People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — AN EPISODE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AN EPISODE.

CHRISTMAS OF THE JOLLITY THEATER STOCK COMPANY. [Copyright, I*4, by James L. Ford.) Three weeks before the holidays, and the outlook for a merry Christmas was a gloomy one, at least so far as the members of the stock company of the Jollity theater were concerned. Salary day had come and gone, and as yet the ghost had shown no disposition to walk, and it was because of the nonappearance of that most welcome specter of stageland that the rumor had started and was rapidly gaining ground that Messrs. Hustle and Hardup, proprietors and managers of the Jollity theater, were “in a hole again. ” The piece which occupied the boards had proved a flat failure, and receipts at the box office had fallen in consequence to a plane never before reached in the history of the house. Moreover, no new play had as yet been put in rehearsal, and an atmosphere of unmistakable gloom and apprehension pervaded the region behind the footlights and weighed heavily on the spirits of every one there, from Pearl Livingstone, the talented emotional actress who played the leading female parts, down to little Kitty Sullivan, who was only 7 years old and was in the depths of despair because for fully three weeks she had been out of the bill. In short, every member of the company was in a condition of mingled uncertainty and curiosity in regard to the future of the playhouse and the projects of its managers, who as yet had given no sign of their intentions and had, in fact, been invisible to the members of their artistic staff ever since the last day on which salaries became due. On this particular night, which happened to be one of storm and rain, two or three of the, principal actors hud gathered together for a serious talk about the situation, when Tom, the programme boy, appeared suddenly before them in an almost breathless condition and exclaimed: “Mr. Freelance is back from Chicago. He’s in the office with Mr. Hustle. They’ve got both doors locked. ’ ’ “Mr. Freelance!” cried Miss Livingstone, her face lighting up with joy, precisely as it does in her scene in the second act where her lover comes back from India, or rather as it did light up in that scene before the business became so bad. “Are you sure it was Mr. Freelance, Tommy?” “Sure [’’rejoined Tom,with emphasis. “I seen him meself when he come in.” “Then, Tom, you be sure and see him when he comes out and tell him that l am particularly anxious to see him back here as soon as the curtain goes down on the second act. Here’s a quarter for you, Tom, and you’d better keep it as a curiosity, for it’s getting to be a very rare sort of bird in the Jollity theater preserves.” “Thank you, mum,” said Tom as he pocketed the coin, with a grin. “I fancy I see a gleam of light on the distant horizon,” remarked the venerable Mr. Borders in a tone similar to that which he assumes in the great melodrama called “The Ocean Blue,” in the Scene in which he is discovered sitting on a raft in midocean on the lookout for a passing sail. “In the meantime,” ho added, “I think wo had better wait and hear what Billy has to say before we take any further action in the matter. ” Up to that moment they had taken no action whatever, but the phrase sounded well, and so Mr. Borders employed it. Now, Mr. William Freelance, called by his intimates Billy, was and is today one of the best known figures in the theatrical affairs of the town, and, as every member of the stock company knew, he had on more than one previous occasion come to the rescue of his old friends, Messrs. Hustle and Hardup, and that, too, when they were in even more deplorable financial strait's than they were at the present moment. It was his reputation as a mascot fully as much as his remarkable talents which caused the whole avaut scene to brighten up at the news of his presence in the theater, lor playfolk are notoriously superstitious and have an unbounded and childlike faith in the efficacy of a mascot as well as in the destructive qualities of a “jonah.” Just as the curtain fell on the second act Mr. Freelance appeared behind the scenes and received the rapturous greetings of the company. Then Miss Livingstone took him by-the arm, detached him from the little group which surrounded him, led him gently but firmly into her dressing room, placed him cm her zinc trunk, and standing before him

with folded arms said, “Billy, what’s going to happen?” “My dear,” replied Mr. Froolance persuasively, “everything is all right, and I just left Hustle fur five minutes to come back here and tell you so. We are going to put on a new piece, and there’s a part in it that's simply great —Out cf Sight, in fact. We are not quite sure who’ll bo cast for tho part because it’s a very heavy emotional one,i»nd if we put a woman in it who didn’t know how to read lines sho would go all to

pieces and the bottom would drop out of the whole piny. I thougliO’d speak to yoii about it because Ifardup lias naught a new‘angel’ and said some-

thing tome about Kitty Bracebridge”— “If that wolf puts her foot in this theater”— began Miss Livingstone, but Mr. Freelance interrupted her by plaoiug his hand over her mouth and saying: “Wait for me after the enrtain goes down, Pearl, and I’ll talk to you about it. Shadrach’s waiting in the office, and I’ve got to give him a ‘jolly’ so as to get the costumes out of him, but I’ll be back here after the last act. ” In spite of the storm outside aud the dispiriting atmosphere within the performance given that night by the Jollity stock company was a notably brilliant one, for the news had spread that there was to be a speedy .change of bill, aud hope was once more in every member's breast. Mr. Freelance invited Miss Livingstone out to supper just as ,slie was on the point of declaring that sft) would not go on again unless she received every cent of the back salary that was due her, and before they left the restaurant she had meekly agreed to study the great emotional role which had been intended for Miss Bracebridge and to say nothing more about back salary. The next morning, in accordance with a call posted in the stage entrance, the company assembled to hear the new play read by the gifted Mr. Freelance, aud such was tin t gentleman’s elocntionary power that when he laid the manuscript aside expressions that ranged from mere satisfaction to rapturous enthusiasm were heard on every hand, and there was scarcely an actor or actress present that did not feel confident of a personal success in the new production. The leading over, Mr. Freelance took Miss Livingstone, Mr. Borders and one or two other rebellions spirits aside, and, as he expressed it in a subsequent interview with Mr. Hustle, “stiffened their backbones” with the assurance (hat everything was all right and (hat the piece was to be done on Christmas eve in order that, they might have a really merry Christmas on the prospects of its success. After that, he assured them, their back salaries would pour in upon them in a perfect avalaneho. As Mr. Freelance was leaving the theater ho felt some one tugging at his coat, and on looking down saw little Kitty Sullivan standing beside him and saying, in earnest tones, aud with a sad, wistful face, “Billy, isn’t there any part for me in the now piece?” The child called him by his first name because she had always hoard him spoken to in that way by other members of the company, and Billy rather encouraged her in the idea because it sounded funny to him to hoar himself addressed in such familiar terms by an infant of her size.

Kitty was a veritable child of tho avaut scene, ami had boon an actress from her very earliest infancy. She was now about 7 years of ago, and was just beginning to comprehend the difference between tho real things of life, such as houses, trees and streets, and the painted imitations of stagolaud. And yet it was only two years and a half ago that she beheld tho ocean for the first time, and it is related of her that on that occasion she stood with Billy’s hand tightly clasped in hers, watching the waves as they broke upon tho beach, aud finally turned to her companion and said in her serious way, “Billy, how do they work ’em?”

And now she was here beside her old friend, with her small, pathetic face upturned, and inquiring earnestly if there were a role for her in “The Quint's Causeway.” “See here, Kitty,” exclaimed Mr. Freelance, touched by the child’s grief, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, and what's more, I wouldn’t do it for any ouo else in the company. Are you listening?” “Yes,” said Kitty, turning her head around. % “Well, I’ll write in a part specially for you, and that’s something that an author liko Sardou or myself rarely does for any one except a Bernhardt or a Duse. Now 7 , run along and ho here to morrow at 11 for rehearsal. ” The child darted away, wiping the last tear from her cheek us she ran, and Barney said approvingly, “That’s tho best deed you’ll ever do in your life, Mr. Freelance, and, mark mv words, the child’ll bring good luck to the house.” How Billy succeeded in persuading the economical Hard up that the piece would prove a failure unless a child were introduced into it and how ho contrived to write the part in for her that very night are matters that had best be left to conjecture, but tho very next day Kitty received the typewritten copy of her lines, and rehearsals of “Tho Giant’s Causeway” were carried forward under Mr. Freelanco’s direction with the energy and spirit that mark all of that gentleman’s undertakings. The opening night, Dec. 24, found tho house well filled with an audience which made a favorable impression on tho venerable Mr. Borders as he looked out through the peephole in the curtain, while behind the footlights feverish excitement and anticipation prevailed. As for Kitty, sho had become so wrought up over her role—-the longest one she had ever been intrusted with—that she seemed in danger of losing her balance and forgetting every one t of the lines that she had, by diligent study, crammed into her small head. She was standing in tho first entrance, with her hand clasped in that of Mr. Freelance, when her cue came, and as she walked out on the stage, tho ideal of childish loveliness, a murmur of delight ran through every part of the crowded house. ‘They’re going to foreclose, the mortgage oh the old mill tomorrow night, and if that child lives I am a beggar,” said the’ polished, cigarette smoking villain, and then a youngster in the parquet set up a pitiful bowl of despair, which was followed by a general ripple of merriment that might have proved fatal to tho piece had not Kitty gone on with her lines with the coolneijs aud gravity of the born and experienced artist, which sho was displaying there by a presence of mind which won for her, on her exit, (he first real applause of tho evening.

Kitty Sullivan was, as the eminent dramatic critic had observed, an old hand at the business, despite the faot that she was but 7 years of age, for she had been born and brought np on the stage and was as much at home in the presence of a great audience as an ordinary child is before a nursery. As the piece went on she realized that she was making a hit—a far greater one than she had ever made before—and, young

as she wills, sho was enough of an artist to appreciate the importance of keeping a restraint on herself aud not overdoing her role. She was looking forward to a certain scene in the last act—a scene which sho had rehearsed with much delight, and in which she firmly expected to make a great impression. Billy, who had been waiting with some anxiety for the same scene, came down and took a seat in a prosed:’urn box, and as the child stood in the wings waiting for her cue she saw him smiling encouragement to her. The scene represented a barren, wave washed rock near the coast of Iroland, and on this rock was standing the virtuous heroine, just whore she had been left by the villain. The lights grew dim, the moon aroso from beyond tho scene, and tho Philadelphia quartet, stationed behind tho scenes, warbled plaintive Irish melodies. “Must I die hetealone?” moaned the heroine as tho tide rose higher and higher about the rock on which sho stood and heavy clouds began to gather above her head. And just at this moment, a rowboat, propelled by childish arms, came swiftly around the rocky point at the left of the stage, and Kitty Sullivan, throwing aside tho oars, stood up in the boat with her foot oil the prow and exclaimed in a clear, infantile treble, “I have come to save you for the sake of old Ireland !” Commonplace as it was, with its old, well worn melodramatic effects of soft music aud moonlight, novortholoss the situation had taken u strong hold on the audience, and the sudden appearance of tho sweet faced child, who had charmed every one during the earlier portions of the play, sent a distinct thrill through the entire house, and then came such an outburst of spontaneous applause as had not been heard in the Jollity theater for many a year. Even Billy Freelance felt a touch of a magnetic current with which the atmosphere was charged, aud might have

been heard to remark half audibly, “Tho kid’s knocked ’em good this time, sure, for a thing’s got to be good if it gets me. ’ ’ And as the audience dispersed that night it seemed to Mr. Fror lanoo, as ho stood alert and walchful in the lobby, that there was but one name on every tongue, mid that Kitty's sweet face and infantile art had made their way into the very heart of an always fickle public. “You wore right about her, Billy,” said Hardup. “I (old you the young ono would bring us good luck,” said old Barney at the stage door. “The idea of making such a fuss over a 7-yeur-old brat! That shows what art is coming to in this country!” exclaimed Miss Livingstone ns she swept through tho drafty passage, leaving an odor of sealskin, tuberoses and sachet powder behind her. The members of the stock company had their Christmas the wardrobe room between the matinee and the eveuiug performance, Messrs. Hustle and Hardup footing the bill and Mr. Freelance presiding, with Miss Pearl Livingstone on his right hand and the venerablo Mr. Borders on his left. And it is a matter of record that no toast offered that evening was drunk with heartier applause than was the one proposed by Mr. Freelance to Kitty Sullivan, “the mascot of tho Jollity theater and the founder of this feast.” James L. Ford. In England the day after Christmas, “boxing day” as it is called, is a day of greater festivity among tho working classes than Christmas itself. “Boxing day” is so called from tho Christinas boxes, each containing money given by the ricli to the poor in olden times.

“MR FREELANCE IS BACK.”

HE FELT SOME ONE TUGGING AT HIS COAT.

KITTY MAKES A HIT.