I assured Mr. Irving that it would be highly appreciated. I went with him to the theatre, where a rehearsal was on. Mr. Irving asked the attention of the company for a moment. He told them that he and Miss Terry would like to invite them all to join in an extra performance of “Faust,” the entire proceeds to be given to the Henry Ward Beecher Statue Fund. The suggestion met with a very hearty and unanimous approval. The matinée was given, and $3,100 was sent to Ripley Ropes, treasurer of the fund, which was duly acknowledged. Miss Charlotte Cushman was on the stage forty years. The last twenty-five of these years she was the greatest actress of her time. She died in the Parker House, Boston, February, 1876. I started for Kings Chapel, from where she was buried, at 8:30, and found the little church and neighboring thoroughfares thronged with the sorrowing multitude waiting with the hope of getting just one view of the casket which contained the remains of their departed friend. [Illustration] Miss Cushman’s memory is still green. Her cottage at Newport and her grave at Mount Auburn are among the first objects inquired for by visitors to these places. The last few years of her public life were devoted to public reading. In that department she was without a rival,--Fanny Kemble having retired to private life,--and in simplicity, personal magnetism, humor, and stalwart force of execution her readings have never been equalled. In the autumn of 1874 she gave six readings in Chicago for Messrs. Carpenter & Sheldon, managers of the Star Course, for which they paid her $5,000. The readings took place in McCormick’s Hall, on the north side of the city. The gross receipts for those six readings aggregated upward of $17,000. In 1857 a tramping jour printer had come from Kansas seeking employment on the daily papers in St. Louis. It was the year of the great financial panic. There were so many printers out of work that those having steady employment yielded half of their time to “subs.” At the house where I boarded I sat next to the prompter of the People’s Theatre, an old man, the most popular prompter ever known to the profession, Jimmie Anderson. I took to the old fellow, and he was very nice to me. One evening he invited me to the theatre, on the stage, where I stood beside him and saw Neafie in the “Corsican Brothers.” I walked home with him after the theatre. Before retiring that night he told me that the office of call-boy in the theatre was vacant, and I might have it--seven dollars a week. I began the following Monday. Charlotte Cushman opened that night with Lady Macbeth. It was the first time I ever saw her. During the play Miss Cushman came to Mr. Anderson somewhat excited, saying, “Jimmie”--they all called him Jimmie--“the boy who carried my basket to-night loitered by the way. That basket contains most of my jewels. I must have somebody that I can rely upon who will walk faithfully by my side.”