New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington and Mr. Johnson—Mr. Ellsler's Mild Assistance—I Journey to New York, and Return to Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly.
To say I made a success in Cincinnati is the barest truth. Almost at once—the third night of the season, to be exact—I received my first anonymous gift: a very beautiful and expensive set of jewelry, pale-pink corals in combined dead and burnished gold. They rested in their satin-lined nest and tempted me. The sender wrote: "Show that you forgive my temerity by wearing my offering in the third act."
I did not wear them in any act, and yet, oh, eternal feminine! I "tried them on"—at least I put one ring in my ear and held the pendant against my throat, "just to see" how they would have looked, you know.
Flowers came over the footlights, the like of which I had never seen in my life before—great baskets of hot-house beauties, some of them costing more than I earned in a week. Then one night came a bolder note, with a big gold locket. A signature made it possible for me to return that gift next morning.
All that sort of thing was new to me, and, naturally, pleasing—yes, because earned approbation pleases one, even though it be not quite correctly expressed. It soon became whispered about that I sent back all gifts of jewelry, and lo! one matinée, with a splendid basket of white camelias, fringed about with poinsettia leaves, there came a box of French candied fruit. My! what a sensation it created in the dressing-room. I remember some of the ladies (we dressed in one great long room there) took bits of peach and of green figs to show their friends, while I devoted myself to the cherries and apricots. That seemed to start a fashion, for candies, in dainty boxes, came to me as often as flowers afterward, and, to my great pride and pleasure, were often from women, and my Saturday five cents' allowance was turned over to mother for the banqueting fund—that meant a bit of cheese for supper.
At the time of the season's opening there was a man in Cincinnati who was there sorely against his will, a wealthy native of the city, a lawyer who would not practise, a traveler in distant lands, he had lived mainly for his own pleasure and had grown as weary of that occupation as he could possibly have grown had he practised the law. Tired of everything else, he still kept his liking for the theatre. Living in New York in the winter, at Cape May in the summer, he only came to his old home when someone was irritating enough to die and need burying in state, or when some lawsuit required his attention, as in this instance. So, being there, and not knowing what else to do, he had gone dully and moodily to the theatre, saying to his cousin companion: "I'll take a look at Macaulay's new leading lady, and then I'll sleep through the rest of the evening comfortably, for no one can talk to me here as they do at the hotel"—and the country Cicely had appeared, and, to use Mr. Worthington's own words: he had sat up straight as a ramrod and as wide-awake as a teething baby for the rest of the evening.
Between acts he had made inquiries as to the history of the new actress, only to find that, like most happy women, she had none. She came from Cleveland, she lived three doors away with her mother—that was all. On that first night he had said: "Good Lord, Will, what is that girl doing out here in the West? I must see her in a better part. What's on to-morrow night? Secure our seats for the season, that will save a lot of trouble;" and incidentally it made a lot of annoyance for me.
Next night I played what actresses call a "dressed part," which, in spite of suggestion, does not mean that there are parts that are not dressed, only that the character wears fine clothes instead of plain ones. It was a bright, light comedy part. The audience was enthusiastic, though, of course, I was only supporting the star. Then Mr. Worthington exclaimed: "That girl ought to be in New York this very moment!"
"Do you think so?" questioned his inseparable.
"Do I think so?" mocked his cousin. "Yes, I know it. I know the theatres foreign—their schools and styles, as well as I know the home theatres and their actors. I believe I've made a discovery!"
A beautiful mass of flowers came to me that night with Mr. Worthington's visiting card, without message. The third night I played a tearful part; the papers (as the women put it) "went on awful," and Mr. Worthington, snapping his glasses into their case, said, as he rose: "I shall never rest till this Clara Morris faces New York. She need clash with no one, need hurt no one, she is unlike anyone else, and New York has plenty of room for her. I shall make it my business to meet her some way or other, and preach New York until she accepts the idea and acts upon it."
His visit to Cincinnati was prolonged; his young cousin, Mr. Will Burnett, thought he was on the high-road to crankiness on the subject. Then Mr. Worthington discovered we had a common friend in lawyer Egbert Johnson, and he was presented in proper form to my mother (oh, wise Mr. Worthington), and winning her approval by praise of her wonderful chick (where is the mother that does not readily believe her goose a swan?), she in her turn presented him to me, and for the first time I listened to a suggestion of coming to New York.
To say I was amused at the idea would be putting it mildly indeed, for I was tickled to such laughter that tears came to my eyes. He was annoyed, but I laughed on. He waited—I was called upon for some heavy tragic parts. He came again—I laughed still.
"Good heavens!" I cried, "I'm not pretty enough!"
He said: "You have your eyes and voice and expression, and you don't seem to be suffering much here from your lack of beauty."
"N-no," I answered, naïvely, "you see, all the women in this company are rather plain."
He laughed, but he continued to urge me to try for an engagement in New York.
"I don't know enough," I faltered.
"You lack polish of manner, perhaps," he admitted, "but you will acquire that quickly, while no one can acquire your fire and strength and pathos! For God's sake, let me do one unselfish act in my life—let me serve you in this matter. I will go to the managers in New York and speak for you."
But that offer I curtly declined, asking him how long my reputation would remain unassailed if I allowed him to act for me.
In spite of all his praise of my work, I should have remained unmoved had Mr. Johnson not joined forces with Mr. Worthington, and calmly assured me that he, too, knew the New York theatres and actors, and he honestly believed I had a chance of acceptance by the public, if only a manager would give me an opening, for, said he: "Worthington is right this time, you really are an exceptionally clever girl, so why should you bury yourself in small Western cities?"
"Oh!" I indignantly cried, "Cleveland and Cincinnati are very big cities, indeed!"
"Yes," smiled Mr. Johnson, "but New York is quite a bit larger, and besides you would like to be accepted by the metropolis of your country, would you not?"
And straightway my heart gave a bound, my cheeks began to burn, the leaven was working at last—my ambition was awakened! I wondered day and night, could I act well enough to please New York? I thought not; I thought yes! I thought—I thought there could be no harm just to ask the managers if they had an opening. But there my courage failed me—I could not. I never had written to a manager in my life, save to answer a letter. Finally, I wrote to Mr. Ellsler—he knew all the New York managers (few then)—and told him I was about to ask my first favor at his hands. Would he write to one or two managers for me, or give me a line of introduction to them? and his unexpected opposition to my plans, the cold water he cast upon my warm hopes, instead of crushing my spirit utterly, aroused the old dogged determination to do what I had undertaken to do—make a try for a New York opening!
The controversy finally ended in my receipt of a letter from Mr. Ellsler informing me he had written to four managers, and said what he could for me—which proved to be mighty little, as I afterward saw two of the four letters, as they were in duplicate, though one was to a stranger, one to an acquaintance, and two to friends. He simply asked: "If they had an opening for a young woman, named Clara Morris, for leading or leading-juvenile business." That was all; not a word of recommendation for ability or mention of years of thorough experience—not even the conventional expression of a personal obligation if they were able to consider my application.
Had I been a manager, and had I received such a letter, I know I should have cast it aside, thinking: "Oh, that's a duty letter and amounts to nothing. If the girl had any recommendations for the position he would have said so." Still, some answers were returned, though Mr. Wallack ignored his copy. Mr. Jarrett (of Jarrett & Palmer) wrote Mr. Ellsler that they were bound to spectacular ("Black Crook") for the year to come, and had no earthly use for an actress above a soubrette or a walking lady. Mr. Edwin Booth wrote: "If you had only addressed me a few days earlier. I remember well the young woman of whom you speak. I have unfortunately" (this last word was crossed out)—"I have just closed with Miss Blanche DeBar—old Ben is persistent and has great confidence in her, and, as I said, I have just closed with her for the coming season. With," etc., etc.
Then there was a wee bit of paper—little, niggly-naggly, jetty-black, impishly vindictive-looking writing on two short-waisted lines of about eleven words each. That was from Mr. Daly, and it snapped out this information: "If you send the young woman to me I will willingly consider proposal. Will engage no actress without seeing her. A. Daly."
These letters were blithely sent to me by Mr. Ellsler, who evidently looked upon the question as closed, but that was where we differed. I considered it a question just fairly opened. I admit Mr. Daly's calm ordering of me from Cincinnati to his office in New York for inspection staggered me at first, but there was that line: "I will willingly consider the proposal;" that was all I had to trust to; not much, heaven knows! "Yet," I argued, "he is evidently a man who says much in little; at all events, though the chance is small, it is the only one offered, and, if I can stand the expense, I'll go and take that chance."
I would have to obtain leave of absence; I would have to pay a woman for at least two performances, even if I got off on Saturday night; I would have to stop one night in a hotel at New York, and, oh, dear, oh, dear! would I dare to risk so much—to spend all my little savings toward the summer vacation for this trip that might end disastrously after all? I read again: "Will engage no actress without seeing her." Well, that settled the matter. Suddenly I seemed to hear my old Irish washerwoman saying: "Ah, well! God niver shuts one dure without opening anither!" I laughed a bit and decided to risk my savings—nothing venture, nothing win!
That very night I asked leave of absence; the time was most favorable—I obtained it. I found next day an actress to take my place on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Then mother and I emptied out our flat and old pocket-books. I brought from its secret hiding-place the little roll of bills saved for summer's idle time, and we put all in a pile. Then I drew out a week's board in advance and gave it to mother; drew out enough to pay the woman who took my place, and all the rest, to the last dollar, was required for the expenses of my solitary journey to the great beckoning city by the sea.
As I closed my pocket-book, I said to myself: "There, I have shut one door with my own hand, but I'll trust God to open another for me before vacation arrives."
There's an old saw that gravely states: "It never rains but it pours," and surely business opportunities "poured" upon me at that time, for in that very week I received two offers of engagements, and one of them, had not the New York bee been buzzing so loudly in my bonnet, would have driven me quite wild with delight. That was from Mr. Thomas Maguire, of San Francisco, and the salary was to me enormous. One hundred dollars a week in gold, a benefit, and no vacation at all, unless I wished it. I temporized. I wished to gain time enough to learn my fate in New York before deciding. But Mr. Maguire was in haste, and as I hurried from the theatre to start on my journey, a long envelope was placed in my hands. I opened it on the cars, and found signed contracts for the leading business at San Francisco, with an extra benefit added as an inducement for me to accept.
So I journeyed onward to tempt Fate, a little forlorn and frightened at first, but receiving so many courtesies and little kindnesses from my more fortunately placed fellow-travelers, that I quite forgot to be either frightened or forlorn—but was amazed at the beauty of the stately river we crossed, whose ripples caught the glowing color of the sky and broke them into jewels; and beyond that silvery curtain of haze stretched the great city of my dreams, all circled round and guarded by living waters.
Then I was ashore again and clambering into the great swaying coach of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the conductor having told me it was right next door to the theatre. I breakfasted, took from my bag a new gray veil, a pair of gray gloves, a bit of fresh ruffling, and a needle and thread, with which I basted the ruffle into the neck of my gown; put on the veil and gloves, that being all the preparation I could make by way of toilet to meet the arbiter of Fate, said "Our Father," and coming to "Amen" with a jerk, discovered I had not been conscious of the meaning of one single word, and whispering with shame, "only lip service," remorsefully repeated again, and with absolute sincerity, that prayer which expresses so simply, so briefly, all our needs, physical and spiritual; that places us at once in the comforting position of a beloved child asking with confidence for a father's aid. A prayer whose beauty and strength share in the immortality of its Divine composer.
And then I rose and went forth, prepared to accept success or defeat, just as the good Lord should will.
As I passed around the hotel and approached the theatre on Twenty-fourth Street, an enormous upheaval of ice blocked the way—ice piled shoulder high in front of the theatre door, and on one side of the glittering mass stood a long, tall, thin man, as mad as a hornet, while on the other side, stolidly, stupidly silent, stood a squat Irishman, holding an ice-man's tongs in one hand and his shock of red hair in the other. The long, flail-like arms of the tall man were in wild motion. In righteous wrath he was trying to make the bog-trotter understand that the ice was for the hotel, whose storage door was but a few feet to his right, when he saw me making chamois-like jumps over the blocks of ice trying to reach the door. With black-browed courtesy he told me to use the second door, that morning, to reach the box-office.
I had, all unconsciously, formed an idea of Mr. Daly, and I was looking for a small, dark, very dark, nervously irritable man, and was therefore frankly amused at the wrath of the long, thin man, whose vest and whose trousers could not agree as to the exact location of the waist-line, and laughed openly at the ice-scene, winning in return as black a scowl as any stage-villain could well wear. Then I cheerfully remarked: "I'm looking for Mr. Daly; can you tell me where I am likely to find him?"
"You want Mr. Daly?" he repeated. "Who are you?"
"I'll tell Mr. Daly that, please," I answered.
He smiled and said: "Well, then, tell me—I'm Mr. Daly—are you——"
"Yes," I answered, "I'm the girl come out of the West, to be inspected. I'm Clara Morris."
He frowned quickly, though he held out his hand and shook mine heartily enough, and asked me to come into his office.
It was a cranny in the wall. It held a very small desk and one chair, behind which was a folding stool. As he entered, I laughingly said: "I think I'll lean here, I'm not used to sitting on the floor," but to my surprise, as he brought forth the stool, he curtly replied: "I was not going to ask you to sit on the floor," which so amused me that I could not resist asking: "Are you from Scotland, by chance, Mr. Daly?" and he had frowningly said "No!" before the old, old joke about Scotch density came to him.
Then he said, with severity: "Miss Morris, I'm afraid your bump of reverence is not well developed."
And I laughed and said: "There's a hole there, Mr. Daly, and no bump at all," and though the words were jestingly spoken, there was truth and to spare in them, and there, too, was the cause of all the jolts and jars and friction between us in our early days together. Mr. Daly was as a god in his wee theatre, and was always taken seriously. I knew not gods and took nothing under heaven seriously. No wonder we jarred. Every word I spoke that morning rubbed Mr. Daly's fur the wrong way. I offended him again and again. He wished to show me the theatre, and, striking a match, lit a wax taper and held it up in the auditorium, at which I exclaimed: "Oh, the pretty little match-box! Why, it's just a little toy play-house—is it not?"
Which vexed him so I was quite crushed for a minute or two. One thing only pleased him: I could not tear myself away from the pictures, and I praised, rapturously, a beautiful velvety-shadowed old engraving. We grew quite friendly over that, but when we came to business he informed me I was a comedy woman, root and branch.
"But," I said, "ask Mr. Edwin Booth, or Mr. Davenport, or Mr. Adams!"
He waved me down. "I won't ask anyone," he cried; "I never made a mistake in my life. You couldn't speak a line of sentiment to save your soul!"
"Why, sentiment is my line of business—I play sentiment every week of my life," I protested.
"Oh, you know what I mean," he said, "you can speak and repeat the lines, but you couldn't give a line of sentiment naturally to save your life—your forte is comedy, pure and simple."
It all ended in his offer to engage me, but without a stated line of business. I must trust to his honor not to degrade me by casting me for parts unworthy me. He would give me $35 a week (knowing there were two to live on it), if I made a favorable impression he would double that salary.
A poor offer—a risky undertaking. I had no one to consult with. I had in my pocket the signed contract for $100 in gold and two benefits. I must decide now, at once. Mr. Daly was filling up a blank contract. Thirty-five dollars against $100! "But if you make a favorable impression you'll get $70," I thought. And why should I not make a favorable impression? Yet, if I fail now in New York, I can go West or South, not much harmed. If I wait till I am older, and fail, it will ruin my life.
I slipped my hand in my pocket and gave a little farewell tap to the contract for $100. I took the pen; I looked hard at him. "There's a heap of trusting being asked for in this contract," I remarked. "You won't forget your promise about doubling the salary?"
"I won't forget anything," he answered.
I looked at the pen, it was a stub, the first I ever saw; then I said: "That's what makes your writing look so villainous. I can't sign with that thing—I'd be ashamed to own my signature in court, when we come to the fight we're very likely to have before we are through with each other."
He groaned at my levity, but got another pen. I wrote Clara Morris twice, shook hands, and went out and back to my home—a Western actress with an engagement in a New York theatre for the coming season.
John Cockerill and our Eccentric Engagement—I Play a Summer Season at Halifax—Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at Last.
Mr. Worthington passed out of my life after he had done me the service he set out to do. It had been an odd notion to step down from his carriage, as it were, and point out to a girl, struggling along a rough and dusty path, a short cut to the fair broad highway of prosperity; but I thank him heartily, for without his urging voice, his steadily pointing hand, I should have continued plodding along in the dust—heaven knows how long.
One of the few people I came to know well in Cincinnati was John A. Cockerill. At that time he was the city editor on the Enquirer, and my devoted friend. We were both young, poor, energetic, ambitious. We exchanged confidences, plans, hopes, and dreams, and were as happy as possible so long as we were just plain friends, but as soon as sentiment pushed in and an engagement was acknowledged between us, we, as the farmer says:
For John was jealous of my profession, which made my temper hot, and we were a queer engaged pair. I used to say to him: "It's just a question which one of us suicides first!"
Yet on some days we would forget we were engaged and be quite cheerful and happy; and when I came back from New York, I cried: "Congratulate me, John, I've got an engagement, so we can't nag each other to death for a year at least!" and though that gave a lovely opening for a quarrel he passed it by, congratulating me very gently instead, but very sadly, adding: "You are getting so far ahead of me, dear—and you will learn to despise a man who comes toiling always behind you!"
A statement that came so dangerously near the truth that it threw me into a passion, and we had a battle royal then and there. However, we parted in a gale of laughter, for as John suddenly discovered he was overstaying his intended short visit, he sprang up and grabbed his hat and exclaimed: "Well, good-by, Clara, we haven't indulged in much sentiment to-day, but," drawing a long, satisfied breath, "we've enjoyed a good lusty old row all the same!"
No wonder we laughed. We were a rare engaged couple. Lovers? why Cupid had never even pointed an arrow at us for fun! We were chums—good fellows in sunny weather; loyal, active friends in time of trouble, and, after I came to New York, and found quarreling at length, with pen and ink, too fatiguing, I broke the engagement, and we were happy ever after—our friendship always standing firm through the years; and when, in the Herald's interests, he started on that last long journey to report upon the Japanese-Chinese War, he said to me: "I never understood the meaning of the word friendship until that day when you flung all your natural caution—your calm good sense aside, and rushed through the first cheering message that reached me after that awful St. Louis shooting: 'You acted in self-defence, I know—command any service from your faithful friend,' that's what you said, over your full name, while as yet you knew absolutely nothing. And when I realized that, guilty or innocent, you meant to stand by me, I—well, you and my blessed mother live in a little corner of my heart, just by your two loyal selves."
And when he left me he carried on either cheek as affectionate a kiss as I knew how to put there, and again, and for the last time, we parted in a gale of laughter, as he cried: "You would have seen me in the bottomless pit before you would have done that in Cincinnati!"
"Oh, well," I replied, "we both preferred quarreling to kissing in those days!"
"Speak for yourself!" he laughed, and so we parted for all time.
I had returned to my work in Cincinnati; had thanked the Washington and San Francisco managers for their offers of engagements, and was putting in some spare moments in worrying about the summer, when (without meaning to be irreverent) God opened a door right before me. Never, since I had closed a small geography at school, had I heard of "Halifax," save as a substitute for another place beginning with H, but here, all suddenly, I was invited to Halifax—not sent there in anger, for, oh, incredible! for a four, perhaps six, weeks' summer engagement. Was I not happy? Was I not grateful? One silver half-dollar did I recklessly give away to the Irish washerwoman, who had said: "God niver shuts one dure without openin' anither!" I could not help it, and she, being in trouble at the time, declared, with hope rising in her tired old eyes, that she would "at onct burn a waxen candle before the blissed Virgin!" Poor soul! I hope her loving offering found favor in the eyes of the gentle Saint she honored!
I had a benefit in Cincinnati before the season closed, and so it came about that I was able to get my mother a spring gown and bonnet that she might go home in proper state to Cleveland for a visit; while I turned my face toward Halifax, the picturesque, to play a summer engagement, and then to make my way to New York and find a resting-place for my foot in some hotel, while I searched for rooms to which my mother might be summoned, for I had determined I could board no longer.
If we had rooms we could make a little home in them. If we had still to go hungry, we could at least hunger after our own fashion, and endure our privations in decent privacy. So, with plans all made, I landed at Halifax and felt a shock of surprise, followed by a pang of homesickness, at the first sight of the scarlet splendor of the British flag waving against the pale blue sky, when instinctively my eyes had looked for the radiant beauty of Old Glory. The next thing that impressed me was the astonishing number of people who were in mourning. Men in shops, in offices, on the streets, were wearing crêpe bands about their left arms, and women, like moving pillars of crêpe, dotted the walks thickly, darkened the shops, and gloomed in private carriages. What does it mean? I asked. I never before saw so many people in black. And one made answer: "Ah, your question shows you are a stranger, or you would know that there are few well-to-do homes and no business house in Halifax that does not mourn for at least one victim of that great mystery of the sea, the unexplained loss of the City of Boston—that monster steamer, crowded with youth and beauty, wealth, power, and brains!"
I recalled then how, at the most fashionable wedding of the year in Cincinnati, the bride and groom had been dragged from the just-beginning wedding-breakfast, and rushed off at break-neck speed that they might be in time for the sailing of the City of Boston, and after her sailing no word ever came of her. What had been her fate no man knew—no man knows to-day. The ocean gave no sign, no clew, as it often has done in other disasters. It sent back no scrap of wood, of oar, of boat, of mast, of life-preserver—nothing, nothing! No fire had been sighted by other ships. Had she been in collision with an iceberg, been caught in the centre of a tornado, had she run upon a derelict, been stricken by lightning, been blown up by explosion? No answer had ever come from the mighty bosom of the deep, that will keep its grim secret until the awful day when, trembling at God's own command, it will give up its dead! Meantime thousands of tender ties were broken. The awful mystery shrouding the fate of the floating city turned more than one brain, and sent mourners to mad-houses to end their ruined lives. Halifax was a very sad city that summer.
I met in the company there Mr. Leslie Allen (the father of Miss Viola Allen), Mr. Dan Maginnis (the Boston comedian), and Mr. John W. Norton. The future St. Louis manager was then leading man, and the friendship we formed while working together through those summer weeks was never broken, never clouded, but lasted fair and strong up to that very day when, sitting in the train on his way to New York, John Norton had, in that flashing moment of time, put off mortality.
He had changed greatly from the John Norton of those early days. He had known cruel physical suffering, and while he had won friends and money, shame and bitter sorrow had been brought upon him by another. No wonder the laughing brightness had gone out of him. It was said that he believed in but two people on earth—Mary Anderson and Clara Morris, and he said of them: "One is a Catholic, the other an Episcopalian; they are next-door neighbors in religion; they are both honest, God-fearing women, and the only ones I bow my head to." Oh, poor man! to have grown so bitter! But in the Halifax days he loved his kind, and was as full of fun as a boy of ten, as full of kindness as would be the gentlest woman.
Mr. Maginnis had his sister-in-law with him, a helpless invalid. She knew her days were numbered, yet she always faced us smilingly and with pleasant words. She was passionately fond of driving, but dreaded lonely outings; so clubbing together, that no one might feel a sense of obligation, we four, Dan and his sister, John Norton and I, used evenly to divide the expense of a big, comfortable carriage, and go on long, delightful drives about the outskirts of the gray old hilly city.
The stolid publicity of Tommy Atkins's love-making had at first covered us with confusion, but we soon grew used to the sight of the scarlet sleeve about the willing waist in the most public places, while a loving smack, coming from the direction of a park bench, simply became a sound quite apropos to the situation.
One yellow-haired, plaided and kilted young Highlander, whom I came upon in a public garden, just as he lifted his head from an explosive kiss on his sweetheart's lips, startled at my presence, flushing red, lifted his hand in a half-salute, and at the same moment, in laughing apologetic confusion, he—winked at me! And his flushing young face was so bonnie, that had I known how I believe in my heart I'd have winked back, just from sheer good-fellowship and understanding.
In that short season I had one experience, the memory of which makes me pull a wry face to this day. I played Juliet to a "woman-Romeo"—a so plump Romeo, who seemed all French heels, tights, and wig, with Romeo marked "absent." I little dreamed I was bidding a personal farewell to Shakespeare and the old classic drama, as I really was doing.
One other memory of that summer engagement that sticks is of that performance of Boucicault's "Jessie Brown, or the Siege of Lucknow," in which real soldiers acted as supernumeraries, and having been too well treated beforehand and being moved by the play, they became so hot that they attacked the mutineers not only with oaths but with clubbed muskets; and while blood was flowing and heads being cracked in sickening earnest on one side of the stage, a sudden wall-rending howl of derisive laughter rose from that part of the theatre favored by soldiers. I saw women holding programmes close, close to their eyes, and knew by that that something was awfully wrong.
The Scotch laddies were pouring over the wall, coming to the rescue of the starving besieged. I looked behind me. The wall, a stage wall, was cleated down the middle to keep the join there firm, and no less than three of the soldiers had had portions of their clothing caught by the cleats as they scaled the wall. The cloth would not tear, the men were too mad to be able to see, and there they hung, kicking like fiends and—well, the words of a ginny old woman, who sold apples and oranges in front of the house, will explain the situation. She cried out, at the top of her voice: "Yah! yah! why do ye no pull down yer kilties, instead o' kickin' there? yah! yer no decent—do you ken?" and the curtain had to come whirling down before the proper time to save the lives of the men being pounded to death, and the feelings of the women who were being shamed to death.
A surgeon had to attend to two heads before their owners could leave the theatre, and after that an officer was kind enough to come and take charge of the men loaned to the manager.
Then I bade the people, whom I had found so pleasant, good-by—Mr. Louis Aldrich arriving as I was about leaving, keen, clever, active, full of visions, of plans, just as he is to-day. I and my little dog-companion made our way to New York. A lady and gentleman, traveling acquaintances, advised me to go to the St. Nicholas, and as all hotels looked alike to me I went there. My worst dread was the dining-room. I could not afford to take meals privately, yet how could I face that great roomful of people alone! At last I resolved on a plan of action. I went up to the head waiter—from his manner an invisible crown pressed his brow; his eyes gazed coldly above my humble head, his "Eh?—beg pardon!" was haughty and curt, yet, believe it or not, when I told him I was quite alone, and asked could he place me at some quiet retired table, he became human, he looked straightly and kindly at me. He himself escorted me, not to a seat in line with the kitchen smells or the pantry quarrels, as I had expected, but to a very retired, very pleasant table by an open window, and assured me the seat should be reserved for me every day of my stay, and only ladies seated there. I was grateful from my heart, and I mention it now simply to show the general willingness there is in America to aid, to oblige the unprotected woman traveler.
Naturally anxious to find, as quickly as possible, a less expensive dwelling-place, I showed my utter ignorance of the city by the blunder I made in joyfully engaging rooms in a quiet old-fashioned brick house because it was on Twenty-first Street and the theatre was on Twenty-fourth, and the walk would be such a short one. All good New Yorkers will know just how "short" that walk was when I add that to reach the neat little brick house I had first to cross to Second Avenue, and, alas! for me on stormy nights, there was no cross-town car, then.
However, the rooms were sunny and neatly furnished; the rent barely within my reach, but the entire Kiersted family were so unaffectedly kind and treated me so like a rather overweighted young sister that I could not have been driven away from the house with a stick. I telegraphed to mother to come. She came.
To the waiter who feeling the crown upon his brow yet treated me with almost fatherly kindness, I gave a small parting offering and my thanks; and to the chambermaid also—she with the pure complexion, bred from buttermilk and potatoes, and the brogue rich and thick enough to cut with a knife—who had "discoursed" to me at great length on religion, on her own chances of matrimony, on the general plan of the city, describing the "lay" of the diagonal avenues, their crossing streets and occasional junctures, in such confusing terms that a listening city-father would have sent out and borrowed a blind man's dog to help him find his home. Still she had talked miles a day with the best intentions, and I made my small offering to her in acknowledgment, and leaving her very red with pleasure, I departed from the hotel. That blessed evening found my mother and me house-keeping at last—at last! And as we sat over our tea, little Bertie, on the piano-stool at my side, ate buttered toast; then, feeling license in the air, slipped down, crept under the table, and putting beseeching small paws on mother's knee, ate more buttered toast—came back to me and the piano-stool, and bringing forth all her blandishments pleaded for a lump of sugar. She knew it was wrong, she knew I knew it was wrong, but, good heavens! it was our house-warming—Bertie got the sugar. So we were settled and happily ready to begin the new life in the great strange city.
I Recall Mr. John E. Owens, and How He "Settled my Hash."
Just previous to my coming East I met, for the first time, Mr. John E. Owens. He was considered a wealthy man, and was at the height of his popularity as a comedian. He was odd, even his marriage seemed an expression of eccentricity, and one felt as if one had received a dash of cold water in the face when the hot-tempered, peppery, and decidedly worldly Mr. Owens presented the little orthodox Quakeress, with a countenance of gentle severity, as his wife.
She wore the costume of her people, too, and watched him above her knitting-needles with folded lips and condemning eye as he strutted and fumed and convulsed his audience. She was said to be a most tender and gentle nurse and, indeed, a devoted wife, but she certainly seemed to look down upon theatrical life and people.
Mr. Owens was telling me she was a clever business woman, with a quick eye for a good investment, when I jestingly answered: "That seems to be a peculiarity of the sect—thee will recall the fact that William Penn showed that same quality of eye in his beautiful and touching relations with the shrewd and knowing Indians," and in the middle of his laugh, his mouth shut suddenly, his eyes rolled: "Oh, Lord!" he said, "you've done for yourself—she heard you, your fate's fixed!"
"But," I exclaimed, "I was just joking."
"No go!" he answered, mournfully, "the eye that can see the main chance so clearly is blind to a joke. She has you down now on her list of the ungodly. No use trying to explain—I gave that up years ago. Fact of the matter is, when that Quakeress-wife of mine puts her foot down—I—well, I take mine up, but hers stays right there."
Mr. Owens was of medium height and very brisk in all his movements, walking with a short and quick little step. He had a wide mouth, good teeth, and a funny pair of eyes. The eyeballs were very large and round, and he showed an astonishing amount of their whites, which were of an unusual brilliancy and lustre; this, added to his power of rolling them wildly about in their sockets, made them very funny; indeed, they reminded many people of a pair of large peeled onions.
I think his most marked peculiarity was his almost frantic desire to provoke laughter in the actors about him. He would willingly throw away an entire scene—that is, destroy the illusion of the audience—in order to secure a hearty laugh from some actor or actress whom he knew not to be easily moved to laughter; and what was more astonishing still, if an actress in playing a scene with him fell from tittering into helpless laughter and failed to speak her lines, he made no angry protest, but regarded the situation with dancing eyes and delighted smiles, seeming to accept the breakdown as proof positive that he was irresistible as a fun-maker.
For some reason I never could laugh at "Solon Shingle." Mr. Owens had opened in that part, and as I stood in the entrance watching the performance, my face was as grave as that of the proverbial judge. He noticed it at once, and paused a moment to stare at me. Next morning, just as he entered and crossed to the prompt-table at rehearsal, I, in listening to a funny story, broke out in my biggest laugh. Open flew the star's eyes, up slid his eyebrows.
"Ha! ha!" said he, "ha! ha! there's a laugh for you—by Jove, that's a laugh as is a laugh!"
I turned about and faced him. He recognized me instantly. "Well, blast my cats!" he exclaimed, "say, you young hyena, you're the girl that wouldn't laugh at me last night. I thought you couldn't, and just listen to your roars now over some tomfoolery. What was the matter with me, if you please, mum?"
I stood in helpless, awkward embarrassment, then, drawing in his lip and bulging out his eyes until they threatened to leap from their places, he advanced upon me, exclaiming: "Spare me these protestations and explanations, I beg!" then tapped me on the chest with his forefinger and, added, in a different tone: "My young friend, I'll make you laugh or I'll cut my throat!" next turned on his heel, and called: "Everybody ready for the first act? Come on, come on, let's get at it!"
Rehearsal began and Mr. Owens did not have to cut his throat.
Funny in many things, it was the old farce of "Forty Winks" that utterly undid me, and not only sat me violently and flatly down upon the entrance floor, but set me shrieking with such misguided force that next day all the muscles across and near my diaphragm were too lame and sore for me to catch a breath in comfort. Perhaps that's not the right word, and I may not be locating the lamed muscles properly, but if you will go to see some comedian who will make you laugh until you cry, and cry until you scream, and laugh and cry and scream until you only breathe in gasps and sobs, you will next morning know exactly which muscles I have been referring to—even if you haven't got a diaphragm about you.
But really the mad absurdities Mr. Owens indulged in that night might have made the very Sphinx smile stonily. As a miserly old man, eating his bread-and-cheese supper in his cheap little bedroom, and retiring for the night only to be aroused by officers who are in pursuit of a flying man, and think they have now found him. Not much to go upon, that, but, oh, if you could have seen his ravening hunger; have seen his dog-like snaps at falling crumbs; his slanting of the plate against the light to see if any streak of butter was being left; his scooping up of bread-crumbs from his red-handkerchief lap, and eager licking up of the same; have seen him sorting out his money and laying aside the thin, worn pennies to give the waiter; breaking off the hardened grease that in melting had run down the candle's side, putting it away in his valise, "to grease his boots next winter" (a line he introduced for my especial benefit).
Having gone up-stage and taken off his shoes, he suddenly bethought him that there might be a few crumbs on the floor, and taking his candle, down he came to look, and turning his back to the audience, they screamed with sudden laughter, for two shining bare heels were plainly showing through his ragged black woollen socks. He paid no heed, but sought diligently, and when he found a crumb he put his finger to his lip to moisten it, and pouncing upon the particle, conveyed it to his mouth, and mumbled so luxuriously one almost envied him. Then, remarking that it was too cold to undress, he undressed, and as his coat came off he started toward a chair, saying, querulously: "He couldn't abide a man that wasn't neat and careful about his clothes," and down he pitched the coat in a heap upon the floor in front of the chair. His vest he dumped beside another seat, as he dolorously declared: "He had neat habits ever since his mother had taught him to put his clothes carefully on the chair at night."
And so he went up and down and about, until that stage was one litter of old clothes. Blowing out his candle he got into bed, and, shivering with cold, tried frantically to pull the clothes over his poor shoulders—but all in vain. At last a tremendous jerk brought the quilt and sheet about his shoulders, only to leave his ancient black feet facing the audience, all uncovered. And so went on the struggle between feet and shoulders until, worn out, the old man finally "spooned" himself with knees in chest, and so was covered and fell asleep, only to be aroused by officers, and turned into driveling idiocy by a demand "for the girl."
It was at the point when, sitting up in bed, trying, with agonizing modesty, to keep covered up, his eyes whitely and widely rolling, he pleadingly asked: "N-n-now I, leave it to you—do I look like a seducer?" that my knees abandoned me to my fate, and sat me down with a vicious thud that nearly shook the life out of me. And John Owens sat in bed and saw my fall and rejoiced with a great joy, and said: "Blast my cats—look at the girl! there, now, that's something like laughing. I'd take off my hair and run around bald-headed for her!"
I was called upon to play blind Bertha to Mr. Owens's Caleb Plummer in the "Cricket on the Hearth," and I was in a great state of mind, as I had only seen one or two blind persons, and had never seen a blind part acted. I was driven at last by anxiety to ask Mr. Owens if he could make any suggestions as to business, or as to the walk or manner of the blind girl. But he was no E. L. Davenport, he had no desire to teach others to act, and he snappishly answered: "No—no! I can't suggest anything for you to do—but I can suggest something for you not to do! For God's sake don't go about playing the piano all evening—that's what the rest of 'em do!"
"The piano?" I repeated, stupidly.
"Yes," he said, "the piano! D——d if they don't make me sick! Here they go—all the 'Berthas'!"
He closed his eyes, screwed up his face dismally, and advancing, his hands before him, began moving them from left to right and back, as though they were on a keyboard. It was very ridiculous.
"And that's what they call blindness—playing the piano and tramping about as securely as anybody!"
Ah, ah! Mr. Owens, you did make a suggestion after all, though you did not mean to do it, but I found one all the same in that last contemptuous sentence, "tramping about as securely as anybody." It quickened my memory—I recalled the piteous uncertainty of movement in the blind; the dread hesitancy of the advancing foot, unless the afflicted one was on very familiar ground. I tried walking in the dark, tried walking with closed eyes. It was surprising how quickly my fears gathered about my feet. Instinctively I put out one hand now and then, but the fear of bumping into something was as nothing to the fear of stepping off or down, or falling through the darkness—oh!
Then I resolved to play Bertha with open eyes. It was much the more difficult way, but I was well used to taking infinite pains over small matters, and believing that the open, unseeing eye was far more pathetic than the closed eye, I proceeded to work out my idea of how to produce the unseeing look. By careful experiment I found that if the eyes were very calm in expression, very slow in movement, and at all times were raised slightly above the proper point of vision, the effect was really that of blindness.
It was unspeakably fatiguing to keep looking just above people's heads, instead of into their faces, as was my habit, but where is the true actor or actress who stops to count the cost in pain or in inconvenience when striving to build up a character that the public may recognize? Says the ancient cook-book: "First catch your hare, and then—"; so with the actor, first catch your idea, your desired effect, and then reproduce it (if you can). But in the case of blind Bertha I must have reproduced with some success the effect I had been studying, for an old newspaper clipping beside me says that: "The doubting, hesitating advance of her foot, the timid uncertainty of her occasional investigating hand spelled blindness as clearly as did her patient unseeing eyes," and for my reward that wretched man amused himself by pulling faces at me and trying to break me down in my singing of "Auld Robin Grey," until I was obliged to sing with my eyes tight shut to save myself from laughter; and when the curtain had fallen he said to me: "I'll settle your hash for you some night, young woman, you see if I don't—you just wait now!" And the next season, in Cincinnati, in very truth, he did "settle my hash" for me, to his great delight and my vexation.
He was so very, very funny as Major Wellington de Boots in "Everybody's Friend"; his immense self-satisfaction, his stiff little strut, his martial ardor, his wild-eyed cowardice were trying enough, but when he deliberately acted at you—oh, dear! He would look me straight in the eye and make faces at me, until I sobbed at every breath. Then he had a wretched little trick of rising slowly on his toes and sinking back to his heels again, while he cocked his head to one side so like a knowing old dicky-bird that he simply convulsed me with laughter.
I was his Mrs. Swansdown, and I had kept steady and never lost a line, until we came to the scene where, as my landlord and would-be husband, he brought some samples of wall-paper for me to choose from. Where, in heaven's name, he ever found those rolls of paper I can't imagine. They were not merely hideous but grotesque as well, and were received with shouts of laughter by the house.
With true shopman's touch, he would send each piece unrolling toward the footlights, while holding up its breadth of ugliness for Mrs. Swansdown's inspection and approval, and every piece that he thus displayed he greeted at first sight with words of hearty admiration for its beauty and perfect suitability, until, catching disapproval on the widow's face, he in the same breath, with lightning swift hypocrisy, turned his sentence into contemptuous disparagement, and fairly shook his audience with laughter at the quickness of his change of opinion.
At last he unfurled a piece of paper whose barbarity of design and criminality of color I remember yet. The dead-white ground was widely and alternately striped with a dark Dutch blue and a dingy chocolate brown, and about the blue stripes there twined a large pumpkin-colored morning-glory, while from end to end the brown stripes were solemnly pecked at by small magenta birds. The thing was as ludicrous as it was ugly—an Indian clay-idol might have cracked into smiles of derision over its artistic qualities.
Then Mr. Owens, bursting into encomiums over its desirability as a hanging for the drawing-room walls of a modest little retreat, caught my frown, and continued: "Er—er, or perhaps you'd prefer it as trousering?" then, delightedly: "Yes—yes, you're quite right, it is a neat thing—cut full at the knee, eh? Close at the foot, yes, yes, I see, regular peg-tops—great idea! I'll send you a pair at once. Oh, good Lord! what have I done! I—I—mean, I'll have a pair myself, Mrs. Swansdown, cut from this very piece of your sweet selection!"
Ah, well! that ended the scene so far as my help went. The shrieking audience drowned my noise for a time, but, alas, it recovered directly, having no hysterics to battle with, while I buried my head deep in the sofa-pillows and rolled and screamed and wept and bit my lips, clinched my hands, and vainly fought for my self-control; while all the time I saw a pair of trousers cut from that awful wall-paper, and Mr. Owens just bulged his white shiny eyes at me and pranced about and rejoiced at my downfall, while the audience, seeing what the trouble was, laughed all over again, and—and—well, "my hash" was very thoroughly "settled," even to the entire satisfaction of Mr. Owens's self.