"What a suspicious little devil you are!"

But when a man wanted me to blow down a gun-barrel next morning, the
property-man exclaimed: "Here, you! let saucer-eyes alone! I don't know
whether she gets her _savey_ out of her head or chews it out of her gum,
but she don't guy worth a cent, so you needn't try to put anything on to
her!"

And from that day to this I have been free from the attacks of the
practical joker.

CHAPTER SIXTH

The Regular Season Opens--I have a Small Part to Play--I am among
Lovers of Shakespeare--I too Stand at his Knee and Fall under the
Charm.

Up to this time the only world I had known had been narrow and sordid and
lay chill under the shadow of poverty; and it is sunlight that makes the
earth smile into flower and fruit and laugh aloud through the throats of
birds. But now, standing humbly at the knee of Shakespeare, I began to
learn something of another world--fairy-like in fascination, marvellous
in reality. A world of sunny days and jewelled nights, of splendid
palaces, caves of horror, forests of mystery, and meadows of smiling
candor. All peopled, too, with such soldiers, statesmen, lovers, clowns,
such women of splendid chill chastity, fierce ambition, thistle-down
lightness, and burning, tragic love as made the heart beat fast to think
of.

Perhaps if I had attempted simply to read Shakespeare at that time, I
might have fallen short both in profit and in pleasure; but it was the
_hearing_ him that roused my attention. There was such music in the sound
of the words, that the mind was impelled to study out their meaning. It
seems to me that a human voice is to poetry what a clear even light is to
a reader, making each word give up its full store of meaning.

At that time Forrest, crowned and wrapped in royal robes, was yet
tottering on his throne. Charlotte Cushman was the Tragic Queen of the
stage. Mr. James Murdoch, frail and aging, but still acting, was highly
esteemed. Joseph Jefferson, E. L. Davenport, J. K. Hackett, Edwin Adams,
John E. Owens, Dan. Setchell, Peter Richings and his daughter Caroline,
Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Miss Lucille Western, Miss Maggie Mitchell, Mr. and
Mrs. Conway, Matilda Heron, Charles Couldock, Joseph Proctor, Mr. and
Mrs. Albaugh, Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, the Webb Sisters, Kate
Reynolds, were all great favorites, not pausing to mention many more,
while Edwin Booth, the greatest light of all, was rising in golden glory
in the East.