"But father, you and all your family were willing I should go. You wanted me to go; I didn"t want to go, I only wanted to get back the money Palmer cheated you out of."
The father thundered: "Don"t you try to saddle your roving onto me.
You"re not satisfied in any place and never will be. Don"t you ever tell me to my face again that I even hinted that you go with the panorama and I don"t want you to ever mention that anybody cheated me. I"d like to see the man who can cheat me. Now you go to your work, you"re not your own man yet. I am going to send you to the Merrittstown Academy this winter and I want you to settle down. You"ve had it too easy. When I was a boy I had to get up at 4 o"clock in the morning, make all the fires, milk four cows and feed a pen full of hogs and I had to be done by daylight. You"ve had it too easy, your mother is the one that"s spoiled you. From this day on it"s hands off with her; I"ll be your boss. Now, don"t let me hear more of this roving talk."
"Why, Pap, I haven"t said one word about roving. Can"t I do other work right here at home if I quit this, I don"t have to rove, do I?"
"No, but that"s the upshot of all this talk," persisted the father. "Now get down to your work; learn it."
"I can"t," doggedly answered the boy. "Didn"t you tell me yesterday my fingers were all thumbs? Didn"t you tell me in front of all the hands that you were ashamed of me and that you didn"t think it possible that a child of yours could be so ignorant and awkward."
The father stammered and colored. He was a most affectionate parent, he was truly sorry that he had humbled the pride of the boy. "Why, my son, the men all know I was only teasing you; they all know you are most intelligent. You can learn anything you set your hand to. Why, when you went to Dr. Playford to learn to be a doctor he informed me as did Bob, that they never knew anyone to learn Latin as quickly as you. You could tell us all the names for medicines. Why, Uncle Jake, Steve Gadd and Joe Gibbons told me the time they took you to Washington County to the turkey shoot, that they"d all been down sick if it hadn"t been for you.
They say it rained a cold rain and you all got wet. Uncle Jake is subject to the quinsy and he was on the verge of it. They tried the drug store and everywhere and they couldn"t get nothing. Steve said you went to the drug store and got all they wanted, only you didn"t ask for whiskey; you called it fermenting spirits. Steve said the druggist told him confidentially you ought to be a druggist, you told him things he didn"t know before. Now, go at your work as you did at doctoring and you"ll learn. It has been the regret of your mother"s life that you did not learn to be a doctor. I"ve sometimes thought old Hare just pretended your medicine made him sick to get out of paying the bill. I don"t think Dr. Playford cared one thing about it so far as you was concerned but the other doctors talked so about it he just had to let you go. I"ve always felt sorry about it because, if any of our family is taken down with a fever, Playford is the only fever doctor in town."
Arguments of this character occurred almost daily. Alfred grew more and more dissatisfied, the father more insistent. Alfred kept up his minstrel work, appearing ever and anon in amateur exhibitions. Folks kept pouring it into his ears: "Well, if I had your talent this town wouldn"t hold me fifteen minutes; I"d take the boat for Pittsburg tonight. What does your father mean by holding you down in this way?
Does your mother favor it? Why, your folks are standing in their own light. If I had a boy like you I"d hire him out and travel with him,"
was Shuban Lee"s comment.
All this was not calculated to cool the ardor of an ambitious amateur.
Alfred read the _New York Clipper_ weekly. He wrote many letters to many minstrel managers to which he did not receive replies.
Charles Duprez, of Duprez and Benedict, answered one of Alfred"s letters thusly:
DEAR SIR:
In answer to your letter--do you double in bra.s.s?
CHARLES DUPREZ.
Alfred read and re-read the letter and finally answered:
MR. CHARLES DUPREZ:
RESPECTED SIR: I do not double in bra.s.s or anything else. I"m a minstrel, not a contortionist.
ALFRED GRIFFITH HATFIELD.
No reply ever came. Alfred concluded the minstrel field was overcrowded or managers would not have permitted him to remain idle, especially in view of the fact that he had offered to give their full performance, for as low as twenty dollars a month, washing and mending. To one manager he added a confidential P. S.: "If you are not doing very well I can put you on to a good thing, a panorama. I"m a panoramist."
Alfred turned his attention to acrobatics. Every spare hour was spent on the tan bark pile with Lint Dutton, James Todd Livingston, Tom White and Lash Hyatt. Lint Dutton was determined to learn bare-back riding.
Sneaking his father"s horse from the barn, he would endeavor to stand alone on the back of the animal, Alfred playing clown and Bindley Livingston ringmaster. Mr. Dutton, after Lint had fallen and nearly broken his back, locked up the horse. Lint determined to give up bare-back riding and practice the Indian style of horsemanship. Many are the persons who had narrow escapes from being run over by Lint as his horse galloped up and down the back streets of the town, wearing the old feather head-dress that Node wore in his attempts to fly.
Alfred and Bindley Livingston constructed a trapeze. Completed, it was suspended to the roof of the cow stable; the boys spent many hours practicing. The climax of the act, Livingston, the stronger of the two, hung by his knees on the little horizontal bar above, holding Alfred by the ankles both hanging head downwards, swinging to and fro, as does the pendulum of a clock; the limitations of the stable would not permit the swinging part of the performance. A large locust tree in Bowman"s pasture lot, near Alfred"s home, was selected as the best possible place to try out the double trapeze act.
From a limb of the tree, Hen Ragor, the a.s.sistant in the performance, suspended the trapeze. The news spread that there would be some wonderful acting in the old pasture lot, Sat.u.r.day afternoon, always a holiday to every boy and girl in old Brownsville to go fishing, swimming, nutting or berrying. On this particular Sat.u.r.day all the boys and girls hied themselves to the old pasture lot; nor was the gathering confined to the younger set; a few of the adults were attracted. They stood at a distance, viewing the doings; however, not one of them but had a vantage position.
As the exercises went along, Danny Gummert, George Pee, Denbow Simpson and Alf McCormick, drew nearer. Caroline Baldwin, seated on the fence, yelled: "Come in and look out, you can see better." This brought a laugh and a few of the elders outside of the pasture sauntered a little ways off only to come nearer as the applause and laughter grew louder.
Alfred had covered himself with all sorts of glory in the numerous numbers in which he had partic.i.p.ated. Caroline Baldwin, who, with her brothers Clarke and Charley, occupied two entire private boxes, (two panels of fence), proclaimed during an intermission that Alfred was the greatest actor in the country; "it was just shameful he was held down when people all over the country were pantin" to see him do his showin"."
Lin declared: "n.o.body in eny show thet"s ben yere in years kin hol" a candul tu him; they can"t tech him. He kin walk ontu his hans better en some peepul kin on thar feet." Here Lin cast a withering glance at Jack Beckley that would have sobered one less saturated.
Jack returned Lin"s look with a vague grin, saying: "I"m drunk and glad of it."
Lin gave him a smart push as she ordered him to keep his distance: "I smell licker on yer close."
"Excuse me--I didn"t--no--I hed--spilled eny--of hit." Jack seated himself on the gra.s.s, unheeding the jibes of the little boys and girls.
He was a good natured tippler. In fact, he seemed pleased that his condition was furnishing fun for the crowd.
No blare of trumpet or beat of drum announced the coming of the death-defying gladiators; no eloquent orator was there to describe their deeds. Unheralded, unannounced, without applause or acclamation Alfred and Bindley emerged from their dressing room, Baldwin"s barn. Crossing the narrow alley, climbing the fence they stood under the shade of the trapeze tree, the open-mouthed, craned neck cynosure of all eyes, excepting Jack Beckley"s--he had gone to sleep.
The silence that greeted the duo was broken only by sotto voce remarks of Lin, taking a mental inventory of Alfred, or rather, his costume. He was attired in a red waist trimmed with beads, white tights, long, bright green, silk stockings tied with broad yellow ribbon garters, a big, double bow knot on the outside of each limb; a bright red nubia or neck comforter wound about his middle; no pumps, shoes or other covering on his feet.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Aerialist"s Debut]
The silence that greeted the appearance of Alfred was broken. Jack Beckley lying on the ground too listless and drunk to raise his eyes higher than Alfred"s green stockings, noticed the great expanse of feet in them, seemingly larger by the spread of the loose stockings. He remarked to those near him: "Thar"s a heap uf thet one doubled down on the groun"."
Lin spoke as if to herself: "Well, I"ll be tee-to-tully durned. Ef thet harum scarum devul hain"t got my nit drawurs on fur t.i.tes, an" they fit him like sa.s.sage guts that"s too big fur the fillin". An", an"," Lin craned her neck towards Alfred, "an", an", by jiggurs, ef he ain"t a wearin" Mary"s (the mother"s) green silk stockin"s she used tu dance an"
frolik in when she was a gal; an" Aunt Lib"s worked, beaded Jenny Lind waist; an" Lizzie"s new red nubby woun" roun" his shad belly. Ef he ain"t stole the yaller ribbon offen Sal Whitmire"s weddin" bonnit, I"m blind. Well, jus" wate, jus wate. Ef thar ain"t a nuther circus to home tonite it"ll be bekase his daddy ain"t well."
Alfred and Bindley bowed low, right and left, kissing their hands to the audience, then saluting the trapeze in turn. (This pantomime introduction they had copied from Mathews and Hunting, noted trapezists in those days.) However, the same salutes have been employed by all aerialists these many years, therefore Alfred and Bindley should not be charged with stealing the business of others.
Preparatory to ascending to the trapeze Alfred unwound the nubia from his waist, casting it on the ground. Lin grabbed it up with a look that seemed to say: "Thank Gawd, I"ll get that anyhow."
Trapeze performers usually ascend to their rigging on a net webbing, hand over hand sailor fashion. Alfred and Bindley, after their bows and salutes, climbed up the trunk of the tree to the limb on which their trapeze was suspended. c.o.o.n like, they crawled out on the limb and lowered themselves to the trapeze.
They kissed their hands to the uplifted faces below. At an agreed signal they bent backward, beginning with the feats performed by all trapezists. After every trick the aerialists would come up smiling, seated on the lower bar, side by side. Turning themselves upside down--which is the clearest explanation that can be written--they hooked their feet over the short bar in the small swing above and hung motionless head downward with folded arms.
As they thus clung one of the yellow ribbons or garters on Alfred"s limb became loosened. The long ribbon fluttered in the air, furling and unfurling it gracefully descended.
Lin reached up her hands to catch it, muttering through her set teeth: "I wonder ef he"ll shed the rest uf his borryed plumes. I wish he wud.
Stretchin" an" crawlin" about he"ll bust "em sure." And Lin looked at Alfred"s limbs with an anxious expression: "Ef he does you kan"t sew "em an" I ain"t got no yarn thet"ll match tu darn "em."
The last feat was the hanging head downward by Bindley, clasping Alfred by the ankles. Hen Ragor, with the aid of a rope cast over the lower bar, pulled the performers, backwards and forwards. When the proper momentum was gained Alfred released his hand hold on the bar. Henry was to hold the bar away from the swing of the human pendulum until Alfred clapped his hands. He was then supposed to slacken the rope in his hands permitting the bar to swing within the grasp of Alfred.
This was the rehea.r.s.ed procedure to carry the thrilling feat to the proper climax. Henry swung the trapeze too forcibly, one end of the rope slipped out of his hands and pulled loose from the trapeze bar. The lower bar fouled in the branches of the tree.
Alfred was clapping his hands violently for the trapeze. Henry was endeavoring to cast the rope over the bar, his efforts resulting in failure after failure. Finally in his excitement he endeavored to cast the rope up to Alfred. The pendulum had nearly stopped swinging, and Alfred was waving his arms, clapping his hands and begging piteously for the big trapeze swing.
Bindley above was holding on to the boy below. He implored Alfred to climb up to him. Effort after effort was made by Alfred to do so, but he hung limp and helpless. He could not command sufficient strength to pull his body up. He clutched at Lin"s unmentionables as he hung head downward. The earth seemed a long way from him and things on it upside down.
The boys below were yelling in their excitement, the girls had covered their faces, the grown folks, who had stood afar, rushed to the scene.
Never will Alfred forget the few moments he was suspended thus, nor will he fail to remember to his dying day the first message he received from the man above. There was a splash, an incipient shower of warmish liquid falling on Alfred"s upturned chin. Alfred wiped it off with his hand; fearing it was blood he scanned it closely. He was greatly relieved when he discovered that it was tobacco juice. (Bindley always chewed when acting).
Following the juice came this message: "I can"t hold you all day, come up here or I"ll come down there."
Alfred made frantic grabs, clutches and wiggles to climb up, only to fall back, more helpless. Hen was making an effort to throw the rope to Alfred. Lin grabbed him. s.n.a.t.c.hing the rope from him, she shouted: "Clim" the tree, clim" the tree, loose the swing, ye dam fool." Hen had started up the tree. A flood of hot juice rained down on Alfred"s upturned chin, flowing into his mouth.
Bindley, with clinched teeth, muttered: "If you get killed it"s your own fault, I can"t hold you any longer."