The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1900-10-20

II old Eddie Grim, who was deaf,
dumb and half blind, was on the tip
toe of expectancy. There never had
been theatrical troupe in the gulch
nor had the most visionary of its four.
score inhabitants thought there ever
would be.
Kansas Joe allowed that no such
event could be pulled of. Women
folks never will stand for bein'
dragged way down into Ennis Gulch,
40-odd mile from nowhere, Jest ter
play act fer gamblin'. cussin', fight
in passed. o. men. 'Tain't material NO
how. I wouldn't hev no respeck fer
any woman tibet would so fer forget
her sex. 1 don't lay no celebrations
on SEEM it DONE" said Joe. Sandy
Crowley, who had been married four
times while living in civilization, reck-
oned women had done stranger things
afore now; and Billy Ennis, SON of
the late old man Ennis, who first dis
covered the rich deposits in the gulch
and who died, with his boots on, few
months subsequent to the discovery,
the result of carelessness in not pull
in fust," calculated that there was NO
accounting for tastes.
Kansas Joe's reputation as shrewd
judge of human nature was destined
to be shattered, for, on the day APP
pointed, scraggy, weather-beaten
little band of transformers appeared.
Joe wished that he hadn't been so
'sartin'," but felt almost repaid for
his loss of reputation, when he saw
the evolution Of . theater from the
old warehouse.
The manager Of the company was
not at all tenderfoot, and had had
his day prospecting for the yellow
dust. Though habitually penniless,
he was full Of good cheer. and many
were the good ones that he told at
the expense of the fiercely-mustached
leading man, and even his low come
dian came in for his share of the
drubbing; but the story that meant
most of all to his hearers was one
he told Of the Little Lady, dark-haired
Margaret, who was becoming such a
genuine actress. He told them how
he found her in Denver, pale and
wasted, trying to earn enough money
as seamstress to support herself and
her invalid mother; how she had
been used to better things, and that
she had been defrauded of her in
heritance by mucn-trusted guardian,
and that it had been within her power
to reclaim her own and put an end
to all of her want, but that she had
not done SO, feeling that she could
better afford to endure poverty than
he disgrace.
Great credit this manager took TO
himself for his keen oiscernment and
his ability to bring to the surface real
genius wherever 1t existed and how
ever deeply II might be buried in pow
erty, or even worse.
The camp learned the story BY
heart and. when the curtain was runR
up on that memorable night, which
proved to be both first and last Of
the performance, everyone looked for
the little lady with the hollow cheeks
and the large eyes. and they thought
how fine thing it would have been
II she, In her time of her greatest
need, could have been deluged with
the golden treasure of.a nights win.
nings at the faro bank. The money
meant so little to them, and II would
have set everything right with hez
and her sick mother; and when they
thought of the guardian who was re
sponsible for all of the wrong, Their
faces were not pleasant to look upon
"Little Lady's" part that night
might have been taken from her own
life, so real was the story of hardship
and self-abnegation, and her audienel
saw her only living IA she had lived
suffering ~ che had suffered, befor<
tAey had known her,
= ~. wel''tess1 nas. With sllGtt