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The theatrical company of which Clara Morris had become a member was what was called by the profession, a “family theater,” in which the best parts are apt to be absorbed by the manager and his family, while all the poor ones are placed with strict justice where they belong. At that time, outside of the star who was being supported, men and women were engaged each for a special line of business, to which “line” they were strictly kept. However much the “family theater” was disliked by her comrades in the profession, it was indeed an ideal place for a young girl to begin her stage life in. The manager, Mr. Ellsler, was an excellent character actor; his wife, Mrs. Ellsler, was his leading woman–his daughter, Effie, though not out of school at that time, acted whenever there was a very good part that suited her. Other members of the company were mostly related in some way, and so it came about that there was not even the “pink flush of a flirtation over the first season,” in fact, says Miss Morris, “during all the years I served in that old theater, no real scandal ever smirched it.” She adds: “I can never be grateful enough for having come under the influence of the dear woman who watched over me that first season, Mrs. Bradshaw, the mother of Blanche, one of the most devoted actresses I ever saw, and a good woman besides. From her I learned that because one is an actress it is not necessary to be a slattern. She used to say:

“‘You know at night the hour of morning rehearsal–then get up fifteen minutes earlier, and leave your room in order. Everything an actress does is commented on, and as she is more or less an object of suspicion, her conduct should be even more correct than that of other women.’ She also repeated again and again, ‘Study your lines–speak them just as they are written. Don’t just gather the idea of a speech, and then use your own words–that’s an infamous habit. The author knew what he wanted you to say. If he says, “My lord, the carriage waits,” don’t you go on and say, “My lord, the carriage is waiting!”‘”

These and many other pieces of valuable advice were stored up in Clara Morris’s mind, and she made such good use of them that they bore rich fruit in later years.

There was great consternation for mother and daughter, on a certain day when Clara brought home the startling news that the company was to be transferred to Columbus, Ohio, for the remainder of the season. It was a great event in the young actress’s life, as it meant leaving her mother and standing alone. But as she confesses: “I felt every now and then my grief and fright pierced through and through with a delicious thrill of importance; I was going to be just like a grown-up, and would decide for myself what I should wear. I might even, if I chose to become so reckless, wear my Sunday hat to a rehearsal, and when my cheap little trunk came, with C. M. on the end, showing it was my very own, I stooped down and hugged it.” But she adds with honesty, “Later, when my mother, with a sad face, separated my garments from her own, I burst into sobs of utter forlornness.”

The salary of the ballet corps was now raised to $5 a week, and all set to work to try to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board bill, her basket bill, her washing bill, and all the small expenses of the theater–powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc.–to say nothing of shoes and clothing, out of her earnings. Clara Morris and the Bradshaws solved the problem in the only possible way by rooming together in a large top-floor room, where they lived with a comparative degree of comfort, and with less loneliness for Clara than she could have felt elsewhere.