Reckoning of Boston Jim Read Online Free PDF

lantern show? A cosmorama?
    â€œNot in the habit of the theatre,” Boston said, caught off guard. What do you get for your shillings, your dollar? Nothing solid, no piece of knowledge that could be put to any use. But now it seems there might be some value. For he could attend an entertainment and later tell the Dora woman what he has seen. That will be her gift. It will cost him nothing but his entrance fee. When he has finished the telling she will smile and clap her hands and he will go on, unburdened of his debt, and all will be as it was before.
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    The Victoria is nearly full. Red velvet curtains hang heavy on brass hooks. Plaster cherubs and mermaids adorn the lintels and balconies. A man on a ladder trims a coal lamp. The ladder totters and he wails, much to the merriment of the crowd below.
    The entertainment is late. The crowd grows restless. The few women present crack open fans. The men lean back, inspect their pocket watches, hallo across the crowd. Boston takes a seat in the mid-region. All about him are the crosswinds of gossip. There is Mr. Mifflin Gibbs in the best balcony, he with that fancy grocery and provisioning store. How dare a coloured man place himself so high above them? There is the bone merchant Mr. Wang and there the cobbler Mr. Isaac. There Mr. Applegath, and there Mr. and Mrs. Laforge, putting on airs, the damned rebs.
    A scuffle breaks out to shouts of encouragement just as the curtains jerk open, just as the revel master, a red-whiskered man in a top hat, calls out for attention. After an interminable preamble he bawls out the names Master Henderson and Little Miss Olive, demands applause that is heartily given. Miss Olive, ringlets bobbing, leads the sullen Master Henderson, a thick-limbed boy in too-small britches. In the pit the piano man begins a gentle tune. The children sing:
    Oh blessings forever on Aileen Astor!
    She is as good as she is lovely and twenty times more;
    Her sparkling blue eyes and magical smile
    â€™ Tis the hardest of heart my love doth beguile
    The whiskey-soaked man beside Boston sniffles and wipes his nose with his hand. “Ain’t she just like my little Sophie. Oh, my girl.” He stands and shouts: “Hear! Hear!” Stumbles against Boston. Boston looks him full in the face, takes in the bulbous nose, the scrofulous skin, the marl-coloured eyes aswim with tears.
    The man apologizes profusely, to the ceiling, the floor. Explains as he sidles away from Boston that he must stand closer, that his eyes are weak and always have been.
    The revel master again holds up his hands for quiet. “Ladies and gentlemen. You have heard, you may have witnessed, certainly you have awaited with great expectation, the legendary Miss Annabel Anderson of San Francisco, back by popular demand to present her world-famous Spider Dance!”
    A young woman strolls out. Her dress is of purples and greens. At her neck is a long white scarf. She gazes about half-smiling as the crowd cheers. Is she pretending to pick flowers? What sort of entertainment is this? She looks at her hands with mild concern, inspects them more closely. Her shriek is enough to shatter glass. The piano pounds frantically as Miss Anderson flails at her bodice and skirt, tears off her scarf, lashes it over her throat and back. Now she is lifting her skirts high and showing red stockings and now jigging in a circle, all to the hoots and calls of the audience. This goes on for a time, and then, for some sort of a finale, she tears her hair from its neat arrangement, her shrieks timed to the piano chords until the piano abruptly halts. She smoothes her hair back from her face, curtsies to the audience, to its thunderous applause. The floor shakes from the stomping. The curtain rushes closed.
    Boston is mystified. He’d been expecting real spiders, but here the woman was only feigning. At least the People who lived by Fort Connelly did their best to make it seem