Watch Yourself Go By. Al. G. Field

climax. Ellingham rubbed a piece of white paper over the animal's back. Standing on a stool above the heads of the multitude he held the once spotless sheet of paper in his left hand, pointing his right forefinger at the paper, now discolored with the matter that oozed from the animal's body, he dramatically exclaimed: "He is truly the behemoth of Holy Writ. See, he sweateth blood!"

      As he stood motionless, still holding the paper aloft, Old man Hare, Lacy's father, who had stood a most interested listener during the lecture, looked up into the lecturer's face and, in a querulous tone asked: "What fer animal did ye say it was?"

      "A guinea pig, you dam old fool," flashed back Ellingham, as he stepped off the stool, while the crowd yelled, "Bully for Hare."

      The old fellow felt greatly grieved although the shouts of approval from the crowd partially appeased him. How he talked back to the show man made him quite a hero among the country folks for a long time afterwards.

      It is safe to assert that a more disappointed audience never left an exhibition than filed out of the big tent. Even the ministers, and they were all admitted free, were not satisfied. Bob Playford did not gather up the boys on the lot and pay their way in.

      As the audience filed out the man with the big red nose stood on top of the wagon and invited everybody into the tent where Christy's Original Minstrels were about to offer the good people of Brownsville the same choice and amusing performance they had won fame with in the principal theatres in New York City. Songs, glees, choruses, banjo solos, pathetic ballads, side-splitting farces, the whole concluding with a grand walk around by the entire company.

      Bob Playford and Dan French made all manner of fun of the big man with the red nose. Playford laughingly shouted: "Pay no attention to him, he don't belong to the show, he lives out in the country. He's a neighbor of old man Hare's."

      Cousin Charley and Alfred were won by the man's eloquence or the twanging of the stringed musical instruments that could be heard in the tent. They were soon inside. A platform on a wagon served as a stage, and a curtain with a cabin and woods as a background hung at the rear of the stage. The entire company of seven persons attired in shirts and trousers made of bed-ticking material, were seated in a semi-circle on the improvised stage.

      This was Alfred's first sight of a minstrel first part. "Gentlemen, be seated." The opening chorus was not half over before Alfred was laughing as heartily as ever boy laughed. The antics of the fellow with the tambourine who hit the singer sitting next to him on the head with it in time with the pattering of the sheepskin on his knees, hands and head, the assumed anger of the singer as he again hit him a resounding thwack, the finish, where the man with the bones and tambo worked all over the small stage and seemed in danger of upsetting it with their antics, had the crowd wild with their enthusiasm.

      The songs, the jokes, the final farce, "Handy Andy," pleased Alfred so greatly that he remained for the next performance as did Lin and her beau, Cousin Charley and several of Alfred's friends. He bought a song book containing only the words. He caught several of the airs and sang them all the way home.

      It was difficult to convince Alfred that the performers were white men blacked up. At supper Van Amberg's Great Moral Menagerie received a lambasting that boded no good for its future in Brownsville. Lin said:

      "It was jes a show for Baptusts and sich and they was all thar. Huh, they let the preachers in free gratis, an' they ought to let everybody in fer nuthin' caus it warn't wuth nuthin'. Durned ef I walk to the grounds to see seven shows like it. The niggers in the side show beat the big show all holler."

      Alfred declared that outside of the animals his show was better than Van Amberg's. Lin added: "Yes, ef Joe Sanford's wall-paper suit wus out of it."

      The supper was not over ere Lin and Alfred were in the parlor with the melodeon endeavoring to sing the songs of the minstrels. They had the book and hot were the arguments as to whether they had the tune right or not.

      Lin, Cousin Charley, Alfred, Billy Woods, and Bill Hyatt decided to go back to the minstrels at night. Alfred sang the songs under his breath. He drank in every word of the jokes and the farce he committed to memory.

      When they reached home the melodeon was started up again, and its strains swelled out on the night air until the father closed the rehearsal abruptly by ordering all to bed.

      The seed had been sown; even the chaff had taken root. The clown illusion still clung to Alfred but the minstrel idea seemed nearer realization. Did ever a party of amateurs decide to assault the public that they did not use a minstrel performance as their weapon?

      Despite the protests of the parents, the old melodeon, notwithstanding its age and other infirmities, was worked overtime. Alfred sang and resang the songs they had learned or deceived themselves into believing they had learned at the minstrels.

      Billy Woods had a good ear for tunes. As Lin put it, Billy caught more of the tunes than any of the others. Billy became a nightly visitor. Billy's flute and the melodeon did not harmonize as the melodeon had only three notes left in it. Lin just waited when a note was missing until the next measure and then "ketched up" as she expressed it.

      Amity Getty was another addition to the little band. He was really a good performer on the guitar. Alfred's especial favorite in the minstrels was the fellow who handled the tambourine. The mother said there was not a pie pan in the house they could bake in, Alfred had them so battered and dented thumping them on his knees, head and elbows.

      "I declare, I believe the boy is going crazy; I don't know what we will do with him," often said the mother.

      Cousin Charley was of an inventive turn of mind. He had become greatly interested in the nightly singing and fashioned a tambourine out of an old cheese box by cutting it down. Dennis Isler put tin jingles in it and put on a sheepskin head.

      The instrument in Alfred's hands became a terror to the household. He was banished to the commons where, surrounded by the children of the neighborhood, he did his practicing to the delight and danger of his audience as he persisted in finishing his antics by thumping one of the audience on the head with his instrument of torture, which generally sent the recipient of his thwack home, holding his head and crying. This usually brought a complaint from the victim's parents and Alfred's visits to the cellar accompanied by his father became so frequent that a boy with less ardor would surely have lost interest in his instrument.

      Alfred repeatedly advised Lin that they never could be minstrels if they did not have bones. He selected Billy Storey to perform on these necessary adjuncts to the minstrels. When Lin brought home from John Allison's meat shop a rib roast, the mother, astonished at the size of it, said: "My goodness, Lin, that roast is big enough for any tavern in town."

      The fact was Lin had not closely studied the bone player's instruments. She was of the opinion it required eight bones instead of four, hence the magnitude of the roast.

      The little band made the big front room the mecca for pilgrims nightly. The mother was nearly frantic; after every concert of the embryotic minstrels she solemnly admonished Lin and Alfred that that would be the last.

      Lin in turn would accuse Alfred of being the cause of all the din and racket. "Ef it hadn't been fer Cousin Charley makin' Alfurd thet infernal head drum (Lin could never say tambourine), Mary would never sed a word as she jus loves music es well es eny body else."

      Lin asserted that "the durn jingling contraption, jes spiled the hull thing and ye don't make good music with it nohow." Lin's deductions could not be controverted. Alfred did not make good music with his tambourine but it is a fact that he succeeded in drowning a great deal of bad.

      It was a night never to be forgotten; one of those nights that will linger long in fondest remembrance by any who have enjoyed them. It was the night of one of those old time parties, one of those healthful, pleasure giving affairs, an old fashioned family party. Relatives, near and distant, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces, cousins and friends, came by invitation to the old home.

      Games