Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1916-05-11
CHAPTER VIII.

Through the open country Bibbs was
borne flying between brown fields and
sun-fecked groves of gray trees, to
breathe the rushing, clean air beneath a
glorious sky. Upon Bibbs' cheeks there
was a hint Of actual color, but unde-
niably it's phantom. This apparitiOn
| may have been partly the result Of a
lady's bowling to him upon no more
formal Introduction than the circum-
stance of his having caught her look
ing into his window a month before.
1t seemed to Bibbs that she must have
meant to convey her forgiveness. Nor
did he lack the impression that he
would long remember her as he had
just seen her; her veil unanimously
blowing back, her face glowing in the
wind--and that look of gay friendli-
ness tossed to him like a fresh rose in
carnival.
By and by, upon rising ground, the
driver halted the car, then backed and
tackled, and sent it forward again with
it's nose to the south and the smoke.
They passed from the farm lands, and
came, in the amber light Of November
late afternoon, to the farthermost out
skirts Of the city. The sky had become
only a dingy thickening of the soiled
air; and a roar and clangor Of metals
beat deafeningly on Bibbs' ears. Now
the car passed two great blocks of long
brick buildings, hideous in all ways
possible to make them hideOus. And
big as these shops were, they were
growing bigger, spreading over third
block, where two new structures were
mushrooming to completion in some
hasty cement process of a stability not
over-reassuring. Bibbs pulled the rug
closer about him, and not even the
phantom of color was left upon his
cheeks as he passed this place, for he
knew it too well. Across the face Of
one of the buildings there was an enor-
nous sign: "Sheridan Automatic
Pump company, Inc"
Thence they went through streets Of
wooden houses, all grimed, and adding
their own CRIME from many a sooty
chimney; fimsy wooden houses Of a
thousand f1imsy WITNESSES in the fash
ioning, built on narrow lots and nudg-
ing one another GROSSLY. Along these
streets there were skinny shade trees,
and here and there forest elm or wal
nut had been left; but these were
dying. Some people said it was the
scale; some said it was the smoke; and
some were sure that asphalt and 'im-
nrnuin o'' tho Of did r. hut
was in too big hurry to bother much
about trees.
Onward the car bore Bibbs through
the older parts Of the town where the
few solid old houses not already de-
molished were in transitions; some were
being made into apartment buildings;
others had gone uproariously into
trade; one or two peeped humorously
over the tops Of Office buildings of one
story in the old front yards. Altogether,
the town here was like a boarding
house hash the Sunday after Thanks
giving; the old ingredients were dis
cernible.
This was the fringe Of Bigness' own
sanctuary, and now Bibbs reached the
roaring holy of holies itself. Magnifi-
cent new buildings, already dingy,
loomed hundreds of feet above him;
newer ones, more magnificent, were
rising beside them, rising higher; the
streets were laid open to their entrails
and men worked underground between
palisades, and overhead in metal cob
webs like spiders in the sky. Trolley
cars changed and shrieked their way
round swarming corners; motor cars
of every kind and shape known to man
babbled frightful warnings and frantic