I met in the company there Mr. Leslie Allen (the father of Miss Viola Allen), Mr. Dan Maginnis (the Boston comedian), and Mr. John W. Norton. The future St. Louis manager was then leading man, and the friendship we formed while working together through those summer weeks was never broken, never clouded, but lasted fair and strong up to that very day when, sitting in the train on his way to New York, John Norton had, in that flashing moment of time, put off mortality.
He had changed greatly from the John Norton of those early days. He had known cruel physical suffering, and while he had won friends and money, shame and bitter sorrow had been brought upon him by another. No wonder the laughing brightness had gone out of him. It was said that he believed in but two people on earth—Mary Anderson and Clara Morris, and he said of them: "One is a Catholic, the other an Episcopalian; they are next-door neighbors in religion; they are both honest, God-fearing women, and the only ones I bow my head to." Oh, poor man! to have grown so bitter! But in the Halifax days he loved his kind, and was as full of fun as a boy of ten, as full of kindness as would be the gentlest woman.
Mr. Maginnis had his sister-in-law with him, a helpless invalid. She knew her days were numbered, yet she always faced us smilingly and with pleasant words. She was passionately fond of driving, but dreaded lonely outings; so clubbing together, that no one might feel a sense of obligation, we four, Dan and his sister, John Norton and I, used evenly to divide the expense of a big, comfortable carriage, and go on long, delightful drives about the outskirts of the gray old hilly city.
The stolid publicity of Tommy Atkins's love-making had at first covered us with confusion, but we soon grew used to the sight of the scarlet sleeve about the willing waist in the most public places, while a loving smack, coming from the direction of a park bench, simply became a sound quite apropos to the situation.
One yellow-haired, plaided and kilted young Highlander, whom I came upon in a public garden, just as he lifted his head from an explosive kiss on his sweetheart's lips, startled at my presence, flushing red, lifted his hand in a half-salute, and at the same moment, in laughing apologetic confusion, he—winked at me! And his flushing young face was so bonnie, that had I known how I believe in my heart I'd have winked back, just from sheer good-fellowship and understanding.
In that short season I had one experience, the memory of which makes me pull a wry face to this day. I played Juliet to a "woman-Romeo"—a so plump Romeo, who seemed all French heels, tights, and wig, with Romeo marked "absent." I little dreamed I was bidding a personal farewell to Shakespeare and the old classic drama, as I really was doing.
One other memory of that summer engagement that sticks is of that performance of Boucicault's "Jessie Brown, or the Siege of Lucknow," in which real soldiers acted as supernumeraries, and having been too well treated beforehand and being moved by the play, they became so hot that they attacked the mutineers not only with oaths but with clubbed muskets; and while blood was flowing and heads being cracked in sickening earnest on one side of the stage, a sudden wall-rending howl of derisive laughter rose from that part of the theatre favored by soldiers. I saw women holding programmes close, close to their eyes, and knew by that that something was awfully wrong.
The Scotch laddies were pouring over the wall, coming to the rescue of the starving besieged. I looked behind me. The wall, a stage wall, was cleated down the middle to keep the join there firm, and no less than three of the soldiers had had portions of their clothing caught by the cleats as they scaled the wall. The cloth would not tear, the men were too mad to be able to see, and there they hung, kicking like fiends and—well, the words of a ginny old woman, who sold apples and oranges in front of the house, will explain the situation. She cried out, at the top of her voice: "Yah! yah! why do ye no pull down yer kilties, instead o' kickin' there? yah! yer no decent—do you ken?" and the curtain had to come whirling down before the proper time to save the lives of the men being pounded to death, and the feelings of the women who were being shamed to death.
A surgeon had to attend to two heads before their owners could leave the theatre, and after that an officer was kind enough to come and take charge of the men loaned to the manager.
Then I bade the people, whom I had found so pleasant, good-by—Mr. Louis Aldrich arriving as I was about leaving, keen, clever, active, full of visions, of plans, just as he is to-day. I and my little dog-companion made our way to New York. A lady and gentleman, traveling acquaintances, advised me to go to the St. Nicholas, and as all hotels looked alike to me I went there. My worst dread was the dining-room. I could not afford to take meals privately, yet how could I face that great roomful of people alone! At last I resolved on a plan of action. I went up to the head waiter—from his manner an invisible crown pressed his brow; his eyes gazed coldly above my humble head, his "Eh?—beg pardon!" was haughty and curt, yet, believe it or not, when I told him I was quite alone, and asked could he place me at some quiet retired table, he became human, he looked straightly and kindly at me. He himself escorted me, not to a seat in line with the kitchen smells or the pantry quarrels, as I had expected, but to a very retired, very pleasant table by an open window, and assured me the seat should be reserved for me every day of my stay, and only ladies seated there. I was grateful from my heart, and I mention it now simply to show the general willingness there is in America to aid, to oblige the unprotected woman traveler.