I heard the rushing footsteps of the stage-manager: "That's you!" he shouted; "go on! go on, run!"
Run? She seemed to have grown fast to the floor. We heard the angry _aside_ of the actor on the stage: "Send someone on here--for Heaven's sake!"
"Are you going on?" cried the frantic prompter.
She dropped her arms limply at her sides and whispered: "I--I--c-a-n-t!"
He turned, and as he ran his imploring eye over the line of faces, each girl shrank back from it. He reached me--I had no fear, and he saw it. "Can you go on there?" he cried. I nodded. "Then for God's sake go!"
I gave a bound and a rush that carried me half, across the stage before the manager caught me--and so I made my entrance on the stage, and danced and marched and sang with the rest, and all unconsciously took my first step upon the path that I was to follow through shadow and through sunshine--to follow by steep and stony places, over threatening bogs, through green and pleasant meadows--to follow steadily and faithfully for many and many a year to come.
On our first salary day, to the surprise of all concerned, I did not go to claim my week's pay. To everyone who spoke to me of the matter, I simply answered: "Oh, that will be all right." When the second day came I was the last to present myself at the box-office window. Mr. Ellsler was there and he opened the door and asked me to come in. As I signed my name on the salary list I hesitated perceptibly and he laughingly said: "Don't you know your own name?" Now on the first day of all, when the stage-manager had taken down our names, I had been gazing at the scenery and when he called out: "Little girl, what is your name?" I had not heard, and someone standing by had said: "Her name is Clara--Clara Morris, or Morrisey, or Morrison, or something like that," and he dropped the last syllable from my name Morrison, and wrote me down Morris; so when Mr. Ellsler put his question, "Don't you know your name?" that was certainly the moment when I should have spoken--but I was too shy, and there and thereafter held my peace, and have been in consequence Clara Morris ever since.
I having signed for and received my two weeks' salary, Mr. Ellsler asked why I had not come the week before, and I told him I preferred to wait because it would seem so much more if I got both weeks' salary all at one time. And he gravely nodded and said "it was rather a large sum to have in hand at one time"--and, though I was very sensitive to ridicule, I did not suspect him of making fun of me.