The need of representative action is seen in Day’s “Old Boggs’ Slarnt.”
OLD BOGGS’ SLARNT
Old Bill Boggs is always sayin’ that he’d like to, but he carnt;
He hain’t never had no chances, he hain’t never got no slarnt.
Says it’s all dum foolish tryin’, ’less ye git the proper start,
Says he’s never seed no op’nin’ so he’s never had no heart.
But he’s chawed enough tobacker for to fill a hogset up,
And has spent his time a-trainin’ some all-fired kind of pup;
While his wife has took in washin’ and his children hain’t been larnt
’Cause old Boggs is allus whinin’ that he’s never got no slarnt.
Them air young uns round the gros’ry hadn’t oughter done the thing!
Now it’s done, though, and it’s over, ’twas a cracker-jack, by jing.
Boggs, ye see, has been a-settin’ twenty years on one old plank,
One end h’isted on a saw-hoss, t’other on the cistern tank.
T’other night he was a-chawin’ and he says, “I vum-spt-ooo—
Here I am a-owin’ money—not a gol durn thing to do!
’Tain’t no use er buckin’ chances, ner er fightin’ back at Luck,
—Less ye have some way er startin’, feller’s sartin to be stuck.
Needs a slarnt to get yer going”—then them young uns give a carnt,
—Plank went up an’ down old Boggs went—yas, he got it, got his slarnt.
Course, the young uns shouldn’t done it—sent mine off along to bed—
Helped to pry Boggs out the cistern—he warn’t more ’n three-quarters dead.
Didn’t no one ’prove the actions, but when all them kids was gone,
Thunder mighty! How we hollered! Gab’rel couldn’t heered his horn.
When the speaker in the monologue describes the plank which has
“One end h’isted on a saw-hoss, t’other on the cistern tank,”
he would naturally in conversation describe and indicate the tank and the saw-horse and the direction of the slope of the plank. Then, when
“... them young uns give a carnt,”
and the plank went up, it might be indicated that one end went up, by one hand, and by the other that old Boggs went down. This can be done easily and naturally and in character. The genius of the “gros’ry,” who is speaking, would indicate these very simply with hand and eye. This action will not only express the humor, but help the audience to conceive the situation.
In a serious monologue, such as “A Grammarian’s Funeral” (p. [72]), the speaker looks down toward the town, and talks about the condition of those there who did not appreciate his master. The reader must indicate where the speaker locates his friends who are carrying the body, and suggest also, by looking upward to the hill-top, where they are to bury him. This representative action, when only suggestive, in no way interferes with, but rather assists, the manifestation of feeling.
It must not be forgotten that there is great danger in exaggerating the objective or representative action of a monologue. The exaggeration of accidents is the chief means of degrading noble literature in delivery.