The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1912-03-31
BIT LITTLE
GREAT OUTSIDE
image Of HiIlsville Does Not
Like Contast With
the World
SMALL MATTER ARE
OF BIG IMPORTANTS
Arrival OF the Mail Looked
Upon, As Event OF Day,
But Gun / lays Not
So Exciting

Euilt along q public road that winds
I HI way from top to base OF one ci
4 41ae many knobs upon the broad sum-
\ nit or the Blue Ridge, the village OF
l1illw.iie, Carroll county. is almost
kissed by low hanging clouds Apart
from and independent of the outside
Wcfid 1t stretches ont In two wings
4 from the county courthouse In the
cenfer and loses itself among hill
3 side farms.
The town is like a hundred others
ocnttered through the south In which
here has never been heard the
/ ncreech OF a locomotive whistle. An
q niKht- miie stretch Of mud separates IL
4rOm the neares, railway station tn
winter, but In summer hiEh-pow-
& cred automobile could easily climb
4 H winding road from Betty Baker.
The hamlet Ii isolated. It's people
II keep IN touch with outside events
~ reading daily papers and frequent
visits BY commercial travellers. Dyna-
sniting outrages In the middle Wes,.
and cotton mill strikes In the North
20 unnoiiced. Conversation drifts
1rcm the condition of crops TO the
latest trial In the county courthouse
and hack again 10 local politics
Thrown Into Lin,clight.
Until little more than. two weeks
: ere, when the siiisse *as startled
out Of IT. iethargy by a tragedy that
shocked the world. few people had
ever heard of Hilfsviile. Unknown
Il and overlooked. II did not care. No
vextng questions rs rise In larger
communities were to be settled. Ev
erybody Was happy or conten.ed.
There were no paupers. There was
m abundance Of the necessities Of
life.
Thrown out OF its accustomed re.
pose BY the tragedy. Hilisvtlie will,
when the excitement is over settle
back To- It's, normal relation TO coun-
fxywide AFFAIRS Within few years
the shooting will have become a
memory and people will recall II as a
d nightmare that turned out to be real.
Hiilsvilie in the past fortnight has
lifted its eyes in establishment and Its
4 noul has been filled with resentment
~ printed accounts OF its people, for
geting the stranger views men and
events at a different perspective from
1 that Of home folks. 1t does not know
that to the outsider things familiar
through custom In Hilisvilie are look
- upon as odd or unusual. II re-
fuses to believe truths revealed
through the strangers eye,
Interested in Small Matters.
Thrown closer together because of
their Isolation. people in the village
arc Interested In things of small Inn
portance and Insignificant events loom
large In importance. Once q day the
mountain mail man lifts his saddle
bags from a horse and carries the
days mall into the postoffice. He has
done this for fifteen years at the same
time each day. bat always there Is the
same crowd to greet him. The old
4 harnessmaker, who twice a year re-
ceives q letter from his son. is al
ways on hand. Rallied off by a par
tition and Slated gate. the post
a master and his assistant pounds upon
each letter separately In half an
I hour II is over and the NAH Is open
First nj the window is an aged man.
ANY mail today" he asks. "Nothin'
sdoin'' is the reply. This Is the an
4 swer 365 times 81 year. but the pa
u friarchal face Is ever there.
In less than an hour the male
. population has trooped Off with it's
i mail. Someone has stopped outside
with daily paper and over his
shoulder are peer!ng half dozen,
Z GpeIfIng out the black headlines.
In a little while some half grown
8 Girls, looking straight ahead. per
\ 3nAps bobbing short greeting to boy
whose face will soon feel the touch
OF a razor. Sometimes the girls come
three abreast, arms over each other =
Shoulders. Then It In with safety In
u numbers they make grimaces "a, the
boy. Alone not a one Of them would
dare do more than speak.
Look Upon Crime ns Personal.
The attitude Of mind In Eillsville,
but more particularly ia Carroll coun-
4 ", towards the Aliens and their crime
!. b different from that OF the outside
world A man IN New York. Balti-
mere or Richmond views the crime
z shoot up courtg Did not they
q because dissatisfied with q verdict
fry 10 wipe. out with their pistols all
county-officsrs2 In Hillsvilie 1t WAS
NOT the commemorative attorney who
4 Nss killed. but man. Had sidna
Allen and Sheriff Webb engaged IN
pistol duel In front OF the court
house. and had the sheriff fallen. the
crime would not have attracted par
\ ficular notice Such things happen
4 frequently.
Whnr makes the crime more heinou.
n the average mind Is the fact thai
the Aliens did their shooting in the
u Mas convicted. Carorll county peo-
4 pie know what people living else.
& Nhero do not The Aliens and the
court officers were iniYnical to each
I otsser. The Aliens had sworn ven
xeance. Sheriff webb was elected al
3 thu man who was not afraid to arrest
the Aliens, This the Aliens resented
\ Few people in Carroll. and perhap,
II nobody In FfiIlsviife, condone th'
crime. but II II not considered a
h0rrft,Ie crime This In proven by
the fact that although 1--WE people were