Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1919-08-14


and such whims as the Portland
fancy" They pushed back the sliding
doors between the 'parlor" and the
Sitting ROOM" tackled down crash
over the carpets, hired a few palms
in green tubs, stationed three or four
Italian musicians under the stairway
in the front hall"-and had great
nights!
keeping open house." was a merry
custom; it has gone, like the all-day
picnic in the woods, and like that pref
test of all vanished customs, the sere-
made. When a lively girl visited the
town she did not long go u~nserenaded,
though a visitor was not indeed needed
to excuse a serenade. Of a summer
night young men would bring an or
chestra under a pretty girls window
or, it might be, her fathers, or that
of an ailing maiden aunt-and flute,
harp, cello, cornet and bass viol would
pleasantly release to the dulcet stars
such melodies as sing through "You'll
Remember Me-" II Dreamt That ]
Dwelt in Marble Halls" "Silver
Threads Among the Cold" "Kathleen
M~avourneen," or "The Soldiers Fare
we'll"
Croquet and the mildest archery
ever known were the sports of people
still young and active enough for SO
much exertion; middle age played
eucbre. There was a theater, next
door to the Anderson hotel, and when
Edwin Booth came for a night every
body who could afford to buy a ticket
was there, and all the hacks In town
were hired. "The Black Crook" also
filled the theater, but the audience
then was almost entirely of men, who
looked uneasy as they left for home
when the final curtain fell upon the
shocking girls dressed as fairies. But
the theater did not often do SO well
the people of the town were still too
thrifty.
They were thrifty because they were
the sons or grandsons Of the "early
settlers" who had opened the wilder
ness and had reached it from the East
and the South with wagons and axes
and guns, but with no money at all
The pioneers were thrifty or they
would have persisted: they had tc
store away food for the winter, Oh
goods to trade for food, and they
often feared they had not stored
enough-they left traces Of that feal
in their o n and grandsons. In the
minds of most of these, indeed, theil
thrift was next to their religion: tt
save, ven for the sake of saving. was
their earliest lesson and discipline. Nc
matter how prosperous they were they
could not spend money either upon
"art," or upon mere luxury and enter
tainment, without a sense of sin.
Against so homespun a background
the magniicence Of the Ambersons was
as conspicuous as a brass band at 8
funeral. Major Anderson bought two
hundred acres of land at the end OIL
National avenue; and through this
tract he built broad streets and cross
streets; paved them with cedar block
and curbed them with stone. He set uI
fountains, here and there, where the
streets intersected, and at symmetri
cal intervals placed cast-iron statues
painted white, with their titles cleal
upon the pedestals; Minerva, Mer
curry, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, EN-
peror Augustus, Fisher Boy, Stag
hound, Mastiff, Greyhound, Fawn
Antelope, Wounded Doe and Wounded
Lion. Most of the forest trees hat
been left to flourish still, and, at SOM
distance, or by moonlight, the plac'
was in truth beautiful but the arden