Blue-grass blade., 1891-02-07
4 Lady Writes About NY Paper
and My Book and Emma Alb.
bolt and IngersOlI.

LEXINGTON, KY, Feb. |, 81.
37S East Maxwell st.
G c More.
DEAR SIR:-I have been intend
lug fora long time to write and
tell you that l should be glad to
mail back copies Of the Blade, as
pioneers.
| believe they have only to be
seen to be admired.
have made Il practice of send.
ing, somewhere, two or three
copies each week. My mother,
who l always thought was born
rabid Prohibitionist, up in old
Vermont, just revels in the Blade;
but she says, "Do tell Mr.. Moore
to be little more careful in his
language
| replied "Don't worry mother;
by the time you and DR.. CHM
had sand-papered Mr.. Moore down
to your notions there would not be
any BLAZE left to cut Bluegrass"
I am very proud of Lexington's
Prohibition weapon, and think it
keeps fully up to its high ideal;
and we do all have lots of fun out
of it, and fun Is so healthy.
l have read the copy Of your
book twice, and l have laid it side
by side on the bookshelves with
Ingersol's "Gods," which was
likewise presented to me by its
author with autographs inscrip-
ton, and the two make little
pile of wickedness that is somehow
rather pleasant to my sinful eyes;
though neither Of you, it seems to
me, see beyond the end of your
own noses, spiritually.
| am impatient tor Volume 2.
Do hurry it on. We are all get
ting "along in years." you know.
send you some cuttings about
the dear little dead singer of whom
you wrote so well and truly.
don't know where she was born,
but Peoria, Illinois, was the early
camping ground of both those
singers, Abbott and Ingersoll, who
in different ways have so long
chanted the songs of the people.
There you can hardly run amiss
of some one who is ready to tell
you some quaint story of these two
original characters, of whom the
little city is SO proud.
When l was reading your ac-
count of that last interview with
Abbott, Oh that occasion when you
were MASKING diamonds in her
trunk, l thought of a story, lady
told me, of a time when Emma Alb
bOtt had no diamonds.
She said her father was a music
teacher and very poor. The father
and daughter used to 60 to school j,
houses in adjoining towns, through
the dreadful Illinois prairie mud,
20 give their concerts.
On one occasion poor little Emma
lad no dress at all suitable for a
public appearance even in rough
country school-house. 49, said
he lady, 81 took my best bomba-
line and made her two out of it,,
nd the lady was not a very big
either.
Another lady who went to school
With her said, "She was always
inging, and was rather a subject
# ridicule to some of us. One
lay, Overhearing some remarks
bout her voice, she turned upon
Ter tormentors saying, Il know
'ou girls are all making fun of {
ne; but l don I care; some day III
ing" II
l heard her in Faust in Peoria !
n II, when she returned to her {
Id home in her triumph.
Never was a more enthusiastic
udience, and never did she sing !
eiter. aud perhaps not half so well. I
She had a lover too, this poor
tile singer In the old days, 50 the a
'eoria legend runs, and she ia |
ored him, and his folks were well |
, do, and thought the match une, a
ual as to wealth.
| used often to meet the disap v
ointed youth, and a glamour of a
'mance hung about him in my a
'es. b