Twenty years a fakir

by S. James Weldon

“Free entertainment this evening at eight thirty, at Bixley’s Hall. Fun by the barrel and music by the cord. Singing and dancing by the world renowned Milton Brothers, and an afterpiece that will split your side. Leave your buttons at home if you don’t want them busted; and don’t get your measure taken for a new suit of clothes until the show is over. You are bound to laugh and grow fat.”

This, and other nonsense, I howled out at the top of my voice, and before I had been at it a quarter of an hour “the Milton Brothers” wanted to know with what show I had last been hitting the road. They had a curiosity to know who else was stranded. You may be certain I did not give myself away, and yet I returned a fairly satisfactory answer.

Had we charged even a nickel I doubt if we could have drummed up the skeleton of an audience; but for a free entertainment—it was immense. The people came in crowds, and responded nobly when the “deacon” passed the hat.

There is all the difference in the world in towns and the crowds you gather in them. This crowd was willing to be amused, came to be amused, and had made up its mind not to be disappointed. They were with us from start to finish, and when we “counted up the house” found the collection amounted to within a fraction of twenty dollars. After paying for the hall, and some little incidental expenses, we had remaining about three dollars and a half apiece, and a large stock of confidence in the future.

That party was a wise one in its day and generation. The weather was delightful, the roads good, the moon near to full; for these reasons, and others, we took a promenade after the show was out. In other words, we saved the expense of a hotel bill, and went on to the next town, getting what rest we wanted in a friendly haystack along the road. While the Milton Brothers’ combination lasted we paid the hotels less money, and lived better, than I had thought possible. We had generally got in too late for dinner, and an order for supper was enough to insure the moral support of the landlord. Probably he was disappointed that he did not see the color of our money, but that was no matter.

The business was grand while it lasted, and I continued to be a showman for some time. We went from town to town, walking when the distance was not too great, riding in box-cars sometimes, giving entertainments similar to the first, occupying halls when we could get them, but content with an empty store or dining room in the hotel at which we temporarily stopped. Sometimes, of course, there was very little profit, but oftener there was a fair dividend. Before long we had accumulated at least twenty dollars apiece. Passing through a large town, we succeeded in getting hold of a quantity of old lithographs and pictorial sheets. With these posters and a few small streamers and dodgers we billed a smaller town not far away for a “Grand Theatrical Entertainment,” charging regular prices of admission.

Success was with us. After counting up the house, and deducting expenses, we found we were on the sunny side of fifty dollars.

Such a result as this was too much for us. We began to think that our time had come. Bob Milton talked of telegraphing for “people” to join us on ahead; and all of us figured up the cost of putting a show on the road that would carry eight or ten actors, and play the larger towns.

Had I even imagined myself born to the buskin, I suppose I would have taken up with the idea as enthusiastically as anyone. Fortunately, the footlights had never cast their glamour over me, and I had always regarded this venture as a makeshift and a stepping-stone. When I had done a few sums in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, I suggested that the time was hardly ripe for such a scheme. We were doing very well as it was, among the smaller towns, where theatres had no season, and the population could not, and would not, support a regular company. As for playing the larger towns, I did not believe it could be done for a month yet; and, meanwhile, if we tried it, we would have abundant opportunity to drop our little capital and become hopelessly involved. I thought it would be the part of wisdom to keep on as we had been doing, playing on velvet, and week by week adding to our slender store; otherwise, I thought I could retire from the show business.

To this view the boys finally and grumblingly consented, after having obtained my consent, by way of compromise, to hiring a hall at a fair-sized town not far away, and trying again the racket of a fine entertainment.