Omaha daily bee., 1919-09-17
Thea All Visit the West
From the villaser New York;.

arations The two-column announcements in
the local newspapers, the hand-bills pasted
above the tattered sheriff's notices on the cot
tonwoods and naples were almost unneces-
sary; the news that he was coming went troV
one to the other and everyone intended to be
there. "A monster crowd is expected the
editor paragraphed and neither rain nor sud
den corn-belt temperature could have upset the
prophecy. Early in the morning they began to
come in from the farms; "Oles," with their
shiny brown faces oddly darker than their
Scandinavian hair and blue eyes; substantial
Mrs. Oles. broad of beam and toting the in
evitable Olekn; farm boys, true American
stock, as you could see by their thln-lipped,
wide mouths and their grave. eyes, marked
already by the sun with crowsfeet at the cor
ners; prosperous farmers, men with moustaches
who. in their younger days, had seen hunting
in North Dakota or mining in California, but
who had drifted back and settled down to the
rewarding business of farming rich country:
hands" imported from Chicago and tanned
out Of their city pallor, but re-cothed for the
bit loose at the belt and bit scant across
the shoulders; young girls with their gawky
lovers, mothers, babies, lunch boxes, assorted
equipages, all sorts of horse, and every kind
of dog there is-a motley assortment but mid
die western and solidly American
Most Of these early arrivals melted into the
town and were not seen until evening; a few,
however, hung around and watched the tent
being put up. Every boy in the town was on
hand from the moment the first stake was
driven; they stood about making witty remarks
silent as the red-and- yellow striped mass rose
up with sough, slanted and swayed, and
finally, amid shouted directions and curses,
stood steady and was rapidly roped down-here
and there boy with that ''goat-like sort OF
inspiration which is peculiarly boyhood's,
leaped into the air, tapping his arms at his
sides and uttering whoops That vacant lot
was only vacant lot; the boy went across its
beaten diagonal a dozen times day, but that
night, with the torchlights Pickering and FLAIR
ing with the red -andyellow striped tent, dirty
in the daytime, but now glowing like thing
from China-or Timbuctoo!-with your own
chum's face showing different in the strange
illumination, the eyes so glistenlng and the
wavering shadows producing a strange effect
as of grimaces-indeed, this was vacant lot
but land of true romance!
The older ones did not of course. share this
peculiar thrill but they could not fail to feel
the pervasve excitement; the sight of the
lights, the people going in at the entrance, the
half-dozen hustlers with their hoarse cries, the
band of eight pieces gong, oompah inside, even
the entire tent and announcing his painless
dentstry-all this could not but make
hurry instinctively ones steps, even were he
skeptic with no intention of going in.
do not know that the middle west is more
susceptible than other sections of the country
to this psychological manipulation, but | can
not think where there can be people so stold
that they would be unmoved by it. Do not
say he was fakir; he was nothing of the sort
When that red-faced fellow stumbled up on the
rude platform in silence that seemed all the
deeper for the stream of guarantee and ejacu-
lation from the painless dentist himself; when
he sat down in that kitchen chair, in full view
OTTO him-hundreds of thousands of those
who once his fellow-men; when the dem
fist waved his soft white hands and shouted
and then everybody craned forward as with
quick movement he tipped the fellows head
back and there was a tug. and the band two
feet away suddenly blasted out like a charge
of dynamite and the dentist led him dazed to
the front of the platform, holding his tweezers
momentarily silenced the bass horn and the
trombone-"Will you kindly testify to the audi
ence-dd it hurt?" and the subject spits
mouthful of blood into the sawdust and grins
and shakes his head, and the band blares out
again and the hundreds of thousands applaud
and he goes back to his seat-but it was indeed
the truth; it did not hurt!
And after all the bad teeth-and few sound
ones!-have been offered up and the dentists
pockets are heavy with silver, the crowd
streams home down Main street, dark save for
the second-hoor window behind which Charlie
Hicks is gloomily figuring his accounts-the
fare of a match shines on Charles bright new
sign which says Careful Dental Work." but
no one notices the modest claim; they are all
talking of the evenings experience and
doubter will listen in vain to hear any who
yielded up his tooth and his two-bts, say it
hurt-"By Judas it didnt!' is the universal
testimony
The next morning the vacant lot is the vacant
lot again; romance has gone; the morning sun
shines on litter of papers and tobacco guilds
and banana skins. Here and there, on the
farms, in the hardware store down at the wire
factory, man is minus tooth. But that is
all, and Charlie Hicks is hoping the bead cur
tain of his second-foor office will rattle and
let in patient; it does not rattle.
That was good many years ago. The pain
less dentist does not come to town any more.
There are people who can remember him, yet
quite well, but l do not believe any one of
them could tell you his name There are a
half-dozen dentists Offices on Main street now,
though Charlie Hicks has moved into an i'm
pressive place on Maple avenue. None of them
offers anything as novel as the traveller of 80
years back offered; they have had no hustlers
and no brass bands; their growth has been
steady and slow and unstartling and unap-
plauded.
After all, the middle west is sound, sure
American; we count on it.
If Suited Don't Wait
Don't marry the first girl you fall in love
with; wait until you've seen. the rest" advises
$hA M1rtc a,l h.,