For the Love of Annibel

When Magpie Simpkins decides he wants to become an actor, Ike Harper knows trouble is already in motion. In rough Piperock, a traveling impresario named Madame Della Selva is mounting a home-talent production of For the Love of Annibel, and what begins as a town meeting quickly turns into a comic exposure of vanity, flirtation, and wounded pride. Men who thought they were above the stage find themselves cast, insulted, or maneuvered into roles they do not want, while Magpie, Ike, and the rest of the frontier crowd are pulled deeper into the spectacle. As opening night arrives, the play becomes a riot of bad costumes, heckling, drunkenness, hidden schemes, and escalating confusion. Even the stage horse, Old Squaw, seems determined to outdo the human performers. When the performance finally collapses into darkness, bucking, a shattered lamp, and gunfire, the hall erupts in panic and the town is left bruised, embarrassed, and laughing at itself. Told in lively frontier slang and deadpan banter, this humorous Western turns amateur theater into a full-scale farce. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.