Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-17
Recollections of the Little Home Town
Carry With Them Brilliant Setting

table linen, smiling negroes and mil.
lionaires with napkins at their chins
whirling past in the driving snow
storm.
I can tell you the people of Mari
| posa are proud of the trains, even il
| they don't stop! The joy of being on
the main line lifts the Mariposa peo-
pie above the level of their neighbors
In such places as Tecumseh and Mich
OILS Corners into the cosmopolitan at
mosphere of through traffic and the
larger life.
OF course. they have their own
train, too-the Mariposa local, made
up right there in the station yard, and
running south to the city. hundred
miles away. That, of course, is a
real train, with a box stove on end in
| the passenger car, fed with cordwood
upside down, and with II fiat cars of
| pine lumber set between the passen-
ger car and locomotive, so as to give
| the train its full impact when shunt-
| ing.
Outside Of Mariposa there are farms
| that begin well but get thinner and
| meaner as you go on, and end sooner
or later in bush and swamp and the
| rock Of the north country. And be-
yond that again, as the background
of it all, though it's far away. you
are somehow aware Of the great pine
woods Of the lumber country reach
ing endlessly into the north.
| Not that the little town is always
gay or always bright in the sunshine.
| There never was such a place for
changing its character with the sea.
son. Dark enough and dull it seems
of Winter night. the wooden side
walks creaking with the frost, and
| the lights burning dim behind the
shop windows.
| In olden times the lights were coal
oil lamps; now, of course, they are.
or are supposed to be, electricity
brought from the power house on the
somehow. though it starts off as cleo.
tricity from the Ossawippi Rapids, by
! the time it gets to Mariposa and filters
| into the little bulbs behind the frosty
windows of the shops it has turned
into coal oil again. as yellow and
bleared as ever.
After the Winter. the snow melts
and the ice goes out of the lake. the
sun shines high and the shanty men
come down from the lumber woods
and lie around drunk on the side
walk outside of Smiths Hotel-and
that's Spring time. Mariposa is then
a fierce, dangerous lumber town, cal
culated to terrorize the soul of a
newcomer who does not understand
| that this also Is only an appearance
and that presently the rough-loolzing
| shanty men will change their clothes
and turn back again into farmers.
Then the sun shines warmer and
| the maple trees come out and Lawyer
Mccartney puts on his tennis trousers.
and that's Summer time. The little
town changes to sort of Summer re-
sort. There are visitors up from the
city. Every one of the seven cottages
along the lake is full. The Mariposa
Belle churns the waters of the Wissa-
motif into foam as she sails out from
the wharf, in a cloud Of flags, the
band playing and the daughters and
sisters of the knights of Pythias
dancing gayly on the deck.
That changes, too. The days short
en- The visitors disappear. The gold
enrod beside the meadow droops and
withers on it's stem. The naples blaze
IN glory and die. The evening closes
dark and chill, and In the gloom of
the main corner Of Mariposa the Sal
walton Army. around naphtha lamp.
lift up the confession of their sins
and that is Autumn. Thus the year
runs it's round. moving and changing
in Mariposa much as 1t does in other
| tcQRsxsxAt. 1912 ---