The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1883-08-23
The Bad Boy Rehearsing.

"On, we have struck IL now, SAT-
the bad boy. "We are going to hav
amateur theatricals to raise none,
to have the church carpeted, and
am going to boss the job"
''Pa and ma, and me, and tn
minister, and three choir singers
and my chum, and the minister
wife, and two deacons, and an oil
maid are rehearsing, but we have
not decided what to play yet. They
all want to play different play, anC
/ am fixing it so they can all be
satisfied. The minister wants tt
play Hamlet, pa wants to play RiE
Van Wrinkle, ma wants to play Mary
Anderson, the old maid wants to
play a boarding school play, and
the choir singers want an opera
and the minister's wife wants to
play Lady Macbeth, and my cAum
and me want to play a double song
and dance, and | am going to give
them all a show. We had a re-
hearsal last night, and am the only
one able to be around to-day. You
see they have all been studying diff
ferent plays, and they all wanted to
talk at once. We let the minister
sail in first. He had on pair of
his wife's black stockings and a
mantle made of a linen buggy lap
blanket, and he wore a mason's
cheese knife such as these fellows
with poke bonnets and white feath-
ers wear when they get an invita-
tion to a funeral or an excursion.
Well, you never saw Hamlet muir
dered the way he did it. His inter
probation of the character was that
Hamlet was a dude that talked
through his nose, and while he was
repeating Hamlet's soliloquy, pa,
who had come in with an old hunt
ing suit on, as Rip Van Wrinkle,
went to sleep, and he didn't wake
up till Lady Macbeth came in, in
the sleep-walking scene. She
couldn't find a knife; so / took a
slice of watermelon and sharpened
it for her, and she made a mistake
in the one she was to stab, and she
stabbed Hamlet in the neck with a
slice of watermelon, and the core of
the melon fell on pas face as he lay
asleep as Rip, and when Lady Mac
beth said, Out, damned spot pa
woke up and felt the COB of water
melon on his face and he thought
he had been murdered, and ma
came in on hop, skip and jump, as
Parthenia, and threw her arms
around deacon who was going to
play the grave-dlgger and began to
call him pet names, and pa was
mad, and the choir-singers they be-
gan to sing, In the North Sea lived
a whale and they quit acting.
You'd a dide to see Hamlet. The
piece of watermelon went down his
back, and Lady Macbeth went off
and left it in the wound under the
collar, and ma had to pull it out,
and Hamlet said the seeds and the
juice was running down inside his
shirt, and he said he wouldn't play
if he was going to be stabbed with
a slice of watermelon, so while his
wife was getting the melon seeds
out Of his neck and drying the juice
on his shirt, sharpened a cucum
her for Lady Macbeth to use for a
dagger, but Hamlet kicked on Gu
too, and 1 had more
trouble than any stage-manager
ever had. Then pa wanted to re-
hearse the drunken scene in Rip
Van Wrinkle, where he hugs Crotch
en-, and drinks out of flask behind |
her back, and he got one of the
choir singers to act as Gretchen,
and / guess he would have been
hugging her till this time and have
swallowed the flask, if ma had not
took him by the ear, and said a lit
tie of that would go good ways in
an entertainment for the church.
Pa said he didn't know as it was
any worse than her prancing up to
a grave digger and hugging him till
the filling came out of his teeth, and
then the minister decided that we
wouldn't have any hugging at all in
the play, and the choir girls said
they wouldn't play, and the old
maids struck, and the play come to
a stand still."- Peck's Sun.