"The Hero of San Benito"

by Rev. Charles H. Sheldon, May 1904

As always in St. Nicholas, the brave will out. Ah, yes, and again here are the "childish Italians."

The stage curtain had gone up, and the impatient audience, packed closely into the little theater of San Benito, was growing clamorous. It had come to be amused by the great prestidigitator, M. Truchette, and it had waited now full ten minutes and no appearance of the great magician. An Italian audience is frequently a restless one. This one had lost patience. There on the stage was the apparatus of the master—the famous table, the mysterious curtain, and various devices for astonishing the unlearned. But monsieur himself did not make his appearance, and the people were beginning to grow abusive of the theater-manager, M. Truchette, his assistants, and even the innocent little orchestra tooting and scraping away to fill up the time, and growing nervous at the murmurs of discontent on every side.

But if the audience could have gone behind the scenes it would have been satisfied with the sight of a very effective little tableau. Upon a faded green settee lay the famous performer, while near by stood a youth of a very fair countenance and a very determined look. He was evidently dressed for the performance, and his appearance was exceedingly pleasing. Near the stage exit of the room stood a nervous little man, evidently the stage-manager. His hand grasped the tasseled curtain near the head of the couch where M. Truchette was lying. He was remonstrating with him in a quiet but imperious tone. "The performance must go forward, monsieur. If the lad can take your place, as he says he is able to do, why not let him! He can but fail. The people will not be silent much longer. Hark! They begin to call out already. Do you remember that night in Christmas week, when the first tenor was unable to sing at the great jubilee in this very place? The people rushed upon the stage and tore down all my best pieces. Ah! It was an irreparable damage." And the little manager shrugged his shoulders pathetically.

The man on the couch tried to raise his head, but groaned and fell back. With great difficulty he gasped: "He—but he is only a lad! He cannot do anything!"

"You forget, M. Truchette. I am eighteen years old. I have learned many things. I will do my best. I will not try to take your place. I will only pacify the audience."

"Ah, well, go! I expect the audience will mob us both. Ah! The pain in my eyes again!" And the artist sank back and seemed to have fainted.

"Go on and do what you can, young man," said the proprietor of the theater. "I will see to M. Truchette. Do you keep those childish people quiet. At least," he added, with a grim smile, "give them something to nibble on, for they are growing hungry indeed."

The noise in front of the curtain was swelling into a roar when the youth stepped from the room. He advanced slowly and with dignity to the footlights, and made an impressive bow. The audience was in a bad humor, but there was a moment's hush, and the young man instantly took advantage of it.

"Ladies and gentlemen: I regret to say that M. Truchette has been suddenly seized with a blind headache and will be unable to appear before you to-night. I am Rudolph Cluny, his assistant. And by permission of monsieur I will do my best to amuse you this evening, begging you to excuse any slight mistakes I may make owing to the absence of any assistant."

There was something so frank and winsome about this speech that many of the audience regained their good nature. But there were loud cries from different parts of the house. "Truchette! Truchette! This is one of his tricks! This is but a lad! He cannot do the feats of monsieur!"

Rudolph saw that his slight hold of the audience would be gone in a moment unless he did something to arrest attention. He knew enough about audiences to know that once out of the grasp of the artist it is well nigh impossible to get them back again. He immediately determined on his course of action. His stay of two years with his master as assistant had given him a good command of the regular stage jargon common to jugglers. And being exceedingly observant, he had learned many things of which monsieur himself was ignorant, and had even practised some new tricks of his own. He was bold and was determined to succeed. And across his vision there flitted to inspire him the little mother and the sister in the vale of Camprais for whom he was serving monsieur, and whom he hoped before long to visit when he had earned a little more.

He ran his fingers through his curly hair and began to laugh. The cries of the audience ceased, and very soon the people began to laugh, too, Rudolph's laugh was so contagious. In the midst of it all Rudolph raised his hand and pointed to the ceiling of the theater. Instantly every eye was turned that way.

"See!" cried Rudolph. "See the messengers of Cupid on their way, coming down to earth to bring a missive to the fairest lady in San Benito!"

It was a common trick of the master juggler, but it happened to be new to the people of San Benito. A pair of snow-white doves appeared to fly down from the very center of the theater dome. They alighted upon Rudolph's shoulders. In the bill of one of the birds was a bit of paper. Rudolph took it, unfolded it and pretended to read as follows:

"This to the fairest in San Benito:
"Cupid sends thee greeting, wishing thee beauty and happiness many years, and assures thee that thy beauty will fade and thy happiness vanish if thou dost frown upon him who is specially favored of the gods,
"Rudolph Cluny of Camprais."

There was a moment's quiet from the audience, and then the generous applause that followed assured Rudolph that his first attempt had given him favor with the fickle people. He smiled and grew confident. The bird trick, seemingly so impossible, was in reality very simple. The doves were well-trained pets of M. Truchette. Rudolph had come upon the stage with the birds concealed in one of the profondes, or deep pockets, of his dress-coat. When he pointed to the ceiling of the theater, and every eye in the audience was directed to it, he drew the birds from the profonde and tossed them up into the air. They soared up a little higher and then settled back upon the young man's shoulders. Every one is familiar with the fact that the eye is easily deceived as to distances. To the audience it appeared as if the birds actually came down from the dome. The light was dim up there, and at any rate there the birds were, and they did fly from somewhere and alight on the lad's shoulders. As for the letter, Rudolph simply by a rapid movement, as he caressed one bird, placed a bit of paper within its bill. And the rest was easy, as every stage juggler is provided with plenty to say, speeches of flattery or nonsense, just to divert the audience as much as possible from the movements of the hands.

Over the audience went that rustle of expectation so dear to the soul of every actor, that sharp but still sound, caused by the sudden catching of breath on the part of many people. Rudolph, with the sensitive acuteness of the true artist, heard and interpreted the sound to mean an interest on the part of the audience that would increase with the success of his performances. He felt proud to think that he was succeeding so well at the start and proceeded with his next trick with a jubilant feeling in his heart.

This was the "Mysterious Table," on which he placed a basket of oranges which, after being covered with a silken cloth, were transformed to vases of fresh-cut roses. The trick succeeded perfectly, as did also the "Mysterious Curtain," another favorite trick of his clever master. The trick was witnessed by the simple but sharp-eyed people of San Benito with feelings of astonishment, and loud cries of "Bravo!" greeted the youthful performer, who bowed his acknowledgments and felt very happy as he proceeded with his next attempt, the "Magic Painting."

This was also entirely new to the people of San Benito, who were beginning to have an admiration for this young man from Camprais. They watched the performance with great eagerness. While Rudolph, who had never before attempted the magic painting alone, determined that come what might he would succeed with it. But alas! Who can anticipate all the possibilities which await one in that difficult game of legerdemain.

A gilt frame, four feet square, resting upon an easel, had been standing upon the stage during the performance. Rudolph now placed it upon a small platform which he brought out from behind the scenes, saying as he did so, that he wanted everybody to see the most wonderful painting in all Europe, or, for that matter, in the world.

Within the picture-frame was a piece of blank canvas, or what appeared to be this. Rudolph now walked deliberately to the side of the stage and waved his wand. The people looked on in breathless anticipation. Slowly the outlines of a landscape began to be visible on the canvas. Then they disappeared, and Rudolph turned pale, and for the first time in the evening seemed disconcerted. The trick had failed, and owing to the peculiar way in which it was performed by the master, Rudolph was uncertain concerning the next movement. He hesitated, and for a moment he was so confused that he could not think of anything to do or say in order to cover his failure.

That hesitation was fatal to him. The fickle audience began to hiss. Rudolph stretched out his arm with a gesture of beseeching appeal. It was too late. The people began to raise the cry,""Truchette! Truchette!"

Rudolph stepped to the footlights and tried to pacify them. At that instant the little manager also appeared and added his voice to that of the young performer. But the sight of the manager seemed to arouse the audience rather than quiet it. He was very unpopular with some of the leading citizens of San Benito. And instantly a cry arose against him.

"Bring out Truchette! Make good the performance! Bah! The lad cannot repay us for coming!" were the cries of many. In vain the manager protested that monsieur was ill and unable to appear. In vain Rudolph begged the people to have patience and he would show them wonders. The people were not to be appeased.

Just then a cry of "Fire!" was heard.

The little theater was surrounded by buildings, and its entrance was small and insufficient. It had been condemned by the inspectors, but nothing had been done to remedy the matter. It was this, for one thing, that had made the people of San Benito indignant at the theater-manager. That cry of fire raised a panic. The people turned and made a frantic rush for the doors. Women shrieked, and men howled like wild beasts as they trampled one another. It was at that moment that Rudolph Cluny regained his composure and saw that unless the panic was arrested, a horrible disaster would befall the people.

He had a very sweet voice, and at once he began to sing one of the popular ballads of the day in a tone so tender and expressive that the people stopped. It is a well-known fact that singing can be heard much farther than a shout or an ordinary call of the human voice. And this plaintive song rising from the soul of the slender lad upon the stage was so thrilling in its fearless courage and quiet repose that it had the effect of stopping the mad rush for the doors. The lad finished one stanza of the song and began the second, and the song seemed to have an enchantment for the musicloving Italians. They actually applauded the danger when the last note died away. Again Rudolph instantly seized the opportunity. He spoke clear and strong:

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is the rear of the theater which is in flames. See the smoke coming toward me from the back? The front is open and untouched. There is plenty of time to escape if you go out as usual. Behold me! I will remain here until you are all safely out!"

The people shouted "Bravo!" and began to go out, but without any panic. The theater had indeed caught fire at the extreme rear. The flames burned with extraordinary rapidity. Rudolph could see them bursting through the scenes at his left. Before all the people were out of the theater, the smoke rolled in billows across the stage and a burning piece of wood was blown to Rudolph's feet. He leaped down to make his way out. But ere he had groped his way through the orchestra circle, already blinded by the smoke which filled the little auditorium, there flashed into his mind the fact that M. Truchette lay asleep or perhaps suffocating in the little room at the right of the stage! He had been forgotten by everybody!

Rudolph did not hesitate a moment. He leaped up again and crawled on his hands and knees across the stage toward the entrance of the little room where monsieur had been left. The heat and smoke were terrible. He felt burning brands drop on him. Twice his hair caught fire. He extinguished the flames with his hands and still crept on. The door of the little room was open. He rose to his feet and rushed in. He could not see. He could only feel. Yes, monsieur was still on the couch. Whether dead or suffocating he could not tell. He caught him up and staggered out across the stage. The stage was in flames. Rudolph rushed through them, and with the burden in his arms again descended to the orchestra circle. It was a terrible moment to him. The entire building seemed aflame, so rapidly had the fire spread. But at last he reached the doors. He rushed out. Ah! How sweet the air and the cool night! And how the people shouted when he appeared with his burden! He fell fainting, but strong arms raised him and bore him to a place of safety, while the theater of San Benito roared in the embrace of the fiery element as if enraged at the escape of its prisoners. When Rudolph recovered from his burns, which were serious and at one time threatened to be fatal, the people of San Benito honored him with everything in their power. They were not ungrateful. A medal was struck off, commemorating the event, and Rudolph proudly wore it home; and the little mother and sister in the vale of Camprais wept glad tears over the dear lad who had done so much to honor them.

M. Truchette was not unmindful of his former assistant, and gave him encouragement to study music and develop his voice, which a noted master declared to be well worth the instruction. And several years later Rudolph Cluny was singing the ballads of the country to delighted audiences in Europe. He grew to be a tall, handsome man. And, better than all, he was brave and good. And he always wore the medal given him by the fickle but generous people of San Benito.


[Note By the Author.—This story was related to me by an Italian lady who was present at the scene of the performance in the little theater. Rudolph Cluny is a real being of flesh and blood, although he is known by another name. The story has never until now been made public in this country. C. M. S.]

"Annie Fellows Johnston"

"The Beloved Writer of Books for Young Folks"
by Margaret W. Vandercook, December 1913

Like Nancy Drew, the Sweet Valley books, and now the Twilight saga, Annie Fellows Johnston's books were bestsellers for the young ladies of her time. While The Little Colonel is remembered today chiefly as a cutesy film vehicle for Shirley Temple, the Little Colonel series of books, which followed Lloyd Sherman as she grew from child- to womanhood, and also the adventures of her friends, like Mary Ware, are still recalled fondly by grandmothers today.

Shut your eyes and dream of the most beautiful southern home you can imagine. Because in such a house, called "The Beeches," in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, lives Mrs. Annie Fellows Johnston, the author of "Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman," "The Little Colonel" stories, "Mary Ware," and other books you know equally well.

Mrs. Johnston has not always lived in Kentucky. She was born in Evansville, Indiana, and spent her childhood and girlhood eight miles out from there, in another big house, white, with green shutters, built on her grandfather's place and facing Cherry Lane.

Those were the days when she used to read St. Nicholas to tatters, and afterward go to bed early just to plan having a story of her own published in it sometime. Of course she never confided this ambition to any one then, except to her mother and two sisters. To the ten boy and girl cousins living in the same neighborhood the idea would have appeared preposterous. They understood that Annie intended to write books, but that she should actually expect to have one printed in St. Nicholas would have been too much! Yet the subscribers to this magazine know how delightfully one girl's dream has been fulfilled.

It really does not seem exactly fair that fate should oblige so many of us to be city children. For have you not often noticed, in reading of famous men and women, that the large majority of them have spent their youth in the country?

Why, it would almost seem as though Annie Fellows Johnston was preordained from the first for this business of writing delightful books for girls. She had exactly the right background and training: she learned precisely the things that a girl ought to know; and she had such ideal home duties and amusements.

In the first place, she had the inspiration and the aid of a wonderful mother, whose name before her marriage was Mary Erskine. In those pioneer days in rural Indiana, education was not so easy to obtain as it is now. But when Mary was only eighteen, she inspired her brothers and a boy cousin with a determination to go to college. In due time she convinced their parents that she was capable of leading such an expedition, and with various household comforts, such as feather-beds and a cow, they started on their long, slow journey. Part of it was by canal-boat. As the college did not admit women in those early days, she attended the adjoining seminary, keeping pace with the boys, for whom she was a capable home-maker. For they kept house together in the most satisfactory and ideal way.

With such a mother, it is small wonder that Mrs. Johnston has had the talent and character for making the best of her opportunities.

Can you picture a small, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl perched up in a cherry-tree? For if you can, you have formed a pretty good image of your favorite author. Mrs. Johnston has not changed half so much as other persons do in growing up. She is still small enough to be a girl (shop people would be sure to offer her "misses" size, should she ever attempt to purchase ready-made clothes), and the brownness of her eyes remains so unusual that you have a fashion of remembering their color and the humorous light behind their outward seriousness long after she has gone away.

The cherry-tree was Annie Fellows' library, her study, her palace of dreams, and, at certain times of the summer, her refreshment room. In it she used to learn to parse Milton, to be recited later at the country school-house, and to memorize bits of literature from the old McGuffey readers. For it was a piece of rare good fortune for a girl, who was afterward to become a writer herself, that in her part of the State of Indiana, the precept "Thou shall not speak ungrammatically." was almost as sacred as one of the Commandments.

In almost all cases, it is true that the makers of books have been great readers. Yet think upon what different literature from that of the modern girl the author of The Little Colonel was brought up! She had the theological library of her father, a Methodist minister (who had died when she was a child of two). It included Pilgrim's Progress, but also such works as Fox's Book of Martyrs, and others even more depressing. The lighter literature was bought, borrowed, or smuggled in from the neighbors; The Wide, Wide World, St. Elmo, Andersen's Fairy Tales, and the "Godey's Lady's Book" of the early seventies, the one magazine of fashion and fiction that seemed to be found in every household of that day.

Mrs. Johnston says that in her home and in her part of the country the word "duty" was spelled with a big "D." Yet she had a privilege which, you will agree with me, was most unusual, and rather dangerous to mention in St. Nicholas: no member of her family was ever obliged to lay down a story until it was finished—lessons and tasks could be postponed, meal-times and even bedtime ignored.

So, you see, one grown-up person understood just how girls and boys feel when they are so possessed by a story that it is almost impossible to put it aside before its conclusion and come back to this workaday world.

Yet, from Mrs. Johnston's own description, it sounds as though the workaday world used to be a pleasanter place than it is at present.

"Mine was a happy childhood," she declares, "for my wise mother thought a girl should know everything that goes toward the making of a comfortable home." So being literary did not excuse little Annie from having a hand in all the old-fashioned country industries, learning to make preserves, patchwork, and pickles, even to "bread and buttonholes," that Rose complained of in Eight Cousins.

Still, business and pleasure seemed to make a closer combination when people used to go to old-fashioned quilting-bees and apple-paring parties, and had singing schools, and literary societies, and oratorical debates with the neighbors for audience.

There were no moving-picture shows, no matinées, and no soda-water fountains; there was not even a cross-roads store where one could buy peppermint candy, in the neighborhood where Annie Fellows lived as a little girl. Yet she herself declares that she never missed these delights because she never knew them. "We had instead the panorama of the seasons, sorghum-making time, when the boiling molasses made all outdoors smell like a delicious world-wide candy-pull: cider-making time, when the piles of red, golden, and russet apples poured into the hopper of the mill and, as if by some magic, came out a beautiful amber liquid. Then there were the hay-harvest, with the rides home on top of the gigantic loads, nutting, and coasting, and sleighing." One becomes quite breathless with the thought of all these delightful, old-time pleasures that comparatively few girls have the chance to enjoy to-day.

And yet in learning of such a girlhood, it grows quite easy to understand why Mrs. Johnston has become the most popular modern writer of girls' books in the United States. Has any one else ever known how to make young people have such good times, how to give such delightful house-parties, and how to make things turn out in just the way that her young readers wish?

There was a little girl living not far from the present home of Mrs. Johnston who came, one day, from a visit to her mother's intimate friend, wearing a very aggrieved expression. "Mother," she demanded, "why did Mrs. Hewitt say that she hoped my grandmother's mantelpiece might fall upon me?" It was not the mantelpiece but the mantle of the distinguished woman that the friend had desired to descend like a fairy godmother's cloak upon the little granddaughter's shoulders. So has it never occurred to you that perhaps the "mantle" of Louisa M. Alcott has fallen upon Annie Fellows Johnston? Of course the two authors are unlike in many ways, but they both seem to have had the same healthy, old-fashioned home-training; they both seem to have written about girls and a kind of living that was real and not make-believe, and they both have succeeded in attaining the first place among their readers. Miss Alcott belonged to those of us who were young twenty years ago; Mrs. Johnston belongs to those of us who are young now.

And yet neither of these two authors started out with any idea of finally writing girls' books. Mrs. Johnston declares that, as she was born in Indiana, it was her birthright to expect some day to write "the great American novel." And that making her début as an author in a story for children called "Big Brother," was like firing away with your eyes shut and then being surprised to find out that you had hit a mark. So, too, Louisa M. Alcott, having spent most of her life in Concord, Massachusetts, with famous friends, also conceived of herself at the beginning of her career as a future novelist for grown-ups.

But, living always in the same neighborhood, Miss Alcott felt obliged to write chiefly of the little New England corner of the world which she knew so well and intimately; while Mrs. Johnston, having traveled half over the world, has been able to take her heroines and heroes along with her. One of the best of all her stories, The Giant Scissors, owed its inspiration to her stay in the old walled town of Saint-Symphorien, in France.

A friend tells of a Christmas luncheon at "The Beeches" when the maid brought on, with the dessert, pecan-nuts from Texas and lichee-nuts from China, apples from Oregon, sweetmeats from Japan and Germany, maple-sugar from the Catskill Mountains—all gifts sent by friends who truly cared for the writer of the best girls' books.

Although known as a southern author, Annie Fellows came to live in the South only after her marriage to her second cousin, Mr. Will Johnston. It was perhaps this "cousinness" that made the three children of her husband's first wife her devoted friends from the beginning. But it was probably her "understandingness" of girls and boys, which we appreciate from her stories, that made the word "stepmother" never even thought of in her family.

John was the youngest child and the only son. To him is dedicated "The Quilt that Jack Built," for he was "The Boy Who Made All Boyhood Dear to Me." And to him also is dedicated "The Jester's Sword," for it was his brave and dauntless spirit through years of illness which suggested the allegory. It was in quest of health for him that Mrs. Johnston went to the Arizona desert. They lived there awhile in tents, then went to the hills of Texas, where they made a home on their place called "Penacres," until his death, three years ago.

The oldest daughter, Mary, is the artist who designed and painted the dolls and costumes for "The Little Colonel's Paper Doll Book," and who made some of the illustrations for "Ole Mammy's Torment."

In one of our photographs of Mrs. Johnston, she appears to be holding an ordinary homegrown kitten; but she is in reality clasping the tiny wildcat known as Matilda in Mary Ware in Texas. Among other choice members of the family at "Penacres" were "Joseph," the wolf,—whose chief delight was eating watermelon,—a number of foxes, badgers, chaparral-cocks, and at one time two mountain-lions. For in the years in Texas, John had a veritable zoo.

So, you see, Mrs. Johnston has lived a full and varied life. And always she has seemed to care most about people and places.

In her books she has created a world that holds all girl ideals. Lloyd is not just "The Little Colonel"; she is the type of a beautiful, high-spirited, generous character toward which thousands of other girls aspire. Mary Ware is n't the one plain, clever maiden who wins by wit and a good heart; she is the representative of many others like her.

Into the weaving of her plots Annie Fellows Johnston brings beautiful old legends, poems, and allegories of her own creation, which her readers will remember for long years. From the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, how many girls belong to "The Little Colonel's Order of Hildegarde"! And quite as many are now stringing a rosary of pearls, each pearl to mark some duty done, because of the example of Edryn, the little page who became a knight of King Arthur's Round Table.

For the really worth-while books must not only amuse us; they must give us something to think about, and something to help us. We know that Mrs. Johnston can make us laugh and cry almost in the same minute; and that she teaches us to dream big dreams, and then to do the littlest task in the cheerfulest spirit.

Of course most of her characters are imaginary; they only seem real because she makes them so. The places in her stories that are real have had many pilgrimages made to them—"The Locusts," Lloyd's grandfather's home; "The Beeches," now Mrs. Johnston's own place ; "Clovercroft," and "The Haunted House of Hartwell Hollow."

If long ago this most popular of young people's writers had not confessed that she found more rewards in writing books for girls and boys than for an older audience, the readers of St. Nicholas could very easily have convinced her. But Mrs. Johnston needs no such conviction. Years ago, she declared that she would rather stick to her present friends than turn to any others.

Mrs. Johnston probably receives more letters from appreciative readers than any other author in the United States. And the letters come from other countries as well as this, since some of her stories have been translated into foreign languages. Sometimes there are as many as twenty or thirty missives in one mail from unknown friends who have learned to care for her through her books.

In one of "The Little Colonel" tales, Annie Fellows Johnston retells the beautiful story of Robert Louis Stevenson,—how the Indian chiefs in a far-off Samoan island built with their own hands a road in honor of their friend, the white chief, whom they had named "Tusitala," the Teller of Tales. And this road was called "The Road of Loving Hearts." One wonders if Mrs. Johnston knows that her ardent young readers have been building just such a road for her; only its foundations are laid in the loving hearts of children.