A Penny for Your Thoughts: A Short Story

By Nancy Jasin Ensley

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469150543

Nancy Jasin Ensley

Nancy Jasin Ensley has worked in the healthcare field for 56 years in multiple roles. Her poems and four books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles’ websites and in the national Library of poetry. “The Tire swing” is a memoir chronicling her metamorphosis from a frightened, abused child to a nurse, educator, mother, wife and great grandmother. “A Rainbow in December” is a story filled with intrigue, power struggles, murder and romance. Join the protagonist, Melinda Strigow in her stormy ride to find her pot of gold.

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Copyright © 2012 by Nancy Jasin Ensley.

ISBN:          Ebook                                      978-1-4691-5054-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was created in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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104686

Dedicated to

Muriel

She sends pennies from heaven.

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Mattie peeked around the worn red velvet curtain onto to the stage of the Avon Theater. Her slightly turned up nose caught a whiff of musty gym towels as the curtain brushed the red ringlets dangling around her freckled face. The rays of light from the single spotlight in the balcony wrapped itself around the smoke coming from the audience’s cigars and cigarettes and waltzed across the stage with ghostlike agility. The crowd’s murmur was occasionally pierced by an impatient outcry from someone in the audience.

Bring on the show… what’s the holdup! someone slurred between guzzles of wine or cheap hootsch. The audiences’ demeanor varied radically depending on the town, the owner/promoter and the mix of the classes in that part of the country. Vaudeville had brought together, as no other form of entertainment had, the unfortunates, the low to middle class and the upper crust—all under one roof. There was usually something for everyone. Opera for the more cultured, acrobatics and magic for the bourgeois, slap-stick and jokes for the unfortunates. That was it’s charm, it’s popularity, and eventually—it’s downfall.

Not much of a crowd tonight, Mattie thought to herself as she squinted to see the faceless audience. Uncle Paddy will sure be mad when he sees the change from this one. as she looked down at her sequined costume and rubbed her worn tap shoes with the edge of the curtain.

It was 1925 and Vaudeville’s shining catapult to opulence in theaters, storefronts, even barns bursting with attendees had started it’s genuflect to the silent films. The introduction of sound feature films made this new media more popular and forced exhausted Vaudevillian performers to be pushed by owners to their limits with an ever diminishing supply of fresh material.

Mattie and her Uncle were not the top billers or headliners even in this small time Vaudeville touring group. They had a one time stab at it in a small town in Montana when Billie DePue,