[In Iowa, I once lectured in a theatre, and the heartless manager gave me a dungeon scene.]
The curtain goes up, and I stand before a Salt Lake of upturned faces.
I can only say that I was never listened to more attentively and kindly in my life than I was by this audience of Mormons.
Among my receipts at the box-office this night were—
20 bushels of wheat. 5 bushels of corn. 4 bushels of potatoes. 2 bushels of oats. 4 bushels of salt. 2 hams. 1 live pig (Dr. Hingston chained him in the box-office.) 1 wolf-skin. 5 pounds of honey in the comb. 16 strings of sausages—2 pounds to the string. 1 cat-skin. 1 churn (two families went in on this; it is an ingenious churn, and fetches butter in five minutes by rapid grinding.) 1 set of children's under-garments, embroidered. 1 firkin of butter. 1 keg of apple-sauce.
One man undertook to pass a dog (a cross between a Scotch terrier and a Welsh rabbit) at the box-office, and another presented a German-silver coffin-plate, but the Doctor very justly repulsed them both.
4.14. THE BALL.
The Mormons are fond of dancing. Brigham and Heber C. dance. So do Daniel H. Wells, and the other heads of the Church. Balls are opened with prayer, and when they break up a benediction is pronounced.
I am invited to a ball at Social Hall, and am escorted thither by
Brothers Stenhouse and Clawson.
Social Hall is a spacious and cheerful room. The motto of "Our Mountain Home" in brilliant evergreen capitals adorns one end of the hall, while at the other a platform is erected for the musicians, behind whom there is room for those who don't dance to sit and look at the festivities. Brother Stenhouse, at the request of President Young, formally introduces me to company from the platform. There is a splendor of costumery about the dancers I had not expected to see. Quadrilles only are danced. The mazourka is considered sinful. Even the old-time round waltz is tabooed.