The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-01-29


the street and count a dozen lots
that have been used as hitching
places for country teams these five
years, which sold during the boom for
prices tnat would buy the very best
house in town nowadays. Ones hind
sight is so monumental that he won
ders how he could ever have believed
In foresight SO perverted that 1t would
prophesv continuation of values on
Main street of the little town of Will
low Creek, that would strain even the
heart of . metropolis to sustain. | re-
member the lots over there where
that unsightly hole is-that was where
they started five-story Masonic tenn
pie Just before the end came-lots
there sold at one hundred dollars
n front foot. and there were plen-
tv of buyers for residence lots two
miles from the post Office for thirty
and forty dollars a foot. Many of
these lots have grown wheat and corn
for half decade, and many of them
are too close TO town to be country and
too far from Main street to be town.
So they lie there, grown to sunflowers
In summer, and form a green and vel
low wall about the little town through
which the lum bering wagons pass, GO
Ing out gathering in the evening and
disa appearing in a cloud of dust over
the hill. The farmers who ride in
these wagons are our only stay now;
they were our only stay then, but we
hid not know it. We hoped then to
get eastern capitalists and syndicates
to develop our country, and the quiet
farmer was ignored. Just what the
syndicates were to develop ! forget
now, but we were all very sure that if
eastern capital could only be induced
to come that our town would be
made have been trying to
think what we counted as our
resources in those days, but the
only thing which comes to my mind is
the unlimited supplies of beautiful
magnetism limestone, which, though
soft upon being first cut, hardens upon
- exposure" / think these are the exact
words of the thousands of boom cir
culars we issued and scattered broad
cast over the land. Besides this ''un-
limited supply of magnetism lime
the wonderful enterprise and pluck of
our citizens, and to our excellent school
facilities. And although am sure the
magnetism limestone was not our chief
pride, fail to recall just now what it
was that we expected to be developed
by eastern capital Yet 1 am sure
there was something. 1t was not 1.-The
rich black loan" which was mentioned
in the circulars casually, for the rich
black loan was looked upon chiefly
with regard to its availa bility to be
laid out in town lots, and there was no
idea of having anything to do with the
loan or with the men who titled the
1oam. We all wore good clothes in
those DAYS. Some of the clothes that
j see bout the post Office at mail time
now did duty as Sunday clothes then.
We have many of us bought very little
since the crash came.
We are better o Fl to-day than we were
in the very rush of the boom. The
past few years has been a season of
debt-paying, and the false is sepa-
very healthy little community,
even if our shoes are not SO glossy and
our coats so very well kept. There is
only one man in town to-day who wears
cuffs on week days, and he is going to
get married and that will settle him
But there was a time when Willow
Creek was great on style, and the old
man Mac Farland, who now sits tilted
back on the bench in front of the liv-
cry stable whiting all the day, tried
10 put on style himself, and they will
tell you of it in the post Office or at the
livery stable or in the back room of
the bank--where all sorts of funny
stories on every body in town are cur
rent even if it does seem like frigid
place to man who wants time on his
note"-or in the courthouse where ey-
crybody loafs except the deputies. or
at the depot, where the crowd drifts
just before train time, and they will
make great laugh over it. Yet it is
not funny story to me. l cam
not help seeing Annie" - the
old man always refers to his wife as
annie" they have no children. and
he has not gotten ont of his youthful
habit - as she sent the old man SO
proudly down the street with his new
clothes on. / know that was a happy
hour for her. And il seems to me
someway that. after working and
bcrimping as she did for twenty-five
gears. Mrs. MacFarland had earned
that proud hour, and more too. if it
comes TO that They came here TO
Willow Creek with the FIRST corners.
and settled on their claim overlooking
the town. They fought the drought
and the grashoppers and the hot winds.
and no one but some OF the older peo-
pie on the creek knows what hard
light it was. was in the aid commit
tee rooms. in the r~asShopper wear.
that cold winter night when old man
Mcfarland he was twenty wears
younger then-siipped into the room.
After waiting about town until every
one had left the room and gone 10 bed
except my father and me. l remember
The moisture in the old mans ewes as
he said simply:
We'll, Doc, We've come 10 il al last"
remember how shame faced he was,
hoo when he took the aid; and sbud-
dered out of the room into the winter
night, not saying thank you. nor look
ing back only CHANGING up and down
the lonesome little street guilty. TO
see If anyone had seen him ! knew
what the struggle meant that forced
him into town many and many a cold
night like that for aid. the comforter
that his wife had made him about his
neck, and the mitteas on his hands