FullReads

The Roycrofters have many opportunities for improvement not the least of which is the seeing, hearing and meeting distinguished people. We have a public dining-room, and not a day passes but men and women of note sit at meat with us. At the evening meal, if our visitors are so inclined, and are of the right fiber, I ask them to talk. And if there is no one else to speak, I sometimes read a little from William Morris, Shakespeare, Walt Whitman or Ruskin. David Bispham has sung for us. Maude Adams and Minnie Maddern Fiske have also favored us with a taste of their quality. Judge Lindsey, Alfred Henry Lewis, Richard Le Gallienne, Robert Barr, have visited us; but to give a list of all the eminent men and women who have spoken, sung or played for us would lay me liable for infringement in printing “Who’s Who.” However, let me name one typical incident. The Boston Ideal Opera Company was playing in Buffalo, and Henry Clay Barnabee and half a dozen of his players took a run out to East Aurora. They were shown through the Shop by one of the girls whose work it is to receive visitors. A young woman of the company sat down at one of the pianos and played. I chanced to be near and asked Mr. Barnabee if he would not sing, and graciously he answered, “Fra Elbertus, I’ll do anything that you say.” I gave the signal that all the workers should quit their tasks and meet at the Chapel. In five minutes we had an audience of three hundred–men in blouses and overalls, girls in big aprons–a very jolly, kindly, receptive company.

Mr. Barnabee was at his best–I never saw him so funny. He sang, danced, recited, and told stories for forty minutes. The Roycrofters were, of course, delighted.

One girl whispered to me as she went out, “I wonder what great sorrow is gnawing at Barnabee’s heart, that he is so wondrous gay!” Need I say that the girl who made the remark just quoted had drunk of life’s cup to the very lees? We have a few such with us–and several of them are among our most loyal helpers.

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One fortuitous event that has worked to our decided advantage was “A Message to Garcia.”

This article, not much more than a paragraph, covering only fifteen hundred words, was written one evening after supper in a single hour. It was the Twenty-second of February, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-Nine, Washington’s Birthday, and we were just going to press with the March “Philistine.” The thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a rather trying day, when I had been endeavoring to train some rather delinquent helpers in the way they should go.

The immediate suggestion, though, came from a little argument over the teacups when my son Bert suggested that Rowan was the real hero of the Cuban war. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing–carried the message to Garcia.

It came to me like a flash! Yes, the boy is right, the hero is the man who does the thing–does his work–carries the message.

I got up from the table and wrote “A Message to Garcia.”

I thought so little of it that we ran it in without a heading. The edition went out, and soon orders began to come for extra March “Philistines,” a dozen, fifty, a hundred; and when the American News Company ordered a thousand I asked one of my helpers which article it was that had stirred things up.

“It’s that stuff about Garcia,” he said.

The next day a telegram came from George H. Daniels, of the New York Central Railroad, thus: “Give price on one hundred thousand Rowan article in pamphlet form–Empire State Express advertisement on back–also state how soon can ship.”