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:
"Quarrel'd and fit--and scratched and bit--"
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 crepe bands about their
left arms, and women, like moving pillars of crepe, 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.