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“I’m Jack Robinson, I am! I am the man that bunted the bull off the bridge! I’m the best man in Northern Iowa!” He had met him, of course, but Steve kept a check upon himself when sober.

“He says he can knock the spots off of you,” Johnny said, in conclusion, watching Lime roguishly.

The giant finished nailing up the fence, and at last said: “Now run along, sonny, and git the cows.” There was a laugh in his voice that showed his amusement at Johnny’s disappointment. “I ain’t got any spots.”

On the following Saturday night, at dusk, as Lime was smoking his pipe out on the horse-block, with the boys around him, there came a swiftly-driven wagon down the road, filled with a noisy load of men. They pulled up at the gate, with a prodigious shouting.

“Hello, Lime!”

“Hello, the house!”

“Hurrah for the show!”

“It’s Al Crandall,” cried Johnny, running down to the gate. Lime followed slowly, and asked: “What’s up, boys?”

“All goin’ down to the show; climb in!”

“All right; wait till I git my coat.”

Lime was working one of Graham’s farms on shares in the summer; in the winter he went to the pinery.

“Oh, can’t we go, Lime?” pleaded the boys.

“If your dad’ll let you; I’ll pay for the tickets.”

The boys rushed wildly to the house and as wildly back again, and the team resumed its swift course, for it was getting late. It was a beautiful night; the full moon poured down a cataract of silent white light like spray, and the dew (almost frost) lay on the grass and reflected the glory of the autumn sky; the air was still and had that peculiar property, common to the prairie air, of carrying sound to a great distance.

The road was hard and smooth, and the spirited little team bowled the heavy wagon along at a swift pace. “We’re late,” Crandall said, as he snapped his long whip over the heads of his horses, “and we’ve got to make it in twenty-five minutes or miss part of the show.” This caused Johnny great anxiety. He had never seen a play and wanted to see it all. He looked at the flying legs of the horses and pushed on the dashboard, chirping at them slyly.

Rock Falls was the county town and the only town where plays could be produced. It was a place of about 3,000 inhabitants at that time, and to Johnny’s childish eyes it was a very great place indeed. To go to town was an event, but to go with the men at night, and to a show, was something to remember a lifetime.

There was little talk as they rushed along, only some singing of a dubious sort by Bill Young, on the back seat. At intervals Bill stopped singing and leaned over to say, in exactly the same tone of voice each time: “Al, I hope t’ God we won’t be late.” Then he resumed his monotonous singing, or said something coarse to Rice, who laughed immoderately.

The play had begun when they climbed the narrow, precarious stairway which led to the door of the hall. Every seat of the room was filled, but as for the boys, after getting their eyes upon the players, they did not think of sitting, or of moving, for that matter; they were literally all eyes and ears.

The hall seated about 400 persons, and the stage was a contrivance striking as to coloring as well as variety of pieces. It added no little to the sport of the evening by the squeaks it gave out as the heavy man walked across, and by the falling down of the calico wings and by the persistent refusal of the curtain to go down at the proper moment on the tableau. At the back of the room the benches rose one above the other until the one at the rear was near the grimy ceiling. These benches were occupied by the toughs of the town, who treated each other to peanuts and slapped one another over the head with their soft, shapeless hats, and laughed inordinately when some fellow’s hat was thrown out of his reach into the crowd.