Part 17

The neighbor could not set up the word of a donkey against that of Ismail Hassan, so he had to depart on foot.

Although it has been my rare luck to meet many great and prominent men, I am frequently surprised anew that my first impression is of their simplicity of manner and their lack of affectation.

General Nelson A. Miles, until recently General-in-Chief of our Army, was always of distinguished appearance. In his earlier days he was known among the ladies in army circles as “Beauty Miles,” and his photograph was in wild demand by young women at every military post in the west; yet he was always as modest and approachable as any ordinary mortal, and I am sure no American ever was more grateful for it than I, for I never outgrew my boyhood’s adoration for soldiers.

I gratefully remember Miles calling on me once when I was in Washington. I ought to have been overcome by the honor, which certainly it was, but he disarmed embarrassment by “droppin’ in” informally, head of the army though he was, in ordinary civilian costume and with an old soft hat on his head. On another occasion, when he chanced to be in New York, he saw me standing in front of “The Alpine,” where I lived many years, stopped and chatted with me for a full half hour. As we were on Broadway, scores of men passed us every minute, and it was plain to see that many of them knew who he was and gazed at him respectfully and admiringly, yet no crowd collected and no one “rung in”; he was as little disturbed as if we had been in the middle of a ten acre lot. I was so delighted with the incident, with his manner and that of the people, that I asked him in what other country of the world the head of the army could be so unconventional and democratic.

“Well, Marsh,” he replied, with a big smile of content, “that’s the beauty of this country of ours—a man doesn’t have to be anything but himself, or more than he wishes to be.”

General Miles is loaded to the muzzle with good stories; he has so many that he tells them in as few words as possible, so as to have time to tell a lot of them. Here are some that he gave me one day in quick succession.

One Irishman bet another that he could drink a bottle of whiskey and not stagger. The other Irishman covered the bet, and the first one won, by going to bed and drinking the whiskey there.

A darky approached a fish stand kept by another darky and asked:

“Got any fresh fish?”

“’Cose I has. What you tink I’ze sellin’? Shoes?”

“Oh, I knows you’s sellin’ fish, but is dey fresh?”

“’Cose dey’s fresh. Hyah!—quit smellin’ o’ dem fish!”

“I ain’t smellin’ ’em.”

“What you doin’, den?”

“I’ze jus’ whisperin’ to ’em: dat’s all.”

“An’ what you whisperin’ to dem fish?”

“Oh, I’ze jus’ askin’ ’em how’s all dey’re relations dat dey lef’ in de ocean.”

“An’ what dey say?”

“Dey say it’s so long since day seen ’em dat dey forgits.”

An Irishman said: “Last night at two o’clock in the marnin’ whin I was walkin’ up and down the flure wid me bare feet on the oil-cloth wid a cryin’ child on aich arm, I cuddent help rememberin’ that me father wanted me to be a priest. But I thought I knew better than he did!”

XXVII

SOME FIRST EXPERIENCES

When I was a Boy.—One Christmas Frolic.—How I Got on One Theatre’s Free List.—My First Experience as a Manager.—Strange Sequel of a Modest Business Effort.—My First Cigar and How It Undid Me.—The Only “Drink” I Ever Took.—My First Horse in Central Park.—I Volunteer as a Fifer in School Band, with Sad Results to All Concerned.

Senator Jones of Nevada, whose stories have greater influence than some other Senator’s speeches, tells of a professional “repeater” who on election day voted early and late and often for the candidate of the party which had employed him, but who, just before the polls closed, begged permission to vote once the other ticket, which was that of his own party. With similar spirit I, who have been filling a book with mention of other people, want to record a few of my occasional doings. If some of these seem insignificant, I can only explain, in Shakespeare’s words, “A poor thing, but mine own.”

My memory goes back to the day I was baptized, but the first Christmas I can recall—and Christmas is the small boy’s largest day, dawned when I was seven years old. My father and I had lived together as bachelors, so two aunts were the only mothers I ever knew. They lived at Wolcott, New York; together they owned a full dozen of children, and every boy and girl was healthy and full of fun. I always spent Christmas with them, and the first of these holidays I recall is still vivid in my mind, for I upset the whole town. My cousins and I exhausted our collective repertoires of mischief on the day before Christmas; children are usually “too serious.” Suddenly I conceived the idea of disguising myself and discovering how it would feel to be somebody else.

So I blacked my face and in other ways hid my identity until even the family dog failed to recognize me. Then I practiced on several neighbors, not one of whom succeeded in seeing more than skin-deep. Thus encouraged, I called on a young lady of whom I was very fond—and let me remind my readers that a seven-year old boy’s adoration is more whole-hearted, unselfish and intense than that of chaps who are from ten to twenty years older.

Well, I knocked at her door, after dark, intending to ask for something to eat. She herself opened the door, holding a lamp aloft, to see who the caller might be. Forgetting my disguise, I sprang toward her, after the manner of seven-year old lovers. She shrieked, dropped the lamp—which fortunately went out, and fled down several steps to the kitchen. Her cry of alarm startled a large bulldog, whose existence I had forgotten, but whose voice I recognized as he said distinctly, in dog lingo, “I’m after you.” I took to my heels and ran homeward; he was handicapped by a door that had to be opened for him but I had barely got within my room door when he struck it with the impact of a cart-load of rocks and a roar which I can recall whenever I least want to.

In my fright I confessed all and was sent to bed in disgrace. But I remained awake, for it was Christmas eve, and I had resolved to learn whether Santa Claus was the real thing. I got up at four o’clock, went down-stairs, but not a thing did I find. So I went back to bed, overslept, missed the prologue, and the others had the laugh on me. But I was round in time for the distribution of gifts, and as it was a case of twelve to one, all the cousins giving me presents, I felt that but for the dog incident I had got even with this first Christmas I can recall.

While I was a schoolboy at Rochester I was very fond of the theatre and used to “take in” every show that came to town. Generally this cost me nothing, although I was not on the manager’s complimentary list. I would assist Janitor William Halloway light up old Corinthian Hall, where almost all attractions appeared; then after making a pretense of going home, I would conceal myself in the darkest part of the house I could find. This was easy to do, for I was very short; when the performance was about to begin I would bob up serenely, and no one would question me.

My first public appearance on any stage was back of our old house on North Fitzhugh Street, in a barn which my father never used. So some of my schoolmates and I turned the loft into a theatre. We rigged a stage with scenery and arranged for the lighting by making an opening in the roof. Pins were the only kind of currency accepted at the box-office, and I “in my time played many parts”; I would sell tickets at the lower door, keep children waiting to make them believe a great crowd was up-stairs, then I would hurry to the upper door, take the tickets and seat the holders wherever they would see best, if girls, where they would look best. My duties did not end here, for I was stage manager and appeared at every performance in various characters, so I honestly believe the audience got its money’s worth.

My first business venture was in the peddling line; most boys have longings in that direction, but I was one of the few that persisted in spite of all opposition at home and elsewhere. I went from house to house with a basket of things which I was sure would be desired by housekeepers. The results were not as satisfactory as I had expected, housekeepers didn’t really know how much they needed the articles I displayed and explained, yet I got some lessons that have made me a lifelong sympathizer with venders, book agents, canvassers, etc., for I recall distinctly the sensation of having doors closed in my face with some such remark as “Oh, get out of here; we don’t want any.”

On one occasion I rang the bell of a house on Thirty-fourth Street, near Park Avenue, New York. When the maid opened the door two lovely little girls peeped from the fold of her dress and exchanged wondering remarks about “the funny little man.” I offered my wares; the maid said she would see the mistress. The little girls remained, we began to “make friends” and had reached the degree of confidence at which names and ages are compared. The maid returned to say that the mistress did not care to buy, but was sorry for me and had sent me a nickel. Being proud as well as poor, my impulse was to refuse the coin, but I put it in my pocket, saying I would keep it for luck (which it seemed to bring me). Years afterward at a Lambs’ Club dinner a prominent judge said to me, “Mr. Wilder, I want you to meet my wife and daughters. Will you dine with us next Wednesday evening?”

I accepted, but when I climbed the steps of the house something compelled my memory to run backward and when I entered the drawing-room and was presented to the wife and charming daughters of my host it became clear to me that these were the kind-hearted people of long ago—the two little girls who had made friends with “the funny little man,” and the good lady who was sorry for me and sent me a nickel.

I am not a smoker, but I did try a cigar once, and this first cigar is one of my lifelong memories. I encountered this cigar at a dinner given at the Hotel Astoria by the Aborigines Club. The decorations were appropriate in the extreme, the walls being hung with Indian blankets, war bonnets, bows and arrows and many other reminders of the noble red man. The central ornament of the large round table was a small Indian tepee, or tent, in which I, in the full regalia of an Indian brave, was stored before the guests arrived. At a signal given by Col. Tom Ochiltree, after the club and its guests were seated, I lighted a cigar; it was necessary for artistic verisimilitude that smoke could issue from the top of the tepee, and it would not be proper at the beginning of a dinner, for the smoke to be from anything not fragrant. Well, I never hesitated to try anything new, so the smoke went up, but soon afterward I went down—and out. The tepee began to dance; I felt smothered, and without waiting for the signal for my formal and stately appearance I threw open the flap, staggered about the table and saw the forty diners multiply into a hundred and fifty, all of whom engaged in erratic and fantastic gyrations. General Miles who was one of the guests, caught me as I was about to fall from the table. I was carried to another room and put to bed in a dejected state of mind and with a wet towel about my head. It was literally a case of “Lo, the poor Indian.” Such is the history of my first, and—heaven help me—my last cigar.

Although a total abstainer from spirituous liquors—for I can get as lively on cold water as any other man can on whiskey, I have to my credit or discredit, one single “drink.” It was on a railway train, going from Liverpool to London, that I was tempted; unlike Adam and many drunkards, I cannot say “the woman tempted me,” for it was a party of good fellows with whom I was traveling. As is generally known, European sleeping cars are divided into compartments—one for men and the other for women. Toward bedtime a flask of something stronger than water was passed—they called it “a nightcap”; all but I drank from it; I declined when invited, but when some one “dared” me to take a drink it was too much for my pride, so I yielded. There is a story of an Irishman who said to another,

“Have a drink, Moike?”

“No, Oi’ve just had wan.”

“Well, have another. Ye can’t fly wid wan wing.”

I believed this assertion, for I was so exhausted by what I had swallowed that I soon made flying leaps from one berth to another and in other ways so conducted myself as to elicit shouts of laughter from the other men; our party became so noisy that the ladies in the next compartment got into a state of extreme indignation, rapped angrily on the wall, and sent the guard to us with frenzied appeals for silence. The effect of my physical condition was not so disastrous as that of my first cigar, but I caused as much disturbance as a man with a “load” which he should have made two trips for, and I was so grateful that matters were no worse that I resolved that my first drink should also be my last.

My first horse was another man’s. On the site of Hammerstein’s Theatre of Varieties used to be a stable, whose proprietor was so kind to me, when I was a New York schoolboy, that I used to spend much of my spare time there. He owned a little black mare which he allowed me to ride in Central Park. Her age and pedigree were unknown; some men said she had been in the Civil War; others dated her back to the Mexican War; she ought to have been in both for she was full of fighting blood, indicated by defiant waves of a little flag-like tail. I could not possibly fall off, for her back sloped into a natural cradle; her hips and shoulders would have made fine vantage points for wireless telegraphy. Her manner was distinguished by severe dignity, and her walk was slow and stately; nothing could urge her out of it, but occasionally of her own free will she would break into a decorous trot for two or three minutes. She was a capital illustration of Milton’s idea of the female will:—

“When she will, she will, you may depend on’t: And when she won’t she won’t, and there’s the end on’t.”

When she thought she had gone far enough she would calmly disregard any opinion I might have on the subject and return to the stable. I was much like the Irishman who drove a mule up and down a street, backward and forward, until a friend asked:

“I say, Moike, where are ye goin’?”

“How should I know? Ask the mule.”

I must have been the cause of much amusement to beholders as I nestled in the depression of that animal’s back. A facetious Park policeman once hailed me with,

“Say, young fellow? Why don’t you get off and get inside?”

My first appearance as a musician was while I was in a primary school “annex” in the basement of a church which stood where the New Amsterdam Theatre now is. The teachers were so indulgent to me that I gave loose rein to my inclination toward practical joking, and I became an element of mischief which kept that school in a wild but constant ferment. One of the teachers planned a juvenile fife-and-drum corps and requested all boys who could perform on either instrument to step forward. I improved the opportunity to join the fifers, although I could not play a note. In time we made a creditable band; I stood next a boy who played well, and followed his motions industrially, though “faking” all the while. This went on a long time, to the huge delight of the boys who were in the secret; the teacher did not suspect me.

But the end came one day, in the presence of distinguished visitors. The fifers were few; the one I had imitated had remained at home, so I shook in my shoes when the corps was called on for music. The teacher, who was at the piano, missed the customary volume of sound, and looked searchingly at me. When she told me to stand beside her I knew my doom was sealed; I had never professed to be a soloist anyhow. But before I became officially dead I would have some more fun, and play the joke to the end. My short stature brought my instrument about to the level of the teacher’s ear, from which position I let off at intervals a piercing blast which made that poor woman jump as if a wasp had stung her. I knew what was coming, after the visitors went, so beside having fun I was getting my revenge in advance. It is said that when Nemesis catches up with a man he feels her hand on his shoulder, but it was not on my shoulder that the hand of fate, represented by that teacher, was felt, for those were the good old days of corporal punishment in the public schools—the days when an offended teacher could flog a pupil as long as her strength lasted.

If these recollections do not please, at least I am at a safe distance, like the man who sent a poem in to Eugene Field, entitled, “Why Do I Live?” Field replied, “Because you sent your poem by mail.”