he first play she ever saw was "Coriolanus," with Macready in
the leading part; her second play was "The Gamester." She became noted
in her school for her skill in reading aloud. Her competitors
grumbled: "No wonder she can read; she goes to the theatre!" Until
then she had been shy and reserved, not to say stupid, about reading
aloud in school, afraid of the sound of her own voice, and unwilling
to trust it; but acquaintance with the theatre loosened her tongue, as
she describes it, and gave opportunity and expression to a faculty
which became the ruling passion of her life. At home, as a child, she
took part in an operetta founded upon the story of "Bluebeard," and
played Selim, the lover, with great applause, in a large attic chamber
of her father's house before an enthusiastic audience of young people.

Elkanah Cushman had been for some years a successful merchant, a
member of the firm of Topliffe & Cushman, Long Wharf, Boston. But
failure befell him, "attributable," writes Charlotte Cushman's
biographer, Miss Stebbins, "to the infidelity of those whom he trusted
as supercargoes." The family removed from Boston to Charlestown.
Charlotte was placed at a public school, remaining there until she was
thirteen only. Elkanah Cushman died, leaving his widow and five
children with very slender means. Mrs. Cushman opened a boarding-house
in Boston, and struggled hard to ward off further misfortune. It was
discovered that Charlotte possessed a noble voice of almost two
registers, "a full contralto and almost a full soprano; but the low
voice was the natural one." The fortunes of the family seemed to rest
upon the due cultivation of Charlotte's voice and upon her future as a
singer. "My mother," she writes, "at great self-sacrifice gave me what
opportunities for instruction she could obtain for me; and then my
father's friend, Mr. R. D. Shepherd, of Shepherdstown, Va., gave me
two years of the best culture that could be obtained in Boston at that
time, under John Paddon, an English organist and teacher of singing."
When the English singer, Mrs. Wood--better known, perhaps, as Miss
Paton--visited Boston in 1835 or 1836, she needed the support of a
contralto voice. Charlotte Cushman was sent for, and rehearsed duets
with Mrs. Wood. The young beginner was advised to prepare herself for
the operatic stage; she was assured that such a voice would "lead her
to any height of fortune she coveted." She became the articled pupil
of Mr.