Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1910-12-17

I as JEFFERSON had been seeming the un-
| wonted In the air of sleepy Paradise.
| Once he had stumbled on the engi-
neers at work in the dark woods"
across the creek. spying out line for
the new railroad. Another day he had
come home late from a fishing excur-
sion to the upper pools to find his faith
err shut in the sitting room with three
strangers respondent In town clothes.
and the talk was of iron and coal. OF
New South" whatever that might be.
and OF wonderful changes portending.
which his father was exhorted to help
bring about.
But these were only the gentle heav-
ings and crackings OF the ground pre-
MONETARY of the real earthquake. That
came on a day of days when, as re-
ward of merit for having faultlessly
recited the eighty-third Psalm from
memory, he was permitted to go to
town with his father. Behold him, then,
| dangling his feet-uncomfortable be-
| cause they were stockinged and shod =
| from the high buggy seat while the
| LATEST of horses ambled between the
shafts up the white pike and around
and over the hunched shoulder of
Mount Lebanon. This in the cool OF
the morning of the day OF revelations.
In spite of the premonitory trem-
| blings, the true earthquake found
| Thomas Jefferson totally unprepared.
He had been to town often enough to
have clear memory picture of South
Tredegar-the prehistoric South Tired
egar. There was single street, hub
deep in mud in the rains, beginning
vaguely in the open square surround
ing the venerable courthouse of pale
brick and stucco- pillared porticoes.
| There were the shops-oniy Thorn 8
Jefferson and all his kind called them
''stores"-one-storie these. the wood
en- ones with lying false fronts to hide
the mean little gables; the brick ones
honester in face, but sadly Clipped and
crumbling and dingy with age and the
| weather.
| Also, on the banks of the river. there
was the Anticipated iron furnace which,
| long before the war. had given the
town it's pretentious name. And last
| ly. there was the Calhoun House,
dreariest and most inhospitable inn of
its kind; and across the muddy street
from it the great echoing train shed.
ridiculously out of proportion to every
other building in the town, the tavern
not excepted, and to the ramshackle,
once-a- day train that wheezed and
clanked into and out of it.
Thomas Jefferson had seen Ii all.
| time and again; and this he remem-
bered, that each time the dead, wealth
| erworn, miry or dusty dullness of it
had crept into his soul. sending him
back to the freshness of the Paradise
fields and forests at eventide with
grateful gladness in his heart.
But now all this was to be forgot
ten, or to be remembered only as a
dream. On the day of revelations the
earlier picture was effaced. BACKED
out, obliterated; and it came to the
boy with pang that he should never
be able to recall it again in its entire
ty. For the genius of modern progress
is contemptuous of old landmarks and
impatient of delays. And swift as its
race is elsewhere, II is only in thai
part of the South which has become
industrial" that it came as a thunder
clap. with all the intermediate and ac-
CELEBRATED steps taken at bound Mer
spoke of 1t as the BOOM" 1t was moi
that It was merely that the spirit
of modernity had discovered a hither.
to overlooked corner of the field, and
made haste to occupy it.
So in South Tredegar, besprent now
before the wondering eyes of Thorn.
as Jefferson. The muddy street haC
vanished to give place to a smooth
black roadway as springy under foo
as a forest path, and as clean as tn,
pike after a sweeping summer storm
The shops, with their false fronts ant
shabby lean-to awnings, were gone
or going, and in their room majesti,
vastnesses in brick and cut stone wer,
rising, by their own might, as it would
seem. out of disorderly mountains o.
building material
Street-cars. propelled as yet by tn,
patient mule, tinkled their bells inces
sanity Smart vehicles of many kinds
strange to Paradise eyes ratified reck
lessly in and out among the street OBJ
structions. Busting throngs were il
possession of the sidewalks; of thu
awe-inspiring restaurant, where the,
gave you lemonade in a glass bowl ant
some people washed their fingers II
it: OF the rotunda of the Marlboro. tn,
mammoth hotel which had grown uI
on the site of the old Calhoun House
distressing crowds and multitudes q
people everywhere.
(Go De continued.)
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