Evening star., 1921-08-07

sible for the entire entr-acte music.
They Travelled light. carrying merely
few trunks of props and costumes.
bartering passes with the local hard
ware dealer for the use Of those i'm
plements needed in their rural dramas
and borrowing red plush parlor sets
from the accommodating undertaken
who happened to sell furniture as a
side line. They did not greatly worry
when business was bad, for their caste
small. The tax of royalty payments
was something beyond their ken. for
time and experience had long since
taught them how easy 1t was to
change the face and name of an old
favorite. And even a newly appro-
too-tender hands for a week or two
underwent mysterious hardening proc
esses. 1t was pounded into a derelict
of sure fire stuff" 1t was airily de-
formed to fit the procrustean bed of
their strictly limited sets and castes.
gave "Ingomar" in cheesecloth tunics.
They did Romeo and Juliet" with
gratuitous comic relief and in the
midst of Grand Rapids factory furni-
ture, and gave SaumetS 'Gladiator,
revised in a way that would have
grave-with tin swords and clanking
girdles of cow-chain. But most Of all
they reveled in westerns" westerns
stripped to the bone of intrigue and
| gunplay. and with their creaking
joints swathed in a merciful smoke
screen of cartridge blanks. Through
| these they went with brisk and
businesslike solemnity, the villain
getting his daily round of Kisses, the
heavy his daily round of laughs. and
the ingenue her daily round of ap
plause.
For Anada kinsella was by this
time playing juvenilts in her mothers S
company. She was playing these for
malized youthful parts with fresh.
ness and quiet ardency which
tended to accentuate the staleness OF
the road-hardened troupers about her
Her voice was small but musical. her
figure was unquenchably giriish, and
she had the trick of appearing adcr-
able in any costume. however thread
bare, and in any scene, however trivial
She had not been guarded in vain. She
was beginning to break into womanhood
with that miraculous virgin white OF the
pond lily that flowers but a hands
breadth above the Shiny and fostering
waters of a swamp. She knew life with
| out knowing that she did. She stood a
witness of the most sordid of sex-in-
| trigues without seeming to waken to
their actual significances. There had
! been developed in her not only an ex-
traordinary capacity for self-esteem but
also an extraordinary gift of self-suffi-
cheney. Even her own mother regarded
her as Unconditional. Then the awaken
| ing came. And for the second time
Katherine Kinsellas carefully balanced
! world went tumbling down about hel
ears.
1t began. as so many of life's momen-
! tous things begin. without being OBJ
| possibilities. 1t began when the Kin
] sella Amusement Company was playing
a cow-town in the foothills. and Kath-
crime kinsella was waylaid in the ro-
tunda of the Commercial Hotel by q
young man who seemed scarcely out OF
| his teens. He was dreamy-eyed but
somewhat frightened young man. with
sombrero in one hand and a roll OF
manuscript in the other. Katherine Kin.
! sella, as she examined the sun-broWnec
| face with the clean-cut profile and the
back brushed tawny hair. took him fol
a cowboy from one of the outlying
| ranches. But he proved to be teacher
| in a nearby prairie school who had writ
ten a drama of Alaska in the days OF
. the gold rush and wanted try-out
and little advice from an actress OF
experience and reputation.
Katherine Kinsella read the dreamy
eyed youths Alaska drama. She read
] 1t at considerable personal sacrifice OF
| time and energy. And when he came
and motherly with him. She explained
| to him that 1t was an extremely clever
play, but that 1t wasn't practical. II
| had a great deal of promise, but what
he most needed. If he was going on al
that sort of thing, was actual stage
experience. Then he'd know better how
to get his people on and off. and he'd
see that it didn't pay to be too poetical
1t was then that young Walton Cras-
well surprised her by asking to be taken
into her company. She studied him
with narrowed eye, at that unexpected
request, for she had many things to
| consider. More than once, of late, the
world-weary hop who pretended to
handle her male Juveniles had "ducked
| the buggy" and further dislocated ar
already sadly disjointed performance
This apolloesque and blushing new
conner, on the other hand, was a mere
boy. But she found him good to looh
at, with his -clear-cut young face and
his impersonal studious eyes. He had
as well. a voice with timbre to it. He
could be taught something, and he haG
acknowledged his willingness to work fol
! fifteen dollars week. the precise
| amount which his teaching had beer
bringing In.
X X X
co katherine 4zinsella broke a lifelong
~ rule of her career and took on ar
! amateur. She took him on with an ode
stirring Of her one-sided maternal in.
stinct, and was Unexpectedly patient ant
I gentle with him during his first blunder.
l ing weeks in that amazing new world