Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1877 — A Small House. [ARTICLE]

A Small House.

Celia Logan says that her father, like most actors of the olden time, had a mania for management, and usually it took an itinerant form. In a wagon, with the company and scenery packed inside, he would travel through State after State. The fastest walker waa sent ahead to •‘bill” the town a day or two previous to a performance, the bills being as often written as printed. One winter had been very severe, and the heavy snow-storms had greatly impeded the actors. After several weeks of bad business the old wagon was unloaded at Auburn. There had been a snow-storm during the day; but still the company hoped that the powerful attraction offered, “The Merchant of Venice” (cut to suit the small company), And a “ roaring” farce, would tempt the citizens from their firesides. The hall was lighted by half a down tallow candles, and their light disclosed, when the curtain was rung up, one man in the room. Mr. Logan informed him that M would be impossible for the performance to take place; whereupon the audience arose and replied: “ Sir, I Lve ten miles back in the country, which ten miles I have this day walked in the snowstorm towitneas this performance. I have honasdy paid fifty cents to come in, on yaur representation that the entertainment was worth seeing, and i think the show ought to go on just the same as if the house was full.” “It shall, sir,” was the rejoinder, and it did.