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                     THE STORY OF A COUNTRY TOWN.




                                  THE

                        STORY OF A COUNTRY TOWN

                             BY E. W. HOWE

           AUTHOR OF “A MOONLIGHT BOY,” “THE MYSTERY OF THE
                             LOCKS,” ETC.

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
                     The Riverside Press Cambridge

                        COPYRIGHT 1883 AND 1884

                             BY E. W. HOWE

                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




PREFACE.


Should “The Story of a Country Town” find readers, it may be interesting
to them to know that it was written entirely at night, after the writer
had finished a hard day’s work as editor and publisher of a small
evening newspaper. I do not think a line of it was written while the sun
was shining, but in almost every chapter there are recollections of the
midnight bell.

No one can possibly find more fault with it than I have found myself. A
hundred times I have been on the point of burning the manuscript, and
never attempting it again; for I was always tired while working at it,
and always dissatisfied after concluding an evening’s work. I offer this
as a general apology for its many defects, and can only hope it will
meet with the charity it deserves.

I believe that when I began the story I had some sort of an idea that I
might be able to write an acceptable work of fiction, but I have changed
it so often, and worried about it so much, that at its conclusion I have
no idea whether it is very bad, or only indifferent. I think that
originally I had some hope that it might enable me to get rid of my
weary newspaper work, and help me to more ease than I have ever known,
but I am so tired now that I am incapable of exercising my judgment
with reference to it. If it prove a success or a failure I shall not be
surprised, for I have no opinion of my own on the subject.

For several years I have felt that I would like an opportunity to
address a larger audience than my newspaper’s circulation affords, but I
find now that I am very timid about it, and worry a great deal for fear
the verdict will not be favorable. A gentleman who once looked over a
portion of the manuscript said his first impression was that it was the
work of a tired man, and that the pen seemed to drag heavily in making
the words. I fear this will be the verdict of the people, and that they
will say I should have given up my newspaper writing before attempting
it. The reason I did not do this was that I had no confidence in my
ability to become an acceptable historian of a country town, therefore I
worked harder than I should during the day, and went wearily at the
story at night.

Should inquiry be made as to whether any part of the story be true, I
could only reply that I have never known anyone who did not furnish some
suggestion or idea in the construction of the book, as I have never
lived in a town that did not afford some material for the description of
Twin Mounds. I meet Jo Errings every day, and frequently lead them up to
denounce their particular Clinton Bragg; I have known several John
Westlocks, and I am afraid that Mateel Shepherds are more numerous than
is desirable. I have known troops of Mrs. John Westlocks, for in the
country where I was brought up all the women were pale, timid, and
overworked; I hope that Agnes Deming can be duplicated in every
community, and I believe that Big Adams are numerous everywhere; but I
must confess that I never knew but one Little Biggs, though his wife may
be seen hurrying out of the way, should you decide to look for her, in
every third or fourth house.

I hope there will be general sympathy for Jo Erring. In writing the
history of this creature of my fancy, I have almost come to believe that
I have an uncle of that name, and that he lived and died as I have
narrated. Sometimes I think of him wandering in the cave, crying, “Help!
Help! I am lost!” and his voice is very pitiful and distressed. At other
times he has come into my room and sat beside me as I wrote. I have been
with him to the cave on a stormy night, and heard the beginning of the
few sweet chords of music he describes, but which were immediately
broken into by the furious uproar of devils; sometimes I think I have
found him in every-day life, and that he is still listening at night to
the horrible noise of his skeleton. If some one should confess to me
that he is Jo Erring in every particular except that when the keeper of
the Twin Mounds jail gave him opportunity he ran away, I believe I
should be his friend.

In our part of the country there was a strange man answering to the
description of Damon Barker, and I often visited him when a boy, but he
lived in a hovel on the prairie, which was dirty beyond description. He
had boxes filled with strange wearing-apparel, and brass pistols
without number, and he told me stories; but he ran a nursery instead of
a mill, though I have heard that he had a sister. I originally intended
to make these two central figures in the story, but Jo Erring wandered
into my mind, and I am afraid I have made sad work of him.

E. W. H.

ATCHISON, KANSAS, Sept. 4, 1883.




CONTENTS.


CHAP.                                                               PAGE.

I. FAIRVIEW                                                            1

II. THE HELL QUESTION AND THE REV. JOHN WESTLOCK                      12

III. THE HOUSE OF ERRING                                              23

IV. THE RELIGION OF FAIRVIEW                                          32

V. THE SCHOOL IN THE CHURCH                                           38

VI. DAMON BARKER                                                      48

VII. A NEW DISPENSATION                                               57

VIII. THE SMOKY HILL SECRET                                           69

IX. THE CHARITY OF SILENCE                                            87

X. JO ERRING MAKES A FULL CONFESSION                                  99

XI. WITH REFERENCE TO A MAN WHO WAS SENT
WEST TO GROW UP WITH THE COUNTRY OR GET KILLED                       112

XII. LOVE’S YOUNG LESSON                                             123

XIII. THE FLOCK OF THE GOODE SHEPHERD                                134

XIV. I AM SURPRISED                                                  148

XV. THE COUNTRY TOWN                                                 154

XVI. MORE OF THE VILLAGE OF TWIN MOUNDS                              165

XVII. THE FELLOW                                                     177

XVIII. THE MILL AT ERRING’S FORD                                     185

XIX. THE FALL OF REV. JOHN WESTLOCK                                  202

XX. TWO HEARTS THAT BEAT AS ONE                                      212

XXI. THE PECULIARITIES OF A COUNTRY TOWN                             228

XXII. A SKELETON IN THE HOUSE AT ERRING’S FORD                       244

XXIII. THE SHADOW IN THE SMOKY HILLS                                 264

XXIV. A LETTER FROM JO                                               279

XXV. THE SEA GIVES UP ITS DEAD                                       285

XXVI. BARKER’S STORY                                                 296

XXVII. THE LIGHT GOES OUT FOREVER                                    309

XXVIII. TOO LATE                                                     326

XXIX. THE SKELETON AGAIN                                             337

XXX. A LETTER FROM MR. BIGGS                                         350

XXXI. KILLED AT THE FORD                                             355

XXXII. THE TWIN MOUNDS JAIL                                          368

XXXIII. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND                                        382

XXXIV. THE GRAVE BY THE PATH                                         392

XXXV. THE HISTORY OF A MISTAKE                                       398

XXXVI. CONCLUSION                                                    410




THE STORY OF A COUNTRY TOWN.




CHAPTER I.

FAIRVIEW.


Ours was the prairie district out West, where we had gone to grow up
with the country.

I believe that nearly every farmer for miles around moved to the
neighborhood at the same time, and that my father’s wagons headed the
procession. I have heard that most of them gathered about him on the
way, and as he preached from his wagon wherever night overtook him, and
held camp-meetings on Sundays, he attracted a following of men
travelling the same road who did not know themselves where they were
going, although a few of the number started with him, among them my
mother’s father and his family. When he came to a place that suited him,
he picked out the land he wanted--which any man was free to do at that
time--and the others settled about him.

In the dusty tramp of civilization westward--which seems to have always
been justified by a tradition that men grow up by reason of it--our
section was not a favorite, and remained new and unsettled after
counties and States farther west had grown old. Every one who came there
seemed favorably impressed with the steady fertility of the soil, and
expressed surprise that the lands were not all occupied; but no one in
the great outside world talked about it, and no one wrote about it, so
that those who were looking for homes went to the west or the north,
where others were going.

There were cheap lands farther on, where the people raised a crop one
year, and were supported by charity the next; where towns sprang up on
credit, and farms were opened with borrowed money; where the people were
apparently content, for our locality did not seem to be far enough west,
nor far enough north, to suit them; where no sooner was one stranger’s
money exhausted than another arrived to take his place; where men
mortgaged their possessions at full value, and thought themselves rich,
notwithstanding, so great was their faith in the country; where he who
was deepest in debt was the leading citizen, and where bankruptcy caught
them all at last. On these lands the dusty travellers settled, where
there were churches, school-houses, and bridges--but little rain--and
railroads to carry out the crops should any be raised; and when any one
stopped in our neighborhood, he was too poor and tired to follow the
others.

I became early impressed with the fact that our people seemed to be
miserable and discontented, and frequently wondered that they did not
load their effects on wagons again, and move away from a place which
made all the men surly and rough, and the women pale and fretful.
Although I had never been to the country they had left, except as a baby
in arms, I was unfavorably impressed with it, thinking it must have been
a very poor one that such a lot of people left it and considered their
condition bettered by the change, for they never talked of going back,
and were therefore probably better satisfied than they had ever been
before. A road ran by our house, and when I first began to think about
it at all, I thought that the covered wagons travelling it carried
people moving from the country from which those in our neighborhood
came, and the wagons were so numerous that I was led to believe that at
least half the people of the world had tried to live there, and moved
away after an unfortunate experience.

On the highest and bleakest point in the county, where the winds were
plenty in winter because they were not needed, and scarce in summer for
an opposite reason, the meeting-house was built, in a corner of my
father’s field. This was called Fairview, and so the neighborhood was
known. There was a graveyard around it, and cornfields next to that, but
not a tree or shrub attempted its ornament, and as the building stood on
the main road where the movers’ wagons passed, I thought that, next to
their ambition to get away from the country which had been left by those
in Fairview, the movers were anxious to get away from Fairview church,
and avoid the possibility of being buried in its ugly shadow, for they
always seemed to drive faster after passing it.

High up in a steeple which rocked with every wind was a great bell, the
gift of a missionary society, and when there was a storm this tolled
with fitful and uncertain strokes, as if the ghosts from the grave lot
had crawled up there, and were counting the number to be buried the
coming year, keeping the people awake for miles around. Sometimes, when
the wind was particularly high, there were a great number of strokes on
the bell in quick succession, which the pious said was an alarm to the
wicked, sounded by the devil, a warning relating to the conflagration
which could never be put out, else Fairview would never have been built.

When any one died it was the custom to toll the bell once for every year
of the deceased’s age, and as deaths usually occur at night, we were
frequently wakened from sleep by its deep and solemn tones. When I was
yet a very little boy I occasionally went with my father to toll the
bell when news came that some one was dead, for we lived nearer the
place than any of the others, and when the strokes ran up to forty and
fifty it was very dreary work, and I sat alone in the church wondering
who would ring for me, and how many strokes could be counted by those
who were shivering at home in their beds.

The house was built the first year of the settlement, and the
understanding was that my father contributed the little money necessary,
and superintended the work, in which he was assisted by any one who
volunteered his labor. It was his original intention to build it alone,
and the little help he received only irritated him, as it was not worth
the boast that he had raised a temple to the Lord single-handed. All the
carpenter’s work, and all the plasterer’s work, he performed without
assistance except from members of his own household, but I believe the
people turned out to the raising, and helped put up the frames.

Regularly after its completion he occupied the rough pulpit (which he
built with especial reference to his own size), and every Lord’s Day
