Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-03-04
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Joys and Tribulations of a Trailer
"A Moments Halt.
FAYETTEVILLE. ARK.
| CUNDOWN; the evening crisp
- and clear and the Ozarks
still clothed in the red-brown
garb Of autumn, uncertain of
the nearness of winter. Two
miles beyond the city, against
the sloping hill nestled Gayeta
Lodge, the home of Charles j.
Finger, whom all readers of
good books know for his writ
ings on American frontiers,
South America, Africa, along
the Gold Coast and the seven
seas.
A strange man, this Finger, a
modern Marco Polo, born in Eng
land in the latter SOS who con-
trived while yet in his teens to
wander from his native land and
60 adventuring with no thought
save to see and hear and know
things that lure restless souls to
the frontiers of other countries, to
the wild coasts of distant countries.
Educated for a career in music,
stepped in the worlds operas,
tanned for the concert stage, he
answered only the call of the open
road and went wandering. At the
peak of his young manhood ne
turned up in St. Louis, took up rail
road construction, accepted the
management of a group of lines
penetrating the new country, mar
ried and prepared to settle down to
stationary life among directors,
stockholders and business builders,
but still clinging to his music for
after-hour recreation.
In the midst of this new en-
vironment, which was never to his
liking, Charles Finger, his head
filled with romantic reflections
born of his youth, turned to writ
ing the stories he had lived in days
gone by. William Maroon Reedy,
then at the zenith of his fame as
editor of the st. Louis Mirror, be-
gan to buy manuscripts of the rail-
reader. It was not long after
Finger turned his attention to the
written word that Reedy sought
out his occasional contributor and
made him regular feature of the
Mirrors index. So thoroughly at
home was Finger in the literary
pool under Reedy's direction that
he became associate editor of the
weekly and as well the confidant
of it's founder.
Death of the Mirror.
Into the discard, gradually, to be
sure, but in the end completely
overheard, went the railroading
ambitions of the man who from
childhood had been exploring for
his ideal. The final dramatic de-
cision was brought about when
Reedy, upon deciding to take a
vacation, put Finger in charge of
the Mirror with absolute editorial
authority during this absence.
From that vacation Billy Reedy
never returned. Death had over
taken him on his brief fur
Tough from the desk where for
many years he radiated with bril-
lance. Without Reedy, there
could be no permanent Mirror.
Finger, quite aware of the relation
that the founder bore to the paper,
assisted in the termination of the
publication, closed it's eyes, as it
were, and joined the mourners,
legion wherever men of brains
gathered
Inoculated with the impulse to
carry on with naught but the pen
for his guerdon, Finger withdrew
from his railroad and commercial
connections, gathered up his wife
and five children, moved bag and
baggage to Fayetteville, Arkansas,
and settled down for good. He put
his three sons and two daughters
through the University of Arkan-
sas, meanwhile slowly accumulat-
ing few hundred acres of farm
land. He built houses and barns
| W COlnOlIll Will Ills VIEWS Oh W1dC
a homestead should contain of
creature comforts.
Squire Is Hospitable.
We four, Luana, Stephen, Gypsy,
a Scotty dog, and the writer, all
old friends of the Fayetteville sage,
unannounced, but by the grace of
God not unwelcome, filed across
the threshold of his Arkansas
home and sat in a semi-circle
around the oak logs glowing
among the andirons that with his
own hands Charles Finger long
ago had placed in the hearth.
Not the least bit disturbed by
the arrival of invaders, the Finger
family opened their hearts, offer
ing a program that would have
kept us at Gayeta for a full week.
Zone day." said Stephen, who is
the Lord Kitchener of Our Rum
BILE Home, land we sleep under
| Ol1r own roof departino to,,,orro,,,