Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/255

 JOSEPH JEFFERSON 375 earliest years, the formative period of his life. There were the kind-hearted, easy-going father, the practical, energetic mother, a sister, and the half-brother, Charles Burke, whose after-reputation as an actor lives in the pages of Jefferson's autobiography enshrined in words of warm but judicious appreciation. " Al- though only a half-brother," says Jefferson, "he seemed like a father to me, and there was a deep and strange affection between us." Nor must mention be for gotten of one other member of the family : Mary, his foster-mother, as Jefferson affectionately calls her, " a faithful, loving, truthful friend, rather than a servant, with no ambition or thought for herself, living only for us. and totally uncon- scious of her own existence." Joseph Jefferson, the third of the name, and in whom the talent of his grand father was to reappear enriched with added graces of his own, was born in Phila- delphia in 1829. He tells us that his earliest recollections are connected with a theatre in Washington. This was a rickety, old, frame-building adjoining the house in which his father lived as manager, the door at the end of the hall-way opening directly upon the stage ; and as a toddling little chap in a short frock he was allowed full run of the place. Thus " behind the scenes " was his first play- ground ; and here, "in this huge and dusty toy-shop made for children of a larger growth," he got his first experience. He was early accustomed to face an audi- ence ; for, being the son of the manager and almost living in the theatre, he was always pressed into the service whenever a small child was wanted, and " often went on the stage in long clothes as a property infant in groups of happy peas- antry." His first dim recollection of such a public appearance is as the " child," in Kotzebue's play, " Pizarro," who is carried across the bridge by Rolla. His next appearance was in a new entertainment, called " Living Statues," where he struck attitudes as " Ajax Defying the Lightning," or " The Dying Gladiator." At four years of age he made a hit by accompanying T. D. Rice, the original "Jim Crow," as a miniature copy of that once famous character, and the first money he earned was the sum of $24 thrown upon the stage in silver from pit and gallery, to reward his childish dancing and singing on that occasion. Thus early wedded to the stage, Jefferson followed the fortunes of his family, and led with them a wandering life for many years, growing, by slow degrees and constant, varied practice, to the perfection of his prime. In 1838 his father led the flock to Chicago, just then grown from an Indian village to a thriving place of two thousand inhabitants, where he was to join his brother in the manage- ment of a new theatre, then building. Jefferson's account of the journey is a striking picture, at once amusing and pathetic, of the changes that have been wrought by fifty years. The real privations and hardships of the trip are veiled in the actor's story by his quiet humor and his disposition to see everything in a cheerful light. Always quizzing his own youthful follies, he cannot conceal from us by any mischievous anecdotes his essential goodness of nature, his merry help- fulness, his unselfish devotion to the welfare of the others, or the pluck with which he met the accidents of this itinerant life. From Chicago, where their success was not brilliant, the family went by stage to Springfield, where, by a sin-