The Columbus trip had a special effect upon the affairs of the ballet. We had received $3 a week salary, but every one of us had had some home assistance. Now we were going to a strange city, and no one on earth could manage to live on such a salary as that, so our stipend was raised to $5 a week, and the three of us (we were but three that season) set to work trying to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board-bill, her basket-bill, her wash-bill, and all the small expenses of the theatre--powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc., to say nothing at all of shoes and clothing--all out of $5 a week.
Of course there was but one way to do it, and that was by doubling-up and sharing a room with some one, and that first season I was very lucky. Mrs. Bradshaw found a house where the top floor had been finished off as one great long room, running the entire length of the building from gable to gable, and she offered me a share in it.
Oh, I was glad! Blanche and I had one-half the room, and Mrs. Bradshaw and the irrepressible little torment and joy of her life, small Jack, had the other half. No wonder I grew to reverence her, whose character could bear such intimate association as that. I don't know what her religious beliefs were. She read her Bible Sundays, but she never went to church, neither did she believe in a material hell; but it was not long before I discovered that when I said my prayers over in my corner, she paused in whatever she was doing, and remained with downcast eyes--a fact that made me scramble a bit, I'm afraid.
There was but one thing in our close companionship that caused her pain, and that was the inevitable belief of strangers, that I was her daughter and Blanche her protegée--they being misled by the difference in our manner toward her. In the severity of my upbringing I had been taught that it was nothing short of criminal to be lacking in respect for those who were older than myself; therefore I was not only strictly obedient to her expressed wishes, but I rose when she entered a room, opened and closed doors, placed chairs at table, gave her precedence on all occasions, and served her in such small ways as were possible; while Blanche ignored her to such a degree that one might have mistaken her for a stranger to our little party.