News Of The World

Mr. Farley:
Your reason for traveling?

Captain Kidd:
The News. I read the news for anyone with 10 cents in his time to hear it.

Johanna's Aunt:
We had to tie her. She runs away.

Captain Kidd:
She's a child.

Captain Kidd:
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's good to be back with you all here in Wichita Falls. My name is Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, and I'm here tonight to bring you news from across this great world of ours. Now, I know how life is in these parts, working a trade sunup to sundown. No time for reading newspapers. Am I correct? [townspeople murmur agreement] Let me do that work for you. And maybe, just for tonight, we can escape our troubles, and hear the great changes that are happening out there. Starting local, then. Our own Houston Telegraph from the first of February, this news. "The meningitis epidemic continues to spread without prejudice across the Panhandle and North Texas region. So far, it has claimed ninety-seven souls in just a two-month period."

Captain Kidd:
See all those words printed in a line one after the other? Put 'em all together and you have a story.

Captain Kidd:
[to Cicada, in Kiowa] You belong with me. You belong with me.

Captain Kidd:
[reading] "And within moments the entire wedding congregation was digging. Finally, poor Alfred Blackstone was pulled from the earth very much alive." [townspeople clap and cheer] And from his widow Blackstone's embrace, Alfred turned to the groom and said, and I quote, "Feller, when you get in that church and she says 'Till death us do part'... don't you believe a word of it!"