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The Season Reopens—I meet the Yellow Breeches and become a Utility Man—Mr. Murdock Escapes Fits and my "Luck" Proves to be Extra Work.

The exuberance of my joy over the opening of the new season was somewhat modified by my close relations with a certain pair of knee-breeches—and I wish to say right here that when Gail Hamilton declared inanimate things were endowed with powers of malice and general mischievousness, she was not exaggerating, but speaking strictly by the card.

Some men think her charge was made solely against collar-buttons, whose conduct the world admits is detrimental to good morals; but they are wrong; she included many things in her charge. Consider the innocent-looking rocking-chair, for instance. When it strikes does not the rocker always find your ankle-joint? In darkness or in light did it ever miss that exact spot? Never! And then how gently it will sway, while you rear and stamp, and, with briny eyes, say—well, things you should not say, things you would not say but for the malice of an inanimate thing.

Perhaps the quickest way to win your sympathy is to tell you at once that those knee-breeches were made of yellow plush, bright yellow—I thought that would move you! There was a coat, too—yes, things can always be worse, you see; and when I was crowded into that awful livery I felt like hopping about in a search for hemp-seed, I looked so like an enormous canary that had outgrown its cage.

Had Gail Hamilton known those breeches she would have said: "Here is total depravity in yellow plush!"

You see, the way they got their grip on me originally was this. There had been two utility men engaged for the company, but one of them was taken sick and could not come to the city at all, and the other one made the manager sick, and was discharged for utter incompetency, and that very night there was required a male servant who could in the first act summon the star to the presence of his employer, with a name hard to pronounce; and in the last act, when the star had become the boss of the whole affair, could announce the coming of his carriage.

"Could I do those two lines?"

"Oh, yes!" I joyfully announced my ability and my willingness; "but I had no clothes."

And then, instead of turning the part into a girl attendant, in an evil moment the manager bethought himself of some wardrobe he had purchased from a broken up or down opera manager, and search discovered the yellow-plush breeches, coat, and white wig. I put them on—the canary was hatched!

I played the part of two announcements; I walked out clear from the hip, like a boy—and I became the utility man of the company, and the tormented victim of the yellow breeches.

I was a patient young person and willing to endure much for art's sake, but that wig was too much. Built of white horse-hair mounted upon linen, its heat and weight were fearful. It had evidently been constructed for a big, round, perfectly bumpless head. It came down to my very eyebrows on top, and at the sides, instead of terminating just at the hair-line above the ear, it swallowed up my ears, covered my temples, and extended clear to my eyes, giving me the appearance of being harnessed up in large white blinders—like a shying horse. In common humanity the manager released me from the wig and let me wear powder, but the clutch of the yellow breeches remained unbroken.

As in their opera days (I don't know what they sang, but they were probably in the chorus) they had wandered through the world, knowing all continental Europe and the South Americas, so now they wandered through dramatic literature. One night accompanying me on to deliver a note to Madame de Pompadour, the next night those same yellow breeches and I skipped back to Louis XIV., and admitted many lords and ladies, with tongue-tying names, to that monarch's presence, only to skip forward again, in a few days, to bring in mail-bags to snuffy rural gentry, under almost any of the Georges. Though the lace ruffles and jabots of the French period might give place to a plain red waistcoat for the Georgian English household, the canary breeches were always there, ready to burst into song at any moment, to basely fire off a button or break a buckle just at the moment of my entrance-cue, treacherously suggesting, by their easy wrinkling while I stood, that I might just as well sit down and rest my tired feet, and the moment I attempted to lower myself to a chair, beginning such a mad cracking and snapping in every seam as brought me upright with a bound and the settled conviction that weariness was preferable to public shame.

I am glad to this day that the stage-door was always kept locked, for, had it been open, heaven only knows where those cosmopolitan breeches might have taken me—they were such experienced travellers that a trip to Havana or to the City of Mexico would have struck them as a nice little jaunt.

My pleasantest moments as utility man came to me when, in a very brief white cotton Roman shirt and sandals, I led the shouts for the supers, who are proverbially dumb creatures before the audience, though noisy enough behind the scenes. So all the furious and destructive mobs of that season were led on by a little whipper-snapper who yelled like a demon with a copper-lined throat and then stood about afterward peacefully making tatting.

It must not be thought that I had in the first place a monopoly of the small parts; far from it, but the company being rather short of utility people, if the ballet-girls could play speaking servants, it not only saved a salary or two to the manager, but it was of immense advantage to the girls themselves. Then, too, Mr. Ellsler was particularly anxious to avoid any charge of favoritism; so in the earliest days these little parts were given out turn and turn about, without choice or favor—indeed, two or three times my short dress caused me to be passed over in favor of long dresses and done-up hair. But a few disasters, caused by failure of memory or loss of nerve on the part of these competitors, gave the pas to me, and it must be remembered that these lapses and mishaps, though amusing to recall, were absolutely disastrous at the time, ruining, as they did, the scene, if not the entire act, in which they occurred.

With special vividness I recall the first one of these happenings. "Romeo and Juliet" was the play, and Balthazar the part. I longed for it because, aside from his fine speech, he was really quite important and had to show tenderness, anxiety, and determination during the time Romeo addressed him. I pleaded with my eyes, but I could not, dared not speak up and ask for the part, as did Annie, who was older than I. The star and prompter exchanged a few low-spoken sentences. I caught the condemnatory word "child," and knew my fate was sealed—long skirts and turned-up hair had won. However, my wound was salved when the page to Paris was given me with two lines to speak.

Now there is no one but Romeo on the stage when Balthazar enters, which, of course, gives him great prominence. His first speech, of some fifty or fifty-six words, is simply expressed, not at all involved, yet from the moment Annie received the part she became a broken, terror-stricken creature. Many people when nervous bite their nails, but Annie, in that state of mind, had a funny habit of putting her hand to the nape of her neck and rubbing her hair upward. She had a pretty dress of her own, but she had to borrow a wig, and, like all borrowed wigs, it failed to fit; it was too small, and at last, when the best had been done, its wobbly insecurity must have been terrifying.

The girl's figure was charming, and as she stood in the entrance in her boy's costume, I remarked: "You look lovely, Annie!"

Silently she turned her glassy, unseeing eyes toward me, while she shifted her weight swiftly from one foot to the other, opening and shutting her hands spasmodically. Romeo was on, and he joyously declared:

"My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne!"

He then described his happy dream—I heard the words:

"When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!"

And there Annie staggered forward on to the stage.

"News from Verona!" cried Romeo: "How now, Balthazar?"

Oh, well might he ask "How now?" for, shifting from foot to foot, this stricken Balthazar was already feeling at the nape of her neck, and instead of answering the questions of Romeo about Juliet with the words:

"Then she is well, and nothing can be ill,

Her body sleeps in Capets' monument,

And her immortal part with angels lives;

I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,

And presently took post to tell it you:

O pardon me for bringing these ill news,

Since you did leave it for my office, sir,"

these were the startling statements he made in gulps and gasps:

"O-Oh, y-yes! Sh-e's very well—and nothing's wrong;

[titter from audience, and amazement on Romeo's face]

H-her immortal parts are in a vault,

I—I saw them laid there, and come to tell you!"

Perhaps she would have got to the right words at last, but just there the wig, pushed too hard, lurched over on one side, giving such a piratical look to the troubled face that a very gale of laughter filled the house, and she retired then and there, though in the next speech she should have refused to leave Romeo:

"Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus:

Your looks are pale and wild,"

yet now, because his looks were red and wild, she left without permission, and the enraged instead of grieving Romeo had no one to receive his order:

"——get me ink and paper,

And hire post horses."

So when, in his confusion, he went on continuing his lines as they were written, and, addressing empty space, fiercely bade Balthazar:

"——get thee gone!"

and in unintentionally suggestive tones promised:

"——I'll be with thee straight!"

the audience laughed openly and heartily at the star himself.

"Yes, sir," he snorted later on to Mr. Ellsler, "by heaven, sir! they laughed at me—AT ME! I have been made ridiculous by your measly little Balthazar—who should have been a man, sir! Yes, sir, a man, whom I could have chastised for making a fool of himself, sir! and a d——d fool of me, sir!"

For the real tragedy of that night lay in the wound given to the dignity of Mr. F. B. Conway, who played a measured and stately Romeo to the handsome and mature Juliet of his wife.

We had no young Juliets just then, they were all rather advanced, rather settled in character for the reckless child of Verona. But every lady who played the part declared at rehearsal that Shakespeare had been foolish to make Juliet so young—that no woman had learned enough to understand and play her before middle age at least.

Mrs. Bradshaw, one day, said laughingly to me: "By your looks you seemed to disagree with Mrs. Ellsler's remarks this morning. She, too, thinks a woman is not fit for Juliet until she has learned much of nature and the world."

"But," I objected, lamely, "while they are learning so much about the world they are forgetting such a lot about girlhood!"

Her laughter confused and distressed me. "I can't say it!" I cried, "but you know how very forward Juliet is in speech? If she knew, that would become brazen boldness! It isn't what she knows, but what she feels without knowing that makes the tragedy!" And what Mrs. Bradshaw meant by muttering, "Babes and sucklings—from the mouths of babes and sucklings," I could not make out; perhaps, however, I should say that my mate Annie played few blankverse parts after Balthazar.

Then, one Saturday night, we were all corralled by the prompter before we could depart for home, and were gravely addressed by the manager—the whole thing being ludicrously suggestive of the reading of the riot act; but after reminding us that Mr. James E. Murdoch would begin his engagement on Monday night, that the rehearsals would be long and important, he proceeded to poison the very source of our Sunday's rest and comfort by fell suggestions of some dire mishap threatening the gentleman through us. We exchanged wondering and troubled glances. What could this mean?

Mr. Ellsler went on: "You all know how precise Mr. Murdoch has always been about your readings; how exacting about where you should stand at this word or at that; how quickly his impatience of stupidity has burst into anger; but you probably do not know that since his serious sickness he is more exacting than ever, and has acquired the habit, when much annoyed, of—of—er—well, of having a fit."

"O-h!" it was unanimous, the groan that broke from our oppressed chests. Stars who gave us fits we were used to, but the star who went into fits himself—good heavens! good heavens!

Rather anxiously, Mr. Ellsler continued: "These fits, for all I know, may spell apoplexy—anyway, he is too frail a man to safely indulge in them; so, for heaven's sake, do nothing to cross him; be on time, be perfect—dead letter-perfect in your parts; write out all his directions if necessary; grin and bear anything, so long as he doesn't have a fit! Good-night."

The riot act had been read, the mob dispersed, but the nerve of the most experienced was shaken by the prospect of acting a whole week with a gentleman who, at any moment, might get mad enough to have a fit.

Think, then, what must have been the state of mind of my other ballet-mate, Hattie, who, in her regular turn, had received a small part, but of real importance, and who had to address her lines to Mr. Murdoch himself. Poor girl, always nervous, this new terror made her doubly so. She roused the star's wrath, even at rehearsal.

"Speak louder!" (imperatively). "Will you speak louder?" (furiously). "Perhaps, in the interest of those who will be in front to-night, I may suggest that you speak loud enough to be heard by—say—the first row!" (satirically). Now a calmly controlled body is generally the property of a trained actress, not of a raw ballet-girl, and Hattie's restless shifting about and wriggling drove him into such a rage that, to the rest of us, he seemed to be trembling with inchoate fits, and I saw the property man get his hat and take his stand by the stage-door, ready to fly for the doctor, or, as he called him, "the fit sharp."

She, too, was to appear as a page. She was to enter hurriedly—always a difficult thing for a beginner to do. She was to address Mr. Murdoch in blank verse—a more difficult thing—and implore him to come swiftly to prevent bloodshed, as a hostile meeting was taking place between young Count So-and-so and "your nephew, sir!"

This news was to shock the uncle so that he would stand dazed for a moment, when the page, looking off the stage, should cry:

"Ah, you are too late, sir, already their blades are out!

See how the foils writhe," etc.

With a cry, the uncle should recover himself, and furiously order the page to

"——call the watch!"

Alas! and alas! when the night, the play, the act, the cue came, Hattie, as handsome a boy as you could wish to see, went bravely on, as quickly, too, as her terror-chilled legs could carry her, but when she got there had no word to say—no, not one!

In a sort of icy rage, Mr. Murdoch gave her her line, speaking very low, of course:

"My lord—my lord! I do beseech you haste,

Else here is murder done!"

But the poor girl, past prompting properly, only caught wildly at the sense of the speech, and gasped out:

"Come on, quick!"

She saw his foot tapping with rage—thought his fits might begin that way, and madly cried, at the top of her voice:

"Be quick—see—see! publicly they cross their financiers!"

then, through the laughter, rushed from the stage, crying, with streaming tears: "I don't care if he has a dozen fits! He has just scared the words out of my head with them!"

And truly, when Mr. Murdoch, trembling with weakness, excitement, and anger, staggered backward, clasping his brow, everyone thought the dreaded fit had arrived.

Next day he reproachfully informed Mr. Ellsler that he could not yet see blank verse and the King's English (so he termed it) murdered without suffering physically as well as mentally from the shocking spectacle. That he was an old man now, and should not be exposed to such tests of temper.

Yes, as he spoke, he was an old man—pallid, lined, weary-faced; but that same night he was young Mirabel—in spirit, voice, eye, and movement. Fluttering through the play, "Wine Works Wonders," in his satins and his laces—young to the heart—young with the immortal youth of the true artist.

Both these girls spoke plain prose well enough, and always had their share of the parts in modern plays; but, as all was grist to my individual mill, most of the blankverse and Shakespearean small characters came to me. Nor was I the lucky girl they believed me; there was no luck about it. My small success can be explained in two words—extra work. When they studied their parts they were contented if they could repeat their lines perfectly in the quiet of their rooms, and made no allowance for possible accidents or annoyances with power to confuse the mind and so cause loss of memory and ensuing shame. But I was a careful young person, and would not trust even my own memory without first taking every possible precaution. Therefore the repeating of my lines correctly in my room was but the beginning of my study of them. In crossing the crowded street I suddenly demanded of myself my lines. At the table, when all were chatting, I again made sudden demand for the same. If on either occasion my heart gave a jump and my memory failed to present the exact word, I knew I was not yet perfect, and I would repeat those lines until, had the very roof blown off the theatre at night, I should not have missed one. Then only could I turn my attention to the acting of them—oh, bless you, yes! I quite thought I was acting, and at all events I was doing the next best thing, which was trying to act.

But a change was coming to me, an experience was approaching which I cannot explain to myself, neither has anyone else explained it for me; but I mention it because it made such a different thing of dramatic life for me. Aye, such a difficult thing as well. Looking back to that time I see that all my childhood, all my youth, was crowded into that first year on the stage. There I first knew liberty of speech, freedom of motion. There I shared in the general brightness and seemed to live by right divine, not by the grudging permission of some task-mistress of my mother. I had had no youth before, for in what should have been babyhood I had been a troubled little woman, most wise in misery. In freedom my crushed spirits rose with a bound. The mimicry, the adaptability of childhood asserted themselves—I pranced about the stage happily but thoughtlessly.

It seems to me I was like a blind puppy, born into warmth and comfort and enjoying both, without any fear of the things it could not see. As I have said before, I knew no fear, I had no ambition, I was just happy, blindly happy; and now, all suddenly, I was to exchange this freedom of unconsciousness for the slavery of consciousness.