Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-23
YOUTHFUL AMBITIONS
Lad Who Hankered to Be a
Minstrel Man.
THE BURNT CORK "BUG'
EXPERIENCES ON THE ROAD
WITH A TROUPE.
Members of Company Gradually De-
serted-When the Crash Came
The Welcome Home.
THE BURNT CORK BUG

| man of forty-ffve or so was chuckling softly
/ to himself He was requested not to be
/ selfish. but to let others In on 1t. He did.
| Its nothing he said. pulling the paper
band or fat cigar. except that / can't
help but laugh when remember what an
/ ass of boy was. can see my level
headed old dads point OF view now. It's
| shocking, now, to think of what bone
head / must have appeared in his eyes
/ when l was a boy. 1t sure is And yet.
/ the same bug that had afflicted about all
| the rest of the boys Of my day. I had a
| mad hankering to be minstrel man. Went
to the minstrel show at the Columbia cou-
pie Of weeks ago. just to see IL any linger-
/ ing particle or atom of that old bug still
chung to my system. Found out that it
didn't. All gone, years ago. of course. But
| 1t sure possessed me, body and pantaloons,
| when was a youngster.
| The profound yearning to be a minstrel
/ man Is thing. that the youngsters of to-
| day know nothing about. But, as ! say, 1t
was the dream that had most of the lads
OF my tadhood mumbling In their sleep.
| can't remember solitary member of the
boy gang with which affiliated and fought
| who wouldn't rather have got into the
burnt-cork business than have become Pres
| fdent of the United States. 1t was a mi
| crobe with all of US. an obsessIon that made
l the majority of us all but useless in buck
ling down to the solid facts of work a-day
| life
| I believe, though. that It had me rock
ing more than any of the other youngsters
OF my bunch, for really could do some
thing. I was clever with my feet. and l
could sing bit. It was just because of the
| fact that could do something that was
cured early.
MY level-headed old dad had a pretty
| tidy plumbers shop down on the Island
| as we used to call Southwest Washington,
| ana, when was thirteen, seeing that there
was no use In trying to keep me from play
L A1,r21 t. ~
shop, under his shrewd eye, as an appren-
| tfce to learn the plumbers trade.
was husky gossoon Of q boy. and
Went along pretty well for year or so,
| possession of me. In those days all of the
boys used to practice, Jig steps on their
IaVor1te corners after supper of evenings
for boys at that time used to flock by them
combing out their bangs and trying to make
hits with the girls of the neighborhood. The
slrl gag wasn't any part Of the game of the
growing boy when was coming along
Proud Of His Accomplishments.
| We'll at these corner Jig seances the
| TACT began to stand out pretty early that /
mad something on all the rest of the tads
OF my bunch when 1t came to quick and
| shifty feet stuff. And when the rest be-
gan to refer to me as the main jiggist of
the push. It was all off with me.
couldn't see the plumbers trade with
a pinocular as big as Dahlgren gun, and
1 II was going to be the minstrel business for
mine or nothing. used to take in all the
nainstrel shows, at q quarter q throw M IN
| the gallery, that swung along to Washing
| ton: ana there were lots of minstrel shows
| IN those days. And the more I looked at
these minstrel shows the more convinced
| became that had a lot of the black-face
people IN Dubville. I took to singing and
| round that could tear off some of that
| too. practiced the coon dialect business
| and the boys Of my gang. generally a sar-
/ donfcally critical, not to say a dertsive, lot.
pronounced me to be there with the Sanbo
| spiels. l heard that they had what they
called amateur nights at permanent min
strel house over In PHILADELPHIA
i saved up for weeks to get the price of
| ticket there and back. and 1 finally
10 go on on one Of the amateur nights /
| did an aged coon stunt, singing The Old
| Bay Mule and padding that out with the
picked up. l was the only one out of the
sixteen lads of boys who went on at the
Philadeiphia house that amateur night that
| didn't get chased off by the boots of the
bunch in front Fact Is, they asked me, to
| come back And that was the completion
of nay ruin.
When | returned to Washington in time
to get to work on the following morning so
that my dad wouldn't get next to where
I'd been. l began to soldier on my lob some
thing awful. I'd rattle around some pieces
| or brass pipe, so that my dad 'ud hear me
working from his little Office down below
| the workroonl. and then I'd stink uptto the
/ loft and practice new jig variations. My ST
a week began to trickle away for coon wigs
] and makeup auxiliaries of the burnt cork
man-daneing clogs and slap Shoes and
such truck-and. as an apprentice at the
| plumbing trade. wasn't earning one-sey-
enth of my 81 a week. either. My dad used
! to corral me up In the loft doing the yodle
and Jig thing every once in a while and I
can see him yet shaking his wise grizzled
| old head and hear him mumblfng those
things about fool boys and id loafers and
! so on He had not even an inkling of a
notion that was tossing around In my lit
tie white bunk o. nights trying to dope out
some old way to bulge into the minstrel
business. But. looking back now, I can
see that he had II figured out for a pipe that
I was never going to do as plumber, apt
as was at the trade
Applied for Minstrel Job.
II had taken to reading the old Clipper
SOS to keep Informed of the. movements
| of the minstrel outfits. and one day
read In 1t an ad. stating that talent
| was wanted for minstrel outfit forming
In Baltimore. The adj required that appIi-
cants should inclose $40 in the first letter
as an evidence OF good faith. I fell for
that, something easy. shooting the appli-
cation with the $40 along half an hour after
I'd read the adj never got any reply, of
L i
an application for a job as a minstrel kept
me alive for four months. Ny hopes as to
cutting In with the Baltimore outfit began
to ooze some at the end of the four months
| however, when | read another ad., also In
the Clipper, setting forth the fact that the
Memphis minstrels, forty strong-connt
'em-forty strong. were organizing In Pitts
burg for a tour of the west and south. and
needed some more talent Nothing was
said in this aG- about inciosing any money
with applications. Isat down and wrote
to the organizer of the Memphis Ministries,
a man named Murtha telling him how
strong was at the Footprints In the Sand
thing, and how was there with the
quayery pipes in the aged coon stuff.
IT received a telegram from Mr.. Murtha
two days later. requesting. me to state ms
terms,
Now, a lot OF good things have come my
way, please God, since that time, and /
hope I've accepted them with becoming
modesty and gratitude. I've had the fun of
making some money. I've swelled up pow
erfully over the birth of my flrst boy. and
plenty of Httle events have filtered In my
direction to make me feel for little while
that the world was my oyster and that I
was engaged in opening IT.
But gentlemen. want to go on record
as stating that nothing ever happened to
that gave the rjnvv Of s,fsfa tred nd