Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-07
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Humorous Scenes and Incidents
In Quaint Towns.
HARK BACK TO OLD DAYS
Old Residents, What They Say and
Oh, the History!
GRAVEYARDS AND GRAY DAYS
Little Confabs and Contrariwise Hap
penings in Places Where Greater
Washington Tale is Told
HARK BACK TO OLD DAYS
Old Residents, What They Say and
Oh, the History!
IRAVEYARDS AND GRAY DAYS

History is history, TO be sure,
and whether ancient, antique, an
tediluvian or what not, ii is nearly
always perchance more or less in
teresting. But when a staff CORE
spondent is acting as press agent
on a train which is laden down with
gentlemen of the road who are sell
ing everything from cross field
hams to split peas, he is naturally
melted to incipient mental riot
when a native wants to do a double
shuttle with some dried bones in a
prehistoric graveyard or bring out
OF the maze OF misty past some
celebrity befo' de wah, sab! The
efforts to impart such picked in
cidents and the baking of the VIC
tim makes humor OF brand that
bcgets laughter and interest. too,
perhaps. Here is some of it.
Special From a Staff Correspondents
BEDFORD. Va. October = 1906
May the time never come when my gaze
clings close to the ground and my mind
busies Itself exclusively with the prospects
of the peanut crop or the latest market
quotation on the left hind end of a hog.
To travel the section covered by the Greater
WA SliDpton i,
minded state as that would be nothing
short of crime. And to any charge of
that sort promptly plead mot guilty" and
throw myself on the mercy of the court.
To any one whose lines have been cast
oVerlong IN the ways of cities these quaint
towns of North Carolina and southeast
Virginia at which we've stopped to pass
the word along, possess peculiar interest
and charm. A little visit to one of them
is for all the world like the ioyment of
cobwebbed wine; wine of an ancient COLLAR
age. gentle wine; wina that passes the Inns
to join with the circling blood and warm
the heart in the rays of a 'prisoned sun
that shone uncounted summers gone.
All is Different.
The people, the look of things and things
themseves-all are so different There
this town of Bedford, for instance. Anv
one of you back there in Greater Wash
ington could be put down here bIindfolded
in the night and when morning came Won
wouldn't be lost. You'd know YOU were
south of the line" And it wouldn't need
81 SamDlp of the Of
to tell you For there isn't town in
the north like Bedford or like any one of
a dozen others 1 have in mind. I've Just
taken Bedford as a type
Back from the station, uphill rock
strewn and quilted staggers a red clay
length it joins the main street, and from
this point the town struggles out, up hill
and down hill, crosswise and end up, till
it gets lost in the country Fairly modern
structures are jumbled up with one-tme
colonial homes, brick structures and ante
bellum frames.
Lengthy is the History.
The town has a history long as L
debutante's dream, and pretty nearly every
native of the place knows it by heart and
is filled with an unconquerable desire to
relate it to the busy transient. 1 managed
to dodge all the town historians-not be-
cause | didn't want to hear all about
everything, but because 1 didn't have the
time-and thereby did 1 make many as
four dozen bitter enemies. I'm confident
Continued on Second Page)