on this scene all day."

Then, when everybody run off, he set down on the red plush sofa that was
now in place, relighted a cigar that smelled like it had gone out three
days before, and grinned at me in an excited manner.

"Your little friend is a find," he says. "Mark my words, Mrs. Pettijohn,
she's got a future or I don't know faces. She'll screen well, and she's
one of the few that can turn on the tears when she wants to. I always
did hate glycerine in this art. Now if only I can get her camera
wise--and I'll bet I can! Lucky we'd just started on this piece when St.
Clair blew up. Only one little retake, where she's happy over her boy's
promotion in the factory. She's bound to get away with that; then if she
can get the water again for this scene it will be all over but signing
her contract."

I was some excited myself by this time, you'd better believe. Nervous as
a cat I found myself when Vida was led out in the sad mother's costume by
this other actress that had made her up. But Vida wasn't nervous the
least bit. She was gayly babbling that she'd always wanted to act, and
once she had played a real part in a piece they put on at Odd Fellows'
Hall in Fredonia, and she had done so well that even the Methodist
minister said she was as good as the actress he saw in Lawrence Barrett's
company before he was saved; and he had hoped she wouldn't be led away by
her success and go on the real stage, because he could not regard it as a
safe pursuit for young persons of her sex, owing to there being so little
home life--and now what did she do first?

This director had got very cold and businesslike once more.

"Stop talking first," says he. "Don't let me hear another word from you.
And listen hard. You're sitting in your humble home sewing a button on
your boy's coat. He's your only joy in life. There's the coat and the
button half sewed on with the needle and thread sticking in it. Sit down
and sew that button on as if you were doing it for your own son. No
pretending, mind you. Sew it on as if--"

He hesitated a minute and got a first-class inspiration.

"Sew it on as if it was a button on your husband's coat that you told me
about. Every two or three stitches look up to show us how happy you are.
When you get it sewed, take the coat up this way and hug it. You look
still happier at that. Then you walk over to the mantel, pick up the
photograph of your boy that's there by that china dog and kiss it. I
won't tell yo