The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 21, 1902, Page 6

THE fUNDAY CAL ) BIRT muLEN's i fh I TRouBLES. A == HE player-folk, you know, are in reality the worker-folk of this merry world. They are the ones who know no holiday. There is not a rag-picker or & road digger or a pinched little girl in a sweat shop who does not stop work when the twentPy-fifth of December comes arsund, and attempt some sort of merry-making. But Christmas is one of the hard- est days in the year to the mummer. He must work for others to laugh. He must pipe for others to dance. He helps to make Christmas for the gay- hearted world and in so doing he misses it himself. They are a jolly lot, though, these player-worker-folk, and they always manage to find something to make a joke of even if it is being stranded, with a walk home ahead of them. Here are some of their Christmas memories for you. Have a laugh with them and wish them part of the merry Christmas that they are help- ing to make for you. BY FERRIS HARTMAN Tivoli Opera-House. AST Christmas I stole a couple of children. Oh, no, I'm not a pro- fessional kidnaper, and I don’t get & cent of reward for all my trouble and risk. But I saved a Christmas matinee. ‘We were playing “Babes in the Woods.” In one scene & lot of children appear on the stage, supers who are engaged and trained. On Christmas day we suddenly recelved word that two of them were very 1ll and could not possibly perform. ‘Well, I wonder! What do you think of that for Chrisgmas matines news when the house was packed with an expectant and open-mouthed multifude? “That scene’s dead,” I muttered to my- self, and paced in & Hamlet soliloquy. I had en inspiration. “Comie out on the street and we'll see what we can find,” I sald to Muller. We took our hats and sauntered forth es nonchalantly as if every minute was not golden, studded with dlamonds. 1 saw & woman walking along with two children. “Engage her in conversation,” said L Muller did it. Goodness knows what he said to ber, but she was absorbed for a minute. In that minute I took a kid by each hand and shot in at the stage door. It worked beautifully. I have repeated the experiment since. If any of you mothers miss your children, don't be wor- ried. I may have them in safe-keeping for all you know. BY GEORGIE COOPER Central Theater. T'S one of my first professionai Christmases that I'm telling about, although not the wery first. That one I can’t even remember. You see I was put on the boards when I was just three years old and all I know about it is what I've been told. The first pict- ure I have of myself as an actress was in an appearance I made In “Poor Joe,” a dramatization of “Bleak House.” My father was sterring my mother, she play- Ing the title role, and I cried so when I saw her stage sufferihgs that I couldn't play my part. But that's another story. The first Christmas that has any place in my memory occurred when I was play- ing “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” That was my first experience as & star. I played through Canada and wasn't it dreary at some of those hotels In those pokey old Canadian towns! I worked hard, ot course, for the part is long and- difficult for a child and I was only & mite of half a dozen years or thereabouts. There wasn’t much chance to have fun. I had to find my pleasure in my work and In fact it alwavs has been & pleasure to me, even in the days when I was a mere child. During the time that I was away from the theater I had little enough to amuse myself with. But at last I found a chum. It was a fat little pug dog that was stopping with its mistress at the same hotel where we were putting up in Van- couver. The dog and I met the first day that T arrived at the hotel and it was a case of love at first sight. He came waddling down the hall to meet me as I was being shown to my room, a&s If he had known that I was coming. I stopped and spoke to him, he followed me, and after that be stayed In my room es much as he did in his own mistress’ suite. I came to love him so that I was un- "appy because I couldn’t bave him. But GQARDNER ON THRE MOVIE sTaeD VALANTLY AT GILBERT m EMORAQL!Ta‘;uT IVI\:J, R 1“5% gt fidti \léi ‘.t}»{}_v L although his mistress was generous about loaning him for a companion, she would not part with him for love or money. The members of the company tried to get him for me, but in vain. Christmas came while we were plaving an unusually long engagement in Van- couver. 1 was pretty homesick, as we theatrical people are likely to be at holi- day time, for the Christmas season often finds us many miles from home. I went to my performance that night a sad little girl. I found it hard to get through the merry scenes of Fauntleroy. Everything dragged. It secemed to me that the whole world was having and singing “Merry Christmas™ except poor little Georgie Cooper. I was in a self- pitying mood that rivaled Hamlet's. The audience was too jolly to notice my mood. They were pleased with every- thing. They applauded all the time. When the last curtain fell I was called out by a great burst of clapping. I went feeling as blase as I possibly could feel now. The stage child is pre- cocious and T was a small cynic. I kept thinking “It's all very well for you to clap and have a good time while I am working to give it to you.” I went out only because I had to. I bowed and started back, when I saw that the leader of the orchestra was handing me something. I supposed it was flowers and didn’t much care. But it was a queer-looking thing. My curiosity was roused. I reached out for it and it fairly gave a lurch into my arms. What do you think it was? The members of the company had got a tiny Christmas tree, one of these min- iature affairs planted in a flower pot, and they had tled to it a fat little pug dog, exactly like the one d had wanted. Did Santa Claus ever hang so droll a gift on a Christmas trge? I was so happy that I tried to make a speech and instead I just broke down and cried and hugged my doggle and tree all In one big hug and ran off the stage. He was my Tri¥ and he lived with me to a ripe old age. When he died he was buried with an elaborate ceremony in the yard of the theater. I have never had a dog since. I don’t want one. It could never take his place. I always keep a warm spot in my heart for him, for he turned my sorriest Christ- mas into my merriest. BY MAUDE AMBER Fischer’s Theater. NEVER got a Christmas present that I thought more of than one that the little callboy gave me in a theater where I played a few years ago. It was in the East, re Christmas weather 18 very different from what it is here. We were having snappy days and snappler nights then, and we had to fight through heavy snows to reach the the- ater. The callboy was a dear little fellow. He grew to be very fond of me and made me his confidante. He told me all about his home, his family, his rabbit and his parrot, One day he appeared in a gorgeous new pair of mittens. At the first call that evening he stopped at my door and showed them to me. “Look, Miss Amber; ain’t they swell?”’ he asked me, beaming. “I like 'em better ‘n anything I've got. They took a lot o money to buy. I pald a woman to make ’em for me. Aln’t thém swell colors?” He had chosen the worsteds himself end they were indeed “swell colors.” Ehey were knitted in stripes of red and purple —the most gorgeous and ridiculous things you ever saw, but quite in accord with a small boy’s taste. Of course I admired them Immensely and he beamed the more broadly at everything I said in admiration. My own hands were cold that night from wearing thin kid gloves and forgetting my muff, and I said: “They’'re beauties, Dick. I'd like to steal them from you. I want a pair just like them.” Of course it was all sald in a joke, but I saw his face become serious. Three days later Christmas arrived. My friends were delightfully kind and my dressing-room was plled high with gifts. Bllverware glittered everywhers, flowers made the room look lke a garden in De- cember, jewels sparkled. ~-Dick came to the door. ‘“Here, Miss Amber,” he said, and thrust a little pack- age at me. I supposed that It was still another gift sent by some member of the com- pany or by one of my friends in town. But when I opened it—what do you sup- pose it was? It was those gorgeous red and purple mittens! Bless Dick's little heart! They were so big that I could have put three of my hands into one of them. Alas, he had taken what I sald In earnest and had made the greatest sacrifice of his life just to please me. He was ready to go through the snow with freezing hands so that I could have the mittens. I kissed them and cried over them. Dick had run away so fast after deliver- ing the gift that I had to run and kidnap him long enough to thank him. I wanted to give the mittens back to his poor little frozen hands, but I was afraid this would hurt his feelings, so I found a chance to give him a fine heavy pair of gloves, furry and warm, on his birthday, which followed soon after. Bless those mittens! I've got them yet. BY GILBERT GARDNER Grand Opera-House. AM the funny man ef the Grand Opera-house and therefore I haven't a funny story. Nothing funny ever happened to me. It never does to funny men. Their lives are all trag- edies. May be you think that's a joke, but it isn't. Some people might think it was funny to play two plays and fourteen perform- ances a week, as I was doing one holiday season. It was enough to kill a dray- horse. That was back East. The man- ager was working for all there was in it. Well, a few days before Christmas he announced that we would have not only the usual two performances on that day, but also a matinee in the morning. He expected a jammed house. He was bound to make money. That killed Christmas for all of us, but there was nothing to do but sumbit. Who was the joke on? When Christ- mas morning came exactly five seats had been sold in that house. People wanted to stay at home and enjoy their stock- ings. He made us go on with the performance just the same. Well, even if it was the end of our poor little Christmas fun he didn’t enjoy the results. And I'dldn’t walk home, either. BY JOHN MORRISEY The Orpheum. NCE upon a time I was a little or- phan that Bill Ray, famous then, had taken a shine to and had put on the stage in his company. Bill was a stern man. He was good to me and I wouldn’t have missed my apprenticeship under him for any meney, but he used to punch me. I need- that I 414 it? Never. You took your whipping for nothing.” And she ran for the arnica. But I was so self-righteous that I was happy, 8o I guess I got a pretty satis- factory Christmas out of it after all. BY FRANK BACON Alcazar Theater, HERE was more tragedy than com- edy in the Christmas I spent in Las Cruces a good many years ago. It ‘was when I was taking ‘““The Black Flag” through the South, and I stopped in that New Mexican town, where the inhabitants were mostly Mexicans without any use of English. ‘We were pretty nearly at the end of our funds and we were bound to make a last stand to get enough money to take us home. The company had dwindled to five members. The only way to get supers to play the four convicts was to call in some of the natives. They didn’'t know any English, and all I could do with them was to shove thém around as If they were wooden figures. I managed, though, to get it through their heads when they were to come on and when to go off the stage, and they didn’'t need to learn any lines anyway, so it looked as if we might have a successful performancs, I put them into the convict suits which belonged to the company. They were made of burlaps and stenciled in convict stripes. Unfortunately, I had not rehearsed the men with the stage noises. 8o, when their scene came, they were not prepared forall that went with it. They were on. the stage when the guns/ went off. The drum made a terrific crashing. I saw the fellows jump and turn pale. Peal after peal followed. The loft man was not used to our American way of doing things and he took this for the signal to lower the curtain, which he did with a crash. Somebody got excited and turned out the lights. Those four su- pers thought that the end of the world had come. They took to their heels and fled and broke up the performance with their fleeing. All the Mexican audience left the house in a panic. The convicts fled with our stenciled costumes on their backs and we never saw either men or suits again. There was no way to replace the prop- erties in that God-forsaken country, and we couldn’t, have played to those audi- ences again even if we had had them. They thought we were evil ones, all of us, So our Christmas was a lean one that year, but things picked up later on when ed the punchings and they did me good. my little Bessle took a hand In the mat- His daughter, Ada, was the lovellest lit- tle girl I knew. BShe used to sing duets with me and I adored her, off the stage and on. 3 She had a little hand organ that s! played by turning & crank, while she sang. We were dressed in peasant cos- tumes for this performance and we sang “The Bold Privateer” and “What are the Wild Waves Saying?* 5 That Christmas with the Rays was my first Christmas on the stage. I wasn’t homesick because I hadn’'t any home to be sick for. At the matinee performance Ada's hand slipped on the crank of her organ and it made & wild shriek that drowned our song and ruined its effect. The audience laughed and we broke down. My only thought was for Ada. What if her father should punish her? I could never bear that. As soon as I could get off the stage I rushed to Ray. “That was & bad break in my voice, wasn't 1t?"" I satd. “Did you do that?' he asked. “It was me made that squeak,” I said. “I laughed and made s noise.” Ray’'s fist was quick and I got a good licking. Just as he was finishing me off Ada came up and learned what had happened. She lzughed and orfed both. *You idlot,” she sald, “do you suppose father would have touched me If he had known AN (ODATING ALEPRERORANG Fummy T MOME - MADE TWILIGHT EFFECT . FOR BARNEY BETRNARD My ) 7 ter and then, at 5 years of age, she res- cued the company by her acting. After that we had a chance to smile at our misfortunes. And they grow funnier with every year that we get farther away from them. BY BIRT MULLEN Tivoll Opera-House. B people in the box office know what to look forward to when the holldays come around. We have enough chance to study the different phases of human nature at any time of year, but then is the time that all sorts of folks who are not used to theater-going give themselves treats and make raids upon us patient ones who sell tickets. At the holiday, season we put on pleces that attract children, because there are plenty ‘of little folks who would rather find'a ticket to the opera than anything else In their stockings. It would take a day to tell about all FERRIS MARTMANN WENT INTO THE KI\DNAPPING BUINE, her—yes, eleven; I counted ?uem. ““Oi wants seats for all them forr Christmas,” she sald. “But the seats are not on sale yet,” I .said. “Falth, Of don’t want thim on sals,” she broke in. “Of expects to pay full price.” She was bristling indignantly. “Four seats is what Of want and Of ex- pect to pay tin cints apace for thim. Three children can sit in each wan and two more and the baby and me in the other makes four, and four tolmes tin cints is forty cints, and it's a good sale for ye,” and she lald four hoarded dimes down before me. : BY TOM KERNS | - Central Theater. T was one Christmas that I spent in Boston a few years ago, when some California fellows who were visiting there tried to cheer me up and make me think of home. They were boys I used to know and go to school with when I was a kid in San Francisco. Dave Conklin was one of them. We all went to the old Clement School together. When I was in Boston playing in “The Girl From Paris” they were Harvard students and they came to town to see the show Christmas day. They set to work to applaud everything I did. It just braced me up. I pretty near had tears in my eyes when I saw the way they were doing—they showed they could stand by California material. They acted as if I was the whole show. It warmed my heart. ‘When it came to the proper time they called me before the curtain over and over. It felt good. Then I saw the usher tearing down the aisle with something and I said to myself, “There’s flowers for you, Tommy, my boy.” It wasn’t, though. The card attached sald, “Fresh from California. For auld lang syne,” which might have applied to flowers, but as a matter of fact what those boys had sent me was a rousing big head of lettuce. They made me put it onm, too, as a boutonniere, before i could leave the stage. e = ‘Well, I'd rather wear California lettuce than Easter roses any day, wouldn’t you? BY BARNEY BERNARD Fischer’s Theater. COUPLE of years ago on Christ- mas I was asked to recite at church entertainment. It's one of my specialties to make anything come in my line, so I went at this like a little man. I also went to work to give them exact- ly what they wanted. One of the com- mittee suggested Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells,” and so I told them they should have it, although it's about as far from the best thing I do every night at Fisch- er’s as anything you could name. I looked through it, hoping for some dramatic effect. ‘Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the south,” I read, and I said, “Turn on a cannon ef- fect when I get to that line.” It struck me, too, that it would help to have it dark at the same time, especfally for ‘“make forlorn the households.” So I rashly add- ed, “Turn down the lights when I get to that line and leave them low through ‘dn despair I bowed my head.” I was used to electric buttons and wires that do the rest. I didn’t count on the equipment of the hired hall where the en- tertainment was to be given. The amateur stage hands had studled the lines carefully, and when I began, “Then from each black, accursed mouth” I heard a burst of tin dishpans. It didn't sound much like the cannons’ thunder, but it went with the audience. So I felt all right and went on to— “It was as If an earthquake rent The hearthstones of a continent, And make forlorn—'* e Here was where the lights were to be lowered in order to blacken my despalr, which followed. I expected the pressure of a button to put out the footlights at once. But something else happened. I hadn’t noticed the footlights. Now I saw what they were. They were a row of coal ofl lamps ranged at the front of the stage. And the obedient stage hand entered calmly from the wings, stopped in front' the freaks that come In here. There was -Of the frst lamp, puffed up his cheeks one—no, madam, there are no fifteen-cent seats near the stage—there was a woman —yes, there are two seats left for to- night—not on the aisle—what?—but I can’t give you aisle seats—there was the funni- and with a great wheeze blew It out. Then he proceeded along the line, doing the same to every lamp. I went on with my lines. but nobody heard them. The house was all one roar, est woman you ever saw came here the 804 When 1 wound up “With peace on other day. She had a baby in her arms and there were eleven children following earth, good-will to men,” I bowed and §ot off, but nobody knew it, EFFECT OF FRANR BACON'S STAGE THUNDER ON HiS AMATEUR SUPERSL 1S BiG u«msr:&xs HEAD — BY C. W.KOLB AND MAX DILL Fischer’s Theater. AST Christmas was a great one— wasn’t it though? Remember that big coon, the one with the dlamond stud? And remember that cake? That was the greatest cake I ever tasted. What d'you think about it? You see we were down in Richmond, Virginia, and things are pretty black there. Why, the whole gallery is given over to the coons. It's all dark up there, and when you look up from the stage you can’t see anything but blackness until they laugh. Then they open up their mouths all together in & big coon “Ha-a 2-2-2-2-a-8-2-2-2-8-8-8-2—" and you can see streaks of white teeth in the black- ness. Well, we didn’t know how our act would take. We were doing & buck-and-wing and a cake walk, and we didn’t know how that'd strike them. We never thought of getting the reception we really did. Say, they thought we were all right They thought the idea of Germans doing a coon stunt was great. They opened their mouths and sald “Ha-s-a-d-a-a-a-a- a-a-a-a-a-a-2-a-a-a-a-2-a,” and kept on saying It so long we had & good rest be- fore we could go on with our act. W Well, when we left the theater thers was a big, important looking coon with & great diamond in his red and yellow shirt front walting for us at the stage door. “Ah’'m premendously pleased with the historic debility of yo’ gent'mans™ he sald, “and ah’m bepuestin’ yo' In behalf ob de entertainment committes dat yo will perform foh us to-night at & graad Christmas cake wallk.” That struck us as the best thing yet, for we were good and homesick and we didn’t know any way to spend our time after the performance. So a little before midnight we went around to J hall the location of which the man given us. It was the hottest cakewalk you ever saw. None of your shams—the real thing, right down in old Virginta. Coons so black you couldn’t tell them from a cloudy night. And glad rags! Diamonds to burn, and red and yellow and green and pur- ple togs. It was hot enough to set the river afire. Well, the cakewalk had been held back for us.. As soon as we put in our appear- ance they struck up. What d'you think? We took the cake! ‘We had on our Fiddle Dee Des make up, German way through. And we tickled them so they could hardly stand up for laughing at us. The cake we carried off was a peach, That's the time we decided we were hot bables—don’t you say so? FOR SUNDAY EVENING SUPPER. Cheese balls to be put on the plate with lettuce salad are always pretty and appetizing. They may be made in several ways, but one of the best Is this: Shave American cheese to a fine crumb, and add enough melted butter to soften it to a paste. Then add a little red pepper and salt and roll Into balls the size of mar- bles, finishing each one by quickly turn- ing it around in powdered parsley. The balls of cream cheese ars more easily prepared, for all that is necessary is to cut the cheese into squares and then make them into balls, without seasoning them. They may be rolled in the parsley, or two halves of an_English walnut may be pressed on each, transforming them into what logks like walnut cream can- dies; or the cheese may be tinted with a little green vegetable color and made Into balls without other adornment. If the cheese should happen to be crumbly and refuse to mold, add & very little olive ofl and it will become manage- able at once. — % In to-day’s issus of The | Sunday Call appears the sec- ond installment of “The Gos- pel of Judas Iscariot,” by Aaron Dwight Baldwin—a novel that is proving the sen- sation of two continents, This book will be published complete in threes issues of The Sunday Call’s Magazine Section — December 14, 21 and 28. . BE SURE TO READ IT. / IT IS THE NOVEL OF THE HOUR. Our next novel will be “When Knighthood Was in Flower,” by Charles Major, llustrated by photographs of scenes in Julia | Marlowe’s play of the same name. i