The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-05-15

fers, have changed the name OF the
Big Muddy in common parlalce 70
Mud Creek" and transformer py tiie
alchemy of popular depreciation, the
name of the town itself mas shrlVeleo
into "Willer Crick.
1t might have been something OF a
town as towns go III the west puI
instead of pulling with his neighbors
for the success of the town, each of
its founders spent his time making
fun of the pretensions of others. When
there was talk on the part of 'old
man Mead, the primeval postmaster
of securing the Government Land Of
fee for Willow Creek, the Indian
trader the saloon keeper and the
blacksmith made great sport of the
old mans ambition. A few years
later when civilization had crowded
in with a hotel, lumber yard, new
saloon and a barber shop, some one
spoke of starting a newspaper; but the
laugh that went up from Willow
Creek was the only unanimity that
greeted Editor McCray when his back
was turned. But the newspaper came,
and SO did the people, and they kept
coming, until, when the "boom" of
the later eighties struck Kansas, it
found Willow Creek with about 1000
scoffing inhabitants.
In one way or another the "boom"
seemed to bring wealth to Willow
Creek. And with wealth came some
attempts at the organization of polite
society. There were innumerable
young real estate agents, young doe
tors, young lawyers and clerks, all
from the East, in the village; and
these, with the daughters of the early
settlers and such friends as they
CHANGED to make in the high school
constituted the aristocracy of the
town. 1t was vulnerable aristocracy,
nd Il n 4,
it. Fathers, who had carried their
sweethearts-now their wives-across
the Big Muddy on their backs to and
from the dances at Jack Armstrong;
ranch, were too common, and zoo
Voluble in Willow Creek, to permit
the daughters and sons of the town
to assume very much dignity. e a
family put on Emany airs the members
of a dozen families in town would ,ell
newcomers how the would-be fash
ionables had received laid" from the
committee in the grasshopper year
1t was said of Flora McCray who
went to boarding schoo land came
back timid, retiring and distinctly un-
social, that "She needn't hold lie, self
so high. If her father would onlv pay
back the money he stole in the school
land fraud she would be as common
as anybody" But the girl laid no
heed to these rumors if she s'e4' q
them. She quietly filled her small
sphere, bounded on one side by her
meek-voiced mother and her bus :
father, on another side by her church
and her Church social IN Il til1d
side by a very brief glimpse of a very
big world and her mem Dry Of it, and
on the fourth side by occasional Cay
dreams and night thouS IS. I.retty
much the same as those which cone
to any young girl of Sood. healrh good
sr.sT
had a sweetheart.
After the Boom had passed. VIII
low Creek saw the dress suits that Lad
many and many a time danced - the
sound of reVelry by night in the opera
house fit away. Flora McCray pro-
badly knew nothing of the appearance
nor of the departure of these formal
trappings. She never had attended
dance; not that she was too strong in
piety to have gone, but because no
one ever had thought of asking her.
Dancing, during the days of the
BOOM" was the chief if not the only
social diversion in what was known as
the best society of the place. So it was
said that the McCray girl never went
out
After a two years Intellectual strug-
gle Willow Greek gave it up; the
town could no longer support two
branches of society," and the church
crowd and the dance crowd merged
ITO one. The union was a very SenSi
ole one, yet every one laughed at it
and said that the church people were
citing giddy, or that 1.-The aristocracy
had made fine come down from its
high horse" OF a bevy of girls who
gave broom brigade drills and milk
maid conventions and. who conducted
toe socials'' for the benefit of the
library or the temperance society,
Flora McCray made one. But it was
merely numerical one. AS leader,
planner and a schemer she was less
than an integer.
She had no intimates, and unless a
crowd was present or numbers were
needed no one thought of her She
went everywhere with her parents.
Young men were scarce, and other
girls, more designing than she, never
thought of wasting masculine materi-
al on her.
When it was announced that the
entire social body of Willow Greek.
was going out to Robinson's for a
"taffy pull" one Saturday night, the
rest of Willow Creek laughed. The
town people sneered at the young wo
men who had planned the party, and
intimated that the night ride out to
Robinson's and back was an heroic
measure; and they laughed at old man
Robinson and his family for tolerating
people who would snub them if they
came to town, and lastly they laughed
at the young men, who would have to
pay the livery bills.
Saturday morning John Howard,
Mr.. McCray's partner in the stock
business, came up from the farm on
Dry Creek, and after going over some
details of business, McCray asked his
partner to Sunday dinner, as was his
custom when the young man was in
town, and the invitation was accepted
During the boom Howard had made
money. He had mingled with what
is known as the "swell set of Willow
Creek and though not a favorite at
the flood of the BOOM the very fact
that he had the social instinct made
him necessity in society at it's ebb.
Soon after leaving his partners Of
flee, he had learned of the plans for
the "taffy pull that evening. He
was urged to go, and finding that all
the rigs" were full, and that all the
girls of his set were provided with
escorts, in a moment of despairing in
spiration the young man sent a note
to his partners daughter, asking for
the pleasure of her company" His
invitation was accepted, and late that
afternoon Flora McCray stepped into