The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-03-04
THE HARD LUCK STORIES
OFHllcZlVIYRE g. HEATH

that said: "A minstrel show must pay
license of 800 in advance. The sher-
iff came around and wanted us to pay
before the band had started to play
outside the showhouse. We argued with
him that the band would have to play
so that we could find out how many
people were coming to the show. At
ter good deal of oratory he consented
to let the band play on the sidewalk.
&c Now, the manager OF our show,
fellow called Sugarfoot Smith-he's
been sideshow talker-came to me
I was the treasurer-and he says:
How much money have you got in2'
Seventy five cents, says l.
Z" 'Give it to me- says he.
| sI gave it to him and he goes over
across the street and gets rs cents
worth of whisky in bottle. Then he
comes back and takes the sheriff in a
dressing room and has long close-to-
| close talk, all the time feeding the sher-
iff booze and sending out, orders at the
He keeps the sheriff quiet and the band
| noisy for two hours-till about $3.50
| o'clock. And by that time the IS
cents worth of whisky has got the
sheriff all in and out. So Sugarfoot
sends word for to open the show. We
played that night to fine business.
| We took in about $23.
"We gave the conductor all we had
and told him to take us as far as it
| lasted.
"Now, remember, I'm sick all this
time and I've got to play the snare
drum in the band as well as act and
all that-and the sickness that Is the
matter with me is a boil on the neck.
Please remember the boil on the neck.
money would take us, and we arrived
where did we arrive2-l remember we
| didn't eat that day.
-'"You could make map as big as
the side of this wall out of the places
where we didn It eat,'' softly says Mr..
Heath, "but the particular place you
mean is Meridian, Miss
eve got there the day they raised
the quarantine from the yellow fever
continues the principal raconteuT.
"That town Just woke itself from a
stupor-that g what it did," says
Heath
"You can imagine what our dinkey
, parade meant to those people that had
seen nothing but DEATH. death, death.
scribed. Why, the mayor came to ny
put life into my sorrowing people
"And remember that all this time I,
Mcintyre, of Mcintyre and Heath, an
sick with boil on my neck. After
| the parade Heath and the mayor and
5 Sugarfoot went out and had a lot of
2 joyful water, while I stayed home sick
l with a boil and scared out of my socks
: for the yellow fever. But Heath was
a great comfort. At the supper table
8 he told me, as [ was trying to worry
down a little soup, that in the room
: where we were to sleep just twenty five
| people had died Of the yellow fever.
''That made me hustle up and get to
work. We played to pretty good
= house and then went on till we hit
s Kentucky and Sugarfoot Smith fixed 1t
t with the freight conductor to take us
on freight as far as Russellville, Ky.
e 'That was another of those days
n we hadn't ct at all and there WASH t
e one 5-cent piece in the whole troupe.
But we had our nerve with us. We got
e into town at at night and marched up
IS to the biggest hotel in the county, and
- Sugarfoot, with a great flourish of the
'. pen, registered as If we had million
5 dollars.
It "And you can imagine how hungry
It ] was when l tell you that I hadn I
k thought about that boil on my neck fol-
about seventeen minutes. The first
e thing ] did when / went to my room
! rang the bell, and the porter came u
I, and ] got a,talking to him. I gold hi:,
> I had boil on my neck and II It wa:
o. possible for him to bring up soma f'r,ad
< and milk d give him ticket 10 The
show tomorrow night.
"That darkey made good. eou
e cluded Mcintyre. "He brought ME W
s. s.. a loaf of bread big as your arm
e. and bowl of milk as big as basin
20 Now, there was a couple of boys 4
-, the show, musicians. who were w3cl
y and tired and not much used to STAR :
-, ing | sent for those boys. and we al
y, y sat down on the floor around that bow
" and ct every bit of the bread and mill
N and the boil didn't get any poultic,
X that night.