Four days after that dress rehearsal for the Prince, B.B.W.W. had its official opening, and if there had been lots of excitement in London prior to this, it was nothing like what happened after, for like I said it was the fiftieth year Queen Victoria had sat on the throne and everybody was celebrating anyway, and now the Wild West seemed a part of the Golden Jubilee, for both sides forgot our old quarrel with the English to remember America had started as a colony of the British Empire, so the Indians could be seen as originally theirs too, to be added to the blacks, yellows, browns, and them South Sea islanders that I heard a friend of the Prince’s say was the color of a “well-roasted sweet potato.”
But the highest point of all come five days after that opening show, for good as his word, Prince Bertie had told his Ma it was the greatest thing he ever seen and though her opinion of him was supposedly low, I guess she believed if he knew about anything it was being entertained—which might of been discouraging at another time, but in fact the Queen had been widowed a quarter of a century earlier and not having had to earn a living, could be even more devoted to her dead husband than Mrs. Libbie Custer, so she had mostly stayed inside her palaces all them years, in mourning. Now she had sent a delegation of her own queeries to Cody asking him kindly if he would bring his company to a “command” performance at Windsor Castle, which is how English royalty had to put the matter, not having any actual power (like Indian chiefs, incidentally), but Buffalo Bill replied, with all respect, that the exhibition was far too big to be moved from the grounds at Earl’s Court.
Them queeries got all flustered at having to return with such an answer, for English entertainers never said no to the Queen, but Cody considered himself an ambassador and educator, not a showman, so stuck to his guns, and wonder of wonders, Queen Victoria decided for the first time in more than twenty-five years to be seen in public and to do so at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West!
She done even more than that. At the beginning of every performance, one of the cowboys rode out into the arena carrying the American flag. Salsbury and some of the others was worried that doing so might insult the current head of the country what lost us as a colony a century before, but once again Cody held to his principles and as usual he was right to do so, for when Old Glory appeared in front of Victoria she not only weren’t offended, but rose to her feet and bowed, and the rest of the big party what accompanied her in the flower-bedecked royal box did the same if they was ladies and took off their hats if men or saluted if in uniform.
To which the entire company of the Wild West, including the Indians and the Mexican vaqueros and everybody else sent up a cheer so loud I bet it was heard all over London. I don’t think there was anything greater for Cody in his whole career, and afterwards he couldn’t stop saying how it was the Wild West what finally buried the hatchet of the Revolutionary War.
Now the Queen’s flunkies had said she could stay only one hour flat, so we should make sure the performance never went a minute over, but no attention was paid to that limit, either by our company or by Victoria, and we give the full program and she not only stayed for what ended up half again that long, but after the big finale she asked to meet the principal performers, amongst them Annie of course, and Lillian, who showed the Queen how her Winchester worked, and a number of Indians foremost of which was Red Shirt, with me interpreting.
When it was our turn, I forgot the instructions the queeries had give to Arizona John Burke to pass along to everybody about how to act when in front of the Queen, bowing or whatnot and waiting for her to talk first and when leaving to do so while not turning your back, for I always been polite to ladies, especially when they was old, and she was that all right as well as being real fat, but she had a real sweet face of just the kind you’d want in your own Grandma. What I ain’t said up to now was the important thing about her for me: when she stood up for the American flag, I seen she was as short as a real young girl. It was heartening to know a person not even as tall as myself could rule the British Empire, and a personal surprise given my acquaintanceship with her great big son.
Anyway, I just stepped up to the royal box and says, “How do you do, ma’am, my name is Jack Crabb, and this here is Red Shirt, chief of the Ogallala Sioux, and I’m interpreting for him.”
When I moves aside so he can step up, I seen a quick look of fear flit through her eyes, for though I was so used to the red-and-yellow streaks of warpaint on his face and the rest of his getup, which was much gaudier than he probably would of worn for a real battle, regular people attending the Wild West for the first time was not, especially if English, and the lady boss of the whole British Empire was worried for an instant when confronting this savage.
But Victoria hadn’t been queen for fifty years for nothing and she recovered her natural manner right away, just the right mix of motherliness with authority, and she says, “Please tell Mr. Red Shirt that I am very happy to meet him and that I greatly enjoyed his performance.”
I passed this on to Red Shirt, and he says, “Grandmother England, I have come a long way to see you, and I am glad I have done so.” And then he walks away in the formal stride he put on for ceremonies.
I spoke quick, before Victoria or the others around her could get the wrong idea of this incident. “Ma’am,” I says, “he’s doing what Indians do to show great respect. He don’t want to take up your valuable time. I know he has talked a lot to reporters, but it’s their job to listen to a lot of windy palaver. You on the other hand have got to run England. Red Shirt appreciates that.”
The Queen was smiling, as was the others in her party with titles, while them who was only in attendance on her scowled. “You are Captain Crabb,” she says. “The Prince of Wales speaks highly of you.”
“Yes, ma’am. I like him too.”
Some of the flunkies grunted or gasped at what afterwards I guessed they thought was too free talk when it concerned royalty, but the Queen come close to chuckling. Having often had that effect on American people of note, from George Custer to Bat Masterson, I was accustomed to being taken for a character. I might of gone over better with Libbie Custer had I acted like the eccentric her husband in fact thought I was, but in general not being taken altogether serious give me freedom to say things others might not.
“He tells me that you are an authority on the Red Indians and have lived in their wigwams.”
“Well, ma’am, I lived with the Cheyenne as a boy and I’ve known a number of Lakota, and I’ve fought against the Pawnee and the Comanche, and now you take the Arapaho—excuse me, missus, I’m running off at the mouth, but I ain’t never talked to a queen before. Say, would you like me to take you around to the Sioux camp?”
The question caused more consternation amongst her attendants, but not on the part of old Victoria. She stands up, all not quite five foot of her, and says, “I should very much like to do that, Captain. Lead on!”
So there I was, a fellow with no education and no great place in life, steering the head of the British Empire around an Indian village in London, England. Tell me if that ain’t as remarkable an event as ever happened.
Well sir, it was a real success for all. When we run into Red Shirt again, he had relaxed some from his official formality and he asked the Queen how come she hadn’t brung her warriors with her, and she says because she knowed she was coming amongst friends. He liked that answer and everything else Victoria said to him, for she might of been old and English but she was real smooth in handling people. I could see where Bertie got his own technique, even if his Ma wasn’t aware of it. Red Shirt told me that after speaking with the Queen he could understand why these people were led by a little old grandmother: she had a great heart. But of course all I passed on to her was the last portion of that commentary.
Being a woman, Victoria was interested in the Indian females, and they returned the favor for the same reason. One of them, Rain Bird, had seen her likeness on a medal and now asked why she wasn’t wearing her crown, and another Sioux woman asked if
she was an actual grandmother in addition to being one for all her people—which I thought was a real sensible question—and Victoria answered everything with the gracious good humor I guess royalty specializes in, at least since they lost the ability to abuse their power, though it would be hard to think of Queen Victoria chopping off anybody’s head even if she could of.
When she got through shaking hands with all the Indian kids which somebody white had put in a lineup according to height, she had me tell them what lovely-looking children they was and how proud she would of been to have them amongst her “subjects,” which was the British word for anyone in the empire regardless of color, but I found it hard to translate into Lakota, so said simply, “to have you among her peoples.” Now to at least one of the older boys, in his teens, this got transformed into the Grandmother saying she wished she owned the Indians, for she would of treated them better than the Americans had. But for all that I was impressed by the Queen, I knowed the real reasons Sitting Bull was treated better for a while in Canada was two: first, there wasn’t many other redskins in that part of the country, and second, there was even fewer whites. Even so, he was eventually invited to go back where he come from, for Indians usually proved to be a pain in the arse if you wasn’t one of them, on account of their stubbornness. Show them railroads, electric light, New York City, steamboats, St. Paul’s cathedral, Buckingham Palace, these folks who never found the wheel on their own and lived in hide tents, and they still insisted on staying Indians.
“Captain Crabb,” the Queen says when she was ready to leave, “as heartily as my son recommended you, he was not quite enthusiastic enough. Without your help I should have understood little of the Red Indians and should probably not have had the courage to visit their squaws and papooses, for I confess I was alarmed by the war dances of the braves, with their shrieks and wild contortions, and thought their faces cruel, and the sham battles were even more frightening. Poor gallant General Custer!”
“Congratulations on being Queen for so long, ma’am. I think people our size tend to last longer.” I might even of winked at this point, for I felt at ease with her: shows you how being ignorant is almost as good as being short. I added, “Well, it was real nice of you to come see us, and now I’ll say what the Texans do: y’all come back, y’hear?”
Queen Victoria liked the Wild West so much she commanded another performance the following month, this time at her out-of-town castle at Windsor, where she preferred living over Buck House, as one of Bertie’s pals called it, and having made his point on the earlier occasion, Cody now complied with her wishes and went to the considerable trouble of transporting a number of his people and animals out there.
At the Windsor train station the Indians got out and it was somebody’s idea they walk to the castle in a double file through the little village. This sure had an effect on the townsfolk, who, like their queen had been, was scared and thrilled and having the time of their lives, especially them little English kids, the fairest-headed and palest-skinned any of us had ever seen, owing to the fact that the sun was almost as rarely encountered in that country as a Red Indian in paint and feathers walking along the High Street.
Well, I’m going to wrap up this account of that first foreign tour, with a lot still untold, for I still got quite a bit of my life to relate and I don’t know how much time is left in which to do so, so just let me conclude with a few notes of possible interest.
Bill Cody continued the kind of social life he had in New York, only over here his friends was both rich and titled, and as to females I mention only an actress named Katherine Clemons he saw perform and thought fine-looking, and I do that only because I don’t know he was on a personal basis with her though later on he did lose money financing a flop play she brung to America. I probably wouldn’t mention any women in connection with him was it not for Lulu, his storm and strife, accusing him of being too intimate with a number, including Queen Victoria! But I doubt he could of been too active with the English ladies on that trip, for much of our time over there his daughter Arta, an attractive young lady, was in London with him and enjoyed the same high-society life and you can be sure was kept away from the cowboys and of course me.
We stayed over there almost a year and after the first months in London went all over the country, which ain’t in fact all that big, something the English got tired of hearing especially from the Texas cowboys, but otherwise B.B.W.W. continued to be all the rage in the Jubilee year, when there was also plenty of celebrations for Victoria, with illuminations and fireworks, and souvenirs such as teapots modeled after the Queen’s head and canes with similar knobs and a lady’s bustle what had a music box concealed in it which when she sat down played “God Save the Queen.”
Nor did our Indians lose their appeal, and they was invited every place, and wherever the Sioux went I was sure to go as well, so can thank them for social life on a higher level than I could ever of gotten in on by myself. I’ll just mention a couple examples.
There was a bunch of men who had what back home would of been a lodge, only over here they was of a better class, and they met to eat dinner once a week at the Savoy Hotel, wearing dress suits, calling themselves the Savage Club. Now it seemed like a good joke to invite some actual savages to a function, so they asked Buffalo Bill to bring along some of the Sioux, which he done, and I wouldn’t of participated if the Indians was treated with disrespect, but they wasn’t, the club having been named for one Dick Savage, an old poet of years gone by who come to a shameful end, so the joke was actually on the whites and self-inflicted, which type of humor appealed to the English. Anyway, the Sioux liked the meal, on account of there was lots of beef, and Red Shirt give the members a nice speech and said when he got home he would send them a pipe to hang on the wall to remind them of their Lakota brothers.
Another place the Indians visited was the British Parliament, where we set for a time in the gallery, and the Sioux, I expect, understood as much as me, but though they liked oratory of a religious or spiritual character, which they could identify without knowing the language it was in, they hadn’t no taste for the sort of thing legislators talk about, and when later some Lord from the House thereof asked Red Shirt what he thought about the place, he says to me, in Lakota, he didn’t think highly of it.
Ordinarily I would of translated it in my own style, but at this moment I had gotten tired of that redskin’s superior airs, much as I admired him, so I asks, “Don’t you think it is rude to say that when you are a guest in this big beautiful council lodge where for hundreds of years chiefs like these have met to discuss the affairs of their people?” Naturally I didn’t add, And not in some tattered hide tent with their faces all painted and dried scalps hanging from their belt.
“No,” Red Shirt said in his literal way. “He has asked me what I think, and I have spoken the truth. This is not his personal home, is it? It belongs to his whole tribe. We are just looking at it. We are not guests, for they aren’t feeding us. Answering a question truthfully cannot be bad manners. If someone thinks he might be insulted by the answer to a question, he should not ask it.”
In all my association with Indians, I won mighty few arguments with them, I tell you. So I turns to this Lord and shrugs. “Begging your pardon, sir: in regard to what you asked him, ‘What does he think of Parliament?’ he says, ‘Not much.’”
We was in the lobby of the building and surrounded by other Lords as well as the newspaper fellows who followed the Indians whenever they left the encampment, and when this man busts out in a great big haw-haw and repeats Red Shirt’s words in a loud voice, the whole bunch roars with laughter and shouts, “Hear, hear!” And being polite folks, all the Sioux joined in as well though that wouldn’t normally be the kind of joke they could recognize as such.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shipped out for America from the port of Hull in May of ’88 and thank heaven the ocean was not so stormy this time, which the Indians believed was due to our heading home, a more natural thing tha
n going to perform for strangers, though they never regretted doing the latter.
Not being seasick, I could give some attention to that obligation I owed to Wild Bill Hickok’s widow, for here I was, on the same vessel as her daughter Emma, so first time I seen her on deck alone, standing at the rail, looking at that endless expanse of water, something I did myself on occasion, I stepped up and told her I greatly admired her talent on horseback. “I been riding since the age of ten myself,” I says, “but I could never come close to what you do.” She could dance the Virginia Reel on her mount, and make the animal stand up on its hindlegs and bow, all this while riding sidesaddle, which our female riders done in the modest style used for family shows, straddling a horse being considered indecent by many in that time.
Emma was a real nice-looking dark-haired young lady, and always on the lookout for a respectable woman who could put up with me, I regretted she was married, for we had a connection, unbeknownst to her, through my friendship with her late step-dad.
She thanked me now and says she too had got started early, but in her case she had the advantage of having as teacher her Ma, who was a famous circus rider.
“Why,” says I, “she wouldn’t of been Agnes Lake Thatcher? The one what played in Mazeppa?”
“One and the same,” says Emma, real pleased. “She will be happy to hear that you remember. Did you see a performance?”
“Indeed I did,” I lied. “In St. Louie some years ago. I believe I heard she is retired now and living in Cincinnati.” And when Emma says that was true, I asked, “If I wrote your Ma a letter about how much I admired that play, would you send it along to her with my compliments?”
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