"He employs his fancy in his narrative and keeps his recollections
for his wit."
--RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.
A more delightful morning than that which followed the night of the
strollers' eventful performance it would be difficult to imagine. It was
the Sabbath, and the spirit of peace seemed to exercise its influence
all around. The sun shone brightly; a gentle breeze diffused its cooling
power, and the surface of the water was calm and placid. The graceful
yachts riding at anchor were decked as daintily in their gay bunting as
village maidens celebrating a fete. There was little of active life
afloat or ashore. Those on board the pleasure craft presented an
appearance different from that which characterized their movements the
days previous. It was, indeed, a day of rest.
Among the fleet of pleasure craft lay the _Gem of the Ocean_. She was
not a comely craft; her sides were weather-beaten, and her general
appearance homely and unprepossessing; but the same waters that bore the
others bore her. In her homeliness she presented a strange contrast to
her surroundings. In the composition of those who were her occupants
there was still greater difference. The men who trod the decks of the
yachts were seekers after the pleasures of life, while those on board
the _Gem_ were engaged in the hard struggle to win bread for the loved
ones who were miles and miles removed--living in want, perhaps, yet
hoping for the best and for what expectancy would realize. The one set
comprised the lucky ones of fortune--the butterflies of fashion; the
other the strugglers for life--the vagabonds of fate. Yet these
vagabonds had homes and mothers, wives and children, to whom the rough,
sun-browned, coarsely clad men of the _Gem of the Ocean_ were their all,
their world, and on the exertion of whose hands and brain they depended
for food, raiment, and shelter. These poor strolling players had
homes,--humble, it is true,--but still they were homes, which they loved
for the sake of the dear ones harbored there.
The forenoon was spent in letter writing. How eagerly these letters were
longed for only those who hungered for tidings from absent loved ones
can explain. There is a magic influence in these silent messengers.
Freighted with consolation, joy, or sorrow, they are anxiously awaited.
How much happiness do they not bring into a home when laden with words
of tenderness and affection! Home! ah, he is indeed no vagabond who has
a home, however modest, and dear ones awaiting to welcome him when he
returns, tired and weary with his struggle in the race for advancement.
Before midday the occupation of the morning was completed, and after a
hearty meal the company gathered aft to pass away the time and talk over
the past as well as to ventilate the prospects for the future. They were
enjoying one day's rest, at least. Seated in the companionway was Handy,
the high priest of the little organization.
"Do you think, gentlemen, on mature reconsideration," began Handy, "we
might take another shy at 'Uncle Tom,' and do business?"
The subject was thrown out for general discussion. The Little 'Un was
the first to respond. He had been an _Uncle Tommer_ for years, and his
views consequently on the matter were regarded with consideration.
"Gentlemen," he commenced, "the 'Uncle Tom' times are dead and gone. The
play has had its day. To be sure, if it was resurrected and put on with
what might be called an elaborate presentation, with a phenomenal cast,
it might catch on for a brief spell. Of course, the cast would be an
easy enough matter to get, as casts go. Stars nowadays, such as they
are--Heaven save the mark!--are more plentiful than stock. But let them
rest at that. I have known the time when there were as many as fifty
_Uncle Tommers_ on the road--all doing well, if not better. There were
no theatrical syndicates in those times to limit the enterprise and
energy of the aspiring though poor and ambitious manager. 'Uncle Tom'
audiences were different from those who attended other theatrical snaps.
There was so much of the religious faking mixed in with the old piece
that it caught the Sunday-go-to-meeting crowd and drew them as a
molasses barrel will draw flies. That class of people reasoned that
'Uncle Tom' wasn't a real theatre show--it was a moral show. What fools
we mortals be? Didn't some poor play actor say that, or did I think it
out myself? Well, no matter now. But don't the newspapers tell us that
there was a big bunch of people in New York City at one time who used to
flock to Barnum's Museum, which stood opposite St. Paul's Church, on
Broadway, and how they'd scoop in the show there simply because old
Barnum called his theatre a lecture-room. It was the lecture-room racket
that caught them. The old showman was a cute one--slick as they made
'em. When the museum burned down, didn't he go to work and sell the hole
in the ground the fire made to James Gordon Bennett, the elder, founder
of _The Herald_, and got the best of the famous editor in the sale into
the bargain. Ah, those were the good old times!"
"The palmy days of the drama, I suppose," interjected Handy.
"Palmy fiddlesticks!" laughingly chimed in one of the group.
"Oh, joke as you may, boys, but I am giving you the straight goods,"
continued the Little 'Un, handing out a little bit of reminiscent news
of days gone by that will never be duplicated.
"He's dead right. Speakin' of those days," added Smith, "I remember well
the times gone by in the old Bowery Theatre on certain gay and festive
occasions to have seen as many as seventeen glasses of good old
Monongahela whisky set up in the green-room and not a man took water
when called upon to do his duty. They have no green-rooms any more. But
let me tell you that's where the managers of the present day take their
cues from, for those after-performance first-night stage suppers that
are frequently given for the entertainment of the principal players, a
few select friends, and a big bunch of newspaper scribes. On the stage,
mind you, not in the green-room, for the green-room is now a thing of
the past."
"Were you in the old Bowery shop then?" inquired Handy.
"Was I? What! Well, I should smile! You know me. Say, you may talk of
the realistic drama of these degenerate days--why, they aren't one, two,
nine with the shows of days gone by. Oh, you may laugh about stage
realism and chin about real race-horses in racing scenes, and real
society women to play real ladies, real burglars to crack unreal
property safes, and real prize-fighters to do their prize-fighting
fakes, in addition to attempting to act, but let me tell you fellows
that the managers who are gone never missed a trick when they had to do
a realistic stunt."
"Well, you ought to know, Smith," said Handy.
"Why, hang it, man alive! they did everything in the show business as
good then as they do now; and what's more, they didn't have to import
actors from abroad nor send over to the other side for stage managers to
teach the company how to act. Was I in the old Bowery in them days? Was
I? Sure, Mike! I went in there as a call-boy. Let me see--when? Oh, yes,
I remember. It was the season that 'The Cataract of the Ganges' was
brought out. Yes, sir, and they gave the 'Cataract' with real water,
too, and make no bloomin' error about it either!"
"Oh, come, come there, old man! Draw it mild. Don't pile it on too
thick," interposed the doubting Thomas of the party and the most
juvenile member of the troupe. "We can't stand all that. We are willing
to swallow the whisky in the green-room, but water on the stage--oh, no!
that's a little too much of a good thing. Why, my gentle romancer, the
Croton water pipes weren't laid in the city in them days. Then how the
mischief could they give the waterfall scene? With buckets, tubs, or
with a pump--which? or with all three combined?"
For a moment the speaker was nonplussed for an answer. He felt
embarrassed, and looked so. He was about to make reply when another of
the company who, by the way, was an old-timer like himself, boldly came
to the rescue.
"He's right," boldly asserted the new contributor to the conversation,
"dead right. I remember the stunt myself."
It may be as well to state that Smith's veracity about theatrical things
in general was not what it should be. His stories never could keep
companionship with truth. He had so ingenious a manner of prevarication
that he actually believed his own tales. If what Smith at odd times,
when he happened to be in the vein, related of himself was true, then he
might be credited with having acted in nearly every city this side of
the Rockies and have supported all the great stars. He was closely
approaching his fiftieth year, yet he maintained he had participated in
the principal theatrical productions of a generation previous, with the
most reckless disregard of probabilities. He seemed to have no
appreciable estimate of time or place when relating his marvelous
experiences.
"Yes, sirree," said Smith, "I can call the turn on that trick. Why, the
thing is as fresh in my mind as if it only happened last night. Maybe
you don't believe me. Well, every man is entitled to his own belief, but
let me explain how I remember it so well."
"Fire away! We're all attention."
"Well, it happened in this way. I was engaged in the old National
Theatre in Chatham Street at the time when the 'Cataract' was brought
out, and it made old man Purdy, the manager, so hoppin' mad to think
that his Bowery rival should get the bulge on him with a scene like the
waterfall that he determined to see Hamblin and go him one better. Now
what do you think he did?"
"Put on the piece with two cataracts," innocently suggested Handy.
"No, he didn't put on no two cataracts either," replied Smith, somewhat
indignantly.
"Well, then, be good enough to let us know how he got square."
"He went to work and announced the production of 'Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves,' with forty real thieves in the cast. How was that for
enterprise, eh?"
"Great! Were you in the cast?" inquired the low comedy gentleman.
"Nit! I wasn't of age then. You can't be legally a criminal under age.
Don't you know there's a society for the protection of crime?"
"Excuse me. No reflection, I assure you. I did not intend to be
personal. I was merely trying to find out how the old man filled out his
cast."
"Well, my boy," replied Smith patronizingly, "think it over a minute,
and you will realize that the morals of the old days were in no respect
different from those in which we now live. Thieves, then as now, were a
drug in the market, and the City Hall stood precisely where it stands
to-day. Thieves in those times frequently masqueraded as grafters."
"Smith," said Handy, "you take the cake," removing the briarwood from
his mouth to knock the ashes from the bowl preparatory to loading up for
a fresh pull at the weed.
It was in this harmless manner the afternoon was allowed to slip by in
the exchange of yarns. Many strange and comical experiences were related
by the happy-go-lucky little group.
The shades of evening began to fall before there was any perceptible
lull in the gossip. The past was being rehearsed and made food for the
present. How often do we not recognize that men live over again their
past in recalling their experiences in the dead years that have passed
away for ever! How fondly do they revive old memories, though many of
them perhaps were associated with pain and sorrow! The poor players
lived their lives over again in the stories they exchanged on the deck
of the _Gem of the Ocean_ as she lay at anchor off Newport that peaceful
Sunday evening.