Homeburg Memories | Page 3

soul. Now and then a farmer comes out of a store, takes a half hitch on the muffler around his neck, puts on his bearskin gloves and unties his rig. You watch him drive off, the wheels yelling on the hard snow, and wonder if it isn't more cheerful out in the frozen country with the corn shocks for company. It's the terrible half hour of bleak, fading light before the electricity is turned on and the cozy dark comes down--the loneliest hour of the winter's day.
You've stood it about as long as you can, when you notice signs of life across the street. Three men carrying satchels are steering for the depot. Dorgan's dray is rattling down the street. Dorgan's dray would make a cheerful noise if it was the last sound on earth. Little flocks and groups of people begin plodding across the square. You know them all. Gibb Ogle is going over to watch the baggageman load trunks. It is Gibb's life work. Pelty Amthorne is a little late, but he'll have time to arrange himself against the east end door and answer the roll-call, as he has for thirty years. Miss Ollie Mingle is going over too. She must be expecting that Paynesville young man again. If the competition between her and Ri Hawkes gets any keener, Ollie will have to meet the train down at the crossing and nab the young man there. Sim Atkinson is taking a handful of letters down to the station as usual. Ever since he had his row with Postmaster Flint, he has refused to add to the receipts of the office, and buys his stamps of the mail clerk. It is Sim's hope and dream that sometime the annual receipts of the Homeburg post-office will just miss being enough to bring a raise in salary. Then Sim will bring it to Flint's attention that he would have bought his ten dollars' worth of stamps that year at home, if Flint hadn't advertised his lock box for rent when he neglected the quarterly dues. Watching Sim thirst for revenge is as much fun as having a real Indian in town.
There's the headlight half a mile down the track! She's coming fast, ten minutes late, and, because you've been lonesome all afternoon and need exercise, you slip into your coat and hustle down. Just as you get to the depot, Number Eleven comes in with a crash and a roar, bell ringing, steam popping off, every brake yelling, platforms loaded, expectation intense, confusion terrific, all nerves a-tingle, and fat old Jack Ball, the conductor, lantern under arm, sweeping majestically by on the bottom step of the smoker. Young Red Nolan and Barney Gastit, two of the station agent's innumerable amateur helpers, race for the baggage car with their truck, making a terrible uproar over the old planks. The mail clerk dumps the sacks. Usually he gets a stranger in the shin with them. Nothing doing to-day. Just missed a traveling man. We still tell of the time the paper sack scooted across the icy platform and stood Mayor Andrews on his head. He wanted to abolish the whole post-office department.
I've always realized what the city gate must have meant to the medieval loafers, because I've watched Homeburg's city gate at the 4:11 train so often. There's Mrs. Sim Estabrook getting home. Must have been unexpected. No one to meet her. Wonder if Sim's sick again. I'll call up pretty soon. Wimble Horn's been to Chicago again, evidently. Wonder if he'll dump his last eighty acres into the Board of Trade. Who's the fine-looking duck in the fur-lined coat? Not a transient, evidently. He passed Josh by. Must be visiting somebody. Yes; Mrs. Ackley's kissing him. That might mean a scandal in New York, but at home it means relatives. Poor old Jedson Bane's back, I see. Looks pretty bad. Hospital didn't help him. Guess he's not long for us. Hello, Jed, old man! How are you? Better? That's fine. You're looking great! For the love of Mike, will you take a swift look at what's got off? I believe it's from college. They don't wear clothes like that anywhere else. Oh, yes, of course, that's why the Singers' automobile came down. Don't know what we'd do, now that the circus has passed us up, if it wasn't for Sally Singer. She imports a new specimen from the University about every two weeks.
The crowd is off, and you hurl a few good-bys at the travelers getting on. Our two editors check them off as they go. The Argus and the Democrat get all their news at this train. There's no slipping in and out of town in Homeburg. One and all we face the gantlet. Young Andy Lowes hates to have us