Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1920-01-29

ever having thought n instant aDou
oh, Miss Fanny called him the right
name: that monkey! He isl"
"There, l think I agree with you"
Eugene said grimly, and in his eyes
there was a steady light of anger that
was to last. yes 1 think l agree witt,
| you about that!"
"There's only one thing to do with
such a person." she said vehemently.
THAT'S to put him out of our thoughts
forever-forever!"
And yet, the next day, at six o'clock,
which was the hour, Fanny had told
her, when George and his mother were
to leave upon their long journey, Lucy
touched that scorched place on her
mantel with her hand just as the little
clock above it struck. Then, after this
odd, unconscious gesture, she went to
a window and stood between the cur
tains, looking out into the cold No
vember dusk; and in spite Of every
reasoning and reasonable power within
her, a pain of loneliness struck through
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 ally un-
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 snowfakes 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 m~antelpiecea
She did not have the mantelpiece re-
p~ainted-and, since she did not,
might as we'll have kept his photo
graphs. One forge%s what made the
scar upon his hand but not what made
the scar upon his wall.
-. 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;
&nd as it heaved and spread, it be-
fouled itself and darkened it's sky.
You drove between pleasant fields and
woodland groves n spring day; and
III the autumn, passing over 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:
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 CT young men
in business downtown. They were op-
timists-optilmists to the point of bel
llgerence-their motto being "Boost!
Doa't Knock!" And they we're hus-
tiers, believing in hustling and in hon
esty because both paid. They loved
their city and worked for it with q
p%lutonic energy which was always ar
deAtly vocal. They We're ~viciously gov
erned, but they sometimes went SO far
as to struggle for better government on
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 and
strovr and shouted that their city
should become IL better, better, and
better city-and what they meant,
when they used the word "bettcr,' was
more prosperous" and the core of
their idealiSm was this: "The more
prosperous my beloved city, the more
prosperous beloved IT,
These We're bad times for Anderson
addition. This quarter, already old, lay |
within a mile of the center of the
town, but business moved in other
directions; and the Additions share of
Prosperity was only the smoke and
dirt, with the bant; credit left out. The