The Washington herald., 1915-10-24
Copyright. lsls.lN

one hand and afslab of sticky
fy-paper in the other. you couldn'
find no happier spot than Castleton
There's where the dove of peace pu
up a four-story brick hotel
They never had hard storms il
,Castleton--always went round. The
stones weren't rough there-quiet and
well-behaved. The trees and the gras:
and the flowers grew with no noise
and fuss whatsoever, and as for the
people, there never was a word
spoken hard enough to draw the tenn
per of any man. 1t was a placer
mining Paradise.
1t cuddled under gosh-almighty
cliff of white quartz-a cliff that shot
FIVE hundred foot in the air. A pool
clear as innocence itself, washed the
cliff. Old spruces, that had their
growth when Moses played hockey,
shaded it.
Hank Peters dam formed the
pool The other boys either sluiced
at his place or fiumed the water
down a ways.
There was Hank. and Jim Smith,
and Missouri jim; Charley Hand and
his wife; Bill Gaudy and his wife;
the Stevenses, the Cropseys, the Ole
boys and lot can't remember, and
Tom Ivy, the Cousin Jack who did a
retail postofice business and sold
food and patent medicines. the two
staples of any honest camp. OF
course there was Injuries, like to-
bacco and whiskey on>the side. Tom
didn't sell the whiskey-that was
against the law, and never a soul was
against the law in Castleton. Nope,
Tom gave you the whisIey. and you
bought a briar-wood pipe. Those
were the only expensive things in
Toms store-those pipes. You paid
him a dollar and a quarter for one,
when you could buy the same thing
elsewhere for half dollar But what
was the use of being mean when a
man is kind enough to make you a
present of pint OF good whiskey?
Always we bought a pipe, and paid
the price ungrudgingly. That was a
law. too. and, as l said, nobody broke
laws in Castleton.
There was sleep in Castleton. I
don't mean just forgetting what's
going on around you for a certain
length of -time-I mean the kind of
sleep when you almost know how
good you're sleeping. and how much
you're enjoying it, although you
amt more n begun before some
body's hollering in your ear and it's
sunup once more. Then you stretch
and smell the good old pines and
truck and say, That was some sleep.
Lord! Where's breakfast"
Yessir, for pure comfort give me
Castleton. where life run like a river
of soothing syrup through a meadow
of dreams, sunup TO shutdown, sun
down to sunup, three hundred and
sixty-hve days. plus. per annum.
But just as soon as he sees any
thing like that, old John H. Devilsins
gets busy with his fine work. That's
the one thing he won't stand for
peace and comfort; so that is the
reason a cloud come by night, chill
ing our tranquillitee. And it was a
cloud not much larger than a mans
hand, at INDEPENDENTLY if the man
was holding EN- good just then.
Its name was Susie Waters. l
don doubt it had silver lining, this
little cloud, but as it happened to be
young lady cloud, no gentleman
should mention such thing, even a
silver one. Lining or not, it wanted
some oil to still the troubled Wa
tiers, because they'd been raised by
a Gale.
lineup Gale, Susie's father. was
the lad that hit it at lineup in the
hadn't much more'n drifted down the
canon before the old man opened up
a free variety show, with free cham
payne squirting on the side. They
said he had ten men working for him,
and every shovelful of dirt they lifted
was a dollar in the old mans pocket,
and they added that every time he
lifted his hand, whishol away went
the whole bizeel He considered the
sight of sober man an insult to his
hospitality. Twas a merry spot for
a while-Tincup.
Then the old man married and got
religion. AS for his religion, that's as
it may be, but he sure got a decent
wife-old snoozers like him always
does. Susie was the result. They
sent her back East to school when
she was grown enough, and she come
home, running most of the available
livestock, from two to six footed,
that the neighborhood afforded. She
had all kinds OF fancy fool ideals the
Eastern folk fill their noodles with,
being too lazy to think, and she
tucked forty-seven different kinds of
her own makeup on that.
And then Bob Waters, one of the
incest, quietest, kindest boys the
Lord ever passed over the border,
had to go and get stuck on her. Moth
ing that friends, sense, nor misfor-
tune could say had any weight with
him.
He goes, story-book style, to old
man Gale and asts HE consent