u how to do that. Remember who he is and do it your own
way, only let us see your face. Then put back the picture slowly, go get
the coat, and start to the left as if you were going to hang it up in his
room; but you hear steps on the stair outside and you know your boy has
come home from work. We see that because your face lights up. Stand happy
there till he comes in.

"You expect him to rush over to you as usual, but he's cast down;
something has happened. You get a shock of fright. Walk over to
him--slow; you're scared. Get your arms round him. He stiffens at
first, then leans on you. He's crying himself now, but you ain't--not
yet. You're brave because you don't know about this fight he's had with
the foreman that's after your boy's sweetheart for no good purpose.

"Now go through it that far and see if you remember everything I told
you. When we get down to the crying scene after the officer comes on,
I'll rehearse you in that too, only for God's sake don't cry in the
rehearsal! You'll go dry. Now then! Coat--button--sewing. Goon!"

Well, sir, I stood there trembling like a leaf while she went through
what he'd told her like she'd been at it all her life--or rather like it
was her dear Clyde's coat and her dear Clyde's photo and her dear Clyde
that come in the door. Then he rehearsed her in the end of the scene
where the cop comes on, and she got that, too, though alarming him
because she couldn't even rehearse it without crying. I could see this
director was nervous himself by this time, thinking she was too good to
be true. But he got her into the chair sewing again, all ready for the
real work.

"Remember only three things," he says: "Don't look at this machine, move
slowly when you move at all, and don't try to act. Now then! Camera!"

It was a historic occasion, all right. The lad at the camera begun to
turn a crank and Vida begun to act like she wasn't acting at all. The
director just give her a low word when she had to move. He didn't bark
now. And say, that crying scene! Darned if I didn't near cry myself
looking at her, and I heard this stonefaced director breathing mighty
short when she had to stand there with her hands clenched and watch
her boy go out the door with this cop.

Vida was too excited to sleep that night. She said the director had
advised her privately not to make a contract just yet, because she would
get better terms when she'd showed 'em what she could really do. For
this picture s