me beyond the footlights--the house was a
big one, and it was packed full that night.

"I can't, Tom--I can't!" I cried.

But he only smiled, and gave me a little push as my cue came and the
music began. I could scarcely hear it; it was like music a great
distance off, coming very faintly to my ears. And I said a prayer,
inside. I asked God to be good to me once more, and to give me
strength, and to bear me through this ordeal that I was facing, as he
had borne me through before. And then I had to step into the full
glare of the great lights.

I felt as if I were in a dream. The people were unreal--stretching
away from me in long, sloping rows, their white faces staring at me
from the darkness beyond the great lights. And there was a little
ripple that ran through them as I went out, as if a great many
people, all at the same moment, had caught their breath.

I stood and faced them, and the music sounded in my ears. For just a
moment they were still. And then they were shaken by a mighty roar.
They cheered and cheered and cheered. They stood up and waved to me.
I could hear their voices rising, and cries coming to me, with my own
name among them.

"Bravo, Harry!" I heard them call. And then there were more cheers,
and a great clapping of hands. And I have been told that everywhere
in that great audience men and women were crying, and that the tears
were rolling down their cheeks without ever an attempt by any of them
to hide them or to check them. It was the most wonderful and the most
beautiful demonstration I have ever seen, in all the years that I
have been upon the stage. Many and many a time audiences have been
good to me. They have clapped me and they have cheered me, but never
has an audience treated me as that one did. I had to use every bit of
strength and courage that I had to keep from breaking down.

To this day I do not know how I got through with that first song that
night. I do not even know whether I really sang it. But I think that,
somehow, blindly, without knowing what I was doing, I did get
through; I did sing it to the end. Habit, the way that I was used to
it, I suppose, helped me to carry on. And when I left the stage the
whole company, it seemed to me, was waiting for me. They were crying
and laughing, hysterically, and they crowded around me, and kissed
me, and hugged me, and wrung my hand.

It seemed that the worst of my ordeal was over. But in the last act I
had to face another test.