Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1919-11-06

AlcIt d pdlu VI AOuCllucSS StA uSh lAAOuSh
her heart. The dim street below her
window, the dark houses across the
way, the vague air itself-all looked
empty, and cold and (most of all) I'M
interesting. Something more sombre
than November dusk took the color
from them and gave them that air of
desertion.
The light of her fire, Pickering up
behind her, showed suddenly a flying
group of tiny snowflakes nearing the
window-pane; and for an instant she
felt the sensation Of being dragged
through a snow-drift under a broken
cutter, with a boys arms about her
an arrogant, handsome, too-conquering
boy, who nevertheless did his best to
get hurt himself, keeping her from any
possible harm.
She shook the picture out Of her
eyes Indignantly, then came and sat
before her fire, and looked long and
long at the blackened mantelpiece.
She did not have the mantelpiece re-
painted-and, since she did not,
might as well have kept his photo
graphs. One forgets what made the
scar upon his hand but not what made
the scar upon his wall.
49,. New faces appeared at the
dances of the winter; new faces had
been appearing everywhere, for that
matter, and familiar ones were disap-
pearing, merged in the increasing
crowd, or gone forever and missed a
little and not long; for the town was
growing and changing as it never had
grown and changed before.
1t was heaving up in the middle in
credibly /; it was spreading Incredibly 4;
and as it heaved and spread, it be-
fouled itself and darkened its sky.
You drove between pleasant fields and
woodland groves n spring day; and
in the autumn, passing owe the same
ground, you were warned off the tracks
by an interurban trolley-car's gong
ing, and beheld, beyond cement side
walks just dry, new house-owners busy
moving in" Gasoline and electricity
were performing the miracles Eugene
had predicted.
But the great change was in the
citizenry itself. What was left of the
patriotic old-stock generation that had
fought the Civil war, and subsequently
| controlled politics, had become veneer
able and was little needed. What hap
pened to Boston and to Broadway hap
pened In degree to the Midland city I;
the old stock became less and less typ
ical, and of the grown people who
called the place home, less than a
third had been born in it.
A new spirit of citizenship had al
ready sharply defined itself. 1t was
idealistic, and its ideals were ex-
pressed in the new kind Of young men
in business downtown. They were OPP
tilnists-optimists to the point of bel
ligerence-their motto being "Boost
| Jul L NuOSh anu llCJ NClC hlS
tiers, believing in hustling and in hon
esty because both paid. They loved
their city and worked for it with a
plutonic energy which was always ar.
IDENTIFY vocal. They were ~viciously gov
erned, but they sometimes went so fal
as to struggle for better government or
account of the helpful effect of good
government on the price of real estate
and "betterment" generally; the politi
clans could not go too far with them
and knew it. The idealists planned ant
strove and shouted that their city
should become a better, better, ant
better city-and what they meant
when they used the word better" wa!
"more prosperous" and the core O.
their idealism was this: "The NOR
prosperous my beloved city, the NOR
prosperous beloved II"
These were bad times for Anderson
addition. This quarter, already old, la,
within a mile Of the center of tn
town, but business moved In othe
directions; and the Additions share o
Prosperity was only the smoke an,
dirt, with the bank credit left out. TIL
owners of the original big houses sol
them, or rented them to bo~arding-hous
keepers, and the tenants of the multi
tude of small houses moved "farthe
out" (where the smoke was thinner
or into apartment houses, which wer
built by dozens now. Cheaper tenant
took their places, and the rents wer
lower and lower, and the houses shat
bier and shabbier-for all these shabb
houses, burning soft coal, did the
: best to help in the destruction of the
7 own value. Distances had ceased I
matter.
The five new houses, built SO closel
where had been the fine lawn of tn
ANDERSON mansion, did not look ney
I When they were a year old they locke
\ as old as they would ever look; an
two of them were vacant, having new
been rented, for, the Majors mistal
about apartment houses had been
$ disastrous one. HE guessed wrong
George, ANDERSON said. HE guesst
wrong at Just the wrong time! Peep
d were crazy for apartments-too BIZ
e he couldn't have seen 1t in time. Po'
y mani he digs away at his ledgers !
n his old gas drop-light lamp almo
q every night-he still refuses to let Il