comedies. Next day it is
always:

"Sadie, did ya saw the show last night? Wasn't it swell where she
recognized her lover just before he got hung?"

Just once since movies were has the town been taken by storm, and that
was while I was there. It was "The Kid" that did it. Many that day at
the bleachery said they weren't going--didn't like Charlie
Chaplin--common and pie-slinging; cheap; always all of that.
Sweet-faced Mamie, who longs to go through Sing Sing some day--"That's
where they got the biggest criminals ever. Wonder if they let you see
the worst ones"--Mamie, who had thrilled to a trip through the insane
asylum; Mamie, who could discuss for hours the details of how a father
beat his child to death; Mamie, to whom a divorce was meat and a
suicide drink--Mamie wasn't going to see Charlie Chaplin. All that
pie-slinging stuff made her sick.

Usually a film shows but once at the Falls. "The Kid" ran Monday
matinee. Monday night the first time in history the movie palace was
filled and over two hundred turned away. Tuesday night it was shown
to a third full house. Everyone was converted.

As for dancing, once a week, Friday nights, there was a dance at the
"Academy." Time was when Friday night's dance was an event, and the
male contingent from the largest near-by city was wont to attend. But
it cost twenty-four cents to journey by trolley from the largest
near-by city to the Falls, fifty cents to attend the dance.
Unemployment at the largest near-by city meant that any dancing
indulged in by its citizens was at home, minus car fare. Also, the
music for dancing at the Falls was not favorably commented upon. So
sometimes there were six couples at the dance, once in a great while
twenty. The youths present were home talent, short on thrills for the
fair ones present.

Indeed, the problem of the Falls was the problem of every small
town--where in the world could an up-and-doing girl turn for a beau?
The only young men in the place were those married still younger and
anchored there, or the possessors of too little gumption to get out.
Those left hung over the rail at the end of the Main Street bridge and
eyed every female passer-by. It was insult heaped on boredom, from the
girls' point of view, that a Falls youth never so much as tipped his
hat when spoken to. "Paralysis of the arms is here widespread," Bess
put it. "You oughta see 'em in winter," Margaret giggled one Sunday
while four of us were walking the stree