XXVII
SOME FIRST EXPERIENCES
When I was a Boy.—One Christmas Frolic.—How I Got on One Theatre’s Free List.—My First Experience as a Manager.—Strange Sequel of a Modest Business Effort.—My First Cigar and How It Undid Me.—The Only “Drink” I Ever Took.—My First Horse in Central Park.—I Volunteer as a Fifer in School Band, with Sad Results to All Concerned.
Senator Jones of Nevada, whose stories have greater influence than some other Senator’s speeches, tells of a professional “repeater” who on election day voted early and late and often for the candidate of the party which had employed him, but who, just before the polls closed, begged permission to vote once the other ticket, which was that of his own party. With similar spirit I, who have been filling a book with mention of other people, want to record a few of my occasional doings. If some of these seem insignificant, I can only explain, in Shakespeare’s words, “A poor thing, but mine own.”
My memory goes back to the day I was baptized, but the first Christmas I can recall—and Christmas is the small boy’s largest day, dawned when I was seven years old. My father and I had lived together as bachelors, so two aunts were the only mothers I ever knew. They lived at Wolcott, New York; together they owned a full dozen of children, and every boy and girl was healthy and full of fun. I always spent Christmas with them, and the first of these holidays I recall is still vivid in my mind, for I upset the whole town. My cousins and I exhausted our collective repertoires of mischief on the day before Christmas; children are usually “too serious.” Suddenly I conceived the idea of disguising myself and discovering how it would feel to be somebody else.
So I blacked my face and in other ways hid my identity until even the family dog failed to recognize me. Then I practiced on several neighbors, not one of whom succeeded in seeing more than skin-deep. Thus encouraged, I called on a young lady of whom I was very fond—and let me remind my readers that a seven-year old boy’s adoration is more whole-hearted, unselfish and intense than that of chaps who are from ten to twenty years older.
Well, I knocked at her door, after dark, intending to ask for something to eat. She herself opened the door, holding a lamp aloft, to see who the caller might be. Forgetting my disguise, I sprang toward her, after the manner of seven-year old lovers. She shrieked, dropped the lamp—which fortunately went out, and fled down several steps to the kitchen. Her cry of alarm startled a large bulldog, whose existence I had forgotten, but whose voice I recognized as he said distinctly, in dog lingo, “I’m after you.” I took to my heels and ran homeward; he was handicapped by a door that had to be opened for him but I had barely got within my room door when he struck it with the impact of a cart-load of rocks and a roar which I can recall whenever I least want to.
“Struck it with the impact of a cart-load of rocks.”
In my fright I confessed all and was sent to bed in disgrace. But I remained awake, for it was Christmas eve, and I had resolved to learn whether Santa Claus was the real thing. I got up at four o’clock, went down-stairs, but not a thing did I find. So I went back to bed, overslept, missed the prologue, and the others had the laugh on me. But I was round in time for the distribution of gifts, and as it was a case of twelve to one, all the cousins giving me presents, I felt that but for the dog incident I had got even with this first Christmas I can recall.