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play produced on the regular stage, came at last to the plan of leasing Chickering Hall, a small music auditorium on Tremont Street, and set about remodeling it.

It seated hardly more than five hundred people, counting its small balcony, but it was the first of the so-called "Little Theaters" in America, and we all looked forward to the experiment with intense eagerness, for the reason that in this small hall Herne had determined to produce effects of intimate realism hitherto unknown on our stage. In all of the rehearsals of the play he and Katharine had this in mind. They always and everywhere schooled their actors in that colloquialism which, while not precisely the way in which persons would speak in a small room, nevertheless produces that effect upon the auditors.

To give up my work and serve as press-agent, without pay, of course, was my joy, and while Herne attended to the rehearsals and to the construction of the stage and the raising of the floor, I bustled about the city, interesting the young men of the press as well

as all my friends in the new venture. Complimentary seats were sent to all of the most distinguished literary and artistic men and women of the city, and when one night in the early autumn the curtain rose, the Hernes had one of the most notable audiences ever drawn together for a dramatic entertainment in Boston.

The performance was worthy of the audience. Not merely Herne and Mrs. Herne, but every one of the actors seemed to be actually presenting the unexaggerated gestures and accent of life. Mrs. Herne was specially marvelous in the title-part, and the close of the play had a touch of art which up to that time had never had its equal on our stage. After having refused reconciliation with her husband Philip Fleming, Margaret was left standing in tragic isolation in the middle of the stage, and as the lights were turned

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Photograph by Gilbert and Bacon, Philadelphia
JAMES A. HERNE IN "SHORE ACRES"

out one by one, her figure gradually dis-
appeared in blackness, and the heavy, soft
curtains, dropping together noiselessly,
shut in the poignant action of the drama
and permitted a silent return of the actual
world in which we lived.

There was a little pause, a considerable pause, before the applause came, and then the audience rose and slowly filed out. saw Mr. and Mrs. Howells, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Mr. and Mrs. Deland, Mrs. James T. Field, Sarah Orne Jewett, William Lloyd Garrison, Mary E. Wilkins, John J. Enneking, and many others of the literary and artistic. personalities of the day, and as they passed through the doorway several of them who knew me spoke to me of the "wonderful play" and of the "marvelous acting," and to my inexperienced mind Herne had won. It seemed to me that the city must ring

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Mrs. Herne extend the run another month.

Naturally the play was vigorously discussed. There were those who could see no virtue in it, and there were those who felt that it was the beginning of a new and higher type of drama.

Concerning Mrs. Herne's art there was no division. Praise was general. We could not then foresee the effect of it all, but we were satisfied. The experiment was worth while. It cost the Hernes several thousand dollars, but it lifted them into the honorable position they deserved.

Herne spent the winter in New York, working for a producing firm, and the following summer returned to Ashmont. For several seasons he had been in the habit of spending July and August at East Lemoyne, on the coast of Maine, and being a close observer, had become keenly interested in his gnarly neighbors. He had already begun to think of putting them into a play. In a letter to me I find this sentence, "I shall also

with applause of this courageous and dis- try to do something more on 'The Hawtinguished performance.

Without question it was the most naturalistic, the most colloquial, and the most truthful presentation of a domestic drama ever seen on the American stage up to that time, and I am free to say I do not think it has been surpassed since. But, alas! while some of our most distinguished auditors came night by night, the general public could not be induced to flock in sufficient numbers to pay expenses, and at last, after four weeks of losing business, poor Herne was obliged to leave the cast and go back to New York under contract with a big commercial manager to produce a commercial success, "The Country Circus."

All seemed at an end, but Mr. Flower, who had become quite as vitally interested as I, joined me in an agreement to look after the interests of the play during Herne's absence, and together we helped

thornes.'" And in all of his letters, as well as in those of Mrs. Herne, are humorous references to the curious and interesting characters they met along the

coast.

On his return sometime in September he read to me the first act of "The Hawthornes." Later he spoke of it as "Uncle Nat," and finally as "Shore Acres." But the plot under all of these names remained the same. The action concerned two brothers, one, the elder, sweet, patient, self-sacrificing; the other, discontented, sullen, and resentful, eager to make money without labor. The play was in fact a bitter struggle over the question of "cuttin' the old farm up into buildin'-lots," and as he read it to me scene by scene the lines appealed to me strongly. It had something of the quality that made Mary E. Wilkins's stories vital and amusing.

It was by far the best play Herne had

ever done, for it was written out of love for the scenery of New England united to a thorough knowledge of coast characters. Yet Herne tried all winter to get his new play produced, and it was not until the following spring that the manager of the Boston Museum, being in sore need of something to fill out the tag-end of the season, yielded to Herne's plea and put "Shore Acres" on for two weeks.

Of course I was on hand as unofficial "man in front." The piece was an in

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anxiously wired for the play was Harry Miner, a well-known New York theaterowner, one Herne's old acquaintances, and with him James A. signed a contract for the production of "Shore Acres" at the Broadway Theater the following autumn. Herne told me that in making out this contract he had insisted that the play should be kept on at least four weeks, no matter what the receipts were. "This is a most

the cast. The play was greeted by a good house, of course, but fell off as usual the second and third nights, and as I was behind the scenes a great deal of the time I found Mr. Miner a very interesting study. The first night he was jubilant. He stood in front, glorious in evening dress, a shining figure. "We 've got 'em coming, Jimmy my boy," he said to Herne after the first act. But James A., whose face remained an impenetrable mask while Miner was looking at him, winked at me

MRS. JAMES A. HERNE AS MARGARET FLEMING She designed the gown herself-1892.

important proviso," he said, "for 'Shore Acres' must have time for the people to find out what sort of play it is."

Naturally, I was in New York to see the opening, for my brother was again in

with full understanding of the situation. "Watch him to-morrow night," said he to me later. Tuesday's house was light, and Wednesday's still lighter, and the big manager fell into the dumps. "We 've got to take it off, Jim," he mournfully announced.

"You'll

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nothing of the kind,' retorted Herne. "You 'll keep it on four weeks, according to contract, if it does n't bring in a cent." Miner was furious. Hestormed about, declaring himself on the verge of ruin; but all to no effect. Herne's face was like a New England granite boulder. "You'll keep your contract,' he calmly repeated.

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Miner's attitude at last grew comical. He became sullen. For days he strode about the wings in gloomy silence. He was seen no more in the lobby, and he brooded over the contract as though Herne had done

him a grievous wrong. All his employees ultimately shared his attitude toward the company. The house became dank, depressing, tragic; and then, presto! the change.

At the end of the second week business began to increase. The house lighted up. Miner resumed his evening dress. He appeared in the lobby once more in dazzling splendor. He expanded. He seemed to be taller, larger. He stepped out confidently on his heels. He clapped Herne

on the back.

"They 're coming back, Jimmy my boy," he shouted, forgetting all his resentment, all his hard words, all his tragical gloom. "We'll be turning 'em into the street next week," he exultingly ended.

This was almost literally true. The play ran the remainder of the season at the Broadway Theater, and all the next year at Daly's, which was a phenomenal run in those days. This put Herne on his feet financially, as "Margaret Fleming" had established him artistically. He was now in the forefront of stage realists, quite independent of cheap theaters and cheap managers.

Meanwhile Katharine had bought a handsome house on Convent Avenue, Harlem, and my brother and I often were there of a Sunday, and when we all came together in those days the walls resounded with our clamor. Herne was a great wag and story-teller, one of the most marvelous masters of dialect I have ever known. He could imitate almost any nationality, and could dramatize at a moment's notice any scene or dialogue his wife demanded of him. He was also in deadly earnest as a reformer, and was always ready to speak on the George theory or the modern drama. He took his art very seriously, and was one of the best stage-directors of his day, though some of his methods were so far in advance of his time that they puzzled or disgusted many of his subordinates. He profoundly influenced the art of acting. There is no doubt of that.

He was not only a good father in the ordinary sense, but he was an accepted comrade to his children. He played with them as if he were of their own age, and was forever planning some new joke, some surprise for their amusement. And yet with all his apparent simplicity and humor he was a very complex and essen

tially a very sad man. In other words, he was a Celt. One of my friends, upon seeing him for the first time in private life, said, "His face is one of the saddest and sweetest I have ever seen." He was the Irish bard whose songs are compounded of laughter and the wailing keen.

Katharine Herne is not merely Irish, she is Irish born, and her laugh is one of the most infectious I have ever heard. Her speaking voice is very musical and expressive, and her face can pass instantly from gay to grave like a sunny field over which the cloud shadows swiftly pass. Mr. Howells once said of her art, "I have never seen so many subtle expressions appearing in the lines of a woman's counte

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"The both of them," as an Irishman would say, were capable of enthralling spontaneous comedy, and they were forever guying each other at home and on the stage. Jim could not be trusted for a moment, but "K. C." usually gave him. as good as he sent. Indeed, he was a little afraid of her keen wit, and often, when the verbal arrows flew a little too swiftly, quite frankly dodged.

He admired her profoundly, and generally remained silent during the call of a chance acquaintance or a stranger. It was only when in the presence of old comrades or very intimate friends that he gave up his attitude of smiling and interested reticence. At the same time his love and admiration for her did not prevent him from observing every peculiarity which could be turned into account against her, and one of his tricks was to rise quietly, solemnly at the moment when she was in the midst of an eloquent period, and gravely pretend to reverse a little switch at the top of her shoulder.

Sometimes she frowned for an instant at this, but usually she acknowledged the justice of the rebuke, and broke into a gurgle of laughter in full appreciation of the fact that she had been "going it again."

They both held from the first an exaggerated notion of my importance in the world of letters, and listened to me with a respect, a fellowship, and an appreciation which inspired me to better work. They called me "the dean," on account of my supposed learning, and often on Sundays after dinner Herne would say,

"Now, dean, for the salt-cellar." In this way he always referred to a discussion in which I used a salt-cellar to illustrate my theory of the constitution of matter: "Now, as a matter of fact, we do not know what matter is. We cannot say it is solid, neither can we say it is made up of molecules," etc.

We often talked till long after midnight, and as I stumbled down the long hill on my way to the elevated railway, my mind boiling with new conceptions, new ambitions, I hardly knew my way. Sometimes my brother was with me, sometimes not. We were all flaming with hatred of land monopoly in those days, and when we were not discussing realism in fiction or impressionism in poetry, we were declaring the merits of the single Those were beautiful days to me and very successful days to the Hernes,

tax.

and Katharine still refers to them as "the good Convent Avenue days. But dearest of all we hold the little home in Ashmont."

In a letter from Herne I find the following references to our first meetings:

Yes, those Ashmont days were indeed glorious days. They laid the foundation of what success we have since achieved, by strengthening and encouraging us in our work, and making us steadfast to a purpose that we felt was the true one. And we believe that you, too, got something in your work and for your future out of them. They are gone, but not forgotten. They change, but cannot die.

In brief, this writing is an acknowledgment of the inspiration I drew from the home of Katharine and James A. Herne.

G

HOODOOED

BY ALICE HEGAN RICE

Author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch," "A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill," etc.

ORDON

PICTURES BY F. R. GRUGER

LEE SURRENDER JONES lay upon what he confidently claimed to be his death-bed. Now and again he glanced furtively at the cabin door and listened. Being assured that nobody was coming, he cautiously extricated a large black foot from the bedclothes, and, holding it near the candle, laboriously tied a red string about one of his toes. He was a powerful negro, with a close-cropped bullet-head, a massive bulldog jaw, and a pair of incongruously gentle and credulous eyes.

According to his own diagnosis, he was suffering from "asmy, bronketers, pneumony, grip, diabeters, and old age." The last affliction was scarcely probable, as Gordon Lee was born during the last days of the Civil War, though he might have been eighty, for all he knew to the contrary. In addition to his acknowledged ailments, there was one he cherished in secret. It was by far the most mysterious

and deadly of the lot, a malady to be pondered on in the dark watches of the night, to be treated with weird rites and ceremonies, and to be cured only by some specialist versed in the deepest lore of witchcraft; for Gordon Lee knew beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt that a hoodoo had been laid upon him.

Of course, like most of his race, he had had experiences in this line before; but this was different. In fact, it was no less a calamity than a cricket in his leg. Just how the cricket got into his leg was a matter too deep for human speculation; but the fact that it was there, and that it hopped with ease from knee to ankle, and made excruciating excursions into his five. toes, was as patent as the toes themselves.

What complicated the situation for Gordon Lee was that he could not discuss this painful topic with his wife. Amanda Jones had embarked on the higher education, and had long ago thrown overboard

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