Literature was really more in my line than the drama. I still thought that it was not too late, perhaps, and so I rose and went out quietly so as not to disturb any one, and as I went down the aisle the tall man and stage manager exchanged regrets.
I looked back in time to see the tall man fall in the aisles with his face in the sawdust and his hand over his breast. Then I went out of the theatre in an aimless sort of way, taking a northeasterly direction as the crow flies. I do not think I ran over a mile or two in this way before I discovered that I was going directly away from home. I rested awhile and then returned.
On the street I met the stage manager and the tall, dark man just as they were coming out of the Moss Agate saloon. They said they were very sorry to notice that I got up and came away at a point in the programme where they had introduced what they had regarded as the best feature of the show.
This incident had a great deal to do with turning my attention in the direction of literature instead of the drama.
But I am glad to notice that many of the horrors of the drama are being gradually eliminated as the country gets more thickly settled, and the gory tragedy of a few years ago is gradually giving place to the refining influences of the "Tin Soldier" and "A Rag Baby."
Will Taylor, the son of the present American consul at Marseilles, was a good deal like other boys while at school in his old home in Hudson, Wis. One day he called his father into the library and said:
"Pa, I don't like to tell you, but the teacher and I have had trouble."
"Well, I cut one of the desks a little with my knife, and the teacher says I've got to pay $1 or take a lickin'!"
"Well, why don't you take the lickin' and say nothing more about it? I can stand considerable physical pain, so long as it visits our family in that form. Of course it is not pleasant to be flogged, but you have broken a rule of the school, and I guess you'll have to stand it. I presume that the teacher will in wrath remember mercy and avoid disabling you, so that you can't get your coat on any more."
"But, pa, I feel mighty bad over it, already, and if you would pay my fine, I'd never do it again. A dollar isn't much to you, pa, but it's a heap to a boy who hasn't a cent. If I could make a dollar as easy as you can, pa, I'd never let my little boy get flogged that way to save a dollar. If I had a little feller that got licked bekuz I didn't put up for him I'd hate the sight of money always. I'd feel as ef every dollar I had in my pocket had been taken out of my little kid's back."