Next to appear, a solo effort, was Mr Jerome Jackson, the Brown Bomber, performing one of his specialties, his famous impression of Fats Waller (“I’se a-muggin’s, boom-dee-ah-dah”). Leo, sitting rather gingerly among his other cabin-mates, glanced around, checking the rows for some sign of Reece, who hadn’t shown up for the entertainment. His nose was out of joint because, having assigned “his boys” his own choice of a skit – “The Kindergarten,” one of his favorites and an old chestnut – he had discovered at the last minute that a switch had been made. Without consulting him, Tiger and the Bomber had persuaded the others to veto the classroom comedy in favor of an idea Leo had gotten while in the infirmary. Learning of the change, Reece had branded the whole business a conspiracy (“A
Jeremian is loyal to his counselor and sticks by a bargain”), and a violation of the team spirit that had always heretofore characterized Cabin 7 (Phil and Wally, out of deference to their leader, had refused to take part), and after dinner he had driven off with Honey Oliphant in the Green Hornet to take in a drive-in movie.
The curtains had closed on the Bomber (to loud whistles and applause), and the succeeding presentation was about to get under way. Once again the rafters shook to hand-clapping, foot-stamping, catcalls, and cheers as Pa made another introduction, venturing the announcement that the Ezekiel cabin’s contribution to Major Bowes Night would be nothing less than the famed entertainment known as “The Old Lady and the Cow” – groans around the hall – or “An Udder Laff Riot” – laughs and applause – the role of the Old Lady to be essayed by that sterling thespian Emerson Bean (now recovered from his poison ivy), the cow jointly by those sterling look-a-likes the Smith twins, otherwise known as the Coughdrops.
Watching this corny routine, the Bomber whispered to Tiger that Ezekiel was attempting either to empty the hall in a hurry or to put the audience to sleep. Having played the rear end of the cow often enough himself, he knew you couldn’t help getting a boffola laugh when the front end, feet crossed, sat down on the rear end, and then both ends sat on the Old Lady, whereupon all three wound up on the floor; but the Smith brothers were woefully inept and in need of rehearsal, while the old, moth-eaten costume, which kept stretching perilously, then sagging, had nothing whatever about it that might be considered bovine. Then Smith-behind got tangled up with Smith-before, Old Lady Bean’s long skirt was heavily trodden upon, and when the fabric tore away altogether, revealing undershorts, printed in sloops and maritime pennants, the unlucky accident produced the single genuine laugh the skit afforded.
“ ‘All right, all right,’ ” Pa said when the hilarity subsided, imitating the familiar nasal monotone of radio’s famous
Major Bowes as he gave the “Wheel of Fortune” a good spin. “ ‘Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows,’ ” and the sock and buskin were passed along at last to the Jeremians. After a positive bouquet of an introduction, which wilted from its very floweriness, Pa announced the title: “The Doctor Is Definitely In,” or “Oh, Doc, You Struck a Nerve,” and no sooner had the performance begun than everyone in the audience knew that here was surely the hit of the evening.
The stage curtains parted to reveal a large bedsheet stretched taut across a wooden frame. A spotlight from behind illuminating this makeshift screen, and there appeared upon it the silhouette of a figure who pantomimed being afflicted with a bad stomach ache. Next, the audience was treated to the sight of a buxom nurse featuring an oversized poitrine and derriere, who assisted the patient in ridding himself of his coat, then proceeded to take his temperature with a three-foot-long outdoor thermometer. The nurse (the Bomber) grew considerably agitated, while the patient (Monkey Twitchel) became sicker by the moment. Presently an offstage bell rang and a voice announced “Dr Mackinschleisser – call sur-ger-ee.”
Now onto the sheet were tossed the capering shadows of three assistants (Fiske and Dillworth, and one shorter than the rest – Abernathy, of course), and the nurse proceeded with a remarkable amount of ado to scrub up, using a jumbo sponge and a basin the size of a potato tub. Ablutions completed, the three assistants heaved the protesting patient onto the operating table, then stumbled over one another getting out of the way as the gangly silhouette of the doctor was catapulted onto the screen as though shot from a cannon. Tall, thin, and of an antic disposition, Dr Mackinschleisser, hero of the piece, was rendered the more hilarious by his very two-dimensionality. Alternately tipping his Derby like a boulevardier and furiously twirling his furled umbrella, which he spun between his fingers like a drum major’s baton, he brought down the house as soon as he appeared onstage. By the time he had executed the complex business of removing his gloves – starting each fingertip with a neat clip of his choppers, and finally rolling the gloves into a ball, popping them into his mouth, and devouring them – tears of laughter could be observed. Now, opening his Gladstone bag, the doctor pulled out a stethoscope, whose rubber cords he first snapped at the nurse’s behind, then got stuck in his eye as he attempted to fit the instrument into his ears. Keenly listening to the patient’s heartbeat, he wagged a disconsolate head: the prognosis was bad. Not so bad, however, that the patient might not once or twice lift his head from the table, for which trouble he received a whack with the doctor’s oversized mallet.
At last, after some tricky mathematical calculations with a jumbo set of calipers upon the patient’s chest, presumably to determine the location of the heart, the incision was made (by means of the vigorous employment of a lumberman’s cross-cut saw), the body cavity was exposed (held open by a pair of carpenter’s clamps), and the doctor proceeded to remove the sundry causes of the patient’s discomfort: a pair of hip boots, a baseball bat, a hot-water bottle, a tennis racket with three balls, a pocketbook, some ladies’ hosiery, a string of breakfast sausages, a toilet plunger, assorted crockery, cutlery, and cookware, a head of cabbage, a waiter’s tray, plus yards of stuffing which even in silhouette looked suspiciously like excelsior. Finally, after further intensive probing, there followed a baby by the heels, crying, for which pains it received a stiff whack with the mallet.
“My dolly! Don’t hurt her!” came an anxious cry from the audience.
“Hush, Willa-Sue,” Ma was heard to say, “he’s only doing make-believe. ”
The child’s outburst earned another laugh, serving to remind the audience that the performer, the comical Dr Mackinschleisser, was none other than Wacko Wackeem, actor extraordinaire, who now invited his patient to take a bow (thanks to the surgeon’s wide medical experience, he had made a “full recovery”). As the cast reassembled and took its bows in front of the curtain, there was no question: Jeremiah had no rival in the skit department.
But there was still more to come: after a brief intermission, during which the actors shed their costumes and resumed their seats in the audience, Henry Ives sheepishly shuffled on and read from his copy of Chic Sale’s book of backhouse humor, then played his one-man band. This entertainment was followed by Pa on his jazz whistle with “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” and “Don’t Bring Lulu,” and Wiggy Pugh’s rendition of “I Can’t Get Started” on the same cornet he used for sounding taps. Next on was Charlie Penny, Job’s counselor, in a cowboy hat and neckerchief, twirling a lariat and telling Will Rogers jokes, after which Ezekiel’s counselor, Peter Melrose, led the camp chorus in “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” and “Sleepytime Down South,” inviting the audience to sing along.
Knowing that his solo violin performance was to follow this act, Leo circled around to the back of the room, where he had left his violin case. His bow had been rosined, the violin tuned, so he had only to wait to be introduced. When he heard Pa announce his name, with an awkward shift of limbs, he circled behind the audience to the stage. There was a murmur of anticipation as Pa announced the first selection, “In a Monastery Garden” by Ketelby, a piece Leo knew well, and the audience stirred in their seats, falling silent when, hunching his shoulders, Leo raised his violin, tucked it under his chin, lifted the bow, and began to play.