A Pirate of Parts

Excerpt

"Is all our company here?"

—Midsummer Night's Dream.

Yes, he was a strolling player pure and simple. He was an actor by profession, and jack of all trades through necessity. He could play any part from Macbeth to the hind leg of an elephant, equally well or bad, as the case might be. What he did not know about a theatre was not worth knowing; what he could not do about a playhouse was not worth doing—provided you took his word for it. From this it might be inferred he was a useful man, but he was not. He had a queer way of doing things he ought not to do, and of leaving undone things he should have done. Good nature, however, was his chief quality. He bubbled over with it. Under the most trying circumstances he never lost his temper. He laughed his way through life, apparently without care. Yet he was a man of family, and those who were dependent upon him were not neglected, for his little ones were uppermost in his heart. Acting was his legitimate calling, but he would attempt anything to turn an honest penny. In turn he had been sailor, engineer, pilot, painter, manager, lecturer, bartender, soldier, author, clown, pantaloon, and a brass band. To preach a sermon would disconcert him as little as to undertake to navigate a balloon. He could get away with a pint of Jersey lightning, and under its stimulating influence address a blue ribbon temperance meeting on the pernicious effects of rum. Where he was born no one could tell. He claimed laughingly that it was so long since he was first produced he had lost track of the date. A friend of his maintained that he was bred in the blue grass region, he was such an admirable judge of whisky. On that score he might as well have been born in the County Galway as in the state of Kentucky. He had a voluminous shock of red hair; his name was Handy, and no one ever thought of addressing him otherwise, even on the slightest acquaintance. When he had an engagement he was poorer than when he was out of a job. He was a daisy of the chronic impecunious variety.

The summer of —'7 was a hard season with actors, and as Handy was one of the guild he suffered like the rest of his calling. He was not so fortunate as to have country relatives with whom he might visit and spend a brief vacation down on the old farm, so he had to bestir himself to hit upon some scheme or other to bridge over the so-called dog days. He pondered over the matter, and finally determined to organize a company to work the towns along the Long Island Sound coast. Most men would have shrunk from an undertaking of this character without the necessary capital to embark in the venture. Handy, however, was not an individual of that type. He was a man of great natural and economical resources, when put to the test. Moreover, he had a friend who was the owner of a good-sized canvas tent; was on familiar terms with another who was the proud possessor of a fairly good-sized sailing craft; his credit at the printer's was good for twenty or twenty-five dollars, and in addition he had eleven dollars in hard cash in his inside pocket....