WHO IS JOE CONE?

     Joe Cone is a rollicking rover who comes to your village along about dusk, sneaks along in the shadow of the trees till he gets to the town hall or the Opry House, or mebbe the Church. Whichever building it is, he generally enters by the back door and crawls up the back stairs, at the top of which there is usually a door opening into the Lecture Room. Joe opens this door about half an inch to see how many people there are inside the hall. Then he shuts it and fixes his collar; then he opens it about a foot, comes through, and moves sheepishly towards the platform. But, say! – when once his heels hit that platform he ails in something wonderful. He ain’t afraid o’ nobody then. He’s out to do or die, and not exactly prepared to die, he confines himself strictly to doing. And what he does is a-plenty.

      He introduces to the audience, one by one, the towns-people of the back-hills burg of Gungywump, who are known familiarly as “The Waybackers”. And they are a queer lot, from Cynthy Jones to Sloky the Fiddler. He makes each row of his audience sit so far forward in their chairs, listening, that they nearly topple over into the row of seats right in front of them. Sometimes he splits their faces right across with laughter, and sometimes he makes them go fishing around in their pockets for their handkerchiefs. He talks in rhyme; he talks in prose; he talks in regular “Down East”. His sane philosophizing and kindly humor makes every last living soul in the room feel that life is lovely, and that this old world of ours is a pretty good place to stay in after all.

     When Joe finishes, he stops, ends, quits, comes to a short halt, vanishes through the same door, slides down the back stairs, sneaks along in the shadow of the trees, and takes the night train out of town. Next year he comes back again, opens u a new bundle of conversation, and makes the people of that village glad again.

     That’s who Joe Cone is.