Sing for Your Supper by Lenora Mattingly Weber - treading the boards in 19th century Colorado

Title: Sing for Your Supper
Author: Lenora Mattingly Weber
Illustrator: Ninon MacKnight
Publication: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, hardcover, 1941
Genre: Juvenile Historical

Description: The Dramatic Company of the Rockies is a traveling theatrical company that has been successful with a small, all-family cast. Miss Nell, the eldest Gordon sister, is the headliner, playing opposite their leading man, McKean More, who happens to also be her new husband. Dora (16), Mitie (14), and Hittybelle (12) are her younger sisters; Mary Mallory Gordon is Nell and Dora’s stepmother: she married actor Bellamy Gordon (now deceased) and they had the two younger girls. The girls’ grandfather Patrick is also part of the troupe.

However, the Dramatic Company has been challenged lately by a rival production, led by the so-called Countess of Braganza, with fancier costumes and sturdier scenery, which beats them into new towns, securing the theater first. Dora is the family conscience and scolds her mother for taking in a forlorn young man, Phineas, when they can barely feed themselves. As Phineas becomes part of the family, she regrets her harshness but is distracted by the arrival of her disapproving aunt Hitty from Ohio, who disapproves of play-acting and wants Dora to come live with her. The Gordons sometimes talk about retiring, once they have enough money, to a chicken farm but the advent of Aunt Hitty forces them to prove they can raise the funds to settle down.

My Impression: Dora may be approximately 100 years older than Beany Malone but she is recognizably the same character – in this warm and vivid story of theatrical life in 19th century Colorado, she keeps her head and is the glue who keeps the family together, even when disaster strikes:

Dora felt her own heart sinking down into the pit of her empty stomach. The Countess of Braganza again! And here they were – tired, hungry, broke and with no opera house to put on their show.

Mitie began to swallow sickly. She dropped down on a hub of one of the gilded wheels of the wagon and Dora said mechanically, “No, no, Mitie, you’ll be all over tar.” Miss Nell, who had already parted her hair in the middle in order to dress it in a fashion appropriate to Juliet, young daughter of the house of Capulet, said angrily, “I just wish the Countess would fall off a balcony,” and Hittybelle added vindictively, “She would if I was anywhere near.”

McKean, who could always find a line to fit either the joy or tragedy of the moment, muttered, “I have a soul of lead – so stakes me to the ground.”

Part of the appeal of the Gordons is their ability to bounce back cheerfully from setbacks. If the opera house is taken, they set up elsewhere and try to drum up a crowd for a performance and sell hair tonic so they can afford or barter supper. They are a tight-knit group yet kind to strangers. Mary lends their savings to an old gold prospector who will almost certainly lose it but explains to disapproving Dora that God has given her so much that she can “never be small and miserly with others.” The reader knows that the Gordons are barely getting by themselves, which makes her generosity all the more impressive and shows how happy the family has been despite the challenges of a peripatetic lifestyle. Readers of Weber’s later books will recognize this family and their willingness to make others welcome, just like the Malones and Belfords. This was the last book she wrote before Meet the Malones and the success of that series meant she stuck with contemporary books for girls and wrote no more historical fiction – understandable but also a pity as this book is quite charming.

I checked Nonie, a memoir started by Weber and finished by her son, to see what was said about this little-known book but there is just one mention: “‘Heard from Crowell,’ she wrote on March 6, 1941 . . . . ‘They think Sing for Your Supper is a superb story!’”

Source: Personal copy. This is my fifth book for Marg's 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.