Читать книгу The Sunny Side of the Street - Marshall P. Wilder - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Different Ways of Story-telling.—The Slow Story-teller.—Lincoln’s Stories.—Bad Telling of Good Stories.—The Right Way to Tell a Story.—The Humorous, the Comic and the Witty Story.—Artemus Ward, Robert J. Burdette and Mark Twain as Story-tellers.

The ways of story-tellers differ almost as widely and strangely as the ways of politicians—or women—yet every man’s way is the best and only one to him. I know men who consume so much time in unloading a story that they remind me of a ship-captain who had just taken a pilot and was anxious to get into port. The pilot knew all the channels and shoals of the vicinity, and being a cautious old chap he wasn’t going to take any risks, so he backed and filled and crisscrossed so many times that the captain growled: “Hang him! He needs the Whole Atlantic Ocean to turn around in.”

Yet a lot of these long-winded story-tellers “get there”—and they deserve to, not only because a hearty laugh follows, but because hard work deserves its reward. As to that, Abraham Lincoln, long before he became president, and when time was of no consequence, had some stories almost as long as old-fashioned sermons; but nobody left his seat by the stove at the country store, or his leaning place at the post-office, or his chair on the hotel piazza until “Abe” had reached the point. But there never was more than one Abraham Lincoln. To-day a long-winded story-teller can disperse a crowd about as quickly as a man with a bad case of smallpox.

But it isn’t always length that troubles the listener—the way in which a tale is told is the thing, whether the tale itself be good or bad. It is never safe for some people to repeat a good story they have heard, for they may tell it in a fashion that is like being bitten to death by a duck.

I do not claim originality for my own method and material. I simply tell a story, using whatever material comes my way. Often a friend will tell me of something he has seen or heard; I will reconstruct his narrative, without tampering with the facts, yet so that the people of whom he told it will not recognize it.

There is nothing, except advice, of which the world is more generous than stories. Everybody tells them. They mean well; they want to make you laugh, and they deserve credit for their intention. Yet when neighbor Smith or Brown calls you aside, looks as if he was almost bursting with something good, and then gets off a yarn that was funny when he heard it, but in which you can’t discern the ghost of a laugh—why, you can’t help wondering whether Smith’s or Brown’s funny-bone hasn’t dropped off somewhere, without its owner’s knowledge; you also can’t help wishing that he may find it before he buttonholes you again.

It seems to me that the supreme art of telling a story is to tell it quickly and hide the nub so that the hearer’s wits must find it. But it is possible for some people to tell it quickly at the expense of the essential parts, either through forgetfulness or by not knowing them at sight. For example, here is a tale I heard not long ago:

“The other night Ezra Kendall told about an Irishman who had a habit of walking in a graveyard about twelve o’clock at night. Some boys of the neighborhood planned to so dig and conceal a grave that the Irishman would fall into it; another man was to drape himself in a sheet, to scare Mike. The night arrived, the Irishman took his customary walk and fell into the hole prepared for him. A boy in a white sheet arose, and said in a sepulchral voice:

“‘What are you doing in my grave?’

“‘What are you doin’ out of it?’ Mike replied.”

Soon afterward an amateur gave me the story as follows:

“I heard a story the other day by a man named Kendall about a man who went out in a graveyard at night to walk, about twelve o’clock. He fell into a ditch, and another fellow happened along and said, ‘What are you doing out of it?’—or something like that. I know I laughed like the deuce when I heard it.”

“What are you doing in my grave?”

But even when a story has been committed to memory or written in shorthand on a shirt-cuff, to be read off without a word lost or misplaced, much depends upon the teller. Some people’s voices are so effective that they can tell a story in the dark and “make good”; others can’t get through without calling all their features to help, with some assistance from their arms and legs. One man will lead you with his eye alone to the point of a story; another will drawl and stammer as if he had nothing to say, yet startle you into a laugh a minute.

Of course a great deal depends on the story itself. People are too grateful for a laugh to look backward and analyze the story that compelled it; they generally believe that fun is fun, and that is about as much as any one knows of it. The truth is that while there are all kinds of stories there is only one kind of humor.

As a rule, humorous stories are of American origin, comic stories are English, and witty stories are French. The humorous story depends upon the incidents and the manner of telling; comic and witty stories depend upon the matter. The humorous story may be spun out to any length; it may wander about as it pleases, and arrive at nowhere in particular; but the comic or witty story must be brief, and end in a sharp point. The humorous story bubbles along continually; the other kinds burst. The humorous tale is entirely a work of art, and only an artist can tell it; while the witty or comic story—oh, any one who knows it can tell it.

The act of telling a humorous story—by word of mouth, understand, not in print—was created in America, and has remained at home, in spite of many earnest endeavors to domesticate it abroad, and even to counterfeit it. It is generally told gravely, the teller doing his best to disguise his attempt to inflict anything funny on his listeners; but the man with a comic story generally tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he ever heard, and he is the first one to laugh—when he reaches the end.

One of the dreadfulest inflictions that suffering humanity ever endures is the result of amateur efforts to transform the humorous into the comic, or vice versa. It reminds one of Frank Stockton’s tearful tale of what came of one of the best things in Pickwick by being translated into classical Greek and then brought back into English.

The Rev. Robert J. Burdette, who used to write columns of capital humor for The Burlington Hawkeye and told scores of stories superbly, made his first visit to New York about twenty years ago, and was at once spirited to a notable club where he told stories leisurely until half the hearers ached with laughter and the other half were threatened with apoplexy. Every one present declared it the red letter night of the club, and members who had missed it came around and demanded the stories at second-hand. Some efforts were made to oblige them, but without avail, for the tellers had twisted their recollections of the stories into comic jokes; so they hunted the town for Burdette to help them out of their muddle.

The late Artemus Ward, who a generation ago carried a tidal wave of humor from Maine to California, with some generous overflows each side of its course, had a long serious face and a drawling voice; so when he lectured in churches, as he frequently did, a late-comer might have mistaken him for a minister, though not for very long. He would drawl along without giving the slightest indication of what was coming. When the joke was unloaded and the audience got hold of it he would look up with seemingly innocent wonder as to what people were laughing at. This expression of his countenance always brought another laugh. He could get laughs out of nothing, by mixing the absurd and the unexpected, and then backing the combination with a solemn face and earnest manner. For instance, it was worth a ten-mile walk after dark on a corduroy road to hear him say: “I once knew a man in New Zealand who hadn’t a tooth in his head”—here he would pause for some time, look reminiscent, and continue, “And yet he could beat a base-drum better than any other man I ever knew.”

Mark Twain is another famous humorist who can use a serious countenance and hesitating voice with wonderful effect in a story. His tale of “The Golden Arm” was the best thing of its kind I ever heard—when told as he himself told it—but everything depended on suddenness and unexpectedness of climax. Here it is, as he gave it:—

“Once ’pon a time dey wuz a mons’us mean man, en’ he live ’way out in de prairie all ’lone by himself, ’cep’n he had a wife. En’ bimeby she died, en’ he took en’ toted her ’way out da’ in de prairie en’ buried her. Well, she had a golden arm all solid gold, f’om de shoulder down. He wuz pow’ful mean—pow’ful; en’ dat night he couldn’t sleep, ’coze he wanted dat golden arm so bad.

“When it come midnight he couldn’t stan’ it no mo’, so he got up, he did, en’ tuk his lantern en’ shoved out troo de storm en’ dug her up en’ got de golden arm; en’ he bent his head down ’gin de wind, en’ plowed en’ plowed en’ plowed troo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop” (make a considerable pause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) “en’ say:

“My lan’, what’s dat? En’ he listen, en’ listen, en’ de wind say” (set your teeth together, and imitate the wailing and wheezing sing-song of the wind): “‘Buzz-z-zzz!’ en’ den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a voice—he hear a voice all mix up in de win’—can’t hardly tell ’em ’part: ‘Bzzz-zzz—w-h-o—g-o-t—m-y g-o-l-d-e-n arm?”’ (You must begin to shiver violently now.)

“She’ll fetch a dear little yelp—”

“En’ he begin to shiver en’ shake, en’ say: ‘Oh, my! Oh, my lan’!’ En’ de win’ blow de lantern out, en’ de snow en’ de sleet blow in his face en’ ’most choke him, en’ he start a-plowin’ knee-deep toward home, mos’ dead, he so sk’yeerd, en’ pooty soon he hear de voice again, en” (pause) “it ’us comin’ after him: ‘Buzzz-zzz—w-h-o—g-o-t m-y g-o-l-d-e-n—arm?’

“When he git to de pasture he hear it agin—closter, now, en’ a comin’ back dab in de dark en’ de storm” (repeat the wind and the voice). “When he git to de house he rush up-stairs, en’ jump in de bed, en’ kiver up head en’ years, en’ lay dah a-shiverin’ en’ a-shakin’, en’ den ’way out dah he hear it agin, en’ a-comin’! En’ bimeby he hear” (pause—awed; listening attitude) “—at—pat—pat—pat—hit’s a-comin’ up-stairs! Den he hear de latch, en’ he knows it’s in de room.

“Den pooty soon he knows it’s—standin’ by de bed!” (Pause.) “Den he knows it’s a-bendin’ down over him,—en’ he cain’t sca’cely git his breaf! Den—den he seem to feel somethin’ c-o-l-d, right down neah agin’ his head!” (Pause.)

“Den de voice say, right at his year: ‘W-h-o g-o-t m-y g-o-l-d-e-n arm?’” You must wail it out plaintively and accusingly; then you stare steadily and impressively into the face of the farthest-gone auditor—a girl, preferably—and let that awe-inspiring pause begin to build itself in the deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right length, jump suddenly toward that girl and yell: “‘You’ve got it!’”

If you have got the pause right, she’ll fetch a dear little yelp and spring right out of her shoes; but you must get the pause right, and you will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain thing you ever undertook.