Part 5

"Where do they come from?" he continued, eagerly.

On being told that it was Darmstadt, he cried, "I must meet her."

He gave his friend no peace until that end had been brought about. He found her the same lovely girl who had thrilled him at first sight; he wooed her with ardor and they were betrothed.

He now yearned for a stable business that would enable him to marry. Meanwhile his affairs had grown. The peddler's pack expanded to the proportion of a wagon-load. Then, as always, the great West held a lure for the youthful. In some indescribable way he got the idea that Kentucky was the Promised Land of business. Telling his fiancée that he would send for her as soon as he had settled somewhere, he set out.

But Kentucky did not prove to be the golden country. He was advised to go to Ohio, and it was while driving across the country with his line of goods that he came upon Sandusky. The little town on the shores of a smiling lake appealed to him strongly. It reminded him of the home country, and he remained there.

He found himself at once in a congenial place. There was a considerable German population; his ready wit and engaging manner made him welcome everywhere. The road lost its charm; he turned about for an occupation that was permanent. Having picked up a knowledge of cigar-making, he established a small factory which was successful from the start.

This fact assured, his next act was to send to New York for Miss Strauss, who joined him at once, and they were married. These were the forebears of Charles Frohman--the exuberant, optimistic, pleasure-loving father; the serene, gentle-eyed, and spacious-hearted woman who was to have such a strong influence in the shaping of his character.

The Frohmans settled in a little frame house on Lawrence Street that stood apart from the dusty road. It did not even have a porch. Unpretentious as it was, it became a center of artistic life in Sandusky.

Henry Frohman had always aspired to be an actor. One of the first things he did after settling in Sandusky was to organize an amateur theatrical company, composed entirely of people of German birth or descent. The performances were given in the Turner Hall, in the German tongue, on a makeshift stage with improvised scenery. Frohman became the directing force in the production of Schiller's and other classic German plays, comic as well as tragic.

Nor was he half-hearted in his histrionic work. One night he died so realistically on the stage that his eldest son, who sat in the audience, became so terrified that he screamed out in terror, and would not be pacified until his parent appeared smilingly before the curtain and assured him that he was still very much alive.

* * *

Frohman's business prospered. He began to build up trade in the adjoining country. With a load of samples strapped behind his buggy, he traveled about. He usually took one of his older sons along. While he drove, the boy often held a prompt-book and the father would rehearse his parts. Out across those quiet Ohio fields would come the thrilling words of "The Robbers," "Ingomar," "Love and Intrigue," or any of the many plays that the amateur company performed in Sandusky.

He even mixed the drama with business. Frequently after selling a bill of goods he would be requested by a customer, who knew of his ability, to recite or declaim a speech from one of the well-known German plays.

It was on his return from one of these expeditions that Henry Frohman was greeted with the tidings that a third son had come to bear his name. When he entered that little frame house the infantile Charles had made his first entrance on the stage of life. It was June 17, 1860, a time fateful in the history of the country, for already the storm-clouds of the Civil War were brooding. It was pregnant with meaning for the American theater, too, because this lusty baby was to become its Napoleon.

Almost before Charles was able to walk his wise and far-seeing mother, with a pride and responsibility that maintained the best traditions of the mothers in Israel, began to realize the restrictions and limitations of the Sandusky life.

"These boys of ours," she said to the husband, "have no future here. They must be educated in New York. Their careers lie there."

Strong-willed and resolute, she sent the two older sons, one at a time, on to the great city to be educated and make their way. The eldest, Daniel, went first, soon followed by Gustave. In 1864, and largely due to her insistent urging, the remainder of the family, which included the youthful Charles, packed up their belongings and, with the proceeds of the sale of the cigar factory, started on their eventful journey to New York.

They first settled in one of the original tenement houses of New York, on Rivington Street, subsequently moving to Eighth Street and Avenue D. Before long they moved over to Third Street, while their fourth residence was almost within the shadow of some of the best-known city theaters.

Henry Frohman had, as was later developed in his son Charles, a peculiar disregard of money values. Generous to a fault, his resources were constantly at the call of the needy. His first business venture in New York--a small soap factory on East Broadway--failed. Later he became part owner of a distillery near Hoboken, which was destroyed by fire. With the usual Frohman financial heedlessness, he had failed to renew all his insurance policies, and the result was that he was left with but a small surplus. Adversity, however, seemed to trickle from him like water. Serene and smiling, he emerged from his misfortune.

The only business he knew was the cigar business. With the assistance of a few friends he was able to start a retail cigar-store at what was then 708 Broadway. It was below Eighth Street and, whether by accident or design, was located in the very heart of the famous theatrical district which gave the American stage some of its greatest traditions.

To the north, and facing on Union Square, was the Rialto of the day, hedged in by the old Academy of Music and the Union Square Theater. Down Broadway, and commencing at Thirteenth Street with Wallack's Theater, was a succession of more or less historic playhouses. At Eighth Street was the Old New York Theater; a few doors away was Lina Edwins's; almost flanking the cigar-store and ranging toward the south were the Olympic, Niblo's Garden, and the San Francisco Minstrel Hall. Farther down was the Broadway Theater, while over on the Bowery Tony Pastor held forth.

Thus the little store stood in an atmosphere that thought, breathed, and talked of the theater. It became the rendezvous of the well-known theatrical figures of the period. The influence of the playhouses extended even to the shop next door, which happened to be the original book-store founded by August Brentano. It was the only clearing-house in New York for foreign theatrical papers, and to it came Augustin Daly, William Winter, Nym Crinkle, and all the other important managers and critics to get the news of the foreign stage.

It was amid an environment touching the theater at every point that Charles Frohman's boyhood was spent. He was an impulsive, erratic, restless child. His mother had great difficulty in keeping him at school. His whole instinct was for action.

Gustave, who had dabbled in the theatrical business almost before he was in his teens, naturally became his mentor. To Charles, Gustave was invested with a rare fascination because he had begun to sell books of the opera in the old Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street, the forerunner of the gilded Metropolitan Opera House. Every night the chubby Charles saw him forge forth with a mysterious bundle, and return with money jingling in his pocket. One night, just before Gustave started out, the lad said to him:

"Gus, how can I make money like you?"

"I'll show you some night if you can slip away from mother," was the brother's reply.

Unrest immediately filled the heart of Charles. Gustave had no peace until he made good his promise. A week later he stole away after supper with his little brother. They walked to the Academy, where the old Italian opera, "The Masked Ball," was being sung. With wondering eyes and beating heart Charles saw Gustave hawk his books in the lobby, and actually sell a few. From the inside came the strains of music, and through the door a glimpse of a fashionable audience. But it was a forbidden land that he could not enter.

Fearful of the maternal scolding that he knew was in store, Gustave hurried his brother home, even indulging in the unwonted luxury of riding on the street-car, where he found a five-dollar bill. The mother was up and awake, and immediately began to upbraid him for taking out his baby brother at night, whereupon Gustave quieted the outburst by permitting Charles to hand over the five-dollar bill as a peace offering.