“Say, young fellow? Why don’t you get off and get inside?”
My first appearance as a musician was while I was in a primary school “annex” in the basement of a church which stood where the New Amsterdam Theatre now is. The teachers were so indulgent to me that I gave loose rein to my inclination toward practical joking, and I became an element of mischief which kept that school in a wild but constant ferment. One of the teachers planned a juvenile fife-and-drum corps and requested all boys who could perform on either instrument to step forward. I improved the opportunity to join the fifers, although I could not play a note. In time we made a creditable band; I stood next a boy who played well, and followed his motions industrially, though “faking” all the while. This went on a long time, to the huge delight of the boys who were in the secret; the teacher did not suspect me.
But the end came one day, in the presence of distinguished visitors. The fifers were few; the one I had imitated had remained at home, so I shook in my shoes when the corps was called on for music. The teacher, who was at the piano, missed the customary volume of sound, and looked searchingly at me. When she told me to stand beside her I knew my doom was sealed; I had never professed to be a soloist anyhow. But before I became officially dead I would have some more fun, and play the joke to the end. My short stature brought my instrument about to the level of the teacher’s ear, from which position I let off at intervals a piercing blast which made that poor woman jump as if a wasp had stung her. I knew what was coming, after the visitors went, so beside having fun I was getting my revenge in advance. It is said that when Nemesis catches up with a man he feels her hand on his shoulder, but it was not on my shoulder that the hand of fate, represented by that teacher, was felt, for those were the good old days of corporal punishment in the public schools—the days when an offended teacher could flog a pupil as long as her strength lasted.
If these recollections do not please, at least I am at a safe distance, like the man who sent a poem in to Eugene Field, entitled, “Why Do I Live?” Field replied, “Because you sent your poem by mail.”