Will Rogers

Will Rogers

Will Rogers was a cowboy that did rope tricks. He was loved by the crowds
that watched him. “Onto the stage ambled a friendly-faced, tousled-haired man
wearing a cowboy getup and carrying a collection of lassos in his hand. He smiled
at the audience, then threw out one of the ropes, twirling it in a circle in preparation
for one of the complicated rope tricks he was hired to perform. But as he went into
the trick, he miscalculated the size of the small stage, and the rope whacked into the
backdrop and fell to the ground with a loud thud. The audience was silent as the
obviously embarrassed cowboy reached down and picked it up. Without a word, he
tried the trick a second time. Again, the rope slammed loudly onto the stage floor.
Show directors had a standard way of dealing with such a disasters-get the
performer away from the audience as fast as possible, or “give’em the hook” in the
theater parlance. As the curtain came down on the rope twirler, Buck thought sadly
that the curtain had probably been drawn on the young hopeful’s career.
To his surprise, the audience was thinking differently. Instead of hurling
jeers and catcalls, people here and there began to clap, and soon the entire theater
was filled with the sound of applauses. The curtain went back up, but when the
audience saw another musical number was next, they booed and hooted, demanding
the return of the clumsy cowboy. They did not care that he had botched his
act-there was something so ...

Will Rogers

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