When a traveling stock company settled down at the local hotel and thrilled and entertained us, that was a wonderful week for children. The excitement begain when the advance man came to town and posted the bills on the side of a barn, on the lumberyard fence, in the 'place glass' windows of drug stores and grocery stores. After we had decided which were the most necessary to us, there was always the question of how far we could prevail upon our parents. How good some of those old traveling companies were, and how honestly they did their work and tried to put on a creditable performance. The Bohemian Girl, The Chimes of Normandy, Martha, The Mikado.
Nothing takes hold of a child like living people.
But I am sorry that the old Opera Houses in the prairie towns are dark, because they really did give a deeper thrill, at least to the children. It did us good to weep at East Lynne, even if the actress was fairly bad and the play absurd. Children have about a hundred years of unlived life wound up in them, and they want to be living some of it. Only real people speaking the lines can give us that feeling of living along with them, of participating in their existence. The very poorest of all were Uncle Tom's Cabin companies, but even they had living bloodhounds.