Chapter 4

"We've come back," replied Charles with ready resource, "to play a special benefit for your School Teachers' Association."

The old man chuckled. "Well, if you can get 'em in the house you are all right."

Charles was already planning a series of benefits for volunteer firemen and widows and orphans in future towns. It was a case of "anything to get a crowd." He hesitated a moment, then faced the old man with his winning smile and said:

"Colonel, I wish you would let me have fifty dollars to send back to the company."

"All right, my boy; there's the safe. Help yourself. Hurry up. Let us have a game of casino."

Charles wired the much-needed money to his brother, then came back and dutifully played the game. But neither trumped-up benefits for the most worthy of causes nor the unfailing good-humor of the boyish advance-agent could stem the tide of adversity. Things went from bad to worse. Louise Dillon, all hope of salary gone, gave her little remaining capital to Gustave, saving only enough for her railway fare, and went back to her home in Cincinnati. Stoddart now played more dolefully than ever on his violin, ransacked its recesses, and turned over his last cent for the common good.

"We've got to get back North," said Gustave.

With the utmost effort, and by pawning jewelry and clothes, the company gladly saw the last trace of Texas disappear over the horizon.

It was a hard journey back. At Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Charles had to wait for the company because he did not have enough cash to go on ahead. Here the whole company was stranded until several of the members succeeded in getting enough money from home by wire to send them on.

Memphis proved to be a life-saver. Here the company took a steamboat down the Arkansas. It is notable because thus early Charles showed that eagerness to take a chance which eventually caused his death, for, on this trip, as on the _Lusitania_, he had been warned not to sail.

The river was low and the pilot was reckless. Whenever the boat groaned over a bar Charles would say, "That's great," although the other members of the company shivered with apprehension.

By using every device and resource known to the traveling company of those days, the Stoddart Comedy Company finally reached Richmond, Kentucky. It had left a trail of baggage behind; there was not a watch in the whole aggregation. Charles went on ahead to Cincinnati to book and bill the adjacent towns.

At Richmond Gustave had an inspiration. Then, as always, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was the great life-saver of the harassed and needy theatrical organization. The play was always accessible and it almost invariably drew an audience.

"Why not have a real negro play Uncle Tom?" said Gustave.

So he wired Charles as follows:

_Get me an Eva and send her down with Sam Lucas. Be sure to tell Sam to bring his diamonds._

Sam Lucas was a famous negro minstrel who had been with the Callender company. He sported a collection of diamonds that made him the envy and admiration of his colleagues. Gustave knew that these jewels, like Louise Dillon's sealskin sack, meant a meal ticket for the company and transportation in an emergency.

Charles engaged Sallie Cohen (now Mrs. John C. Rice), and sent her down with Lucas, who, by the way, provided the money for the trip. Charles then proceeded to cover his "Lemons" posters with "Uncle Tom's Cabin" printing which he hastily acquired, and awaited results.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was played to a packed house at Richmond, and the company was able to get out of Kentucky. Gustave now had visions of big business in Ohio, and especially at Wilmington, which was Sam Lucas's home town. But the result was the usual experience with home patronage of home talent, and only a handful of people came to see the play. Sallie Cohen, despairing of getting her salary, had quit the company, and on this night Polly Stoddart, who was a tall, well-developed woman, had to play Little Eva. When she sat on the lap of Wesley Sisson, who played her father, she not only hid him from sight, but almost crushed him to earth.

Wilmington proved to be the last despairing gasp of the Stoddart Comedy Company, for the trouble-studded tour now ended. Some of Lucas's diamonds were pawned to get the company back to Cincinnati.

The sad news was telegraphed to Charles, who was billing Newport, Kentucky, which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. He received the message while standing on a step-ladder with a paste-brush in his hand. Now came an early evidence of his humor and equanimity. He calmly went on posting the bill for the show that he knew would never appear. Afterward in reciting the incident he made this explanation:

"I didn't want to tell the bill-poster that the company was closed, because he had just made a fresh bucket of paste and I didn't want him to waste it. Besides, he had become enthusiastic at the prospect of seeing a real negro Uncle Tom, and I had just given him some passes for the show. I didn't want all his disappointments to come at one time."

After all the hardships of the previous months, and with salaries unpaid, the company now found itself stranded in the spring of 1878 at the Walnut Street Hotel in Cincinnati. Gustave's problem was to get his people home. Fortunately, most of them lived in the Middle West. By pawning some of his clothes and making other sacrifices he was able to get them off. Only Frank Hartwell and Charles were left behind.

Gustave got a pass to Baltimore, where he borrowed enough money from Callender, then in his decline, to take care of Hartwell. Charles was left behind as security for the whole Frohman bill at the Walnut Street Hotel. Although Charles was amiable and smiling, the hotel thought that his cheerful demeanor was an unsatisfactory return for board and lodging, so he was asked to vacate his room after a few days. He now spent his time walking about the streets and eating one meal a day. At night he sat in the summer-gardens "across the Rhine," listening to the music, and then seeking out a place where he could get a bed for a quarter.

By giving an I O U to the same Pennsylvania ticket-agent who had staked Gustave, and with five dollars telegraphed by the indefatigable brother back in New York, he got as far as Philadelphia. He landed there without a cent in his pocket.

"I must get home," he said.

He got on a day-coach of a New York train without the vestige of a ticket and still penniless. In those days the cars were heated by stoves, and near each stove was a large coal-box.

When Charles heard the conductor's cry, "Tickets, please!" he hid himself in the coal-box and remained there until the awful personage passed by. Being small, he could pull the lid of the box down and be completely hidden from sight. After the conductor passed, he scrambled out and resumed his seat. He had to repeat this performance several times on the trip. Afterward in speaking of it he said:

"I wasn't a bit frightened for myself. I knew I would suffer no harm. My chief concern was for a kind-hearted old man who sat in the seat next to the coal-box. He was much more agitated than I was."

On a bright May afternoon Charles turned up, sooty but smiling, at 250 East Seventy-eighth Street, where the Frohman family then lived. He had walked all the way up-town from the ferry. His first greeting to Gustave was:

"Well, when do we start again?"

III

PICTURESQUE DAYS AS MINSTREL MANAGER

Instead of discouraging him, Charles Frohman's baptism of hardship with the John Dillon companies only filled him with a renewed ardor for the theatrical business. The hunger for the road was strong in him. Again it was Gustave who proved to be the good angel, and who now led him to a picturesque experience.

During the summer of 1878 J. H. (Jack) Haverly acquired the Callender Original Georgia Minstrels, and Gustave, who had an important hand in the negotiation, was retained as manager. He started for the Pacific coast with his dusky aggregation, and in Chicago fell in with his new employer.

Haverly was then at the high tide of his extraordinary career. He was in many respects the amusement dictator of his time. Beginning as owner of a small variety theater in Toledo, Ohio, he had risen to be the manager of half a dozen important theaters in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Not less than ten traveling companies bore his name.

By instinct a plunger, his daring deals became the theatrical talk of the country. He was a dashing and conspicuous figure; his spacious shirt-front shone with diamonds, and he wore a large flat-crowned stiff hat in which he carried all his correspondence and private papers.

Haverly specialized in minstrels, for he was a genius at capitalizing the enthusiasm of the theater-going public. Just at this time he was launching the greatest of all his traveling enterprises. To meet the competition of the newly formed Barlow, Wilson, Primrose and West minstrels he decided to merge all his white minstrel companies into the Haverly Mastodons. It was to include forty star performers, more than had ever before been assembled in a minstrel organization. So proud was Haverly of this total that the advertising slogan of the company, which was echoed from coast to coast, and which became a popular theatrical phrase everywhere, was "Forty--Count 'Em--Forty."

Gustave found Haverly in the throes of Mastodon-making. Always solicitous of the family interest, he asked him if he had engaged a treasurer. When Haverly replied that he had not, Gustave immediately spoke up:

"Why don't you hire my brother Charley? He has had experience on the road."

"All right, Gus," he replied. "I've got two Frohmans with me now. If Charley is as good as they are, he is all right."

Thus it came about that for the first time the three Frohman brothers were associated under the same employer.

Gustave wired the good news and transportation to the eager and impatient Charles, who had irked under the inactivity of a hot summer in New York. Gustave added ten dollars and instructed his brother to buy a new suit, for the Frohman family funds were in a more or less sad way.

Henry Frohman's generosity and his absolute inability to press the payment of debts due him had brought the father to a state of financial embarrassment, and the burden of the family support fell upon the sons.

In a few days Charles showed up smiling in Chicago, but he had suffered disaster on the way. The ten-dollar "hand-me-down" suit had faded overnight, and when Charles appeared it was a sad sight.

"You can't meet Jack Haverly in that suit," said Gustave.

"All right," said Charley, "I will go to a tailor and have it fixed in some way."

The tailor, apparently, worked a miracle with the clothes, for Charles became presentable and was introduced to the great man, who, like most other people, readily succumbed to the boy's winning manner.

"You and I will work the public, all right," he said to Charles. What was more important, Haverly informed him that he was to act as treasurer of the Mastodons at a salary of ten dollars a week, with an allowance of one dollar and a half a day for board and lodging.

A serious complication now faced the boy. It was in the middle of July; the company was not to start until August, and he could draw no salary until the engagement began. With the assistance of Gustave he rented a two-dollar-a-week room and existed on a meal-ticket good for twenty-two fifteen-cent meals that he had bought for three dollars.

Charles sat at rehearsals with Haverly. He had a genius for stage effects and made many practical suggestions. The big brass-band, an all-important adjunct of the minstrel show, fascinated him. When the season opened with a flourish the receipts amazed him.

For the first time he came in contact with real money. The gross income of the Dillon company had never exceeded a thousand dollars a week; now he was handling more than that sum every night.

After a brief engagement at the Adelphi Theater in Chicago, which Haverly owned, the "Forty--Count 'Em--Forty" started on their long tour which rounded out the amusement apprenticeship of Charles Frohman.

* * *

Charles now made his first real appearance before the public, and in spectacular fashion. It was the custom of a minstrel company to parade each day. With their record-breaking organization the Mastodons gave this feature of minstrelsy perhaps its greatest traditions. Wearing shining silk hats, frock-coats, and lavender trousers, and headed by "the world's greatest minstrel band," the "Forty--Count 'Em--Forty" swayed the heart and moved the imagination of admiring multitudes wherever they went.

Charles, who to the end of his days despised a silk hat, now wore one for the first time, but under protest. However, he manfully took his place in the front set of fours with the ranking officers of the organization, and marched many a weary mile. So great was his dislike for a silk hat even then that he invariably carried a cap in his pocket and the moment the parade was over the abhorred headpiece was removed.

The first stop of the Mastodons was at Toledo, Ohio. A great crowd assembled around the theater, and the treasurer, a weak little man, seemed afraid to raise the window. "They'll run over me," he whined.

"All right," said Charles. "I'll take the window and sell the tickets."

Up to this time his only box-office experience had been as a mere lad at Hooley's Theater in Brooklyn, but he handled that big crowd with such skill and speed that even "Big Bill" Foote, who was the manager of the company, patted him on the back and said a kind word.

Foote, who was Charles's superior officer on this trip, was a type of the big, loud, blustering theatrical man of the time. He was six feet tall, and he towered over his youthful assistant, who was his exact opposite in manner and speech. Yet between these two men of strange contrast there developed a close kinship. The little, plump, rosy-cheeked treasurer could handle the big, bluff, noisy manager at will. Such was Charles Frohman's experience with men always.

The first tour was replete with stirring incident. When the company reached Bradford, Pennsylvania, they found the town in the throes of oil excitement. Oil was on everybody's tongue and ankle-deep in some of the streets. A great multitude collected at the theater. After the first part of the show the gallery, which was full of people, creaked and settled a few inches, creating a near panic. While this was being subdued an oil-warehouse on the outskirts of the town burst into flames. Most of the volunteer firemen were in the theater watching the minstrels. When an agitated individual out on the sidewalk yelled "Fire!" a real panic started inside the theater and there was a mad rush for the door.

Charles had just finished taking the tickets and stood with the ticket-box in his hand, trying to calm the crowd, but he was as a straw in the wind. The maddened people ran over him. When the excitement cleared away he was found almost buried in mud, mire, and oil outside, his clothes torn to shreds, but he still grasped the precious box in his hand.

Now began a comradeship that was unique in the history of theatricals. The Mastodons, destined for long and continuous association, became a sort of traveling club. It was really a fine group of men, and the favorite of the organization was the rosy little treasurer who day by day fastened himself more firmly in the hearts of his colleagues.

Nor was this due to the fact that he was "Haverly's pocket-book," as the men affectionately called him, and their first aid in all financial need. He was the friend, confidant, and repository of all their troubles. With characteristic humor he gave each member of the company a day on which he could relate his hardships. He had a willing ear and an open hand.

When he could not give them the relief they sought he invariably said with that constant smile, "Well, I sympathize with you, anyhow."

Frohman was custodian of the company funds. One day in Denver four members of the company found themselves without a cent. Charles had tided them over so many difficulties that they hesitated to ask him again. As they talked their troubles over they saw him coming down the street. Instantly all four went down on their knees and held up their hands in supplication. When Charles saw them he said, "How much do you want?" And they got it.

He was always playing some practical joke. With half a dozen members of the company he formed a little club which often had supper after the play. This club was the fountain-head of a thousand jests and pranks. On one occasion Charles suggested that for the sake of the novelty of the thing every member of the club have his head shaved. The group went to a barber-shop. Only one chair was vacant, however, and Charles Cushman got that chair. While his dome was being shorn of every vestige of hair Charles nudged the others and they crept away. When Cushman emerged, bald as a babe, he found himself alone. The joke was on him.

In his joke Charles was usually aided and abetted by Johnnie Rice, one of the many famous minstrels of that name. Rice could never resist the temptation to stroke long whiskers. Whenever the house was unusually big Charles took Rice out of the company for the first part and got him to assist him with the ticket-taking. Any spectator with a long facial hirsute growth was sure to have it caressed to the accompaniment of "Ticket, please."

Sometimes the men in the company, knowing of Rice's eccentricity, often watched the gallery for such a performance, and it invariably made them laugh. Once while the Mastodons were playing an engagement at the Olympic in St. Louis they were surprised to find Rice sitting in a front orchestra seat, wearing a long pair of Dundreary whiskers. He looked so solemn that every one on the stage burst into laughter. It almost broke up the performance. Charles had provided the whiskers.

* * *

It was on this minstrel tour that Charles Frohman gave the first real expression to his talents for publicity. Everything about a minstrel company was showy and flashy. So Charles originated a unique idea of establishing a reputation for solvency. He bought a small iron safe about three feet high. On it were painted in large gilt letters, "Treasurer, Haverly's Mastodon Minstrels."

In reality there was very little need for this safe, because "Jack" Haverly's constant and insistent demands for cash kept the company coffers stripped of surplus.

Charles saw in this safe a spectacular means of advertising. It was put conspicuously on the top of the first load of baggage that went to the hotel. He always engaged at least four men to unload it from the truck. It was then placed in a conspicuous position in the hotel lobby and invariably drew a comment like this:

"Gee whiz! That Haverly show has got so much money that it is carrying a safe to hold it."

This was precisely the response that Charles desired. No sooner was the safe unloaded in the lobby than Charles approached it with great ceremony, holding a bunch of one-dollar bills in his hand. This immediately attracted a crowd. With an admiring gallery, he would stow away the money. Just as soon as the crowd dispersed he would be back on the job removing this "prop" capital to where it was needed.

He was always alert to publicity possibilities. Among other things he organized a drum corps composed of volunteers who were only too glad to serve him. He inspired this corps to such proficiency that its marching and counter-marching became a feature of the parades. By diverting the drum corps to one part of the town and the parade to another, having them unite later on, he was able to attract two big street crowds and then bring them together at a common point.

All the while the boy was growing in responsibility. Without a murmur he assumed practically all the duties of manager. He arranged the parades, visited the newspaper offices, devised new numbers for the company, handled the money, and always remained serene, undisturbed, smiling, and optimistic.

Now came evidence of his initiative. While his first desire was to build up the attractiveness of his bill, he combined with it a genuine desire to develop his associates. Frequently he would say to men like the three Gorman brothers--George, James, and John--who were among his prime pals in the company:

"Why don't you rehearse some new steps? I'll go on and watch you at rehearsals and we can put it in the bill."

Out of such incidents as this came a dozen new features.

* * *

During this tour Charles displayed on many occasions what amounted to a reckless disregard of danger. He had proved on the Dillon tour that he was always willing to take a chance.

Once while climbing a steep incline on the way to Grass Valley in California their special train stopped. When he asked what the trouble was he was told that they would have to wait on a switch while another train came down the single track. He was afraid he would miss the evening's performance, so he asked the engineer if he could beat the down train to the double track. On being told that there was a chance, he said:

"Take it and go as fast as you can." He made his town in time.

Again in Colorado his train was stopped by a slight fire on a bridge. He urged the conductor to go across, and was so insistent that the man yielded, and the train got over just before the flames leaped up and the structure began to crackle.

What would have been an ordinary theatrical season waned. A minstrel company, however, seldom closed for the summer, so the tour continued. For the first time Charles Frohman crossed the continent. Despite its high-sounding name and the glitter and splash that marked its spectacular progress from place to place, the long trip of the Mastodons was not without its hardships, for business was often bad. Nor did it lack interesting episodes.

Once while making an over-Sunday jump from St. Paul to Omaha the train broke down somewhere in Iowa, and at seven o'clock the company was four hours from its destination. The house had been sold out. Charles immediately began to send optimistic and encouraging telegrams.

"Hold the crowd," he wired. "We are on the way. Tell them we will give them a double show."

From every station he sent on some cheering message. When the train was half an hour from Omaha he sought out Sam Devere, the prize banjoist of the company and a great fun-maker.

"Go into the baggage-car and black up," he said to Sam. "I want to rush you on to the theater as soon as we get to town."

They reached Omaha at eleven-fifteen o'clock. Charles hustled Devere up to the opera-house in a hack. The comedian went before the curtain and entertained the audience until midnight. When the company arrived not twenty people had left. The final curtain dropped at two-thirty o'clock before a delighted but weary crowd. The telegrams from the treasurer which were read to the audience had saved the day--and the receipts.

In the early stages of this long journey of the Mastodons came an episode that made an indelible impress upon the memory of young Charles. In view of the later history of the two actors in it, it is both picturesque and historic.

It was in Cleveland, and the day was hot. The Mastodons had just finished their parade, and Charles, weary, perspiring, and wearing the abhorred silk hat, entered the box-office of the Opera House on Cleveland Avenue. Sitting in the treasurer's seat at the window he saw a sturdy lad fingering a pile of silver dollars. He slipped them in and out with an amazing dexterity. Hearing a noise, he looked up and beheld young Frohman with the tile tilted back on his head.

The boys' eyes met. Into each came a wistful look.

"I wish I had that silk hat of yours," said the boy at the window.