Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) Transcriber's note Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY [Illustration: "We are all going to stand by, little girl"] BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY BY MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS Author of "THE MELTING OF MOLLY," "THE GOLDEN BIRD," "THE TINDER BOX," etc. NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1919 Copyright, 1919, by THE CENTURY CO. Copyright, 1918, by INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY (HARPER'S BAZAR) _Published, April, 1919_ BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY CHAPTER I The need of a large sum of money in a great hurry is the root of many noble ambitions, in whose branches roost strange companies of birds, pecking away for dollars that grow--or do not--on bushes. And it was in such a quest that Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, lit upon a limb of life beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford of Broadway, New York. Their joint endeavors made a great adventure. "There's nothing to it, Pop; either pony girls will have to grow four legs to cut new capers, somebody will have to write a play entitled 'When Courtship Was in Flower,' requiring flowered skirts ten yards wide with a punch in each furbelow, or we go out of the theatrical business," said Mr. Vandeford, as he shuffled a faint, violet-tinted letter out of a pile of advertising posters emblazoned with dancing girls and men, several personal bills, two from a theatrical storage house and one from an electrical expert, leaned back in his chair, and prepared to open the violet communication. "We dropped twenty thousand cool on 'Miss Cut-up,' and those sixteen pairs of legs cost us fifteen hundred a week. We might be in danger of starving right here on Broadway, if we hadn't picked a sure-fire hit in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.'" "Ain't it the truth," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, as he glanced up from his typewriter with a twinkle in his big black eyes that were like gems in a round, very sedate, even sad, Hebrew face. "Bare legs and 'cut-ups' is already old now, Mr. Vandeford. It is that we must have now a play with a punch." "The law won't let us take anything more off the chorus, so we'll have to swing back and put a lot on. Costumes that cost a million will be the next drag, mark me, Pop," Mr. Godfrey Vandeford declaimed with a gloomy brow, as he still further delayed exploring the violet missive. "A hundred thousand it will take for costuming 'The Rosie Posie Girl,'" agreed Pop dolefully, from above the letter he was slowly pecking out of the machine.