My own first theatre was in the attic, a place of squeaks and shadows to all except the valiant.  In it were low, dark corners where the night crawled in and slept.  But in the open part where the roof was highest, there was the theatre.  Its walls were made of a red cambric of a flowered pattern that still lingers with me, and was bought with a clatter of pennies on the counter, together with nickels that had escaped my extravagance at the soda fountain.

A cousin and I were joint proprietors.  In the making of it, the hammer and nails were mine by right of sex, while she stitched in womanish fashion on the fabrics.  She was leading woman and I was either the hero or the villain as fitted to my mood.  My younger cousin—­although we scorned her for her youth—­was admitted to the slighter parts.  She might daub herself with cork, but it must be only when we were done.  Nor did we allow her to carry the paper knife—­shaped like a dagger—­which figured hugely in our plots.  If we gave her any word to speak, it was as taffy to keep her silent about some iniquity that we had worked against her.  In general, we judged her to be too green and giddy for the heavy parts.  At the most, she might take pins at the door—­for at such a trifle we displayed our talents—­or play upon the comb as orchestra before the rising of the curtain.

The usual approach to this theatre was the kitchen door, and those who came to enjoy the drama sniffed at their very entrance the new-baked bread.  A pan of cookies was set upon a shelf and a row of apples was ranged along the window sill.  Of the ice-box around the corner, not a word, lest hunger lead you off!  As for the cook, although her tongue was tart upon a just occasion and although she shooed the children with her apron, secretly she liked to have them crowding through her kitchen.

Now if you, reader—­for I assume you to be one of the gathering audience—­were of the kind careful on scrubbing days to scrape your feet upon the iron outside and to cross the kitchen on the unwashed parts, then it is likely that you stood in the good graces of the cook.  Mark your reward!  As you journeyed upward, you munched upon a cookie and bit scallops in its edge.  Or if a ravenous haste was in you—­as commonly comes up in the middle afternoon—­you waived this slower method and crammed yourself with a recklessness that bestrewed the purlieus of your mouth.  If your ears lay beyond the muss, the stowage was deemed decent and in order.

Is there not a story in which children are tracked by an ogre through the perilous wood by the crumbs they dropped?  Then let us hope there is no ogre lurking on these back stairs, for the trail is plain.  It would be near the top, farthest from the friendly kitchen, that the attack might come, for there the stairs yielded to the darkness of the attic.  There it was best to look sharp and to turn the corners wide.  A brave whistling kept out the other noises.