Books: Tent Culture

MORALLY WE ROLL ALONG—Gay MacLaren—Little, Brown ($2).

When Gay MacLaren was a little girl she decided to become an elocutionist after she heard a Chautauqua performer recite The Bobolink. The high point of this performance was a trill: cheeeeeee, prrrrrrr, cheeeeeeeeeeeeee, which Gay practiced so hard her South Dakota neighbors asked her if she didn't know a piece with some other kind of bird in it. But Gay kept on practicing, studied elocution in Minneapolis, finally got her big chance at the New York Chautauqua. Thereafter she followed the Chautauqua circuit, along with chalk-talk artists, bell ringers, evangelists, yodlers, zither performers, magicians,...

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