[Illustration: Charlotte Cushman.] The Pilgrim Fathers figure in American pedigrees almost as frequently and persistently as Norman William and his followers appear at the trunk of our family-trees. Certainly, the Mayflower must have carried very many heads of houses across the Atlantic. It was not in the Mayflower, however, but in the Fortune, a smaller vessel, of fifty-five tons, that Robert Cushman, Nonconformist, the founder of the Cushman family in America, sailed from England, for the better enjoyment of liberty of conscience and freedom of religion. In the seventh generation from Robert Cushman appeared Elkanah Cushman, who took to wife Mary Eliza, daughter of Erasmus Babbit, Jr., lawyer, musician, and captain in the army. Of this marriage was born Charlotte Saunders Cushman, in Richmond Street, Boston, July 23, 1816, and other children. Charlotte Cushman says of herself: "I was born a tom-boy." She had a passion for climbing trees and for breaking open dolls' heads. She could not make dolls' clothes, but she could manufacture their furniture--could do anything with tools. "I was very destructive to toys and clothes, tyrannical to brothers and sister, but very social, and a great favorite with other children. Imitation was a prevailing trait." The first play she ever saw was "Coriolanus," with Macready in the leading part; her second play was "The Gamester." She became noted in her school for her skill in reading aloud. Her competitors grumbled: "No wonder she can read; she goes to the theatre!" Until then she had been shy and reserved, not to say stupid, about reading aloud in school, afraid of the sound of her own voice, and unwilling to trust it; but acquaintance with the theatre loosened her tongue, as she describes it, and gave opportunity and expression to a faculty which became the ruling passion of her life. At home, as a child, she took part in an operetta founded upon the story of "Bluebeard," and played Selim, the lover, with great applause, in a large attic chamber of her father's house before an enthusiastic audience of young people.