xt7ftt4fnj43 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7ftt4fnj43/data/mets.xml Daviess, Maria Thompson, 1872-1924. 1919  books b92-194-30611079 English Century Co., : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Benson, Leslie L. Blue-grass and Broadway  / by Maria Thompson Daviess. text Blue-grass and Broadway  / by Maria Thompson Daviess. 1919 2002 true xt7ftt4fnj43 section xt7ftt4fnj43 
BLUEGRASS
AND
BROADWAY
 














































"We are all going to stand by, little girl"

 


BLUE-GRASS
         AND

BROADWAY



          BY
  MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS
  Author of "THE MELTING OF MOLLY," "TuE
  GOLDEN BIRD," "THE TINDER Box," etc.



  NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
     1919

 


























             Copyright, 1919, by
             Tuv COPAY Co.

               Copyright, 1918, by
INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY (HANFER'S BAZAR)

           Published, April, 1919

 

















BLUE-GRASS
   AND
BROADWAY

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

    BLUE-GRASS
               AND

     BROADWAY


           CHAPTER I
T HE need of a large sum of money in a
    great hurry is the root of many noble
ambitions, in whose branches roost strange
companies of birds, pecking away for dollars
that grow-or do not-on bushes. And it
was in such a quest that Miss Patricia Adair
of Adairville, Kentucky, lit upon a limb of
life beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford of
Broadway, New York. Their joint en-
deavors made a great adventure.
  "There's nothing to it, Pop; either pony
girls will have to grow four legs to cut new
capers, somebody will have to write a play
                 S

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
entitled 'When Courtship Was in Flower,'
requiring flowered skirts ten yards wide with
a punch in each furbelow, or we go out of the
theatrical business," said Mr. Vandeford, as
he shuffled a faint, violet-tinted letter out of
a pile of advertising posters emblazoned with
dancing girls and men, several personal bills,
two from a theatrical storage house and one
from an electrical expert, leaned back in his
chair, and prepared to open the violet com-
munication. "We dropped twenty thou-
sand cool on 'Miss Cut-up,' and those sixteen
pairs of legs cost us fifteen hundred a week.
We might be in danger of starving right
here on Broadway, if we had n't picked a
sure-fire hit in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.'"
  "Ain't it the truth," answered Mr. Adolph
Meyers, as he glanced up from his type-
writer with a twinkle in his big black eyes
that were like gems in a round, very sedate,
even sad, Hebrew face. "Bare legs and
'cut-ups' is already old now, Mr. Vandeford.
It is that we must have now a play with a
punch."
                   4

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



  "The law won't let us take anything more
off the chorus, so we '11 have to swing back
and put a lot on. Costumes that cost a mil-
lion will be the next drag, mark me, Pop,"
Mr. Godfrey Vandeford declaimed with a
gloomy brow, as he still further delayed ex-
ploring the violet missive.
  "A hundred thousand it will take for cos-
tuming 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' " agreed Pop
dolefully, from above the letter he was
slowly pecking out of the machine.
  "For furnishing chiffon belts, you mean,
not costumes, if we go by Corbett's clothes
ideas," growled the pessimistic, prospective
producer of the possible next season's hit in
the girl-show line.
  "You have it right," answered Pop, sym-
pathetically.
  "If I had n't promised to let old Denny in
on my Violet Hawtry show for the fall I'd
be tempted to throw back everything, even
'The Rosie Posie Girl' and go gunning for
potatoes or onions up on a Connecticut farm;
but the show bug has bit Denny hard and
                    5

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
I '11 have to be the one to shear him and not
leave it to any of the others. I 'l be more
merciful to his millions; but asking him to
put up half of a cool hundred and fifty thou-
sand is a bit raw. Wish I had a nice little
glad play with an under twenty cast for him
to cut his teeth on instead of the 'Rosie
Posie.'
  "It 's six plays on the shelf now for read-
ing," reminded Mr. Meyers, eagerly, for to
him fell the task of weeding all plays sent
into the office of Godfrey Vandeford, Theat-
rical Producer, and his optimistic soul suf-
fered when he discovered a gem and found
himself unable to get Mr. Vandeford to read
so much as the first act unless he caught him
in just such a mood as the one in which he
now labored. "Now, I want that you take
just a peep, Mr. Vandeford, at that new
Hinkle comedy for which I have written al-
ready five times to delay-"
  "Can't do it now, Pop! Don't you see
that I have got to read this purple letter and
that is all the business I can attend to for this
                   6

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
morning" answered Mr. Vandeford, as he
pushed a slim paper cutter along the top
edge of the purple missive.
  "But, Mr. Vandeford, it is that I have-"
  "Express. Sign here!" was the interrup-
tion that put an end to Mr. Meyers's imme-
diate supplication. The parcel that he de-
posited upon his chief's desk with forceful
meekness was a play manuscript.
  "Great guns, Pops; I'm seeing purple!"
exclaimed Mr. Vandeford, as he let the violet
letter fall upon the violet wrappings in which
the express intrusion was incased. "Exact
match! This looks like some sort of a
hunch. Open it, Pops, and run through the
layout while I tackle the violet letter and see
if anything happens." And with great in-
terest both grown men plunged into the ex-
citement of the chase of the hunch.
  Mr. Vandeford's letter contained the fol-
lowing, delivered in bold words and script:

                             HIGHCLIFF.
My dear Van:
  This is to remind you that it is now July
                   7

 

BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
fifth, and my contract sets September twenty-
third as the last date for my opening on Broad-
way in a new play under your management. "The
Rosie Posie Girl" will be a huge undertaking and
worthy of my every effort, but I do not feel that
you are up to producing it properly. I regret
your losses in "Miss Cut-up," but I did my best
with a vehicle that was not worthy of my ability.
The success of "Dear Geraldine" was entirely due
to the comedy bits I wrote in to suit myself, and
I had to be costumer and producer and the whole
show. In justice to myself I feel that I ought to
pass under the management of a more forceful per-
son than yourself. And anyway I don't think you
would be able to get a theater to open on Broad-
way in September. Remember that over a hun-
dred good shows died on the road waiting to get
into Broadway last winter, and I won't play any-
where else. Now Weiner wants to buy "The Rosie
Posie Girl" from you and open his New Carnival
Theatre with me in it on October first. You must
sell it to him. He will make you a good offer.
You can't use it without me, and I want him to
produce it. Please see him immediately. You
know that you owe your reputation as a pro-
ducer to me, and don't be selfish. I '11 expect
you up on the evening train to talk over the final



8

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



arrangements. I '11 meet you in the runabout and
we can go out to the Beach Inn for dinner. Bring
me some brandied marrons, a large bottle of rose
oil and a stick of lip rouge from Celeste's.
                      Hurriedly,
                                 VIOLET.
  July fifth.
  P. S. Of course you are to go on loving me
just as usual. I couldn't do without that. How
much money have I in the Knickerbocker Trust

  After Godfrey Vandeford had read the
last violent purple line on violet, he dropped
the letter on his desk and looked out of his
office window with serious eyes that gazed
without seeing, down the long canyon of
Broadway, up and down which rushed traffic
composed of green cars shaped like torpe-
does, honking, darting motors, skulking
trucks and jostling, tangled people. Flam-
boyant signs, waving flags, and gilt-lettered
window panes made a Persian glow in a belt
space up from the seething sidewalks to the
sky line, and above it all the roar and din rose
to high heaven. But Godfrey Vandeford
was blind to it all and deaf, as he sat and
                    9

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



brooded above the furious landscape. His
blue eyes, set deep back under their black,
gray-splashed brows, failed to take in the
lurid spectacle, and his narrow, lean face was
flushed under the bronze it had acquired for
keeps from the suns of many climes. His
lean, powerful body seemed fairly crouched
in thought. Once he shifted one leg across
the other, and as he settled back in his chair
he tossed the violet letter over to Mr. Meyers
without seeming to know that he did so.
Then he plunged back into his absorption
without seeing his henchman read rapidly
through the missive, look at him once with a
gem-like keenness, and again begin to read
the purple-covered manuscript.
  "And we picked her out of a vaudeville
gutter over beyond Weehawken just five
years ago, Pop," Mr. Vandeford finally in-
terrupted the flip of the manuscript pages to
say, with a deep musing in his flexible, sym-
pathetic voice.
  "You taught her to eat with the knife and
the fork," growled Mr. Meyers from behind
                   10

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



his violet barricade as he ripped over another
page. "Mick!"
  "Oh, not as bad as that, Pop," laughed
Mr. Vandeford, with a glance of affection at
the young Hebrew delving in the corner for
a jewel for him. "She 's just-oh, well,
they are all children-and have to be
spanked. She wants to sell me out to
Weiner after I 've spent five nice, good years
in building her into a little twinkle star, but
I don't think it will be good for her to let her
do it. I '11 have to use the slipper on her,
I 'm afraid. I believe in hunches and I be-
lieve I'll just use that purple manuscript
you 're chewing to Let her set her teeth in.
She needs one good failure to tone her up.
What 's the name of the effusion in rib-
bons "
  "The Renunciation of Rosalind," mur-
mured Mr. Meyers, as he bent once more to
the pages which he had been reading with
eagerness when interrupted by his chief.
  "We could call it 'The Purple Slipper.'
About what will the cast figure "
                   11

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
  "Three thousand per week if you use Ger-
ald Height at five hundred as per contract
with him. But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I would
say for a play this is-"
  "That's not much money to waste on a
purple hunch. A nice, judicious, little sec-
ond-hand staging out of the warehouse. and
a few weeks' road try-out for the failure will
cost about ten thousand. I'll let Denny
have five thousand worth of fun mussing
around with it to cut his eye teeth, and then
we 'll clap Violet into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,'
weeping with gratitude to have her face
saved after being slapped first. Get the
parts out to-morrow and you and Chambers
begin to cast it. I '11 see actors here from
three to five Friday. I '11 open it Septem-
ber tenth. Now I 've got to go and chase
those confounded marrons. The last I took
were put up in marischino and were not wel-
comed. I '11 be in the office-"
  "And about the author, Mr. Vandeford,
and the contracts" questioned Mr. Meyers,
with both dismay and energy in his voice.
                   12

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
  "Oh, I forgot about the author. She
won't amount to much. A woman, I judge,
from the ribbons. Offer the usual five, ris-
ing to seven and a half royalties, and explain
carefully that you mean five per cent. on the
box office receipts under five thousand, and
seven and a half on all over that. Also go
into the moving picture rights and second
companies with your usual honesty, but offer
her only a two hundred and fifty advance to
cover a two years' option. She won't know
that it ought to be five hundred for six
months, and what she does n't know won't
hurt her. Besides, it will all be over for her
and her play before October."
  "She says in the letter which was pinned to
the first page of the play, that the article
about you in the "Times Magazine" made
her know that you were the one producer to
whom she could trust her play," said Mr.
Meyers, reading from a neat little cream-
white note in his hand.
  "Sweet child!" murmured Mr. Vandeford,
as he took up his hat and stick. "Don't en-
                   13

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
courage her in any way in your letter, Pop.
We don't want her rushing to the scene of
action when we butcher her child. Pay the
two thousand to Hilliard for the option on
'The Rosie Posie Girl' until January first,
and tell him I am going to produce it in No-
vember. 'Phone me at Highcliff to-morrow
if you want me. I 'll be clearing the deck
for the-spanking."
  "I wish you good luck," said Mr. Meyers
feelingly.
  "What do you judge that play is about
from reading the first act, and what is the
author's name I might have to produce a
little concrete information in the fracas," the
eminent producer paused to inquire just as
he was closing the door.
  "It is written by a Miss Patricia Adair
of Adairville, Kentucky, and it has in plenty
ruffles and romance that is in a past time of a
Colonial Governor and his wife alone at
home with him in Washington."
  "That sounds about right for the weapon
of castigation for Violet Hawtry, nee Mur-
                   14

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



phy. I have always believed in hunches, and
that accord in color was meant to mean some-
thing. Better send me a copy special in the
morning. If Mr. Farraday calls me before
I get him tell him the Astor at one to-day.
What did I say Marrons, lip stick, and-"
  "Rose oil," prompted Mr. Meyers, with
just the trace of a sneer in his voice.
  "Right 0! Rose oil it is. By!" And
the door closed on Mr. Vandeford's graceful
figure in its gray London tweeds.
  Thus a great adventure was undertaken in
all levity. And with his chief's complete
departure a change came into the mien of
Mr. Adolph Meyers. He told the stenog-
rapher in the outer office to engage two girls
to copy a play that afternoon and evening,
to keep him from being interrupted until six,
and to muffle the telephone unless in cases of
emergency. Then he seated himself in Mr.
Vandeford's deep chair, put his feet on the
desk, lit a fat, black cigar and plunged into
"The Purple Slipper," ne'e "The Renuncia-
tion of Rosalind." For two hours he read
                   15

 

BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



with the deepest absorption, only pausing to
make an occasional note on a pad at his el-
bow. Then after he had laid down the man-
uscript with its purple wrappings and rib-
bons, he sat for a half hour in a trance, out of
which he came to seat himself at the type-
writer to indite a portentous letter, which
he put in an envelope, sealed and directed to:
            MISS PATRICIA ADAIR,
                     Adairville, Kentucky.
The contents were:
My dear Madam:
  I have carefully read your play entitled "The
Renunciation of Rosalind," and have decided to
make you the following offer for the production
rights. I will give you two hundred and fifty
dollars for all rights of production, including
moving picture rights and supplementary road
companies 'j extend over a period of two years
from the date of signing the contract, and will
agree to pay you in addition five per cent. of all
box receipts up to five thousand per week and
seven and a half on all exceeding that sum. If you
agree to this proposition, I will send you a formal
contract covering all points in legal terms.
                     16

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



Please let me know at your earliest convenience
your decision about the matter, as I now intend to
produce it in September with Violet Hawtry in the
title r6le.
  Believe me, my dear Madam,
                Very truly,
                     GODFREY VANDEFORD.

  The above epistle from a strange outer
world found Miss Patricia Adair, attired in
a faded gingham frock, planting snap beans
in her ancestral garden. It was delivered
to her by her brother, Mr. Roger Adair,
from the hip pocket of his khaki trousers,
upon which were large smudges of the agri-
cultural profession. His blue gingham shirt
was open at the throat across a strong bronze
throat, and his eyes were as blue as his shirt
and laughed out across big brown freckles
that matched his chestnut hair.
  "Here's a letter I brought over from
the post-office, Pat, along with a sack of
meal and fifty cents worth of sugar. Mr.
Bates said Miss Elvira Henderson stopped
in and told him to send it to you by the first
                   17

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



person coming your way," he said as he
threw the reins of the filly, whose chestnut
coat matched his hair exactly, over the gate
post, and proceeded to take from the pom,
mel of the saddle the two bundles of grocer-
ies mentioned. "Mr. Bates sent you this
bunch of tomato plants and head lettuce to
set out along the back border of your rose
beds, and I'll spade it all up for you right
now if-"
  "Oh, Roger, listen, listen !" exclaimed
Patricia, as she sprang to her feet from
her knees upon which she had rested as she
read the letter he had handed her. "Mly
play, my play, it 's sold!" And as she
sparkled at him over the letter of Mr.
Adolph Meyers held clasped to her gingham
bosom, wild roses bloomed in her cheeks
and tears sparkled in her gray eyes back of
their thick black lashes.
  "What play " demanded Roger, stolid
with astonishment.
  "The one I wrote last month and the
month before, when Mr. Covington said that
                   18

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
the mortgage must be paid-or give up
Rosemeade. I knew it would kill Grand-
father to move him away from the house he
was born in, and I could n't think of any-
thing that would get money quick but coal
oil wells and gold mines and plays. It costs
money to dig up oil and gold, but it is easy
to write a play."
  "Oh, is it" Roger questioned, with a
twinkle in his eyes above the freckles. In
his arms he still held the meal and the sugar,
and his interest was an inspiration to Patri-
cia to pour out the whole story in a torrent
of tumbling words.
  "You know those love letters I have of
our great grandmother's that she wrote to
her husband while he was in Washington
cons ilting the President about the first con-
stitutional convention, the ones about the
Indian raid and the battle at Shawnee.
You remember the day I read them to you
up in the apple tree in the orchard years
ago, don't you"
  "Yes, I remember the day," answered
                  19

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



Roger, with another twinkle turned inward
at the memory of his seventeen-year-old
scorn of Patricia's eleven-year-old sentimen-
tality.
  "Well, those letters are the play," an-
nounced Patricia triumphantly. "I read a
lot of Shakespeare and Gther old English
dramas I found in Grandfather's library to
see exactly how to make one. It ends when
he comes back expecting to find her killed
and she is dancing at a dinner she has given
her lover as a bet that he would come back
by that night. It's wonderful!" As she
thus laid bare the skeleton of her play child,
Patricia took from doubting Roger the sack
of sugar.
  "Shoo, that's not a play," hooted Roger,
with a decided return of his seventeen-year-
old scorn in his thirtieth summer.
  "Read that," answered Patricia with dig-
nity, as she handed him Mr. Godfrey Vande-
ford's letter, written and signed by Mr.
Adolph Meyers.
  "'Whew-uh, Pat, two hundred and fifty
                   20

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
dollars !" Roger exclaimed, as his manner
dissolved quickly from affectionate derision
into respectful awe.
  "Oh, that's just a trifle for a beginning;
those royalties may be worth several hundred
thousand. In the 'Times Magazine' article
that I read about Godfrey Vandeford and
his plays, it said he had paid the author of
'Dear Geraldine' more than a hundred thou-
sand dollars in royalties. That is what made
me write the play."
  "Say, let me take it sitting down," said
Roger as he sank upon the grass beside a
rose bed that had a row of spring onions
growing odoriferously defiant under the
very shower of its petals, and laid the sack
of precious meal tenderly across his knees.
"Now go on and tell me."
  "You see, Roger, I had to do something to
get the money to keep the house for Grand-
father. You know we could n't get any
more mortgage money, because it had closed
up or something, and-"
  "Did Covington tell you he was going to
                   21

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
foreclose after I-that is, right awav " de-
manded Roger fiercely, with a snap in the
blue eyes above the freckles.
  "No," said Patricia, as she settled herself
on the grass beside Roger, with the valuable
sugar balanced tenderly upon her knee.
"He told me that he would let it stand just
as it was for three months until October
first, but after that we would have to-to
tell-Grandfather and move," a quiver came
into Patricia's soft voice that had in it the
patrician, slurring softness that can only
come from the throat of a grand dame
sprung from the race which has dominated
blue-grass pastures. "Doctor Healy says
it won't be long but-but now he'll-he'll
die in his own home that Grandmother built
where he fought off the Indians. Her play
has saved us."
  "I had fixed it to run until I make my
crops," said Roger, with a choke in his voice
that was a rich masculine accompaniment to
Patricia's.
  "The play will have been running six
                  22

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
weeks by that time, and I can pay most of it
off. A hundred thousand a year is almost
ten thousand a month and-"
  "But all plays don't succeed, Pat, honey,
and-"
  "The 'Times Magazine' said that Godfrey
Vandeford had never had a failure, and
did n't you read that he wants to star Violet
Hawtry in it She was 'Dear Geraldine.'
How could it fail" Patricia was positively
haughty toward Roger's timorousness.
  "That 's so," admitted Roger, convinced.
"And we can easy get by on the two fifty
until October, especially with the garden I
am going to raise. I 'm no Godfrey Vande-
ford, but I'm a first-class producer-of po-
tatoes and onions and cabbage and turnip
greens and corn. In these war times a po-
tato producer ranks with any old producer."
  "But I won't be able to leave all of the
two hundred and fifty to use this summer.
I '11 have to take some of it with me."
  "With you where" demanded Roger.
  "To New York. Do you suppose even
                  23

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



Mr. Godfrey Vandeford would undertake
to produce a play without the author there
to help him" Patricia's scorn of Roger's
lack of sound reasoning about theatrical mat-
ters was hurled at him pitilessly.
  "Of course not," admitted Roger hur-
riedly. "You can take the whole two hun-
dred and fifty and I '11 look after the Major
and Jeff."
  "I don't know what I'd do without you,
Roger," said Patricia, as she cuddled her
cheek for an instant against his strong, warm
shoulder under the gingham shirt. "I'm
afraid of New York. I know you '11 take
care of Grandfather; but who '1 look after
little me I don't know what I '1 do all by
myself. Maybe I won't have to-"
  "Certainly you '11 have to go," Roger in-
terrupted with comforting assurance. "Go
to the Young Women's Christian Associa-
tion, and if anything happens to you tele-
graph me and I '1 come get you."
  "I hadn't thought of the Y. WV. C. A.
Of course I '11 be all right there. I '11 get
                  24

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
Miss Elvira to write a special letter to the
secretary about me," exclaimed Patricia
with the joy lights back in the great, gray
eyes. "And it 's so cheap there that I can
leave a lot of the money at home. I '11 only
be gone about six weeks."
  "No, I think you had better take all the
two fifty with you," said Roger. "You
know you have to spend money to make
money and you must n't be short. I '11 look
after the Major and Jeff. Don't you
worry, dear."
  "Will you let me buy you a big silo and
a tractor plow when I get all the money
You are the greatest farmer in the world
and you only need a little machinery to prove
it." Again the young playwright rose to
her knees and with letter and sugar in her
embrace she entreated to be allowed to spend
the money that was to be hers from "The
Renunciation of Rosalind," which she did
not know was being cast in New York as
"The Purple Slipper."
  "Certainly I'll let you help me, Pat.
                   25

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



Has n't what 's yours and mine always been
ours since we set our first hen together"
laughed Roger, as he rose to his feet and
dragged Patricia to hers beside him. "Come
on and let 's break it to the Major. You
may need me to stand by if it hits him on
the bias," and they both laughed with a tinge
of uneasiness as they went down the long
walk of the garden which on both sides was
sprouting and leaving and perfuming in a
medley of flowers and vegetables.
  As they walked slowly along Roger cast
an eye of great satisfaction over the long
lines of rapidly maturing peas and beans
and heavy-leaved potatoes, and in his mind
calculated that a year's food for the small
family at Rosemeade was being produced
right at their door under his skilful hoe
which he wielded at off times when he could
leave the negro hands to their work out on
Rosemeade, their ancestral five hundred
acres of blue-grass meadows and loamy fields.
Roger had for the summer quit his slowly
growing law Practice in Adairville, enlisted
                   26

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
as a doughty Captain in the Army of the
Furrows and was as proud of his khaki and
gingham uniform with their loam smudges
as of his diploma from the University of
Virginia which hung in the wide old hall,
the top one in a succession of five given from
father to son of the house of Adair. The
whole county was farming under the direc-
tion of Roger, and he had been obliged often
to work Patricia's garden by moonlight.
  "I 'm almost afraid to tell Grandfather,"
Patricia interrupted his food calculations to
say as they came around the corner of the
wide-roofed old brick house with its traceries
of vines that massed at the eaves to give nest-
ing for many doves, and beheld the Major
seated in his arm chair on the porch which
was guarded and supported by round, white
pillars around which a rose vine festooned
itself. A faded, plaid wool rug was across
the Major's knees in spite of the fact that
the evening was so warm, and about his
shoulders was a wide, gray knitted scarf. A
bent, white-haired old negro stood beside him
                   27

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
filling his pipe for him and serving as a
target for the words issuing from beneath his
waxed white mustache that gave the impres-
sion of crossed white swords.
  "War! What do they know about war,
Jeff  We killed our first Yankee before
we were seventeen, and iow they fight be-
hind guns located six miles away by squint-
ing through double-decker opera glasses.
War, I say in these days-"
  "Yes, sir," assented Jeff, in soothing in-
terruption of what he considered debilitat-
ing heat in the Major's words. "We
whipped them Yankees in no time but they
jest did n't find it out in time to stop killing
us 'fore it all ended. Now, I 'm going to
help you to your room and make you com-
fortable for I-"
  "I see Patricia and Roger approaching
and I '11 wait to talk to them for a few min-
utes, Jeff," answered the Major with a slight
note of entreaty in his voice.
  "Jess a little while, then, jess a little
while," consented the old black comrade
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BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
nurse as he shuffled into the house and back
to his kitchen to complete his preparation
of the simple evening meal for his little
household. As he crisped his bacon, scram-
bled his eggs and browned his muffins he
muttered to himself:
  "He's gitting weaker every day-help
him Lord, and me to keep care of him."
  Just as he was turning the fluffy yel-
low scramble into a hot, old silver dish
he paused and listened to the musketry of
the Major's deep voice which was huge even
in weakness, then he shook his head and be-
gan to hustle the food together to be able
to use the announcement of the meal as an
interruption to the harmful excitement,
whose scattering words he was at a loss to
understand.
  "Impossible! Impossible that my grand-
daughter should barter and trade in the
heatrical world, a world into which no lady
should ever set foot. No! Do not argue,
Patricia! Roger and I understand, and
it is not needful that you should," were
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BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



the words of the assault and counter-charge
that so puzzled old Jeer over his skillet and
baker.
  "I 'm not going to act in the play, Grand-
father. I wrote it and I'm going to show
them how I want it acted and then come
right home," soothed Patricia, looking to
Roger for help and reinforcement.
  "She'll stay at the Young Women's
Christian Association, Major, and she'll be
perfectly safe. I am going to write to Den-
nis Farraday, who graduated with me at
the University, and ask him to look after
her if she needs anything."
  "Ah, that puts another face on the mat-
ter," said the Major, with a degree of molli-
fication coming into his keen, old face and
weakly booming voice. "Of course, the
Adairs have always been geniuses of one
kind or another, and it is not surprising that
my granddaughter should have produced a
great American Drama. If she has the in-
terest and protection of a gentleman who is
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BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
a friend of her brother's, and a safe retreat
in a woman's organization I will have to
permit her to superintend the placing of her
great work before an appreciative public.
Of course, she will not be thrown with any
of the theatrical world socially, and in a few
weeks she will return to her own home, leav-
ing that world better for having had a brief
glimpse of her. You may go, Patricia. Jef-
ferson!" Fatigue showed very decidedly in
the Major's weak call to the old negro, who
came immediately and rolled his chair away
with an indignant cast of his eyes at the two
young people.
  "Wh-eugh, that was a battle, and if I
had n't thought of old Denny to bring up
as a support to the Young Women's Chris-
tian Association I think it would have sure
gone the other way." And Roger laughed
with the twinkle above the freckles as he
leaned against the rose vine around the pil-
lar and fanned himself with his hat.
  "Is there any Denny" questioned Pa-
                  31

 
BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
tricia weakly, from the top step upon which
she had sunk when the Major was wheeled
away.
  "Certainly, and he 's a jolly good fellow,"
answered Roger. "I had a letter from him
year before last. I '11 write him all about
everything and he '11 look after you for me.
I 'd trust Denny to do his best for me if
I had n't seen him for fifty years. I lived
with him our Junior and Senior years and
I know him. But I must go. I have to go
back to the grocery again to get a plow
point."
  "Please don't go until after supper,"
pleaded Patricia. "I want to think out loud
to you. It has just struck me that I will
have to have some clothes. What will I do
about it I can't go to New York in a
gingham dress."
  "In such a crisis as that I think Miss El-
vira will be a better target for your thoughts
than I can be. I '1 stop and tell her the
news and send her over," teased Roger with
his engaging twinkle.
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BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY
  "I can't think to anybody like I can to
you," said Patricia, as she came and stood
beside him.
  "I really have to go, honey child, to see
about the ploughing in my South meadow,
but I '11 come back to be in the finish of the
dimity confab," answered Roger, as he
patted Patricia on the shoulder and went
rapidly away.
  And a dimity confab was a good name for
the conference that was held in the July
moonlight on the front porch of Rosemeade
for several silvered hours that night. Miss
Elvira Henderson, modiste, who was the
guide, philosopher and friend, in the matter
of costuming as well as in all other matters,
of the feminine population of Hillcrest, had
hurried down the street to the Rosemeade
gate as soon as she had consumed her spin-
ster baked apple and toast supper, and on
her way had collected pretty Mamie Lou
Whitson and progressive Jenny Kinkaid,
who formed a thrilled chorus to her inter-
ested and joyful conversation with Patricia.
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BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY



  "The eyes of the world will be on you, Pa-
tricia, and nothing short of a silk tailor suit
will be suitable