The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-05-20

PlONOO, diiQ tiC DiS StdSC tlldl SoiASN for the children at their homes and brought them back again after school, probably dropped apart long ago.
 In this stage, each with lips close to the others ear so as to be heard by her above the rumbling of the wheels, yet remain unheard by the others; in the school-room, where we sat at adjoining desks; at home or on-our walks-in fact, wherever we were together-we conspired. We thought it was the sim plest thing in the world to go on the stage, that all you did was to tell manager you wanted to go on and on you went. To our childish minds that feared nothing, there was no difficulty in the matter at all. Of the years of training and struggle that an actress goes through to achieve success, and then only too often to fail, we knew
 nothing. Children are the most de- ightfully unconscious creatures in the world, otherwise the thought of what we planned never could have entered our little heads. We wanted to go on the stage, and we simply determined to do 1t. In planning how, we made up our minds that if we tried to make our debuts in San Francisco, irate parents would in some way get wind of 1t and swoop down upon us behind thesscenes to bear us off to home, spankings and bed, even before the curtain went up. So we decided to run away and surprise our parents by coming back-famous Could anything have been more deli ciously naive?
 We took several weeks to put the
 plan'in operation. We had heard there
 was theatre in San Jose, railroad trip of about an hour and half from
 San Francisco, and this we concluded
 would be favorable spot for our first appearance on any stage" Nothing
 would have delayed us from starting at
 once-if we had had the money. Not
 having it, we found out the price of
 two fares from San Francisco to San Jose, figured out the probable cost of a night in hotel there, and then began to hoard our nickels and dimess That we should allow for the cost of re- turn trip never occurred to us. We ex- pected, after reaching San Jose and
 putting up at hotel, to visit the man!
 ager of the theatre, state our object, be
 welcomed by him with open arms to
 hospitable stage, begin making money at
 once, and in due time return to San
 Francisco, there, heralded by fame, to
 burst in upon our proud and delighted
 parents. 1t was about the most curious
 combination of ambition and innocence ever have heard of, ambition leading
 us to do something that was utterly rep rehensible, innocence preventing us from seeing how reprehensible it was or real
 izing the terrible experience we were preparing for our families. A kind Providence must have been convinced of our innocence to have allowed us, as 1t did, to emerge from our escapade' wholly unharmed, not at all frightened, which we discovered our disappearance had caused.
 Our desks were the headquarters of our enterprise. There we daily cast up our growing hoard of small change. Moreover, as the small change became
 convertible into dollars, and it was pos sible to fix the date for our start, we
 began to smuggle in an extra pair or two of stockings and other small articles
 of apparel we thought we might need
 and that easily could be carried, or worn
 over our other things. I know that on the fateful day when we walked out of
 the school, I had on three pairs of stockings. When that day came we did
 not wait for school to close, for we knew that the stage would be there to take us nome. 50 we quietly walked away at the luncheon hour If we had been longheaded schemers instead of two foolish little girls, we could not have planned 1t better. At school they thought we had gone home. At home they supposed us at school, and even
 when the stage did not stop to leave us after school, the natural conclusion
 was that we had gone home together.
 It was not until the afternoon wore on
 toward evening that it was found out that neither was at the others house, and frightened inquirers discovered that
 we had left school early.
 To reach the railroad station to take the train for San Jose we two girls prac- tically had to cross the city, but we got there without mishap. Before boarding