Karl K. Darrow to Ruby J. Splitstone, May 30, 1905
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Tuesday, May 30th, 1905.
Chicago, #6036 Jefferson Av.
Meine liebe Ruby --
Es gehts as usual. Being Decoration Day, we have no school. Also, there is no postal service, so i will mail this downtown and hope you get it some time before Thursday.
I wish you were here. The sun is behind the clouds and there are indications of rain in the southwest -- an ideal day to go to Pullman and find another bisected snake on the car-track. We could stave off the rain by inconveniencing ourselves with an umbrella, or even by the simple process of wishing for rain. It rained yesterday,
on
but only before and after school. If this doesn't show premeditation, I would like to know what it does show.
Aunt Mary pulled off her vaudeville twice -- Thursday afternoon and Friday evening. I attended Friday. The most awesome thing about the performance was the number of people who attended it. Aunt Mary thinks she cleared up about $160 from the two. The hall was almost full that evening -- its capacity is 500. I did not see any signs of that leafy tree -- that is, in its entirety -- but I saw that the walls where they rise up from the stage were decorated with branches adorned with red flowers. I think they were those flowers that we saw those girls concocting. The scenery was the same during the whole performance. I think it would have been better to have had an occasional change. They could have alternated the branches and red flowers with the tree, or could have had them on the stage together.
The vaudeville consisted of nine performances. I wish I had a pro-
gram left to send you. As I can remember, the boys' acts were "Sailors", "Ragmen", "Tinkers", and one or two others, and the girls' "Fairies", "Japanese", "Buttercups", etc. The tinkers made slightly more noise than the rest. I could not see much difference otherwise.
The "White City" is open now. The illuminations are so brilliant as to be visible from our house; but the electric tower was condemned by the city authorities, and is not working. We received a letter from Jim Key, the Educated Horse, yesterday; he enclosed a small ticket and a large circular. The chief remark in the circular was that in many large cities of the United States the schools had bee dismissed and the children sent to see Jim Key. It did not name the cities. Possibly they might have been almost as large and important as Buffalo Grove.
I am glad to hear you arrove safely. I did not see any remarks in the Kinsman News about your return. Notice the difference between it and a Chicago paper. Had you been returning to Chicago, the American would have issued an extra about it. I notice in the Kinsman News a heading to the effect " More Trouble in Chicago". Had they waited a little, they might have got more accurate information on the amount of trouble here. Patience is a jewel.
We have three wrecks in the same place on the Alley L -- near the station where I get off, at 40th Street -- but as i did not figure in any, I am forced to regret the lack of more exciting. news. You left Mr. U.B.Dam and his family here, also a sack, also a rat. I enclose the rat. Aunt Mary is going to send the family, but you will have to send a money order to pay for freightage for the sack.
We had to get off at 47th St. because of the wreck one day last week and take the indiana Av. car up to 39th. There were eleven people on the back platform. This beats that car (the one with the motorman who wanted us to move north) all hollow.
I send you some assorted jokes on the last page. Some I copied verbatim, some I write from memory.
Karl's letters
to Ruby
O. H. POWERS
Valpraiso
Indiana