A CONFERENCE IN THE KITCHEN
A keen observer might have noticed that the door of the inn kitchen
had been kept swinging to and fro as certain ones in the audience had
stolen cautiously, but repeatedly, in and out of the culinary
apartment while the dancing and other festivities were in progress.
The itinerant pedagogue was prominent in these mysterious movements
which possibly accounted for his white choker's being askew and his
disposition to cut a dash, not by declining Greek verbs, but by
inclining too amorously toward Miss Abigail, a maiden lady with a
pronounced aversion for frivolity.
The cause of the schoolmaster's frolicsome deportment was apparent to
the soldier when he followed Barnes into the kitchen, where, in a
secluded corner, near the hospitable oven, in the dim light of a
tallow dip, stood a steaming punch bowl. A log smoldered in the
fireplace, casting on the floor the long shadows of the andirons,
while a swinging pot was reflected on the ceiling like a mighty
eclipse. Numerous recesses, containing pans and plates that gleamed by
day, were wrapped in vague mystery. Three dark figures around the
bowl suggested a scene of incantation, especially when one of them
threw some bark from the walnut log on the coals and the flames sprang
up as from a pine knot and the eclipse danced among the rafters
overhead while the pot swung to and fro.
As the manager approached the bowl, the trio, moved by some vague
impelling impulse, locked arms, walked toward the side door, crossed
its threshold in some confusion, owing to a unanimous determination to
pass out at one and the same time, and went forth into the tranquil
night, leaving Barnes and Saint-Prosper the sole occupants of the
kitchen. The manager now helped himself and his companion to the
beverage, standing with his back to the tiny forks of flame from the
shagbark. His face expanded with good-fellowship; joviality shone from
his eyes beaming upon the soldier whom he unconsciously regarded as an
auxiliary.
"Here's to our better acquaintance," he said, placing his hand with
little ceremony on the other's shoulder. "The Bill-Poster!" Raising
his cup. "You gathered them in--"
"And you certainly gathered in the contents of their pockets!"
"A fair robbery!" laughed Barnes, "as Dick Turpin said when he robbed
the minister who robbed the king who robbed the people! A happy
thought that, turning the helmet into a collection box! It tided us
over; it tided us over!"
Saint-Prosper returned the manager's glance in kind; Barnes' candor
and simplicity were apparent antidotes to the other's taciturnity and
constraint. During the country dance the soldier had remained a
passive spectator, displaying little interest in the rustic
merry-making or the open glances cast upon him by bonny lasses, burned
in the sunlit fields, buxom serving maids, as clean as the pans in the
kitchen, and hearty matrons, not averse to frisk and frolic in
wholesome rural fashion.
But now, in the face of the manager's buoyancy at the success of a
mere expedient--a hopefulness ill-warranted by his short purse and the
long future before him!--the young man's manner changed from one of
indifference to friendliness, if not sympathy, for the over-sanguine
custodian of players. Would the helmet, like the wonderful pitcher,
replenish itself as fast as it was emptied? Or was it but a
make-shift? The manager's next remark seemed a reply to these queries,
denoting that Barnes himself, although temporarily elated, was not
oblivious to the precarious character of "free performances," with
voluntary offerings.
"What we need," continued the manager, "is a temperance drama. With
what intemperate eagerness would the people flock to see it! But where
is it to be found? Plays don't grow on bushes, even in this
agricultural district. And I have yet to discover any dramatists
hereabouts, unless"--jocularly--"you are a Tom Taylor or a Tom
Robertson in disguise. Are you sure you have never courted the divine
muse? Men of position have frequently been guilty of that folly,
sir."
"But once," answered the other in the same tone. "At college; a
political satire."
"Was it successful?"
"Quite so--I was expelled for writing it!"
"Well," retorted Barnes, irrelevantly, "you have at least mildly
coquetted with the muse. Besides, I dare say, you have been behind the
scenes a good deal. The green room is a fashionable rendezvous. Where
are you going? And what--if I may ask--is your business?"
"I am on my way to New Orleans," said the traveler, after a moment's
hesitation. "My business, fortune-getting. In sugar, tobacco, or
indigo-culture!"
"New Orleans!" exclaimed the manager, poising the ladle in mid air.
"That, too, is our destination. We have an engagement to play there.
Why not join our band? Write or adapt a play for us. Make a temperance
drama of your play!"
"You are a whimsical fellow," said the stranger, smiling. "Why don't
you write the play yourself?"
"I? An unread, illiterate dotard! Why, I never had so much as a day's
schooling. As a lad I slept with the rats, held horses, swept
crossings and lived like a mudlark! Me write a play! I might let fall
a suggestion here and there; how to set a flat, or where to drop a
fly; to plan an entrance, or to arrange an exit! No, no; let the
shoemaker stick to his last! It takes"--with deference--"a scholar to
write a drama."
"Thus you disqualify me," laughed the other, drawing out a pipe which
he filled; and lighted with a coal held in the iron grip of the
antique tongs. "If it were only to help plant a battery or stand in a
gap!" he said grimly, replacing the tongs against the old brick oven
at one side of the grate. "But to beset King Bacchus in three acts! To
storm his castle in the first; scale the walls in the second, and blow
up all the king's horses and all the king's men in the last--that is,
indeed, serious warfare!"
"True, it will be a roundabout way to New Orleans," continued the
manager, disregarding his companion's response, "but there is no
better way of seeing the New World--that is, if you do not disdain the
company of strolling players. You gain in knowledge what you lose in
time. If you are a philosopher, you can study human nature through the
buffoon and the mummer. If you are a naturalist, here are grand
forests to contemplate. If you are not a recluse, here is free, though
humble, comradeship."
His listener gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Was the prospect of
sharing this gipsy-like life attractive to him? An adventurer himself,
was he drawn toward these homeless strollers, for whom the illusions
of dramatic art shone with enticing luster in the comparative solitude
of the circuit on the wilderness?
As he sat before the glow, the light of the burning shagbark, playing
elfishly above the dying embers, outlined the stalwart, yet active
figure and the impenetrable, musing features. But when, with an upward
shower of sparks, the backlog fell asunder and the waning flame cast
yet more gloomy shadows behind them, he leaned back in his heavy, hewn
chair and again bent an attentive look upon the loquacious speaker.
"Or, if you desire," resumed the manager after some hesitation, "it
might become a business venture as well as a pleasure jaunt. Here is a
sinking ship. Will the salvage warrant helping us into port; that is,
New Orleans? There hope tells a flattering tale. The company is well
equipped; has a varied repertoire, while Constance"--tenderly--"is a
host in herself. If you knew her as I do; had watched her art
grow"--his voice trembled--"and to think, sometimes I do not know
where the next day's sustenance may come from! That she"--
He broke off abruptly, gazing at his companion half-apologetically.
"We players, sir," he resumed, "present a jovial front, but"--tapping
his breast--"few know what is going on here!"
"Therein," said the younger man, emptying his pipe, "you have stated a
universal truth." He pushed a smoldering log with his foot toward the
remnants of the embers. "Suppose I were so minded to venture"--and he
mentioned a modest sum--"in this hazard and we patched up the play
together?"
"You don't mean it?" cried the manager, eagerly. Then he regarded the
other suspiciously: "Your proposal is not inspired through sympathy?"
"Why not through the golden prospects you have so eloquently
depicted?" replied Saint-Prosper, coldly.
"Why not indeed!" exclaimed the reassured manager. "Success will come;
it must come. You have seen Constance but once. She lives in every
character to her heart's core. How does she do it? Who can tell? It's
inborn. A heritage to her!"
His voice sank low with emotion. "Yes," he murmured, shaking his head
thoughtfully, as though another image arose in his mind; "a heritage!
a divine heritage!" But soon he looked up. "She's a brave girl!" he
said. "When times were dark, she would always smile encouragingly,
and, in the light of her clear eyes, I felt anew the Lord would temper
the wind to the shorn lamb."
"One--two--three--four," rang the great clock through the silent hall,
and, at its harsh clangor, Barnes started.
"Bless my soul, the maids'll be up and doing and find us here!" he
exclaimed. "One last cup! To the success of the temperance drama!"
In a few moments they had parted for their respective chambers and
only the landlord was left down-stairs. Now as he came from behind the
bar, where he had been apparently dozing and secretly listening
through the half-opened door leading into the kitchen, he had much
difficulty to restrain his laughter.
"That's a good one to tell Ezekiel," he muttered, turning out the
lights and sweeping the ashes on the hearth to the back of the grate.
"To the temperance drama!"