hem tight with bandages. This marvelous surgery, without a stitch
being taken, actually was successful; the fingers healed, and now only a
slight scar remains.

I regret to say that this physician, whose presence of mind thus saved
my fingers from being permanently mutilated, is entirely unknown to me
now. Some few years ago, in Boston, I told this story in an interview,
and a physician wrote me from some other city that he was the man who
had saved my fingers for me. I wrote and thanked him for his kindness
toward a little girl; but his letter was mislaid and destroyed, so that
even now I do not know his name. Wherever he is, however, he will always
have my thanks and warmest admiration.

Finally, the time came for me to enter the Melrose High School. I
objected seriously to the further routine of public schooling, as I
wished to study only music. But both my father and mother insisted; so I
began the study of languages. I was intensely interested in mythology,
history, and literature, but I hated mathematics. I always preferred to
count on my fingers rather than to use my brain for such merely
mechanical feats as adding or multiplying figures. In the study of
languages I soon found that my teachers were excellent grammarians, but
I pleaded that I wanted to learn to talk and not merely to conjugate.

I took a supplementary course in literature, and well remember the most
important incident when I competed for the prize. I was quite sure my
essay would win. In fancy I had already rehearsed the pretty speech in
which I should thank the committee for the honor conferred on me. But
the prize went to some one else. My anger was sudden and hot. Then and
there I made up my mind that if ever I could not be first in what I
attempted, I would drop it at once. I believed my material was best and
deserved the prize, and I was hurt at not conquering before an admiring
and enthusiastic audience!

[Illustration: GROWING UP]

Thus I early learned that maybe I could not always win, could not always
be first; that perseverance must aid natural talents; and that it is
cowardly to drop a thing when at first you don't succeed. The sting of
adverse criticism may often prove the best of tonics! I have since found
it so.

CHAPTER III

I RESOLVE TO SING CARMEN

Each spring in Melrose there was a May Carnival. One of the features of
the carnival in 1894, when I was twelve years old, was a pageant of
famous women impersonated b