This is the story of a man who lived to make people laugh.
His name was Harley Sadler. He entertained Texas sod farmers and ranchers before movies learned to talk and the Grand Ole Opry ruled the radio airwaves. When the tent show came to town, mama pulled out her egg and butter jar to count pennies and dimes. Papa hitched the plough horse to the wagon, threw the children in the back and began the trek across the prairie.
Soon wagons from every direction met as the last rays of the day disappeared behind a distant ridge. Families dismounted—the children giggling and jumping about–and headed for the entrance to the giant canvas tent.
Overhead was the sign:
“Roy E. Fox’s Popular Players Present ‘King of Pecos County’”
The audience hurried inside, dimly lit by bare light bulbs mounted on iron buggy wheels. Sides of the tent were rolled up to allow the plains breeze to waft through. It was insufficient. Everyone cooled themselves with a cardboard fan which sported the face of their favorite actor, the man they came to see.
It was the photograph of a young man with lean, gaunt cheeks dotted with painted freckles, sparkling eyes and toothy grin.
Framing the wooden stage were posters advertising local businesses who willingly paid good money to put their names in front of what they knew would be a full house. Footlights flickered. Papas pointed out the spotlights to their sons and daughters. Hawkers walked up and down the aisles selling bags of pop corn and peanuts. Slowly members of the band appeared from behind the curtain, sat in front of the stage and tuned their instruments. Parents shushed their children. The show was about to begin.
After the curtain parted, all was silence. Familiar characters entered, spoke, emoted and exited, then returned as the usual melodrama story enfolded. The villain was tall, older and would have been considered handsome if not for the menacing black moustache and sneering lips. Children pelted the mean man dressed in black with popcorn recently bought with mama’s hard-earned egg and butter money. She did not mind.
In this particular play on this particular night Ed Thardo played the villain Unctuous Dirgewood with uninspired efficiency. He had spent most of his adult life saying the same lines every night without any expectation of appreciation. Everyone hated the bad guy. This night his evil designs were aimed at Martha Tyler, a pretty young actress in a starched gingham dress. As the audience hissed the villain’s advances on the heroine, the hero Billy Armstrong played by Sam Bright dressed in a dazzling white cowboy outfit bolted onto the stage to thunderous applause.
But no one received the adulation reserved for Harley Sadler. He was nowhere as handsome as hero Sam Bright nor as awe-inducing as villain Ed Thardo. Harley was short, skinny and humorously awkward. He wore a red wig, floppy cowboy hat, wooly chaps, boots askew on his feet as though they had not been properly fitted and a holster slung low between his legs.
Howls greeted every line Harley squawked out. His big earnest eyes focused on the person he addressed and the audience when he wanted to share his personal thoughts with them. Little did his fans realized that this particular night he scanned the crowd carefully to see if a special young woman were in attendance.
At one point Harley and Sam found themselves offstage at the same time. Harley grabbed Sam’s arm, dragging him to peek out of the curtain.
“She’s here, Sam! I told you she’d be here, and she’s here! It took me all of act once and act two to find her out there, but she’s here!”
“Which one is she?” Sam asked.
“The pretty one, of course.”
On stage, Ed was trying his best to intimidate Martha, but he kept glancing offstage at Harley, who continued to jabber away about the beautiful local girl.
“And that Toby, if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, will live to rue the day he made me angry!”
Sam tried to pull away. “Uh oh. Ed’s getting mad.”
“Third row, aisle seat.” Harley chose to ignore him. “Blue dress and the face of an angel.”
The object of his attention was a very attractive girl in her late teens or early twenties. She smiled sweetly, revealing two adorable dimples. Her eyes glistened as she leaned into a friend, whispered and nodded to the curtain at the edge of the stage.
“Oh no!” Sam hissed. “She saw us! Let’s get back!” He tugged on Harley to the spot where he would make his next entrance.
“But she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she’s beautiful.”
“And she likes me,” he rambled on. “I could tell right off she liked me when I went into the city hall to get the tent permit. She liked me a whole lot.”
“Of course she liked you,” Sam agreed with a rebuke thrown in. “All the girls like Toby.”
The painted-on freckles and the blacked out tooth could not disguise Harley’s desperate need to be loved.
“No, she’s different. The others, they like Toby. She likes Harley.”
Sam shook his head and smiled. “So what’s this beautiful girl’s name?”
“Um.” A brief cloud crossed his face. “I think the woman at city hall called her Billie.”
A bump on his shoulder roused him from his revelry. Harley noticed Joan who played the villain’s French maid sashayed by in her short black uniform. He ducked his head when Ed exited with a flourish and immediately glowered at Harley. Sam nudged his friend.
“Joan’s just gone on.”
“I’m going to marry her,” Harley announced with determination.
“Who? Joan?”
“No, dummy,” he retorted. “Her. The girl at the city hall. Um, Billie.”
“Sure. You’re madly in love with a girl whose name you hardly remember,” Sam sneered.
Joan assumed her coquettish pose but lost her patience because Harley lingered by the curtain and missed his cue.
“Ooh la la. Zee meen Mishoor Dirgewood haz geeven me an evening to myself,” she repeated the cue loudly and with a fair amount of exasperation.
“Go.” Sam pushed him. “That’s your cue—again.”
“No, really,” Harley insisted. “I’m going to marry her. Billie. I’m going to ask her tonight.”
“Marry her? You don’t even know her!”
Joan tapped her foot and fluttered her full eyelashes. “Ooh la la. Zee evening aire ees wonderful.”
“Hurry!” The leading man placed his big hands on Harley’s boney shoulders and forcefully directed him onto the stage. “Joan’s terrible at making up lines.”
“You don’t believe me? How much do you bet I’m married in three days?”
“Ooh la la!” Joan was irritated to the point of losing her fake French accent.
“Married? You’ve never even kissed a girl before!”
“Ooh la la!!!” She was out of control.
“S-sure I have,” Harley stammered. “I kiss Joan every night.” He assumed his Toby posture and bravely made his entrance.
“But not on the lips!”
Harley gave a quick look off stage at Sam, then down in the audience and smiled nervously at Billie who stared back in adoration. He cleared his throat and approached Joan.
“Why, howdy, Miss Foo Foo. I was lookin’ for you.”
“Zat ees Fifi.” Her delivery was less than friendly.
“I’ve been ameanin’ to talk to you about that there boss of yours.”
Joan made a face. “Ugh. Mishoor Dirgewood. I do not trust heem.”
“Good for you. I don’t trust heem—I mean—him neither. Um. Do you know where he keeps his personal papers?”
“You mean zee deed to zee Hamilton fairm wheech he haz stolen?”
“Honest Billy Armstrong’s goin’ to go to jail if we can’t git it back.”
Joan prissed around Harley and ended uncomfortably close, running her fingers through his red wig. “And I will reecovair it for you, Mishour Toby, eef you will keess Fifi.”
“Kiss you?” Harley took a step back in shock. “Why, I don’t even know you! Why, it wouldn’t be moral! It wouldn’t be decent.” He stepped down to the footlights. “What should I do?”
The audience screamed as one. “Kiss her!”
Harley looked directly at Billie, who shyly dipped her eyes, smiled with a hint of flirtation and nodded. Harley grinned, exposing his blackened front tooth and strode to Joan.
“For the good of Pecos County, I’ll do it.”
Joan turned her cheek to be kissed as usual, but Harley grabbed her face in his hands and planted a kiss full on her lips. Some audience members gasped because, after all, this was Texas which considered itself the buckle on the Bible Belt. Others, toughened by the hard existence of farming where matters of life and death made men earthier, hooted in delight. Billie looked surprised, awed a bit jealous and excited all at the same time. Harley pulled away and smiled smugly. Joan was flabbergasted.
“Ooh la la,” she muttered in her regular voice. Catching herself, she resumed her French accent, “Ooh la la.”