up our tent and present 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'
with an unparalleled cast from the California Theatre.

"You must remember we desired to have the company hail from a point as
far distant as possible from New York, and we could hardly have gone
further or we would have slid right plumb off the continent. But we told
no lie about the company being unparalleled. No, sir. You couldn't match
it for money. It was what might be legitimately considered a 'star cast
company.'

"One of the company was a dwarf. That was lucky, or we would have been
stuck for a _Little Eva_. So the dwarf was cast for _Eva_; and he
doubled up and served as an ice floe, with a painted soap box on his
back to represent a floating cake of ice in the flight scene. He played
the ice floe much better than he did _Eva_. But that's neither here nor
there now, as he got through with both. What's more, he's alive to-day
to tell the tale. Between ourselves, he was the oddest looking
_Eva_--and the toughest one, too, for that matter--you ever clapped eyes
upon.

"In the dying scene, where _Eva_ is supposed to start for heaven, we
struck up the tune of 'Dem Golden Slippers' in what we considered
appropriate time. Well! whatever it was--whether it was the music, the
singing, or little _Eva's_ departure for the heavenly regions--it nearly
broke up the show. The audience simply wouldn't stand for it. Just at
that impressive moment when the Golden Gates were supposed to be ajar,
and dear little _Eva's_ spirit was about to pass the gate-keeper, a
couple of rural hoodlums in the starboard side of the tent began to
whistle the suggestive psalm, 'There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town
To-night.' When I heard it I felt convinced it wouldn't be safe to give
that programme for more than one night in any town.

"We hurried through the performance for two special reasons: first,
because the audience evidently did not appear to appreciate or take
kindly to the company from the California Theatre, and secondly on
account of the rising wind which was beginning to blow up pretty fresh,
and the tent was not sufficiently able-bodied to stand too much of a
pressure from outside as well as from within. Consequently we rang down
the curtain rather prematurely on the last act. It is nothing more than
candid to allow that the audience was not as quiet at the close as in
the earlier scenes of the drama. We had no kick coming, however, as the
gross receipts footed up seventeen dollars a