Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1900-10-19
II VERY miner in the gulch, barrin,

~
old Eddie Grim, who was deaf,
dumb and half blind, was on the tip
toe of expectancy. There never had
been a 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 off. Women
folks never will stand for beiu'
dragged way down into Ennis Gulch,
4O-odd mile from nowhere, Jest ter
play act fer a gamblin', cussin', fight
in passel o. men. 'Tain't material no
how. l wouldn't hev no respeck fer
any woman thet would so fer ferget
her sex. | don't lay no celebrations
on seem it done" said Joe. Sandy
Crowley, who had been married four
simes while living in civilization, reck-
oned women had done stranger things
'Erfure now; and Billy Ennis, son of
the cate old man Ennis, who first dis
covered the rich deposits in the gulch
and who died, with his boots on, a few
months subsequent to the discovery,
the result of carelessness in not pull
an fnst," calculated that there was no
accounting for tastes.
Kansas Joe's reputation as a shrewd
Judge of human nature was destined
ytO be shattered, for, on the day APP
pointed, a scraggy, weather-beaten
little band of transformers appeared.
Joe wished that he hadn't been so
81 o1
his loss of reputation, when he saw
the evolution of a theater from the
old warehouse.
The manager of the company was
not at all a tenderfoot, and had had
mis- day prospecting for the yellow
dust. Though habitually peRniless,
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 a much-trusted guardian,
and that it had been within her power
10 reclaim her own and put an end
Qr, oil nf haV hVtf ha hoI 4
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 discernment and
his ability to bring to the surface real
genius wherever it existed and how
ever deeply it might be buried in pow
erty, or even worse.
The camp learned the story by
heart and, when the curtain was rung
mp 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 a thing it would have been
III EnCs III VI ilNl RItdNcSl
need, could have been deluged with
the golden treasure of nights win
nings at the faro bank. The money
meant so little to them, and it would
have set everything right with her
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 audience
saw her only living as she had lived,
suffering as she had suffered, before
they Sad known her.
a tall, well-boned man, with slight
~ STOPPING shoulders, sat on the ex-
freme right of the improvised theater
aud seemed very much affected as the
play progressed. He was swayed by
every shadow of emotion as If he were
seeing real life instead of very or
ainayy play, acted by semi-amateur
~ 'BgsaIls86IislIfF IFg sgys iSs X G'r ~.