PAGE 2
Hector
by
He would stand out in the middle of the floor and thrust his chin out, knitting his brow and widening his nostrils, and shout “Of the people, By the people, and For the people” at the top of his lungs in that little parlour. He always had a great talent for mimicry, a talent of which I think he was absolutely unconscious. He would give his speeches in exactly the boy-orator style; that is, he imitated speakers who imitated others who had heard Daniel Webster. Mary and he, however, had no idea that he imitated anybody; they thought it was creative genius.
When he had finished Lincoln, he would say: “Well, I’ve got another that’s a good deal better, but I don’t want to go through that today; it’s too much trouble,” with the result that in a few minutes Patrick Henry would take a turn or two in his grave. Hector always placed himself by a table for “Liberty or Death,” and barked his knuckles on it for emphasis. Little he cared, so long as he thought he’d got his effect! You could see, in spite of the intensity of his expression, that he was perfectly happy.
When he’d worked us through that, and perhaps “Horatius at the Bridge” and the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius and was pretty well emptied, he’d hang about and interrupt in a way that made me restless. Neither Mary nor I could get out two sentences before the boy would cut in with something like: “Don’t tell cousin Ben about that day I recited in school; I’m tired of all that guff!”
Then Mary would answer: “It isn’t guff, precious. I never was prouder of you in my life.” And she’d go on to tell me about another of his triumphs, and how he made up speeches of his own sometimes, and would stand on a box and deliver them to his boy friends, though she didn’t say how the boys received them. All the while, Hector would stare at me like a neighbour’s cat on your front steps, to see what impression it made on me; and I was conscious that he was sure that I knew he was a wonderful boy. I think he felt that everybody knew it. Hector kind of palled on me.
When he was about sixteen, Mary wrote me that she was in great distress about him because he had decided to go on the stage; that he had written to John McCullough, offering to take the place of leading man in his company to begin with. Mary was sure, she said, that the life of an actor was a hard one; Hector had always been very delicate (I had known him to eat a whole mince pie without apparent distress afterward) and she wanted me to write and urge him to change his mind. She felt sure Mr. McCullough would send for him at once, because Hector had written him that he already knew all the principal Shakespearian roles, could play Brutus, Cassius, or Mark Antony as desired; and he had added a letter of recommendation from the Mayor of their city, declaring that Hector was a finer elocutionist and tragedian than any actor he had ever seen.
The dear woman’s anxiety was needless, for she wrote me, with as much surprise as pleasure, two months later, that for some reason Mr. McCullough had not answered the letter, and that she was very happy; she had persuaded Hector to go to college.
How she kept him there, the first two years, I don’t know, for her husband had only left her about four hundred dollars a year. Of course, living in Greenville isn’t expensive, but it does cost something, and I honestly believe Mary came near to living on nothing. It was a small college that she’d sent the boy to, but it was a mother’s point with her that Hector should be as comfortable as anyone there.