"Thou lingering star with lessening ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn."
When the eager learner had mastered a new piece, he was all alive until he could recite it to Wilson, who used to encourage and reward him with gifts of the plates of his great work on American Ornithology, which was then passing through the press. The service thus rendered was of inestimable value. The picture is beautiful: the wise and loving old man leaning in spontaneous benignity and joy over the aspiring and grateful child,—forming his taste, moulding his mind and heart. In a case like this, nothing can be more charming than the relation of teacher and pupil. It is that proper and artistic relation of experienced age and docile youth immortalized by antique sculpture in the exquisite myth of Cheiron and Achilles. Forrest never forgot his indebtedness to his early benefactor, but in his last days was fond of citing, with admiring pathos, the dying words of his old friend: "Bury me where the sun may shine on my grave and the birds sing over it."
Things were going on with the Forrest household in this modest and hopeful way, when the heaviest calamity it had ever known befell it. The death of its head, and the consequent cessation of his salary, left the family destitute of the means of support. The good and judicious mother showed herself equal to the emergency. Drying her tears and holding her heart firm, she undertook to fulfil the offices of both parents. With such help as she could get, she bought a little stock or goods and opened a millinery-shop. In the mean time the two older sons were earning a little at their trades, and the two older daughters assisted their mother. They made bonnets, and various articles of needle-work, while she worked, in her spare hours, at binding shoes. In the later years of the proud fame and wealth of Forrest, as these scenes floated back into his memory, his heart visibly swelled under his breast, and tears filled his eyes.
The youngest daughter, then eleven, was kept at school. But it was found necessary to abandon the plan of educating Edwin for the clerical profession. Reluctantly his mother took him from school, and put him at service, first, for a short time, in the printing-office of the "Aurora," under Colonel Duane, where he was known as "Little Edwin," then in a cooper-shop on the wharf, and finally in a ship-chandlery store on Race Street. This was in 1819, when he was thirteen years old.
Several years previously his taste for dramatic expression had directed his attention to the stage. He had developed a keen love for theatrical entertainments, and he let no opportunity of attending the theatre go by unimproved. He found frequent means of gratifying this desire, although his parents strongly disapproved of it. He also, in company with his brother William, joined a Thespian club, composed of boys and young men possessed with the same passion for theatricals as himself, and gave much of his leisure time to their meetings and performances. Many a time he and his fellows performed plays in a wood-shed, fitted up for the purpose, to an eager audience of boys, the price of admittance being sometimes five pins, sometimes an apple or a handful of raisins.
The place he most delighted to visit was the old South Street Theatre, long since passed away, with its great pit surmounted by a double row of boxes. The most prominent object, midway in the first tier, was what was called the Washington Box. This was adorned with the insignia of the United States, and had often been occupied by Washington and his family in the days when Philadelphia was the capital of the nation. The boy used to regard this box with intense reverence. It was in this theatre, then under the management of Charles Porter, that Forrest, a lad of eleven, made his first public appearance on any stage. The circumstances were amusing. He was in the street, playing marbles on the pavement with some other urchins, when Porter came along, and said to him, "Can you perform the part of a girl in a play?" "Why?" asked Edwin, looking up in surprise. "Because," replied the manager, "the girl who was to perform the character is sick." "Do you want me to take the part?" "Yes. Will you?" "When is it to be played?" "To-morrow night." "I will do it," answered the inconsiderate youth, triumphantly. Porter gave him a play-book, pointed out the part he was to study, and left him.
Edwin began forthwith, and was soon quite up in the part. But how to provide himself with a suitable costume for the night! This was a great difficulty. At length, bethinking him of a female acquaintance of his, whose name was Eliza Berryman, he went to her and borrowed what was needful in general, but not in particular.
Night came on, and the boy, as a substitute for a girl, was to take the part of Rosalia de Borgia, in the romantic melodrama of Rudolph, or the Robbers of Calabria. He went to the theatre and donned the dress. Finding himself in want of a bosom, he tore off some portions of scenery and stuffed them about his breast under the gown, and was ready for the curtain to rise. He had been provided by the kind Eliza with a sort of turban for the head, and for ringlets he had placed horse-hair done into a bunch of curls. The first scene displayed Rosalia de Borgia at the back of the stage, behind a barred and grated door, peering out of a prison. As she stood there, she was seen by the audience, and applauded. They could not then well discern her rugged and somewhat incongruous appearance. Pretty soon Rosalia came in front, before the foot-lights. Then at once rose a universal guffaw from the assembly. She looked about, a little disconcerted, for the cause of this merriment. To her intense sorrow and disgust, she found that her gown and petticoat were quite too short, and revealed to the audience a most remarkably unfeminine pair of feet, ankles, and legs.
He stood it for a time, until a boy in the pit, one of his mates, whom he had told that he was going to play, and who was there to see him, yelled out, "The heels and the big shoes! Hi yi! hi yi! Look at the legs and the feet!" Forrest, placing his hand over his mouth, turned to the boy, and huskily whispered, "Look here, chap, you wait till the play is done, and I'll lick you like hell!" Then the boy in the pit bawled out, "Oh, she swears! she swears!" The audience were convulsed with laughter, the curtain came down, and poor Rosalia de Borgia, all perspiration, was hustled off the stage in disgrace.