  After my engagement with Robson at the Howard Athenaeum, which lasted for only a week, my mind was fully made up to adopt the stage as my vocation. I went to New York and secured a position as utility man at Niblo's Garden, under the management of Charles R. Thorne, Sr., and Edwin Eddy. But this lasted for only a few weeks, the season proving a failure. During the seasons of 1875 and 1876 I found it difficult to secure any employment whatever. The variety business, now called vaudeville, about this time had well-nigh supplanted the legitimate drama in the estimation of the masses and I, being rather an astute observer for a youngster, determined to turn my attention in that direction. The salaries offered were tempting and the opportunities of advertising one's ability much greater than in the legitimate. I persuaded my father to advance me enough money to have some costumes prepared and succeeded in inducing Bradford to prepare a sketch for me. It was called "His First Rehearsal," the receipt for which I take pleasure in submitting. You will see that sketches in those days cost small fortunes! (Handwritten receipt from Joseph Bradford) In the Little Rebel One of my first excursions into the legitimate I succeeded in procuring an opening at the Howard Athenaeum under the management of John Stetson. My associates appearing in the same programme were Gus Williams, Sol Smith Russell, Pat Rooney, Denman Thompson and several others who afterwards became famous players. I was handicapped to a great extent THE LEGEND OF NATHANIEL By Clay M. Greene "Come thou with me, tonight, and sit awhile, To see the mummers; not at the Museum: 'Tis laughter's Tomb. The Park's a dull Te Deum; The Globe's a Morgue. Mayhap there be a smile That lurketh somewhere in the dingy Athenaeum." Thus spake my friend, Joe Bradford: Rest his soul! I'd known him then a day, and we were chumming, As though we'd been for years Love's lute-strings thumbing. We'd told each other's lives; each ope'd his soul, And drank the other's health 'till riotous becoming. To his beloved Athenaeum, then, We almost reeled, and in a trice were seated, So close that we could scent the footlights heated. We laughed indeed, again, again, again, As clownish Mummers ancient songs and quips repeated. Then came into the light a slender boy, And Bradford yelled with lusty acclamation: "That's Nat, God bless him!" Then, without cessation, The stripling held each hearer like a toy, And thrilled him now with song, then wondrous imitation. First Farce, then Opera, now broad Burlesque, Then e'en in tragic realms majestic soaring, And each attempt success prodigious soaring; (Be it pathetic, tuneful, or grotesque,) Till every palm was bruised with ravenous encoring. The youth had scarce outgrown his spelling book, And yet tho' oft some honored name defaming, By matchless ridicule, his pure declaiming Came easily as ripples to a brook, Or thrills to lover's souls when latest sweethearts naming. "Who is this boy?" I cried. "He's clever, quite; Whence came he? Where began his gentle schooling? 'Tis pity there's no art in such tomfooling, And much I fear this youth I've seen, tonight, Is but a clever clown! Alas! Such kindless ruling!" "Then thou'rt a weakling Judge to so decide!" Cried Joseph, redd'ning in his indignation. "A clown? No art? Why 'tis no imitation That we have heard; nor can it be denied This callow boy is that one genius of a nation!" "You smile; you purse your lips; and even doubt. E'er I have drunk myself into perdition, Nat Goodwin will have filled with inanition The fame of every actor hereabout:— For Nature gave him the Creator's tireless mission!" He reproduced no song, no speech, no jest, But it was lustered by some hidden power That comes to Genius born with Fortune's dower. Youth in his veins, ambition in his breast, This boy will be one day the hero of his hour. More than a decade passed. Unlike to me, Joe lived not to fulfill that night's foretelling; Yet oft adown the years there comes a welling From that Somewhere, to green prophecy Which in my doubting soul that night usurped a dwelling. Today, I saw an eager, jostling throng, Like some greed-laden human panorama, Surround a playhouse door with vulgar clamour, To honor Bradford's star. "Seats! Seats!" their song:— To witness his, Nathaniel's, show of laurelled glamour. Oh, gentle friend of mine, thou art no more; But lend thy spirit ear while I am spinning My admiration's tale of endless winning Nat ever made. He never failed to score Since we together saw his modest first beginning. I hid thy prophecy within my breast, And ever and anon its force recalling, Watched Goodwin stride with speed that was appalling; Till now his very foes proclaim him best Amongst his votaries, thy very words forestalling. And I am glad to know, my spirit chum, That I long since let honest admiration Be leavened by a Friendship's adulation For him who in these decades hath become No artless clown, but that one genius of a nation. Drink deep with us, thou gentle Friendship's wraith;— If thou hast aught to drink where thou'rt abiding, And Nat and I'll recall thy stalwart faith Which met my doubting with indignant chiding, That night when you a new star's orbit were deciding. "Come thou with me, tonight, and sit awhile, To see the Mummers (not at the Museum. 'Tis laughter's tomb; the Park's a dull Te Deum; The Globe's no more): for I would see thee smile, While thousands laud the star of thy loved Athenaeum!" After my run at the Howard Athenaeum Tony Pastor offered me an engagement at $50 a week to appear at his Variety theatre in New York. When I arrived I was terror stricken at the way in which he had announced me. I was advertised as "Actor, Author and Mimic." I remained with Tony several weeks and when I left Gotham my salary had grown to the sum of $500 a week, a tremendous salary in those days. Variety was hardly to my liking as it gave me too much time to myself and I regret to say that I saved but little from my season's work. Colonel Sinn of the Olympic Theatre, New York, made me alluring offers to continue on the variety stage, but I decided to enter the legitimate and accepted an engagement to appear as Captain Crosstree under the management of Matt Morgan, then the manager of the 14th Street Theatre in the burlesque of "Black-eyed Susan." It was there I met for the first time dainty little Minnie Palmer and we appeared together in two farces, "Sketches in India" and "The Little Rebel." After a few weeks at the Fourteenth Street house we accepted an engagement to return to the Howard Athenaeum and we opened there at a joint salary of $750 a week. I was very proud of this, as I had previously left that theatre, not particularly successful, at a salary of only $15 a week. |
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