Evening star., 1921-08-07

played with O'Neill and Modjeska and
the eioer barrymore. And even Bud
anski, the great Budanski. then in
the first flush of his success as a pro-
ducing- had considered her
for the American tour of the younger
Salvini.
Eut that was five months before her
daughter Anada was born. And Cos
terella. suffering from and terrified by
his second hemorrhage. had to be
taken back to Colorado. There, after
her daughters birth. she again strug-
gled to recover lost ground But the
night was losing one. The be@t she
could do was to mark time by at
tempting to found a dramatic school.
For two bitter years she wrestled
with her school. doing what she could
to support dying husband and
dying home. After Costerella's death
she Joined road company, which dis
banded at Sacramento. At San Fran
cisco she. Joined another company
working its way OBVIOUSLY but stub
ory company playing an unsavory
farce. Its paraded indecencies pro-
Vided a strange setting for a young
mother and nursing baby. But she
endured 1t all. knowing that each day
was CARRYING her nearer and nearer
New York. And once she was back
to what in the metonymy of the
newer age was already being desig-
mated as broadway" she attempted
to regain a footing in that lost world
of hers. She even went to Budanski
and begged for her chance, begged
powder on her face and were an irri-
tation to the preoccupied manager.
who had to tell her for the third time
that he had nothing for her. Her
youthfulness had slipped away. her
face had thinned and hardened. and
@Ir lk fol nsk
seemed to have anything for her.
But she had to live. So eventually
she went out as assistant to a xylo-
phone player, where daily and blithe-
ly. adorned in rose-colored f1eshings
and a huzzar's jacket of blue and
feeder and props to a trick musician.
From this intolerable position she
finally escaped to small parts in a
stock company at Los Angeles. There.
in the end, she once more attached
herself to road company moving
east.
New York by this time had doubly
forgotten her. 1t had no place for
her. In the very hour that she hum
gered most for it she awakened to
the devastating knowledge that she
could live only in regions remote from
it. So the road swallowed her up
again. 1t swallowed her up as lonely
sea routes swallow up a lonely craft
intent on unseen ports. And SOM
berly she adventured up and down
the sordid byways of the theatrical
worlds hinterland, taking what she
could get. enduring what she had to
face. but forever scheming and fret
ting for something better. Her am
bition. being instructive, was an un-
reasoning one. 1t refused. accord
ingly, to accept defeat. She had set
out in the world to be great actress.
I,4 Avck IN Har nf
souls. she carried the conviction that
she had the makings of great
actress in her. With a man like Bud
anski behind her. for example. she
could still show them what they had
overlooked. And forlornly. through
card in Variety. duly announcing
week by week and month by month
that Katherine Kinsella was ION
tour" And long had the hoofs Of ad-
versity beaten on her broken body
before they trampled out the last
spark Of that stubborn fire.
That change came about when her
daughter Anada was trifle over four
years old. The child. taught prema-
turely to lisp a few lines of which she
had no actual comprehension. was
carried on in "A Daughter of Midas"
said her piece, and smiled engagingly
at the audience. The result was
prompt and prolonged patter of ap-
plause, through which the tiny Anada
smiled at an audience which she
recognized as friendly. She was still
youthfully and blissfully ignorant of
the claws behind it's velvet. So she
was led discreetly off in the face of
her determination to repeat a piece
which had already met with such un-
mixed approval. and the wooden old
melodrama went on it's wooden old
way.
DCT that precious moment Of ap-
l. plause had brought home to Kath-
crime Kinsella a fact which she had
hitherto overlooked. 1t announced to
her that in the little body which had
proved so irksome and SO prolonged
a burden she possessed an unde-
veloped theatrical possibility. Her
daughter could be trained for kid"
parts. and from those she could grad
uate into juveniles, and from the in
genue and soubrette she could climb
into leads. And some day. perhaps
she might be the great artistic which
her mother had failed to make her
self.
So a change took place in the older
woman's plan of life. From that day
forward she no longer lived for her
self. but for her daughter. From her
own tired breast to the resilient
young body of her child she trans
planted her parched hopes, as frugal
gardener repots a blighted flower.
From that day forward she began to
train the child. She made undivulged
sacrifices to the end that little Anada
might have reading and dancing les
sons. overlaid with purely ornamental
efforts in music, at which she dis
played none of her fathers talent
for that art. Amid the noises of
cheap hotels and the odors of cheaper
rooming houses she taught the girl
what it seemed best to teach her. She
opened up to her the new world of
the printed word. and schooled her in
poiSe and tone and gesture-gesture
always outward and always from the
thorax-and directed her reading and
guarded her movements. But it was
at the theater more than anywhere
else she watched over the child. She
sentineled those troubled lines until
the company fell into the habit of
speaking of her as 'The Shelton"
and realized there was to be neither
trifiing nor profanity in the neigh
still in ringlets. with her ardent
young eyes glued to a book.
Her beauty at that time was more
that Of promise than Of fulfillment.
But already she had lived in a world
of her own. singulariy detached from
that loose-jointed little world which
gyrated about her. And beside her al
ways was the untiring watchdog of
her innocence. Already, Katherine
Kinsella realized. there was too much
at stake to allow the Indifference of
today to imperil the promise of to-
morrow. All her eggs were now in
one basket, and it was her duty to
see that this basket was treated with