A Free State Read Online Free PDF

,” Mr. Powell would say, applying finishing touches in the glass.
    â€œ My finest elucimidations to you on this fine ebening, Brudder Pork Chops ,” I would reply. “ And Brother Scamp ,” I might sayto Eagan, “ has you made de acquaintance of Bullfrog Johnson ?” At this, Mulligan, fully Bullfrogged, would imitate a croak on his fourth string, his face still impassive, and Eagan would produce a small, mocking glissando on his violin in response.
    Slowly but inexorably, whatever cares we had brought into the room were replaced by a shared joke, a sense of having been freed. We had found the land of Eternal Youth. For a description of our performances from the other side of the proscenium, I can offer this brief sketch, from the Clipper :
    Several troupes in our City offer Plantation scenes and Darky songs, but the Virginia Harmonists are unquestionably the finest delineators of Ethiopian melodies and Terpischorean twists of a sable hue. They take the stage as the Greeks took Troy, with the audience their captives and conspirators. Mr. Douglass, as Brother Neckbones, is a most able and genial master of the revels, as well as a commanding manipulator of the bones. For ‘Bullfrog Johnson’ (John Mulligan), no praise will suffice; the equal if not the better of any banjo artist . . . His feature on ‘Fire Down Below,’ in which he nearly turns himself inside out, is astonishing. Mr. Eagan, on violin, provided the ‘Old Virginia Reel,’ during which time Mr. Powell on the tambourine composed a symphony of effects, as well as executing a fine ‘backstep.’ And Mr. Burke, as Brother Rastus, was most effective in his long monologue ‘Massa’s Last Farewell,’ which left not a dry eye in the theater . . .
    For nearly two years we were the acme of entertainment in Philadelphia. We even spent a month touring England, being toasted everywhere we went, and returned to find ourselves billed as “International Sensations.” Our return was celebrated in the Philadelphia papers, and at least three other new troupes were doing all they could to eclipse our success. I took rooms in a good neighborhood, with a fireplace mantel of which I was very proud. I purchased two small framed watercolors for my parlor, and a set of fine silver candlesticks for my mantel, which set me back half a week’s pay. I had finally climbed under the tent flap and into the magical illusion I had witnessed eight years earlier, when Sweeney took the stage in that nighttime field. I was a full-time changeling, a minstrel.
    I was still a young man, barely twenty-one, yet I was able to assume an air of authority that was, perhaps, a kind of protective coloration. Privately, I had not finished being a boy. Some part of me remained one, even as I issued orders to my seniors. Famous behind a mask onstage, I walked the streets unrecognized by daylight, as if I were living in exile. It made me restless.
    The world was restless, too. Two years into our tenure, competition from other troupes was beginning to siphon off the public’s fickle curiosities. There were by then between ten and fifteen minstrel troupes in Philadelphia alone, not counting traveling troupes that came to town, and slowly they began adding other kinds of attractions to their bills in order to set themselves apart. First Laughlin, on Market Street, added an operatic specialty. Then there were the Swiss bell ringers at Sanford’s, and an illusionist from Austria. Troupes were adding animals, female impersonators, elaborate costumes . . . The entire enterprise was beginning to change character, subsuming the mysterious energy of the pure Colored band into a broader entertainment. The Negro melodies and routines were still the heart of things, but set into a program that surrounded them, rather than comprising the entire world. As manager I had to take these developments into account, yet my heart was not in them.
    Where