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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,