Evening star., 1906-03-11
II o w r O L L 7
N AIDE GOOD
Continued from page Z

Opera House once or twice before, havin'
blown myself to a standee Just for the sake
OF looking at the real things with their war
paint on; but | wasn't feelin' any more to
home in the back OF that box than | would IN
pulpit But the Sicily girl didn't show no
more stage-fright than auCt1oneer. She
just holds her chin up and looks out at all that
display of open-work dress-rnaking and cut
glass exhibit without so much as battin' an
eyelash. She was tallin it all in, from the bar
gain hats in the family circle to the diamond
tummy warmers in the parterre. YOU'D never
guessed that she'd come from Dago back
district where they have one mail a week.
There was some rubberin' at her, OF course,
and | expect we had the safetv-vault crowd
guessin as to what kind of a prize the an
Urbans had won; but it didn t taze her bit.
She lust gave EN- the Horse-Show stare, as
cool as a trapped mint. Nor the ringin'
up of the curtain didn't disturb her either.
When chesty barytone sauntered down to the
footlights and began callln the chorus names
she glanced over her shoulder casual like, Just to
see what the row was all about, and then went
on slzln' up the folks. She couldn't have done
it better if she'd taken lessons by mail.
" If she would only talk gurgles Mrs Van
Urban. Doesn' she know word OF English ,
She speaks nothing but pure Siclhan,
says Rolly, and the way she talks 1t Is ike
music Watt"
Pretty soon the barvtone quits jawin' and
a prima donna in spangled clothes comes to the
front Maybe it was NOrdica or Melba. Any
way, she was an Al warbler. She hadn
let 90 Of more'n dozen notes before Miss
Caramel begins to sit up and take notice.
First she has kind of surprised look, as if
a ringer had been sprung on her and then,
as the high-C artist begins to let herself go,
she swings around and listens with both ears.
The music didn't seem to go IN one ear and
out the other; it stuck somewhere between
and swaved and lifted her like a breeze in a
posy-bush | could hear her toe tappin' out
the tune and see her head keep time to 1t:
Whv, If | could get my money worth out OF
opera like that I'd buy season ticket.
When the prina donna had cut it off, with
her voice way up in the flies somewhere, and
the house had rose to her, as the bleachers
do when one Of the Giants knocks three
bagger Miss Caramel was still sitting there,
waitin' for more. Her trance didn't last long,
though She lust cast one eye around the
boxes and down to the orchestra, where the
people was spittin' gloves and yellin': Brava,
braVa!' so that you'd thought somebody d
carried Ohio by big majority, and then she
takes notion to get into the game herself.
Shuckin' that black cloak, she jumps up,
drops one hand on her hip, holds the other to
her lips and peels off a kind of whOOp-e-e-e
vode that shakes the sSylight. Talk about
your cornet bugle callsl That little ventrilo-
quist pass of hers had EN- stung to a whisper.
1t cut through all that patter and screech
like Trinity chimes splIttln' a hsh-horn sere-
made ana IL was as Clcdf Is tlIG IlliS Ol SILVER
sleigh-bells on a frosty night.
After that it was all up to her. The other
folks quit and turned to see who had done 1t.
Two or three thousand pairs of double-bar-
relied squint-glasses was pointed our way.
The folks behind EN- found something worth
ookin' at too. Our Sicily lady wasn't in dis
guse any more. She stood up there at the
box rail, straight as a Gibson girl, her black
hair hangi-' in two thick braids below her
waist, the gold hoops in her ears all a-jggle
and her black eyes snappin' like a pair of
burning trolley fuses. Well, say, if she wa mt
pastel l never see one! / guess the star
singer thought so too. She'd Just smiled
and nodded at the others; but she blew a
kiss up to our girl before she left.
| don't know Just what would have happened
next if some one hadn't shown up at the back
OF the box and asked for Rolly. 1t was the
Italian consul that we d seen earlier in the day
Where did you find herr" says he.
Meaning who? says Rolly.
why, the Countess Padova."
Beg pardon" says Rolly but if YOU
mean the young lady there, you're mistaken
She's a peasant girl who has come over from
Sicily to discover Newly ork.
d" She's the Countess Padova or I'm a Turk -
says the consul. Ask her to step back here
a moment"
1t sounded like a pipe-dream, all right
Who ever saw Countess rigged out for the