His first appearance on any stage was made in “Rip Van Winkle,” when
he was a boy. Joseph Jefferson carried him on his back as a dwarf.
The great “Rip” has remained his steadfast friend ever since. Only a
few years ago, Wilder left New York to fulfil a church entertainment
engagement in Utica. He got there at three in the afternoon. Mr.
Jefferson’s private car was on the track, containing himself, William
J. Florence, Mrs. John Drew, Viola Allen, and Otis Skinner. They
hailed him instantly and induced him to pass the afternoon in the car
and to take dinner with them. His church engagement was over at half
past eight, and at Mr. Jefferson’s invitation he occupied a box at the
opera house. The house happened to be a small one, while the church had
been crowded to the doors. After the theater, the Jefferson party again
entertained the humorist in the car, keeping him until his train left,
half an hour after midnight. As Mr. Wilder was leaving, Mr. Jefferson
pretended to get very angry and said: “What do you think, my friends?
Here we have entertained this ungrateful young scamp all the afternoon,
and invited him to dinner. Then he goes up to town and plays to a big
audience, leaving me only a very poor house. Then he comes down here,
partakes of our hospitality again, and before leaving takes my life!”
Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Jefferson handed the young man a
copy of his “Life and Recollections.”
His first attempt at wit was at a little church in New York, where he
was one of the audience. A tableau was being given of “Mary, Queen of
Scots,” and in order to make it realistic they had obtained a genuine
butcher’s block and a cleaver. As the executioner stood by, the lights
all turned low, and his dreadful work in progress, a shrill voice arose
from the darkened house:—
“Save me a spare-rib.”
His readiness in an emergency was shown at Flint, Michigan, when he
was before an unresponsive audience. As luck would have it, the gas
suddenly went out.
“Never mind the gas,” he called to the stage manager. “They can see the
points just as well in the dark.” After that he was _en rapport_.
The greatest gift God ever made to man, he admitted to me in strict
confidence, is the ability to laugh and to make his fellowmen laugh.
This more than compensates, he adds, for the reception he gets from
some of the cold audiences in New Jersey.