Cañon City record., 1904-02-18
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ET0I-V 1, the -dltnf III CnltI OF lne
&EzGJ Carlow County Herald took
his hand out of his hair. wiped his pen
on his last notics from the White Caps.
put on his coat swept out the close
little entry and left the sanctum for
the bright June afternoon.
He chose the way TO the west. stroll
ing thoughtfully out of town Ivy the
white. hot, deserted Main street and
thence onward by the country road into
which it's proud half mile of old brick
store buildings. tumbledowu frame
shops and thin.y painted cottages de
generated. me sun was in his face
where the road ran between the sum-
mer fields, lying waveless, low, gra-
cious in promise; but. coming to a
wood of hickory and beech and wal
nut that stood beyond, he might turn
his down-bent hat brim up and hold
his head erect. Here the shade fell
deep and cool on the green tingle of
rag and iron weed and long grass in
the corners of the snake fence, al
though the sun beat upon the road so
close beside. There was no movement
of the crisp young leaves overhead.
High in the boughs there was a quick
flirt of crimson where two robins hop
ped noiselessly. The late afternoon.
when the air is quite still, had come.
yet there rested somewhere on the
quiet day faint. pleasant. woody
smell. 1t came to the editor of the
Herald as he climbed to the top rail
of the fence for a seat, and he drew
q long breath to get the elusive odor
more luxuriously, and then it was gone
altogether.
"a habit of delicacies," he said aloud.
addressing the wide silence complain
ingly. zone taste and they quit" he
finished, gazing solemnly upon the
shining little town down the road.
1t was place of which its inhabit-
ants sometimes remarked easily that
their city had population of from
5000 to 5000 souls but 1t should be
easy to forgive them for such state
ments. Civic pride is a virtue. The
town lay in the heart of that fertile
stretch of fiat lands in Indiana where
eastern travellers. glancing from car
windows, shudder and return their eyes
to interior upholstery, preferring even
the swaying caparisons of Pullman to
the monotony without. The landscape
runs on interminably level lines-bleak
in winter, desolate plain of mud and
snow; hot and dusty in summer, miles
on miles of fiat lonesomeness, with not
one cool hill slope away from the sun.
The persistent tourist who seeks for
signs of man in this sad expanse per-
ceives a reckless amount of rail fence.
at intervals a large barn. and here and
there man himself, injurious, patient,
slow, looking up from the fields apa-
thetically as the limited flies by. Now
and then the train passes a village
built scatteringly about courthouse,
with mill or two humming near the
tracks This is County seat. and the
. inhabitants and the local papers refer
to it confidently as our city"
Such county seat was Plattrille.
capital of Carlow county. The social
and business energy of the town con
centrated on the square. and here in
summer time the gentlemen We're wont
to lounge from store to store in their
shirt sleeves, and in the center of
the square stood the old red brick
courthouse, loosely fenced in a shady
grove of maple and elm-.'slipp'ry
ellum"-called the courthouse yard"
When the sun grew too hot for the dry
stores around the square and the occu-
pants of the chairs in front of the Pal
ace hotel on the corner they would go
across and drape themselves over the
fence and carve their initials on the
top board From the position of the
sun the editor of the Herald judged
that these operations were now in
progress, and he was not deeply elated
by the knowledge that whatever desul-
tory conversation might pass from man
to man on the fence would probably be
inspired by his own convictions ex-
pressed editorially in the Herald.
He drew a faded tobacco bag and a
brier pipe from his pocket and, after
filling and lighting the pipe. twirled the
pouch mechanically about his finger,
then, suddenly regarding it, patted it
caressingly. 1t had been giddy little
bag long ago, gay with embroidery in
the colors of the editors university.
And, although now 1t was frayed to the
---pe of tatters, 1t still bore an air Of