AMARILLY OF CLOTHES-LINE ALLEY



CHAPTER I


The tiny, trivial touch of Destiny that caused the turn in Amarilly's
fate-tide came one morning when, in her capacity as assistant to the
scrub ladies at the Barlow Stock Theatre, she viewed for the first time
the dress rehearsal of _A Terrible Trial_. Heretofore the patient little
plodder had found in her occupation only the sordid satisfaction of
drawing her wages, but now the resplendent costumes, the tragedy in the
gestures of the villain, the languid grace of Lord Algernon, and the
haughty treble of the leading lady struck the spark that fired ambition
in her sluggish breast.

"Oh!" she gasped in wistful-voiced soliloquy, as she leaned against her
mop-stick and gazed aspiringly at the stage, "I wonder if I couldn't
rise!"

"Sure thing, you kin!" derisively assured Pete Noyes, vender of gum at
matinees. "I'll speak to de maniger. Mebby he'll let youse scrub de
galleries."

Amarilly, case-hardened against raillery by reason of the possession of
a multitude of young brothers, paid no heed to the bantering scoffer,
but resumed her work in dogged dejection.

"Say, Mr. Vedder, Amarilly's stage-struck!" called Pete to the ticket-