The woman, who was my Sunday School superintendent, overhearing the Doctor’s remark, forthwith gave another curt command: “Off with that shirt, Clifford—off with that shirt!” The voice carried, full and resonant, through the calico partitions to the rear of the auditorium. That command became a phrase which was hurled at Clifford as long as he lived here. He is now in Seattle, Washington. As already stated, I was to have taken the part of Joseph. I had a sort of vague idea that my beautiful coat of variegated hues was to have been torn from my person by my brothers to show to my old man as evidence of a lie they were going to tell him. And not knowing what turn of mind the now deliriously happy director would take next, I beat it—went outside and thought I would see the show through the green shutters which covered the old school house windows. Outside, I found that other deserters had preceded me. Bill McVay, a grown young man, bewhiskered for the occasion, with a flowing white beard the likes of which has seldom been seen on this earth since the days of Moses, said, in his drawling voice, “I could drink all the whisky the old town’s got and it wouldn’t faze me—but that thing has bumped me off my feet. She’ll have to get someone else to take my part.” Actually, I was afraid to remain in the cast, fearing, the way things were happening, fast and furious like, that I might be persuaded against my will to appear before that hilariously responsive audience with greatly reduced apparel. I really was in a dangerous spot. The plot called for partial forced disrobement. Knowing the hyenas who posed as my brothers, and knowing also that those brothers had caught the spirit of the producer in a large way, I had the feeling that when they would have finished with me, working in that free atmosphere, that it would have been sans pants for little Johnny. It should be borne in mind that the director of this very extraordinary show was an extremely odd woman, very religious, and sincere—and, having ideas of her own, she had the courage to mirror them bounteously in her work. The show was all right, of course. Biblical, and all that. And, viewed with an eye for the beautiful, it was all that Van said it was. But coming as it did in an age of many clothes for women, it was a revelation. ODD CHARACTERS — COLORFUL, PICTURESQUE Not Hitherto Published—1947. By John T. Bristow The discussion of odd characters was going strong when I entered the corner grocery store one evening. I did not join in the discussion for the simple reason that the range of observations did not go far enough back to take in the really odd ones—as I knew them. Had I told what I’m going to tell now, without supporting evidence it would, perhaps, have branded me as a prevaricator, and I wouldn’t have liked that. But I’m taking no chances now. Supporting evidence is at hand.