Belle did beautifully, first on the program, dressed up in grown clothes and having a Byrdsville society conversation over an imaginary telephone.  It sounded just like Helena, and I thought it was not very nice of her to impersonate her own sister, but it was a comfort to see how the Idol enjoyed it.  If he liked Helena to any extent, he would have displayed indignation.  Instead the corners of his mouth twitched for minutes afterward.  I believe at some time Helena must have telephoned him.

Mamie Sue did a delicious old lady telling about her grandson to the two Willises, who were company to tea, that made Hie audience shake with jollity.  There was a perfectly darling trace of Miss Priscilla in the way she did it, that made the Colonel almost unable to keep his seat, and Miss Priscilla laughed out loud twice.  The affection I bear Mamie Sue fattens in my heart at the same rate the object does in real life.

“The way the two Willises impersonated their own silence was a triumph of art,” the Idol said in my ear after it was over.  It embarrassed me greatly to have him be obliged to crowd into a seat with Lovelace Peyton and me, but it was crowded everywhere else, too.  If I had had my way he would have had the best seat in the house, comfortably alone.

Sam Hayes was “Old Hickory,” General Andrew Jackson, the night before the battle of New Orleans.  Mr. Douglass Byrd wrote his piece and Judge Luttrell, who is the son of one of that famous Tennessee hero’s best friends and staff-officers, was so affected he blew his nose feelingly.

Pink would be a negro, so as for once to be rid—­by the aid of burnt cork—­of the disgrace of his unmasculine beauty, and he was so like Uncle Pompey that Lovelace Peyton insisted on calling out to him from the second seat until Pink had to tell him who he was before he could go on with his hen story, which was one of Uncle Pompey’s own, and which was rib-aching funny.

Tony and Roxanne did the most interesting real Scout adventure, without words, and the audience sat spellbound while she fainted from heat prostration, and he put around her head a wet bandage made with his and her handkerchief, raised a signal for other Scouts to come and help, and finally took her up on his back and carried her off the platform behind the curtain.  The applause was deafening, though Lovelace Peyton didn’t like the scene one bit, and he kept feeling Roxanne’s head after she came and sat down in front of us in the audience.

Nobody knew that I was going to be or do a thing, for I had begged them not to make me, because of the difficulty I have in managing my feet and elbows on account of their rapid growth right now.  But I did!  I think I have caught the family pride habit and that is what made me do it.  This is how I felt.  I looked down at the seats of honor reserved for the Byrdsville distinguished citizens, and saw my father sitting in one of the high places, as it