Part 18 (1/2)
I was no prepared at a' for what really happened. The Scots were oot-- oh, aye, and they had pipers to greet me, and there were auld friends that had settled doon in New York or other parts o' the United States, and had come to meet me. Scots ha' a way o' makin' siller when they get awa' frae Scotland, I'm findin' oot. At hame the compet.i.tion is fierce, sae there are some puir Scots. But when they gang away they've had such training that no ithers can stand against them, and sae the Scot in a foreign place is like to be amang the leaders.
But it wasna only the Scots turned oot to meet me. There were any number of Americans. And the American reporters! Unless you've come into New York and been met by them you've no idea of what they're like, yon. They made rare sport of me, and I knew they were doing it, though I think they thought, the braw laddies, they were pulling the wool over my een!
There was much that was new for me, and you'll remember I'm a Scot.
When I'm travelling a new path, I walk cannily, and see where each foot is going to rest before I set it doon. Sae it was when I came to America. I was anxious to mak' friends in a new land, and I wadna be saying anything to a reporter laddie that could be misunderstood. Sae I asked them a' to let me off, and not mak' me talk till I was able to give a wee bit o' thought to what I had tae say.
They just laughed at one another and at me. And the questions they asked me! They wanted to know what did I think of America? And o' this and o' that that I'd no had the chance tae see. It was a while later before I came to understand that they were joking wi' themselves as well as wi' me. I've learned, since then, that American reporters, and especially those that meet the s.h.i.+ps that come in to New York, have had cause to form impressions of their ain of a gude many famous folk that would no be sae flattering to those same folk as what they usually see written aboot themselves.
Some of my best friends in America are those same reporters. They've been good tae me, and I've tried to be fair wi' them. The American press is an inst.i.tution that seems strange to a Briton, but to an artist it's a blessing. It's thanks to the papers that the people learn sae much aboot an artist in America; it's thanks tae them that they're sae interested in him.
I'm no saying the papers didn't rub my fur the wrang way once or twice; they made mair than they should, I'm thinking, o' the jokes aboot me and the way I'd be carfu' wi' ma siller. But they were aye good natured aboot it. It's a strange thing, that way that folk think I'm sae close wi' my money. I'm canny; I like to think that when I spend my money I get its value in return. But I'm no the only man i'
the world feels sae aboot it; that I'm sure of. And I'll no hand oot siller to whoever comes asking. Aye, I'll never do that, and I'd think shame to masel' if I did. The only siller that's gude for a man to have, the only siller that helps him, i' the end, is that which he's worked hard to earn and get.
Oh, gi'e'n a body's sick, or in trouble o' some sair sort, that's different; he deserves help then, and it's nae the same thing. But what should I or any other man gie money to an able bodied laddie that can e'en work for what he needs, the same as you and me? It fashes me to ha' such an one come cadging siller frae me; I'd think wrong to encourage him by gi'e'n it the him.
You maun work i' this world. If your siller comes tae you too easily, you'll gain nae pleasure nor profit frae the spending on't. The things we enjoy the maist are not those that are gi'e'n to us; they're those that, when we look at, mean weeks or months or maybe years of work.
When you've to work for what you get you have the double pleasure. You look forward for a lang time, while you're working, to what your work will bring you. And then, in the end, you get it--and you know you're beholden tae no man but yourself for what you have. Is that no a grand feeling?
Aweel, it's no matter. I'm glad for the laddies to hae their fun wi'
me. They mean no harm, and they do no harm. But I've been wishfu', sometimes, that the American reporters had a wee bit less imagination.
'Tis a grand thing, imagination; I've got it masel, tae some extent.
But those New York reporters--and especially the first ones I met!
Man, they put me in the shade altogether!
I'd little to say to them the day I landed; I needed time tae think and a.s.sort my impressions. I didna ken my own self just what I was thinking aboot New York and America. And then, I'd made arrangements wi' the editor of one of the great New York papers to write a wee piece for his journal that should be telling his readers hoo I felt.
He was to pay me weel for that, and it seemed no more than fair that he should ha' the valuable words of Harry Lauder to himself, since he was willing to pay for them.
But did it mak' a wee bit of difference tae those laddies that I had nought to say to them? That it did--not! I bade them all farewell at my hotel. But the next morning, when the papers were brought to me, they'd all long interviews wi' me. I learned that I thought America was the grandest country I'd ever seen. One said I was thinking of settling doon here, and not going hame to Scotland at a' any more! And another said I'd declared I was sorry I'd not been born in the United States, since, noo, e'en though I was naturalized--as that paper said I meant tae be!--I could no become president of the United States!
Some folk took that seriously--folk at hame, in the main. They've an idea, in America, that English folk and Scots ha' no got a great sense of humor. It's not that we've no got one; it's just that Americans ha'
a humor of a different sort. They've a verra keen sense o' the ridiculous, and they're as fond of a joke that's turned against themselves as of one they play upon another pairson. That's a fine trait, and it makes it easy to amuse them in the theatre.
I think I was mair nervous aboot my first appearance in New York than I'd ever been in ma life before. In some ways it was worse than that nicht in the old Gatti's in London. I'd come tae New York wi' a reputation o' sorts, ye ken; I'd brought naethin' o' the sort tae New York.
When an artist comes tae a new country wi' sae much talk aboot him as there was in America concerning me, there's always folk that tak' it as a challenge.
”Eh!” they'll say. ”So there's Harry Lauder coming, is there? And he's the funniest wee man in the halls, is he? He'd make a graven image laugh, would he? Well, I'll be seeing! Maybe he can make me laugh-- maybe no. We'll just be seeing.”
That's human nature. It's natural for people to want to form their own judgments aboot everything. And it's natural, tae, for them tae be almost prejudiced against anyone aboot whom sae much has been said. I realized a' that; I'd ha' felt the same way myself. It meant a great deal, too, the way I went in New York. If I succeeded there I was sure to do well i' the rest of America. But to fail in New York, to lose the stamp of a Broadway approval--that wad be laying too great a handicap altogether upon the rest of my tour.
In London I'd had nothing to lose. Gi'e'n I hadna made my hit that first nicht in the Westminster Bridge Road, no one would have known the difference. But in New York there'd be everyone waiting. The critics would all be there--not just men who write up the music halls, but the regular critics, that attend first nichts at the theatre. It was a different and a mair serious business than anything I'd known in London.
It was a great theatre in which I appeared--one o' the biggest in New York, and the greatest I'd ever played in, I think, up tae that time.
And when the nicht came for my first show the hoose was crowded; there was not a seat to be had, e'en frae the speculators.
Weel, there's ane thing I've learned in my time on the stage. You canna treat an audience in any verra special way, just because you're anxious that it shall like you. You maun just do your best, as you've been used to doing it. I had this much in my favor--I was singing auld songs, that I knew weel the way of. And then, tae, many of that audience knew me. There were a gude few Scots amang it; there were American friends I'd made on the other side, when they'd been visiting. And there was another thing I'd no gi'en a thocht, and that was the way sae many o' them knew ma songs frae havin' heard them on the gramaphone.
It wasna till after I'd been in America that I made sae many records, but I'd made enough at lime for some of my songs tae become popular, and so it wasna quite sicca novelty as I'd thought it micht be for them to hear me. Oh, aye, what wi' one thing and another it would have been my ain fault had that audience no liked hearing me sing that nicht.