FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148  
149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   >>   >|  
with the high kicking, and all gone off, except one girl, a gipsy, who was going to sing a song, and then a bell would ring and the whole stage effects would change as if by magic. When she had got to the end of her song and had waltzed off to the left, we got up and walked down in front, and took one of a whole row of vacant seats, put on our spectacles, and were ready. Do you know, every cuss in that audience saw us go down there? They all thought we had gone there to be nearer the dizzy tights, and they began to clap their hands and cheer. We think Chapin, the lawyer, who doesn't like us very well, started it, and every kid in the gallery took it up, and the house fairly rung with applause at the sight of our bald head well down in front. We never felt so mean since we quit stealing sheep. The crowd laughed and hi-hi'd, and the stage manager took the applause for an _encore_, and ordered the girl to go out and sing some more. She knew better, knew they were guying the bald-headed man in front, and all the troupe knew it, and the girls put their heads out from the wings and laughed; but the girl came out and sung again. If she didn't wink at us when she came out, then we don't know what a wink is, and we have been around some, too. She sang some confounded love song, such as "Darling, Kiss My Eye Winkers Down," or "Hold the Fort," or something, and kept looking at us every moment, and smiling like a church sociable. The crowd took it all in, too. Her dress was cut decolette, or low necked at the bottom, and we were nearer to the angelic choir than a bald headed man of family ever ought to be, but there was no help for it. She was the only girl in the troupe that wore black tights, and we thanked our stars for that, but even with all those mitigating circumstances in our favor the affair had a bad look, and we admit it. Of course any one would know that we wouldn't go out of our way to see any black stockings, but it looked as though we had, to the crowd. We have faced death on many a field of carnage, but we never knew what it was to want to be away from a place quite so much as then. If you know how a man feels when he is stricken with paralysis, or a piece of a brick house, you can imagine something about it. We tried to put on a pious look, a deaconish sort of expression, like a man who is passing a collection plate in church, but the blushes on our face did not look deaconish at all. We tried to look far away
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148  
149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
nearer
 

tights

 

troupe

 

headed

 

applause

 
deaconish
 
church
 

laughed

 
angelic
 

bottom


thanked

 

moment

 
smiling
 

decolette

 
family
 

necked

 
sociable
 
imagine
 

paralysis

 

stricken


blushes

 

expression

 

passing

 

collection

 

affair

 

mitigating

 

circumstances

 

wouldn

 

carnage

 

stockings


looked

 
ordered
 

audience

 

spectacles

 

thought

 
Chapin
 

lawyer

 
vacant
 

effects

 
kicking

change
 

waltzed

 
walked
 
started
 

Winkers

 

Darling

 
confounded
 

guying

 
gallery
 

fairly