BURLINGHAM had lived too long, too actively, and too intelligently to have left any of his large, original stock of the optimism that had so often shipwrecked his career in spite of his talents and his energy.Out of the bitterness of experience he used to say, "A young optimist is a young fool.An old optimist is an old ass.A fool may learn, an ass can't." And again, "An optimist steams through the fog, taking it for granted everything's all right.A pessimist steams ahead too, but he gets ready for trouble." However, he was wise enough to keep his private misgivings and reservations from his associates; the leaders of the human race always talk optimism and think pessimism.He had told the company that Susan was sure to make a go; and after she had made a go, he announced the beginning of a season of triumph.But he was surprised when his prediction came true and they had to turn people away from the next afternoon's performance.He began to believe they really could stay a week, and hired a man to fill the streets of New Washington and other inland villages and towns of the county with a handbill headlining Susan.
The news of the lovely young ballad singer in the show boat at Bethlehem spread, as interesting news ever does, and down came the people to see and hear, and to go away exclaiming.
Bethlehem, the sleepy, showed that it could wake when there was anything worth waking for.Burlingham put on the hymns in the middle of the week, and even the clergy sent their families.
Every morning Susan, either with Mabel or with Burlingham, or with both, took a long walk into the country.It was Burlingham, by the way, who taught her the necessity of regular and methodical long walks for the preservation of her health.When she returned there was always a crowd lounging about the landing waiting to gape at her and whisper.It was intoxicating to her, this delicious draught of the heady wine of fame; and Burlingham was not unprepared for the evidences that she thought pretty well of herself, felt that she had arrived.He laughed to himself indulgently."Let the kiddie enjoy herself," thought he.
"She needs the self-confidence now to give her a good foundation to stand on.Then when she finds out what a false alarm this jay excitement was, she'll not be swept clean away into despair."The chief element in her happiness, he of course knew nothing about.Until this success--which she, having no basis for comparison, could not but exaggerate--she had been crushed and abused more deeply than she had dared admit to herself by her birth which made all the world scorn her and by the series of calamities climaxing in that afternoon and night of horror at Ferguson's.This success--it seemed to her to give her the right to have been born, the right to live on and hold up her head without effort after Ferguson."I'll show them all, before I get through," she said to herself over and over again."They'll be proud of me.Ruth will be boasting to everyone that I'm her cousin.And Sam Wright--he'll wonder that he ever dared touch such a famous, great woman." She only half believed this herself, for she had much common sense and small self-confidence.But pretending that she believed it all gave her the most delicious pleasure.
Burlingham took such frank joy in her innocent vanity--so far as he understood it and so far as she exhibited it--that the others were good-humored about it too--all the others except Tempest, whom conceit and defeat had long since soured through and through.A tithe of Susan's success would have made him unbearable, for like most human beings he had a vanity that was Atlantosaurian on starvation rations and would have filled the whole earth if it had been fed a few crumbs.Small wonder that we are ever eagerly on the alert for signs of vanity in others;we are seeking the curious comfort there is in the feeling that others have our own weakness to a more ridiculous degree.
Tempest twitched to jeer openly at Susan, whose exhibition was really timid and modest and not merely excusable but justifiable.But he dared go no further than holding haughtily aloof and casting vaguely into the air ever and anon a tragic sneer.Susan would not have understood if she had seen, and did not see.She was treading the heights, her eyes upon the sky.
She held grave consultation with Burlingham, with Violet, with Mabel, about improving her part.She took it all very, very seriously--and Burlingham was glad of that."Yes, she does take herself seriously," he admitted to Anstruther."But that won't do any harm as she's so young, and as she takes her work seriously, too.The trouble about taking oneself seriously is it stops growth.She hasn't got that form of it.""Not yet," said Violet.
"She'll wake from her little dream, poor child, long before the fatal stage." And he heaved a sigh for his own lost illusions--those illusions that had cost him so dear.
Burlingham had intended to make at least one stop before Jeffersonville, the first large town on the way down.But Susan's capacities as a house-filler decided him for pushing straight for it."We'll go where there's a big population to be drawn on," said he.But he did not say that in the back of his head there was forming a plan to take a small theater at Jeffersonville if the girl made a hit there.
Eshwell, to whom he was talking, looked glum."She's going pretty good with these greenies," observed he."But I've my doubts whether city people'll care for anything so milk-like."Burlingham had his doubts, too; but he retorted warmly: "Don't you believe it, Eshie.City's an outside.Underneath, there's still the simple, honest, grassy-green heart of the country."Eshwell laughed."So you've stopped jeering at jays.You've forgotten what a lot of tightwads and petty swindlers they are.
