Milford chronicle., 1925-02-20
CHAPTER Q

America in those days was still pas
toral-or so it looks to us in retrospect.
True, we were already in the grip Of
that mad goddess, Elektra, who makes
foul magic by wire and cable, over land
and over sea. But in our modern ar
rogance we think Of yesterdays inven-
tions as missing links in the evolution
ary chain; witness the high bicycle
which bred again and became a
safety" only to evolve into q four
wheeled monster with gasolene in fits
belly and potential speed of twenty
miles an hourl 1891 was not simple
exactly. Neither is the Chinese rice
paddy with its man-turned waterwheel,
Observation-Disclosures of the six
hundred horsepower turbine.
1891, boastful Of it's heartbreaking
speed, moved with quaint slowness.
Telephones and electric lights were still
something Of a novelty. Bad art,
nurtured by third grade Shakesperean
troupes, burlesques and tank melo-
dramas, crept sluggishly across the con-
tinent. No electrical wizard had as yet
devised a means of throwing moving
photographs on a sheet, thousand
theaters at a time. Our drama had few
mechanical advantages; it was worked
by man-pOwer on much the same sys-
tenn that the Chinaman uses when he
spills irrigation by wheel over his fes-
tering fields Of rice. We were imper-
fectly standardized. Our houses, whose
design had by then reached the abys-
NAL depths Of architectural ugliness,
were quite individual in style. Unable
l.
disks at every corner store, our parents
were compelled to learn a little music
and thump their popular songs pain
stal1ngly on the piano. Moreover we
knew nothing Of the upper air as a
noise-maldng possibility; in 1891, we
can easily believe, the angel ISRAELI
played solo on his heart-strings, his
sensitive ear untroubled by soundwaves
saxOphoning from Broadway to Apple
Blossom Center.
1871 Good gracious, we hadn't |
even had our Spanish War and that |
delightful sip Of foreign bloodl We |
were still In the feudal age, divided |
mostly between the Commoners, who |
didn't keep a horse, and the Uncom- |
moners who did.
Under the last rating the Hotties
were Uncommoners. How the high |
nose Of Southern society, which knew
not the name Of Holtz, would have
curled at the thought. Indeed, in that
State where the Horse goes forth like
The Centaur with gilded hoofs and the
light Of way into o kings presence, the
Holtz quadruped was no horse at all.
BE was something that had escaped the
Doundkeeper's attention, creature un-
worthy to work in span with his mulatto
brother, the mule. His name was John.
bis coat was shabby, his eyes dull.
His life work was to haul the milk of
I've consumptive COWS from the Holtz's
icraggly holding and sleep idiotically
While the cans were loaded on the river
erry. On the rare occasions when Ma
aoltz could afford the luxury Of muir
iering one of her little auburn hogs
Tohn rambled away to market, Jo
5oltz, the elder Of two surviving chill {
lren, dreaming aimlessly on the seat, ]
lack reins between slack fingers.
Honesty then insists that the HoItzes,
ven though they did originate on the
Vrong side Of the wide yellow River, {
.ept their horse and drove their own !
arriage. John, commonplace in name
s in character, aWoke one morning in