pretty hungry, I suppose, and t'other
day when she was playin' with the Jones child, there in the same house,
Mrs. Jones asks her to come in and have some dinner; and as she lifted
one of the covers from the cooking-stove, the kid says: 'My, you must be
awful rich, you make a fire at both ends of your stove at once. My mamma
only makes a fire under just one hole, 'cause we don't have anything
much to cook now 'cept tea.' The speech reached the mother's ears, and
she smacked the child for lettin' on to any one how poor they are. Lord,
no, Miss, she dar'sent take no money, though God knows they need it bad
enough."

With dim eyes I hurriedly scribbled a line on a bit of wrapping paper,
saying:--"This little girl has played her part so nicely that I want her
to have something to remember the occasion by, and since I shall not be
in the city to-morrow, and cannot select anything myself, I must ask you
to act for me." Then I folded it about a green note, and calling back
the child, I turned her about and pinned both written message and money
to the back of her apron. The little creature understood the whole thing
in a flash. She danced about joyously: "Oh, Sam," she cried, "the lady's
gived me a present, and I can't help myself, can I?"

And Sam wiped his hand on his breeches leg, and, clearing his throat
hard, asked "if I'd mind shakin' hands?"

And I didn't mind it a bit. Then, with clumsy care, he wrapped the child
in her thin bit of a cape, and led her back to that home which gave
lodgement to both poverty and pride.

While the play was new, in the very first engagement outside of New
York, I had a very little child for that scene. She was flaxen blond,
and her mother had dressed her in bright sky-blue, which was in itself
an odd colour for a little boy to wear. Then the small breeches were so
evidently mother-made, the tiny bits of legs surmounted with such an
enormous breadth of seat, the wee Dutch-looking blue jacket, and the
queer blue cap on top of the flaxen curls, gave the little creature the
appearance of a Dutch doll. The first sight of her, or, perhaps, I
should say "him," the first sight of him provoked a ripple of merriment;
but when he turned full about on his bits of legs and toddled up stage,
giving a full, perfect view of those trousers to a keenly observant
public, people laughed the tears into their eyes. And this baby noted
the laughter, and resented it with a thrust-out lip and a frowning knit
of