Promptly on time the visitors began to arrive, some from Oakdale and others from a distance. The boys to take part in the show were behind the scenes, while others showed the visitors to seats, so that Dave did not see any of his friends or relatives until later.
The programme had been divided into two parts, of five numbers each, including an opening song by all the players, and a closing farce written merely to bring in all the characters.
"Now, fellows, do your best," said Luke Watson, as the school orchestra played the overture. "Make it as near like a professional show as possible."
"Say, that puts me in mind of a story," came from Shadow. "Once some young ladies—— But, pshaw! I'll save that for the stage," he added, and broke off suddenly.
The opening number went very well, and then came a playlet by four of the boys representing four sailors ashore after an ocean trip of five years. The sailors did not apparently know how to act in a big city and did so many ridiculous things that the applause was long and loud.
A musical number followed, introducing banjo playing by Luke, a guitar solo by Henshaw, a cornet solo by a lad named Dixon, and then a trio by the three. Then came fancy dumbbell exercises and club-swinging by three members of the gymnasium club, and this too went very well, the exercisers keeping time to a march played by the orchestra.
The next number was Shadow's monologue, and when that youth came out everybody had to laugh before he said a word. He was dressed as an extreme dude, with big checked coat and trousers, fancy colored vest, a tremendous watch-chain, and paste diamond stud, very pointed patent leather shoes, a high standing collar, and a highly-polished silk hat.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys, girls, and fellow-weepers," he commenced with a profound bow and a flourish of his silk hat, "I have been asked an important question, namely, What is the difference between a cat and a shotgun? Well, I don't know, excepting that both can go off, but it's only the feline that comes back. Now, that puts me in mind of a story I once heard while traveling in Egypt with Noah, looking for a typewriter which was lost overboard from the ark. A little boy went to a hardware store for his dad and hung around waiting to be waited on. At last a clerk asked, 'Well, little boy, what do you want?' 'Oh,' says the little boy, 'I want a fire engine, an' a hobby horse, an' a automobile, an' a lot o' things, but papa he wants a bottle of glue, an' he says if it don't stick he'll stick you for it!' Now, that's the same boy who went to the courthouse to get courtplaster for his mother and then went down to the henhouse to look for egg plants."
There was considerable applause over this opening, and Shadow continued: