Doesticks, What He Says Part 8

Little girl, had her doll, and her three year old brother had a hoop, a tin whistle, and a painted kite.

Poor washerwoman came, but as she had only a cotton robe, and a scant pattern at that, the more aristocratic ladies moved farther away, and smelt their cologne, while the poor woman knelt down in the corner, with her face to the fence.

Sixth Avenue lady came in a white satin robe; had a boy to hold up her train, and she had her own hands full of visiting cards.

An African brunette carried a cus.h.i.+on for her mistress to kneel upon, and a man followed behind with a basket containing her certificate of church members.h.i.+p, a gilt-edged prayer-book, two mince-pies and some ham sandwiches.

Old cripple hobbled up, and as he was devoutly saying his prayers, a bad boy (who had not made any preparation for aerial travelling) stole his crutch to make a ball club.

Crowd began to separate into knots, according to their different creeds and beliefs; Unitarians, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, cl.u.s.tering round their respective preachers.

I noticed that one old lady, evidently believing in the perfect sanct.i.ty of her darling minister, and desiring to insure her own pa.s.sage, had tied herself to his left leg with a fish line.

Baptist man was preaching close communion.

Presbyterian man was descanting on the accountability of infants, and a.s.serting that a child three years old can commit sufficient sin to doom it to the lowest h.e.l.l.

Sunrise--all knelt down to pray; east wind blew, and it began to rain. I noticed that Damphool had found a dry place on the lee side of a cider barrel.

Methodist man took off his coat, and made a stump prayer, while all his congregation yelled "_Glory_."

Baptist man inserted a special clause in his supplication, that he and his crowd might go up in a separate boat.

Ministers all prayed _at_ each other, and _for_ n.o.body.

Know-Nothing clergyman addressed a long-winded political prayer to the Almighty, detailing the latest election returns, deploring the choice of the opposition candidate, imploring his blessing on the next governor (if the world _should_ stand), insinuated that he expected the nomination himself, and concluded by advising Him to exclude from heaven all foreigners, or they would refuse to live up to the regulations, and would certainly kick up another row among the celestials.

Down-town man, on hand, ready to go up; tried to pray, but from want of practice, could only utter some disjointed sentences about "uncurrent funds," "money market," "Erie down to 36;" (Damphool whispered that if _that_ man ever got to heaven he would melt down the golden harp into coin, and let it out at two per cent. a month.)

Began to rain harder; wind decidedly chilly; their teeth chattered with cold, and they began to wish for the conflagration to commence. Naughty boys on the fence began to throw stones--promiscuous praying on every side. Anxious man stopped in the midst of a long, touching supplication to cuff the ears of a little boy who hit him with a brick; hours slipped away, began to think the entertainment was "postponed on account of the weather."

Noon came; folks were not half so scared as they were in the morning; ministers had got too hoa.r.s.e to talk, and were pa.s.sing the time kissing the sisters.

Damphool looked so chilly that I got him a gla.s.s of hot whiskey punch; he looked at me with holy horror, and went on with his prayer, but before he got to "amen," the punch had disappeared.

Husband of red-haired woman came and ordered her to go home and wash the breakfast dishes and then mend his Sunday pantaloons.

One o'clock, zeal began to cool off; at two the enthusiasm was below par; at three the rain poured so that I thought an alteration in the Litany would be necessary to make it read, "Have mercy upon us miserable _swimmers_." Small boy threw a handful of gravel at long man, which hit him in the face, and made him look like a mulatto with the small-pox.

Long man punched small boy with a fence rail.

Four o'clock; Gabriel hadn't come yet. Damphool, much disappointed, muttered something about being "sold;" people evidently getting hungry; no loaves or fishes on the ground; woman with two children said she was going home to put them in the trundle-bed; long man looked round to see that no one was looking, then tucked his robe under his arm, got over the fence, and started for home on a dog trot.

Dark; no signs of fireworks yet; pyrotechnic exhibition not likely to commence for some time. Crowd impatient. (I here missed Damphool, and found him an hour afterwards, paying his devotions to an eighteen-penny oyster stew and a mug of ale.)

Stayed an hour longer, when the crowd began to disperse, with their ascension robes so sadly draggled, that if they HAD received a second summons to go, it would have taken an extra quant.i.ty of soap-suds to make them presentable among decent angels.

Appointed myself a committee of five to inquire into the matter; offered the following resolution, which I unanimously adopted:--

_Resolved_, That putting on a clean s.h.i.+rt to go to heaven in, don't always result in getting there, even though the tails be of extra length, and that the creed which teaches such a mode of procedure is a farcical theology, fully worthy to be ranked among the many other excellent "sells" of that veteran joker of world-wide celebrity--_Jo Miller_.

XVIII.

The Great "American Tragedian."

The only dramatic performances known in the wild region where I pa.s.sed some of my early years, are given by companies of strolling players who usually give their cla.s.sic entertainments in a barn, have a piece of carpet for a drop curtain, four tallow candles for footlights, and who generally go out of town in the night without paying their Tavern bills.

Almost every Drama performed by them, requires more people to represent it than are contained in the entire troupe; the services of a crowd of aspiring country boys are secured for soldiers, citizens, robbers, and other personages who don't have to say anything; but there is still a large gap which can only be filled by the "doubling" of several parts by one performer. Hence it is by no means unusual in the "tragedy of Richard III." to see King Henry, after being deliberately despatched by Gloster in the first act, reappear in the second as the Duke of Buckingham, and then, after his supposed decapitation in obedience to the ferocious order of Richard, "Off with his head," come back in the final scenes, equipped in a full suit of mail, as the Earl of Richmond, and avenging his double murder by killing the "crook-backed tyrant" with a broadsword after a prolonged struggle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great "American Tragedian."]

And in Macbeth, King Duncan, after being carved up by his treacherous kinsman with two white handled butcher-knives, returns as Hecate in the witch scenes, and afterwards as court physician to Lady M., besides which he generally blows the flourishes on the trumpet for the entrances of the King, beats the ba.s.s drum, and attends to the sheet-iron thunder.

I have always had a pa.s.sion for theatricals, and was at one time of my variegated existence much more intimately connected with the stage than at present--and on reaching this city I felt, of course, a great desire to behold again the theatre, with all its brilliant fascinations--the light, the music, the varied scenery comprising gardens, chambers, cottages, mountains, "cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces,"

bar-rooms, churches, huts and hovels--to look again upon the gla.s.s jewels, the tinselled robes of mimic royalty, the pasteboard banquets and mola.s.ses wine, and all the glory, "pride, pomp and circ.u.mstance" and humbug which I once "knew so well," "_et quorum magna pars fui_."

So, with my trusty friends, Damphool and Bull Dogge, I wended my way to the Metropolitan Theatre No. 1, to see and hear the distinguished Mr.

Rantanrave h.e.l.litisplit, the notorious American tragedian, in his great, original, unapproachable, inconceivable, inexplicable, incomprehensible part of "What a bore O, the last of the Vollypogs."

I had heard so much of this great actor in this particular part, that I expected to behold nothing less than the "Eighth wonder of the world."

Opera gla.s.ses were continually levelled at us by people who, impelled by a laudable curiosity, were anxious to see all that could _be_ seen.

(Damphool says, that when you see a _woman_ with one of these implements, you may be sure she wants to be looked at--and called my attention to the confirmatory fact, that all the ladies with the finest busts, and the best developed forms, wore their dresses the lowest in the neck, and sported the biggest opera gla.s.ses). (Bull Dogge a.s.serts that they were invented by the author of "Staring made Easy," and "A Treatise on the Use of Globes.")

After a season of tramping by the intelligent audience, which seemed, by its measured regularity, to intimate that they had learned the motion in the treadmill, the bell jingled and the members of the orchestra entered, one by one.

The audience endured the prolonged tuning of the instruments, conducted in a masterly manner by the leader of the band, the music got "good ready" for a fair start, and at the word "go" they went.

Could not critically a.n.a.lyse the uproar, but it seemed to be composed of these elements: a predominance of drum and cymbals--a liberal allowance of flute and horn--a spasmodic sprinkling of trombone--a small quant.i.ty of oboe, and a great deal of fiddle. The tumult was directed by the leader, who waved the fiddle over his head, jumped up and down upon his seat, kicked up his heels, disarranged his s.h.i.+rt collar, threw his arms wildly about, stamped, made faces, and conducted himself as if he was dancing a frantic hornpipe for the gratification of the crazy whims of an audience of Bedlamites.

At length the curtain went up--two men came on and said something, then two others came on and did something--then the scene changed, and some others came on and listened to a shabby-looking general, who seemed to be their "magnus Apollo" and who certainly was very long-winded.

Nothing decisive, however, came to pa.s.s until the long-expected entrance of the great h.e.l.litisplit himself eventuated.

I must confess that I was awed by the terrific yet serene majesty of his appearance. When I saw the tragic, codfishy expression of his eyes, I was surprised; when I observed the flexibility of his capacious mouth, opening and shutting, like a dying mud sucker, I was amazed. When my eye turned to his fingers, which worked and clutched, as if feeling for coppers in a dark closet, I was wonder-stricken--but when my attention was called to the magnitude of his legs, I was fairly electrified with admiration, and could not forbear asking Bull Dogge if those calves were capable of locomotion.

What-a-bore-O, is supposed to be an Indian Chief, and although it is the prevailing impression that Indians are beardless, the face of this celebrated performer proved this opinion to be a physiological fallacy.

For upon his chin he wore a tuft of hair, a round black hirsute k.n.o.b, neither useful nor ornamental, but which looked as if somebody had hit him in the face with a blacking-brush, and a piece had stuck to his lower jaw.

The admiring audience, who had kicked up perfect young earthquake when he came on, only ceased when he squared himself, put out his arm and prepared to speak.

That voice! Ye G.o.ds! that voice! It went through gradations that human voice never before attempted, imitating by turns the horn of the City Hall Gabriel, the shriek of the locomotive, the soft and gentle tones of a forty-horse-power steam sawmill, the loving accents of the scissor-grinder's wheel, the amorous tones of the charcoal-man, the rumble of the omnibus, the cry of the driver appertaining thereto--rising from the entrancing notes of the infuriated house-dog to the terrific cry of the oyster vender--causing the "supes" to tremble in their boots, making the fiddlers look around for some place of safety, and moving the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude to echo back the roar, feebly, it is true, but still with all their puny strength.

(Bull Dogge says he got that awful voice by eating pebble-stone lunches, like the man in the book.)