_Nan_.

XV

_Dear Kate_:

Well, I am back at the old work and it is all right. I have been dancing
in the best restaurants in New York, and what do you think, Kate, I am
going to dance at the Winter Garden. The manager there saw my poppy
dance the other night, and he is giving me a dance. I can still come
back and dance at twelve o'clock in the restaurant. Fred Kelly, my
dancing partner, is crazy glad. Will Henderson nearly cried. He said,
"You have got your chance, Nan, you have got your chance." I offered to
give him part of my salary because if he had not thought out all the
pretty dances, him and the artist chap, I never could have piped them
out myself. But he won't take a cent. He is dead square, and not a half
bad fellow, and I have been trying to get him to take the cure. I
offered to pay all expenses if he would go up to that dope cure joint at
White Plains, and sometimes he says he will, then again says he won't.
You can't trust a person who takes dope. Sometimes he shows up every
night and plays just beautiful, then again we don't see him for ten
days. Fred Kelly is so tickled at this chance to work in the good
places, that he has braced up and seems a different fellow. He used to
drink a lot and one time when he was tanked up, he had to throw me from
one arm to the other in the dance, and he let me fall and hurt my back
so bad, I could hardly move for a week. It gave me an awful scare and I
had a good heart to heart talk with him. I told him he either had to cut
out the booze or cut out working with me, cause you can't do the two
things and do both well. Oh, I am glad that I have left the joints and I
am proud of myself. I have worked awful hard and something inside of me
has always said I would win out, and it _is_ winning out, because there
ain't no bigger thing in my line than dancing at the Winter Garden.
They are going to advertise me, Kate, and they call me Nancy Lane.
Sounds kinda pretty, doesn't it? I got some of the nicest clothes you
ever saw. My new dancing slippers is made to order, and I got some
pretty things for my hair, though I think it looks better without
anything in it, as it is hard to match the color.

Mrs. Smith and the children came over the other afternoon to see the
toys. I bought the kids some things, then we went to a place and had ice
cream sodas and sundaes until I bet two babies went to sleep that night
with a stomach-ache.

Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. I got a