Then, the next thing I remember, I was with a company of Swiss bell-ringers, and we travelled all through the English provinces. I used to sing and dance in between their turns, and I tell you it was hard work, practising all day and dancing all night, almost. We were all fearfully poor, for we weren’t very much of an attraction. I had only one frock beside my stage costume, and that one was so patched I was ashamed to go to the pork shop, even, with it on. I was a regular little slave to old Max, who ran the company, and had to help cook and wash the dishes in the lodgings we took in the little towns. Bah! I hate the smell of brown Windsor soap to this day. I was just a little wild animal, for I never went to school a day in my life, and I was never allowed to go out on errands alone, unless they kept account of the exact time it would take to go and come, and they held me to account for every minute. I hardly think I ever talked to a child till I was grown up. Well, the business fell off in England, so we took passage in a sailing ship for California, around the Horn. That voyage was the happiest time of my life, for I had nothing to do but practise my steps one or two hours a day, when the sea was calm enough. There was a very nice old lady aboard who taught me how to sew, and gave me some flannel to make myself some underwear, for I had never worn anything but what showed before, and I didn’t even know that anyone else ever did. She taught me to read, too, and tried to help me with arithmetic, but mercy! I never could get figures into my head. Well, we got to San Francisco finally—that was about ten years ago. Bell-ringing didn’t seem to take very well; it was out of date, or other people did it better, because you know specialty people have to keep improving their act, and play on their heads, or while they’re tumbling through the air, or some novelty, nowadays, or it doesn’t go and it’s hard to get booked. But my act drew well, and it always saved our turn. I made up new steps all the time and invented pretty costumes, and so, of course, old Max watched me like grim death to see that I didn’t get away from him. We travelled all over the West, and all the time I was a drudge, did most of the work and got none of the money. They used to lock me into the house when they went out, and old Max’s wife would give me so much work to do that she’d know whether I’d been idle a moment. You wouldn’t think a girl in a fix like that had much chance to get married, would you? Well, I am married, or rather I was. I don’t know just how I stand now. Let me tell you about it.