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I had to go over all the papers of privates as v/ell as 
 officers and copy out their records." 
 
THE 
 TOMBOY AT WORK 
 
 BY 
 
 JEANNETTE L. GILDER 
 
 Author of " The Autobiography of a Tomboy " 
 
 ILLUSttLATED "BY FLORENCE SCOVEL SHINN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. 
 1904 
 

 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Coptes KeceivcQ 
 
 NOV 25 1^4 
 
 Copyrignx tnirii 
 USS O^ XXc Noi 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 
 Jeannette L. Gilder 
 
 Published, October, 1904 
 
^ 
 
 TO 
 
 the friend of my youth and of 
 
 my riper years 
 
 Clara Louise Kellogg-Strakosch 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 1 3 
 
 II .19 
 
 III 31 
 
 IV. 45 
 
 V. 59 
 
 VI 73 
 
 VII 89 
 
 VIII loi 
 
 IX no 
 
 X 120 
 
 XI . 128 
 
 XII 137 
 
 XIII 151 
 
 XIV 162 
 
 XV 174 
 
 XVI 184 
 
 XVIL 193 
 
 XVIII 202 
 
 XIX .213 
 
 XX 221 
 
 XXI 234 
 
 XXII 242 
 
 Tomboy at Work— Cut of! 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 *' I had to go over all the papers 
 of privates as well as officers 
 and copy out their records " 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Facing Page 
 
 '''Why not wear a necktie?' I 
 
 answered" .... 34 
 
 "But neither the horse nor his 
 rider had reckoned with the 
 tide" 40 
 
 "'You have saved my life,' she 
 said gaily, 'but,' pointing to 
 the rails, *I have lost my 
 sole'" 52 
 
 * I may be only sixteen years old, 
 
 but I know men " . . .66 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS— Continued 
 
 Facing Page 
 
 " Mme. Parepa-Rosa was a woman 
 of more than ample propor- 
 tions, but from that large 
 throat issued a voice of un- 
 usual sweetness and birdlike 
 quality " . . . .70 
 
 ** I enjoyed the performance tre- 
 mendously, and applauded 
 with might and main — much 
 to the detriment of my opera 
 bonnet " . . . .72 
 
 "... crossed her hands with 
 
 unusual effect " . . .86 
 
 ** I would sing as many as twenty 
 
 verses " . 99 
 
 *' The young man, not to be 
 'stumped,' took the thing in 
 his arms and waltzed quite 
 aroimd the room with it " . 104 
 
 ***If a burglar comes, he will 
 think that there is a man in 
 the house,' answered Kate " 138 
 
LIST OF ILUJSTRATIONS-Continued 
 
 Facing Pagk 
 
 ** Clara Louise Kellogg . . . 
 was the first really famous 
 person I had ever met " . 144 
 
 ''Her high notes were her best" 179 
 
 " In his long ulster and peaked 
 
 astrachan cap " ... . 203^ 
 
 "Our standing order was 'pea 
 
 soup and a French kiss"* . 210 
 
 Hannah 222 
 
The Tomboy 
 at Work 
 
The Tomboy 
 at Work 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "Men must work and women must 
 weep " was a line that was quoted to me 
 every time I expressed a determination 
 to make my ov/n living, and, incidentally, 
 that of others. A stupid line, I thought 
 it. Why should men have all the fun 
 of working, while the women stayed at 
 home and wept? The sentiment did not 
 appeal to me at all. I had no inclination 
 for weeping, and I had a decided inclina- 
 tion for working. 
 
 Even if I had not realised the necessity 
 
 of work after my father's death, I could 
 
 not have kept out of the working world. 
 
 It was not in me to stay at home and 
 
 3 
 
4 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 weep, while the men "went sailing out 
 into the west." I wanted to sail out 
 into the west, too, and to catch fish as 
 well as they. Just what sort of fish I 
 was going to catch I did not know, but 
 I fully made up my mind to cast my net 
 and see what happened. I knew then, as 
 I know now, that there was work for the 
 willing, if not sooner, then later; and I 
 intended to get mine sooner. 
 
 There were not many things for women 
 to do in those days, and fewer in Birdling- 
 ton than in most places. There was a 
 woman in the post-office — -she was the 
 postmaster's wife, to be sure, — a kindly 
 soul, who did not seem to take much 
 interest in her business, possibly because 
 she had so much else to do. She was 
 stout, and rather scant of breath, and I 
 noticed that it was as much as she could 
 do to reach the top boxes even when 
 she stood tiptoe. There I had the ad- 
 vantage of her. It was the lower boxes 
 that would give me the most trouble. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 5 
 
 Perhaps it wotdd be a relief to the good 
 woman if I should offer to take her posi- 
 tion. The only way to find out was to 
 ask. 
 
 "Mrs. Farnum, do you like to sort the 
 mail and hand out the letters?" I in- 
 quired. 
 
 "I can't say I'm over partial to it," 
 she answered frankly. 
 
 "How would you like me to take your 
 place?" 
 
 Mrs. Farnum was a pleasant-looking 
 woman, with round, rosy cheeks, well 
 screened by dancing brown ringlets. She 
 looked through the little window, and 
 shook her ringlets at me. "You're rather 
 young to be sorting over letters, but you're 
 tall for your age. You cotild get at them 
 top boxes easier than I can. I don't mind 
 your trying, but I guess you'll get pretty 
 tired of the job before long." 
 
 "Not much," I exclaimed joyously. 
 "I couldn't get tired of anything if I was 
 earning my living." 
 
6 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "Earning your living!" and the ringlets 
 stood still with surprise. "Lord save us 
 and bless us ! Why, there ain't no money 
 in it for me. I do it just to help Farnum." 
 
 "No money in it," I echoed dejectedly; 
 for I had seen visions of a weekly stipend, 
 which, if small, would at least be some- 
 thing to start with. "I've got to earn 
 money, so I'm afraid that I can't take 
 the job. Good morning." 
 
 In these days, I should no doubt have 
 thought of going on the stage, but the only 
 stage that I knew anything about in those 
 days was the one that ran between Bird- 
 lington and Crosswicks, and I should as 
 soon have thought of riding to success on 
 a hay-wagon as on that slow-going vehicle. 
 The subject was one of daily discussion in 
 the family, where, I am free to confess, 
 my ideas were looked upon as somewhat 
 Quixotic. But I was determined. 
 
 "What do you propose?" asked Aunt 
 Maria. 
 
 "Propose? I don't propose. This is 
 
The Tomboy at Work 7 
 
 not leap-year," I replied pertly, for there 
 was a note of doubt in her voice. 
 
 "Don't be rude, Nell," said my mother. 
 "It is only right that your Aunt Maria 
 and I should know what sort of work you 
 expect to do." 
 
 "I can go into an office." 
 "Go into an office! Any one could do 
 that, but what would you do when you 
 got there.?" This with a touch of sarcasm 
 from Aunt Maria. 
 
 "I would sweep it out, if necessary," I 
 answered, somewhat nettled. "I think 
 I should like that. So many great men 
 have begun by sweeping out an office." 
 
 "Great men, yes; but have you ever 
 heard of a great woman who began her 
 career by sweeping out an office.?" asked 
 Aunt Maria. 
 
 "It does not make any difference to me 
 what others have done; my mind is made 
 up. I am going into an office, and I am 
 going to write." 
 
 "You will do something. There is no 
 
8 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 doubt about that, Nell. And I dare say 
 that I shall get used to it; but it seems 
 a terrible thing to me for a girl scarcely 
 fifteen to go out into the worid to earn 
 her living," said my mother, with a little 
 shake in her voice. 
 
 "It is not respectable," said Aunt 
 Maria, who was more conventional than 
 my mother, and had rigid ideas of woman's 
 sphere. 
 
 "Not respectable," I exclaimed. "Look 
 at Rosa Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer, and — 
 and — and Dr. Mary Walker." 
 
 " Dr. Mary Walker! " Aunt Maria turned 
 pale. "If that's your idea, the sooner 
 you get rid of it the better. Not one of 
 the women you mention proves your 
 argument, for they one and all admit that 
 a woman has no right to go out into the 
 world to work, by making themselves look 
 as much like men as possible. Please do 
 not mention their names in my presence 
 again." She really shuddered as she left 
 the room. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 9 
 
 I could not blame Aunt Maria for her 
 point of view, as it was the only one held 
 in those days. Girls were not supposed 
 to occupy themselves with anything but 
 sewing and housekeeping. Anything like 
 independence was shocking, and to be de- 
 plored. My mother was more pained than 
 shocked at my determination, but she 
 realised that my brother Dixey had taken 
 a pretty heavy burden upon his none too 
 broad shoulders, and, in her heart, she 
 applauded the spirit that urged me on to 
 do my share of the work that had to be 
 done. 
 
 To find the right thing and to do it was 
 no easy task, but I was blessed with a 
 sanguine disposition, and no obstacle seemed 
 insurmountable. There was an old book 
 in my attic book-case called, if I remember 
 correctly, "Hazen's Book of Trades." I 
 studied it closely for suggestions, but, as 
 all of them were men's trades, I got few or 
 no hints from that source. The only one 
 that attracted me was that of the printer. 
 
lo The Tomboy at Work 
 
 I wanted to be where I could hear the 
 click of the type and smell the black and 
 greasy odor of printer's ink. And then 
 I wished to be as much like Benjamin 
 Franklin as possible. I should have liked 
 to walk up Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, 
 with a loaf of bread under each arm, to 
 make the likeness complete; but a certain 
 sense of propriety restrained me. The 
 next best thing was to speak to the editor, 
 who was also the proprietor and sole 
 reporter, of our local weekly, and ask him 
 if he would let me do some reporting for 
 him. 
 
 "There is nothing to report," he said. 
 And, judging by the news columns of his 
 paper, he spoke the truth. 
 
 At night, after I had retired to my attic 
 room, I lay awake for hours, it seemed to 
 me, wondering what was the best thing to 
 do. It was quite plain that Birdlington 
 presented no opportunities aside from 
 farming. I thought of growing hops, but 
 was deterred by Aunt Maria, who said 
 
The Tomboy at Work ii 
 
 that hops were only used to make beer, 
 which she, being of temperance principles, 
 did not approve of. I turned to the Weekly 
 Forum for agricultural hints, and there 
 read of the large profits made from 
 grapes. Again Aunt Maria disapproved. 
 Grapes were profitable only when they 
 were made into wine, and no wine-producing 
 fruit should be grown at Fair View. As 
 the place was hers, I had to obey. There 
 were other reasons why I did not plant 
 vineyards — one being a lack of the neces- 
 sary means. 
 
 About this time, a book called "Ten 
 Acres Enough" fell into my hands. If 
 ten acres were enough, how much more 
 than enough were fourteen! Fair View 
 consisted of fourteen, the most of it 
 tillable. There was a lovely meadow 
 with a brook babbling through it, an 
 orchard, a three-acre lot where we grew 
 oats, and a vegetable garden. The 
 meadow was given over to blackberry 
 bushes and brambles, but it was very 
 
12 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 picturesque, with its spreading chestnut 
 trees; a lovely place for picnics. In my 
 mother's childhood, the only water used 
 at the house was hauled up from this 
 brook in barrels. A springless cart, to 
 which an old horse was hitched, brought 
 the barrel up the lane to the house. To 
 sit in the cart was not a very pleasant way 
 of getting down to the brook, but an old 
 man working on the place thought that 
 he would like to try it. He remarked 
 afterward that, if it had not been for 
 the name of riding, he would rather have 
 walked. It was a pretty bumpy road 
 through the lane, and it is to this day. 
 This same old man was employed to fetch 
 the water to the house, and at the end of 
 the week he presented his bill to my 
 grandmother. This is the way it read: 
 
 "Dit dut 
 T brin d watter .... 2 bites." 
 
 To the average reader, this means 
 nothing. It might be hieroglyphics from 
 
The Tomboy at Work 13 
 
 the tomb of Rameses, or it might be 
 a doctor's prescription. To my grand- 
 mother, it was plain enough. "Dit dut" 
 meant "Mis' Nutt." The man had no 
 palate, and that was the way he pro- 
 nounced it. "To bringing ditto water, 
 two bits," a bit being a shilling. For 
 many years this unique bill was preserved 
 at Fair View. 
 
 To return to farming: I read "Ten 
 Acres Enough" with the greatest avidity. 
 The place described v/as not more than 
 ten miles down the river from Birdlington, 
 and what could be done at Burlington 
 could be done at Birdlington. When 
 I realised, however, how long it would take 
 to reap any profits from such a venture, 
 I decided that the best thing to do 
 was to get some work that led to im- 
 mediate results. I did not let the family 
 know that I was finding it difficult to 
 decide upon a line of work, but kept up a 
 bold front and thought hard. In thinking 
 over things one night, I remembered that 
 
14 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 my father was well acquainted with the 
 members of a famous publishing house 
 in New York, so I decided to write to the 
 firm and see what they could offer me. 
 
 Very promptly an answer came, written 
 in a beautiful, clear hand. The writer, 
 one of the brothers, spoke affectionately 
 and admiringly of my father, and ex- 
 pressed a wish that he could meet my 
 request with the offer of a position. 
 They did not employ women outside of the 
 bindery, and he could hardly ask my 
 father's daughter to take a position there. 
 If I was a boy, now, he could soon give 
 me something to do, for there was a va- 
 cancy in the bookkeeper's department. 
 
 I was not in the least discouraged by 
 that letter, but sat down at once and 
 answered it. I offered to take the book- 
 keeper's position. "To be sure," I wrote, 
 "I don't know anything about book- 
 keeping, but I think that I can learn all 
 that is necessary inside of two weeks, and 
 then I will be able to keep the books of 
 
The Tomboy at Work 15 
 
 your firm." I can imagine the twinkle in 
 the eye of the kindly old gentleman when 
 he read my letter. He answered it, 
 however, without poking fun at me, and 
 said that it was the rule of the house to 
 have only men bookkeepers, and they 
 could not break it, much as they would 
 like to, for me. So that incident was 
 closed. 
 
 Dixey had given up the position that he 
 held as assistant paymaster on the rail- 
 road that ran through Birdlington, and 
 had become a reporter on a Newark news- 
 paper. This was much more to his taste, 
 for he, too, loved the smell of printer's 
 ink. He would have held on to the posi- 
 tion of paymaster, however, as it enabled 
 him to live at home, but he was convinced 
 from certain things that happened that 
 that was not his Hne of work. His mind 
 was on other things, no matter how he 
 tried to keep it on the business in hand. 
 One day he went out on the road in a 
 hand-car to pay off the men. He had 
 
i6 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 thirty thousand dollars tied up in an old 
 newspaper, to avoid attracting attention. 
 At a wayside shanty, where he stopped to 
 get a bite of lunch, he fell to reading a 
 volume of poems that he carried in his 
 pocket. When he finished the poem, he 
 put the book back in his pocket and 
 started out on the hand- car. He had not 
 gone many miles down the road before he 
 missed the parcel. Had he dropped it on 
 the way ? or left it at the shanty ? Telling 
 the men they would have to go back, 
 as he had left something, he returned to 
 the shanty. Putting on as calm an ex- 
 terior as possible, he asked the old woman, 
 "Did I leave anything here?" 
 
 "Nothin' much," she replied, "some old 
 newspapers is all. I was going to light the 
 fire with them, but my old man is such 
 a reader I thought he'd kinder like to 
 read 'em"; and she fished the parcel out 
 from under a broken-down old sofa, where 
 she had kicked it out of the way. 
 
 "I'm so glad that your husband is a 
 
The Tomboy at Work 17 
 
 reader," said Dixey, clasping the parcel 
 tightly in his arms. " I had some things 
 tied up in that parcel that I shouldn't have 
 liked to lose. Thank you very • much. 
 I'll send a book to your husband." 
 
 "Much obleeged," replied the woman, 
 "but it ain't wuth it." 
 
 Dixey called upon the president of the 
 road, told him what had happened, and 
 offered his resignation. The president 
 would not accept it at first, but when he 
 found that Dixey was in earnest, he told 
 him that he would be allowed to go only 
 when he had found a more congenial 
 place. This came in a short time, and was 
 the position on the Newark paper. It was 
 in reading this paper that I found my 
 first work. 
 
 Among the news items was one which 
 said that a Newark journalist, Mr. John 
 Y. Foster, was about to write the history 
 of the New Jersey troops in the Civil 
 War, then just over. The paragraph pro- 
 ceeded to say that much of Mr. Foster's 
 
i8 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 work would have to be done in Trenton, 
 where the necessary records were kept in 
 the archives of the Adjutant- General's 
 office. I saw my opportunity, and im- 
 mediately sat down and wrote a letter to 
 Mr. Foster. As I had often heard Dixey 
 speak of him, I knew that he would 
 recognise my name. I told him who I 
 was, and said I should like to help him 
 write his history. I did not mention my 
 qualifications, or lack of them, for the 
 work, but he must have liked my con- 
 fidence (not to put too harsh a name 
 upon it), and noticed that I wrote a bold 
 round hand. In the course of a few 
 days, Mr. Foster's letter came. In it 
 he said that he was looking for some 
 one to search the records in the 
 Adjutant- General's office for him, and, if 
 I would call upon him at his hotel in 
 Trenton, he would be glad to talk it over. 
 I am not quite sure how I got home 
 with that letter. I suppose that I ran, 
 but those who saw me said that I flew. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Dashing up the stairs to my mother's 
 room, with the letter in my hand, I 
 shouted at the top of my voice, "Mother, 
 I've got it." As chicken-pox was raging 
 among the young people of Birdlington at 
 that time, my mother naturally thought 
 I had fallen a victim to the malady, but 
 she was reassured before she had time to 
 express her fears. 
 
 "I've got the position, and it's in an 
 office, too." 
 
 Then I rushed to the window, where I 
 saw Aunt Maria walking down the garden 
 path. "Auntie," I shrieked, waving the 
 letter, "I've got it." 
 
 " I should think you had got something," 
 replied Aunt Maria, as she turned and 
 regarded me, waiting for the next an- 
 nouncement. 
 
 19 
 
20 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "Come in, and I'll tell you all about it." 
 
 I had not informed the family that I 
 had written to Mr. Foster, so their surprise 
 was not unnatural. I now told my mother 
 and Aunt Maria what I had done, and that 
 I had accomplished my object. 
 
 "I don't quite see that you have ac- 
 complished your object just yet," said 
 Aunt Maria, who was inclined to be 
 skeptical. "Mr. Foster is good enough 
 to say that he will see you, but when 
 he sees you he may think you are too 
 young. He may want some one who 
 lives in Trenton. There are a thousand 
 and one reasons why you may not get the 
 position." 
 
 "There are a thousand and one why I 
 may," I answered. "I haven't the slight- 
 est doubt about it, and I am going to 
 Trenton at once." 
 
 "I will go with you," said my mother, 
 "for I don't think that it would look just 
 right for a girl of your age to be going to 
 see a strange man alone, even on business." 
 
The Tomboy at Work 21 
 
 "All right, mother," I answered. "I 
 shall be glad to have you go; but, if I 
 get the position, you know that you can- 
 not go with me every day." 
 
 "More's the pity," said my mother, 
 with a touch of regret in her voice. 
 
 There was a good deal of excitement in 
 the household that evening. The children 
 were very much interested, and seemed to 
 agree with me that it was a foregone con- 
 clusion that I should get the position. 
 
 "It isn't the first time you have set out 
 to seek your fortune," said Marty, re- 
 ferring to an incident in the past that 
 might better have been forgotten. So I 
 made no reply to her remark. 
 
 Trenton was about six miles by railroad 
 from Birdlington. The track runs be- 
 tween the river and a creek ; the latter does 
 not go all the way to Trenton, but the 
 river does; and many a time I have 
 skated on its frozen surface from Birdling- 
 ton to the State capital. 
 
 The morning after the receipt of the 
 
22 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 wonderful letter, my mother and I started 
 out for Trenton. It seemed to me that 
 the train never went so slowly — at best 
 it was not fast; but finally we got there, 
 and found Mr. Foster at his hotel. He 
 smiled benignly upon me, and addressed 
 his conversation to my mother, explaining 
 to her what the position was and what the 
 hours were likely to be. 
 
 "I am afraid you will have to be here 
 pretty early in the morning," he said, 
 still addressing my mother. 
 
 "It is not my mother that wants the 
 position. It is I. I wrote you the letter 
 about it." 
 
 Mr. Foster turned toward me with 
 surprise. 
 
 "You !" said he. " I had no idea it was 
 so young a person." 
 
 "I hope that that will not prevent my 
 getting the position." 
 
 "No," said he slowly, "I don't know 
 that it will. You write a good hand, and 
 you seem to have a lot of go in you. I 
 
The Tomboy at Work 23 
 
 think I will try you. You can begin work 
 day after to-morrow. The pay will be 
 ten dollars a week." 
 
 I nearly fell off my chair. Ten dollars 
 a week! If he had said five, I should 
 have thought myself rich. 
 
 "What time in the morning can you get 
 here?" asked Mr. Foster. "The office 
 opens for work at about eight." 
 
 I consulted the time-table. There was 
 a train at six, and another at eight. The 
 six o'clock train would get me to the 
 State House, if I walked from the station, 
 which I proposed doing, at about seven 
 o'clock. The eight o'clock would not get 
 me there until nearly nine. 
 
 "I will take the six o'clock," said I, 
 promptly. And I did. 
 
 The fare from Birdlington to Trenton 
 was not very much, but it was something, 
 and I did not propose spending any of my 
 money unnecessarily. My family needed 
 it much more than the railroad, I thought, 
 and I decided that I would get a pass. 
 
24 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 The superintendent of the road, lived at 
 Birdlington. I knew him well, and, as 
 soon as I returned home, I called at his 
 office. 
 
 "Mr. Van Schuyler," said I, "I want an 
 annual pass to Trenton." 
 
 He looked down at me from his six feet 
 two, and said, with an expression of 
 amusement on his face, "Why should I 
 give you an annual pass to Trenton?" 
 
 "Because I need it," said I. "I have 
 just got a position there, and I don't want 
 to spend any of my money on car fare. 
 I have too much else to do with it." 
 
 Mr. Van Schuyler knew the situation of 
 my affairs pretty well, and he knew that 
 passes were dealt out liberally in those days. 
 "I think I shall have to let yau have one," 
 he said; and he sat down at his desk and 
 wrote it out for me. 
 
 Armed with a pass and a prospective ten 
 dollars a week, I would not have asked odds 
 of a Rothschild. Why, Dixey, who was 
 several years older than I was, only got 
 
The Tomboy at Work 25 
 
 that much, and he had to pay his board 
 out of it. His board (he Hved with the 
 business manager of the paper) was only- 
 five dollars a week, and he sent five 
 home. He paid for incidentals by writ- 
 ing poems. One year he wrote the letter- 
 carriers' New Year's address, and got — I 
 don't remember just what, but I dare say it 
 was twenty-five dollars: a tidy sum for an 
 occasional poem by an unknown poet. My 
 earnings were all clear gain, and after my 
 mother had become reconciled to the situa- 
 tion she was very proud of me ; and even 
 Aunt Maria agreed that ten dollars a week 
 was not to be sneezed at, even if it was 
 earned by a girl. 
 
 To get the six o'clock train for Trenton, 
 I got up at four. There was never a time 
 in my life that I could dress in fifteen or 
 twenty minutes. I had a tub in my room 
 that I had rigged up with a pipe leading 
 outside, so that I had only to pull a cork to 
 let the water run ofl. To be sure, I had to 
 pour the water in, but that was a small 
 
26 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 item. No porcelain tub ever gave greater 
 satisfaction than that tin tub with its cork 
 plug gave me. It took me nearly an hour 
 to bathe and dress ; then I had a half -hour 
 for my breakfast, and a half -hour to get to 
 the station, which was a little less than 
 three-quarters of a mile from the house. 
 
 It was in September that I began work, 
 and I did not mind getting up at four in 
 the least ; but as the days grew shorter and 
 colder it was different. The first of the 
 dark mornings scared me. It was as dark 
 as night when I started out, so that Ellen, 
 our faithful maid-of -all -work, used to walk 
 with me as far as the village. Good, kind 
 Ellen! Never shall I forget the break- 
 fasts she used to cook for me by candle- 
 light. It did not take her quite as long as 
 it did me to dress in the morning, so that 
 she got up later, but she always had my 
 breakfast on time. Nothing was a trouble 
 to her if it made me comfortable. The 
 only time I ever saw her out of humour was 
 one wash-day. She had a large wash to 
 
The Tomboy at Work 27 
 
 do, but she got at it early, as she always 
 enjoyed getting it out on the lines before 
 her neighbours. 
 
 On this particular day, Sandy came up 
 from the village with a huge turtle that he 
 had ordered from Philadelphia. He told 
 Ellen that he had invited a few friends to 
 luncheon, and he wanted to give them 
 turtle soup. 
 
 "Turtle soup, is it?" exclaimed Ellen. 
 "Where are you going to get turtle soup?" 
 
 "You are going to make it," replied 
 Sandy blandly, "and here's the turtle." 
 With that he let the turtle loose upon the 
 kitchen floor. 
 
 "For the love of St. Patrick!" shrieked 
 Ellen, and sprang upon the wash-bench, 
 overturning the tubs, and burying the 
 turtle under the suds-soaked clothes. Only 
 by a quick backward jump did Sandy 
 escape the deluge. As he jumped, he made 
 a remark about St. Patrick that Ellen did 
 not like, and she ordered him and the turtle 
 out of the kitchen. She was a powerful 
 
28 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 woman and a good cook, so Sandy thought 
 it best not to provoke her too far, and he 
 didn't. 
 
 The turtle was put under a box in the 
 orchard, and the guests who had been 
 bidden to the feast that did not come off 
 were invited out to see it. Sandy turned 
 the box over gently, but the turtle had 
 gone. If all that Mr. Thompson Seton 
 says about the intelligence of beasts and 
 reptiles be true, that turtle had heard the 
 conversation about the soup, and had 
 escaped from under the box rather than 
 see itself sacrificed upon the altar of Sandy's 
 epicurean appetite. 
 
 That was Ellen's one and only outburst 
 while she lived with us, and who shall say 
 that she had not provocation? I am the 
 more amazed that she got up so cheerfully 
 in the early mornings, for she did not go to 
 bed with the chickens. She was "keeping 
 company" at the time, and I am sure her 
 "steady" stayed fairly late, for I could 
 smell kerosene oil long after the family 
 
The Tomboy at Work 29 
 
 had retired; and, as you know, kerosene 
 only smells when the light is turned low. 
 
 One morning there was a thick fog when 
 I started out, but otherwise it was light 
 enough. In a little gully by the side of the 
 road, I saw something. Before I could 
 make out what it was, it had disappeared. 
 I ran back to the house and told Ellen 
 about it. She had no doubt as to what it 
 was. 
 
 "It was a ghost." 
 
 I shivered. 
 
 "Was it, really?" 
 
 "Of course." It had come down from 
 the cemetery, which was only a little way 
 up the road, and it would go back again. 
 
 "I wish it would hurry and go back." 
 
 "It's gone back by this time, I guess," 
 said Ellen, "but I'll go down the road with 
 you because you're scared." 
 
 "No, I'm not. I don't believe in ghosts, 
 but I don't want to meet another, and you 
 may go with me if you like." 
 
 It was getting late, and we hurried down 
 
30 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 the road. A neighbour was driving a cow 
 in front of us. 
 
 "Good mornin'," said he; "I've just 
 found my old cow. She got lost in the fog 
 down in the gully." 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad!" He regarded me 
 with amazement. " For, then, it was a cow 
 and not a ghost. I told you, Ellen." 
 
 But Ellen only smiled pit3dngly upon me. 
 She had not been born in Ireland for noth- 
 ing. She knew a ghost when I saw it. 
 That was the first and last ghost to cross 
 my path. 
 
 The six o'clock train got me to the State 
 House door before seven, and often I had 
 to wait in the cold for the janitor to open 
 the doors. But do you think I minded 
 that? Not a bit of it. It was part of 
 the fun of working. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Adjutant-General's office was in the 
 State House, as I have said. It was a 
 large room, with windows overlooking the 
 Delaware River. The Adjutant-General's 
 desk was by one of the windows. Mine was 
 farther back in the room. The Adjutant- 
 General himself was a young man, and a 
 very handsome young man at that. He 
 had dark-brown curling hair, a long brown 
 mustache, dark -blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. 
 He usually wore a frock coat — Prince Al- 
 berts, we called them in those days, — and 
 he crowned his curling hair with a wide- 
 rimmed soft felt hat such as was worn in 
 the army during the war. There were 
 three other men in the office: an old man 
 with a gray beard, a young man with a 
 blond mustache, and a still younger man 
 with no mustache or beard of any sort. 
 31 
 
32 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 The blond man was a fireman as well as a 
 government clerk, and he killed two birds 
 with one stone by wearing his fireman's 
 coat as an overcoat. I admired it very 
 much, for it was lined with scarlet and 
 ornamented with brass buttons. 
 
 There was still another man, but he was 
 not there very long, if I remember rightly. 
 He made a strong impression upon my 
 mind, for I heard him say, one day, that 
 he could place his hand upon his heart and 
 say that he owed nothing to any man. 
 The graybeard sighed, and said that he could 
 place his hand upon his heart and say 
 that he owed every man something. I 
 fancy he had a good deal of use for his 
 money, and that he did not get very high 
 pay. He wore the same clothes, as long as 
 I was in the office, and I dare say that he 
 wore them even longer than that. His 
 collars and ties were fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made. Instead of wearing the sort 
 of ties that most men wore, he had a piece 
 of velvet ribbon tied under his collar. He 
 
The Tomboy at Work 33 
 
 confided to me one day that he was very- 
 much put to it to know what to wear for a 
 necktie, and he asked me what I could 
 suggest. 
 
 "Why not wear a necktie?" I answered. 
 
 "A good idea," said he. "I never 
 thought of that." 
 
 So he bought himself a real tie, and dis- 
 carded the velvet ribbon from that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 I was the only woman or girl employed 
 in the State House, and I was regarded with 
 a good deal of curiosity, and, I may add, 
 was treated with the utmost courtesy. 
 The men knew that I was the daughter of a 
 soldier who had given his life for his coun- 
 try, and they did all they could to help me. 
 As for the Adjutant-General, he was one of 
 the finest men I ever knew. If I had been 
 his own sister, he could not have been 
 kinder or more considerate. 
 
 My work was only clerical, and was not 
 very hard. Neither was it very interest- 
 ing. I had to go over all the papers of 
 
34 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 privates as well as of officers, and copy out 
 their records. These were turned over to 
 Mr. Foster, who used them as material for 
 his book. 
 
 While I got to the office very early in the 
 morning, I did not have to stay very late. 
 I took the four o'clock train for Birdlington, 
 and, as soon as I arrrived, I went down to 
 the Redmonds, and usually stayed there to 
 supper and to have a good time; for there 
 was a houseful of young people. I have 
 never believed in the all-work-and-no-play 
 idea. I took all the fun that came my 
 way, and was the better for it. 
 
 Kate Redmond, who was usually de- 
 scribed by the Birdlingtonians as "a 
 limb," was greatly interested in the per- 
 sonnel of the Adjutant-General's office. 
 When I said that the General was young 
 and good-looking, she declared at once 
 that she was going to the office with me. 
 I begged her not to, as I did not consider 
 it businesslike; but the more I said, the 
 more she insisted. 
 
Why not wear a necktie ? ' I answered." 
 
The Tomboy at Work 35 
 
 "You can't go with me," I said. 
 
 "I can go with you," she replied, and, 
 sure enough, she did; and she could not 
 have picked out a worse day in the whole 
 year for her visit. 
 
 It was in the spring, and there was a 
 freshet in the river. It was all right when 
 I went up in the morning, but later in the 
 day the water covered the railway tracks 
 and the trains could not run. 
 
 I was writing away at my desk when the 
 door of the office opened and Miss Kate 
 came smiling in. Instead of looking for 
 me, she crossed over to the General, and, 
 in her most ingratiating manner, asked if 
 he was the Adjutant-General. He arose, 
 and, with his best bow, assured her he was, 
 and that he was at her service. 
 
 Now, Kate Redmond was a very pretty 
 girl, and was as bright as a newly minted 
 dollar, and the General was not slow to 
 take all this in. 
 
 "I'm sorry to trouble you," said she, 
 'but I am looking for my friend Miss Gil- 
 
36 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 bert. Can you tell me which office she 
 is in?" 
 
 As he was about to say that I was in his 
 office, and before I could say " Here I am," 
 she continued, "I don't know my way 
 about the State House, and I dare say that 
 I am very stupid, but I must see her on 
 important business." 
 
 "Hello, Kate," said I, before the General 
 could answer. "Here I am." And, not 
 believing that she would have the audacity 
 to come to the office without a valid ex- 
 cuse, I asked, with no little anxiety: 
 
 "What's the matter? What do you 
 want to see me about?" 
 
 She crossed over to my desk, while the 
 General regarded her admiringly. Frown- 
 ing at me, she said: 
 
 "Don't be a silly. I told you I would 
 come, and I came. Isn't he a dream?" 
 
 " From which you'll have a rude awaken- 
 ing if you're not careful." For I did not 
 relish the idea of mixing business with 
 pleasure to this extent. Then, turning to 
 
The Tomboy at Work 37 
 
 the General, she said, in her most engaging 
 manner, seating herself on a chair by my 
 desk: 
 
 "I hope you will not mind if I sit here 
 and wait for Nell. It is getting late, and 
 I don't like to go home alone." 
 
 It was not a minute later than three 
 o'clock. 
 
 "I shall be delighted," repHed the Gen- 
 eral gallantly, and busied himself with the 
 papers on his desk, though I knew that he 
 would have liked to continue the conversa- 
 tion, and I am sure that Miss Kate would 
 have been very pleased if he had done so. 
 I tried to go on v/ith my work, but she 
 would whisper to me, and I could not pin 
 my mind down to business. 
 
 Suddenly she got up and crossed to the 
 window by the General's desk. 
 
 "Dear me!" she exclaimed, "it is as I 
 feared. The tide seems to be rising. How 
 in the world are we going to get home if the 
 water is over the tracks." 
 
 **Give yourselves no uneasiness, young 
 
38 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 ladies," said the General, rising. "I will 
 investigate; that is the only way to know 
 just how things are." 
 
 "You are so kind," said Kate, looking 
 at him demurely. And he left the office. 
 Pretty soon he came back and told us that 
 the trains were not running, as the tracks 
 were under water. I saw visions of a night 
 in Trenton, and wanted to telegraph to my 
 mother at once not to be alarmed. 
 
 "We must get home," said Kate. "I 
 could not possibly stay all night." 
 
 "We can't walk," said I. 
 
 "There's the road, if there was only some 
 way of driving down," said the wily Kate. 
 
 "It would give me the greatest pleasure 
 to drive you to Birdlington," said the 
 General promptly. "If you will wait here, 
 I will go home and get my horse and 
 wagon and drive you down." 
 
 "You are very kind, but we could not 
 allow it," said Kate. 
 
 "It will be much better for us to stay 
 here all night. I know some one who will 
 
The Tomboy at Work 39 
 
 take us in. She is a friend of my mother's. 
 We can go to her," said I. 
 
 "You know she has no spare room," 
 said Kate, giving me a dig with her elbow. 
 I did not take the hint, for I exclaimed, 
 
 "No spare room! Why she has " 
 
 Here Kate gave me another dig, which 
 the General did not notice, as he was get- 
 ting his hat and gloves. 
 
 "It will be much better for us to go 
 home, but I don't want to bother the 
 General. We can go to the livery, except 
 that I am so afraid of livery horses. They 
 are so apt to run away." 
 
 "I must insist upon having the pleasure 
 myself," said the General, bowing himself 
 out. 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" said 
 Kate in a whisper, for the clerks were 
 pricking up their ears. "Let him drive us 
 down. It will be lots of fun." 
 
 I quite agreed with her on this point, and 
 began to get ready for the drive. 
 
 In a very short time, the General re- 
 
40 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 turned and told us that the carriage was 
 at the door. Downstairs we went, and 
 climbed in with much laughter, for it was 
 a bright, cool day, and we were very young. 
 All went well until we arrived at the bridge 
 across the creek, and there, to our conster- 
 nation, we found that a dam had given 
 away and that the bridge was under water. 
 *We'll ford the stream," said the Gen- 
 eral gaily, touching the horse with the 
 whip. But the horse stood still. He 
 refused the water. Coaxing and more 
 whip were tried, but to no avail. We were 
 now thoroughly alarmed, and wished that 
 we had stayed in Trenton. The horse 
 began to back, and we did not know what 
 was going to happen; but the General 
 rose to the situation. 
 
 "He can ford the stream all right. 
 He's done it often enough in the army, 
 but he wants me on his back." 
 
 Buttoning his coat tightly about him 
 and rolling his trousers up to his knees, the 
 General climbed out over the shafts and 
 

 ^•^il' 
 
 ^'f '' 
 
 i 
 
 iu://^/^'^ v^i 
 
 
 
The Tomboy at Work 41 
 
 sat upon the horse's back. " Now, Beauty, 
 get along with you," and he touched the 
 horse's sides with his spurless heels. The 
 horse lifted his head, and stepped out into 
 the stream with confidence. But neither 
 he nor his rider had reckoned with the tide. 
 In a moment his legs spread out from 
 under him, and we were sailing down the 
 stream. Kate screamed, and clung to me. 
 The General did not scream, but he clung 
 to the horse from whose back he came 
 very near being washed off. He was a 
 good rider, however, and a man with a cool 
 head. Down we went, and I thought that 
 our time had come. I had seen chicken- 
 coops and bedsteads floating down the 
 river at the time of freshets, but I had never 
 seen a carriage full of people in a like 
 predicament. Kate was so frightened that 
 I forgot my own fears in trying to calm her. 
 "Let us go back," she urged frantically. 
 As though we would not have done so if we 
 could! There was only one way that we 
 could go, and that was the way the tide 
 
42 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 took us. The horse floundered and strug- 
 gled bravely with the water, while the 
 General urged him toward the bank, which 
 was so near but yet so far. In the mean- 
 time, there was great fear that the water 
 would fill the wagon, in which case we 
 should have to swim for our lives, if we 
 knew how. Alas! I did not, and I regis- 
 tered a vow then and there to learn the art 
 if my life were spared. The water was up 
 to the horse's body, and touched the Gen- 
 eral's knees. Our situation was a desper- 
 ate one, and if we had not had so cool a 
 man in command, the worst might have 
 happened. He never for a moment ad- 
 mitted that we were in danger, but I knew, 
 when I sav7 the colour leave his cheeks, 
 that he was thoroughly alarmed. Every- 
 thing depended upon the horse. If he 
 gave out, we were done for. 
 
 Suddenly there was a swirl in the water. 
 Around went the wagon, but instead of our 
 being dragged down by it, we were turned 
 around, and in the turning the horse's feet 
 
The Tomboy at Work 43 
 
 got a grip on the submerged bank, and we 
 were saved. 
 
 As the horse drew us up out of the 
 water, Kate forgot her fears. 
 
 "Wasn't it lovely?" she exclaimed. "I 
 never had so much fun." 
 
 "Then, when you screamed, it was for 
 joy," I remarked sarcastically. 
 
 "Of course," said she, without wincing; 
 and turning to the General, she said: 
 
 "We might have been food for the fishes 
 if it had not been for you. General. You 
 are a real hero." 
 
 With the modesty of real heroes, he 
 denied that he had done anything, but we 
 insisted, while he dismounted from the 
 horse's back and wrung the water from his 
 clothes. We wanted him to come inside 
 the carriage, but he said that he was too 
 wet, and that he would continue the jour- 
 ney on horseback. And so we entered 
 Birdlington, where our drenched postilion 
 attracted not a little attention. 
 
 The Redmonds' house was nearer than 
 
44 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 ours, so we stopped there, where the Gen- 
 eral got a hot toddy and a change of 
 clothes, while Kate and I sipped hot water 
 and camphor as a precaution against cold. 
 
 There was no going back to Trenton that 
 night, so the General was invited to stay 
 over till the next day, an invitation he did 
 not seem loath to accept. The news of 
 our adventure was soon spread over the 
 town, and lost nothing in the spreading. 
 Neighbours dropped in to hear particulars, 
 and we ended the evening with a dance in 
 which the General was a conspicuous figure, 
 not only as the hero of the occasion, but 
 because of his appearance in the clothes 
 of Captain Redmond, who was a much 
 smaller man. If he had worn the Captain's 
 trousers down from Trenton, there would 
 have been no occasion for turning them up. 
 
 There was no one more concerned over 
 our adventure than the Redmonds' cook, 
 who remarked to Mrs. Redmond that 
 "Miss Kate knowed the tide had rose, and 
 she oughtn't to have went!" 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The story of our adventure in the 
 freshet, like the more recent rumour of 
 Mark Twain's death, was "grossly exag- 
 gerated." One story was that we had all 
 three mounted the horse and forded the 
 stream. Another, that the horse had been 
 drowned, and the carriage sunk to the 
 bottom, while we had saved our lives 
 only by swimming to shore. If we had 
 really been thrown into deep water, I 
 am afraid I should have shared the fate 
 of the carriage. 
 
 An account of the adventure was sent 
 to a New York daily by its Trenton 
 correspondent, who, being a Birdling- 
 ton man, selected the most popular 
 of the town stories. My mother and 
 Aunt Maria were greatly mortified to 
 see not only my name, but those of 
 45 
 
46 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 the rest of the family, in print, below 
 what I have since learned to know as 
 a "scare head." Here is the account, 
 quoted from memory, but quite accurate, 
 I believe: 
 
 FLED FROM THE FLOOD 
 
 Gallant Rescue from the Raging River-— 
 
 The Lives of Two Beautiful Young 
 
 Girls Saved by the Handsome 
 
 Adjutant-General of New 
 
 Jersey — Crowds Cheer 
 
 the Hero 
 
 (From Our Special Correspondent) 
 
 Then came the story, which simply told in 
 detail what the head -lines accentuated. It 
 was no nearer the truth than they were. 
 In the first place, we had not fled from the 
 flood, but plunged into it. In the second 
 place, it was the creek, not the river. And 
 in the third place, only one of the girls was 
 beautiful. But what did I care? I had 
 just as good a time, and I worshipped 
 
The Tomboy at Work 47 
 
 beauty in others. Kate Redmond was 
 always getting into trouble on account of 
 her good looks, while I spent my time in 
 getting her out of her scrapes, which I 
 probably should not have done if I had 
 had similar troubles of my own. 
 
 Every young man native to the town, 
 and all the young men who came there from 
 other towns, surrendered to her attractions. 
 There was a good deal of feeling among the 
 local young men against the Adjutant- 
 General, who, they considered, had been 
 given an unfair advantage. There was not 
 one of the number who would not have 
 done as much and more for one of Kate 
 Redmond's smiles. They belittled his 
 action, which I must admit he also 
 did, and hinted that, if the truth were 
 known, it was not much of an adventure 
 after all. 
 
 The young man who took the thing most 
 to heart was the new public schoolmaster. 
 He was rather better-looking than the aver- 
 age village lad, and dressed with more heed 
 
48 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 to fashion than was common in Birdling- 
 ton. He had come as a stranger to the town. 
 Members of the school committee knew 
 him, but they thought it enough to pay his 
 salary, and never troubled to invite him 
 to their houses. The loss, I am inclined 
 to think, was theirs. 
 
 With her quick eye for such things, Kate 
 had noticed Warner Barclay the first day 
 he appeared in Main Street, and made up 
 her mind to meet him at the earliest pos- 
 sible moment. Nothing could have been 
 easier if she was content to wait a while, 
 but she was not. She wanted an uncon- 
 ventional meeting, and she got it. It 
 seems that the young schoolmaster had 
 singled her out from all the other village 
 girls, and was as anxious to meet her as 
 she was to meet him. He asked one of the 
 teachers of the school whether she would 
 perform the ceremony of introduction, but 
 she had already discovered the good looks 
 and amiable disposition of young Barclay, 
 and postponed the day when these qual- 
 
The Tomboy at Work 49 
 
 ities should be observed by another. At 
 the post-office, one evening, the young 
 man had the pleasure of making way for 
 Kate at the delivery window — a courtesy 
 that she acknowledged with a somewhat 
 haughty inclination of the head, as who 
 should say, " Keep your place, young man; 
 no 'freshness,* if you please." The youth 
 raised his Panama hat, and blushed to the 
 roots of his curling hair. 
 
 All this stand-offishness on Kate's part 
 was assumed. She was quite conscious 
 of the impression she had made, and pro- 
 posed to lead up to an acquaintance in her 
 own way. Just what she was going to do 
 she herself did not know. Fate decided 
 for her. 
 
 About a mile and a half out of town, on a 
 bluff overlooking the river, lived a retired 
 naval officer with his nephews and nieces. 
 This family was very popular in Birdling- 
 ton society, and the old homestead was 
 the objective of most of our walks. If we 
 had plenty of time, we went along the 
 
$0 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 road through the woods and up a lane 
 that led from the turnpike to the house; 
 but there was a short cut down the rail- 
 road. By this way the distance was not 
 more than a half or three-quarters of a 
 mile, but there were a great many inter- 
 secting tracks to cross, and in those days 
 there were many more trains plying be- 
 tween Camden and Amboy than there are 
 to-day. 
 
 It happened that one day Kate was in 
 somewhat of a hurry to see her friends on 
 the bluff, so she took the short cut down 
 the railway. She was very proud of her 
 ability to walk on a rail without falling off, 
 and was tripping gaily along, with her 
 head in the air, when her foot caught in 
 the V made by the crossing of two rails. 
 It went in with so much force, up to 
 the narrow point of the V, that she could 
 not pull it out. She unlaced her shoe and 
 tried to get the foot out of it, but that plan 
 would not work. In the distance, she 
 heard the whistle of a train, and she knew 
 
The Tomboy at Work 51 
 
 that one would be coming around the 
 curve before long. She thought of all her 
 sins, past, present and future, and won- 
 dered whether she would be killed outright, 
 or mangled and thrown aside to die in the 
 ditch. 
 
 While she was thinking over the situation, 
 it occurred to her to look around and see 
 if there was any one in sight. There was 
 no one in front of her, but, turning back, 
 she saw the schoolmaster coming up the 
 track. She knew that he would be by her 
 side in a moment, so she did not call out. 
 When he reached her, she bowed to him 
 with a pleasant, "Good morning, Mr. 
 Barclay," which both surprised and pleased 
 him. 
 
 He stopped, with his hat in his hand, 
 and she explained that she was not stand- 
 ing on the track because she wanted to, but 
 because her foot was held as though in a 
 vise. He was very much alarmed, espe- 
 cially as the whistling of the engine was 
 getting louder, and tried his best to get the 
 
52 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 foot out; but it would not come. He told 
 me afterward that he was never so fright- 
 ened in his life, but that Kate was as cool 
 as a cucumber, and it was she who sug- 
 gested the means of relief. 
 
 "Have you a penknife with you?" she 
 asked. 
 
 He felt in his pocket and produced one. 
 
 "Now," she said, "open the sharpest 
 blade, and cut the leather as close to the 
 sole as possible. Go gently, and don't cut 
 my stocking," she added, with a smile, 
 "because I have on my best pair." 
 
 Although his hands shook with nervous- 
 ness, he ran the blade carefully along the 
 edge of the leather, and the foot was re- 
 leased. Kate stepped from the track only 
 a few moments before the train passed by. 
 
 "You have saved my life," she said 
 gaily, "but," pointing to the rails, "I 
 have lost my sole." 
 
 After this episode, a formal introduction 
 between Kate and the schoolmaster was 
 unnecessary. His rescue was considered 
 
c ^ 
 ^ % 
 
 - A 
 
The Tomboy at Work 53 
 
 even more interesting than that of which 
 the Adjutant-General was the hero, and 
 the town was thrilled with the story. The 
 only person who did not seem to be par- 
 ticularly excited over the matter was Kate. 
 She took it very calmly, to all outward 
 appearances, but I fancy she had had a 
 pretty anxious quarter of an hour on that 
 railroad track, but no one would have sus- 
 pected it from her manner. 
 
 The schoolmaster felt that he was at a 
 disadvantage because he did not wear the 
 aureole of the soldier. He had been too 
 young to fight, even as an emergency man, 
 and in those days, just after the war, 
 soldiers were still the favoured gallants. 
 Then, again, the Adjutant-General's ex- 
 ploit had been so much more picturesque 
 than his. He had merely taken out his 
 penknife and cut the sole of a shoe from the 
 upper, while the Adjutant-General had 
 leaped upon a horse and forded a swollen 
 stream. To be sure, the dexterous applica- 
 tion of the penknife had saved Kate Red- 
 
54 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 mend's life, while the fording of the stream 
 was merely a matter of accommodation. 
 
 Kate fully realised that the schoolmaster 
 had saved her, but, after all, it was so 
 unromantic. She did invite young Barclay 
 to call upon her and receive the thanks 
 of the family, and they were getting on 
 famously until the Adjutant-General ap- 
 peared upon the scene. The schoolmaster 
 was good-looking enough — he had unusu- 
 ally regular features and rather curling 
 hair — but he was pale, and wore no mus- 
 tache. Smooth-shaven faces were not the 
 fashion in those days as they are to-day, 
 and we girls all agreed that the Adjutant- 
 General's long mustache, brilliant colour, 
 and dark-brown ringlets were too beautiful 
 for words. 
 
 It was not many days after the fording 
 of the stream that the Adjutant-General 
 drove from Trenton to pay us his respects. 
 To me? Oh, no! To Kate Redmond. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon, and I hap- 
 pened to be staying a while with Kate on 
 
The Tomboy at Work 55 
 
 my way home. We were in her room in 
 the Mansard roof when we heard the 
 "buggy" drive up. We nearly broke our 
 necks looking out of the window, and it 
 was as much as we could do to keep from 
 calling out a welcome. 
 
 "Hurry downstairs, Kate," I exclaimed 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Not much," said she, with a toss of the 
 head. "It will do him good to wait." 
 
 Then she went to the mirror and ar- 
 ranged her hair, tied a fresh bit of lace 
 around her throat, and dabbed some pow- 
 der on her nose. In the meantime, I was 
 stretching my neck out of the window. 
 Could I believe my eyes? The General, 
 instead of coming up the steps and ringing 
 the bell, deliberately crossed the street and 
 began pacing up and down the sidewalk. I 
 told the news to Kate, and she joined me 
 at the window. 
 
 "What's the matter with him? Why 
 doesn't he come over?" 
 
 We watched and watched, while the 
 
56 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 General walked and walked. From being 
 amused, Kate began to get angry. Once he 
 looked up at the top windows, but we 
 sprang back so quickly, he could not pos- 
 sibly see us. For at least an hour the Gen- 
 eral paraded up and down. Kate was 
 furious. She was not used to being treated 
 that way. She was so angry that I could 
 not help laughing at her, which only made 
 matters worse. "I will not look at such 
 a simpleton," said she; and, sitting down in 
 her rocking-chair, she began to dig the 
 wall with her Louis XIV. heels. I can see 
 the big hole now that she dug through 
 paper and plaster, while I at the lookout 
 reported the General's movements. "He's 
 coming over!" I exclaimed delightedly, at 
 the end of an hour. 
 
 "Well, he can't see me if he is," said 
 Kate, with an angry toss of her head — at 
 the same time taking furtive glances at the 
 mirror to see whether her hair was not too 
 much out of crimp, or that the powder 
 had not disappeared from her nose. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 57 
 
 "He won't see me either," I exclaimed, 
 for he has got into his ' buggy ' and is driv- 
 ing off!" 
 
 "What!" 
 
 Kate could hardly believe her ears. She 
 jumped up, and we hung together over the 
 window-sill. Sure enough, off he drove, 
 with his slouch-hat well down over his eyes, 
 and not so much as a glance backward. 
 
 "Well, I never!" gasped Kate. 
 
 "Nor I either," I assented, regardless of 
 grammar. 
 
 W^hen Kate and the General met some- 
 time later, it took a good deal of argument 
 on his part to make his peace. It seems 
 that, on the way to her house, he had 
 met one of Kate's admirers, who, surmising 
 his intention, and being a bit jealous of 
 the gallant soldier, had " put up a job " 
 on him, as is the way of jealous boys. 
 
 ** Going to see Kate Redmond ? " inquired 
 the boy. 
 
 "What if I am?" replied the General, 
 somewhat nettled. 
 
58 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "You won't find her in." 
 
 "Indeed?" 
 
 "No, indeed. I just met her going out 
 to Nell Gilbert's, but she said she'd be back 
 in a moment, so you might wait." 
 
 "Thank you for the suggestion," said the 
 General, not without a touch of irony. 
 
 As the mischievous boy cut across lots 
 into the open country, and could not see 
 him, the General decided that he would 
 wait. Preferring the fresh air, he waited 
 outside, with what result we already know. 
 He was quite as annoyed as we were. When 
 the explanation was made, the General was 
 the indignant one. Kate was pleased, but 
 it would not have gone well with that boy 
 if she had known who he was. The Gen- 
 eral's fingers tingled to box his ears, but he 
 could not remember his face, as their meet- 
 ing had been so short. Kate had her sus- 
 picions, and boldly accused one of her 
 youngest admirers ; but he looked straight 
 into her eyes while he "denied the allega- 
 tion and defied the allegator." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The schoolmaster was very much dis- 
 turbed by the General's frequent visits at 
 the Redmonds'. One day, much to my 
 surprise, he joined me as I was eating my 
 noonday sandwich in the State House 
 grounds. At first I thoug/ht that he had 
 come to see me, and, while I was flattered 
 by the attention, I did not like social inter- 
 ruptions in business hours. But this was 
 the luncheon hour, so I said nothing. I 
 soon found out, however, that I was not 
 the object of the schoolmaster's visit. He 
 wanted to pump me regarding the Adjutant- 
 General's feelings toward Kate Redmond, 
 but I was not to be pumped. While 
 I was used to being the confidante of 
 both sides in affairs of the heart, I resented 
 being questioned about my employer, for 
 Mr. Foster's business being now finished, I 
 59 
 
6o The Tomboy at Work 
 
 was working on the records for the 
 Adjutant-General. 
 
 "I do not discuss my employer's per- 
 sonal affairs with any one," said I, at the 
 end of an appeal. Shaking the crumbs of 
 my sandwich on the grass, I blew up the 
 paper bag and burst it with a bang that 
 made the schoolmaster start, for he was in 
 a nervous condition. 
 
 "Hang the Adjutant-General," said the 
 schoolmaster. "I don't want to know 
 how much he cares for her — how much 
 does she care for him ?'* and he poked the 
 gravel viciously with his umbrella. 
 
 "That is another matter," I answered; 
 for business was not on this side of the 
 question. "I'm sure she cares a good deal 
 for him." 
 
 The schoolmaster groaned. 
 
 "That is, in her way. She never cares 
 very long for any one — any man, I mean. 
 She says there's safety in numbers, variety's 
 the spice of life, and all such things." 
 
 He groaned again. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 6i 
 
 "Then you have seen her care for a man 
 this much before?" 
 
 "Lots of times. It's her way. She's a 
 born flirt." 
 
 "I suppose I might as well throw myself 
 in the river and end it all," he said gloomily, 
 looking out over the Delaware. I was 
 younger than he was, and I took him at his 
 word. I argued the question with him, 
 and wound up by saying, "That would be 
 a very foolish thing to do, for you would 
 be declaring your defeat and leaving 
 everything to your hated rival." (I had 
 read the phrase "hated rival" somewhere, 
 and liked the sound of it.) The school- 
 master's proper pride came to his rescue. 
 
 "You are quite right," said he, with- 
 drawing his eyes from the river. "I shall 
 live and fight it out. He need not think 
 that, because he has a long mustache and 
 can wear shoulder-straps, he can down me. 
 A teacher is as good as a soldier any day. 
 I may be young, but I'm not going to be 
 flung aside for a man who has only a mus- 
 
62 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 tache and shoulder-straps to his credit." 
 The schoolmaster's eye shot fire, and the 
 colour mounted to his cheeks. "I wish 
 that these were the days of the duel. I'd 
 challenge him. I'd call him out " 
 
 "Out where?" 
 
 "Out here, right now." He was getting 
 very much excited. "I wouldn't wait for 
 seconds and all that rubbish, but I'd draw 
 on him at sight " 
 
 "It is not a question of money." He 
 did not hear me. He was listening to his 
 own voice. 
 
 "Defend yourself, sir," and he thrust his 
 tightly rolled umbrella at an imaginary foe. 
 
 An old farmer and his wife, making a 
 visit to the State House, came down the 
 path at this moment. They looked at the 
 fire-eating schoolmaster, and fled. At the 
 same moment, the Adjutant -General, who 
 had been looking out of his office window, 
 appeared upon the scene. 
 
 "Oh, it is you, Mr. Barclay; spearing 
 for eels?" said the Adjutant-General, rais- 
 
The Tomboy at Work 63 
 
 ing his sombrero. "I recognised Miss Gil- 
 bert, and feared that some stranger was 
 trying to frighten her. You know, all 
 sorts of queer people get in here." 
 
 The schoolmaster sheathed his umbrella. 
 
 "Miss Gilbert is fortunate in having so 
 gallant a protector," said he, and, raising 
 his hat, he walked haughtily up the path. 
 I was glad to see him go, for I was just 
 young enough to think that there might 
 have been bloodshed, though the men 
 were unarmed save for the schoolmaster's 
 umbrella. 
 
 "Nice "fellow," said the General. "A 
 little queer, though, like most school- 
 teachers. No snap." 
 
 "No snap!" He would have thought 
 that the schoolmaster was not wanting in 
 "snap," if he had heard him a few minutes 
 before. 
 
 When I reached Birdlington, late that 
 afternoon, Kate was at the station to meet 
 me. She could hardly wait till I got off 
 the train to tell me her news. 
 
64 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "I've got lots to tell you. The school- 
 master " 
 
 "Hush; wait a moment. You don't 
 want the whole town to know." 
 
 "To know what?" 
 
 "That the schoolmaster's in love with 
 you and madly jealous of the General." 
 
 "Who told you?" 
 
 "The schoolmaster." 
 
 "Well, upon my " 
 
 " He did not exactly tell me, but he might 
 as well have told me. He wanted to 
 commit suicide, kill the General " 
 
 "Oh, lovely! Tell me everything." 
 
 We were now climbing the broad stairs 
 from the station that led to the main 
 street. 
 
 * * Isn't that enough ? What more do you 
 want? Have you seen him?" 
 
 "I should say so. He came straight to 
 the house from Trenton, and said I would 
 have to choose between him and the Gen- 
 eral. I told him I had chosen. He nearly 
 fainted. 'Which is it?' he demanded. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 6$ 
 
 *That is my affair,' I replied. 'I'm not 
 giving myself away.'" 
 
 "Have you really chosen?" I asked. 
 
 "Of course I have." 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 "That's telling." 
 
 For once, Kate did not take me into her 
 confidence. I knew, however, that she 
 was only trying to tease me, or that she 
 had not really made up her mind. 
 
 "The schoolmaster's all very well," said 
 she, "but I'm not going to put up with his 
 melancholy-Dane manner. I'm no Ophelia. 
 As though I was going to stop having fun 
 to please any one man ! No, no ! If Master 
 Barclay is not careful, I will turn my back 
 on him, and then see what he will do." 
 
 "I know what he will do, well enough. 
 i5e as much as told me." 
 
 "Did he?" (joyfully). "What did he 
 say?" 
 
 " He as much as said that he would jump 
 into the river." 
 
 "I guess he'd jump out again in a hurr/. 
 
66 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 That's all bluff. I may be only sixteen 
 years old, but / know men.'* 
 
 I was filled with awe at her knowledge 
 of the world. We were at the Redmonds' 
 gate by this time, and looking up the road 
 saw a solitary horseman in the distance. 
 As he cantered up, we recognised the Gen- 
 eral. Kate blushed with pleasure. 
 
 Bending low over his saddle, the General 
 saluted us with a flourish of his hat. His 
 horse, touched with the spurs, pranced and 
 plunged about, while the General sat as 
 calm and erect as Buffalo Bill. Finally, 
 he drew up by the curb and stated his 
 errand. On the next evening there was to 
 be grand opera at the Trenton opera house. 
 A special train was to run up from Birdling- 
 ton, and the General begged for the pleas- 
 ure of escorting Miss Kate, She had fully 
 made up her mind to go. In fact, quite a 
 party of us were going; but she kept the 
 General in a state of doubt, at last con- 
 senting that he might be one of the party. 
 
 Couldn't he drive her up in his buggy? 
 
I may be only sixteen years old, but / knoTi) men. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 67 
 
 No, he couldn't. It was with the party 
 or nothing. Anything was preferable to 
 nothing. So he promised to be on hand 
 for the train; and he was. 
 
 Excitement ran high over this opera 
 party. With us, it was what is known as a 
 "Jersey treat" — we paid each for our own 
 ticket.. Not a great expense, for the best 
 seats were only a dollar and a half. The 
 Redmonds had often been to the opera in 
 New York, and they knew all about it. I 
 had never been. Up to that time, opera 
 and theatre were a sealed book to me, as 
 far as actual experience went. I had read 
 much about them in books and newspapers, 
 but up to that time an "old folks" con- 
 cert or the tuneful " bell-ringers " were the 
 beginning and the end of my acquaintance 
 with the stage. 
 
 The Redmonds, our arbiters of fashion, 
 said that I must have an opera bonnet. 
 Must I, indeed! Where was I going to get 
 a bonnet of any sort, and on such short 
 notice. And if I did get one, what was I 
 
68 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 going to do with it? I had never worn a 
 bonnet and never wanted to, but I bowed 
 to the inevitable. Lou Redmond, who 
 was as good as a milHner, indeed — better 
 than our local talent — said she would 
 make me one if I would furnish the 
 materials. She went with me to buy 
 them. First, we bought a "frame," a 
 thing of wire and gauze; and then the 
 trimming. I insisted upon black as 
 being inconspicuous, so we got a lot of 
 black tulle. It looked rather funereal 
 when finished, but I objected to feathers 
 or flowers as being too gay and not 
 suited to my plain clothes. We com- 
 promised on some simple gilt ornaments. 
 A gilt leaf was sewn to the top of the bon- 
 net, and the long strings of tulle were 
 fastened together well below the chin with 
 a cluster of gilt leaves ; small grape-leaves 
 they must have been, for I remember 
 the curling tendrils. Every one declared 
 the bonnet, when completed, to be a work 
 of art. I'm sure it was, though my judg- 
 
The Tomboy at Work 69 
 
 ment in the matter was not worth much. 
 This was its shape: 
 
 The point came in front and the back 
 fitted over the "waterfall." Unfortu- 
 nately for the fitting, I did not wear a 
 "waterfall." My hair was held back by 
 a "round comb" and confined in a "net." 
 The consequence was that the bonnet 
 had no purchase, and the point was as 
 likely to be on a line with my ear as on a 
 line with my nose. I suffered tortures 
 with that bonnet, notwithstanding the 
 efforts of every one on the special train 
 to kfeep it straight. At last we got to the 
 opera house and to our seats, which were 
 in the front row. 
 
 The opera was "The Barber of Seville," 
 and the lamented Parepa-Rosa was the 
 prima donna. The names of the singers 
 who supported her were well known in 
 those days, but only the older generation 
 
70 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 of music lovers will recall them to-day. 
 Ferranti was the baritone, Testa the 
 tenor, Carl Rosa the conductor, and 
 George Colby the orchestra. Colby pre- 
 sided at a piano, and Rosa "conducted" 
 him, baton in hand. It was primitive 
 enough as to surroundings, but I wish 
 that I could as much enjoy a performance 
 at the Metropolitan Opera House to-day. 
 Parepa-Rosa sang Zerlina in a crinoline, 
 looped up over a "balmoral skirt" as was 
 the fashion of the day; the others wore the 
 costumes of the period represented. In 
 the singing lesson, Parepa-Rosa sang 
 "Katie's Lesson," giving as an encore 
 "Five o'clock in the Morning" — a ballad 
 she had made famous — ^by special request. 
 Mme. Parepa-Rosa was a woman of more 
 than ample proportions, but from that 
 large throat and deep chest issued a voice 
 of unusual sweetness and birdlike quality. 
 Large as she was, she was young and 
 girHsh, and she sang the ballad with 
 delightful archness. How few know that 
 
" Mme. Parepa-Rosa was a woman of more than ample 
 proportions, but from that large throat issued a voice of 
 unusual sweetness and birdlike quality." 
 
The Tomboy at Work 71 
 
 old song to-day! But every one knew it 
 then, and loved it as they loved the 
 singer. 
 
 I enjoyed the performance tremendously, 
 and applauded with might and main — 
 much to the detriment of my opera 
 bonnet. I applauded it over my eyes 
 once, down my back another time, and, 
 finally, at the end of the ballad, I was 
 so carried away with enthusiasm that it 
 fell upon the floor, where I pounded my 
 heels into it in an ecstasy of delight. At 
 the end of the opera it was little more 
 than a rag. The tulle was in shreds, 
 while the grape leaves were beaten flat. 
 I picked up the leaves from the floor and 
 rolled them up with my programme, as 
 souvenirs of a great night. 
 
 "You'll have to go home bare-headed," 
 said Kate, regarding with dismay the 
 roll of tulle on the floor. 
 
 "I'd go home barefooted if I could hear 
 it all over again," was my infatuated reply. 
 
 Sitting in the balcony, where he had a 
 
72 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 full view of Kate and the General, was 
 the schoolmaster. He never took his 
 eyes off them, but Kate, who must have 
 seen him, paid no attention. As we left 
 the opera house, he stood glaring in the 
 lobby. At the door, Kate turned to the 
 General and thanked him for his escort. 
 
 "But I am going back to Birdlington 
 with you," he replied, thinking that she 
 misunderstood his intention. 
 
 "I could not permit it. It would be 
 too much. There are so many of us that 
 it is not at all necessary.'* And, taking 
 the arm of the schoolmaster, whose face 
 brightened as the General's darkened, she 
 said good-night, and trotted off on her 
 French heels, while we followed. 
 
 It was a great night. I shall never 
 forget it. 
 
\^>\^M 
 
 ^4i>.,,,...^^ c^^to^ ^-^l-vU. 
 
 " I enjoyed the performance tremendously, and applauded 
 with might and main — much to the detriment of my opera 
 bonnet." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 There were not many excitements in 
 Birdlington, but still there were some 
 delightful people living there — an unusual 
 number, considering the size of the town. 
 In years gone by, it had been a fashion- 
 able watering-place, some man having 
 discovered a spring of strong medicinal 
 properties in the town. And then there 
 was always the aureole of the Bonapartes 
 about the place, for King Joseph, the 
 brother of the great Emperor Napoleon, 
 had chosen it for his home. The Bona- 
 partes were long before my day, but my 
 mother and Aunt Maria remembered them 
 well. After Joseph left the place, his 
 nephew. Prince Lucien Murat, a son of 
 the marshal, continued to make it his 
 home. The house that he lived in is still 
 standing, as are several other houses built 
 73 
 
74 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 by this little band of French exiles. They 
 are of the French style of architecture, 
 and look as if they might have been 
 transplanted from the old quarters of 
 Versailles. 
 
 Prince Murat had married an American 
 woman, a Miss Fraser, of one of the Caro- 
 linas. She may have had money when 
 he married her, but it did not take him 
 long to spend it. Madame Murat, as she 
 was called, set up a school, and the better 
 class of Birdlington girls attended it. 
 Of course, the Prince did nothing to help 
 the family fortunes. Was he not a 
 Prince, even though he was not of ancient 
 lineage? He gambled, assisted at cock- 
 fights, did a little shooting, and all this 
 kept him busy. I have heard Aunt Maria, 
 who knew the Murat family well, tell an 
 amusing anecdote of the Prince's unprac- 
 tical ideas — that is, it is amusing to us 
 now, but it was certainly not amusing to 
 Mme. Murat at the time. It seems that 
 the mainstay of the little Murats was the 
 
The Tomboy at Work 75 
 
 milk of a fine cow that Mme. Murat had 
 bought out of her frugal means. One 
 day, the Prince came home from the 
 village tavern, where he spent the most 
 of his time, and said to his wife, with great 
 satisfaction, 
 
 "My dear, I have made such a bar- 
 gain!" 
 
 "What is it?" inquired that good lady, 
 catching some of his enthusiasm. 
 
 "I have given our cow for a fine setter 
 dog. What do you think of that?" 
 
 The tears which she was unable to 
 control proved, without words, what she 
 thought of the bargain. The Prince tried 
 to console her by promising to keep the 
 family provided with game, which, after 
 all, he argued, was better for the children 
 than milk. 
 
 Birdlington was full of anecdotes of the 
 Bonapartes and Murats in my early days. 
 All that was left of the household of the 
 ex-King of Spain was his barber and an 
 old soldier, by the name of Rabeau, who 
 
76 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 had fought at Waterloo. He died soon 
 after we came to live at the old place, but 
 the barber lived many years longer. He 
 kept a candy and toy and tobacco store 
 on the sidewalk, in front of which he spent 
 most of his time reading French news- 
 papers many weeks old. He sat in an 
 old wooden chair, tilted back on its 
 hind legs, with his newspaper held close 
 to his eyes. All day long he sat that way, 
 reading news of the home across the seas. 
 His dress was very much like that of the 
 old soldiers one sees at Napoleon's tomb. 
 Yet he was not a soldier, but only the 
 barber of an ex-king. 
 
 Louis Napoleon was once a visitor at 
 Birdlington, and he took back to France 
 with him one of the villagers who had 
 taught him how to swim and was teaching 
 the same accomplishment to the boys 
 and girls of my generation. This man, 
 whom I will call Long John, for convenience, 
 was a good deal of a character. He had 
 known my maternal grandfather, who, I 
 
The Tomboy at Work 77 
 
 imagine, was a man of a good deal of 
 "temperament." **The old Major was a 
 devil," said he, and, turning to Dixey, 
 "you're his very spit and image." 
 
 I enjoyed talking to Long John about 
 his European experiences. He went as a 
 sort of body-servant to Louis Napoleon, 
 who was vastly entertained by his original 
 observations. One day, in London, the 
 Emperor-to-be asked him what he would 
 most like to see. 
 
 "Well, Prince," said Long John, rubbing 
 his head reflectively, "I think I'd Hke to 
 see a dow'ger most of all. I've heard 
 such a lot about dow'gers, I'd like to tell 
 the folks at home what they're like." 
 
 "Very well, John," said the Prince, 
 "you shall see a dowager, and more than 
 one. You stand behind my chair at 
 dinner to-night, and I'll let you pass 
 the soup to one of the greatest dowagers 
 in all England." 
 
 " By crackie," said Long John, in relating 
 the anecdote, "I thought I'd drop the 
 
78 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 soup-plate when I clapped my eye on that 
 dow'ger. Why, she wam't nothin* to look 
 at, at all; a skinny old thing, all covered 
 with diments. 'Well, Prince,' said I, 
 when I got him alone, 'I don't want 
 none of your dow'gers, if that's what 
 they're Hke. Give me a Jersey girl every 
 time." 
 
 When Louis Napoleon executed his 
 famous coup d'etat, the Murats plucked 
 up courage and decided to join him in 
 France and share in his good fortune. 
 He had not asked them to come, but they 
 felt sure that pride of family would 
 compel him to set them on their feet. 
 It was one thing to decide to go, and 
 another thing to go. They had not the 
 price of a single ticket among them, but 
 they appealed to the people of Birdling- 
 ton, from whom the Prince, by his rose- 
 coloured statements, succeeded in "bor- 
 rowing" several hundred dollars. 
 
 I have heard my . mother and Aunt 
 Maria tell graphic tales of their theatrical 
 
The Tomboy at Work 79 
 
 departure from Birdlington. The Prince 
 and Mme. Murat were decked out in new- 
 clothes, bought for the occasion, while 
 the children wore garments fashioned 
 by the friendly neighbours out of old 
 clothes, liveries, and what not, found 
 in the closets of the Murat house. 
 
 At the time of the Murats' departure 
 there was a sale of their effects. Among 
 the rubbish was an old scrap-book made 
 by Mme. Murat. It consisted of pictures 
 from illustrated papers, an engraving or 
 two, fugitive poems, some pasted in, 
 others copied out in the owner's fine 
 hand-writing, the fashion of the day in 
 feminine penmanship. Intrinsically, it was 
 not Worth two cents, but, sentimentally, it 
 was worth a few shillings to a young 
 lady who had been a pupil of Mme. Murat 's. 
 She was very anxious to secure the scrap- 
 book, so she asked the village doctor if 
 he would bid on it for her. This he 
 agreed to do. Then, to make assurance 
 doubly sure, she went to the clergyman 
 
86 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 and asked him also to bid on it. This 
 he agreed to do. The scrap-book was 
 held up by the auctioneer, who said that 
 he had been informed that a certain young 
 lady was very desirous of possessing it, but 
 that he could show no favours. It would 
 be knocked down to the highest bidder. 
 Most of the lookers-on shrugged their 
 shoulders and turned away until the next 
 lot should be offered. The only bidders 
 were the doctor and the clergyman, neither 
 of whom knew who the other was bidding 
 for. The young lady did not attend the 
 sale. The bidding began at five cents, 
 and jumped to "two bits" (two shillings), 
 then up to a dollar. The doctor was 
 determined. The clergyman was not one 
 of those to put his hand to the plow and 
 look back; but, when the doctor finally said 
 "five dollars," the clergyman refused to 
 add another penny, for he thought it 
 wrong to spend so much money for a mere 
 scrap-book, when a barrel of sermons 
 might be had for less. So the treasure 
 
The Tomboy at Work 8i 
 
 was knocked down to the doctor, who bore 
 it to the young lady in triumph. 
 
 "I had a hard fight for it," said he. 
 *' There was only one other bidder, our 
 good rector, who seemed set on getting it. 
 If it had not been for him I could have 
 had it for ten cents." 
 
 It was many years later before the young 
 lady told this story on herself. She was 
 afraid of being called a fool at the time, 
 but it was too good a story to keep forever. 
 When she was old enough to see the 
 humour of the situation, she told it. 
 I may add, by the way, that it cooled her 
 ardour for auction sales. Their red flags 
 were the reminder of a painful incident. 
 
 It is no uncommon thing to hear of a 
 woman bidding against herself at an 
 auction, but I never before heard of 
 one who set two men bidding against 
 each other in her behalf. 
 
 I do not know why I should have intro- 
 duced these pages about the Bonapartes 
 and Murats, except that the subject is so 
 
82 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 closely associated with my Birdlington 
 days. It really came in apropos of 
 society in Birdlington in my youth. 
 There were no kings in exile there then, 
 but there were a great many interesting 
 and cultivated people. There was, among 
 others, an artist who had studied in Italy, 
 and had built an Italian villa of wood 
 on a bluff overlooking the river. He was 
 a widower with two charming daughters, 
 both of whom inherited much of his talent. 
 One, however, took more kindly to music; 
 the other followed in her father's footsteps, 
 and has made a reputation on both sides 
 of the ocean. The drawing-room of the 
 Waugh villa was embellished with a 
 number of statues standing in niches. 
 These statues, while admired by the 
 friends of the artist, were disapproved of 
 by some of the villagers as being nude. 
 No one frowned upon them more severely 
 than the village charwoman. One day, 
 after a house-cleaning, when the family 
 entered the drawing-room, they found all 
 
The Tomboy at Work 83 
 
 the statues standing in their niches draped 
 in the cast-off clothes of the family. 
 The clothing was put on regardless of sex. 
 Powers's Greek Slave wore a frock-coat; 
 an Apollo Belvedere was draped in a 
 "balmoral" skirt; a Cvipid and Psyche 
 had a Scotch plaid shawl pinned over 
 them. The effect was weird in the ex- 
 treme. The statues looked like so many 
 scare-crows. Mr. Waugh sent for the 
 charwoman and pretended to be very 
 angry. 
 
 "Did you cover up my beautiful statues 
 with those old clothes?" he asked severely. 
 "Yes, sir, I did, and I'll do it agin. 
 Statoos, you call 'em. I call 'em low- 
 down images. You'll never ketch me 
 workin' in the room with them unless 
 they're kivered. I'm a decent woman, I 
 am, and I don't hold with any such 
 indecency." 
 
 "Don't you know that those are copies 
 of classic statues among the most beautiful 
 that were ever made?" said the artist. 
 
84 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 * ' Beautif td ? ' ' with scom. ' * That shows 
 what kind of a man you are. You oughter 
 be ashamed, and you with young datters — 
 a nice way to bring them up ! " 
 
 "Don't you know that the galleries of 
 Europe are filled with statues, and that 
 people from all over the world go to see 
 them?" 
 
 "Yurrupl^-o* course! Them savages 
 don't know no better." And gathering 
 up her skirts, she swept out of the room 
 without having once turned her eyes upon 
 the "statoos." 
 
 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe had a married 
 sister living in Birdlington, to whom she 
 made occasional visits. I remember that, 
 on one of these visits, she was asked to read 
 an essay before a select company of 
 Birdlingtonians. She selected a subject 
 that would have given the Concord 
 School of Philosophy food for thought. It 
 was some current Boston "ism" — I don't 
 remember just what, but I do remember its 
 effect upon her audience. The reading 
 
The Tomboy at Work 85 
 
 was in the early afternoon, and the ladies 
 brought their sewing. At first they tried 
 to understand, but they soon gave that up 
 as an impossibility. When Mrs. Howe 
 gave a decided emphasis to any line or 
 word, they looked up from their needles 
 and nodded their heads approvingly. 
 The old lady who kept the dames' school 
 slept soundly until some emphasised line 
 aroused her, and then, to show that she 
 had been listening, and that she realised 
 that, as a school-teacher, she should be a 
 leader among the women, she would 
 exclaim, "How true!" Once she said 
 "How true" to a proposition that Mrs. 
 Howe was proving to be false, but, as she 
 dropped off to sleep again immediately 
 after her remark, the essayist's look of 
 astonishment was lost on her. 
 
 The senior physician of the village and 
 the rector were the only men present, 
 and, having the dignity of their sex to 
 uphold, they looked very wise. The 
 doctor stroked his beard, pressed the 
 
86 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 handle of his cane against his smooth- 
 shaven upper lip, and at least looked as 
 though he understood it all. The rector 
 had a far-away look in his eye, but he was 
 on the alert for unorthodox doctrines. 
 When they were expounded, he knitted his 
 brows and toyed with the gold cross that 
 he wore on his watch-ribbon; but he said 
 nothing. Perhaps it was as well. 
 
 In the evening, there was an entertain- 
 ment in honour of Mrs. Howe. The 
 chief warden of the church, who was also 
 the basso profundo of the choir, sang 
 "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" 
 with effect so realistic that Kate Red- 
 mond asked one of her admirers to bring 
 her a life-preserver. A young divinity 
 student sang "Jesus, Lover of, My Soul" 
 to the tune of "When the Swallows 
 Homeward Fly"; a young lady from the 
 neighbouring village of Crosswicks played 
 a piano-forte solo in which she crossed her 
 hands with unusual effect. Indeed, it 
 seemed to me that most of the right-hand 
 
SffFfL 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 crossed her hands with unusual effect." 
 
The Tomboy at Work 87 
 
 notes were played by the left hand, and 
 most of those to the left were played by 
 the right hand. She certainly was ambi- 
 dextrous, and, when I remarked upon it, 
 she said that, as a small child, she sat 
 with her hands crossed, and thereby 
 gained facility. The piece was called 
 "Monastery Bells," if I remember rightly, 
 and was a great parlour favourite in those 
 days. I think that it was the cross- 
 hands part that made it so popular. It 
 looked a difficult thing to do, but I dare 
 say that it was easy enough if you only 
 knew the trick. 
 
 The evening ended with charades. We 
 asked Mrs. Howe, as the guest of honour, 
 to choose the word. She suggested "Tran- 
 scendental." Nothing could have been 
 easier. "Trance" was the first syllable, 
 and Kate Redmond was chosen for the 
 part of the unconscious lady, which she 
 came near spoiling by an imitation snore. 
 "Send" was the next syllable, and "Den- 
 tal" the last. That was easy enough. 
 
88 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 Dixey was the victim of toothache, while 
 the divinity student acted the part of 
 dentist. There was the word, sure enough, 
 but how many in that audience knew its 
 meaning ? 
 
 You will see, by this chapter, that we 
 were not without our social excitements in 
 Birdlington. Kate Redmond called them 
 tame; but then, the Redmonds had spent 
 part of a winter in New York, and they 
 were expected to be critical. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 I WAS in the office at Trenton for a year, 
 and then the work that I had set out to do 
 was done. I could not be idle. I could 
 not afford to be, for one thing, and I did 
 not enjoy having nothing to do, for 
 another. Dixey, being a newspaper man, 
 and having a wide acquaintance among 
 prominent men in the State, was appealed 
 to to find me a new position. He had 
 about made up his mind by this time that 
 I "meant business," so he agreed to do 
 what he could for me. He could not 
 think of anything, however; but I could. 
 
 At first, I thought that I would write 
 poetry or cane chairs — I was not very 
 particular as to which, nor had I any 
 aptitude for either profession. The way 
 I came to think of these two things, 
 seemingly so far apart, was this: 
 89 
 
9© The Tomboy at Work 
 
 While he was reporting the doings of 
 the State legislature at Trenton, Dixey 
 discovered a poet. She was a poor 
 woman, who caned chairs for a living in the 
 intervals of housework. Dixey, who was 
 something of a poet himself, found that 
 the woman possessed the real fire. He 
 interested himself in her, published a 
 volume of her poems, and sold them by 
 subscription, thereby making more money 
 for her in the space of a few short weeks 
 than she had ever seen in all the years of 
 her life. This seemed to me an easy way 
 of earning a living, and so I wrote some 
 verses in imitation of "Clementine's." 
 With no little pride, I showed them to 
 Dixey, expecting that he would say at 
 once that he would get them published 
 for me and make me a tidy sum of money. 
 I handed him the verses one Sunday — he 
 always spent his Sundays at home — ^but I 
 did not tell him who had written them. I 
 wanted to get his unprejudiced praise 
 before I confessed. He began to read. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 91 
 
 "Whoever wrote this stuff," said he, 
 "is either a knave or a fool. They are a 
 base imitation of 'Clementine,* and they 
 are more base than imitation." 
 
 "The person who wrote those verses," 
 said I, in a voice filled with indignation, 
 "is neither a knave nor a fool. They 
 were written by a particular friend of 
 mine, and I would thank you to give 
 them back to me." 
 
 "Your particular friend should be more 
 particular the next time she — no one but 
 a she could write such twaddle — ventures 
 into verse." And he returned the manu- 
 script, which had been copied out by 
 another hand. 
 
 That experience put a damper on my 
 poetic aspirations for the time, at any 
 rate; certainly upon any thought of 
 poetry as a bread-winner. I decided that 
 it might be more in my line to cane chairs, 
 but that was less to my taste. So two 
 possible roads to fortune were closed. 
 
 I cast about me, and decided that I 
 
92 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 should like to go into the United States 
 Mint, in Philadelphia. The pay was the 
 same that I had been getting, and the 
 hours were easy. There were not many 
 things that a woman could do at that 
 time, and mint positions were regarded as 
 great prizes. 
 
 It seemed as though I were bound to get 
 what I wanted in those days. The mint 
 position was obtained, and I got a pass 
 over the railroad to Philadelphia. Passes 
 were easy to get. The head of the family 
 of any one connected in the remotest 
 with the railroad merely had to go up 
 to the ticket office and ask for them. I 
 have seen Kate Redmond bring ten girls 
 at a time from a neighbouring town, by 
 saying to the ticket seller, "Ten passes to 
 Birdlington, please," and they were imme- 
 diately handed out without a word of 
 protest. Times have changed since those 
 happy days. 
 
 For a month or more I went up and 
 down by the railroad, and all was well 
 
The Tomboy at Work 93 
 
 iintil the unexpected happened. One Sun- 
 day, when Dixey was at home, he made the 
 suggestion that the family move to Newark 
 so that my mother could have the benefit 
 of his full salary — ten dollars per week. 
 He could live at home. Her pension 
 would about pay the rent, and we should 
 all be together — that is, if I could get 
 something to do in Newark, which I 
 believed that I could when the time should 
 come. We talked the matter over care- 
 fully, and made the margin of the religious 
 weekly to which my mother subscribed 
 black with figures. Dixey proved — at 
 least, to his and our satisfaction — that ten 
 dollars a week in Newark would be equal 
 to twenty dollars in Birdlington. In his 
 own home, he would be inspired to work, 
 and could do much more than in a boarding- 
 house. It was a pleasing argument, and 
 we fell in with it. 
 
 My mother was eager to go for some 
 reasons, yet doubtful on other accounts. 
 She would have Dixey at home, and then 
 
94 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 the schools in Newark offered opportunities 
 for the younger children that were not 
 to be had in Birdlington. In many 
 respects, the country was a better place 
 for the children; but then, again, she felt 
 that she was standing in Aunt Maria's 
 light. If we did not live at Fair View, 
 she could rent it for a good price, and it 
 was her only source of revenue. Aunt 
 Maria was generous and the most loyal of 
 sisters. Blood to her was not only thicker 
 than water; it wa^ thicker than molasses. 
 In fact, it was the thickest thing in the 
 world, and to be her sister, or her niece, or 
 her nephew was a bond that nothing 
 could break. She argued against the 
 Newark move, but Dixey carried the day. 
 After he had gained my mother's con- 
 sent, he confessed that he had been looking 
 at a house with an eye to business. He 
 said that it was in the suburbs of Newark, 
 that there was a bit of ground around it, 
 and that it was quite new — in fact, it was 
 not finished yet, but if we wotild take it 
 
The Tomboy at Work 95 
 
 in its unfinished state the rent would be 
 much less than in other circumstances. 
 
 "How unfinished is it?" asked Aunt 
 Maria. 
 
 "Well, let me see," said Dixey. "The 
 top floor is not plastered, and the cellar 
 isn't dug. But that's nothing. We can 
 easily get a mason to plaster it, and I can 
 dig the cellar in the evenings when I come 
 home from the office." 
 
 My mother gasped in amazement. Aunt 
 Maria, to whom Dixey was as the apple of 
 her eye, arose from her chair almost too 
 astonished to speak. 
 
 "You dig a cellar! It would be digging 
 your grave. Not while your mother and 
 I are alive will you do any such foolish 
 thing as that." 
 
 My mother was equally determined; so 
 the unfinished house was discarded, to 
 Dixey 's disappointment, for I think he 
 was rather looking forward to that stren- 
 uous evening work. 
 
 It was decided that the family should 
 
96 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 go to Newark, and Dixey was authorised to 
 look out for a house with a cellar already 
 dug and rooms plastered. In the mean- 
 time, I continued going up and down to 
 my work in Philadelphia. I was then 
 about sixteen years of age, and was 
 rather an independent young person — 
 quite the most independent and quite the 
 youngest in the Mint. 
 
 There were various departments in the 
 Mint, and I was assigned to the one in 
 which the gold coins were weighed. 
 Twenty or thirty women were employed 
 in this department, mostly widows or 
 orphans of soldiers who had fought in the 
 war; and there were some who had been 
 appointed because of a political pull. 
 It seemed to me that there were a good 
 many old people, but that may have been 
 because I was so young that I misjudged 
 their years. They were a timid lot, 
 nervous and anxious lest they should 
 lose their places. On pay day, the em- 
 ployees signed their names in a big book 
 
The Tomboy at Work 97 
 
 in the presence of the superintendent. 
 A number of the women who could write 
 perfectly well were so nervous, and their 
 hands shook so from excitement over what 
 they regarded as a ceremony, that they 
 were obliged to make their mark. I 
 astonished them all by signing my name in 
 a big, bold hand, much bigger and bolder 
 than my wont, just to show them that I 
 was not nervous. I would also have a few 
 words of conversation with the superin- 
 tendent during the performance. I could 
 see the women's admiration of my courage. 
 They all stood in awe of the head of our 
 department, a lady who had been in the 
 Mint for seventeen years, and who drew a 
 salary double that of any one of us who 
 merely weighed gold. I respected her, 
 but I did not fear her, and talked with her 
 as I would with any other woman I might 
 know. I found her most amiable, and I 
 think she rather liked the way I treated 
 her, though it must have surprised her 
 at first, it was so unusual. 
 
98 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 The work of weighing gold was not very- 
 arduous, nor was it very interesting. We 
 sat in high chairs at long tables, with a pair 
 of nicely adjusted scales in front of each 
 weigher. We laid an unstamped coin on 
 the scale, and, if it was too light, tossed it 
 into a basket on one side, and, if it was too 
 heavy, we rubbed it gently with a file. 
 This filing made a lot of gold dust, which 
 was very precious. There had been a 
 good deal of pilfering of this gold dust 
 before I came into the Mint, and many 
 precautions were now taken to prevent it. 
 One of the ways of stealing the dust had 
 been to grease the hair and rub the dust 
 off the hands into it, A good deal could 
 be carried away in this manner. In my 
 time greased hair was forbidden, and the 
 hands had to be washed in basins with 
 sieve attachments before we left the Mint. 
 
 When gold was scarce, we were set at 
 making little bags of canton flannel to 
 hold it when it began to come in again. 
 I disliked sewing very much, even the easy 
 
The Tomboy at Work 99 
 
 task of making bags. The women thought 
 me very entertaining, and they agreed to 
 sew my bags if I would amuse them. Thi^ 
 I was only too pleased to do, for they were 
 easily amused. I had no voice to speak 
 of, but I was good at tunes, and had a 
 large repertoire which I could draw upon 
 for singing, whistling, or playing on my 
 "round comb " by putting a piece of soft 
 paper over the keys and blowing. Then, 
 I was quite accomplished with the jews- 
 harp, an instrument of torture one seldom 
 sees nowadays. 
 
 Strange to say, the women liked my 
 singing the best. I suppose that it was 
 because they got the words . as well as the 
 music. The most popular song in my 
 repertoire was one to which I attached 
 the name of each woman in turn. By so 
 doing, I would often sing as many as 
 twenty verses, to the never-failing delight 
 of my auditors. For instance, if one of 
 the women was named Lucy, I would 
 sing: 
 
 tofC. 
 
icx) The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "Oh, Sister Lucy, and don't you want to go, 
 And leave this world of trouble and sorrow here 
 below ? 
 
 "If you've any trouble on your mind, 
 If you've any trouble on your mind. 
 Just ask the Lord what you must do, 
 If you've any trouble on your mind." 
 
 Then in as impressive a voice as I could 
 assume : 
 
 "Bow down, kneel down, 
 When you've any trouble on your mind." 
 
 This was all of the song, as far as I know. 
 I think my brother Sandy picked it up from 
 the negroes in the South during the war. 
 I had never heard it before, and I have 
 never heard it since. Small loss, I hear 
 you say. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The family had moved to Newark, and, 
 after much debate, it was decided that I 
 should board in Philadelphia until such 
 time as some work could be found for me 
 in the former city. I hated to part from 
 my family, but the idea of boarding alone 
 in Philadelphia was not without its ex- 
 citement. A house was chosen on Walnut 
 Street, where a friend of my mother's 
 boarded. It was within easy walking- 
 distance of the Mint, and I was allowed to 
 go home to luncheon, a privilege not 
 generally extended. I found that I could 
 get it only by special permission of the 
 superintendent, so I went to him without 
 delay and stated the case. 
 
 "Mr. Snowdon," said I, "cold luncheons 
 do not agree with me." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 lOI 
 
I02 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "No, sir, they do not. My boarding- 
 house is at Tenth and Walnut, and I can 
 get a comfortable hot luncheon there if 
 you will allow me." 
 
 "I do not wish to stand between you 
 and a hot luncheon, so I think I had 
 better let you go; but you must not take 
 more than an hour. If you do, I shall 
 have to withdraw the permission." 
 
 "Thank you very much; I will be back 
 well within the hour." And I was. 
 
 I paid five dollars a week for my room 
 and board. The room was small, but 
 it was on the street and had a big window, 
 and the food was bountiful and good. I 
 had a great many friends in Philadelphia, 
 so that time did not hang heavy on my 
 hands. The artist who had lived in 
 Birdlington was now living with his two 
 daughters in West Philadelphia, and the 
 Redmond girls were constantly at their 
 house. We had jolly times there. I shall 
 not forget a party that they once gave. 
 The Redmonds came down for it, and 
 
The Tomboy at Work 103 
 
 Kate Redmond, with her usual inventive- 
 ness, dressed up one of the artist's lay 
 figures in women's clothes and set it up in 
 the men's dressing-room. It was funny 
 enough to hear the men, as they entered 
 and discovered what they naturally sup- 
 posed was a lady standing near the dressing- 
 table. They would start back, one foot 
 on the threshold, with many apologies for 
 the intrusion. A smothered giggle from 
 down the hall, where Kate Redmond and 
 I were posted to see the fun, reassured 
 them. 
 
 We heard a great shout from the room 
 later in the evening, and learned from one 
 of the men that, when he saw another man 
 coming up the hall, he put his arm around 
 the figure and bent its head over on his 
 shoulder. The other man was covered 
 with confusion. 
 
 "Don't mention it, old chap," said the 
 joker; "we don't mind in the least." And 
 then he turned the lay figure, with its 
 staring eyes and painted cheeks, around to 
 
104 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 the light. It was then that the shouts of 
 laughter came down the hall. 
 
 "I dare you to carry it downstairs and 
 dance with it in the drawing-room," said 
 Kate Redmond. The young man, not to 
 be "stumped," took the thing in his 
 arms and waltzed quite around the room 
 with it before she — or shall I say it ? — was 
 discovered. He was very rude to it, too, 
 and bumped it against people and chairs 
 in his mad whirl. 
 
 "Who is that extraordinary woman?" 
 inquired one of the older ladies. "She 
 must have been drinking, to waltz in that 
 mad way." 
 
 "She is only intoxicated with the 
 music," said Kate Redmond. "She is a 
 charming girl; let me introduce her." 
 And, seizing the figure as it whirled by, she 
 dragged it up to the inquiring lady. The 
 lady was amiable enough to enter into the 
 joke. 
 
 It was while I was boarding in Phila- 
 delphia that Fanny Kemble came there 
 
The Tomboy at Work 105 
 
 to read. The Quaker City was her social 
 stronghold. She had married Pierce But- 
 ler, a member of one of the F. F. P.'s, and, 
 though his people did not altogether ap- 
 prove of his marriage to an actress, 
 particularly one as aggressive as Fanny 
 Kemble, they received her as one of the 
 family, though with none too great cor- 
 diality. Her readings, however, were great 
 social events. I determined to go, though 
 a ticket cost half a week's earnings. 
 Every one I knew was going, and I felt it 
 a social as well as an intellectual duty to 
 attend the reading. I had to economise 
 for a while, but I am glad that I went. 
 What was five dollars to pay for such a 
 treat, and the memory of it, which is 
 ineffaceable? There were no reserved 
 seats, so people sent their servants to 
 keep places for them. Mrs, Gillespie 
 describes the incident with graphic and 
 humorous pen in her delightful volume of 
 reminiscences. The Susan for whom she 
 kept a seat was my mother's dearest 
 
io6 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 friend. I knew more people at that 
 public performance than I should know at 
 an afternoon tea to-day. 
 
 "The Merry Wives of Windsor" was the 
 play chosen by Mrs. Kemble for the reading. 
 I can see and hear it all now. She was 
 then past middle life ; a large woman with a 
 rather severe face, not in the least sug- 
 gestive of Sully's charming portrait painted 
 in her early youth. She wore a simple 
 gown of silk and lace, expanded by a 
 crinoline of huge proportions. As I re- 
 member the reading, it was wonderful. 
 It was like an "all-star" performance, 
 or what such a performance should be 
 but never is. Every part was read to 
 perfection, from that of the gruff, rotund 
 Falstaff to that of the gentle Anne Page. 
 Since that eventful day, I have heard 
 many other readers, among them Charlotte 
 Cushman; but none compared with Fanny 
 Kemble. I did not hear Dickens; I was 
 too poor. That disappointment spurred 
 me up to hearing Fanny Kemble, for it 
 
The Tomboy at Work 107 
 
 determined me to miss nothing that would 
 have given me such pleasure, even though 
 I had to sell my boots. 
 
 In a book-store in Philadelphia I picked 
 up a little paper-covered volume called 
 "Pen Photographs of Dickens's Readings," 
 by Kate Field. It was second-hand, and 
 I bought it cheap. Reading it, I realised 
 more than ever what I had missed. The 
 name, Kate Field, was new to me then. 
 It had a young sound, and I liked it. I 
 learned from the bookseller that the 
 writer was young, and I became very much 
 interested in this unknown, and read 
 everything I saw in the magazines or 
 newspapers signed with her name. Some 
 years later I came to know her well, and 
 it was she who started me on my journal- 
 istic career in New York. A brilliant, 
 kindly woman was Kate Field. How 
 brilliant the world knows — how kind is 
 known only to her friends. 
 
 Just at this time I was very much 
 thrilled by hearing that there was a young 
 
io8 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 girl boarding in the house opposite the 
 one in which I boarded, who was going to 
 be an actress. A Siddons, maybe, or a 
 Kemble! She was to make her d^but at 
 a local theatre. I doubt if she was much 
 more excited than I was, on the auspicious 
 night. I could scarcely eat my dinner, 
 and hung out of my window at the risk 
 of breaking my neck, to see her start for 
 the theatre. I watched for an hour, and 
 then saw a cab drive up in front of the 
 house. After a while, the door opened, 
 and the light from the hall fell upon the 
 figure of a young woman wrapped in an 
 opera-cloak with a bit of lace tied loosely 
 around her head. A woman with a small 
 bag in her hand followed, and carried her 
 train as she ran lightly down the marble 
 steps. The young woman jumped into 
 the cab, the other spoke a word of direction 
 to the driver, the door slammed, the 
 horse's hoofs beat fire out of the cobble- 
 stones; then all was dark. I followed the 
 cab with my eyes as it rattled down the 
 
The Tomboy at Work 109 
 
 street and disappeared in the darkness. 
 What a great thing to be an actress! 
 Glittering costumes, the magic of the foot- 
 lights, music, and wild applause, columns 
 of praise in the newspapers, riches, and 
 fame! That is what I thought then; but 
 that was a long time ago, and the young 
 actress whom I had envied on that night 
 was never heard of again. She twinkled 
 for a moment, and then her light went out. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Notwithstanding the gaieties of life in 
 Philadelphia, I longed for my home, for 
 my mother, my brothers, and my sisters. 
 I made the same argument that Dixey had 
 made: that I might as well turn all of my 
 income into the family exchequer as to 
 pay out half of it to a boarding-house 
 keeper. It never entered into my calcula- 
 tions that I could not earn as much money 
 in Newark as I had earned in Trenton or 
 Philadelphia. I began to get restless. 
 So one day, after I had been in the Mint 
 but a short time, I asked for the usual 
 month's holiday. We were allowed the 
 month with a full month's pay. When 
 the superintendent gave me my advance, 
 I told him plainly that I might not come 
 back, and that perhaps for that reason I 
 was not entitled to my vacation money. 
 xio 
 
The Tomboy at Work iii 
 
 "I think that the United States Govern- 
 ment can stand it," said he. "Your 
 father lost his life in the service of his 
 country; you have done your work well 
 since you have been here, and we will 
 take our chances about your coming 
 back," handing me the money at the same 
 time. 
 
 When I told my fellow-workers that I 
 might not come back, they expressed much 
 regret, at which I was not altogether 
 surprised, for I had certainly ** enlivened 
 things a bit " among them. I burned 
 my bridges behind me, and set out to 
 fmd something to do in Newark. 
 
 I found the family settled in a hideously 
 commonplace house, at the corner of a 
 street in a thoroughly respectable neigh- 
 bourhood. In the basement were the 
 kitchen and dining-room; and there were 
 two drawing-rooms on the first floor. The 
 drawing-rooms were furnished with Spartan 
 plainness — a Pleyel grand piano, at least 
 fifty years old, but very graceful and still 
 
112 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 sweet-toned, being the only relief to its 
 severity. 
 
 I did not find a position as soon as I had 
 hoped, but that did not discourage me. 
 I knew that something would be found. 
 In the meantime, I was not idle. Those 
 were the days of the stereoscope, and I 
 heard of a man who gave out photographs 
 to be coloured. I called upon him, and 
 said I would like to undertake the job. I 
 talked a little art - twaddle with him, 
 treated him as though I regarded him as 
 an artist, and secured the work. 
 
 ' ' How many photographs will you take ? " 
 said he. 
 
 "All you have," I replied, and he turned 
 them over to me, together with the neces- 
 sary paraphernalia for colouring them. 
 
 It was great fun. My sisters helped me, 
 and we had a good time. At first we 
 thought that we would paint the people 
 and scenes as in real life, but that was 
 entirely too tame. We threw reality to 
 the winds, and painted landscapes that 
 
The Tomboy at Work 113 
 
 Turner might have envied. Such sunsets 
 were never seen on land or sea, and when 
 it came to men and women we garbed 
 them as for a carnival. 
 
 The photographer was enchanted. He 
 said that I was a born colourist — that I 
 ought to devote my life to art. I did not 
 tell him that I had too much respect for 
 art, but that was the truth. He paid me 
 fifteen dollars — ^which I divided with my 
 sisters — and said, almost with tears in his 
 eyes, that he could not give out any more 
 work, as business was so bad. He would 
 have to do the colouring himself, which 
 was such a pity, when I was so talented. 
 I was sorry, too, but immediately looked 
 about for something else to do. 
 
 We had a few calls on New Yearns Day; 
 not many, for we did not know many 
 people. Among the callers was a new 
 friend, but one who took much interest 
 in us, first, because he was of a kindly 
 nature, and, second, because he considered 
 us a talented family. So we were — some 
 
114 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 of us; I was not of the number. We had 
 the drawing-room in better shape now; 
 books and magazines were scattered about. 
 When I think of our "drop light," I cannot 
 help smiling. It was the first we ever had, 
 and we thought it a dream of beauty. It 
 was in imitation bronze, and represented 
 a falconer in doublet and boots, a plumed 
 hat upon his head, and a falcon perched 
 upon his gauntleted finger. The price of 
 this masterpiece was fourteen dollars, but 
 the gasfitter and plumber from whom 
 Dixey bought it let him have it at trade 
 rates, as they were fellow-poets. The 
 gasfitter was also a great admirer of Shake- 
 speare, and had made a pilgrimage to 
 Stratford-upon-Avon, not so common a 
 thing in those days as now. We kept 
 that drop light long after we realised its 
 weak points artistically, but it has gone 
 now, though it will never be forgotten by 
 me. 
 
 To return to our caller. He came to 
 wish us a Happy New Year, but more 
 
The Tomboy at Work 115 
 
 particularly to tell me that he had found 
 a position for me. The city auditor, who 
 was a friend of his, needed another clerk, 
 and our friend mentioned me to him. 
 He hesitated, as he had never had a girl 
 in his office, and was not sure that he 
 cared to have one. Our kind friend 
 argued that I was a wonderful mathe- 
 matician and devoted to business; that 
 he would have no trouble with me on the 
 score of flirtations; and that he at least 
 might give me a trial. And this he con- 
 sented to do. I gasped audibly when I 
 heard our friend say that I was a wonderful 
 mathematician, for I could not add two 
 and two together and make them four. I 
 said nothing, for I determined to take the 
 place if I could get it, and trust to luck 
 for the result. I was like the man who, 
 when asked if he could play the violin, said 
 he didn't know, for he had never tried. 
 I, however, was determined to try. 
 
 Work was to begin the next day, and I 
 was at the auditor's office bright and early. 
 
ii6 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 That functionary was very amiable, and 
 introduced me to the only other clerk, who, 
 he said, would show me what I was to do. 
 The young man was very amiable also, and 
 took a good deal of pains to instruct me. 
 My duties were entirely mathematical. 
 Column after column of figures was to be 
 added up. "That's all," said he. "Mere 
 child's play." 
 
 Child's play! Show me the child that 
 would find that sort of work play, and I 
 will show you a monstrosity. I went at 
 it, however, and was surprised to see how 
 quickly I could add. I wrote the result 
 on a scrap of paper, and then added down 
 the column to make sure. Unhappily, 
 instead of proving me right, this second 
 attempt only proved me wrong. A third 
 time I went slowly up the column; the 
 result was unlike either of the others. It 
 was now quite clear to my mind that, should 
 I go over those figures fifty times, I would 
 get fifty different results. This was a try- 
 ing conclusion. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 117 
 
 "There's something wrong about these 
 figures," I confided to the head clerk. "I 
 can't make them come out right." 
 
 "Let me see," said he, and, taking the 
 figured paper in his hand, he ran up three 
 columns at a time, jotting down the result. 
 "That seems to be right," he continued, 
 and to prove it ran gaily down the column. 
 The result was the same as the first, and, 
 looking over his shoulder, I saw that it was 
 unlike any of my totals. I sat down at 
 my desk and thought. How was I going 
 to earn my salary by adding figures if I 
 could not get the correct result? As I 
 thought, I whistled softly an aria from 
 "Don Giovanni." 
 
 "How well you whistle," said my fellow- 
 worker. "I'd give a good deal to do that. 
 I love music more than anything, and I 
 can't turn a tune to save my life." 
 
 I expressed my astonishment, and, to 
 show off my accomplishment, whistled an 
 aria from "Martha " and another from the 
 "Traviata." 
 
ii8 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "It's a great gift," said he regretfully. 
 Then brightening, "I'll tell you what " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "If you'll whistle opera tunes to me, I'll 
 add up your figures." 
 
 The bargain was struck at once. I had 
 a large repertoire, and he was delighted. It 
 was something like my Mint experience. I 
 played while he worked. He was more 
 than satisfied, but I was not. Ten dollars 
 a week for whistling a few tunes seemed 
 like overpay. I was convinced that I 
 could not earn the money by adding, and I 
 did not care to earn it by whistling, as that 
 was not what I had been hired for. After 
 a few weeks, during which time I had tried 
 hard to make a mathematician of myself, 
 I went to the auditor and handed in my 
 resignation. 
 
 "I am quite satisfied," said he. "You 
 have done your work remarkably well — 
 for a girl, and I shall be very glad to have 
 you continue." 
 
 Then I explained to him that I had not 
 
The Tomboy at Work 119 
 
 done it at all, and told him just how it had 
 been done. He seemed very much aston- 
 ished, but agreed with me that it was not 
 quite the way to earn a salary. 
 
 The head clerk was very sorry to have 
 me go. He said that the extra work was 
 nothing; that he was more than repaid by 
 the music — that is what he called it — and 
 that he would miss it very much. 
 
 So ended my first and last attempt to 
 earn my living by figures. No amount of 
 practice could make an arithmetician of 
 me, and even now, if I can balance my 
 bank-book twice a month, I am satisfied, 
 and so is my bank. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 My experience as an adder was short- 
 lived. Whistling was easy work, but it 
 was too easy, and I was not sorry that 
 I had resigned the post, for, with the con- 
 fidence of youth, I felt sure that I should 
 soon find something else to do. 
 
 Sure enough, the something else was not 
 long in coming. The newspaper that 
 Dixey was on wanted a proof-reader, and 
 through his influence I was offered the job. 
 I took it, though I had no more knowledge 
 of proof-reading than of Sanscrit. How- 
 ever, that was a mere detail. In the back 
 of Webster's Dictionary there was a full 
 explanation of proof-reading, with examples 
 of the art. I spent an evening in studying 
 the subject, and corrected some "galleys" 
 of printed matter that Dixey brought home 
 with him for me to try my 'prentice hand 
 1 20 
 
The Tomboy at Work 121 
 
 upon. The next day I entered upon my 
 duties. The son of the editor was my asso- 
 ciate. He had experience, so he corrected 
 the printed slips while I held the "copy" 
 — ^journalese for manuscript. It was his 
 task to read aloud, mine to follow and catch 
 any mistakes in sense, word, or punctuation. 
 As is the manner of proof-readers, he read 
 in a monotonous voice thus: 
 
 "As shows the air when with a rainbow grac 
 apostrophy d comma new Hne So smiles that 
 r-i-b-a-n-d apostrophy bout my Julia s apos- 
 trophy waist semi-colon new line Or like dash 
 nay comma apostrophy t that z-o-n-u-l-e-t of 
 love comma wherein all pleasures of the world 
 are wove period. 
 
 It was impossible for me to keep my 
 mind on the ' ' copy. ' ' It would go wander- 
 ing off to other things — castles in Spain 
 which I was always building. For a 
 strenuous young person, I was a good deal 
 of a dreamer, and I am pleased to find that 
 Herbert Spencer confesses to having in- 
 dulged in the same habit, and that he con- 
 
122 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 sidered a certain amount of it a good thing. 
 I have lived in several of my castles, and 
 hope to live in more before I die. The 
 proprietor of the Daily evidently did not 
 share Mr. Spencer's view of the case, and 
 after I had disgraced the paper by allowing 
 a number of bad typographical blunders 
 to escape me, I realised that my resignation 
 would be accepted without regret if I should 
 offer it. One day I let something get into 
 the paper that raised a hornet's nest over 
 my head. I was as innocent of it as a 
 babe. It must have been something ter- 
 rible, for no one would tell me what it was. 
 The entire edition was sold out the moment 
 the paper appeared on the streets. I 
 looked through the copy on the office file, 
 but could find nothing. I noticed that a 
 two-inch square was cut out of a certain 
 column. "That must be it," I thought, 
 and hastened to the nearest newsdealer's. 
 "Have you this evening's Daily?" I in- 
 quired. Yes, he had it, but that same two 
 inches was cut out. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 123 
 
 "Could you let me have a perfect copy?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "I wish that I had a dozen of them," he 
 answered regretfully, "for I could get a 
 dollar apiece for them as easy as rolling off 
 a log." 
 
 "Why are they in such demand?" I 
 inquired. 
 
 "Some slip of the printer's." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 "Sorry, I can't tell you. It was pretty 
 bad, though. Whoever let that go will 
 catch it." 
 
 As I was one of the proof-readers, I sup- 
 pose that I was as guilty as my associate, 
 though I have often thought that, whatever 
 the error was, perhaps the fault might have 
 been with the compositor. However, I 
 was responsible, and I decided to resign 
 before I was asked to do so. 
 
 " I don't think that you are cut out for a 
 proof-reader," said the proprietor, and I 
 thoroughly agreed with him. He did not 
 tell me what the mistake was, and after my 
 
124 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 interview with the newsdealer I thought it 
 as well not to ask. 
 
 The next opportunity offered me was in 
 the office of the Registrar of Deeds. The 
 work was not interesting; it was merely 
 the copying of deeds from the lawyers' 
 papers into a large leather-bound folio. 
 There were a dozen or more women en- 
 gaged in the work, and we were paid five 
 cents a hundred words. I saw a great 
 opportunity. Space work suited me, for I 
 wrote a good hand, and rapidly. But oh, 
 how deadly dull was the work! The tire- 
 some repetitions of the law, enlivened by 
 technical descriptions of the property con- 
 veyed by John Doe to Richard Roe. I put 
 in longer hours than any one else in the 
 office, ate a luncheon of pilot-biscuit dipped 
 in salt as I wrote, and earned twenty dollars 
 a week! This was riches. I was the most 
 successful wage-earner in the family. I did 
 not like the work. As with proof-reading, I 
 could not keep my mind on it, and at the 
 end of the week, when our work was "com- 
 
The Tomboy at Work 125 
 
 pared" — that is, when, as in proof-reading, 
 one held the original and read from it while 
 the other followed the writing in the book — 
 the errors in my work were fearful to 
 behold, and took me hours of time to cor- 
 rect. 
 
 I knew perfectly well that I had not 
 found my niche yet, but I could not afford 
 to sit around and wait till it found me. I 
 had to earn my salt and the salt of others, 
 and idleness was out of the question as well 
 as very distasteful. I loved to work, even 
 if not in the line of my sympathies. What 
 I longed for was journalism. It was an 
 inherited longing. My father, though a 
 preacher and a teacher, had it, and Dixey 
 and I inherited it from him. Printer's ink 
 ran in our veins, and the click of the type 
 against the "stick" was music to our ears. 
 I knew that what I longed for would come, 
 and I was content to wait. In the mean- 
 time, I made the best of my present busi- 
 ness and enjoyed life. 
 
 Dixey's newspaper connections gave me 
 
126 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 many opportunities for visiting the theatres, 
 for he was dramatic critic as well as re- 
 porter and minor editorial writer on the 
 Daily. Some excellent "attractions," as 
 they say in the profession, came to Newark, 
 and I took them all in. 
 
 The first great theatrical treat I had was 
 a week of Edwin Booth. I saw that fine 
 actor in all his famous parts. "Hamlet" 
 was the first play that I ever saw, and 
 though I have seen many Hamlets since, 
 from the fascinating Fechter to the ex- 
 traordinary Anna Dickinson, and, later, the 
 phenomenal Sarah, I have never seen one 
 who seemed so absolutely the character 
 that Shakespeare drew as Edwin Booth. 
 I saw him many times after that memo- 
 rable week, and I never changed my opinion. 
 
 Operas came to Newark, too. Not 
 "grand opera," as we call it to-day, but 
 pretty good opera of its kind. Chief 
 among these was the Caroline Richings 
 English Opera Company, with the lady 
 whose name it bore as prima donna, and 
 
The Tomboy at Work 127 
 
 Castle as tenor and Campbell the baritone. 
 None of the present generation ever heard 
 of Castle and Campbell, yet they were 
 among the matinee idols of their day. If 
 my memory is to be trusted, they were fine 
 singers, too, and to hear them in "The 
 Bohemian Girl" was something to remem- 
 ber. Miss Richings, a conscientious singer, 
 was the "girl," while the gypsy woman was 
 played by Zelda Seguin; Devilshoof, the 
 gypsy man, by Ted Seguin, her husband. 
 What a great actor I thought him, and how 
 I laughed at his clowning! 
 
 So you see that, while I worked, I played 
 also, and was as happy as the day was long. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The niche that I wanted to fill at last 
 came my way, and I sprang into it. Dixey 
 and a young friend of his on the Daily 
 decided to start a paper of their own. 
 There was no morning paper in Newark. 
 Here was a long-felt want, and they deter- 
 mined to supply it. Neither of these boys 
 had any money, nor had either of them 
 any great aptitude for business. They 
 were both hard workers, and if they had 
 been backed by business management and 
 a certain amount of capital they might 
 have succeeded. As it was, they only 
 struggled on to failure. They started in 
 with high spirits and made a good paper — 
 too good, I am afraid. We all worked on 
 it. Dixey was managing editor and edi- 
 torial writer; his partner, young Byrd» 
 was general reporter; while Sandy took 
 128 
 
The Tomboy at Work 129 
 
 Police Headquarters as his share. An ex- 
 preacher was the business manager and 
 capitalist to a small amount, while I wrote 
 an irresponsible column called "Breakfast 
 Table Talk," which touched upon any topic 
 under the sun, and a column of personals 
 called "Qui Va La," which the com- 
 positors, with fine scorn for foreign words, 
 pronounced *' Quiverler." I worked in the 
 Registrar's Office for money and the Regis- 
 ter office for love. It was a training-school, 
 and I could not have had a better trainer 
 than Dixey. He "blue-pencilled" my 
 finest flights of fancy, and kept me within 
 bounds. 
 
 Because of my love of the stage, I 
 was allowed to write theatrical notices, 
 and, if my memory serves me, I wrote of 
 Miss Ada Rehan's debut, which took place 
 in Newark. I regret that I do not remem- 
 ber her share in it, but I do remember her 
 uncle (I believe he was Oliver Doud Byron), 
 with whom she appeared. 
 
 How we worked on that paper! Dixey 
 
I30 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 nearly killed himself. He never thought 
 of coming home to his dinner. We used to 
 carry it to him in a basket. He was always 
 too busy to eat it while it was hot, but laid 
 it aside until late in the evening, and then 
 ate it cold. Some nights he was too tired 
 to come home at all, and would throw him- 
 self down on a pile of newspapers in the 
 corner and sleep till morning. Then he 
 would come home, have his bath and break- 
 fast, and hurry back to the office. It was 
 hard work, but perhaps it would not have 
 hurt him if it had not been accompanied 
 by worry. The two ends would not meet. 
 Printers' and paper-makers' bills came in 
 with alarming regularity, but there was 
 little but promises to meet them with. 
 This worried Dixey, who hated debt, and, 
 though he could not pay his creditors then, 
 he did later — every one of them, dollar for 
 dollar. 
 
 We all worked hard on the Register, and 
 those who did not have the financial end to 
 worry over enjoyed it to the full. It was 
 
The Tomboy at Work 131 
 
 while working on the Register that I learned 
 that the New York Forum had no Newark 
 reporter, so I began sending news par- 
 agraphs to the city editor, at that time 
 Mr. Ford, the father of the late Paul L. 
 Ford. To my delight, he printed them, 
 and one day he sent for me to come over 
 and see him. I went at once ; I might say 
 I flew. Mr. Ford was surprised to find the 
 person who had been sending him Newark 
 news a young woman, but he did not seem 
 to object, for he at once offered me the 
 position of regular reporter at twelve 
 dollars a week. With an average of 
 twenty from the Registrar, here I was, not 
 yet seventeen, earning thirty-two dollars a 
 week! It never occurred to me that I was 
 burning life's taper at both ends, for that is 
 practically what it was. All day copying 
 deeds, all the evening writing paragraphs, 
 editing "back-matter," that is what we 
 called clippings from magazines and news- 
 papers. The deed-copying was rather irk- 
 some, I admit, and I longed for the day 
 
132 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 when I should have nothing but newspaper 
 work. 
 
 In the meantime, things on the Register 
 went from bad to worse. It was losing 
 money as only a newspaper can, so Dixey 
 and his partner decided to sell out. It is 
 one thing to arrive at such a decision in re- 
 gard to a newspaper property, and another 
 to carry it out. They did not want to 
 sacrifice a thing that had cost them so much 
 time and debt to establish, and to sell for 
 an3rthing like the value represented by their 
 work, and the reputation they had given 
 the paper, was not to be done in a day ; so 
 they hung on. 
 
 In the meantime, a New York magazine 
 of dignified character but small circulation 
 needed an editor. A friend mentioned 
 Dixey's name to the proprietor, and he was 
 engaged for the position at fifteen dollars a 
 week. This, with what I earned, would 
 have been a fairly good income for the fam- 
 ily, but it could not be used to that end. 
 Dixey did not think it right to desert his 
 
The Tomboy at Work 133 
 
 partner ; so he paid all of his weekly stipend 
 over to a man to take his place on the 
 Register until such time as it could be sold. 
 That time came at last. I don't think 
 that anything was paid for the paper; it 
 was merely taken over by a stock company. 
 A new managing editor was installed, 
 who was good enough to think my services 
 worth retaining at a fair price; so I re- 
 signed from the Registrar's Office and 
 began in earnest the work of my hfe. 
 The staff now consisted of the managing 
 editor, who was also the leader-writer, a 
 reporter, and myself. It was my duty to 
 assist both the editor and the reporter, and 
 between the two, the writing of scintillating 
 paragraphs, and the Forum work, I was 
 kept busy, but not too busy to please me. 
 The hours were long, for there was much to 
 do, and the Register wa,s a morning paper. 
 Sometimes I would not leave the office 
 until one o'clock or after. I remember 
 one night, as I was starting out particulariy 
 late— or early, as you prefer— the managing 
 
134 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 editor said that he would see me to my 
 door if I would first go with him to the 
 market, which was only a few blocks up 
 the street. To this I readily agreed. As 
 we walked along the deserted street, he 
 descanted upon the luscious things to be 
 had in the market. 
 
 "I like to get to the market early, before 
 it is yet dawn," said he in his most bom- 
 bastic manner. "Then I have the pick 
 of everything and can secure the choicest 
 bits, before the city has shaken the sleep 
 from its eyes. There, for me to choose 
 from, are the fruits of all parts of the coun- 
 try — the luscious oranges from California, 
 the juicy grape, the toothsome apple; the 
 blushing tomato, the crisp lettuce and 
 jocund bean. And then the fish!" (By 
 this time we were in the market-house, 
 and my mouth was watering.) **Fish 
 fresh from the sea!" he went on; "the 
 striped bass perhaps, and from the river 
 the shad, while the brook gives up the 
 speckled trout. Ah, trout ! I can see the 
 
The Tomboy at Work 135 
 
 fisherman cast his line, the trout flies up, 
 the rod bends, and lo ! in a moment it is in 
 the basket, to be broiled for my breakfast. 
 Ah! Here are the fish. Let us look at 
 them. Beauties, are they not? A fish 
 just out of the sea, the river, or the brook, 
 that is the thing for me." Then turning 
 to the man behind the counter, "What 
 have you, my friend?" 
 
 "Almost everything in the fish line." 
 
 "Have you bluefish?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Seventy-five cents for the 
 big ones." 
 
 "Shad from Connecticut River?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Ninety cents." 
 
 "Roe shad?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Fat ones, too. A dollar and 
 
 a quarter. Why, this here " The 
 
 editor interrupted him. 
 
 "Delicious, beautiful! I think, how- 
 ever, that I will have a salt mackerel. 
 Have you any?" 
 
 "I guess there's one somewhere around 
 here." And, diving down into a keg under 
 
136 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 the counter, he produced one dripping 
 with brine. 
 
 "A fine fish," said the managing editor, 
 counting out fifteen cents. Taking the 
 brown paper parcel from the fishmonger, he 
 added, "Well worth this early visit to the 
 market. There's nothing like a good salt 
 mackerel to begin the day on — a feast for 
 the gods ! " 
 
 I hardly knew whether to laugh or to 
 cry. It was funny, but pathetic too. I 
 suppose that he hungered for the fresh 
 fish, but his pocket would not permit; so 
 he was obliged to thirst after the mackerel. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Redmonds were spending the winter 
 in New York, and Kate used to run over 
 to Newark now and then to spend the night 
 with us. She came over one night when 
 Sandy and Dixey were away, and pre- 
 tended that she was very nervous at the 
 thought of staying all night without a man 
 to guard us. She called me to her room 
 after she had retired, and there she lay in 
 bed with one of Dixey's hats on and 
 Sandy's cane in her hand. 
 
 •'What in the world are you doing in 
 that rig?" I asked. 
 
 •'If a burglar comes, he will think that 
 there is a man in the house," answered 
 
 Kate. 
 
 "If he does, he'll think that he's gone 
 to bed the worse for drink, for sober men 
 don't go to bed with their hats on." 
 137 
 
138 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 Kate was not to be persuaded, however, 
 and slept out the night in her strange 
 attire. There were no burglars, fortunately. 
 I think, if there had been, they would have 
 thought they had broken into a lunatic 
 asylum. 
 
 I had never been to an opera in New 
 York, so when Kate a^ked me to go with 
 her to a matinee of "Faust," with Clara 
 Louise Kellogg, then in the heyday of her 
 fame, as Marguerite, I jumped at the 
 chance. The Academy of Music was the 
 fashionable opera house of New York at 
 that time. It was not so gorgeous as the 
 Metropolitan Opera House, but its simple 
 decoration set off the costumes of the ladies 
 to the best advantage. There were not so 
 many diamonds to be seen — fewer crowned 
 heads had disposed of their jewels at that 
 time — but necks and arms were just as 
 beautiful then as now, and the "horse- 
 shoe" on a gala night was worth seeing. 
 Opera was rather a cosy function in those 
 days. The people all knew each other. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 139 
 
 The most enthusiastic patrons of music oc- 
 cupied the proscenium boxes. There was 
 one family whose presence seemed almost 
 necessary to give the singers inspiration. 
 The curtain would remain down while the 
 manager peeped through a hole in the 
 sliding door, that he might give the signal 
 for the overture the moment they ap- 
 peared. It was the rarest thing for them 
 to miss a performance, and the singers, 
 who are a more or less superstitious class, 
 were quite out of sorts if those two heads 
 of snow-white hair were not in evidence. 
 They were a handsome couple, and their 
 distinguished bearing was a notable feature 
 of an opera night. Who nowadays cares 
 for the occupants of any one box at the 
 opera? Dozens of boxes attract the at- 
 tention of the sitters in the stalls, but the 
 singers are interested in no one box in 
 particular. It matters little to them if 
 certain leaders of fashion are or are not on 
 hand, so long as the audience is large and 
 enthusiastic. 
 
I40 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 I was more or less excited about going 
 to the opera in New York, and I was more 
 excited when the music began. From 
 that day to this, "Faust" has been my 
 favourite opera, and from that day to 
 this Clara Louise Kellogg has been my 
 favourite prima donna. I think that I 
 have heard every opera that has ever been 
 sung in this country, and every famous 
 singer that has ever sung here, and I still 
 adhere to my early conviction. 
 
 Not only the music of "Faust," but the 
 story, thrilled me. I felt that Miss Kel- 
 logg was Marguerite, and I was so wrought 
 up over her wrongs that I could have 
 slain Mephistopheles on the spot. I de- 
 termined to know her, and vowed then 
 and there to leave no stone unturned to 
 that end. I thought it bold of me, because 
 she seemed a thing apart — one who sat 
 upon a pedestal all day, and if she ate at 
 all it was sparingly of nectar and ambrosia. 
 I asked every one I knew whether he 
 or she knew Clara Louise Kellogg, and 
 
The Tomboy at Work 141 
 
 not one of them did. I was desperate. 
 Some weeks later, when the opera season 
 was over, she was advertised to appear 
 in concert in Newark. Now was my 
 opportunity ! She could not escape me. 
 I told the manager of the Newark Opera 
 House what I wanted, and he said that 
 he would arrange it, and he did. I was to 
 go behind the scenes with him, and he 
 would introduce me to Max Strakosch, who 
 in turn would introduce me to the prima 
 donna. I stood in the "wings" during the 
 entire performance. The prima donna 
 brushed past me as she made her entrances 
 and exits. Once she seemed to notice 
 that there was a gawky girl staring hard 
 at her through burning black eyes, but 
 she said nothing. I applauded her with 
 such violence that the audience, if it 
 heard me, must have thought I was the 
 leader of the claque. 
 
 The prima donna was obliged to sing 
 two or three encores to every song. They 
 were the old familiar ballads — "Comin' 
 
142 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 Thro' the Rye," "Edinboro' Town," 
 "Janet's Choice," and "Home, Sweet 
 Home." In answer to a double encore, 
 she drew off her long gloves, and seated 
 herself at the piano, and sang the then 
 popular song, "Beware," to her own ac- 
 companiment. She sang the words with 
 much archness, and the audience went 
 wild with delight. They miuch preferred 
 the ballads to the opera arias. When, 
 with a "naughty little twinkle in her eye," 
 she looked down at the front row and 
 sang, "Beware! Take care!" then con- 
 fidingly, "Trust her not, she's fooling 
 thee," the house rose to her. I preferred 
 the "Faust" music and manner, but I 
 was enchanted, as were the others. After 
 the performance, I was taken to the 
 prima donna's dressing-room, a dingy, 
 shabby hole, transfigured in my eyes to a 
 throne room by the presence of this queen 
 of song. She was amiable, and smiled 
 graciously upon my commonplace remarks. 
 She told me afterward that she thought I 
 
The Tomboy at Work 143 
 
 seemed a little mad, and I dare say that 
 I did. It was an exciting occasion for me. 
 Clara Louise Kellogg was then one of the 
 three great singers of the world. She 
 was the first really famous person I had 
 ever met, and I was a good deal of a 
 hero-worshipper in those days. 
 
 I determined that I would not be a 
 mere behind-the-scenes acquaintance, and 
 I followed up my introduction with a call 
 some time later. She was good enough 
 to see me, and I dare say that I enjoyed 
 the visit, though I remember that I was 
 very much shocked when I heard her say- 
 that she would like to have some picked-up 
 codfish for her luncheon. It took us some 
 time to become friends, because, as she 
 afterward told me, I put her on a pedestal, 
 and she did not enjoy the situation. But 
 what could you expect? I could only 
 think of her in the role that she sang, and 
 that put her in a class apart. I have since 
 learned that great artists are very much 
 like other people in their daily lives. In 
 
144 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 their temperaments, they are very unlike 
 the rest of us, but they eat and dress and 
 sleep the same as their fellows. That 
 they enjoy corned-beef hash and picked-up 
 codfish is the most natural thing in the 
 world. Hotel life, highly seasoned food, 
 unnatural hours, give them a relish for 
 homely food and quiet ways that those 
 whose life is cast along other lines do not 
 understand. I don't think that I ever 
 knew an actor or a singer who did not 
 look forward to a life of retirement on a 
 farm. There is nothing strange about 
 this. It is the natural longing for a life 
 of quiet after a life of intense excitement. 
 
 Now that the ice was broken, I went 
 frequently to opera matinees in New 
 York, and it was at the Academy of Music 
 that I heard all the great singers of a past 
 generation. 
 
 The Register had no Sunday edition, so 
 that Saturday was our holiday. We began 
 work on Sunday afternoon, but we did not 
 find much to do. We got most of our 
 
The Tomboy at Work 145 
 
 news from the few Sunday papers then 
 published in New York. We were pretty 
 sure that our readers had not seen it, for 
 most of them objected to Sunday news- 
 papers, and depended upon Monday morn- 
 ing's paper to tell them what had happened 
 on Saturday as well as on Sunday. Some- 
 how or other, things did not seem to 
 happen, and our Monday issue was not 
 very thrilling. 
 
 I worked for a long time on the Register, 
 and, though the work was not altogether 
 congenial, I felt that I was on the right 
 track, and enjoyed every minute of it. I 
 did the so-called ** Amusements," wrote 
 the "Breakfast Table Talk," the ''Qui 
 Va Ldf" column, the literary notes 
 and book reviews, the minor editorials, 
 did some special reporting, and kept up my 
 Forum connection. 
 
 Our editor was one of the old-fashioned 
 sort, who loved his pipe and whiskey. He 
 was a *' decayed gentleman " and scholar. 
 If he could have let drink alone, he would 
 
146 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 have been a valuable man on any paper. 
 You cotdd tell the time by his visits to the 
 *' saloon" next to our office. Nothing 
 could have been more regular. When he 
 came to the office he was usually sober, 
 but before the evening was out his head 
 was down upon his desk and he was off in 
 a drunken sleep. Before sleep overtook 
 him, he was apparently wide awake, but, 
 when he took hold of his pen, it slipped 
 about and he could not write, though his 
 mind seemed to be perfectly clear. I 
 remember one night, on the eve of an 
 election, he had a very important leader to 
 write, but he could not hold his pen. 
 He beckoned me over to his desk. "I 
 don't know what has got into my hand," 
 he said. "I must have writer's cramp; 
 my pen flies all over the paper. Would 
 you mind taking down the leader to my 
 dictation?" 
 
 I was not a stenographer, but I could 
 write long-hand rapidly. I knew well 
 enough what the trouble was, but said 
 
The Tomboy at Work 147 
 
 nothing more than that I would be very 
 glad to help him out. 
 
 He dictated, and I wrote. Every sen- 
 tence balanced; every argument was clearly 
 set forth. It was a brilliant editorial. 
 When it was finished, his head dropped 
 upon his desk and he was soon in a drunken 
 stupor. I sent the * ' copy " into the compos- 
 ing room, and read the proof when it was 
 set up. The next day the stockholders com- 
 plimented the editor, and even the New 
 York dailies of the same political leanings 
 copied the editorial into their columns, 
 with flattering comment. 
 
 On another occasion his potations had 
 been entirely too much for him. He could 
 not even dictate. 
 
 "I've a terrible headache," he said. 
 "Everything is swimming before my eyes. 
 I can't think, much less write. I wonder 
 whether you could not write something for 
 me. You know our views. Don't commit us 
 to the other side, whatever you do." His 
 voice was getting very drowsy. "Perhaps 
 
148 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 I'd better lie down; that might help my 
 head." 
 
 I said that I thought it would, and he 
 curled up on a pile of "exchanges" — 
 newspapers — in a corner. Soon he was 
 fast asleep. I seized a pen and began to 
 write. This was my opportunity. It was 
 during the Greeley campaign. The old 
 war-horse of the Republican party was 
 the Democratic candidate for the presi- 
 dency. Our paper was Democratic, right 
 or wrong, so we shouted for Greeley. I 
 wish that I had a copy of that editorial. 
 I proved by ingenious argument that 
 "Uncle Horace" was always a Democrat 
 at heart, and he was only now coming out 
 in his true colours. If he ever read my 
 editorial, he must have writhed under it. 
 I don't know whether he ever read it, but 
 our stockholders did, and the chairman 
 dropped in at the office to speak to the 
 editor about it. I was there, and heard 
 the conversation, the substance of which 
 was not flattery. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 149 
 
 "Did you write this morning's leader?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Who else do you suppose wrote it?" 
 
 "It didn't sound like you." 
 
 "Didn't it? Who did it sound like, 
 Greeley himself?" 
 
 "No, hardly; it was too light-waisted 
 for either of you." 
 
 "Light-waisted! That's the first time 
 that one of my leaders was ever called 
 light-waisted. (He had already had two 
 cocktails.) If you are not satisfied with 
 
 my work, Mr. , if the stockholders 
 
 are displeased with my leaders, my resigna- 
 tion is at your service. Light-waisted, 
 indeed ! I never wrote a better leader 
 than that. It was brilliant, positively 
 brilliant, though I say it that shouldn't." 
 
 The chairman knew that it would be 
 hard to find so capital an editor for the 
 paltry salary paid, so he changed his tone. 
 
 "My dear sir, we would not accept your 
 resignation if you offered it. Perhaps I 
 am mistaken; the editorial may not have 
 
ISO The Tomboy at Work 
 
 been light- waist ed, but it certainly was 
 not in your fine sonorous style." 
 
 "Must one always be sonorous? I like 
 to show my readers that I am versatile, 
 but I accept your apology, and will 
 remain." 
 
 The chairman took his departure. The 
 editor winked at me, and went out for 
 another cocktail. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Dixey's position as editor of a New 
 York magazine of high standing, though 
 small pay, brought him into relations with 
 many interesting men and women of letters. 
 Some of them happened to be lecturers, 
 and when they came to Newark we put 
 them up for the night. The late Charles 
 Dudley Warner was the first of our 
 distinguished visitors. I think that, if 
 my mother had been consulted, she would 
 have hesitated to invite a stranger to our 
 humble and inconvenient home. But 
 Dixey was of too hospitable a nature to be 
 deterred by anything of that sort. The 
 first we knew of Mr. Warner's coming 
 was a telegram from Dixey in New York. 
 
 A telegram always frightened my mother. 
 She tore the envelope and read this : 
 
 "Mr. Warner to dinner this evening and 
 151 
 
152 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 spend the night; have ordered finger- 
 bowls." 
 
 The shock of having to prepare for so 
 distinguished a visitor on such short 
 notice was softened by the fact that 
 we were to have finger-bowls. We had 
 never enjoyed this luxury, but had always 
 longed for it. When Sandy came home to 
 his luncheon, we told him of our guest 
 and the bowls, and he said that we must 
 have fruit; that finger-bowls called for 
 fruit, and it was foolish to have one 
 without the other. He also said that we 
 should have wine. 
 
 "Wine calls for wine-glasses," said I. 
 "Where are you going to get them?" 
 
 "I will provide both," said Sandy, with 
 a lordly toss of his head, and, sure enough, 
 he did. He came home early to take a 
 hand in the dinner preparations, carrying 
 the two bottles of wine and the wine- 
 glasses with him. He also brought some 
 crackers and cheese, for he determined to 
 do the thing properly. Marty and Miney 
 
The Tomboy at Work 153 
 
 set the dinner-table, and were for putting 
 the finger-bowls on at the start, as they 
 were many-coloured and looked very gay 
 on the white cloth. Finger-bowls were 
 not as common in private houses in the 
 early seventies as they are to-day, which 
 accounts for our delight in them ; and then 
 my sisters were very young. How we 
 admired that table, with its red Persian 
 bowl of fruit in the centre and the grace- 
 ful wine-glasses at each place! On the 
 sideboard stood the two claret bottles, 
 the crackers, and the cheese. 
 
 Our one servant was a good cook and a 
 most obliging woman, but how was she 
 going to cook the dinner and serve it to 
 so large a party? 
 
 **I*11 be the butler," said Sandy, "and 
 wait on the table." 
 
 ** Swell butlers don't have mustaches," 
 I suggested. 
 
 "I'll shave," said he. 
 
 "But Mr. Warner will know that we are 
 too poor to keep a man-servant." 
 
154 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "Too poor now, perhaps, but we be- 
 long to the 'have beens,' and I, your 
 faithful servant, have stuck to you through 
 thick and thin. Leave it to me." 
 
 And we did. 
 
 We were all assembled in the tiny 
 drawing-room — Mr. Warner, my mother, 
 Dixey, my two sisters and I — ^when the door 
 opened, and there stood the most respect- 
 able old family servant you ever saw. 
 He was dressed in a claw-hammer coat, 
 with a striped waistcoat that looked like 
 part of an old livery; his hair was gray, 
 his mouth dropped at the corners, and 
 his shoulders had the stoop of age. 
 
 "Madame is served," he said, bowing 
 solemnly to my mother. We would have 
 laughed aloud and betrayed ourselves 
 had we seen the least glimmer of a smile 
 in Sandy's eyes, but his solemnity struck 
 awe to our souls. At table, he waited 
 upon us to perfection, and whenever he 
 spoke his Irish brogue was delicious. I 
 have no doubt that Mr. Warner envied us 
 
The Tomboy at Work 155 
 
 that faithful and accomplished servant. 
 Miney, who was at the giggling age, re- 
 treated behind her napkin once or twice 
 and nearly broke us all up, but she re- 
 covered herself in time to save the day. 
 
 If you could have seen us drink that 
 claret and use those finger-bowls, you 
 would have envied us. Oh, happy days, 
 when finger-bowls and St. Julien added so 
 much to the joy of living! 
 
 After dinner, I stood for some time 
 regarding the table with admiring eyes. 
 It looked like the "real thing," with its 
 red, blue, green, and yellow finger-bowls, 
 and glasses with a dash of the red wine in 
 them! 
 
 Dixey and Mr. Warner left early for 
 the lecture-hall, and Sandy, after he had 
 removed his badges of ofiice, suggested 
 making potato salad for the evening, for 
 he said that lecturers always liked a bite 
 of something after their work was done, 
 and nothing could be better as a "night- 
 cap" than a potato salad and beer. 
 
156 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 Aunt Frances, who was staying with us, 
 but who had not felt equal to the excite- 
 ment of the dinner, sat at the table while 
 Sandy made the salad. 
 
 "I'm so glad that you are going to make 
 a potato salad, Sandy," said she. "You 
 know how fond I am of it. Give me some 
 now, before you put in the oil — or the onion 
 — or the vinegar. I don't care for them, 
 you know." 
 
 "Why don't you ask for a cold potato 
 and some salt, then?" said Sandy. 
 
 "Oh, I should not like that at all ! You 
 see you slice the potatoes and put pepper 
 with the salt; that makes a great dif- 
 ference." 
 
 He helped her bountifully, and she was 
 delighted, saying, as she ate it, "You 
 certainly know how to make a potato 
 salad. I must learn your recipe." 
 
 Mr. Warner had just published "Back- 
 Log Studies," and his reputation was 
 being quickly made. I don't remember 
 whether we went to the lecture or not. I 
 
The Tomboy at Work 157 
 
 am sure, however, that, if we did, we had a 
 rare treat, and that, if we did not, we 
 missed one. We found Mr. Wamer so 
 genial, so easy to get along with, that, 
 having the finger-bowls now in stock, we 
 quite looked forward to entertaining dis- 
 tinguished visitors. 
 
 Some time later, that inimitable come- 
 dian, John T. Raymond, and his wife, the 
 beautiful Marie Gordon, came to Newark, 
 and with them Miss Kate Field, whose 
 book on Dickens' readings had filled my 
 soul with envy and deUght. It seems that 
 Miss Field's parents had been actors, and 
 she had an idea of following their profession. 
 As a preliminary, Mr. Raymond took her 
 into his company, and she played Laura 
 Hawkins to his Colonel Sellers in Mark 
 Twain's "Gilded Age." Miss Field had 
 contributed to the magazine that Dixey 
 edited, so he asked her to stay with us the 
 night that she played in Newark. I got 
 him to extend the invitation to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Raymond for dinner, which we had 
 
158 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 quite early on account of the theatre. 
 It was not a formal dinner, but was more 
 like a "high tea." I remember that we 
 had some kind of hot cakes that we called 
 volcanos, because they puffed up in the 
 centre like Italy's famous volcanic moun- 
 tain. Mr. Raymond enjoyed them im- 
 mensely, and stayed beyond the time he 
 should, to get some of a newly baked 
 batch. 
 
 Mr. Raymond was a great man for 
 "guying," and, as he came on the stage, 
 some minutes late, he said, as if it were 
 part of the play, "I suppose I am a little 
 late, but it was those volcanos at the 
 Gilberts. I couldn't leave them; they 
 were the best things I ever ate." 
 
 We nearly rolled off of our seats with 
 laughter, and expected to see the whole 
 house looking at us, but they thought it 
 was in the play, and laughed only as they 
 did at Raymond's other jokes. Though 
 Raymond was always guying on the 
 stage, he never allowed others to. I re- 
 
The Tomboy at Work 159 
 
 member once being in Philadelphia when 
 he was playing Sellers, and Mrs. Raymond 
 suggested that we go on in the trial scene 
 and sit with the witnesses. "It will be a 
 great lark," said she; "we'll break John 
 all up." 
 
 So on we went, and when the doughty 
 Colonel saw us, instead of our breaking him 
 up he broke us up. Pointing directly at 
 me, he said: 
 
 "Why there's Miss Gilbert, come on 
 from Newark to attend the trial. Well, 
 that's mighty good of you, Miss Gilbert," 
 and, coming forward, he shook hands 
 with me so violently that he almost 
 dragged me off the stand. I could hardly 
 keep from laughing, though I felt very 
 much embarrassed. Again the audience 
 did not suspect anything out of the way, 
 and the play went on. 
 
 Raymond enjoyed guying off as well as 
 on the stage. I visited the Centennial 
 Exhibition at Philadelphia with him 
 and Mrs. Raymond, and there he never 
 
i6o The Tomboy at Work 
 
 stopped his jokes. One of the features of 
 the exhibition was a series of wax figures, 
 showing scenes in the Hfe of certain 
 Scandinavian peasants. One of these 
 groups represented a family standing 
 around the crib of a dead child. It was a 
 very lifelike group, and Raymond made 
 believe that he thought it real. He 
 looked at the child, then at the grief - 
 stricken parents. His eyes filled with 
 tears, his lips quivered, and he was the 
 picture of sympathetic grief. The crowd 
 looked at him half pityingly, half amused. 
 His sorrow was too much for one of the 
 lookers-on. She put her hand gently on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "It is not real," said she cheeringly. 
 "These are only wax figures. Dry your 
 eyes, my friend." 
 
 "Not real!" said Raymond, drying his 
 eyes. "Not real! Do you mean to tell 
 me that is a wax corpse and that those 
 are wax tears in the eyes of those broken- 
 hearted parents? I wish I could believe 
 
The Tomboy at Work i6i 
 
 you, madam. Their grief is as genuine as 
 mine. Excuse me," and he wept again. 
 Then others in the crowd reassured him, 
 and, finally, he admitted that he was 
 convinced. 
 
 "It is hard to believe," said he, "that 
 those figures are not real. I have never 
 been more moved. It is a shame to get 
 a man so worked up over wax. It isn't 
 right," and wiping his eyes again, he 
 walked mournfully away, Mrs. Raymond 
 and I following in the distance. 
 
 No recital gives any idea of these 
 jokes of Raymond's. It was his voice, 
 his gestures, the way he did it, that was 
 so funny. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 While there was usually plenty of 
 news in Newark to make items out of for 
 the Tribune, there were times when it 
 was scarce, and on these occasions we 
 "correspondents" had to do a little 
 manufacturing. If we had been paid 
 space rates we would not have done it, 
 but just to help out it did not seem so bad. 
 The Sun representative and I cooked up 
 the stories. They were usually about a 
 farmer by the name of Goodman, who had 
 gone to sleep on a load of vegetables and 
 been robbed of his pocket-book. At 
 another time, this farmer by the name of 
 Goodman would be run into by a smart 
 trap driven by a stranger, whose name 
 could not be ascertained. When there 
 was anything big going on, and the New 
 York papers knew of it, they sent out 
 162 
 
The Tomboy at Work 163 
 
 special reporters. One night something 
 very big happened, and I telegraphed the 
 Tribune for a special, but before he came 
 I had sent in my story — everything you 
 write in a newspaper office is a "story" or 
 "stuff." 
 
 A well-known citizen, a man of the best 
 social connections, had been murdered — 
 shot down in cold blood — by a man of a 
 much inferior social position, the cause 
 being jealousy. The case was a celebrated 
 one, and it was the biggest story I had 
 undertaken while I was with the Tribune. 
 After the first story was printed, the specials 
 took it up. I think that every New York 
 paper had three or four men on the case. 
 I was very glad to be relieved of it, for 
 the work was not very pleasant. That 
 was my one and only experience with a 
 murder case. 
 
 The dryest part of my work was when 
 the elections were on. I did not have 
 the national or State elections to report, 
 but some of our local elections were of 
 
i64 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 sufficient interest in New York to necessi- 
 tate full reports. These kept me up all 
 night and put me in a nervous state as 
 well, for I was always afraid of missing 
 something. How different the old way 
 from the present. We thought that we 
 "hustled" in those days, and no doubt we 
 did, but we hustled in such small numbers 
 that it seems very quiet and easy-going 
 by comparison. 
 
 Ours was the only morning paper in 
 Newark at that time. There were two 
 evening papers, one rich and old-fashioned, 
 the other poor and timid. The editor of 
 the latter was a great friend of our editor. 
 They were men of the same tastes in 
 certain things, and took their afternoon 
 toddies together. One afternoon, our editor 
 stopped for a chat in the office of his 
 friend, and having had perhaps a little 
 more toddy than was good for him, he 
 got to abusing his brother editor for 
 his shortcomings, principally for his want 
 of snap. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 165 
 
 "There is no ginger in your editorials. 
 They are too mild. Why don't you say- 
 something once in a while, instead of 
 grinding out platitudes. Slaughter your 
 enemies, attack your friends, show some 
 spirit. Why don't you go for me, for 
 instance — ^in this style: take your pencil, 
 and I'll show you h.0Y<r to do it." 
 
 The other took his pencil and wrote at 
 our editor's dictation: 
 
 "The editor of our esteemed morning 
 contemporary is drawing money under 
 false pretenses. His employers, poor blind 
 fools, take him to be a sober, industrious 
 man. He is neither sober nor industrious. 
 Most of his time is spent in barrooms, 
 while his subordinates do the work. It 
 is no wonder that his paper is made 
 ridiculous by his vapourings. If it were 
 not for a certain brilliant young lady on 
 his staff, the initials of whose name are 
 Nell Gilbert, who writes his editorials 
 when he is incapable of doing so, his 
 incapacity would long since have been 
 
i66 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 discovered. There," continued my chief, 
 rising from his chair, "that's the way 
 to do it. Dip your pen in ginger — any 
 one can use ink. Come along now and 
 let's have another; it's been a long time 
 since the last." 
 
 The friends linked arms and sauntered 
 into the nearest saloon. They must have 
 remained unusually long discussing the 
 affairs of the nation. It was well after 
 the time for the evening paper to go to 
 press before its editor returned. In the 
 meantime, the foreman was looking around 
 for editorial copy. He was in the habit 
 of searching the editor's desk for it in 
 his absence, and this time he found just 
 what he was looking for right on the top 
 of the blotting-pad, the ink scarcely dry 
 upon it. He picked up the "copy" 
 without reading it, and cut it up into 
 "takes" with his shears. In a few minutes 
 it was in type, and in a few more it was 
 off the press. 
 
 As the editors left the saloon, newsboys 
 
The Tomboy at Work 167 
 
 were shouting the paper. Like all journal- 
 ists, the editor was eager to see his own 
 ' * stuff. ' ' He turned quickly to the editorial 
 page. As his eyes caught the first para- 
 graph, the blood left his cheeks. 
 
 "Holy smoke!" or something worse, he 
 exclaimed, looking with frightened eyes 
 at my chief. 
 
 "What is it?" said the latter. 
 
 "Holy smoke!" again exclaimed his 
 friend. 
 
 "Let me see," said my chief, taking the 
 paper in his hand. His eye immediately 
 fell upon the editorial he had dictated. 
 The blood fled from his cheeks, but sprang 
 into his eyes. 
 
 "You Judas; you blankety-blank scoun- 
 drel," he exclaimed, shaking his fist in the 
 other's face. 
 
 "On my word as a gentleman, I am as 
 
 innocent " . But our editor turned a 
 
 deaf ear to his friend. 
 
 "Gentleman! Innocent!" shrieked my 
 chief. "You don't know the meaning of 
 
i68 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 the words. You did that on purpose. 
 You are a traitor, a cur " 
 
 "My friend " 
 
 "Don't call me friend, you coward; 
 defend yourself!" And, with that, my 
 chief raised his cane and charged upon 
 his erstwhile friend. In the meantime, a 
 crowd had gathered, and came in between 
 the two editors. The cause of the trouble 
 was soon discovered, and the Evening 
 sold the biggest edition of its history. 
 
 While his blood was up, my chief sought 
 his editorial sanctum, and, divesting himself 
 of coat and collar, sat down to write. 
 There was no dictating now. His pen 
 flew over the paper, and each sheet as it 
 was finished was tossed in theatrical frenzy 
 on the floor. 
 
 "There, boy," he shouted to the "devil." 
 "Take that to the foreman, and tell him 
 to double-lead it for to-morrow morning's 
 leader. I'll give him a taste of his own 
 sauce with pepper added to suit my taste. 
 Innocent! I'll swear that he sent in 
 
The Tomboy at Work 169 
 
 word to have that copy set while he was 
 drinking to our friendship. He'll wish 
 he'd never been bom when he sees to- 
 morrow's Register'' he hissed at me as he 
 went down the stairs to drown his rage at 
 his favourite bar. 
 
 When I returned to the office, late in the 
 evening, there was no one there but the 
 other reporter. 
 
 "Where is the chief?" I asked. 
 "I took him to his hotel, and he is now 
 sleeping it off in his own bed." 
 
 " Do you think he'll be around to-night? " 
 The reporter looked at me with a 
 pitying look, as who should say, "Is that 
 all you know of such things?" With the 
 assurance of his expression, I went into 
 the composing-room and took the editorial 
 proofs off the hook. The two articles writ- 
 ten eariier in the day on political subjects 
 were all right. Then I came to the frenzied 
 leader. It was terrible. My chief had a 
 facile pen, and when he was angry his 
 vocabulary was choice. Such sarcasm, 
 
I70 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 such abuse, I never read. His once friend 
 was called every name in the category of 
 expletives. I went into the composing- 
 room with the proof in my hand. 
 
 "Mr. Gordon," said I to the foreman, 
 "that editorial must not be published. 
 The chief would be discharged the moment 
 the stockholders saw it, and the paper 
 disgraced." 
 
 "I have no right to leave out what the 
 editor has ordered in," replied the fore- 
 man. 
 
 "Neither have I, but I'm going to. I 
 warn you, Mr. Gordon, that editorial 
 must not appear." 
 
 "It is late, and we have nothing to take 
 its place." 
 
 "Give me fifteen minutes and I'll fill 
 the space." 
 
 "You write the leader!" 
 
 "Anything to save the day." 
 
 I glanced hurriedly through the tele- 
 graphic news to see what there was worth 
 a leader. The political situation was 
 
The Tomboy at Work 171 
 
 already covered. Happy thought! Make 
 one of the chief's minor editorials a leader 
 and fill the space with a social editorial. 
 There was a rumour that the Prince of 
 Wales, now the King of England, was to 
 again visit America. I took that rumour 
 for my theme, and extended a hearty 
 welcome to His Royal Highness. In the 
 name of the citizens of Newark, I invited 
 him to pay us a visit when he came over, 
 and enumerated some of the interesting 
 things that we could show him in the 
 manufacturing line. The editorial swelled 
 with local pride. Indeed, the Prince's 
 coming had been merely a peg on which to 
 write compliments upon our enterprising 
 and prosperous city. I rushed into the 
 composing-room with the "copy" in my 
 hand. 
 
 "Here it is, Mr. Gordon. Rush it!" 
 
 And he did. In less time than it took 
 
 me to write it, the editorial was in type. 
 
 I waited in the office until the first copies 
 
 of the paper were ofif the press. Then I 
 
172 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 went home, and slept Hke a top after the 
 excitement. 
 
 The next morning, when I arrived at the 
 office, the chief was there. The moment 
 I came into the room he sprang from his 
 chair and grasped me by both hands. 
 
 "You have saved me from being dis- 
 graced and discharged," said he. 
 
 "I hope you will pardon the liberty. I 
 knew that you had been dri — that you 
 were excited, and that you wrote in the 
 heat of temper. If you had come back 
 to the office, you would not have allowed 
 that editorial to appear." 
 
 "I'll do as much for you some day." 
 
 "I hope you'll never have occa — that's 
 very kind of you." 
 
 That afternoon, the evening paper pub- 
 lished an explanatory editorial, in which 
 it said that it was all a joke, and that our 
 editor was the most brilliant journalist in 
 the State, and that the writer was proud to 
 call him friend. I am told that the two 
 editors parted that evening at Courtois's 
 
The Tomboy at Work 173 
 
 caf^ with tears in their eyes, and every 
 protestation of undying admiration and 
 regard. As for my editorial, it called 
 down loud praises on my c^^ief's head. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 I NEVER cared very much for Newark. 
 There were some deHghtful people there, 
 and I am pretty sure that we knew the most 
 of them, but the place was not attractive. 
 In the winter it was not so bad, but in 
 summer it was dreadful. Such heat and 
 such mosquitos I have never found any- 
 where else. When my brothers were en- 
 gaged in newspaper work there, they used 
 to wrap their heads in shawls, and run 
 through Lincoln Park at night as though 
 wild animals were pursuing them. 
 
 While we knew the nicest people in 
 Newark, we did not pretend to go into 
 society. My sisters were too young at 
 first, and I had neither the time, the 
 inclination, nor the money. At the same 
 time, I enjoyed knowing people, and did 
 not mind informal dinners and calls; but 
 174 
 
The Tomboy at Work 175 
 
 at big functions I never put in an appear- 
 ance. Dixey enjoyed society, and was 
 invited everywhere, and he went, too, 
 though it was years before he owned a 
 dress -coat. People lived more simply in 
 those days, and a black sack-coat and 
 white tie, while not quite the correct thing, 
 could be worn at dinners and dances with- 
 out calling forth unkind remarks. I should 
 be sorry for the person who wore such a 
 costume to-day. Dixey was very popular, 
 not a bit self-conscious, and he had a good 
 time. Later on, he had a proper dress- 
 suit, made by a Newark tailor, which he 
 wore with so much grace that it looked as 
 if it might have been made by Poole. 
 
 Fortunately, dress was not a matter of so 
 much importance when I was a youngster 
 as it is to-day. I always dressed plainly, 
 because it seemed to me more appropriate 
 for business purposes than lace and frills. 
 I had my coats and skirts made by a 
 tailor long before tailor-made clothes 
 were the fashion, not because I affected 
 
176 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 man's garb, but simply for its suitableness. 
 To-day, lace and frills would attract more 
 unfavourable comment in a business office 
 than my plain clothes attracted years ago. 
 
 It was no uncommon thing when I was 
 young for a girl to have one "party dress" 
 which she kept going through the winter, 
 and no one remarked upon it. There were 
 Flora McFHmseys then, to be sure, but they 
 were not so plentiful as they are to-day. 
 
 Not going to balls and routs threw us 
 back upon the theatre and opera for our 
 amusement, and I am not sure but that 
 we had the best of it. Central Park 
 Garden, with Theodore Thomas's orchestra, 
 was the great summer attraction of New 
 York, and I had the entree to it. Good 
 old Jacob Gosche, Mr. Thomas's business 
 manager, gave me a season's pass, which 
 read, 
 
 "Admit Miss Gilbert and friends." 
 
 Note the plural, "and friends" — we used 
 to go night after night, half a dozen 
 
The Tomboy at Work 177 
 
 strong. There was plenty of room, for the 
 garden was a big place. It was not a roof- 
 garden, but a roofless garden, level with 
 the street. Little tables were scattered 
 around, and the audience sat at them, and 
 sipped its beer to such music as only 
 Chicago enjoys to-day. New York let 
 Theodore Thomas, the best orchestral 
 leader it ever had, go, and Chicago had the 
 appreciation not only to take, but to keep 
 him. We were introduced to Wagner's 
 music at the Central Park Garden, and 
 Theodore Thomas made the Wagner nights 
 the most popular on his list. I had the 
 temerity to write a long letter to Wagner, 
 enclosing programmes of the Wagner 
 nights, and telling him how well his music 
 was given and how thoroughly it was 
 appreciated. My family laughed at me, 
 and said that I was very "cheeky," which 
 I am quite sure now that I was, though I 
 did not mean to be. In the course of 
 time, an answer came from Bayreuth, 
 thanking me for my letter. It was 
 
178 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 written by Mme. Cosima, for she knew 
 English and he did not, and it enclosed 
 a photograph of the master, which "he 
 pitied being so ugly," with his autograph 
 on it. I was more or less vindicated by 
 the receipt of this letter, but it did not 
 remove the charge of ' * cheekiness." I think 
 that was the first and last time that I 
 yielded to the temptation to write a letter 
 of that sort. 
 
 I was very much surprised and pleased 
 one day, at about this time, to receive a 
 note from Miss Clara Louise Kellogg in- 
 viting me to come over to her house in 
 New York to hear a young girl, whom she 
 had discovered in the West, sing. Miss 
 Kellogg said that she knew I was interested 
 in music, and she thought I would like to 
 be in at the start of so fine a voice. I was 
 on hand to the minute of the hour ap- 
 pointed. The young girl was there too. 
 She was small and, though plain of feature, 
 had a pleasant expression, and was very 
 vivacious. Her speaking voice was very 
 
Her high notes were her best." 
 
The Tomboy at Work 179 
 
 nasal, and there was a slight nasal quality 
 in her singing voice, but that did not 
 affect its sweetness. She sang ballads and 
 arias from popular operas with equal 
 facility. Her high notes were her best, 
 and it seemed to me that she had a great 
 future. Miss Kellogg was enthusiastic 
 about her, and helped her in many ways, 
 as the girl herself told me. She was qtiite 
 young and full of pluck. She studied 
 hard, and made her debut under the most 
 favourable auspices. After a more or less 
 successful season, she lost her voice, and, 
 though it came back later, it was never 
 the same. While she never rose to the 
 first rank of prime donne, Emma Abbott 
 was very popular in English opera, and 
 left a large fortune when she died. 
 
 It was on account of Emma Abbott that 
 I severed my connection with the Register. 
 The "four hundred" of Newark society 
 tendered her a complimentary concert at 
 the beginning of her career, and I naturally 
 expected to report it, as I was the "amuse- 
 
i8o The Tomboy at Work 
 
 ment editor" of the paper, and had done 
 much preHminary work in behalf of the 
 concert. The affair was to be a great social 
 as well as musical event, and I wanted 
 to be there, as was my right. It seems, 
 however, that tickets were scarce, and, 
 owing to the social nature of the function, 
 the son of one of our stockholders wanted 
 to report it. 
 
 I had invited my mother to go with me, 
 and she, as well as I, was looking forward 
 with more than usual interest to the oc- 
 casion. I wondered why the tickets had 
 not come to the office, and just before 
 I went home to dinner I asked the chief 
 whether he knew anything about them. 
 
 "Yes," said he, "I do. I know every- 
 thing about them, and it's a blankety- 
 blank shame." 
 
 " Haven't they been sent ? " 
 
 "Yes, days ago, and Mr. (mention- 
 ing the stockholder's name) gobbled them 
 up for his son." 
 
 "Does he know anything about music?" 
 
The Tomboy at Work i8i 
 
 "Not a blankety thing. He couldn't 
 tell 'Ninety and Nine' from 'Old Hun- 
 dred.* It's just because it's going to be 
 a swell occasion, and he wants to be 
 there." 
 
 "What am I expected to do?" I spoke 
 calmly, but I was in a rage. 
 
 "You are to report a church sociable in 
 East Newark." 
 
 "Oh, I am, am I! Well, I guess I'm 
 
 not. Mr. 's son can report the 
 
 sociable. I'm going to the Emma Abbott 
 concert." 
 
 The chief looked at me in surprise, as I 
 sat down at my desk and wrote as fast 
 as my pen could fly. 
 
 "There," said I, handing him what I 
 had written. "That is my resignation. 
 You can present it to the stockholders to- 
 night. I do not intend to submit to any 
 such injustice. It is my right to report 
 that concert, and I'm not going to be put 
 upon by any stockholder that ever lived. 
 I shall attend the performance with my 
 
i82 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 mother, as I proposed doing, in spite of 
 all the stockholders and all their sons." 
 
 "Won't you reconsider your resigna- 
 tion?" 
 
 "I'll reconsider nothing. I've worked 
 like a dog on this paper, and they want to 
 send me over to East Newark so that their 
 son can go to the Abbott concert on my 
 tickets. Let them try to get some one else 
 to do the work I've done for the same pay. 
 I guess that'll keep them busy for a while. 
 I'm sorry to leave the office. You've 
 been a kind chief, and given me a chance 
 to do all kinds of writing, but my mind's 
 made up." I was angry and perhaps 
 unwise, but nothing could have stopped 
 me now. On my way out, I told the 
 reporter. 
 
 "It's an outrage," said he, "an out- 
 rageous outrage — I'll resign, too. I've 
 only wanted a chance." So he walked 
 into the chief's office and resigned then 
 and there. He gave as his reason that 
 he could not stay on a paper that had 
 
The Tomboy at Work 183 
 
 been so mean to a woman. I was sorry 
 for the chief. The fault was not his. 
 It was mean to leave him in the lurch, 
 but there really was no more to do that 
 night. We, the staff, had scarcely left 
 the office before he hurried to the compos- 
 ing-room, and took the foreman to the 
 nearest bar to talk it over. 
 
 On my way home, I stopped at the 
 house of one of the ladies most active on 
 the concert committee and told her what 
 had happened. She was indignant, and 
 gave me two of the best seats in the house. 
 My mother and I went, and enjoyed the 
 concert to the full. Not the least of my 
 pleasure was in looking back from my 
 seat, near the front, at the stockholder's 
 son, whose press seats were down by the 
 door. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 After the excitements of the concert 
 were over, and I sat down to weigh matters 
 in the cold Hght of day, I wondered whether 
 I had not been rash. I had thrown down 
 a salary, a small one to be sure, but it 
 was something to count upon, and I had 
 nothing to take its place. However, I 
 was an optimist then, as I am an optimist 
 now. Perhaps, if I had occasionally been 
 a pessimist, it would have been better for 
 me, but it is hard to change one's nature. 
 
 As luck would have it, I was recom- 
 mended just at this time for the position 
 of New York correspondent for a Boston 
 weekly at $5 per letter. Not much, but 
 it did not take me more than an hour to 
 write it, and the topics were to my liking. 
 That was a step in the right direction, but 
 another backward step came along just 
 184 
 
The Tomboy at Work 185 
 
 at this time. There was a,n important 
 election on, and I sent my report to the 
 Forum, as usual. To my horror, in 
 taking up the paper in the morning, not 
 a word about it was there. I rushed over 
 to New York to see what had happened. 
 To my great relief, I found that I had not 
 been at fault. The city editor had re- 
 ceived the envelope containing my report, 
 but, instead of turning it over at once to 
 the copy-reader, he laid it on his desk, 
 where other things were piled upon it, and 
 it was forgotten. 
 
 I went back to Newark breathing freely. 
 The next day, to my chagrin and disgust, 
 I received a letter from the managing 
 editor, saying in substance that my 
 services were no longer required. He 
 admitted that the failure of the election 
 returns to appear was not my fault, but 
 he thought it much better for the Forum 
 to be represented by a man. I had 
 served it well, and as only my initials 
 were used, he did not suspect my sex. 
 
i86 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 the work being so satisfactorily done; 
 but now that he knew that their Newark 
 reporter was a woman, he would always 
 be anxious about the news. 
 
 I was indignant, and considered myself 
 badly used, as I certainly was. If I had 
 done my duty by the paper for two years, 
 or more, there was no reason to suppose 
 that I would not continue to do it. How- 
 ever, there was no appeal, and I began to 
 feel that the earth was slipping from 
 under my feet. I kept up a bold front at 
 home, and was cheered by my mother's 
 confidence in me. 
 
 I thought over the situation carefully, 
 and decided that I had better make New 
 York my field, and, if possible, bend all 
 my energies in one direction. To this 
 end, I called upon Miss Kate Field, then 
 the best - known and most successful 
 woman journalist in America. When she 
 stayed at our house in Newark, she had 
 been good enough to express an interest 
 in my career. I found her then and 
 
The Tomboy at Work 187 
 
 always the soul of kindness. She listened 
 to my tale of woe with sympathetic ears. 
 
 "I cannot help you, so far as the Forum 
 is concerned, for certain reasons, but I 
 
 will give you a letter to Mr. ," said 
 
 she, naming the proprietor of the most 
 famous newspaper in America. This she 
 did at once, and I enclosed it in a letter 
 asking for an interview, as the proprietor 
 was, by fortunate chance, then in New 
 York. By return mail, I had a short note 
 from this distinguished personage, naming 
 a day and an hour when he could see me. 
 I was there on time, you may be sure. 
 The interview was short. 
 
 **Well," said he, regarding me with 
 piercing eyes. "What do you want to 
 do?" 
 
 "I should like book-reviewing, or any- 
 thing that comes to hand." 
 
 "You can do the books, if you like," 
 said he, "but be original; don't give us the 
 same old cut-and-dried stuff. Your salary 
 will be $30 a week — good morning!" 
 
i88 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 My impulse was to drop on my knees 
 and kiss his hand — a strong, shapely one, 
 by the way — but I restrained myself, and 
 merely said "Thank you." 
 
 Back I flew to Miss Field and reported 
 the interview. 
 
 "Good!" said she. 
 
 "But how am I to do original book 
 reviews?" I asked rather hopelessly. 
 
 She thought for a while and then said: 
 "Do them in dialogue form. Have the 
 family sit around and discuss them, ex- 
 pressing various views." 
 
 The idea seemed a capital one, and I 
 acted upon it. I had a family take up 
 the books of the day and discuss them, 
 giving various opinions; the sons and 
 daughters maintaining a point that was 
 immediately bowled over by the father. 
 My "Chats About Books" became a 
 popular feature of the paper. Publishers 
 offered to put them into book form, and 
 they attained the importance of being 
 burlesqued by the inimitable Nym Crinkle. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 189 
 
 He called his burlesque "The Drivel 
 Family," and I am sure that it was well 
 named. 
 
 Besides book-reviewing, I was finally 
 promoted to the position of music and 
 dramatic editor, which I held for several 
 years. I did not consider myself a critic, 
 so I merely gave my opinions for what 
 they were worth, and then reported the 
 effect of the opera or the play upon the 
 audience. 
 
 At about this time, the Lydia Thompson 
 blondes revisited this country. There was 
 a young woman in a subordinate part who 
 attracted my attention by her beauty and 
 talent. I mentioned her once or twice, 
 and I heard afterward that some one said, 
 *'0f course, she got good notices in the 
 
 , for the man was mashed on 
 
 her." That shows you what gossip is 
 worth. I never saw the girl off the stage, 
 and never cared to, for my interest in her 
 began and ended at the footlights. 
 
 It was a rule of the that its dramatic 
 
190 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 critics must not know stage people, but 
 it was a very difficult rule to live up to. 
 The stage people cultivated the dramatic 
 critic with an assiduity that was hardly 
 to be resisted. I believe in the rule, 
 however, for I have always found it 
 difficult to write critically of my friends. 
 Not for want of seeing their faults, but the 
 difficulty was to put friendship so far aside 
 that I could speak of them in public. 
 
 Though connected with the , I 
 
 continued to Hve in Newark. I usually 
 took a midnight train home, but, as I did 
 not have to report at the office till noon, 
 this was not so great a hardship. Don't 
 suppose for a moment that I went to bed 
 as soon as I reached my room. Alas, no ! 
 I was bitten by the mania for play -writing. 
 From one to three o'clock I worked on a 
 comedy, then I went to bed, not to sleep 
 till nine or ten. Oh, no ! I had a brother 
 who found it hard to arouse himself in 
 time to get to work. His business was in 
 New York, and his train left Newark at 
 
The Tomboy at Work 191 
 
 half-past seven. I took it upon myself to 
 call him at six. At first, I used to go to 
 his door and knock; then I would go back 
 to my bed. I found that this roused me 
 more than it did him. I would go back 
 to bed, and not be able to go to sleep again, 
 while he turned over and slept till long 
 after train time. Finally, it occurred to 
 me to rig up a bell over his bed, with a 
 cord over mine. At six, sharp, I would 
 wake, and pull that bell-cord till he knocked 
 on my door to prove that he was up. 
 Then I turned over and went to sleep, 
 while he got up and caught the train. 
 Poor fellow, he used to have terrible night- 
 mares. I remember one night we all 
 gathered at his bedside and found him 
 sitting up with eyes wide open and an 
 expression of horror on his face. It was 
 impossible to wake him. 
 
 "What's the matter, Robin?" we re- 
 peated. 
 
 "I can't eat them," he cried; "I can't 
 eat them!" 
 
192 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 "Eat what?" 
 
 "Those clothes-pins — they have fur on 
 them!" 
 
 Sandy, who had a very kind and reas- 
 suring manner, said, "Never mind, Robin; 
 I've taken the fur off — you can eat them 
 now." 
 
 The expression of horror left Robin's 
 face, and he turned over, and slept peace- 
 fully till he heard the bell ring over his 
 head. 
 
 Notwithstanding these interruptions, I 
 managed to finish my play. A friend of 
 ours in Newark happened to know the 
 manager of a Philadelphia theatre where 
 a good stock company was playing, and I 
 asked him if he would send it on. This he 
 very kindly did, and, much to his surprise, 
 though not to mine, for I had the amateur's 
 confidence in my work, it was accepted. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 It is said that Victorien Sardou was 
 detained over night once in a French 
 provincial city, and seeing a theatre 
 open, bought a seat and went in. There 
 was something familiar about the play, 
 but it was not until the third act that he 
 recognised it as his own. This was not 
 unlike the experience I had while attend- 
 ing the rehearsals of my play in Phila- 
 delphia, for which purpose the gave 
 
 me a week off. I could hardly recognise 
 my own words, and there was no suggestion 
 of their meaning conveyed. I was not 
 asked to make any remarks, for, being a 
 green playwright, I was not supposed to 
 know anything. I did not know much — 
 that I admit — ^but I did know what I 
 mieant, which was more than can be said 
 of the company that spoke my words. 
 193 
 
194 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 However, I was more than lucky to have 
 my first play accepted and produced at a 
 first-class theatre. 
 
 I hope that the Philadelphia editors of 
 that day forgave me for my greenness. I 
 can scarcely believe it now, but I actually 
 had the bad taste to call on each one in 
 turn before my play was produced, which, 
 if they had not been a most amiable 
 lot of men, and set down to youth 
 what looked like unbridled assurance, 
 would have meant destruction to my play 
 and to me. 
 
 On the evening of the first performance 
 I occupied a box with my family, and sat 
 modestly on the edge of a chair at the 
 back. I sat on the edge of the chair 
 so that I could come quickly to the front 
 in case there was, as there was sure to be, 
 a call for "author." I knew that I could 
 not make a speech, but I could make 
 a bow, and smile to any extent. Indeed, 
 I had practiced bowing over a stair- 
 raiUng so that I should not be awkward 
 
The Tomboy at Work 195 
 
 or pitch out, if called upon to bow over 
 the railing of my box. 
 
 There was not a very large audience, 
 but that, I thought, was because I was 
 still an unknown quantity in the play- 
 writing world. The next night there 
 was sure to be a packed house. How I 
 watched that audience. When it laughed 
 I loved it; when it wept, I almost wept 
 with it. 
 
 During the performance, I received 
 several telegrams of congratulation, and 
 one from a woman in Brooklyn, asking me 
 what I would charge to make her a new 
 dramatisation of East Lynne! It was 
 well that those congratulatory telegrams 
 came before the performance was over. 
 They never would have been sent had the 
 truth been known. At the end of the play 
 I listened eagerly for calls for "author." 
 Sandy said he was sure that he heard some 
 one down by the door shout "author," and 
 he wanted me to go to the front of the box 
 and bow. If I had, I should have bowed 
 
196 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 to the backs of the audience. I don't 
 think I ever saw an audience in such a 
 hurry to leave a theatre. If some one 
 had cried "fire," it could not have got out 
 quicker, or have been more relieved upon 
 reaching the street. 
 
 The manager came to the box to speak 
 with me after the performance. He did 
 not say much, only that he thought the 
 play might be improved by changing the 
 ending of the acts, cutting out some 
 dialogue here, adding "snappier" lines 
 there, getting in more action, and strength- 
 ening the love interest. 
 
 "Perhaps it might be better to wait 
 until we see the morning papers," I said, 
 not without intention, "and get their 
 suggestions for changes as well, so that 
 they can all be made at the same time." 
 To this he readily agreed. 
 
 In the lobby of the theatre I met an old 
 friend of the family. He had been a good 
 deal of a theatre-goer in his youth, but 
 seldom went in his old age. His opinion 
 
The Tomboy at Work 197 
 
 would undoubtedly be of value, and I 
 was anxious to get it. 
 
 "I wouldn't have sat out the play if it 
 had not been yours," said he. "There 
 really is nothing new in it. I've seen 
 twenty like it. Why didn't you get some 
 one to help you — some one who knows 
 something about the stage. Of course, 
 for a first play, by a person with no 
 knowledge of the business, it was not so 
 bad. Indeed, I can imagine a worse 
 play, but I wouldn't care to see one. It 
 may succeed, however; the poorer a play, 
 you know, the better its chances of success. 
 The public nowadays knows nothing about 
 the real drama, and cares less. Good 
 night. You have my best wishes." 
 
 His best wishes! Well, that was some- 
 thing ! 
 
 I did not go to bed in a very happy state 
 of mind, and lay awake most of the night 
 in expectation of the notices in the morning 
 papers. They were all bad — not slashingly 
 bad, but such faint praise that the damning 
 
iqS The Tomboy at Work 
 
 was all the greater. The only paper that 
 praised the play was one of which the man- 
 aging editor was an old friend. He was 
 obliged to go out of town, and did not see it 
 — that was his good fortune — ^but he left 
 word with his dramatic critic to praise the 
 play no matter how bad it was. I heard this 
 story from his wife, who told it to illustrate 
 how kind-hearted her husband was, so the 
 little consolation I might have had from 
 one notice was torn from me. 
 
 The , my own paper in New York, 
 
 had a special despatch about the play, 
 which it described as a succes d'estime! 
 This was letting me down easy. 
 
 My arrangement with the manager was 
 that I should share the profits after 
 expenses. The play was kept on for a 
 week, and there were expenses, but there 
 were no profits. 
 
 I felt rather discouraged about plays 
 after this, and wrote to the Brooklyn 
 woman that I had no time to make a 
 new dramatisation of East Lynne. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 199 
 
 I should have given plays the go-by 
 for a while, if a friend on the stage had not 
 encouraged me to keep going. She was 
 always intending to "star," and to that 
 end needed a play. I must have written 
 half a dozen for her to choose from. She 
 took them all, but produced none, which 
 shows that she was a wise woman. She 
 did, however, succeed in disposing of one 
 to another actress, who ''starred" in it 
 with some success. Just what success I 
 was never quite able to determine, as she 
 waived the formality of payments. 
 
 Finally, my friend prevailed upon her 
 husband to get me to make a play for him 
 out of a then popular novel. He was a 
 most successful "star," so I considered 
 my fortune made when he produced the 
 play with great eclat in a western city. 
 How the papers "roasted" the actor and 
 the play! He took it off, put one of his 
 old successes on, and sent the manuscript 
 back to me to rewrite. He liked the part, 
 and he was determined to play it. Nothing 
 
200 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 could have been less suited to his undoubted 
 talents; that is why he liked it. I took 
 the manuscript and worked over it in the 
 still and midnight hours. It was no use. 
 I only made things worse. Then I called 
 in an expert, and he made them worse than 
 I had, and charged me a thousand dollars 
 for doing so. The star agreed with me 
 that the expert's work was worse than 
 mine, so he shelved the play. I have the 
 play -bill and his photograph in the part ; as 
 they cost me a thousand dollars, they are, 
 up to this date, the most expensive wall- 
 decoration that I own. They hang before 
 me as I write. I have some other play- 
 bills neatly framed, but they cost the 
 "stars" who produced the plays more 
 than they did me. 
 
 The trouble was that I had more op- 
 portunity than talent in those days. 
 Now I have more talent than opportunity, 
 but that is another story. Perhaps, if 
 I had stuck to play -writing, I might have 
 made a success of it, but I had other things 
 
The Tomboy at Work 201 
 
 to do that had to be done, and I couid not 
 afford the luxury of experimenting. 
 
 The play-writing microbe is a terrible 
 one, and the sooner it is got rid of the 
 better. I could write a book about my 
 play-writing experiences, but I won't. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 We were still living in Newark, and still 
 entertaining the interesting people who 
 visited that city from time to time. 
 
 Dixey and I were walking down Cort- 
 landt Street to the ferry one day, when 
 he said, "The person of all others whom 
 you would most like to see is coming to 
 New York. I'll give you one guess." 
 
 "Bret Harte," said I, without hesitating. 
 
 "Right you are," said he; "and he is 
 coming out to Newark, and will stay over 
 night with us." 
 
 Bret Harte was the brightest star in the 
 literary firmament at that time. His 
 first book, "The Luck of Roaring Camp, 
 and Other Stories," had just been published, 
 and he was the literary excitement of the 
 hour. His breezy Western style, his 
 humour, his pathos, his virility, held us 
 
 202 
 
In his long ulster and peaked astrachan cap. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 203 
 
 spellbound. We were all eager to know 
 what he was like, and we soon found out. 
 He came East to lecture, and when he 
 lectured in Newark he stayed with us. 
 He was all the most exacting hero -wor- 
 shipper could have asked. I see him now 
 in his long ulster, with a peaked astrachan 
 fur cap set jauntily on the side of his head, 
 as was the fashion of the day. He enter- 
 tained us with anecdote at dinner, and, 
 after the lecture, we sat up late into the 
 night listening to his stories of the West. 
 He was simple in his manner and perfectly 
 unspoiled. 
 
 Kate Redmond, who was visiting us at 
 the time, thought she would "get a rise out 
 of him," as it is called, by confusing him 
 with John Hay. 
 
 "I have read all your poems, Mr. 
 Harte," said she, "and I don't think that 
 you have ever written anything better 
 than 'Jim Bludso.'" 
 
 "You are quite right," answered Mr. 
 Harte; "I never have." 
 
204 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 Then we fell to talking of the young men 
 who were just beginning to be heard from 
 in the literary world. Among them John 
 Hay. 
 
 "Do you know him?" asked Kate 
 Redmond. 
 
 "Very well, indeed," answered Mr. 
 Harte. 
 
 "Do describe him." 
 
 Mr. Harte obUged her with the de- 
 scription. 
 
 "I had an idea that he was a small 
 man," said Kate 
 
 "You must have judged him by his 
 'Little Breeches,' " replied Mr. Harte, quick 
 as a flash. 
 
 After Mr. Harte left, he sent my mother 
 a handsome coffee-cup of rare Chinese 
 ware, which he suggested she should call 
 "the lecturer's cup." We prized it so 
 highly that we never used it, even for 
 lecturers. I have it now in a cabinet, 
 where I keep my best bits of china. To 
 me he sent a copy of "A Week in a 
 
The Tomboy at Work 205 
 
 French Country House," which he said 
 was one of his favourites among novels, 
 and wrote on the paper cover, "For 
 Gilbert's Circulating Library." I kept 
 that book for years, till it was worn 
 out with reading. I am afraid that it has 
 been lost in many movings since that day. 
 I still have, however, the copy of the 
 first edition of "The Luck of Roaring 
 Camp " that he gave me. It lies faded and 
 worn before me. On a fly-leaf is a photo- 
 graph of the author that I pasted there at 
 the time. On the leaf opposite, the book is 
 inscribed to me. In Mr. Harte's neat 
 chirography are these lines: 
 
 ". . . Good-looking and debonaire, 
 Smarter than Jersey lightning — There! 
 That's her photograph, done with care." 
 
 It was a quotation from one of his 
 own poems. The line in the original is 
 "Rich, good-looking and debonaire." For 
 obvious reasons he left out the "rich"; 
 for equally obvious reasons he might 
 
2o6 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 have left out the "good-looking," but Bret 
 Harte was always a gallant gentleman. 
 
 Things were improving with us, but 
 we were far from rich. That we were 
 able to pay our bills and have something 
 for the cat was a great comfort to us. 
 That saying, "something for the cat," we 
 got from a poor clergyman, whose children's 
 appetites were greater than his ability to 
 satisfy them. Many a time I have seen 
 the good rector look over his table after a 
 meal, and, shaking his head, sadly murmur, 
 "Nothing for the cat!" The expression 
 got to be a by -word in our family, as did 
 that of "nibble cheese," derived from 
 the same source. Smilingly, he would put 
 a small bit of cheese on the table, and say 
 to his children, "This is nibble cheese, 
 my dears." They knew by that that 
 they were not expected to eat much, and 
 they didn't, because there was not much 
 to eat. 
 
 A new magazine, with a large capital and 
 shrewd business management behind it. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 207 
 
 had been raised from the ashes of the old 
 one that Dixey was editing. A well- 
 known and popular author had been 
 made editor, and Dixey, on an enlarged 
 salary, was his assistant. Sandy, who 
 had not been doing much of anything since 
 the war, was busy painting portraits on 
 porcelain. They were not exactly minia- 
 tures, for their foundation was photography. 
 They were quite fashionable in Newark, 
 and Sandy did a good business among the 
 rich and great. He had some queer orders 
 in the course of his business; one was 
 from a man whose wife had died, and who, 
 having no likeness of her, had had her 
 photograph taken after she was in her 
 coffin. He brought it to Sandy and asked 
 him to colour it. 
 
 "I don't know just what to do with the 
 coffin," said Sandy. "I can't very well 
 paint it out," said he, "for it is so dark 
 that it would show through the paint." 
 
 The husband looked disappointed for a 
 moment; then his face brightened, and he 
 
2o8 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 said, coaxingly, "Why can't you make 
 it like she was in an opera-box?'* 
 
 Sandy tried to excuse himself, but the 
 man was so much in earnest, and seemed so 
 disappointed at the thought of not getting 
 it, that he consented. I saw the picture 
 when it was finished. It was cleverly 
 managed, but to me most gruesome. The 
 bereaved husband, however, was delighted. 
 
 Another queer order came to Sandy 
 from a poor coloured woman. She said 
 she could not pay more than a quarter, 
 but she would like to have her husband's 
 photograph painted. Couldn't he make 
 the cheeks red, and make him "ginger- 
 bread instead of black nigger." Sandy 
 took the order, but not the quarter. 
 The widow was more than pleased, and, 
 adding a quarter to the one Sandy did not 
 take, she bought a frame made of shells 
 for her treasure. 
 
 Whenever we could, Dixey and I took 
 our luncheon in New York together. At 
 first we patronised a fifteen-cent table 
 
The Tomboy at Work 209 
 
 d'hote in Eighth Street; that paUing on 
 our appetites in the course of time, we 
 went to Seighortner's, in those days one 
 of the best restaurants in New York. 
 When we first went to it, it was at the 
 south end of Lafayette Place, but later 
 it moved up to the old Astor homestead, 
 on the same street. The hon-vivants of 
 New York knew Seighortner's well. It 
 was there that Sir Henry Irving was 
 introduced to canvasback and terrapin 
 at a dinner given to him by the late 
 Colonel Bucke, editor of The Spirit of the 
 Times. Dixey and I did not go in for 
 either of these two dishes. Our standing 
 order was "pea soup and a French kiss." 
 Bread and butter were served with the 
 soup, which was not only delicious but 
 " filling at the price." One bowl made 
 enough for two, and one "kiss" also was 
 enough for two. The service at Seighort- 
 ner's was perfect, and I must say for the 
 proprietor that he treated us with as much 
 deference as he did years later when our 
 
210 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 orders were more flattering to his cuisine. 
 The place has gone now, but every old 
 New Yorker who cared for good eating will 
 remember it with pleasure. There is no 
 face that comes before me more vividly 
 than that of the old Swiss restaurateur, 
 with its keen grey e3^es and stereotyped 
 smile. He would always take your order 
 himself when it was possible. As he 
 told off the delicacies on his bill of fare, 
 he would kiss his finger-tips to the rarest 
 dishes, and, when he gave your order, you 
 could hear him give your name down the 
 speaking-tube to the chef. This little 
 personal touch made you feel that you 
 were going to have particular attention, and 
 it flattered you — at least, it flattered me. 
 One day, when I was sipping my pea- 
 soup at Seighortner's, Dixey told me that 
 he had invited one of his magazine's' 
 most distinguished contributors, the Rev. 
 Dr. George MacDonald, then lecturing in 
 this country, to spend Christmas with us. 
 I nearly choked. There were Dr. Mac- 
 
The Tomboy at Work 211 
 
 Donald, his wife and oldest son. It would 
 be lovely to have them, but where in the 
 world were we going to put them. Every bed- 
 room in the house was full of the family. 
 ** We can double up," said Dixey cheerfully. 
 
 ** Double up! If we triple up, we can't 
 do it." 
 
 "Nonsense. Leave it to me." 
 
 "It is impossible." 
 
 "It can't be impossible, for I've asked 
 them, and they have accepted." 
 
 "Well, then there's nothing to do but 
 to make them as comfortable as we can, 
 and have a good time." 
 
 I don't remember just how we did it, 
 but we got them in without much incon- 
 venience, and we had a memorable time. 
 George MacDonald was one of the most 
 attractive, lovable men I ever met in my 
 life, and we were sorry when they left us. 
 
 On the night of their arrival, we retired 
 after they had, and, as we passed their 
 doors, to our horror we saw their boots 
 ranged outside. We kept no man-servant. 
 
212 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 so here was a dilemma. Which of its 
 horns were we to seize? 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 There were other things besides editing 
 that were interesting Dixey at this time. 
 He was thinking about getting married, 
 and the more he thought the more he 
 decided to. He had met many attractive 
 girls in the course of his social career, 
 but, strange to say, he had never thought 
 of marrying until this particular one 
 appeared upon the scene. 
 
 After Dixey's marriage, I decided to 
 move to New York. My mother agreed 
 with me that it would be the best thing to 
 do for many reasons, and the girls were 
 enchanted, for New York was an earthly 
 paradise to them. I wanted to cut down 
 the size of the family, and so decided 
 that to take a small flat would be the best 
 way to accomplish the desired end. 
 
 One did not have the choice of flats 
 213 
 
214 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 then that one has to-day — and I was 
 beginning to feel rather discouraged, when 
 I came upon just the thing I wanted, in 
 just the situation I wanted, and for just 
 the price I could afford to pay. It was 
 on Eighteenth Street, east of Irving Place, 
 and at the time I picked it out it was still 
 imfinished, but I could wait for a thing so 
 well worth waiting for. The house was 
 owned by one of the largest estates in 
 New York, and the agent, a most obliging 
 man, allowed me to choose, not only the 
 wall-paper, but gas-fixtures and the tiles 
 for the fireplace. I chose the simplest 
 gas-fixtures I could find, and reproductions 
 of old Dutch blue-and-white scriptural 
 tiles, and when the place was ready for 
 occupancy it was most attractive. 
 
 It was really too small for either our 
 family or our furniture, but that did not 
 disturb me for a moment. There was no 
 room for Rufus, who was a full-grown 
 man now, nor was there any room for a 
 servant. But the former took a room 
 
The Tomboy at Work 215 
 
 opposite and the latter had not materialised 
 yet, so there was time to think over the 
 matter of her disposal. 
 
 We managed to get my mother's four- 
 post bedstead in her room, and that 
 about filled it. My room was only seven 
 by ten feet, but I got a bed, a bureau, 
 and a big old-fashioned desk in it. The 
 rooms were all light, and gave out to the 
 sun and air, so, even if they were small, 
 they were not stuffy. We were up three 
 flights, and there was no elevator, but 
 we did not mind that, as the apartment 
 was so light and airy; we were young, and 
 it was New York. 
 
 As I have said, the rooms were small, 
 and our furniture was large. I could sit 
 at my place at the dining-room table and 
 shut either of the doors with a stick of 
 French bread, and I could tilt back in my 
 chair and reach anything off the side- 
 board. It was certainly a convenient, 
 if not elegant, arrangement. 
 
 As far as my work was concerned, the 
 
2i6 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 relief of being in New York was great. I 
 was now doing the theatres almost ex- 
 clusively, and the managing editor was 
 good enough to let me write my copy at 
 home and send it down by messenger. 
 There were times, however, when I had 
 to go to the office after the theatre, and I 
 was often there very late — till long after 
 midnight. Sometimes I wrote my "story " 
 at home and took it down myself, being 
 afraid to trust a messenger when there 
 was a special hurry on account of the 
 lateness of the hour. I went up and down 
 by the Third Avenue horse-cars : the 
 elevated road was not built then, and it 
 was long before electricity. 
 
 The patrons of this line after mid- 
 night were not a very reassuring lot 
 of people, so I carried a pistol in my 
 coat pocket in case of necessity. It 
 is just as well that the necessity for 
 using it did not arise, for it was little 
 more than a toy, being only for one 
 cartridge, and that a tiny one. However, 
 
The Tomboy at Work 217 
 
 it made me feel quite safe, and that was 
 the main thing. 
 
 I used to go all over New York late 
 at night, and never once was I spoken to 
 or annoyed in any way. I would not do 
 the same thing now, for either the city 
 has grown wickeder or I have grown wiser. 
 It was while I was the "dramatic critic" 
 
 of the that Mme. Modjeska made her 
 
 first appearance in New York. Fanny 
 
 Davenport's first appearance as Rosalind, 
 
 in "As You Like It," was booked for the 
 
 same night, and as she was an old favourite 
 
 and Modjeska an unknown quantity I was 
 
 sent to " do " the former. Miss Davenport 
 
 played at Booth's Theatre, at the corner 
 
 of Sixth Avenue and 23d Street, and 
 
 Mme. Modjeska at Daly's, now Proctor's. 
 
 Between the acts of "As You Like It," I 
 
 dashed up to Daly's to see the new PoHsh 
 
 actress. I sat in the box with Clara 
 
 Morris and the late Dion Boucicault, both 
 
 of whom were most enthusiastic over the 
 
 acting of Modjeska. I was carried off my 
 
2i8 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 feet by it, and lamented the fate that 
 called me away. Seeing Modjeska was an 
 appetite that grew with what it fed 
 upon, and during that season I saw her 
 twenty times in "La Dame aux Camelias," 
 a performance in which, to my mind, she 
 had no peer, and I have seen all of the 
 famous ones from Matilda Heron to 
 Eleanora Duse. 
 
 My work on the was not all that I 
 
 did. I wrote out-of-town letters, six a 
 week, and on every possible subject. They 
 were not syndicate letters, as they would 
 be nowadays, and they were not type- 
 written. I wrote each one with my own 
 pen, and was paid ten dollars apiece for 
 them. I began with one paper at five 
 dollars a week, but, as my letters became 
 an institution of the paper, I was raised 
 later to ten. The proprietor of the paper 
 was in New York, and when he called 
 upon me to discuss future subjects I told 
 him that I wanted ten dollars a week. 
 
 "That is a jump of a hundred per cent.," 
 
The Tomboy at Work 219 
 
 said he, staggered at my audacity, for 
 the five-dollar rate had been in force for 
 ten years. "Can't you make it seven- 
 fifty?" 
 
 I was firm — ten, or a rival journal, 
 whose letter offering that much I showed 
 him — so ten it was. 
 
 Unfortunately, perhaps, I wrote my 
 six letters over six different pen-names. 
 I don't know why I started in with a pen- 
 name, unless it was because of George 
 Sand and George Eliot. I did not call 
 myself George anything, I am happy to 
 say. To have used my own name would 
 have been better business. I know that 
 now, but I liked the idea of anonymity 
 then. 
 
 A few years ago, when the Boston 
 Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company- 
 was in London, I happened to mention to 
 one of the members, with whom I fell 
 into conversation in the courtyard of the 
 Hotel Cecil, that I had written for many- 
 years for the Boston over the name 
 
220 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 of, let us say, "Brunswick." Meeting 
 with royalty was nothing to this man 
 compared with meeting the correspondent 
 whose letters he had read for so many- 
 years. 
 
 "I want to know?" said he, expressing 
 geniiine Yankee surprise, and he shook 
 my hand with a fervour that drove my 
 rings into the bone. In half an hour, every 
 Ancient and Honourable in the court- 
 yard had been told the wondrous tale, 
 and for the time being London and its 
 glories were forgotten. I cite this incident 
 merely to show that my letters were not 
 unpopular, and that I had right on my 
 side when I struck for higher pay. 
 
 I have no file of those letters, and I'm 
 glad of it, for I doubt whether seeing them 
 in the cold light of mature years would 
 thrill me as their recollection thrilled the 
 Ancient and Honourable Company. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 As I said early in the previous chapter, 
 our flat was a small one, and we wanted a 
 small servant to fit it. A large woman 
 would be under our feet all the time, and 
 she would have been in her own way in 
 the tiny kitchen. We tried assorted sizes, 
 but, until we found Hannah, none suited. 
 
 Every one who knew us knew Hannah. 
 She was as much a part of the family as 
 those who had been born into it, for she 
 lived with us, off and on, for eighteen years. 
 She was one of the unexpected things that 
 so often happen. Nothing could have 
 been further from our minds than finding 
 Hannah, when we found her. We picked 
 her up in the street; at least, my sister 
 Marty did. We were walking through 
 1 8th Street, and near Irving Place Marty 
 called my attention to a little darky in 
 
 221 
 
222 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 front of her. At first we thought the 
 figure that of a child; then we noticed the 
 length of her skirts, though they did not 
 touch the ground, and we saw that she was 
 a woman. 
 
 When the little woman reached the cross- 
 ing, she lifted her skirts with both hands, 
 notwithstanding their shortness, and picked 
 her way daintily over the cobblestones 
 (now asphalt). 
 
 "There's a woman after my own heart," 
 said Marty. "If she were not neat, she 
 would not be so careful to keep her skirts 
 clear of the mud. I wonder whether she 
 wants a place?" 
 
 "The best way to find out is to ask," I 
 replied truthfully. My sister quickened 
 her pace, and caught up with the Httle 
 creature, who dropped the prettiest cour- 
 tesy you ever saw. 
 
 "Do you know of any coloured woman 
 of about your size who wants to do light 
 housework in a flat?" Marty asked. 
 
 "/ do, missy," replied the woman, 
 
Hannah 
 
 'S'AC'7l.*>w> 
 
The Tomboy at Work 223 
 
 dropping another courtesy, which com- 
 pletely won our hearts. It was arranged 
 then and there, on the comer of i8th 
 Street and Irving Place, that Hannah was 
 to come to us on the morrow. She had 
 never "lived out" in the North, but she 
 referred to the "intelligent lady" at whose 
 office she had registered, and she said that 
 she could bring letters from people she had 
 lived with for many years in the South. 
 
 The next day she came and took pos- 
 session of the tiny kitchen. Cook and 
 kitchen were well matched in size. Hannah 
 had hardly set about her work before we 
 were congratulating ourselves upon a 
 "find." The first thing she did was to 
 wind a yellow-and-red bandanna around 
 her head and tie over her calico dress 
 a big white apron that completely en- 
 veloped it. We looked at each other, and 
 smiled the smile of contentment. 
 
 Hannah was not more than five feet 
 tall (almost what she called a "gwarf "), 
 and small-boned. Her skin was of a 
 
224 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 dark, rich brown that set off her even, 
 white teeth to the best advantage, and 
 she had a most engaging expression. Her 
 last name was Street, she told us; or 
 rather that was the name of her master, 
 when she was a slave in the South; the 
 war had not been over very long then. 
 The fact that she had been a slave lent a 
 romantic interest to Hannah. After she 
 had lived with us for some time, she con- 
 fided to us that her parents had been caught 
 wild in Africa, and that she was born only 
 a few weeks after they were sold to a 
 planter in the South. It thrilled us to 
 think that our Hannah was virtually a 
 savage. Who knew but that she was a 
 Zulu princess? And there she was, work- 
 ing in our kitchen like any ordinary 
 New York darky. 
 
 No — I take that back; no ordinary 
 servant, black or white, worked as Hannah 
 did. She was not only exquisitely neat 
 in her person, but she was neatness itself 
 about her work. She never touched food 
 
The Tomboy at Work 225 
 
 without first washing her hands, and the 
 way she washed dishes made that homely 
 and despised function a fine art. She 
 scraped the dishes carefully first, then she 
 let the hot water from the faucet run over 
 them, to "wrench off the wust," she said; 
 then she put them in a pan of boiling soap- 
 suds, and washed them with a cloth, then 
 into another pan of boiling water, then 
 she set them on a wire basket to "dreen"; 
 after which she wiped them on the most 
 immaculate of towels. The silver and 
 glass were washed separately, and dried 
 on their own towels. Others will tell you 
 that they do this, but they don't. Such 
 cleanliness would have made us love 
 Hannah even if she had not been a rare 
 good cook. We should have been willing 
 to forego delicacies just to have her wash 
 dishes. 
 
 Though she may have been born a 
 savage, she was also born a cook. No one 
 ever cooked her specialties with her skill. 
 She gave us a reputation for good eating 
 
226 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 that we had never enjoyed before. Our 
 Sunday breakfasts were the talk of our 
 friends. They were called for twelve, 
 noon, but my friend, the prima donna, 
 who always arrived an hour or two late 
 (she is distinguished in two continents for 
 her unpunctuality ) , never found anything 
 spoiled through waiting. We marvelled 
 how Hannah did it, but she would not 
 reveal the secret. I fancy, however, that 
 she knew the prima donna's ways, and 
 had the breakfast ready for the hour she 
 came rather than for the hour she said she 
 would come. 
 
 Hannah was so small and so amusing 
 that we made a pet of her, and might have 
 spoiled her had she not been so simple- 
 minded and genuine. She never presumed 
 in the least, and to the end kept up her 
 little courtesy and her respectful manners. 
 Our friends made as much of her as we 
 did, and felt quite free to accept her invita- 
 tions to dinner even when they were not 
 accompanied by a word from us. It was 
 
The Tomboy at Work 237 
 
 no unusual thing for me to come home in 
 the evening and find an unexpected dinner- 
 party on. Hannah neglected no detail 
 of table service, from silver to flowers; 
 everything was as it should be. If she, 
 for reasons of her own, suspected that 
 Rufus, the only one of my brothers living 
 at home now, was a bit more interested in 
 one of the young ladies present than in 
 another, this one she would honour with 
 a seat at his right hand and the biggest 
 bunch of flowers. It was also her pleasure 
 to make cakes of the most enticing sort 
 and leave them at the doors of these young 
 ladies with her respectful compliments. 
 In one instance, it became quite embar- 
 rassing, and I induced Hannah to dis- 
 continue her gifts only by telling her that 
 the young lady had in the house an alligator 
 that had been sent from Florida. Hannah 
 had a superstitious dread of reptiles, and 
 imagined that this little creature was a 
 full-sized ' * man-eater. ' ' 
 
 "I heerd it slidin' down the front stairs," 
 
228 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 she said. "No one don't ketch me goin' 
 there agin. It might jump out at me 
 when the do* was opened." 
 
 Curiously enough, considering her race, 
 Hannah did not care for coloured people. 
 
 "I ain't got no use fer niggers, specially 
 gingerbreads," she used to say; but let 
 any one else speak of "niggers" in her 
 presence, and she was furious. She pre- 
 ferred those of her race who were, as she 
 described them, "black as the ace of 
 space." Her devoted friends were mostly 
 white people. From babies to brides, she 
 adored them. Her regular Saturday after- 
 noon diversion, in later years, was to 
 gather together my little nieces and 
 nephews and all their friends and take 
 them out to Central Park, where she would 
 hire a carriage and drive them around to 
 see all the objects of interest. 
 
 There was no use in trying to make 
 her take money from us for these 
 occasions. It cut her to the heart 
 if we suggested it, so we had to 
 
The Tomboy at Work 229 
 
 make it up at Christmas, or at other 
 times. 
 
 The **Zoo" was Hannah's special de- 
 Hght. One day she came back from an 
 excursion to the park, her face radiant 
 with delight. 
 
 "Miss Nell," she said, poking her head 
 in at my door, "I seen the hick-a-pox." 
 
 "The what-a-pox?" said I. 
 
 "The hick-a-pox, you know, Miss Nell; 
 that big beast that lives in the water, and 
 dries hisself on a flatform." 
 
 Hannah never got names right, but 
 there was no mistaking her meaning. At 
 another time, after a raid on the Zoo, she 
 said : 
 
 "Miss Nell, I seen the most frightfullest 
 thing up there at the zoogical gardens." 
 
 "What was it, Hannah — the hick-a- 
 pox?" 
 
 "Oh, no, Miss Nell ! much wuss than the 
 hick-a-pox." 
 
 "Heavens ! what was it?" 
 
 ' * The stricknen-van-borax. * * 
 
230 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 *' Never!" I exclaimed, by way of bluff. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Nell, all crawled up, just 
 like it was digestin' itself after eatin' 
 another snake!" Then, with a shudder, 
 "Them stricknen-van-boraxes is the most 
 rememse snakes in the world, ain't they?" 
 
 "Yes, Hannah, I believe they are." 
 
 "They're big enough to skeer me inter 
 fits, an' I don't want to see nothin' 
 no bigger." 
 
 Children's parties were a passion with 
 Hannah, and every possible excuse was 
 made to have them. Fortunately, I was 
 not at home much during the day; but 
 occasionally I surprised a most elaborate 
 function at which the janitor's and washer- 
 woman's children were allowed to partici- 
 pate to the extent of refreshments. 
 Hannah had too decided an idea of the 
 difference between mistress and maid to 
 let the mingling go beyond the ice-cream 
 and cake hour. 
 
 I don't know which Hannah enjoyed 
 most — the society of babies, or that of 
 
The Tomboy at Work 231 
 
 "growing children." I doubt whether she 
 had any choice. All children loved her, and 
 she was in some respects an ideal nurse. 
 It was as a nurse that she had lived out in 
 the South. The only trouble, her former 
 employer wrote me, was that she assumed 
 complete ownership of the child she took 
 care of, and regarded the mother as an 
 interloper. This would suit some mothers, 
 but not all. She treated children as if 
 they were companions, and talked with 
 them as she would to persons of her own 
 age. 
 
 I remember one day hearing Hannah's 
 voice from the kitchen, talking in a confi- 
 dential manner, and, knowing that she had 
 no callers, I stepped to the door to see what 
 it meant. There was no one in the room but 
 Hannah and a six-months-old baby, bor- 
 rowed from another apartment in the same 
 house. Hannah was looking out the 
 window, and the baby was perched up on 
 the washtubs. 
 
 "Who are you talking to?" said I. 
 
232 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 " I was just tellin' baby 'bout them new- 
 comers 'cross the street. They're lovely 
 people," she said, nodding approvingly. 
 "They keep a full set er help." 
 
 "The baby doesn't understand you," 
 said I. 
 
 "Don't you believe that. Miss Nell; 
 babies understand a heap sight more ner 
 people think." 
 
 As I left the kitchen, Hannah resumed 
 her conversation, while the baby "gooed" 
 her comments. 
 
 Hannah's age was a mystery. When she 
 came to us, she said she was twenty-five; 
 but the lady in the South with whom she 
 had lived said that she was thirty-six at 
 that time, which I imagine was correct, 
 for Hannah had no idea of figures. She 
 was absolutely ignorant of their meaning. 
 She was then over forty. She didn't look 
 it, however, for it was at this time that a 
 ticket-seller at the Grand Central Station 
 said to her, when she went to buy a ticket 
 for New Rochelle, "Half-price for you, 
 
The Tomboy at Work 233 
 
 little girl." Hannah had too keen a sense 
 of humour not to act upon his suggestion. 
 
 She was generous to a fault, and yet 
 she didn't believe in throwing money 
 away. She told me once that she would 
 like to keep a little shop and sell things 
 for what she paid for them. 
 
 "You would have to sell them for more 
 than you paid for them," I told her. 
 
 "That ain't honest," she replied. 
 
 "You wouldn't make money otherwise," 
 I insisted. 
 
 "I'd get my money back, though, and 
 you don't want to do any more than that," 
 she said, with conviction. There was no 
 use in arguing with her. She had her 
 own ideas on the subject of honesty, and 
 would not change them. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Hannah was a faithful soul, as I have 
 good reason to remember. One night, I 
 was aroused from my sleep by her hand 
 on my shoulder. 
 
 "Miss Nell," she cried, "the house is on 
 fire. Sound the relarm and save yo' 
 mother." Then she pattered off down 
 the hall, in her bare, black feet, to 
 wake the others. Sure enough, the house 
 was on fire. The apartment on the same 
 floor with ours was entirely burned out, but 
 ours was not scorched. We fled to the 
 roof with my mother, and there met the 
 rest of the tenants in varied array, among 
 them Hannah, in her short, white night- 
 gown, with her black feet peeping out 
 below. It was an exciting night, and 
 might have had a tragic ending but for 
 Hannah's timely "relarm." 
 234 
 
The Tomboy at Work 235 
 
 Speaking of Hannah's black feet, I 
 don't remember that I ever experienced a 
 stranger sensation than one evening when 
 I saw her dressed for a party. She had 
 on a low-necked and short-sleeved white 
 muslin dress, and the effect of the black 
 neck and black arms protruding from 
 the white gown was, to say the least, 
 peculiar. It was not often that Hannah 
 went to a party, but when she did she 
 invariably arrayed herself in white. She 
 was a creature of contrasts in more ways 
 than one. 
 
 Once she went to a wake. Our Irish 
 washerwoman's husband had died, and 
 his death was celebrated according to the 
 custom of his people. Hannah was in- 
 vited, and eagerly accepted the invitation. 
 
 "Were they all drunk?" I asked the 
 next morning. 
 
 Hannah looked at me with a hurt ex- 
 pression on her black face. 
 
 "No, Miss Nell, it was a very respectupul 
 wake. There was no one drunk 'cept 
 
236 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 them that came drunk." I thought that 
 even those might have been enough to 
 have made a somewhat gay party, but I 
 said nothing. 
 
 "There was lovely flowers, too, and one 
 piece, from his lodge, with *I. H. S.' on it 
 in mortels." 
 
 By the way of drawing her out, I said, 
 "What does 'I. H. S.' mean?" 
 
 "You know well enough. Miss Nell; 
 they always have it at funuls. It means 
 *I has ris.'" 
 
 The theatre was a favourite amusement 
 of Hannah's, and she confided to me that 
 the play she liked best of all was Mr. 
 Jefferson in "Rip-and-van Wipple." One 
 evening, she stopped at my bedroom door, 
 her face wreathed in smiles. 
 
 "Miss Nell," she said, "I seen a fine play 
 to-night." 
 
 "What was it, Hannah?" 
 
 "Funamabriscom," she said, and chuc- 
 kled softly at the recollection. I was 
 mystified for a moment ; then I remembered 
 
The Tomboy at Work 237 
 
 that "Fun on the Bristol*' was the name 
 of a farce running at one of the Broadway- 
 theatres. 
 
 " It ain't as nice as * Rip-and-van Wipple,' 
 though," and Mr. Jefferson's inimitable 
 creation remained her favourite to the 
 end. 
 
 Mme. Modjeska and her husband, the 
 Count Bozenta, were among those who par- 
 took of Hannah's Sunday breakfasts ; and, 
 being fond of the theatre, she was anxious 
 to see, in some of her famous parts, the 
 actress who enjoyed her griddle-cakes so 
 much. One morning, when she brought 
 my cafe-au-lait to my bedside, she lingered 
 at the door, and I knew that something 
 was on her mind. 
 
 "What is it, Hannah?" I asked. 
 
 "Why, Miss Nell," she said, "I jest 
 wanted to know if you wouldn't ask Mr. 
 Presenta to give me tickets to see Madame 
 Digesta in 'How Do You Like It'?" 
 
 I had never come so near spilling a cup 
 of coffee in my life before, but I pulled 
 
238 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 myself together in time to save Hannah's 
 feelings and the bedclothes. I need hardly 
 say that a verbatim report of this request 
 to "Mr. Present a" resulted in the tickets 
 being sent to Hannah. She enjoyed the 
 play very much, though she was rather 
 shocked at Rosalind's costume in the forest 
 of Arden, and thought that it would have 
 been much more modest if she had worn 
 longer skirts over her tights. 
 
 "Then Orlando wouldn't have thought 
 her a boy," I suggested. 
 
 "O'Lander warn't no one's fool. He 
 knowed she warn't no boy from the fust. 
 He was only makin' * bleve' " — an argument 
 that a wiser head than Hannah's might 
 have put forth. 
 
 Hannah was not all sweetness and light. 
 She was subject to the blackest "dumps" 
 I ever knew. When these "dumps" were 
 on, she looked as stormy as a thunder- 
 cloud, and her flashes of wrath were as 
 sharp as lightning. During these occasions 
 she always singled out one of the family to 
 
The Tomboy at Work 239 
 
 smile upon, but the others she treated with 
 sullen sarcasm. It was very trying, and 
 we vowed every time that we would send 
 her away; but when she came out from 
 under the cloud she was so perfectly angelic 
 and so amusing that we vowed we would 
 never part with her. 
 
 At last the storms came so frequently, 
 and her conduct was so exasperating, 
 that we could not put up with it any- 
 longer; and when in a fit of temper she 
 told me one day that she was going, I, 
 much to her surprise, said that I 
 thought it was the best thing that she 
 could do. As I was really attached to the 
 little creature, I got her a place as nurse, 
 believing that a change would do her 
 disposition good. She was the delight 
 of her new mistress's heart for a while; 
 then she got overbearing, and had to be 
 sent away. And so she kept floating 
 about, a year here and two years there, 
 always keeping up her friendly relations 
 with us, until finally she fell ill, at the age 
 
240 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 of fifty, and was taken to the Presbyterian 
 Hospital. 
 
 There they made a pet of her, as we had 
 done. I went to see her frequently, and 
 took her fruit and flowers, as she would 
 have done by me in similar circumstances. 
 One day, the head nurse of the ward 
 sent for me, and I hastened to the hospital, 
 to find poor Hannah very near her end. 
 She was perfectly calm, though she 
 realised the truth. I sat by her cot, holding 
 her thin, black hand in mine. She spoke 
 slowly and with difficulty. 
 
 "Miss Nell," and I bent over her, 
 "you wouldn't think I'd saved a lot of 
 money," and she smiled. "I've made a 
 will, too, and left it all to Miss Catherine 
 [the baby of the tubs, at this time a young 
 lady of sixteen]. It's drawed up all 
 right, and Mr. Rufus is my ex-ecutor." 
 
 "It will be a long time before she'll get 
 that money," said I cheeringly. "You're 
 good for many a year yet." 
 
 She only shook her head and pressed 
 
The Tomboy at Work 241 
 
 my hand. It was Saturday, and I had 
 to go out of town for over Sunday. 
 
 "I'll see you on Monday, Hannah," 
 said I. "Good-bye till then." 
 
 "Do you see the white screems around 
 them cots?" she whispered, pointing. I 
 shuddered, for I knew what they meant. 
 "They'll be one around my cot before 
 Monday." 
 
 As I turned at the door to look back 
 and wave my hand to her, I saw her eyes 
 following me with an expression I shall 
 not soon forget. On Monday, I called 
 at the hospital, only to find that I was 
 too late to see Hannah alive. The white 
 screen was around her cot; a bunch of 
 roses stood on the little table. At the 
 head of the cot a card was pinned, bearing 
 the legend: 
 
 HANNAH STREET 
 
 GEORGIA 
 
 Aged 35 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Living in New York did not make us 
 forget Birdlington. My mother and sisters 
 spent their summers there, when possible, 
 and I joined them for week-ends, as we 
 say now. Things were very much the 
 same. Aunt Maria still lived at Fair View, 
 and the boys who lived next door had not 
 yet gone out into the world. There was 
 one of them, the youngest, who thought 
 that he had a talent for writing, and he 
 came to New York once to consult Dixey 
 in the matter. 
 
 "I would like to write for your magazine," 
 he said as one who had only to be touched 
 to spout poetry or prose. 
 
 "What sort of writing?" said Dixey, by 
 way of encouraging him, and also of 
 drawing him out. 
 
 **It is a matter of indifference to me,'* 
 242 
 
The Tomboy at Work 243 
 
 said the young man pompously; "either 
 original or copying." 
 
 Dixey fled to the back of the room to 
 hide his emotions. "I would advise you 
 to try copying," he said, when he could 
 control his voice. "It will give you a 
 wider range of subjects." 
 
 The young man thanked him for his 
 practical suggestion, and said that he 
 would copy out some things at once and 
 send them to him. 
 
 Before leaving town, he called upon us, 
 and my mother insisted upon his staying to 
 luncheon. This he was pleased to do, as 
 he had evidently come with that in- 
 tention. He was a solemn young man, 
 tall and thin, with short legs and a long 
 body. He sat at the other end of the 
 table from my mother, who, I noticed, 
 regarded him rather curiously. Finally 
 she said, "Sit down, Ernest; don't stand." 
 
 "I am sitting down," said Ernest, and, 
 sure enough, he was, but he sat so high 
 that he gave the impression of one standing. 
 
244 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 The Redmonds were still living at 
 Birdlington, but the schoolmaster had 
 gone. Kate rejected his proposal of mar- 
 riage with so much emphasis that he 
 resigned his position and left the town, 
 broken-hearted. I dare say that he 
 married some one else soon after, as is 
 the manner of broken-hearted men. Per- 
 haps she would have been happier if she 
 had married the schoolmaster. Her mar- 
 ried life was not a success, through no 
 fault of hers. A good-looking young 
 man, with pleasant and attractive man- 
 ners, came up from Philadelphia and 
 won her heart; but his beauty was only 
 skin-deep, and his attractive manners 
 were all on the surface. She bore her 
 troubles bravely, though they ended only 
 with the death of her husband. 
 
 Nothing I enjoyed more than my 
 visits to Birdlington. The quiet of Fair 
 View, after the noise and hustle of New 
 York, I found the most restful thing in the 
 world. Aunt Maria still had her little 
 
The Tomboy at Work 245 
 
 suppers, at which ''frizzled beef," Sapsago 
 cheese, and hot biscuit played the leading 
 parts. 
 
 Poor, dear Aunt Maria! she would never 
 have made a reporter, she was so unobserv- 
 ing. She could never tell five minutes after 
 she had been talking with a man whether 
 he had a beard or was smooth-shaven. 
 One of her neighbours called once, and 
 she hadn't the remotest idea who he was, 
 though she knew him well. Since his 
 last call, he had treated himself to a full 
 set of false teeth, which, I must admit, gave 
 his mouth a strange expression. I was 
 sitting on the veranda with Aunt Maria 
 when he called, and, though I recognised 
 him instantly, I could see by her puzzled 
 expression that she had not the remotest 
 idea who he was. Something tickled his 
 nose, and he sneezed. He sneezed with 
 such force that his teeth went flying out 
 over the grass. It was only then that 
 Aunt Maria recognised him, and by the 
 time he had picked them up and slipped 
 
246 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 them into his coat-tail pocket, she was 
 ready to take up the conversation intelli- 
 gently, whereas before she was utterly 
 at sea. 
 
 Aunt Maria was not only very kind- 
 hearted, but she had a strong sense of duty. 
 If any of the neighbours died, whether 
 she knew the family or not, she v/ent 
 to the funeral, as an expression of neigh- 
 bourly sympathy. Once, when I was 
 spending a Sunday with her, she expressed 
 a desire to have me call at a neighbour's 
 house, where there had been a death, to 
 leave a message of condolence from her, 
 as she was not well enough to go herself. 
 She did not know the people, or what the 
 girl had died of, but they were fellow 
 townsmen, and that was quite enough 
 for her. 
 
 The house was on a back street, and, 
 though I did not know it by sight, it was 
 not hard to find. Half the town seemed 
 to be standing in front of it. In the 
 crowd, I saw the charwoman who used to 
 
The Tomboy at Work 247 
 
 clean house for us in the old days— the one 
 who objected to the statuary. "Don't 
 you go in there," said she, grasping me 
 by the arm. "They don't let no one go 
 inside, for she died of spotted-fever. 
 You ken see the corpse if you look over 
 the fence and peek inter the front winder." 
 I was not anxious to see the corpse, but 
 my eyes followed the direction of her 
 finger, and there, sure enough, set up in the 
 front window, was the coffin, with the 
 dead girl in it. She had a wreath of 
 flowers on her head, and a gilt chain, with a 
 large gilt locket on it, around her neck. 
 It was a ghastly sight, but the crowd 
 enjoyed it, and sighed, "How natural." 
 There is a class of people who think they 
 have not done their duty by their be- 
 reaved neighbours until they have gazed 
 upon the face of the dead, and it was to 
 gratify their friends that the parents of 
 this dead girl hit upon the idea of putting 
 her in the window. I took the char- 
 woman's advice, and did not go into the 
 
248 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 house. As a matter of fact, I hastened 
 back to Fair View and tried to forget what 
 I had seen. 
 
 My visits to Birdlington were not so 
 frequent as I should have liked. I was 
 
 very busy with my work on the and 
 
 with my letters, and I was always planning 
 to have a paper of my own. I suppose 
 that this craving for the ownership of a 
 periodical was in the blood. However, I 
 
 stayed with the for many years, and 
 
 was the only woman on the staff for a long 
 time. Indeed, there were not half a 
 dozen women journalists in all New York, 
 then. There was Kate Field, who was 
 a free lance, and not attached to any one 
 paper; and there was "Jennie June," who 
 wrote fashion letters; and there was Miss 
 Ellen Hutchinson, of the Tribune; and 
 there was a woman on the Sun — this was 
 about all. 
 
 Every one said that I worked too hard, 
 and perhaps I did, but I did not know it. 
 I was working along the line of my sym- 
 
The Tomboy at Work 249 
 
 pathies, and it was so pleasant that I did 
 not realise that it was work. I got used 
 to late hours, and throve under them. 
 There was so much variety in my work 
 that it almost seemed like play. I was 
 considered a ''star" interviewer, and 
 met many interesting people in this 
 branch of my work. I made it a rule to 
 show the person interviewed the proof 
 of what I had written, so that there could 
 be no denials when it was too late. I was 
 never asked to interview an unwilling 
 victim, and I am very glad that I was not, 
 for I doubt that I should have accepted 
 the assignment. 
 
 One of my early duties was to write up 
 a reception to Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, on 
 the occasion of her first visit to America. 
 It was supposed to be a reception given 
 to the distinguished actress by the ladies 
 of New York, but it was all arranged by 
 her personal manager, the late Henry 
 Jarrett, one of the cleverest men in the 
 business. I did not care much about going 
 
250 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 to receptions, and tried to beg off, but 
 without success. My wardrobe of recep- 
 tion costumes was limited, but my sisters, 
 who were anxious to have me go, said that 
 they would rig me up. I refused point- 
 blank the suggestion of a V-shaped corsage, 
 but was prevailed upon to wear Marty's 
 bonnet. I had never had one of my own 
 since the night of the opera in Trenton. I 
 did not want to wear the bonnet, but they 
 all said that I should be very conspicuous 
 if I didn't; so, not wanting to attract 
 attention to myself, I consented. 
 
 I arrived rather late upon the scene. 
 Mme. Bernhardt was already there, 
 and was surrounded by a crowd of 
 admirers, expressing their admiration in 
 all kinds of French. You should have 
 seen that crowd break away from Mme. 
 Sarah the moment its eyes rested upon 
 my bonnet. Most of the men and 
 women who composed it knew me, but 
 they had never seen me in that sort of 
 a rig. I really felt sorry for Mme. 
 
The Tomboy at Work 251 
 
 Sarah, for she stood alone except for 
 Mr. Jarrett. ** Where did you get it?" 
 "Whose is it?" and other pertinent and 
 impertinent questions were fired at me. 
 Mme. Sarah regarded me curiously. Mr. 
 Jarrett was getting nervous. He turned 
 to the nearest lady for an explanation. 
 It was given him, and he repeated it to 
 his "star," who smiled graciously, and 
 waited for the crowd to return, which it 
 soon did. 
 
 When I got home, I gave Marty's bonnet 
 back to her. "Well," said I, "if wearing 
 my own hat would have made me any 
 more conspicuous than wearing your 
 bonnet, I'm glad I wore the bonnet." 
 
 I have not worn a bonnet since, and, as 
 hats are worn nowadays by octogenarians, 
 I shall continue to wear one to the end 
 of my life. 
 
 In due course I bade good-bye to daily 
 journalism, but I am still a journalist and 
 still in harness, though the harness is light, 
 
252 The Tomboy at Work 
 
 and easy to slip off should I want to 
 drop it. I shall probably wear it to the 
 end, which is the way when one's work 
 is congenial. 
 
 The End 
 
By JEANNETTE L. GILDER 
 
 Author of " The Tomboy at Work'' 
 
 The Autobiography of 
 a Tomboy 
 
 From Father to Daughters.-*' I have been pleased far beyond 
 ordinary delight with your fine Autobiography of a Tomboy. Its farst 
 appeal was to myself alone-both as boy (in memory) and man. The 
 child in it charmed me-the literature none the less. But a new enjoy- 
 ment has come with reading it aloud to my own tomboys."-From the 
 President of a Western College. 
 
 In the Theatre.-" The Tomboy reached me yesterday. I tucked 
 her under my arm as I marched off to rehearsal, and had a bully time 
 with her between my scenes. I was never more interested and capti- 
 vated by a book in my life." — K. K. 
 
 To Love and Chuckle Over.-" One of the most delightful things 
 of the kind produced in our day and generation. ... Her book is 
 one to read and love. It is literature of a delightful sort ; with a quiet 
 chuckle on every page, and a capital illustration by Mrs. Shmn on every 
 other."— Julian Hawthorne in Philadelphia North American. 
 
 A Book to Read and Re-read.-" This is a delightful, breezy, and 
 mirth-provoking book-the story of a strong, healthy, honest-hearted 
 girl, who took life by the skirt at the start and swung on with a merry 
 will. Miss Gilder knows her Tomboy and depicts her lovingly and 
 charmingly. . . . Miss Gilder's book will be read, laughed over, 
 and put aside to be taken up again. It is brimful of genuine life and 
 the style suits well the swift dramatic strokes of character and in- 
 cident."— ^A^ Independent, New York. 
 
 Illustrated by Florence Sco'vel Shinn 
 $1.25 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company, New York 
 
C 5 
 

 
 
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