Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
I think of all her audience perhaps the Portia Person was the happiest
and the proudest. She took him absolutely by surprise. He hadn't
remotely connected the Mademoiselle Folly of the program with his
shabby client, but it was he who took her back in triumph to her
"children" and let them understand something about what had happened
and it was he who protected her interests during the excitable days
that followed. It took more tact to manage this new Mademoiselle Folly
than to arrange matters with the strange persons who sought her out.
Mademoiselle Folly still measured the value of her services by the
same standards that had governed Little Miss By-the-Day's. She
couldn't understand at all why one should be paid what seemed to be
fabulous sums for a brief half hour of "pretending" that one loved,
when a whole day's work that one hated meant only two dollars. I think
if it hadn't been for the dire necessity of those last days before the
impending auction they could never have made her consent to do it for
money. Impossible mathematician that she was, she could see the
multiple of even the lowest salary that vaudeville managers offered,
meant hope that she could sometime pay the appalling sum total of the
debts on the house in Montrose Place; that is, if, as the young lawyer
pointed out, she could "keep things coming her way." Surely it seemed
during those first delightful weeks of her amazing vogue that she
could "keep them coming" forever!
She was so flushed with enthusiasm, so joyous over these unexpected
opportunities! She was so earnest in her desire to give "for value
received"!
Never for a moment did she rest on her laurels. In spite of vast
hoards of songs in her amazing memory she set herself very humbly to
finding more.--The Wheezy's friends helped her so joyously! Her
audiences helped her so artlessly! And the Poetry Girl fairly lived in
the library unearthing treasures for her! It was a wonderful,
wonderful month, that month of May! She whistled and sang and talked
and gestured her way into thousands of hearts, she smiled naively at
her audiences' delight in her. She constantly varied her methods. Some
of her happiest results were merely lucky accidents--as on the day
when Babiche followed her out on the stage and sat at attention like a
trick dog. After that Babiche appeared at all the children's matinees
and oh, what a delicious lot of animal and children songs the Poetry
Girl discovered! And did you ever see her do "Battledore and
Shuttlecock" to minuet time?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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