The Booming of Acre Hill

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The Booming of Acre Hill

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Title: The Booming of Acre Hill And Other Reminiscences of Urban
and Suburban Life
Author: John Kendrick Bangs
Release Date: February 26, 2004 [EBook #11309] [Date last updated:
November 19, 2004]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BOOMING OF ACRE HILL ***

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THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL

AND OTHER REMINISCENCES OF URBAN AND SUBURBAN
LIFE

[Illustration: "I'll Never, Never, Never, So Long As I Live"]

The Booming of Acre Hill
By
John Kendrick Bangs
Illustrations
By C. Dana Gibson
Published 1902 in New York and London

TO
WILLIAM LIVERMORE KINGMAN
WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARDS

These stories by Mr. Bangs have appeared from time to time in _The
Ladies Home Journal, The Woman's Home Companion_, and the
various publications of Messrs. HARPER & BROTHERS.

CONTENTS
THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL
THE STRANGE MISADVENTURES OF AN ORGAN

THE PLOT THAT FAILED
THE BASE INGRATITUDE OF BARKIS, M.D.
THE UTILITARIAN MR. CARRAWAY
THE BOOK SALES OF MR. PETERS
THE VALOR OF BRINLEY
WILKINS
THE MAYOR'S LAMPS
THE BALANCE OF POWER
JARLEY'S EXPERIMENT
JARLEY'S THANKSGIVING
HARRY AND MAUDE AND I--ALSO JAMES
AN AFFINITIVE ROMANCE: I. MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS'S
IDEAL II. MISS HENDERSON'S STANDARD III. A GLANCE AT
MISS FLORA HENDERSON HERSELF IV. A BRIEF GLIMPSE OF
MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS V. CONCLUSION
MRS. UPTON'S DEVICE: I. THE RESOLVE II. A SUCCESSFUL
CASE III. A SET-BACK IV. THE DEVICE

ILLUSTRATIONS
"I'LL NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, SO LONG AS I LIVE"
DURING THE INTERMEZZO

THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL
Acre Hill ten years ago was as void of houses as the primeval forest.
Indeed, in many ways it suggested the primeval forest. Then the Acre
Hill Land Improvement Company sprang up in a night, and before the
bewildered owners of its lovely solitudes and restful glades, who had
been paying taxes on their property for many years, quite grasped the
situation they found that they had sold out, and that their old-time
paradise was as surely lost to them as was Eden to Adam and Eve.
To-day Acre Hill is gridironed with macadamized streets that are lined
with houses of an architecture of various degrees of badness. Where
birds once sang, and squirrels gambolled, and stray foxes lurked, the
morning hours are made musical by the voices of milkmen, and the
squirrels have given place to children and nurse-maids. Where sturdy
oaks stood like sentinels guarding the forest folk from intrusion from
the outside world now stand tall wooden poles with glaring white
electric lights streaming from their tops. And the soughing of the winds
in the trees has given place to the clang of the bounding trolley. All this
is the work of the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company.
Yet if, as I have said, the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company
sprang up in a night, it passed many sleepless nights before it received
the rewards which come to him who destroys Nature. And when I
speak of a corporation passing sleepless nights I do so advisedly, for at
the beginning of its career the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company
consisted of one man--a mild-mannered man who had previously
labored in similar enterprises, and whose name was called blessed in a
thousand uncomfortable houses in uncomfortable suburbs elsewhere,
that, like Acre Hill, had once been garden spots, but had been
"improved." Even a professional improver of land finds sleep difficult
to woo at the beginning of such an enterprise. In the first instance,
when one buys land, giving a mortgage in full payment therefor, with
the land as security, one appears to have assumed a moderately heavy
burden. Then, when to this one adds the enormous expense of cutting
streets through the most beautiful of the sylvan glades, the building of
sewers, and the erection of sample houses, to say nothing of the strain

upon the intellect in the selection of names for the streets and lanes and
circles that spring into being, one cannot but wonder how the master
mind behind it all manages to survive.
But the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company did survive, and
Dumfries Corners watched its progress with much interest. Regrets
were expressed when some historic knoll was levelled in order to
provide a nice flat space for a public square. Youngsters who had
bagged many a