sprinkling a handful of powdered rosin into a ladle heated over a pan of
charcoal. A man stands between the scenes and does it whenever a flash
is wanted. The thunder is produced by a pair of cannon balls joined
across a bar to which is fixed a long wooden handle like the tongue of a
child's basket wagon, and by this the balls are pushed and hauled about
the floor behind the back scene."
"Astonishing!" exclaimed Mr. Jones. "But the rattling of the
rain--_that_ sounds just as if it was real."
"The rain!" answered Mr. Dodcomb. "Oh, the rain is done by a tall wooden
case, something on the plan of a great hour glass, lined with tin and
filled half full with small shot, which when the case is set on end,
dribbles gradually down and rattles as it falls."
"Dear me," ejaculated Mrs. Jones, "what a wonderful thing is knowledge
of the stage! I never _shall_ see a thunder-gust again (at the
play-house, I mean) without thinking all the time of rosin and ladles,
and cannon balls with long handles, and the dribbling of shot."
"Then for snow," pursued Mr. Dodcomb, "they snip up white paper into
shreds, and carry it up to the flies or beams and rafters above the
stage, and scatter it down by handfuls."
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones--
"Well--now the storm is over," said Mrs. Dodcomb, "and here is a castle
scene by moonlight."
"And a very pretty moon it is," observed Mrs. Jones, "all solemn and
natural."
"Not very solemn to me," said Mr. Dodcomb, "as I know it to be a bit of
oiled linen let into a round hole in the back scene, with a candle put
behind it."
"Wonders will never cease!" ejaculated Mrs. Jones. "And there's an owl
sitting up in that old tumble-down tower--how natural he blinks!"
"Yes," said Mr. Dodcomb, "his eyes are two doors, with a string to each;
and a man climbs up behind, and keeps jerking the doors open and letting
them shut again--that's the way to make an owl blink. But here comes the
bleeding ghost, that wanders about the ruins by moonlight."
The children all drew back a little, and looked somewhat frightened; it
happening to be the first ghost they had ever seen.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Jones, drawing her shawl closely round her, "what
an awful sight a ghost is, even when we know it's only a play-actor!
This one seem to have no regular clothes, but only those white fly-away
things--how deadly pale it is--and just look at the blood, how it keeps
streaming down all the time from that great gash in the breast!"
"As to the paleness," explained Miss Flimbrey, "it's only that the face
is powdered thick all over with flour; and as to what looks to you like
blood, it's nothing but red ribbon, gathered a little full at the top
where the wound is, and the ends left long to flow down the white
drapery."
"Why this beats all the rest!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, "Well--I never
_shall_ see a bloody ghost again without thinking of meal and red
ribbon."
Previous to the last act of the melo-drama, a man belonging to the
theatre came and called Mr. Dodcomb out of the box to ask him if he
would be so obliging as to go on the stage for a senator in the trial
scene, one of the big boys that usually assisted in making out this
august assemblage having unexpectedly run away and gone to sea. Mr.
Dodcomb (who was not entirely unused to lending himself to similar
emergencies) kindly consented; and, after returning to whisper the
circumstance to his wife, he slipped out unobserved by the rest of the
party. When the drop-curtain again rose, eight or ten senators, with
venerable white wigs, were seen sitting in a sort of pews, and wearing
pink robes and ermine capes; which ermine, according to Miss Flimbury,
was only white paper spotted over with large regular splotches of ink at
equal distances.
Presently, on recognising their beloved parent among the conscript
fathers, the Dodcomb children became rather too audible in expressing
their delight, exclaiming: "Oh! there's pappy. Only see pappy on the
stage. Don't pappy look funny?"
The pit-people looked up, and the box-people looked round, and Mrs.
Dodcomb tried to silence the children by threats of making them go home.
Peter Jones quieted them directly by stopping their mouths with cakes
from his well-stored pocket; thus anticipating the treat he had provided
for them as a regale between the play and after-piece.
The scene over, Mr. Dodcomb speedily got rid of his senatorial costume,
and returned to the box in _propriâ personâ_, where he was loudly
greeted by his children, each insisting on being "the one that first
found out their pappy among the men in wigs and gowns."
"Well if ever!" exclaimed Mr. Jones. "There's no knowing what good's
before us! Little did we expect when we came here to-night, that we
should be sitting here in the same box with anybody that ever acted on
the stage. I am so glad."
The after-piece was the Forty Thieves, which Peter and Mrs. Jones had
never seen before, and which had extraordinary charms for the old man,
who in his youth had been well versed in the Arabian Tales. Giving
himself up, as he always did, to the illusion of the scene, he could
well have dispensed with the explanations of the Dodcombs, who began by
informing Mrs. Jones that the fairy Ardanelle, though in her
shell-formed car she seemed to glide through the water, was in reality
pulled along by concealed men with concealed ropes.
When the equestrian robbers appeared one by one galloping across the
distant mountains, and Mrs. Jones had carefully counted them all to
ascertain that there was the full complement of exactly forty, Miss
Flimbrey laughed, and assured her that in reality there were only three,
one mounted on a black, one on a bay, and one on a white horse, but they
passed round and appeared again, till the precise number was
accomplished. "And the same thing," said she, "is always done when an
army marches across the stage, so that a few soldiers are made to seem
like a great many."
"You perceive, Mrs. Jones," said Mr. Dodcomb, "these robbers that ride
over the distant mountains are not the real men; but both man and horse
is nothing more than a flat thin piece of wood painted and cut out."
On Peter remarking that there was certainly a look of life or reality in
the near leg of each rider as it was thrown over the saddle, Mr. Dodcomb
explained that each of these equestrian figures was carried by a man
concealed behind, and that one arm of the man was thrust through an
aperture at the top of the painted saddle; the arm that hung over so as
to personate a leg, being dressed in a Turkish trowser, with a boot
drawn on the hand.
"Do you mean," said Peter, "that these men run along the ridge, each
carrying a horse under his arm?"
"Exactly so," replied Dodcomb, "the horse and rider of painted board
being so arranged as to hide the carrier."
"Well--I never did hear anything so queer," said Mrs. Jones, "I wonder
how they can keep their countenances. But, there are so many queer
things about play-acting. Dear me! what a pug-nose that cobbler has! Let
me look at the bill and see who he is--why I saw the same man in the
play, and his nose was long and straight."
"Oh! when he wants a snub nose," replied Miss Flimbrey, "he ties up the
end with a single horse-hair fastened round his forehead, and the horse
hair is too fine to be seen by the audience."
During the scene in which Morgiana destroys the thieves, one at a time,
by pouring a few drops of the magic liquid into the jars in which they
are hidden, Mrs. Jones found out of her own accord that the jars were
only flat pieces of painted board; but Mrs. Dodcomb made her observe
that as each of the dying bandits uttered distinctly his own separate
groan, the sound was in reality produced from the orchestra, by he of
the bass viol giving his bow a hard scrub across the instrument.
"Well," said Mrs. Jones on her way home, "now that my eyes are opened, I
must say there is a great deal of deception in plays."
"To be sure there is," replied Peter, "and that we knew all along, or
might have known if we had thought about it; but people that go to the
theatre only once a year are quite willing to take things as they see
them; and they have pleasure enough in the play itself and in what
passes before their eyes, without wondering or caring about the
contrivances behind the scenes. I never supposed their finery to be
real, or their handsome looks either; but that was none of our business,
as long as they appeared well to us--I said nothing to _you_, for I know
if you were once put on the scent, you would be the whole time trying to
find out their shams and trickeries."
Next morning, while talking over the play in Peter's shop, Mr. Dodcomb
kindly volunteered to procure for him and Mrs. Jones, bones or orders
from the managers or chief performers, that would insure a gratuitous
admission. Peter, much as he liked plays, demurred awhile about availing
himself of this neighbourly offer, but the urgency of his wife prevailed
on him to consent; and a day or two after, Mr. Dodcomb put into his hand
two circular pieces of lettered ivory, which on giving them to the
doorkeeper admitted Mr. and Mrs. Jones to the house for that evening;
and thus, for the first time in their lives, they found themselves at
the theatre twice in one week.
In this manner they went again and again; and a visit to the theatre
soon ceased to be an event. It was no longer eagerly anticipated, and
minutely remembered. The sight of one play almost effaced the
recollection of another. The edge of novelty was fast wearing off, and
the sense of enjoyment becoming blunted in proportion. Weariness crept
upon them with satiety, and they sometimes even went home before the
concluding scene of the farce, and at last they did not even stay to see
the first. Often they caught themselves nodding shamefully during the
most moral and instructive dialogues of sentimental comedy, and they
actually slept a duett through the four first acts of the Gamester, in
which, however, they were accompanied by a large portion of the
audience.
Their friends the Dodcombs escorted them one afternoon all through the
interior of the theatre, so that they obtained a full comprehension of
the whole paraphernalia, with all its illusions and realities; and of
this knowledge Mrs. Jones made ample use in her comments at night during
the performance.
As Peter's enjoyment of the drama grew less, he became more fastidious,
particularly as to the ways and means that were employed to produce
effect. He now saw the ridicule of the armies of the rival roses being
represented by half a dozen men, who when they belonged to King Richard
were distinguished by white stockings, but clapped on red ones when, in
the next scene, they personated the forces of Richmond. The theatrical
vision of our hero being cleared and refined, he ceased to perceive a
moving forest when the progress of Birnam Wood to Dunsinane was
represented by six or seven men in plaid kilts, each holding up before
his face, fan-wise, a little bunch of withered pine twigs. He now
discovered that the proper place for the ghost of Banquo was a seat at
the table of his murderer, in the midst of the company, and not on a
modern parlour chair, set conspicuously by itself near one of the stage
doors. He also perceived that in Antony's oration over Cæsar, the Roman
populace was illy represented by one boyish-looking, smooth-faced young
man (plebeians must have been strangely scarce) who at the words, "Good
friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to sudden mutiny"--always
made sundry futile attempts to look mutinous.[76]
[Footnote 76: All these things the author has seen.]
To conclude--in the course of that season and the next, Peter Jones and
his wife by dint of bones and Dodcombs, became so familiar with
theatricals that they ceased entirely to enjoy them; and it finally
became a sort of task to go, and a greater task to sit through the play.
Mrs. Jones thought that the old actors had all fallen off, and that the
new ones were not so good as the old ones; but her more sagacious
husband laid the fault to the right cause, which was, "that plays were
now a drug to them."
The Dodcombs removed to New York, and the Joneses gave up without regret
the facilities of free admission to the theatre. After a lapse of two
years, they determined to resume their old and long-tested custom of
seeing one single play at the close of the season, and on the
anniversary of their wedding. But the charm was broken, the illusion was
destroyed; the keenness of their relish was palled by satiety, and could
revive no more.
In a less humble sphere of life, and in circumstances of far greater
importance than the play-going of Peter Jones, how often is the
long-cherished enjoyment of a temperate pleasure destroyed for ever by a
short period of over-indulgence!
THE OLD FARM-HOUSE.
"Her charm around, the enchantress Memory throws."--ROGERS.
Edward Lindsay had recently returned from Europe, where a long series of
years passed in the successful prosecution of a lucrative mercantile
business, had gained for him an independence that in his own country
would be considered wealth. Continuing in heart and soul an American, it
was only in the land of his birth, that he could resolve to settle
himself, and enjoy the fruits of well-directed enterprise, and almost
uninterrupted good fortune.
Early impressions are lasting; and among the images that frequently
recurred to the memory of our hero, were those of a certain old
farm-house in the interior of Pennsylvania, and its kind and
simple-hearted inhabitants. The farmer, whose name was Abraham Hilliard,
had been in the practice of occasionally bringing to Philadelphia a
wagon-load of excellent marketing, and stopping with his team at the
doors of several genteel families, his unfailing customers. It was thus
that Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay obtained a knowledge of him, which eventually
induced them to place in his house, as a boarder, their only surviving
child Edward: that during the summer season, the boy, whose constitution
was naturally delicate, might have a chance of acquiring confirmed
health and hardihood, united with habits of self-dependence; it being
clearly understood by all parties, that young Lindsay was to be treated,
in every respect, like the farmer's own children. The experiment
succeeded: and it was at Oakland Farm that Edward Lindsay's summers were
chiefly spent from the age of eight to eighteen, at which time he was
sent to Bordeaux, and placed in the counting-house of his maternal
uncle. And twice when Philadelphia was visited by the malignant fever
which in former years spread such terror through the city, and whose
ravages were only checked by the return of cold weather, the anxious
parents of our hero made him stay in the country till the winter had
fairly set in.
During his long residence in Europe, Edward Lindsay was so unfortunate
as to lose both father and mother, and, therefore, his arrival in his
native town was accompanied by many painful feelings. The bustle of the
city, and the company into which the hospitality of his friends
endeavoured to draw him, were not in accordance with his present state
of mind, and he imagined that nothing would be more soothing to him than
a visit to the country, and particularly to the place where so much of
his boyhood had been passed. While his mother lived, she had frequently
sent him tidings of his old friends at Oakland Farm, none of whom were
letter writers; but since her death, they seemed to be lost sight of,
and it was now many years since Edward had heard anything of them.
Oakland Farm was not on a public road, and it was some miles remote from
the route of any public conveyance. As the season was the close of
spring, and the weather delightful, Lindsay determined to go thither on
a fine horse that he had recently purchased; taking with him only a
small valise, it being his intention to remain there but a few days.
He set out in the afternoon, and passed the night at a tavern about ten
miles from the city, formerly known as the Black Bear, but now dignified
with the title of the Pennsylvania Hotel, expressed in immense gilt
letters on a blue board above the door. Lindsay felt something like
regret at the ejectment of his old acquaintance Bruin, who, proclaiming
"Entertainment for Man and Horse," had swung so many years on a lofty
sign-post under the shade of a great buttonwood tree, now cut down to
make room for four slender Lombardy poplars, which, though out of favour
in the city, had become fashionable in the country.
We will pass over many other changes which our hero observed about the
new-modelled inn, and accompany him as he pursued his way along the road
which had been so familiar to him in his early youth, and which, though
it retained many of its original features, had partaken greatly of the
all-pervading spirit of improvement. The hills were still there. The
beautiful creek, which in England would have been termed a river,
meandered everywhere just as before, wide, clear, and deep; but its
rude log bridges had now given place to substantial structures of
masonry and wood-work, and he missed several well-known tracts of
forest-land, of which the very stumps had long since been dislodged.
His eye, for years accustomed to the small farms and miniature
enclosures of Europe, now dwelt with delight on immense fields of grain
or clover, each of them covering a whole hill, and frequently of such
extent that a single glance could not take in their limits. He saw vast
orchards that seemed to contain a thousand trees, now white with
blossoms that, scattered by the slightest breeze, fell around them like
showers of scented snow. He missed, it is true, the hawthorn hedges of
England; those beautiful walls of verdure, whose only fault is that
their impervious foliage shuts out from view the fields they enclose;
while the open fences of America allow the stranger to regale his eye,
and satisfy his curiosity with a free prospect of the country through
which he is travelling.
Oakland Farm, as we have said, lay some miles from the great highway,
and Lindsay was glad to find with how much ease he recollected the
turnings and windings of the by-roads. It even gave him pleasure to
recognise a glen at the bottom of a ravine thickly shaded with crooked
and moss-grown trees, where half a century ago a woman had been guilty
of infanticide, and whose subsequent execution at the county town is
talked of still; it being apparently as well remembered as an event of
yesterday. The dogwood and the wild grape vine still canopied the fatal
spot, for the thicket had never been cleared away, nor the ground
cultivated. A little beyond, the road lay through a dark piece of woods
that countrywomen, returning late from the store, were afraid to ride
through after night-fall; as their horses always started and trembled
and laid back their ears at the appearance of a mysterious white colt,
which was frequently seen gamboling among the trees, and which no
sensible people believed to be a real or living colt, as one horse is
never frightened at the sight of another. Shortly after, our traveller
stopped for a few moments to gaze at the transformation of a building on
the verge of a creek. He had remembered it as a large old house
chequered with bricks alternately blackish and reddish, and having dark
red window-shutters with holes cut in them to admit the light; some of
the apertures being in the form of hearts, others in the shape of
crescents. There had been a red porch, and a red front door which for
years had the inconvenient property of bursting open in the dead of
night; at which time, a noise was always heard as of the hoofs of a calf
trotting in the dark, about the rooms up stairs. This calf was finally
spoken to by a very courageous stranger, who inquired its name. The calf
made not a word of answer, but from that night was heard no more. This
house, being now painted yellow, and the red shutters removed, had been
altered into an establishment for carding and spinning wool, as was
evident by surrounding indications, and by the noise of the machinery,
which could be heard plainly as far as the road. Lindsay began to fear
that he should never again see Polly Nichols, a tall, gaunt,
hard-featured spinning girl, whose untiring strength and immoveable
countenance, as she ran all day at the "big wheel," had often amazed
him, and whom Mrs. Hilliard considered as the princess of wool-spinners.
His conscience reproached him with having one day, while she was at
dinner, mischievously stolen the wheel-finger of the said Polly Nichols,
and hidden it in the dough trough, thereby occasioning a long search to
the industrious damsel, and the loss of an hour's spinning to Mrs.
Hilliard.
He next came to the old well-known meeting-house, embosomed in large
elms of aboriginal growth. He saw it as in former days, with its long
range of stalls for the horses of the congregation, and its square
horse-blocks at the gate with steps ascending on all their four sides,
to which the country beaux gallantly led up the steeds of the country
belles. Just beyond the meeting-house, he looked in vain for a
well-known little brook, distinguished of old as "Blue Woman's Run," and
which had formerly crossed the road, murmuring over its bed of pebbles.
It had derived this cognomen from the singular apparition of a woman in
a blue gown, with a pail of water on her head, which had on several
Sundays boldly appeared even in the brightness of the noon-day sun, and
was seen walking fearlessly among the "meeting folks," and their horses,
as they stopped to let them drink at the brook; coming no one knew from
whence, and going no one knew where; but appearing and disappearing in
the midst of them. But the streamlet was no longer there, diverted
perhaps to some other channel, and the hollow of its bed was filled up
and made level with the road.
About two miles further, our hero looked out for a waste field at some
distance from the road, and distinguished by an antique persimmon tree
of unusual size. This field he had always known of a wild and desolate
aspect, bristled with the tall stalks of the mullein. Here, according to
tradition, had once lived a family of free negroes, probably runaways
from the south. They had lost their children by an epidemic, buried them
at the foot of the persimmon tree, and soon after quitted the
neighbourhood. All vestiges of their hut had vanished long before Edward
Lindsay had known the place, but the graves of the children might have
been traced under the grass and weeds. The deserted field had the
reputation of being haunted, because whoever had the temerity to cross
it, even in broad daylight, never failed, that is if they had faith, to
see the faces of two little black boys looking out from behind the tree,
and laughing merrily. But on approaching the tree no black boys were
there.
There is considerable variety in American ghosts. In Europe these
phantoms are nearly all of the same stamp: either tall white females
that glide by moonlight among the ruined cloisters of old abbeys; or
pale knights, in dark armour, that wander, at midnight, about the
turrets and corridors of feudal castles. In our country, apparitions go
as little by rule as their living prototypes; and are certainly very
prosaic both in looks and ways.
The old persimmon tree was still there; but the field had been
cultivated, and was now in red clover, and Lindsay knew that mind had
marched over it.