dress and a tub of butter to a hot drink and a cold meal, a lot of
farmers were sitting around the stove one cold winter day, when in came
Farmer Evans, who was greeted with:
“How d’do, Ezry?”
“How d’do boys?” After awhile he continued: “Wa-all, I’ve killed my hog.”
“That so? How much did he weigh?”
Farmer Evans stroked his chin whiskers meditatively and replied: “Wa-all,
guess.”
“’Bout three hundred,” said one farmer.
“No.”
“Two seventy-five?” ventured another.
“No.”
“I guess about three twenty-five,” said a third.
“No.”
Then all together demanded: “Well, how much did he weigh?”
“Dunno. Hain’t weighed him yet.”
Other men kept dropping in and hugging the stove, for the day was cold
and snowy outside. In came Cy Hopkins, wrapped in a big overcoat, yet
almost frozen to death; but there wasn’t room enough around that stove to
warm his little finger.
But he didn’t get mad about it; he just said to Bill Stebbins who kept
the store: “Bill, got any raw oysters?”
“Yes, Cy.”
“Well, just open a dozen and feed ’em to my hoss.”
Well, Stebbins never was scared by an order from a man whose credit was
good, as Cy’s was, so he opened the oysters an’ took them out, an’ the
whole crowd followed to see a horse eat oysters. Then Cy picked out the
best seat near the stove and dropped into it as if he had come to stay,
as he had.
Pretty soon the crowd came back, and the storekeeper said: “Why, Cy, your
hoss won’t eat them oysters.”
“Won’t he? Well, then, bring ’em here an’ I’ll eat ’em myself.”
When Charley Evans and Bill Hoey traveled together, they had no end of
good-natured banter between them.
Once when Hoey saw Evans mixing lemon juice and water for a gargle, he
asked: “What are you doing that for, Charley?”
“Oh, for my singing.”
“Suppose you put some in your ear; then maybe you’ll be able to find the
key.”
While they were crossing the ocean, Evans came on deck one day dressed in
the latest summer fashion—duck trousers, straw hat, etc.—and asked Hoey:
“How do you like me, Bill?”
“Well, all you need to do now is to have your ears pierced,” was the
reply.
At the ship’s table the waiter asked Hoey what he would have.
“Roast beef.”
“How shall I cut it, sir?”
“By the ship’s chart.”
Evans always carried the money for both, and the two men had a fancy for
wearing trousers of the same material, though of different sizes, for
Evans was slighter than his partner. One day Hoey fell on hard luck. He
had been to the Derby races, where a pickpocket relieved him of his watch
and his money too. They were to start for America next morning, and Evans
had plenty of money and return tickets also, yet Hoey was so cut up by
his losses that he went to bed early and tried to drop asleep. This did
not work, so after tossing for several hours, by which time Evans had
retired, he got up and began to dress himself. But to his horror his
figure seemed to have swelled in the night.
This was the last straw; he woke his partner and with tears in his eyes
and his voice too, he said: “Charley, beside all my hard luck to-day I’m
getting the dropsy.”
“Bill,” said Evans after a glance, “go into the other room and take off
my pants!”
A certain diamond broker called on the late Charles Hoyt with a large
bill.
While Hoyt was drawing a check the broker said: “Charley, a dear friend
of mine was robbed yesterday.”
“Is that so? Why, what did you sell him?”
The English stage is as full of jokers as ours. Wilson Barrett tells that
at a “First night” his play did not seem to suit the pit, so he came
before the curtain at the end of one act and asked what was the matter.
The “Gods” have great freedom in English theatres, so there was much talk
across the footlights between the stage and the audience; but it was
stopped abruptly by a voice that said:
“Oh, go on, Wilson! This ain’t no bloomin’ debatin’ society.”
W. S. Gilbert, although not an actor, is a playwright and extremely
critical. A London favorite had the best part in one of Gilbert’s pieces,
but the author thought him slow. Going behind the scenes after the
performance, Gilbert noted that the actor’s brow was perspiring, so he
said:
“Well, at all events, your skin has been acting.”
Gilbert can give evasive answers that cut like a knife. A player of the
title part of Hamlet asked Gilbert’s opinion of the performance.
“You are funny, without being vulgar,” was the reply.
Forbes Robertson, who essayed the same part, asked Gilbert: “What do you
think of Hamlet?”
Gilbert answered: “Wonderful play, old man; most wonderful play ever
written.”
E. S. Willard tells the following story of Charles Glenny, of Irving’s
Lyceum Company. “The Merchant of Venice” was in rehearsal, and Glenny
did not repeat the lines: “Take me to the gallows, not to the font” to
the liking of Irving, so the latter said in the kindly manner he always
maintained at rehearsals:
“No, no, Mr. Glenny; not that way. Walk over and touch me, and say: ‘Take
me to the gallows, not to the font.’” The line was rehearsed several
times, but unsuccessfully.
Finally Irving became discouraged and said: “Ah, well; touch me.”
Irving witnessed Richard Mansfield’s performance of “Richard III,”
in London, and by invitation went back to see the actor in his
dressing-room. Mansfield had been almost exhausted, and was fanning
himself, but Irving’s approach revived him, and natural anticipation of a
compliment from so exalted a source was absolutely stimulating.
But for the time being all Irving did was to slap Mansfield playfully on
the back and exclaim in the inimitable Irving tone: “Aha? You sweat!”
[Illustration: “Aha! You Sweat!”]
VI
A SUNNY OLD CITY
Some Aspects of Philadelphia.—Fun in a Hospital.—“The Cripple’s
Palace.”—An Invalid’s Success in Making Other Invalids
Laugh.—Fights for the Fun of Fighting.—My Rival Friends.—Boys
Will Be Boys.—Cast Out of Church.—A Startling Recognition.—Some
Pleasures of Attending Funerals.—How I Claimed the Protection
of the American Flag.
A hospital is not a place that any one would visit if he were in search
of jollity, yet some of the merriest hours of my life were spent, some
years ago, in the National Surgical Institute of Philadelphia. I was one
of about three hundred people, of all ages, sizes and dispositions, who
were under treatment for physical defects. Most of us were practically
crippled, a condition which is not generally regarded to be conductive
of hilarity, yet many of us had lots of fun, and all of it was made by
ourselves. I was one of the luckiest of the lot, for Mother Nature had
endowed me with a faculty for finding sunshine everywhere.
Yet part of my treatment was to lie in bed, locked in braces, for hours
every day, and each of these hours seemed to be several thousand minutes
long. So many other boys were under similar treatment that an attendant,
named Joe, was kept busy in merely taking off our appliances. These were
locked, for between pain and the restiveness peculiar to boys, we would
have removed them for ourselves or for one another. Joe was not a beauty,
yet I distinctly remember recalling his appearance was that of an angel
of light, for I best remember him in the act of loosening my braces.
Whenever the surgeon in charge was absent, we would beg Joe to unlock us
for “Just five minutes—just a minute”—and sometimes he would yield, after
making us promise solemnly not to tell the doctor. The result recalls the
story of the old darky who was seen to hammer his thumb at intervals.
When asked why he did it, he replied,
“Kase it feels so good when I stop!”
To keep from thinking of my pain and helplessness, I kept looking about
me for something to laugh at, and it was a rare day on which I failed to
find it. When there came such a day, I had only to close my eyes and look
backward a few months or years; I was sure to recall something funny.
Then I would laugh. Some other sufferer would ask what was amusing me,
and when I told him he would also laugh, some one would hear him and the
story would have to be repeated. Soon the word got about the building
that there was a little fellow in one of the rooms who was always
laughing to himself, or making others laugh, so all the boys insisted on
being “let in on the ground floor”—which in my case was the fourth floor.
I made no objection; was there ever a man so modest that he didn’t like
listeners when he had anything to say? So it soon became the custom of
all the boys who were not absolutely bound to their beds to congregate
in my room, which would have comfortably held, not more than a dozen.
Yet daily I had fifty or more around me; the earlier comers filled the
chairs, later arrivals sprawled or curled on my bed, still later ones sat
on the headboard and footboard, the floor accommodated others until it
was packed, and the belated ones stowed themselves in the hall, within
hearing distance.
’Twas a hard trip for some of them, poor fellows for there were not
enough attendants to carry them all, and three flights of stairs are a
hard climb for cripples. So, to prevent unnecessary pain while I was
outdoors taking the air, I hung a small American flag over the stair rail
opposite my door, whenever I was in; this could be seen from any of the
lower halls. I learned afterward that it was the custom of royalty and
other exalted personages to display a flag when they were “at home,” but
this did not frighten me; in memory of those hospital days, I always
display a flag at my window when I am able to see my friends.
Boys are as fond as Irishmen of fighting for the mere fun of it, so we
got a lot of laughing out of fist fights between some of the patients.
The most popular contestants were Gott Dewey from Elmira, N. Y., and a
son of Sheriff Wright of Philadelphia. Both were seriously afflicted,
though they seemed not to know it. Wright was a cross-eyed paralytic,
while Dewey had St. Vitus’s dance and was so badly paralyzed that he had
no control over his natural means of locomotion. He could not even talk
intelligibly, yet he had an intellect that impressed me deeply, even at
that early day. He could cope with the hardest mathematical problem that
any could offer; he read much and his taste in literature and everything
else was distinct and refined.
Yet, being still a boy, he enjoyed a fight, and as he and Wright were
naturally antipathetic by temperament, they were always ready for a
set-to. These affairs were entirely harmless, for neither could hit
straighter than a girl can throw a stone. The result of their efforts was
“the humor of the unexpected,” and it amused us so greatly that we never
noticed the pathetic side of it.
These two boys did me the honor to become very fond of me; why they did
it, I don’t know, unless because I never did anything in particular
for Wright, yet he was always teasing Dewey, who was quite proud and
self-reliant, and insisted upon doing everything for himself. That
he might serve himself at table, a little elevator was made for his
convenience, and I was mischievous enough to disarrange the machinery so
that food intended for his mouth should reach his ear. Yet he loved me
dearly and dashed at me affectionately though erratically whenever we
met. I was unable to get about without crutches, so I frequently fell;
if Dewey were in sight, he would hurry to my assistance, with disastrous
results to both of us; often Wright would offer assistance at the same
time and the two would fall over each other and me and attempt to “fight
it out,” while I would become helpless with laughter and the three of us
would lie in a heap, until some attendant would separate the warriors and
set me on my feet and crutches.
One rule of the Institute was that no patients were to leave the building
on Sunday—the day on which the physicians and attendants got most
liberty. To enforce this rule there was a doorkeeper named Smith. He was
a dwarf, hardly four feet high, who, on Sunday would curl up in a box
under his desk and wish he could have a mouthful or more of whiskey,
although a little of it would put him sound asleep and leave the door
unguarded against any one who cared to go out. How whiskey got into the
Institute to be used upon Smith, I don’t know.
I recall a Sunday when we three, Dewey, Wright and I, conceived the
idea of going to church. There was a church directly across the street,
so we started for it a few moments after throwing a sop of whiskey to
our Cerberus. We had several mishaps on the way, due to my friend’s
well-meant but misdirected efforts to assist me, but passers-by kindly
put us on our feet again. We got into church quite early, and passed
up the aisle and entered the front pew, under the very droppings of
the sanctuary. Soon after the service began a young lady at our left
compelled our attention by eyeing us intently; apparently she thought
us the newest thing in “The Three Graces” line. Something moved me to
nudge Dewey and tell him to stop flirting with that girl. Apparently he
thought I was trying to be funny, for he began laughing in his peculiar
laugh, which was a sputter, with which no one familiar with it could help
being amused, so Wright laughed too, after which it was impossible for
me to keep quiet. We really were reverent little chaps, so we tried hard
to suppress ourselves, but—boys will be boys. Suddenly we three exploded
as one; we could hear tittering around us, the minister stopped in the
middle of an eloquent period, raised his glasses, and I shall never
forget his pained expression of astonishment as he caught sight of us for
the first time. Suddenly there appeared a platoon of deacons, two of whom
attached themselves to each of us, and we were conducted down the aisle,
facing an array of hymn-books, behind which the congregation were trying
to hide their own laughter. The next day the church sent the Institute
a polite but earnest request that no more cripples be allowed to attend
service in that church.
[Illustration: “There appeared a Platoon of Deacons.”]
After leaving the Institute I lost sight of Dewey, though I never forgot
his hearty way of greeting me whenever he met me, a heartiness which
caused him to tumble all over me and compel me to put out my arm to save
him from falling. Five years ago on reaching a Philadelphia church whose
members I had been engaged to “entertain,” the committee of arrangements
met me and said they wished to prepare me for the unusual appearance of
their chairman. He had endowed the church, they told me, and was almost
idolized by the people for his many noble qualities of head and heart,
yet he was a paralytic and his visage was shocking at first sight.
Suddenly the chairman himself entered the room and I saw my old friend
Gott Dewey. At the same instant he recognized me; he dashed at me in his
old way; my arm instinctively caught him as it had done hundreds of times
before; the committee supposing I was frightened, endeavored to separate
us, but we weren’t easy to handle, so there was a close mix up, while, in
which, the dear old boy with tears streaming down his cheeks, endeavored
to explain that we were fast friends. Then he told me he had read my book
“People I’ve Smiled With,” and been so greatly amused by it that he had
suggested my engagement to entertain his church people, yet he had never
imagined I was the Wilder boy of “The Cripple’s Palace.”
It took him fifteen minutes to say all this and conquer his emotion;
then he wanted to go on the platform and tell his people about me and
what old friends we were. I realized that if he were to do it, I would
never reach the platform myself, so I persuaded him to let me tell them
the story. He consented, but insisted on accompanying me, and tearfully
confirming every thing I said, so with him beside me, for “local color,”
I got along so well that there was not a dry eye in the house. It was an
inexpressible relief to me to set everybody laughing afterward, for I
never needed a “bracing up” more than on that night.
Dewey had always longed to be a lawyer and I learned that he had
succeeded in gratifying this ambition, in spite of his heavy physical
handicap: he became so able as a counselor that he gained a large
practice and was specially skilful at preparing briefs for his partner
to take into court. He was held in high honor for his charitable work
and for many years led a successful, useful and happy life; but not long
after our unexpected meeting he was complained of as a public nuisance
and was actually arrested on this charge. His appearance and manner were
really terrifying to people that did not know him, for in trying to
avoid collision with passers-by his lack of control often caused him to
act as if about to strike. The magistrate, before whom he was arraigned
expressed extreme sympathy, but insisted that he keep out of the streets
except when in a carriage or when properly attended, and poor Dewey took
the affair so deeply to heart, that afterward he kept himself almost
secluded from the world.
Mention of Philadelphia almost always suggests graveyards to me, not
that the city prides itself on being “well laid-out,” but because I have
visited all its cemeteries many times. When I left the Surgical Institute
I boarded with a woman whose husband kept a large livery stable. I made
friends of the drivers, and, as I was still under treatment and could not
get about much, they would kindly give me an airing, whenever they were
engaged for funerals, which was almost daily. This often meant an all day
trip; my motherly landlady would put up a substantial lunch for me and
the drivers granted me special privileges; that is, I was generally taken
on the seat of the driver of the carriage which followed the hearse. The
one that “carried the criers,” to use the stable parlance. It would not
seem a cheerful way of spending a day, but I was always very much alive,
and the drivers were as cheerful as if going to a wedding, and, while the
ceremony at the grave was in progress, I ate my lunch with the hunger
sauce that a long drive always supplies, and in summer I could generally
find some flowers in the path to take home to my landlady. Besides, some
of the cemeteries were so well kept that they were as sightly as gardens,
which reminds me of a story that I once inflicted on the Clover Club of
Philadelphia, as follows:
“While dining at my hotel yesterday, I noticed that the water looked
muddy, so I complained to the waiter. He admitted that it looked bad, but
said it was really very good water.
[Illustration: “He Said it was Very Good Water.”]
“‘But,’ I continued, ‘they tell me that the water here passes through a
graveyard (Laurel Hill Cemetery) before reaching the people.’
“‘That’s right, sir,’ the waiter replied. ‘But it’s a first-class
graveyard; only the best people are buried there.’”
I have traveled much in foreign countries, but Philadelphia is the only
place in which I was compelled to beg the protection of the American
flag. I had been engaged by Mr. John Wanamaker to “say something” to
his great Sunday-school on two consecutive evenings. Being a New Yorker,
I did not care to spend the intervening hours in Philadelphia, so after
leaving the platform the first evening, I took the ten o’clock train for
home. As haste was necessary, I merely changed my evening coat and vest
for street clothes. In New York next day, I changed my black trousers for
gray, attended to so much business that I had to take a late afternoon
train, and did not realize until it was almost time to go on the
platform, in a “swallow-tail” coat that I had no black trousers. Worse
still my figure was such that I could not be fitted from any clothing
store in the city. For a moment my invention was at a standstill, but
the people were not, and the hall was filling rapidly. I consulted the
committee hastily, and though they were greatly amused by my suggestion,
they acted upon it promptly: they moved a table to the centre of the
platform, draped it with the stars and stripes, and all the people on
the platform arranged themselves, so that I could be unseen as I passed
behind them to the table, where only my coat and vest could be seen, the
objectionable trousers being hidden by my country’s flag.
Small wonder that I have a merry remembrance of Philadelphia.
VII
MY FIRST TRIP TO LONDON
Large Hopes vs. Small Means.—At the Savage Club.—My First
Engagement.—Within an Ace of Losing It.—Alone in a Crowd.—A
Friendly Face to the Rescue.—The New York Welcome to a Fine
Fellow.—One English Way With Jokes.—People Who are Slow to
Laugh.—Disturbing Elements.—Cold Audiences.—Following a Suicide.
When first I visited London I carried large hopes and a small purse and
the latter became so much smaller in the course of time, that I had to
live on next to nothing; to be exact, I restricted myself to fifty cents
a day. For seventy-five cents a week I had a little room in Tottenham
Court Road—a very narrow-minded room indeed, with furnishings to match.
Cold, damp weather was the only guest or companion I had, and the room’s
carpet served two purposes; it covered the floor by day and the bed at
night. From the tiny window there was a long vista of chimney-pots,
which, next to an array of ready-made coffins, offer as disquieting a
spectacle as a homesick boy can gaze upon. The boy Chatterton came to my
mind many times in those days, and although I hoped his fate would not
be mine, I nevertheless learned at times how annoying hunger may be when
it passes the point of anticipation of “a square meal.”
One treasure did much to sustain me; it was a card, given me by an
American friend before I left home, introducing me to the Savage Club,
which is similar to the Lotos Club of New York. I had the freedom of the
Savage at all times, and was allowed to have my letters addressed there—a
privilege which literally “saved my face,” for I would never have dared
to pose as an entertainer if my address had been Tottenham Court Road.
I had good clothes and I kept a stiff upper lip, so no member of the
club knew of my financial straits. I was careful to refrain from forcing
myself upon any of the club members who had been so kind as to notice
me, yet dinner invitations from some of these good fellows were all that
saved my slender bank balance from extinction.
Despite my own economy and the hospitality of others there came a day
when Melancholy—with a large M,—threatened to mark me for her own, for
my sole assets, excepting my clothing, were six dollars and my return
ticket; the latter I could not convert into cash without burning my
bridge behind me—and the Atlantic is too wide for a return trip by raft.
Just as this crisis had made me as miserable as any man could be, I
received the following dispatch from a club member who probably had been
present at some of the volunteer entertainments I had given at the Savage.
“What are your terms? Come to-night; No. 5 Princess Gate.”
I quickly wired back: “Will come. Terms ten guineas.”
For the remainder of the day I stayed away from the club, and tormented
myself with fears that I had named too high a price, though I had always
believed there was wisdom in Emerson’s advice—“Hitch your wagon to a
star.” I resolved to go that night to 5 Princess Gate; then, if they had
canceled the engagement, I could honestly say I had not received notice.
In the evening I made a careful toilet, using my last bit of clean linen,
and took a twopenny ’bus to my destination. The powdered footman who
opened the door said he would bring his Lordship’s secretary to see me.
The secretary came in, much embarrassed, and said he had wired me that
other arrangements had been made.
“I have been so busy all day,” I replied, “that I’ve not called at the
club; consequently I did not get your message. What was the trouble?—my
terms?”
“We have engaged a different entertainer,” he replied evasively.
“But, you see,” I said, with my heart in my mouth, which had need of
something more edible, “your telegram this morning told me to come, so my
evening is lost. As I am here, suppose I go up and do what I can. As to
my fee—oh, I’m quite willing to leave that to his lordship.”
[Illustration: “I told him many stories hoping he would not notice my
appetite.”]