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there was twenty or more characters in the play. We had several married men and Emma was the only married woman, the rest were young men and young girls. I was sixteen at that time and I played the part of an Irish girl, Nora and Percy Mitchell a fine looking fellow I'd been going with for some time played the part of an umpire so when he kissed me in the play Willie told me later it made him so mad he could have knocked Percy over and I said well you were not even going with me then and he said well that didn't keep me from loving you. Emma played the organ in one part and Brother Jerome and I sang Sweet Adaline. Jerome sang soprano and I sang Alto and the audience clapped us back on so we had to sing it again. Then a boy and girl blacked themselves up and played the part of a negro couple. That was the funniest part of all. Some of the time they were having to give Emma toddies and stimulants to keep her going but she made it through three plays. The first one was at the Woodman's Lodge at Napoleon, the next at Logtown and then at Nicholson. So we had one man in the audience at Nicholson and I'll tell you why. Sister Emma had asked one of her sister-in-law's brothers if he'd put the posters out in Nicholson and we'd give him a free ticket but he never put the first one out so of course no one up there knew about it. The one man who attended said he just saw the light on at the school and through curiosity he stopped in so then we put the show on for his benefit. Emma said she learned a lesson, to never take a fellows word unless you really knew who you were dealing with. I don't remember how much money we got for the two plays but it was quite a sum. It was given to the Napoleon church to buy hymn books and other necessities. After that for a long time every body called me Nora and Percy, Pat.
One time my oldest brother Jay, and I were working on the hill that I've spoken of earlier in this diary. 1 was picking up limbs and little sticks so Jay could rake up the pine straw and then he'd have it into the barn yard for the cows and horse's in their stall also in the barnyard itself for the cattle to lie on in the winter time. So when I got tired, I told Jay that I was going to the house and he said Oh, no; not until you finish your job. So I said just watch me, and with that, I took off running and decided I'd take a shortcut instead of going way around on the road. So when I had ran a little ways I ran over a pile of pine straw which had been there for some time and the yellow jackets had built their house in it and when I ran over it they came out and covered me and then I did run.
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