Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1920-01-29

felt the sensation or being dragged
through a snOw-drift under broker
cutter, with a boys arms about her
an arrogant, handsome, too-conquerlnl
boy, who nevertheless did his best tt
get hurt himself, keeping her from any
possible harm.
She shook the picture out of hel
eyes Indignantly, then came and sal
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.
e.. 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 n
little and not long; for the town was
growing and changing as it never had
grown and changed before.
It was heaving up In the middle in
credibly; it was spreading Incredibly;
and as 1t heaved and spread, it be-
fouled itself and darkened its sky.
You drove between pleasant fields and
woodland groves one spring day; and
in the autumn, passing over the same
ground, you were warned off the tracks
by an interurban trolley-car's gong
ing, and bcheld, beyond cement side
walks just dry, new housewares 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 vener-
able and was little needed. What hap
pcned 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
third had been born in it.
A new spirit of citizenship had al
ready sharply defined itself. It was
idealistic, and its ideals were ex-
pressed in the new kind CT young men
in business downtown. They were OPP
timists-optimists to the point of bel
ligerence-their motto being "BoOst
Don't Knock" And they were hus-
tiers, believing in hustling and in hon
est 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 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
strOve and shouted that their city
should become a better, better, and
DNllSA NALg hHul lIICy IuCuut,
when they used the word better" was
more prosperous" and the core Of
their idealism was this: "The more
prosperous my beloved city, the more
prosperous beloved Iw
These were bad times for Anderson
addition. This quarter, already old, lay
within mile of the center of the
town, but business moved in other
and the Additions share of
Prosperity was only the smoke and
dirt, with the bank credit left out The
owners Of the original big houses sold
them. or rented them to boardng-hous
keepers, and the tenants of ,nUlti-
tude of small houses mOvf-
out" (where the smoke Y
or into apartment houses,
built by dozens now. Gu
took their places, and
lower and lower and IT,
bier and shabbier-for
houses, burning soft coz,
best to help in the destruction of u.
own value. Distances had ceased to
matter.
The five new houses, built so closely
where had been the fine lawn of the
ANDERSON mansion, did not look new.
When they were year old they looked
rs old as they would ever look; and
TWO Of them were vacant, having never
been rented, for the Majors mistake
about apartment houses had been a
disastrous one. "He guessed wrong"
George Anderson said. "He guessed |
wrong at just the wrong time! People |
we're crazy for apartments-too bad |
lie couldn't have seen it In time. Poor
nan! he digs away at his ledgers by |
lis old gas drop-light lamp almost
very night-he still refuses to let the |
Mansion be torn up for wiring, you
NOW. But he had one painful satis-
action this spring: he got his taxes
Owered.
Anderson laughed ruefully, and Fam
" Minafer asked how the Major could
ave managed such an economy. They
we're sitting upon the veranda at Isa-
'el's one evening during the third sum-
ner Of the absence of their nephew