"h.e.l.lo, Fred," I said; "I went by your house this morning, and--"
"Thank you, Bill," he said, grasping my hand and shaking it heartily.
Clifford & Burke were playing Shea"s, Buffalo. There was also a bare-back riding act on the bill. There is a very old lady who comes around the theater every night selling laundry bags, money bags and such stuff to the actors. She had seen Clifford & Burke"s act several times and knew that they finished up their act with a dance.
Friday night she was sitting in our dressing room; Clifford and Burke were on the stage when she came in but had finished their act and gone to their room, although the old lady didn"t know this. The horse act was on and the old horse galloping around the stage "clickerty clack; clickerty clack; clickerty clack," when suddenly the old lady stops talking, p.r.i.c.ks up her ears, listens a minute, then said,
"By garry, thim byes is doin" a long dance this night."
There was a German artist playing on the bill with us in Buffalo. He was a very polite chap, but his English was very Berlin. One night, after holding a rehearsal with a German acrobat, who was not much better off than he was as to the English language, he came over to my wife, and very slowly and laboriously he said,
"Goot evening, Madam Mees Dayne; eet iss colder than h----, don"t it?"
Charlie Case was telling me how bad his teeth were:
"Why, Will," he said, "I have indigestion something awful. I can"t chew a piece of meat to save my life. I just bite it hard enough to make sure it is dead, and swallow it."
Chick Sale comes from some one-night stand up in Illinois, I have forgotten the name of it; but there are two rival hose companies in the town. As fires are scarce, every once in a while they have a "contest."
The two companies line up side by side, somebody counts three and away they go across the square to the watering trough. Upon arriving there they unreel their hose, stick one end into the watering trough, man the pumps, and the first one to get a stream on to the flag pole wins.
Last summer there came a real fire. As the fire was nearest to their engine house the Alerts got there, and got a stream on to the fire before the Reliables arrived. As they came panting and puffing up the hill the captain of the Reliables saw this, stopped, waved his hand back at his company and said,
"They have beat us, boys; you can go back."
There is one good thing about Des Moines, according to the advertis.e.m.e.nts they are running in the magazines. There are twenty railroads running out of it.
On 125th Street in New York City there is a piano dealer by the name of Wise. On every window of his store he has painted--
"What is home without a piano? Wise."
And he is correct.
One week in Omaha, Neb., the advertising in front of the Gaiety Theater read--
"The Midnight Maidens.
15 to 75 cts."
A Montreal furrier advertises--
"Fur cap, $1.00.
Good Fur Cap, $1.25.
Real Fur Cap, $1.50."
"HEART INTEREST"
When you go into a Continuous Vaudeville show you expect to see all sorts of acrobatic marvels, trained animals, and funny people. You expect to hear sweet singers, talented musicians, and funny comedians.
But once in awhile you see and hear some little gem of sincere, heart interest.
And so, just in order to give that little touch of the "heart interest,"
I am going to tell you of a couple of little incidents that came into our lives at different times.
One night several years ago we were playing in a little town way up in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The night telegraph operator at the railroad station was an old schoolmate of mine. And so after the show was over I went over to the station to have a visit with him. It was a still cold night in the middle of winter and we sat around the little stove in his office, talking over our boyhood days back in New Hampshire.
Along about midnight the outer door opened and a poor, ragged, hungry-looking young chap of twenty-two or three stepped in and walked to the stove. After he had got his hands thawed out a little he came over to the window of the telegraph office and handed the operator a piece of paper. It was just a piece of common wrapping paper with a message written on it in lead pencil.
"How much will it cost me to send that message?" he asked.
The operator counted the words.
"Ten words; twenty-five cents."
The young fellow withdrew his closed hand from his pocket and emptied out exactly twenty-five cents in pennies and nickels, sighed and went out.
The operator sat down and sent the message. Then he sat looking at the paper for quite a few seconds; then he turned to me and said,
"Well, I have been jerking lightning quite a while now, but there is the biggest ten words I ever sent."
He handed me the message; it read--
"Kiss Mother good-by; I am too poor to come."
The second is just a letter which Miss Dayne received in Pittsburg, from a poor old mother who thought she recognized in Miss Dayne her erring daughter.
MCKEESPORT, PA., Mar. 5.
Dear Daughter Blanch.
i recognized your picture in one of the Pittsburg papers. Blanchie will you write me a few lines and releived my heart and mind. if it is concealment you dont want any one to know from me if you will only write me a few lines i am your mother how i have longed to see you my health is failing me the children often ask about you and wonder dont fail me dear child you are just the same to me as the rest love to you Blanchie from your heart broken mother