Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/69

Rh ingredients. And my early experience in the theater was in the drama.

But when I returned from four years on the road, in which I had lost the money left me by my father, and Annie Louise Cary heard me singing "The Palms" in my mother's home and advised my mother that I had a fine natural voice which should be cultivated, I was turned toward the singing stage.

I did not find work for my newly educated singing voice at once. After a season on the road in "Hazel Kirke" with a Madison Square Theater traveling company, I was given the part of Owen Hathaway in "May Blossom" with the resident troupe in a summer run at the Madison Square. My mother never missed a performance, nor did she ever fail to start and direct the applause by rapping vigorously on the floor with her umbrella.

As the summer was hot and business was none too good, this moral support was appreciated by the company; so much so that they presented her with a handsome gold-headed umbrella at the close of the last performance, Daniel Frohman, manager of the company, making the presentation speech.

In "May Blossom" one of the male