellesley College. Possibly I might hear from my sister, Clare, off teaching school in Washington, although of course that was hardly important, as she was only my sister. Perhaps Jordan, Marsh was sending me samples of yellow messaline or Dorothy Dainty ribbons; now and then I made such requests if my mail was going through a slack period.

And so, with all this to look forward to, I walked to the post office every evening at five-thirty. It was a nice time to be out; there was no telling whom I might run into; and it was an entertaining trip, for it took me past Wollaston’s shopping district, which spread out over two blocks. Starting on Brook Street was the Chinese laundry, which was not too entertaining a beginning, although it had its feeble points. Most people thought that a Chinese laundry was perfectly all right, but there was a small faction who claimed that the Chinaman, instead of sprinkling his laundry with a bulb which squirted out water, took a big mouthful himself, when no one was looking, and blew it out on to whosever shirt he was about to iron. I cannot say how people knew this, since they claimed he did it only when no one was looking, and it hardly seems the sort of thing that the Chinaman himself would be likely to boast about. At any rate, it lent interest, when passing his window, to see if one could catch him at his primitive tricks.

Next came the tailor’s, and a store which was always vacant except now and then when Charity used it for a cake or rummage sale. Across the street was Mr. Macfarlane’s bicycle and hardware store. His son Arthur and I were in the same class at school. Nothing much to look at here, since my own bicycle had fallen apart publicly in Quincy Square right opposite the church where two presidents are buried. There was no hope of buying a new one, so why look at them on display? I think Mr. Stephenson’s plumbing shop was along here, too. We all liked the Stephensons, and Mrs. Stephenson was a patroness of our dancing class. Back on the other side of the street was Mr. Snowden’s Cash Market, which was where the entertaining part of my walk began, for food displays have always seemed to me a very pleasant sight. Mr. Snowden formerly worked for our grocer, Mr. Backus, and my mother said that although she was glad to see him getting on she did miss him at Air. Backus’s, because he was always obliging when we wanted to take back anything.

The bakery joined Mr. Snowden’s, and here was something not only to look at but to smell as well. His plates of cupcakes and crullers fairly made one’s mouth water, especially at this time of evening just before supper. My mother worried about the bakery man because he looked pale and tired. She thought it must be because he had to do his baking down cellar underneath his store, or else perhaps he was too economical to buy meat, and ate up his leftovers instead.

Beside the bakery was Mrs. Grant’s dry-goods and notion shop. Mrs. Grant and her daughter Alta were pleasant acquaintances of ours. Alta seemed to me to be in an enviable position, for she had free access to all the jabots and frills in her mother’s store. This window called for a halt in my walk so that I could really rubber at all the novelties on display.

Around the corner on Newport Avenue was a chain store, which had a spandynew look that made it unique in our town. People said that they sold things cheap there, but we did not patronize them because we did not know who they were. We did not know the baker either, but at least we knew that it was his store, and in Wollaston it did not seem friendly to shop in a place that appeared to have no owner except just some corporation or other.

Close to the snubbed chain store was Hardy’s jewelry store, which we patronized once when my mother’s jewelry became unglued. It was a hand-painted portrait of Beatrice Cenci set in a brooch, and Mr. Hardy stuck it back into its gold hoop frame. He took such trouble with it and discussed it so politely that whenever my mother wore it after that she told people about Mr. Hardy’s interest, and said that she really would not be surprised at all if it turned out to be something quite valuable. Mr. Hardy’s show window was another halt in my walk; everything in it would have made wonderful presents: signet rings, lockets and chains, watches on fleur-de-lis pins, mother-of-pearl paper cutters, and other flighty attractions.

Next door was Mr. N. G. Nickerson’s real-estate office. My father said that N. G. stood for no good, but I think that this was a snap judgment. Mr. Nickerson had formerly been our landlord when we lived in the house on the hill, but I do not think he did anything no good to us, except to raise the rent.

After Mr. Nickerson’s came a store which took orders for coal and fire insurance and had to do with deeds and titles. It had a window display which was at once simple and original: a small grate full of some newfangled thing called coal briquets, which looked like black cement snowballs.

After this novelty came something a little more conventional — the show window of Mr. Gilbert Shunk’s periodical, stationery, and tobacco store. His sister Alice helped him to run it, and either she or Gilbert had been to school with my sister, so of course we had known them for years. I used to hang about their magazine counter on the lamest of excuses, peeking into the pages of Bon Ton or the Elite to see what gorgeous styles Paris was wearing. But in spite of this thrill Mr. Shunk’s store was not always an unalloyed pleasure. My father used to send me there to buy his Dill’s Plug Cut Tobacco, which seemed a rather unnecessary humiliation. I fussed about it to my mother until finally she told him that it did not look nice for me to be buying tobacco, because I was growing up. With some asperity and a few well-chosen words, my father made it clear that he felt I could continue this trifling service and, if I played my cards right, might still manage to mature without in any way forfeiting the respect of the community. With such a premise I cannot think how his side lost. I know it was a tussle, but my mother’s pleas finally brought him to bay.

As if to make up for the seamy side of Mr. Shunk’s, next door was the candy store, with one whole window full of marshmallow bananas, Squirrel Nut Bars, peppermint heart tokens, and some chocolate marshmallow mice, with tails of paraffined string. It was kind of somebody to take such trouble, for they tasted much better than just plain shapeless chocolate marshmallows, though of course the paraffined string was excess baggage, because even we did not attempt to eat that. Here too were licorice whips, sticks of O. K. Chewing Gum, whip-cream caramels, and some untrustworthy confection which looked like large cone-shaped gumdrops, but, when bitten into, spilled out on one’s dress a sticky syrup called liquor. Much safer, if one cared to remain tidy, was a pink waxen candy which came in a small fluted metal frying pan with a tiny spoon embedded in the candy, the better to give us lead poisoning.

The candy shop was near the top of the hill, and after it came the barber shop and the old Wollaston Hotel, which had been closed up for years. I think my mother told me that it had once flourished with a liquor license in the old days, when tallyho parties used to stop there and raise ructions on their way to and from Brockton Fair. But in my time it was always boarded up and wore a sinister look, as if it lodged ghosts of its own wicked past. On the corner by the hotel I turned left and crossed the railroad bridge, a weather-beaten old structure which shook so, when a train passed beneath it, that it seemed eager to fall apart. Just beyond it, clinging to the down side of the hill, was my destination, our post office, a low clapboarded building painted red with a buff trim. It was only one room, with a partition between the public and our Civil Service, but it was as open and aboveboard as could be, for all we had to do was look through the General Delivery window to see all the wheels go round. Sometimes our Mr. Mullins would still be there, smoking his pipe and cooling off or thawing out, depending on whatever season we happened to be in. But he was off duty and just enjoying himself, so it was our postmaster, Mr. Burns, who usually took care of our wants.

Mr. Burns was just about the most affable man in Wollaston. He could always be relied on to take tickets for church sociables and school entertainments, and once when I was a little girl he paid me five cents for a bouquet of dandelions, which was very kind, for his own front lawn had been so full of them that I cannot believe he needed any more. Mr. Burns seemed to take it as a compliment whenever people came into the post office, and he met them with a pleasant face whether they were buying stamps or irately trying to trace a lost parcel.

Even before Mr. Burns gave me his attention at the General Delivery window I knew if there was any hope of a letter, for I could see the rows of wooden pigeonholes running along the wall, and if there was anything in the box marked J there was a chance that it might be for me, rather than for any other J in the Down-in-the-Plains Section. If it was for me, then every cloud was rosy, and if it turned out to be an actress’s picture I took it all the way home before I opened it, to torment myself as long as it was humanly possible with anticipation of what it would look like.

There were long stretches, of course, when I did not receive anything at all, not even so much as a sample, and during one of these dull periods I had occasion to regard Mr. Burns and his friendliness with something less than relish. One evening he said to me, plaintively: ‘I’ve been trying and trying to figure it out. Tell me, for heaven sakes, Ruth, what on earth is it you’re expecting?''

At that moment I could have done with less friendliness in our Postal Department and more laissez faire in regard to my mail. But, even allowing for Mr. Burns’s forwardness, it was a pleasant world to walk in, where we knew all the people and they knew us, and because they lived in Wollaston they must be nice people, for the bad people were all in the newspapers and nobody ever knew them.

January 14. — Today Kay and I did stay at home and my cold is quite bad; it makes me look like a perfect fright. Kay spent the day with me and we studied and wrote letters. Later she went home to pay the coal man and then came down again. We made tea ourselves. It was fun. Anna has typhoid pneumonia. Poor child!

I think the news that Anna Witham had typhoid pneumonia did not seem as important to me as the fact that Kay Follett went home to pay the coal bill. Anna Witham’s family was rich and she could afford typhoid pneumonia, but the Folletts were not rich and yet Kay went home to pay their coal bill just like that. It impressed me, because our own coal bill was a horrible bugbear which hung over us soon after Labor Day until whatever glorious date it was paid. Fourteen Elmwood Avenue knew several devils, but I think the coal bill led off.

Sometimes my father would refer to coal as ‘black diamonds,’ and sometimes as something less printable. But whatever way he chose to mention it was a reliable barometer of his feelings. Ordinarily one would not expect coal to be a topic of conversation, once it was stowed away in the cellar, but our attitude was not quite so fickle. Thought less we may have been in many respects, but no one could say that we put our coal away and forgot it.

Soon after its arrival we would all go down cellar to look at it, piled prosperously high in the bin and spreading out even beyond its own confines, towards the general direction of the jelly closet. It looked handsome and shiny and important, and gave us a feeling of astonishment that we could buy anything so big. My father would take a seat on the chopping block and survey his property with pride, which was as it should be, for next to my mother’s engagement ring it was the most valuable thing that we owned. But after the first pleasant shock of possession had started to wear off, my father would remember about the bill for such a heap of Nature’s Wonders, and he would incline to grow moody. In spite of all we might do to distract him, his moodiness soon turned to melancholy, and he would groan and wonder if it was all coal, or if the inside might not turn out to be clinkers.

‘Better take a good look at it,’ he would advise us dourly, ‘ because what’s goin’ to happen next year God alone only knows, and He won’t tell.’

‘Clinton!’ my mother would say automatically, for by now she was more or less reconciled to my father’s disparagement of the Almighty.

‘Wag your head all you want to,’ he continued, ‘but the fact remains that He won’t. Next year we might all be out pickin’ it up off the railroad tracks. It’s a blessin’ they’re handy. Even lazy as Ruth is, it can’t strain her to only walk a block.’

‘Oh, Clinton,’ my mother remonstrated gently, ‘you do love to look on the gloomy side.'

‘Well, hell! History repeats itself, don’t it?’ he demanded with asperity. ‘It was gloomy all right, all right, gettin’ coal the year the Portland went down. And we ain’t got no Charlie Bryant for mayor, now. Price of coal was so steep that year it was cheaper to die and get buried, until Charlie Bryant went and bought a whole carload out of his own pocketbook, had it set on a sidin’ up West Quincy way, and invited everybody who wasn’t too frozen to dip in free of charge.’

‘Oh, wasn’t that lovely!’ exclaimed my mother admiringly. ‘That was a beautiful thing for him to do! And I always liked Mrs. Bryant, too. Years ago she gave me a recipe for chocolate sauce.'

My father arose from his seat on the chopping block and favored her with a withering glare. ‘I know I don’t like this town,’ he said decisively. ‘It’s got rents higher than Babylon’s Hangin’ Gardens, and you can’t walk a mile in any direction without endin’ up in a swamp.’

My mother and I recognized storm signals and set our course of behavior accordingly, for in a conversation starting on this level one thing was apt to lead to another, and before the evening was over we, as well as Wollaston, were likely to be in the line of direct fire.

January 16. — Today Miss Zeller did not come to school and so Kay and I walked down to Quincy Square with Miss O’Neill. She was too sweet for anything! I certainly love her. She talked to me most of the time. I was certainly tickled. Afterwards Kay and I went over to Mrs. Nickerson’s. Mr. N. and William came in later. William was quite unthawed, but Mr. N. is the flower of that flock.

Mr. N., the flower of the flock, is not the Mr. N. G. Nickerson, our former landlord. The two families were not related. The Flower of the Flock and his Nickerson family had recently moved to Wollaston and bought the Page house on the hill. Mrs. Nickerson was a pleasant lady whom I enjoyed calling on. Sometimes I would be welcome and sometimes the maid, looking quite dishonest, would say that Mrs. Nickerson was not at home. But when Mrs. Nickerson did receive me she was very nice and I enjoyed my call, in spite of the fact that she kept me in a continual state of suspense, for she was forever throwing out invitations for some permanently indefinite date. I must come for dinner some night; I must lunch with her one of these days; I must visit their summer home at Megansett; I must do this and that and go to the theatre with them and goodness knows what all. But either Mrs. Nickerson loved to torment me, or else her vitality gave out along with the invitation.

Only once did any of these pleasant suggestions turn out to be more than a promise. During the winter when I was in New York, studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Mrs. Nickerson arrived in town and put up at the Hotel Prince George. She invited me to lunch with her at the Mary Elizabeth Tea Room and actually set a definite day and hour. It seemed as though there must be a catch in it somewhere, and I felt almost baffled when Mrs. Nickerson showed up promptly and the engagement went off according to Hoyle. After feeding me so kindly, she took me shopping next door at Best’s, and there almost killed me with kindness by buying me a rose linen shirtwaist with two rosebuds cross-stitched on the collar. It was so beautiful that I could hardly wait to get home with it and bedazzle the Three Arts Club girls. Mrs. Nickerson seemed to me a cross between the greatest living benefactress and Saint Elizabeth of rosesand-loaves fame.

Lost in admiration of how beautiful I should soon be in my new finery, I was suddenly brought back to earth with a wallop, as I heard Mrs. Nickerson say, ‘I’ll have it sent to the Prince George and you can come down there and call for it.’ I knew everything had been going too well. My heart sank, but I managed to protest half-heartedly that it would be no trouble at all to carry my shirtwaist home with me. Mrs. Nickerson was firm, however, and so I took leave of my treasure, as I thought sadly of how it had almost been really mine.

Some days later Mrs. Nickerson wrote that she must return home but would leave the shirtwaist in the parcel room of the Prince George. ‘No parcel for Miss Ruth Gordon,’the attendant assured me, and I felt that I ought to have known this would happen, and saved myself the trip downtown.

But the vision of that rose-colored waist did not leave me. Six months passed and still I thought about it, for I was now frantically looking for a job and it seemed to me if only I had pretty clothes it might be easier to get past the outer office boy and convince some manager that I could become an actress if he would only give me a chance.

One evening I was left with no place to go and no money to go there, for, owing to an unpaid board bill, even the Three Arts Club had to be avoided until after the Matron had gone to bed. I wandered here and there, and without any particular thought in mind, except to kill a little time, I drifted around to the Prince George. Strolling leisurely over to the parcel room, I said to the man in charge, ‘Are you sure you haven’t any parcel for Miss Ruth Gordon ?’ The man was sure so quickly that it was astonishing how little time had been killed. ‘There wouldn’t be a parcel there for Miss Ruth Jones either, would there?’ I improvised hastily, in order to prolong the visit. The man looked at me as though I were trifling with him, but he referred once more to his book, then got a stepladder and rummaged around in a top closet. At last he brought down a parcel with such a thick coat of dust on it that it looked as if it were wrapped up in gray squirrel fur.

Mrs. Nickerson had forgotten my stage name and I had all but forgotten my real one, but what’s in a name? My rose linen shirtwaist was mine at last. In spite of its late December blooming, it came in handier even than if it had flowered in season, and Mrs. Nickerson proved to be truly my benefactress in a way to make up for all former disappointments. A very wonderful thing happened: I sold it for a dollar, which paid for a good many carfares between the Three Arts Club and the managers’ offices.

Previous to my windfall, the question of whether I walked from West 85th Street to the vicinity of Times Square was largely determined by whether some solvent Three Arts Club member had left a nickel or two lying handy in her pin tray. Perhaps this will explain to the young ladies who lived there during the winter of 1915 why their pin trays were so often empty when they returned home at night. I wish I knew where they all lived now, so that I might send them my thanks and explain that it was not the walking I minded, but the hole was getting so large in the bottom of my shoe. Mrs. Nickerson’s gift saved much wear and tear on my conscience and footgear alike.

January 18. — Today, altho the sun was shining gaily, I didn’t go to church because I had to write an essay which I have to use for a speech in English tomorrow. This afternoon I washed my hair. I’ve been playing the piano all day learning ‘Kiss Me Good Night’ and ‘ Get Out and Get Under.’

‘Kiss Me Good Night’ I cannot remember, but ‘Get Out and Get Under’ was a song about a young man who had trouble with his automobile.

I wonder if my mother, hearing these pieces, thought of all her labors that had brought me to this doubtful peak of musicianship, for it was through her efforts that I learned to play at all. She had wanted me to have all the accomplishments, and although there was no money to be spent on acquiring them, there was labor to be bartered, and when it came to hard work my mother did not stint herself.

When I was seven years old she started me taking piano lessons from Mrs. Percy Moorehouse, who was rated the best teacher in Wollaston. My mother arranged with Mrs. Moorehouse to sew one day a week for her and in return Mrs. Moorehouse was to give me two half-hour lessons. My mother was bubbling over with excitement at this deal, and talked about it all the way home. ‘But don’t you go telling your father I’m going to sew for Mrs. Moorehouse,’ she warned me.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t he like it?’

‘Oh, well,’ she said vaguely, ‘you know how your father is,’ and, just in case I did not know, she gave me a nickel to keep my mouth shut.

Almost immediately I took part in a concert which Mrs. Moorehouse’s pupils gave in our teacher’s front parlor. I wore my best rosebud dimity and my blue glass Venetian beads, which were hardly ever allowed out of their cottonwool wrappings because my mother said they were so valuable. On my middle finger was my turquoise ring which Aunt Ela Simpson had given me when I was a baby. She had bought it for me to grow to, and in those baby days I had to have it tied on with a ribbon which ended up in a bow at my wrist, but by now it had gotten so tight that I could endure the pain of it only occasionally. My mother urged me to try and put up with it this afternoon because I might never be asked to appear in a concert again. I sat stiffly in one of Mrs. Moorehouse’s chairs, which turned out to be a very ticklish proposition. I envied the other pupils the protection of their longer dresses, for where my petticoat ruffle ended and my stockings began was causing me no end of trouble. From the parents’ side of the room, my mother gave me a constant series of winks and nods all bearing definite suggestions that I should sit still, and so I tried to forget about my private troubles by concentrating on my best patent-leather shoes from Thayer, McNeil and Hodgkins. They stuck straight out in front of me, for in this particular chair it was useless to try to make them touch the floor; but I did not mind, since they were as hand-some a sight as one could wish, and, like my Venetian glass beads, I saw them rarely.

The pupils played solos and duets; Mrs. Moorehouse herself obliged with a long number and her daughter Marian gave us a piece on the cello — which was big of Mrs. Moorehouse, for she did not give cello lessons. At last came my turn; the piano stool was raised with a distressing shriek and I was hoisted on to it to grapple publicly with the intricacies of the ‘Doll’s Dream’ (Püppchens Träumen und Erwachen). It was composed to show three phases of the dolly: ‘The doll sleeps’ (Püppchen schldft ein), ‘The doll wakes’ (Püppchen erwacht), ‘The doll dances’ (Püppchen tanzt). Mrs. Moorehouse sat beside me to turn the pages and give me stamina, and I ploughed right through the whole three phases with no noticeable break.

When I had finished and the guests had applauded, my mother stood up, looking very flushed and quite unnaturally bright. She said breathlessly, ‘Excuse me, Mrs. Moorehouse, this is the proudest day of my life.’ Then she sat down again, and her face shone through a mist of perspiration. When my father came home that night she told him about it, and although he tried to pass it off lightly we could see that even he was shaken. ‘Snuggy,’ he said, calling me by a name he had made up for me when I was a baby, which had long ago been discarded. ‘Why, Snuggy! Did you really play the piano in front of everybody?’

‘I tell you, Clinton,’ said my mother, ‘I don’t know of one other child in the whole of Wollaston who could have sat up there as big as life and played the way she did, and don’t think I’m prejudiced. Did I tell you what Mrs. Moorehouse said? She says Ruth has a natural touch! I tell you, Clinton, I’d like to have died.’

Before long I was equal to ‘The Merry Miller’ and my father’s favorite, ‘The Pixies’ Drill’ When I was asked to play for company he would say, ‘ Give us “ The Pixies’ Drill,” Ruth,’ and then he would reassure the guests, ‘Listen now, this one’s all right; it’s got a lot of go.’ He used to call for it even when I got to be fourteen or fifteen, until I finally pretended I had forgotten it because I thought it seemed too childish a piece. My father was really distressed. ‘ I don’t see how you ever let that get away from you,’ he said regretfully. ‘Next to “Sailin’” that was your best piece of all. When you get somethin’ good like that was, make it a rule to hang on to it.’

My mother loved best the pieces which called for my hands to be crossed over back and forth. This struck her as very difficult, and she would draw her chair close to the piano to get the best possible view. After I had finished she would remind us again of that first concert when Mrs. Moorehouse had said that I had a natural touch.

When I was about twelve, Mrs. Moorehouse went through a long period of illness and it would be many months before she could take pupils again. We changed over to Miss Jeannie Hatch, with whom we were allowed to make the same arrangement for paying, except that Miss Hatch preferred to have the sewing done at our house instead of having my mother come to her. This was very annoying to me, for it meant that each week I had to carry home a big suit box of Miss Jeannie Hatch’s, and after my mother had finished sewing its contents I had to carry it back up the hill to Miss Hatch’s. One day a girl at school said, ‘You know what I heard about you? Your mother sews for Miss Hatch to pay for your music lessons.’

‘She does not,’ I said, laughing superciliously at the mere thought.

‘Well, then,’ said my friend, ‘what’s that big box you carry up to Miss Hatch’s every week?’

‘I don’t have to tell you if I don’t want to,’ was my trapped repartee.

I wanted to give up taking music lessons at once, but my mother said, ‘Just because she’s small doesn’t mean you have to be, and you got no call to feel bad, only I just hope to gracious your father doesn’t hear about it, because he’d be jumping mad.’

‘But, Mama,’ I argued, ‘even you must be ashamed about sewing for my lessons, because you never told Papa.’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ she said tartly. ‘Do you think I want him to feel he can’t do for you? I guess there’s more’n one kind of pride.’

‘But how does he think they get paid for?’

‘Oh, well, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He thinks they just cost a quarter.’

‘But, Mama,’ I persisted, ‘if Papa wouldn’t want you to take in sewing I don’t think it’s right for you to make me take lessons.’

‘You just worry about your own worries and don’t trouble about what doesn’t concern you; later on when you got more sense you’ll be glad and thankful I made you keep up your music. Some day it’ll give you a lot of happiness.’

As my mother heard me take all day to learn ‘Kiss Me Good Night’ and ‘Get Out and Get Under’ I wonder if she thought that all the yards of sewing she had done for Mrs. Moorehouse and Miss Jeannie Hatch had been well invested.

(To be continued)