So Far as we know, this young man, now so suddenly dead, was the drollest mimic and gentlest humorist of our region. He existed as the welcome and mirthful shadow of conventional and tiresome things.
He began as the expositor of " The Maiden's Prayer" on the piano, where each accented note was flat or sharp, and the music flowed rapidly, or over great difficulties, as the score might determine. He arose, and looking half-witted, recited with unapproachable modesty the stammering delight which he would feel "if he could be by Her!" He frosled his hair and became Paderewski, who forthwith fell upon the piano tooth and nail, tore up the track, derailed the symphony, went down stairs and shook the furnace, fainted at the pedals, and was carried out rigid by supers--the greatest pianist of any age. He wrote "If I Should Die To-night"--a parody that was accepted as the true original, the sun, the center of the great If-I-should-die-to-night system of thought and poetry. He wrote the poet's lament--that there was nothing to eat but food, and nowhere to come but off. The artists of the newspaper world generously sprang to his side; they placed him pictorially before the people, and determined, with almost prophetic spirit, that our small circle should not alone dwell with undiminishing laughter upon the gambols of Ben King. He was coldly, then not coldly, then warmly received by the church fairs, the clubs, and the Elks, where he got a supper--if any were left. At last he charged a small sum for appearing publicly, and this sum was rapidly enlarging and his fortune was in sight, when the hotel porter found him dead in his room at Bowling Green, Kentucky.
During the years we knew him, he never spoke to us in a disparaging way concerning any other person, and unless Paderewski's comb was ruffled by Ben's exhibition of hair and haste in piano-playing, no parody, or perk, or prank of Ben King ever depended for its success upon the wounding of another creature's feelings.
We all accounted him a genius, and while we could not guess what he would do next, we awaited his performances with complacence, laughing as if we owned him and had ourselves ordered his latest jeu d'esprit. We deplored the untimely moment of his end; we held beautiful, solemn and impressive memorial services over his body, with music by the sweet singers whom he had loved when he was alive, and touching words by ministers of the gospel; we buried him affectionately, as one who could least be spared from our circle; and as we were the witnesses of what he did, we now charge ourselves to be the testimonies of his rare talents.
John McGovern.
Benjamin Franklin King, Jr., was born at St. Joseph Michigan, March 17, 1857, and died at Bowling Green, Kentucky, April 7, 1894. He was married Nov. 27, 1883, to Aseneth Belle Latham, of St. Joseph Michigan, by Professor David Swing at his residence in Chicago. The wife and two sons, Bennett Latham King and Spencer P. King, survive him.
While yet a child, music came to Ben King as an inspiration. His infant fingers touched the keys of a piano and a ripple of notes, strange and sweet, startled his parents into the consciousness that a great talent had been given unto him. How odd a boy he was--no one understood him. On the edge of the marsh he would sit during hours at a time, under the spell of the weird music amid the rushes. As he grew up, lacking the instincts that make men successful in business, he was pronounced a failure--not by those who had warmed themselves in the glow of his poetic nature, but by the man who believed that to turn over a dime and thereby to make a dollar of it was the most gracious faculty that could be bestowed upon a member of the human family. But when Ben King died, St. Joseph became more widely known in one day than hundreds of excursions and a thousand orchards had served to advertise it in the past. On that April morning, people living in the far East and the far West asked the question: "Where is St. Joseph?"
Ben King was not only a man of music; he was a poet, a gentle satirist, and a humorist of the highest order. Every company was brightened by his coming, every man felt better for having heard his quaint remarks. There was about him a droll, a charming irresponsibility--a Thomas Hood from Michigan.
I find, as I have found for the fiftieth time while striving to write these lines, that I am still too much under the shock caused by his death to write dispassionately of him. My judgment, the common sense that one should bring to bear upon such a subject, is obscured by the vivid picture of an early morning; and down a dark hallway I still hear a violent knocking--and then comes a throbbing silence, and out of that silence comes an excited whisper--"Ben King is dead."
Opie Read.
If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
Weeping and hearsick o'er my lifeless clay--
If I should die tonight,
And you should come in deepest grief and woe--
And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"
I might arise in my large white cravat
And say, "What's that?"
If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel,
Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,
I say, if I should die to-night
And you should come to me, and there and then
Just even hint 'bout payin' me that ten,
I might arise the while,
But I'd drop dead again.
Write me a poem that hasn't been writ,
Sing me a song that hasn't been sung yet,
String out a strain that hasn't been strung,
And ring me a chime that hasn't been rung yet.
Paint me a picture but leave out the paint,
Pile up a pile of old scenes of my schoolery,
Leave me alone; I would fain meditate
And mourn o'er the moments I lost in tomfoolery.
Tell me a tale that dropped out of a star,
Push me a pun that is pungent, not earthy.
I must have something sharp, strident, and strong
To eke out a laugh or be moderately mirthy.
Give me a love that has never been loved,
Not knowing the glance of the bold and unwary,
A cherup abreast with the saints up above,
And I'll get along and be passably merry.
But come on the fly to me, come on the jump,
Don't hang around on the outskirts and walk to me;
Throw out your cest well, and hold up your head;
Say when, and say it, or else don't you talk to me.
Reckon de angel what rolled 'way de stone,
An' let de good shepherd escape,
Some day 'll fly down to dis prison ob sin
An lib'rate all dat's prepahed to come in;
So I'se gittin' my soul inter shape,
Gittin' my soul inter shape, fo' yo' see
Hit's a mighty big stone dat's layin' on me,
Mighty big stone! Yes, indeedy!
I hope de good angel will hab heaps o' strength,
Or else bring old Samson along,
Kase the sin on my soul's mo' 'en fo'ty foot deep;
Yo' see, I bin one ob dese wanderin' sheep,
An' hit's gwine ter need somebody strong,
Gwine ter need somebody strong, doan yo' see;
Hit's a mighty big weight dat's a restin' on me.
Pow'ful big weight! Yes, indeedy!
I'se gittin' my soul inter shape fo' de day
When Peter 'gins takin' 'is toll;
Ready ter lay down my burden an' rest,
Ready ter take up de cross ob de blest,
Ready ter entah de fol'.
Gittin' my soul inter shape, doan yo' see;
Dar's a big load ob sin bin restin' on me,
Big load ob sin! Yes, indeedy!
Yes, indeedy!