December, 1919 
FOKEST AND STEEAM 
653 
at the rehearsal was suddenly taken ill 
and could not appear. Here was a quan- 
dry. It would not do to inform Adams 
in his excited and nervous condition, and 
no other child was available. 
At last a bright idea, or rather an in- 
spiration was suggested by some one. 
Among the freaks on exhibition in the 
rooms below was a dwarf about the size 
and weight of a five year old child, but 
he was adorned with a full beard, and 
possessed of a deep bass voice. But any 
port in a storm. The dwarf was hastily 
dressed in the absent child’s clothes and 
a kerchief wound about his neck and 
shoulders to conceal his whiskers. His 
appearance was well calculated to de- 
ceive, and at the right time he was de- 
livered to Adams, who taking him by the 
hand led him up the stage speaking the 
lines of the play. 
Then the enemy appeared, and catching 
up the "child” with his left hand, and un- 
sheathing his sword with his right, he 
rushed up onto the frail bridge, holding 
the child aloft and shaking him vigor- 
ously, and gesticulating wildly with his 
sword he hurled deflnance at the foe. 
Meanwhile the ’kercrief had become dis- 
arranged disclosing the flowing whiskers. 
The dwarf viewing with fear and alarm 
the wild, glaring eyes of the actor who 
seemed about to dash him down to the sol- 
diers below, said in a deep, gruff voice: 
■'Here, Mr. Adams, don’t let me fall.” 
Then Adams, surprised at hearing the 
hoarse voice, looked up at the supposed 
child, and seeing the whiskers, rushed 
madly off the bridge, down to the stage 
and through the wings threw the dwarf 
into the lap of the fat woman who was 
looking on, and exclaimed in a loud voice: 
"Got ’em again. By Heel” 
O NE evening at the Fair of the Idary- 
land Institute, among other inter- 
esting things on exhibition, was a 
sewing machine, the first of its kind ever 
exhibited to the public. It was the in- 
vention of Elias Howe. The stitch was 
the lock stitch, the same as used to-day, 
though the needle worked horizontally 
while the cloth was held vertically. This 
was changed afterward by other inventors 
to the vertical needle and horizontal ma- 
terial. The most vital and most essential 
feature, however, and without which the 
machine would have been useless, was the 
eye in the point of the needle, which was 
the invention of Howe, and from which 
he amassed a fortune in royalties alone. 
An old colored woman, having in charge 
a little white girl, was greatly interested 
in the demonstration of the machine by 
an attendant. The child said: 
"How does he do it. Mammy?” to which 
the nurse replied: 
"He duz it wid ’is feet; cum along 
honey, its cunjah wuk. Somebody mus’ 
a unchain’ ole Satan an’ tun’ ’im loos’; 
le’s go an’ see de funnychuah and de man 
blowin’ glass bubbles.” 
MTienever a minstrel show came to 
town Johnnie and I were sure to be 
on hand near the front row of seats. 
■While we laughed heartily at the "nigger 
•ccentrlcitles” of such, old-timers as Eph, 
Horn, Luke West and Harry Lehr, we 
greatly enjoyed the vocal and instrumental 
features, and most of all the ever fra- 
grant and undying melodies of Stephen 
Collins Foster. Undying-, indeed! For as 
long as genius, originality and true har- 
mony are appreciated his matchless and 
immortal melodies will never, never die. 
And sometimes on spare evnings,when the 
air was balmy and redolent with honey- 
suckle and jessamine, and the soft moon- 
light filtered down through the quivering 
leaves, we would pick up cur banjos and 
repair to the porch where we played and 
sang Foster’s masterpieces, "Old Folks at 
Home,” "Old Black Joe,” and "Old Ken- 
tucky Home;” an in the pauses between 
the verses of the plaintive old songs we 
would be encouraged and rewarded by the 
handclapping of our neighbors. 
Bowling was the favorite and popular 
game in those days and bowling alleys 
were numerous. The game of billiards 
was just being introduced. The tables 
were very large with six pockets and the 
game was played with four balls. The 
small ivory spheres did not appeal to us 
then, our preference being for bowling. 
We did not fancy, however, the full frame 
of ten-pins but greatly preferred the 
game with three balls, known as “cocked 
hat.” Johnnie declared that rolling a 
large ball among ten pins was much like 
shooting into a flock of birds, while the 
game with three balls was more like 
shooting at single birds, and therefore 
more artistic and sportsmanlike; and 
Johnnie was nearly always right. 
We devoted two or three evenings each 
week to bowling, playing three games out 
of five for the oysters and wine. At 
"Shamburg’s,” a first-class restaurant, 
one could get a half dozen large fried 
oyters, Maryland style, with bread and 
battel^ cold slaw, pickles for a 
"levy' — twelve and a half cents, and a 
claret punch oi a port wine sangaree for 
a “fip” — six and a quarter cents, and a 
genuine Havana cigar of good quality for 
the same price — a ‘‘fi’ penny bit” Do- 
mestic cigarettes were unknown. The 
remembrance of those happy, humdrum 
and halcyon days seems more like a pleas- 
ant, reminiscent dream than an actuality, 
in contrast and comparison with the pres- 
ent strenuous and demoralized, if not de- 
generate, days of inflated prices, free- 
booting and profiteering. 
T he time had now arrived when it 
became advisable and necessary for 
me to apply myself seriously to the 
study of medicine. Therefore, in due 
time, I reluctantly gave up my pleasant 
position and bid farewell forever to mer- 
cantile affairs. Johnnie, also, was soon 
to go to St. Louis to accept a business po- 
sition in that city, where he had relatives. 
It would have been better for him had he 
remained there; but of that more anon. ■ 
I made my second trip to Cincinnati 
via the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, 
which had then been completed to "Wheel- 
ing, West Virginia. It proved to be quite 
an improvement on my former journey 
over the Pennsylvania Railway, as in- 
stead of passing over the mountains by 
means of inclined planes I now passed 
under them through tunnels. The trip 
was also shorter, being entirely by rail, i 
After leaving Cumberland, Maryland, 
some gentlemen seated near me were con- 
versing about fishing, and naturally I be- 
came an interested listener. Their con- 
versation was mostly about a fish they 
called black bass, and they were very en- 
thusiastic regarding its gameness and its 
desirability as a food-fish. I had never 
seen nor read of the fish, nor even hear^ 
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