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Show ?TMIMII!IUllll!IIIlI!IIIIIII!ll!llllllllll!:ilK l A QUESTION l OF CLIMATE j WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE E S ii 7T7Ti i 1 1 1 1 1 : 1 1 i 1 1 ; 1 1 : 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 u : 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 : Copyright. 1922, by the Macmillan Co. nOLOXEL MOKRISON had three Initials, so the town naturally called him "Alphabetical" Morrison, Mor-rison, and dropped the "Colonel." lie ctrae to our part of the country In an early day he used to explain that they caught him in the trees, when he was drinking creek water, eating sheep-sorrel and running wild with a buffalo tail for a trolley, and that the first thing they did, after teaching him to eat out of a plate, was to set him at work in the grading gang that was laying out the Cottonwood and Walnut rivers and putting the limestone lime-stone In the hills. He was one of the original five patriots who laid out the Corn Dolt railroad from the Mississippi Missis-sippi to the Pacific, and was appointed appoint-ed one of that committee to take the matter to New York for the inspection inspec-tion of capitalists, and he It said to the credit of Alphabetical Morrison that he was the only person In the crowd with money enough to pay the ferryman when he reached the Missouri Mis-souri river, though he had only enough to get himself across. But In spite of that the read was built, and though it missed our town, it was he-cause he-cause we didn't vote the bonds, though old Alphabetical went through the county, roaring in the school-houses, school-houses, bellow'ng at the crossroads, and doing all that a good, honest pair of lungs could do for the cause. However, How-ever, he was not dismayed at his failure, fail-ure, ind hegnn Immediately to organ-lire organ-lire a company to build another road. We finally secured a railroad, though It was only a branch. Over his office door he had a sign "Land Office" painted on the false board front of the building in letters as big as a cow, and the first our newspaper knew of him was twenty years ago, when he brought in an order for some stationery for the Commercial club. At that time we had not heard that the town support ed a Commercial club nor had anyone any-one else heard of tt. for that matter for old Alphabetical . was the president, presi-dent, and his bookkeeper, with the Miss dropped off her name, was secretary. sec-retary. But he had a wonderfully alluring letterhead printed, and seemed to get results, for he made a living while his competitors starved. Later, when he fount! time, he organ-l7.ed organ-l7.ed a real Commercial club, and had himself elected president of It. He used to call meetings of the club to discuss things, but as no one cared 'ranch for his monologues on the future fu-ture of the town, the attendance was often light. He Issued circulars referring re-ferring to our village as "the Queen City of the Prairies," and on the circulars cir-culars was a map. showi ig that the Queen City of the Prairies 'was "the railroad axis of the Wert." There was one road running Into the town; the others old Alphabetic:; indicated with dotted lines, and explained they were In process of construction. IIo became possessed of a theory that a canning factory would pay in the Queen City of the Prairies, and the first step he took toward building It was to Invest in a high hat, a long , coat and white vest, and a pair of -- - monseenlored trousers. With these and his theory he went East nnd returned re-turned with a contract. The canning factory went up. but the railroad rates went wrong, and the factory was never opened. Alphabetical blinked at It through bis -gold-rimmed glasses for a few weeks, end then organized n company to turn it inlo a woolen mill. He elected himself president of Unit Company and used to bring around to our paper notices of directors' direc-tors' meetings, and while he was in the office he would insist that we devoted de-voted too much space to Idle gossip nnd not enough to the commercial nnd Industrial interests of the Queen City. At times he would bring In" an editorial edi-torial that be had written himself, highly excitable and full of cyclonic language, and If we printed It Alphn-bellcnl Alphn-bellcnl would buy a hundred copies of the paper containing it and send them east. Ills office desk gradually filled with woodcuts and zinc etchings of buildings that never existed save In his dear old head, nnd about twiee n year during the boom days he would - bring tho-n around and have, a circu lar printed on which were the pictures pic-tures showing the ima-rinary pit'dio hulldlni's and theoretical business v thoroughfares of the Queen City. The woolen mill nuiuraily didn't pay. and he persuaded some eastern capitalists to Install an electric plant In the building and put a street-car line In the town, though the Ion-rest dislance from one side of the place to (he other was less than ten Mocks. But Alphabetical was enthusiastic about It. and hail the governor come down to drive (he first spike. It was gold-plated, nnd Alphabetical pulled it up nnd used It for a paper vei::ht in his office for many years, anil It is now the only reminder there Is In j. town of the street railway, except a hard rldce of earth over the ties In I the middle of Main street. When ! someone twitted him on the failure of the street railway he made answer: "Of course It failed : here I go pawing up the earth, milking out the surplus capital of the effete East, and building up this town and what bap. pens? Four thousand old Silurian fossils fos-sils comb the moss on the north side tf 'em, with mussel shell, and turn over and yawp tiat old Alphabetical Is visionary. Here I can get i canning can-ning factory and nobody ets the goods; I hustle up a wools factory, and the community qr'is wearing trousers; I build for tijem a street-car street-car line to haul them to and from their palatial residences, and what do the sun-baked humnn mud-turtles do but all jump off the log into the water and bide from them cars like they were chariots of fire? What this town needs Is not factories, nor railroads, rail-roads, nor modern improvements Old Alphabetical can get them but the next great scheme I go into is to go down the river, get some good red mud, and make a few thousand men who will build up a town." It has been fifteen years and over since Colonel Morrison put on his long coat and high hat and started for the money markets of the East, seeking whom he might devour. At the close of the eighties the Colonel nnd all his tribe found that the stock of eastern capitalists who were ready to pay good prices for the fine shimmering blue sky and bracing ozone of the West was running low. It was said In town that the Colonel had come to the end of his string, for not only were the doors of capital closed to him In the East, but newcomers had stopped looking for farms at home. There was nothing to do but to sit down and swap jack-knives with other land agents, and as they had taken most of the agencies for the best insurance in-surance companies while the Colonel was on dress parade, there was nothing noth-ing left for him to do but to run for justice of the peace, nnd, being elected, elect-ed, do what he could to make his tenure for life. Though he was- elected, more out of gratitude for what he had tried to do for the town than because people thought he would make a fair judge, he got no further than his office in popular esteem. He did not seem to wear well with the people in the daily run and jostle of life. During the forty years he has been In our town, he has lived most of the time apart from the people transacting bis business busi-ness In the East, or locating strangers on new lands. He has not been one of us, and there were stories afloat that his shrewdness had sometimes caused him to thrust a toe over the dead-line of exact honesty. In the town he never helped us to fight lor square board building at the end of the street. But every day for the past ten years he has been coming to our office for his bundle of old newspapers. newspa-pers. These he reads carefully, and sometimes what he reads inspires him to write something for our paper on the future of the Queen City, though much oftener bis articles are retrospective. retro-spective. He is the president of the Old Settlers' society, and once or twice a year he brings In an obituary which he has written for the family of some old-timer. One would think that an Idler would he a nuisance in a busy place, but, on the contrary, we all like old Alphabetical Alpha-betical around our office. For he Is an old man who has not grown sour. His smooth, fat face has not been wrinkled by the vinegar of failure, and the noise that came from his lusty lungs in the old days is subsid- Ing. But he has never forgiven General Gen-eral Durham, of the Statesman, for saying of a fight between Alphabetical and another land agent back in the sixties that "those who heard It pronounced pro-nounced It the most vocal engagement they had ever known." That is why he, brings bis obituaries-to us; that Is why be does us the honor of borrowing bor-rowing papers from us; and thnt Is why, on a dull af.-noon, he likes to ( sit in the old sway-back swivel-chair and tell us his theory of the increase in the rainfall, his notion about the Influence of trees upon the hot winds, his opinion of the disappearance of the grasshoppers. Also, that Is why j we always save a circus ticket for old Alphabetical, just as we save one for each of the boys in the office. One day he came into the office In a bad humor. He picked up a country paper, glanced It over, threw It down, kicked from under his feet n dog that had followed a subscriber Into the room, and slammed his hat. Into the waste-basket with considerable feeling feel-ing as he picked up a New York paper. "Well well, what's the matter with the judiciary this morning?" someone asked the old man. He did not reply at once, but turned his paper over and over, apparently appar-ently looking for something to interest inter-est him. Gradually the revolutions of his paper became slower and slower, and finally he stopped turning the paper and began reading. It was ten T7rr"r ,9"-"" f v ;y,r1 rjrrJ ' ssAA A A Arii "He Likes to Sit in the Old Swayback Swivel Chair and Tell Us Hia Theory of the Increase in the Rainfall." those things of which the town Is really proud: our schools, the college, the municipal ownership of electric lights and waterworks, the public library, the abolition of the saloon, and all of the dozen small matters of public interest in which good citizens li ke n pride. Colonel Morrison was living bis grand life, in his tailor-made tailor-made clothes, while bis townsmen were out with their coats off making our town the substantial place it is. So In bis latter days he is old Alpha-b( Alpha-b( tienl Morrison, a man apart from us. We like him well enough, and so long as he cares to be justice of the peae no one will object, for that Is his due. But, someway, there is no talk of making him county clerk; and there Is a reason in everybody's mind why no party names him to run for county treasurer. lie has been trying hard enough for ten. years to break throimh the crust of the common Interests that he has long ignored. One sees him at public meetings a rather wist-ful-looking. chubby-faced obi man on the edge of the crowd, ready to be called out for a speech. But no one calls his name; no one cares particularly par-ticularly what old Alphabetical has to say. Long ago he said nil that he can say to our neople. The only thing that Alphabetical ever organized that paid was a family. fam-ily. In the early days he managed to get n home clear of indebtedness and was shrewd enough to keep it out of all of bis transactions. Tow-headed Morrisons tilled the schoolhouse. aud twenty years later there were so many of his girls teaching school that the school board had to make a ruling limiting the number of teachers from one family in the city school, in order to force the young Morrison girls to j go to the country to teach. In these j days the girls keep the house going ! and Alphabetical Is a notary public ' and a Justice of the pence, which , keeps his office going In the little or fifteen minutes before ,-he spoke. When he put down the paper bis cherubic face was beaming, and be said: "Oil I know I'm a fool., but I wish the Lord had sent me to live in a town large enough so that every dirty-faced dirty-faced brat on the street wouldn't feel he had a right to call r.ie 'Alphabetical'! 'Alphabeti-cal'! Dammit, I've done the best I could! I haven't made any alarming success. I know it. There's no need j of rubbing it in on me." He was silent for a time with his hands on ! bis knees and bis bead thrown back, j looking at the veiling. Almost im- j perceptibly a snfile began to crack j his features, and. when be turned his i eyes to the man at the desk, they I were danc ing with merriment, as be j said; "Just been reading a piece here : in the Sun about the inlluenee of climate on human endeavor. It says : that in northern latitudes there is i more oxygen in the air anil folks; breathe faster, nnd their blond Hows i faster, and that keeps their liver go- 1 ing. Trouble with me has always j been climate sluggish liver. If I had Just a little more oxygen floating j round in my system, the woolen mill I would still be running, the street cars j would be going, nnd this town would j have had forty thousand Inhabitants. My fatal mistake was one of latitiub. j But" and he drawled out the wurl mockingly "but I guess If the Lord had wanted me to make a town here i lie would have given me a differ nt' kind of liver!" He slapped his knees1 as he sighed: "This Is a fanny world. : and the more you see of It the funnier j It gets." Tiie old man grinned com- j placently at the ceiling for a minute i and before getting out of his chair I kicked his shoe-heels together mer ' rily. wiped his glasses ns he rose, put ! his bundle of papers under bis arm and left the office whistling an old, old-fashioned tune. |