Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/21

Rh, and we had a gas stove in one corner behind a screen, and a bath tub in another, and nice soft divans all around and you could sleep on any one you'd a mind to.

"My first father married my first mother in Paris. I was born on shipboard on the way back to New York. I was always sorry I wasn't born in the studio. Mother was a singer and a Bohemian, I mean a really, truly Bohemian, not just a villager. I can remember her real well, and can remember my father some. I can remember how shiny his hair was when he stood under the skylight and painted my mother, and I can remember the way he laughed. He was always laughing. He used to laugh at the way my mother talked and the way I walked. You see I was only about half past four when he died. He used to tell jokes and stories all about the colored people from down South, and everybody loved him. We had parties all the time, because my mother was so gay. She used to sing at the parties and I'd go to sleep on any divan where there was room. I used to be very happy.

"Then when my first father died my first mother pretty near died too. She screamed and screamed, and wanted to kill herself, but Mrs. O'Shea, who lived in the back room in the house