The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 4, 1897, Page 27

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 4, 1897. 27 fany men, women and children must ve wondered how life looks te the man chand Judy” tent. This a writer for Tue CALL recently set forth to [he “Punch and Judy” man never sees hisname displayed in large type on hand- Lills; nor1s he the object of comment in the mewspaper columns in which plays and players find verbal bliss or woe. Nevertheless, year in and year out he en- ' more auditors, plays more parts, s more voices and sees more people than does any “‘star’” of the dramatic or eratic ztage. In a smali room, one of a modest suite in a lioward-street lcdging-house, the best-known “Punch and Juday” man on the Pa Coast told of some experiences. ¢ appesred from the moving narrative, which was practicslly illus'rated, that a “Punch and Judy” man can travel with as little inconvenience as a tortoise, and an emergency he carries his house y on his back. Heis a roamer—a man who goes where he wills and <tops when he pleases; first of all, the friend of the dren of all civilized nations; | the rough wit who makes his jokes and often his dialogue to suit the changing | mor of his audiences; who speaks more than the best performer in the eville show; the mysterious and hid- rce concerning which children won- | er so much while the play is going and | 1sider a mystery for weeks aiter. | | | | T y name is F. J. Carter,” said the Punch and Judy’ man. “Iam a native ol Iowa; have traveled with a ecircus; | made my debutas a sleieht-of-hand per- | mer when I was 14 years old; am one | of only half a dozen ‘Punch and Judy’ men west of Omaha; have been in the ‘Punch and Judy’ business many years, | and have traveled the United Btates from | end to end. I am sure that [ have had at | least 20,000,000 auditors. The qurer thing is that comparatively few of them know me. Ihave (o stand with my head thrown back most of the time, out of sight of the children, and where I can watch all the | figures as I work them. “Some days I work nearly all of twelve | bours, with a whistle in my mouth, with | both arms held constantly up, acting for the figures, listening, seeing, making new Oh, yes, it is a hard and laborious i still I like it.” Then the “Punch and Judy” man out his paraphernalia and talked e hos a ‘tent which he can v on one shoulder, as it all folds up is “collapsible,” to use his phra-e. Al nis figures—Pench, Judy, the baby, | the policeman, the Chbinaman, the moth- [ e aw, the hangman, the clown, and so l | \ n, all go into a ‘“‘telescope” basket. The heads of the figures are made of wood. They are bodyless but not armless. They | are worked by Carter alone, and all their | motions are due to the movements of his | tingers and hands. The wooden-headed heroes, especiaily | r. Punch, are so heavv that they can be used 1or weapons. Not long ago hood- | lums attacked the show. OCarter banged | one hoodium on the head with Mr. | Punch and the hoodlum thought that he had been struck with a club. Another had enough after one collision with the | mother-in-law. | “One day,’” said the Punch and Judy | man, “I had to play to a sick little girl who with her mother and her uuncle, a rough Tennessee mountaineer, were Lhel only auvditors. The way it happened was this: I had been tramping through the M | come.’ | shiner, I afterward found out, and t! | after he had looked at his gan and placed | mountains of Tennessee one summer, with my tent on my back and with my grip, with Punch and Judy and a1l of Punch’s unlucky family in it, in one hand. ‘Wherever I found a clearing I would show, and while the Tenne:seans in these parts did not seem 1o have much money they were powerful good-hearted. They en- joyed the show so much that I liked to play for them. I was a youug man then, and not married, and as long as I made a living and saw the country I was suited very well. “There was a little hamlet like that then went by the name of Smithburg, though where the ‘burg’ was I couldn’t find out. The houses ware scattered. I} guess the name was only the fun of some one—full of fun the woodchouvpers aud | moonshiners were you can depend, T had set up my tent ana Mr. Funch was amus- ing the grown people and chiidren, when suddenly the queerest old fellow I ever saw came into view from somewhere. He was tall and bony and straight as an Indian. His eyes were crossed so thatl couldn’t for the life of me tell which way he was looking. No one laughed at him, | although lhe was really funnier than | Punch. Michty handy he was with a pistcl so the people told me later, and he ou'd pull without warning sometimes. “*He came up and rapped with knuck- | les that were all bome on the stage, and said in a hoarse, strange voice: ‘Stranger, | do you ever pluy for nuthin for sick chil- dren?’ | “The word children took me, for Iam fond of the little fellows. Nobody wanted | to dispute me when Isaid I would have to | go. The old mountaineer went ahead, | carrying my tent on his shoulder and the grip in his hand as if they were feathers. He would not let me carry them, so 1 came along behind, looking about and taking it easy. ** “You're square, pardner,’” ssid the old | fellow, turning once to look k, *if you were an officer you wouldn’t dare to “The cross-eyed old man was a moon-‘f | pluckiest officers didn't stir him up often. | After awhile we came to s log cabin. A | voung woman was standing at the door. She was just as like the old man as she | could be, cross-eyes and all—must have been a family of freaks. She hada been crying and did not say much. We want | right in and the old man closed the door | it where he could reach it. Then he went ap to the bed where a little girl (the pret- | tiest kid I have ever seen) was lying. Her | cheeks were too red and her eyes too | oright with the fever to sait me, and I | sort of choked up as she looked at me, for | she seemed something like a little grl I | had known and who died a good many years ago. * ‘Hurry up with the show,’ said the old man in a husky whisper, ‘as I'm power- ful 'fraid she will be too tired to see it to- day. Macke it gentle and pleasin’ like as can.’ “Well, it would have done you good to see that kid laugh. Ihad to make up a new story for Mr. Punch thatday. In- stead of kiling everybody, he just led them in to dinner, and I made him tell all the funny newspaper stories I could think of (they were all new there), andt Mr. Punch’s family maae love like a lot | ter, somexhat abruptly, ““what happened | after a duc[nAr. of turtle doves for that little sick girl. I |the nextday? I haven't got over it yet. | the mountains may be sometimes, when was so used to bhaving Mr. Punch kill | The little one took & iurn for the bad that Ings I found the old moonshiner there, waiting for me. He had found me some- way. He coughed a little before he talked Salvation Army and had given up moon- shining. O F fl P U N CH 'I[ N D-oJ D DY MH N B e e j1ag one of his bony hands on mine, ‘you until she was tired. them all off that I found it hard not to | night. make a slip. I plaved for the little one | the change as auick as 1 did. The fever | than they were that day. g “Well, now, it would have melted youn as itdid me to have seen ler point ane little white finzer up toward the sky. ‘Papa,’ she said in a whisper, ‘dear papa told me in my dream last night that I was to come.’ “I never had such a task as that. I| wouldn’t have refused the little girl for| all the money in the world, no indeed. I plaved until the doctor came. He, of | course, stopyed me, bat there was no need ofit. She was going and I knew it. Such ! a sad little look came into her face. Shel kissed me god-by as I went away. | “Six montts after that I was playing | in Knoxville. When I went to my lodg- | much. He told me he had joined the see little Emma is dead. S.etold methat | I must be vood. I'd 'a’ done anything for her. I'd’a’ died for her—'deed I would.’ | “He choked up some and fumbled in one of his pockete and brought out something | carefully rolled up in cloth. ‘I came,’ he said, “to teil you the news and to give you this’ With tiat he handed me a | battered doil that had on a faded dress. I/ suppose that he thought that a doll was | in my line, I took it, of course. * “Tue little girl’s mother?’ I asked. **Dzad,’ said the ex-mconshiner. *‘Died soon after—broken heart, Is’pose. Women often do that way.”’ “Then he paused a bit. *Well,” he finally | said, ‘T must be going. I must ao some good work to carry out my promise; but I wish they hadn’t both gone off to leave me alone.’ *‘The old moonshiner sighed, seized my hand with a grip like a vise, and went out. There was a tear on my haud. 1 guess he nad never shed many. I nover saw him again.” OLD GHURGH STOVES| A Great Gontest Over the Stove Question in a Gonnecticut Town. The story of the Litchfield stove and its recent discovery is of much historical in- terest. The earliest version I kunow of was given by 8. G. Goodrich (‘'Peter Par- | ley"’) in his “Recoilections of a Lifetime,” | published in 1856. Mr. Goodrich was born in Ridgefield. Conn., in 1703, and his recol- lections of early times run back to the be- ginning of the century and even before. | Perhaps your readers may like to see his version of the stove story. *‘One thing strikes me now with wonder, |and that is the general indifference in those days to the intensity of winter. No doubt the climate was then more severe; | but be that as it may, people seemed to The old man ana her mother saw | suffer less from it than atthe present | set in worse. The people wanted me to)moonshiner was gone the littie one|a story, by the way, upon the meeting “Say, don't you know,” said Mr. Car- | stay, while the o'd moonshiner drove off | seemed naturally to turn to me. I just {houses of those days. They were of Hard as those people in | seare | like when the little one said, ‘Let | mitiing somewhat freely the plasts of the the internal revenue officers are on their trail, you never saw any one more gentle When the o'd time. *‘Nobody thought of staying at home from church because of the extremity of the weather. * * * Tet me tell vou caught my breath, and the woman looked | wood and slenderly buiit, of course ad- me see Punch &nd Judy once more before | seasons. In the severe winier days we I go.’ only mitigated the temperature by foot- **‘Go child ?’ J asked, ‘go where? stoves, but these were deemed effeminate luxuries, suited to women and children. What would have been thought of Deacon Oimstead and Granther Baldwin had they vielded to the weakness of a foot- stove? . “The age of comfortable meeting-houses and churches in country towns was sub- sequent to this, some twenty or thirty years. Allimprovement is gradua! and frequently advances only by conflict wi b prejudice and victory over oppusition. In a certain country town within my knowl- edge, the introduction of stoves into the meeting-house, about the year 1830, threatened to overturn society. The inci- dent may be worth detailing, for wrifler often throw light upon ime portant subjects. In this case, the metropolis, which we will call H—, had alopted stoves in the churches, and, naturally enough, some people of the ncizhboring town of E— set about ine troducin this custom into the meeting- house in their own village. Now, the two master spirits of society—the demon of progress and the angel of conservatism— somehow or other had got into the place, and as :00n as thisreform was sugeested they began to wrestle with the péople unil at last the church and society were | divided into two violent factions, the stove party and the anti-stove party. **At the head of the first was Mrs. Deacon K., and at the head of the latter was Mrs. Deacon P. The battle raged portentously, very much like the renowned tempest in a teapot. Society was indeed lashed into a foam., The minister, between the con- tending factions, scarcely dared to say his soul was his own. He could scarcely find a text from Genesis to Jude that mizht not commit him on one side or the other. The sirife, of course, ran into politics, and the representative to the Assembly got in by a happy knack at dodging the question in such wise as 10 be claimed by both par- ties. Finally the progressionists prevailed— the stove party trinmphed, and the stoves were accordingly installed. Great wasthe humiliation of the anti-stoveites; never- theless, they concluded to be submissive to the dispon:ation of providence. QOa the Sabbath succeeding the installation of stoves, Mrs. Deacon P., instead of staying away,did as she ought and went to church. As she moved up the broad aisle, it was remarked that she looked pale but calm,as a martyr should—conscious of injury, yet struggling toforgive. Nevertheless, when the minister named his text Romans ii:20 and spoke about heaping coals of fire on the head, she slid from the seat and subsided gently upon the floor. The train of ideas suggested was, in fact, too much for her heated brain and shattered nerves. There was a rush to her pew and the fainting lady was taken out. When shke came to the air she revived. “‘Pray what isthe matter?’ said Mrs, Deacon K., who bent over her, holding & smelling bottle to her nose. *'Ob, it is the heat of those awful stoves,’’ said Mrs. Deacon P. “¢No, no, my dear,’ said Mrs.Deacon K., ‘that cab’t be; its a warm day, you know, and there’s no fire in them.’ **No fire in the stoves,’ said Mrs. Dea- con P. “‘Not a particle,’ said Mrs. Deacon K. “‘Well, I feel better,’ said the poor lady. And so, bidding bher friends good-by, she went home in a manner suited to the oc- casion,”’—Evangelist. R Observing barbers declare that men with heavy beards are most apt to be bald. CUT ACROSS HERE AND FOLD. . Music b bloom of the spring. In sun - shine and star - beam, 'm child of the King. e e G touch while I sing I reign oer my her - i -tage child of the King. 9 , prayer - ful - ly cling, To E -ter - ni - ty crowned as the child of the King. e CHORUS I’'m the child ACCELLERANDO of the King. elim aquell I’m the child LAST TIME REPEAT PP / feila Yfi'am;e. ooQo00 0 Qe @ WL )\ ] A 7)) e — R Q) A A A : A R - i i iy CEFIBEL s L i === = ¥ : otV & % & S sun - shine and star-beam I'm DL _,," reign oer my her - i- tage| child of the King. (0 = o ter - ni - tycrownedas the mfi_{(& ( o o @ 3\ 17,)) N P, ¢ (@SR S 2 3 c6000c00ecceco(DecccOoCOCCr COMPLIMENTS OF THE SAN FRANCIsco CALL Words b)/ Anna Moerrison Reed. Written by order of “The San Francisco Call” especially for presentation to its Christian Endeavor friends, subsequently to be published in book fo:m and sung by the Eadeavar Convention as its anthem of jubilee for 1897, arrangements for which have been duly made with thz prop:r commit tees. This will be the Christian Endeavor song of the year and may be expected to soon be heard caroling Burke & Co, Music Typographors, § Leroy Flacs,, 8, F. Cal, frcm the lips of thcusands of joyous young folks all over the City and later all over the country ! d I'm the child of the King.