The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb by Nicholas Rinaldi

Author:Nicholas Rinaldi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

PART FIVE

THE HONEYMOON TOUR

CHAPTER 15

THE ROAD SINGS . . . IT BENDS, IT CURSES

We launched our tour in New Haven. This was the first time all four of us—Minnie, the Commodore, Vinny, and I—were interacting onstage together, and we couldn’t have done it without the help Sylvester Bleeker gave us. He knew a heck of a lot about theater and how to mount a show. And Jerry Richardson was a great help with the songs.

Three days we were there, with overflow crowds. People remembered the great fuss in all the papers about our “Fairy Wedding,” as it had been called. And now, needing some diversion from the bad news out of New York, they leaped at the chance to see us in our wedding garb.

Vinny and I opened each performance with a slow walk down the main aisle, she in her gown and I in my swallowtail, while Jerry Richardson played the wedding music from Lohengrin. Then, onstage, along with Minnie and the Commodore, we danced a stately minuet.

After a quick costume change, Vinny and Minnie rotated through a few songs—“Listen to the Mocking Bird,” “Merry Little Birds Are We,” and several others. They vanished into the wings, and the Commodore, in a sailor suit, sang “A Life on the Ocean Wave,” and followed that with his hornpipe dance. Then I leaped out in my Scots kilt and danced a Highland fling. More songs, more dances, and plenty of applause for all of us.

We finished our first act with Vinny asleep on a cushioned chair, and I, stepping close, sang some lines from a Longfellow poem that had been put to music—

Stars, stars of the summer night,

Far, far in your azure deeps—

Hide, hide your golden light,

She sleeps, my lady sleeps.

Then Vinny, rousing herself, leaps to her feet, and draws close to me, singing a piece by Bernard Covert—

Always look on the sunny side,

There’s health in harmless jest;

And much to sooth our worldly cares

In hoping for the best.

Always look on the sunny side

And never yield a doubt;

The ways of Providence are wise,

And faith will bear you out.

We kissed, and while Jerry played a selection from Chopin, we drifted offstage.

In much of our second act we focused on the war, since that was the big thing on everybody’s mind. Jerry, knowing that Vinny had a brother in the war, found this Stephen Foster piece, a perfect fit for her.

Bring my brother back to me

When this war is done,

Give us all the joys we shared

Ere it was begun.

Bring my brother back to me,

From the battle strife—

Thou who watchest o’er the good,

Shield his precious life.

Many such songs we had, the voices of mothers, fathers, sisters, and many in the voices of soldiers, both on and off the battlefield. We concluded this segment with a Stephen Foster piece that sounded an optimistic note about the future. The Commodore and I, each wearing a Union uniform, rotated our way through, singing one sentence apiece, and doing the final sentence together.

There’s a good time coming, boys,

A good time coming.

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