Woven with the Ship: A Novel of 1865

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

  A VAUDEVILLE TURN

  COMEDY

  "My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on, Judge not the play before the play is done: The plot has many changes: every day Speaks a new scene: the last act crowns the play."

  FRANCIS QUARLES

  The most popular theatre in America, according to the advertisements,where nothing was played but the "continuous," was packed from parquetto top gallery with a perspiring crowd of pleasure-seekers one hotAugust night. The papers had said--_via_ the society columns, ofcourse--that everybody was out of town for the summer, andincidentally, therefore, that all the ordinary places of amusementwere closed, except _Les Varietes_. However, the city was not quitedeserted; for, of the anchored ninety-nine hundredths of thepopulation, all who could do so, apparently in despair of otheramusement, and attracted by the popular prices, had crowded into "thehome of refined vaudeville," as it was called on the programme. Thehouse was fluttering with fans; most of the spectators and actors feltas though they were slowly deliquescing in perspiration, but, on thewhole, the audience seemed to be enjoying it.

  The usual _melange_--how natural and appropriate it seems to useFrench words when treating of the vaudeville!--of entertainmentsentirely suited even to a Mrs. Boffin, become a world-wide type ofmatronly modesty and virtue--had been provided by the high-minded andscrutinizing management. Ladies in short skirts capered nimbly overthe stage to the "lascivious pleasing" of the banjo; gentlemen withone leg rode marvellously endowed bicycles in impossible ways;tumblers frisked and frolicked about without the slightest regardeither for temperature or gravitation; happy tramps,--at least theannouncements said they were happy,--whose airy, carefully tatteredgarments were in entire consonance with the heated atmosphere,delivered themselves of speeches full of rare old humor and fairlybristling with Boeotian witticisms. There were men singers and womensingers, musical cranks, freak piano-players, monologue artists,burlesquers, and then a little play,--at least they said it was aplay.

  So with these multifarious stirrers-up-of-varied-emotions the eveningdrew toward its close. Finally, just before the biograph went throughits eye-shattering, soul-distressing performance, the little boy whowalked solemnly across the stage before each turn with such a queer,self-important strut that the regular patrons--those who came earlyand brought their luncheon--felt disappointed when he took a vacation,set out upon the racks, provided on either side of the proscenium archfor the purpose, a tablet bearing the name "Mademoiselle Helene."

  When the curtain rose thereafter the stage was set for a woodland. Thelights were turned thrillingly low, so that the expectant audiencewere scarcely aware how the tiny little body, whom they saw standingin the full blaze of the calcium-light ray suddenly flashed upon herfrom the mysterious apparatus in the balcony, had reached the centreof the stage.

  The little miss was apparently not more than six years old. She hadshort white stockings on her plump little pink legs, and her daintyfeet were covered with black ankle ties. She wore fluffy little pinkand white skirts like a ballet-dancer, and with her little bare armsshe blew graceful kisses to the audience as she bounded before it.With her sweet blue eyes, her golden hair, she made a beautifulpicture, as she pirouetted around the stage on the tips of her tenlittle toes, kicking up her little legs, bending her back, wrigglingher skirts in imitation of older and more sophisticatedperformers,--to put it mildly,--which would have been more amusing ifit had not been a little pitiful.

  So little, so cool, so sweet, so fresh, so innocent she seemed, thatin the hot theatre on that hot night no wonder a great, rapturous"oh-h-h!" of delight and approbation burst from feminine lips--andmasculine ones, too, if the truth be told. As the little maid inperfect silence continued her dance, exclamations of admiration rosefrom the audience, and when she finished her first turn and stoppedpanting, bowing, hand-kissing, the theatre rang with hand-clapping.Though some of the fathers and mothers in the audience, with thoughtsof their own little folk, murmured under breaths, "What a pity! Sheought to be at home in bed!" the witchery of her movements and thecharm of her face were as strong upon them as they were upon theothers; more so--they had children of their own.

  As she stopped and stood alone on the large stage after her final_pas_, bowing again and again and throwing more kisses in that sweetlyinfantile way, there was a commotion among the people enjoying"standing room only" in the passage-way at the back of the parquet. Atall, broad-shouldered man forced himself through the crowd, in spiteof angry remonstrances and rude resistance, and ran down the aisle.His pale face was working with emotion, his eyes shining.

  "Nellie!" he cried as he ran, in a voice that vibrated above theapplause in the theatre. "Don't you know me? Nellie! Nellie!" hecontinued, stretching out his arms toward the little girl.

  The noise of clapping hands died away as if by magic, as they heardthe cry, full of love and longing. The man stopped in full view of thegreat audience. The little girl, hearing the cry, with one hand stillin the air where the kisses had stopped half blown away, looked at theman over the footlights, half-dazed, apparently, by the situation.

  "Papa! Papa!" she cried, suddenly awakening to life and boundingtoward him. "Papa, take me home!" Every soul in the hushed theatreheard the words in the sweet treble of childhood.

  "Papa! Papa!" she cried, "take me home!"]

  "Where's your mother, baby?" asked the man, apparently oblivious ofeverything but the little lass.

  "She's dead, papa," answered the child, brushing her little handacross her eyes. "I'm so glad you've found me. Oh, take me away!"

  "I will! I will!" said the man, desperately, forcing his way towardthe stage.

  Two of the ushers and an officer had hurried down the aisle and seizedhim by the arms. The piano-player rose from his neglected instrumentand caught him also.

  "Let me go!" roared the man, shoving them aside with superhumanstrength, apparently. "She's my daughter, I tell you! I will haveher!"

  The lights on the stage were suddenly turned up. A hard-featured mancame forward and grasped the child by the arm.

  "What's all this row?" he cried; "I'm the manager of MademoiselleHelene. Her mother left the child with me. She gets good food andclothes and is well taken care of. What more does she want?"

  "I want my papa! Oh, I want you!" cried the little girl.

  "And you shall have me, dear."

  "No," said the man on the stage, roughly, "she shall not!"

  "Gentlemen," cried the other man, turning about and facing theaudience. "Friends, there is my little daughter. Her mother ran awayfrom me, left me. I haven't seen Nellie for two years. I just happenedin here to-night and recognized her, and----"

  "Give him his daughter," broke out a burly man in the third row of theparquet, rising in his seat as he spoke and shaking his fist at theman on the stage, "or----"

  The house was in a perfect uproar now. The women in tears, the menscreaming with flushed, excited faces.

  "Let him have her!"

  "Give her up!"

  "Let the child go with her father!"

  "Shame! Shame!"

  "Mob him!"

  "Lynch the wretch!"

  The man on the stage fairly quailed before this outburst of popularpassion; the ushers and officer had released the other man, but beforehe could take a step the local manager appeared on the stage in themidst of the confusion. Lifting his hand to the crowd, he finallysucceeded in stilling the tumult.

  "I have heard it all!" he cried, as soon as he could commandattention. "This theatre don't want to part father and daughter. Givethe child to the man. And get out of here!" he added, turning fiercelyand shaking his fist at the hard-featured man on the stage.

  The latter let go the child's arm and shrank back in the wings,followed by the jeers of the crowd. Then the local manager took thelittle girl in his arms, stepped over the footlights, and handed herto the man who had claimed her.

  He lifted her up, kissed her, and pressed her tenderly to his breast.She clasped her litt
le arms around his neck and dropped her head onhis shoulder with a low cry of content.

  "Thank you, sir!" said the man to the manager; "thank you all, ladiesand gentlemen! Oh, I have got her back again!"

  He turned with his precious burden and walked rapidly down the aisle,passed out of the door, and disappeared in the night.

  The house rang with cheers. Men and women stood up and clapped andapplauded and yelled like mad. When a semblance of order was restored,the local manager dismissed the audience. As he said, none of theperformers were in condition to go on further after the little tragedythey had witnessed, which had ended so happily, after all. Nor was theaudience in a mood for any more vaudeville after the bit of real lifein which they had participated.

  * * * * *

  "How did it go off, Bill?" asked the brown-haired man of the localmanager in the office half an hour later.

  "Fine!" said the manager. "It was the greatest act I ever saw. You didsplendidly, old man. I congratulate you."

  "It has only one disadvantage," remarked the hard-featured man: "youcan only do it once in each town. It's only good for one-nightstands."

  "And didn't Nellie do it well?" returned the other.

  "She did that," replied the local manager; "she couldn't have done itbetter! It almost made me weep myself."

  "That child's a born actress," said the hard-featured man; "she'll bea treasure some day, sure."

  "She's a treasure now," replied the local manager. "What a pity wecouldn't do it over to-night!"

  "Do you know, men," said the brown-haired man, "I feel real guiltysomehow. Seems like such a fraud----"

  "Nonsense, Bill!" interrupted the manager, yet with a note of sympathyin his tone.

  "Rot!" commented hard features, not the least comprehending.

  "Where is she now?" asked the other, shaking his head dubiously, stilluncertain and unconvinced.

  "Her father and mother took her home right after the performance, andI hope she is fast asleep in her bed by this time, like a good littlegirl," continued the manager. "Here's your check, Bill. Be on handMonday night when we open at X----"