CHAPTER X. MELODRAMA BECOMES COMEDY

Every race gets a nickname in America. A Frenchman is a “frog,” a negro

a “coon” and a Welshman a “goat.” All the schoolboys who were not Welsh

delighted in teasing us by applying the uncomplimentary nickname. This

once resulted at the Sharon operahouse, in turning a dramatic episode

into a howling farce.

I was acting as a super in the sensational drama She, by H. Rider

Haggard. Two Englishmen were penetrating the mysterious jungles of

Africa, and I was their native guide and porter. They had me all blacked

up like a negro minstrel, but this wasn't a funny show, it was a drama

of mystery and terror. While I was guiding the English travelers through

the jungle of the local stage, we penetrated into the land of the

wall-eyed cannibals.

The cannibals captured me and prepared to eat me in full view of the

audience while the Englishmen behind the trees looked on in horror. The

cannibals, who were also supers led by an actor of the “troupe,” set

up a hot pot to boil my bones in. I was bound hand and foot, while the

cannibals, armed with spears, danced around me in a heathen ceremony,

chanting a voodoo chant and reciting a rigmarole by which cannibals

are supposed to make their human feast on a sacred rite. As they danced

about me in a circle, they sang:

“Is it an ox? Him-yah, him-yah.” And they jabbed their spears into me.

Some of the supers jabbed me pretty hard, among them Babe Durgon, who

delighted in tormenting me.

“Is it a sheep? Him-yah, him-yah.” Again they jabbed me, and I was so

mad I was cussing them under my breath.

“Is it a pig? Him-yah, him-yah.”

The audience was breathless with tense excitement.

“Is it a goat?”

The entire gallery broke into a whirlwind roar: “Yes! yes! He's a goat.”

Laughter rocked the audience. They all knew I was Welsh and saw the

joke. The horror and suspense had been so great that when it broke with

comic relief the house was really hysterical. It stopped the show.

I played supernumerary parts in many shows that winter including Richard

III and other Shakespearean plays. At the battle of Bosworth field where

Richard cries: “A horse, a horse; my kingdom for a horse,” the supers in

the army were clattering their swords on the opposing shields in a great

hubbub and shouting, “Hay, hay hay!” I was of a thrifty turn of mind,

and said: “Hold on, boys. Don't order too much hay until we see whether

he gets the horse or not.”

A hypnotist came to the opera-house and I volunteered to be hypnotized.

He couldn't hypnotize me. I felt rather bad about it. I was out of the

show. Later I learned that all of the “Perfessor's” best subjects came

with him under salary, and the local boys who made good were faking like

the professionals. The whole thing was a cheat and I had not caught on.

I was too serious-minded to think of faking. But several of the boys

took to it naturally, and among them was Babe Durgon, the bully. He

could be hypnotized and I couldn't. But several years later I had the

satisfaction of “hypnotizing” him myself, as I told about in my first

chapter.

Although I always regarded myself as a humorist, the impression I made

on my comrades was that of a serious and religious fellow. I quoted the

Bible to them so often that they nicknamed me “the Welsh Parson.” I was

the general errand boy of the town. Everybody knew me. And when there

was a job of passing hand-bills for the operahouse, or ringing bells for

auction sales, I always got the job. Every nickel that rolled loose in

the town landed in my pocket and I took it home to mother. Mother was my

idol and what she said was law. One night I heard the band playing

and started down-town. Mother told me to be sure to be in bed by nine

o'clock. I found that a minstrel show had been thrown out of its regular

route by a flood and was playing our town unexpectedly. The stage hands

knew me and passed me in. I was seeing a high-priced show for nothing.

But when it came nine o'clock, I went home. I told my mother that I had

walked out of the most gorgeous minstrel show. She asked me why and I

told her because she wanted me to be in bed by nine o'clock.

“Why, Jimmy,” she said, “I wanted you to be in bed so you wouldn't be in

bad company. It would have been all right for you to have stayed at the

minstrel show. All I want to know is that you are in good company.”

I guess mother thought I was a bit soft, but I had seen the best part of

the show, as in those days the curtain rose at seven forty-five.

Minstrel shows were the greatest delight of my youth. I learned to dance

and could sing all the songs and get off the jokes. Dupree & Benedict's

were the first minstrels I ever saw. I marched in their parade and

carried the drum. George Evans (Honey Boy) was a life-long friend. We

were born within three miles of each other in Wales and came to this

country at about the same time.