Show FROM F R M CITY C I 1 T ir TO T u FARM F A at M ye who ho paten with credulity to the th of ncy who pursue with a ame sax 2 erness me the phantoms of hope who expect that are will perform the promises pr oinie of youth and that the iha acie of the present day will bo be br by the morrows attend to the history of rasselas hael prince 9 of A abysinia Aby finla winia by ERNEST mcgaffey author a of gun gan and roif rod Outdo outdoors ori q tf rho town etc copyright by joseph 13 bowles county seat attractions lit in living in the country it Is IB a decided advantage to live somewhere hera near tho the county seat scat there is s always an intense rivalry among the towns in every county as to which town shall occupy this proud eminence and in the frontier states tho the county seat r wars have been distinctively and bloodily american to live near the dounty county seat Is to reside cloge to tile tho haib hi hub ib of county happenings and to be able to attend all important trials which are held during the year and in many other ways to keep keap in touch with local affairs and to enjoy the privileges of the county seat band concerts and other diversion the county fair Is almost invariably hold bold at the county seat and the horse races flourish there likewise tho the old a ro reunions unions are there found flourishing with greater vitality than elsewhere and where wo we lived the memory of the great battle to secure the county seat had not yet quite faded away from tho the minds of the residents of the county and local pride still stiffened its bristles at the thought of the contest the county seat was situated among rows rows of splendid maples and was gulit guiltless less of any modern fripperies fripp eries of an effete such as paved streets inthe in the summertime a paralytic ling cart dribbled a few random s squirts of water on the thick dust that blanketed the various thoroughfares of the town but every passing wheel stirred up a cloud of it over the loungers or passersby passe raby at the cross ingi inga there were adre walks laid simoti sometimes ines of brick sometimes of stone and in dry weather those were not entirely covered by the dust in wet weather they were navigable and that was about all there was not much architectural grandeur visible even the courthouse which was the monument ot of th the triumph ot of the citizens being a very moderately ornate structure dut but as it was the house of tile the county archives as well as tho the temple of 0 justice it served to coln point the moral of success and it was the scene of many hard ha rd foug fought lit legal battles during the year court terms were about once every three or four months and there were always ono one or two murder cas cases es on the d docket oc ket and these could be depended on to bring nearly tho the entire county 0 over erlo to hear the evidence and listen to the elc eloquence luence of opposing counsel court week was a real institution the various restaurant keepers took on a more optimistic view of existence and the farmers would even lay a side aside work in the fields to sit and listen to some one of the more celebrated local orators split the empyrean with his impassioned harangue sometimes these cases would last tor for a week and the courtroom was always crowded to the very doors lo 10 to hear the passages at arms between opposing counsel the chief delight in a country audience isi is to listen to some lawyer who has a reputation for wit in the county and his sallies aro are always greeted erected with hearty laughter that oven even the surly raps of the sheriffs gavel can only curb but not suppress in the drug stores on the corners at the livery stables at tho the hotel an and even in the courtroom itself there was constant debate on the rights and wrongs of the case that was being tried and on the respective abilities of the men who were conducting the case each lawyer had bad hla his champions and wonderful reports of one or the others masterly eloquence wore were handed about wath picturesque additions of assertion and emphasis it was something that stood in place of the drama and to follow a murder trial front from start finish Is much in tho the nature of some staged tragedy only the court scene beene la Is stripped to the bare and ana harsh realities and you feel that the walts waits between the acts hold more significance than the shifting of scenery or tho the makeup of the actors tho the county seat also has tho the distinction sometimes a doubtful one of having the best band in the county it always has a band and sometimes it t has the best band and occasionally tile tho best la Is not anything to boast of on the public square in front of the courthouse tho the band stand in the county seat had been erected nail architecturally it was not anything to speak of but it was roomy enough to seat the band concerts Concer tB were on saturdays generally and commenced in the afternoon and wound up tip about nine in tho the evening selections from the latest classic ragtime were mostly in der demand nand and while the music was not at ai all intricate some of it was played very well and with invariable earnestness saturday afternoon at the county seat was waa always the social clearing house for the entire county for if you owed anyone a call and did not have time to go over and see him you could count on it as almost a sure thing that you could find him in town saturday some time and usually in the after afternoon hoon S so the streets and corners were lined with men and the stores were crowded with women who were not only doing their weekly shopping but biere were meeting friends and neighbors and exchanging news newa and gossip of their respective neighborhoods in the summertime too the local baseball club held its celebrations in the way of doughty contests with the nine of some nearby town and theeb cit ci ement was always intense among the adherents of 0 the respective champions As there were no street cars in this particular county seat and no means of transportation to the scene of the tray fray except by one small bus ibus the spectators generally went in buggies gies or even by foot there was just as much interest displayed as at a metropolitan game and excitement was always at a white heat beat until the games papers had elaborate accounts of the gadea games and the playing ot of this or that thai local favorite was gone over with the same game attention to detail anibe identical phraseology used ns as the dailies in the grat cities used in their columns shopping at tho the county seat boat was a great institution on saturdays especially ally aily in the afternoons after the farmers driving in from miles around to make their purchases most of the stores were general stores with merchandise of all sorts but there were some that stuck closely to ono one line of goods I 1 recollect being in one general store where they sold among other ar things stoves and carpets and hearing a farmer and his wife who had just bought a stove discussing the buying of a covering for the floor on which the stove was to be placed the wife wanted oil cloth and the store keeper either cither to please her or to got rid of the oil cloth talked long and enthusiastically on the beauty and desirability sir of oil cloth forthe for tho room but tho the farmer was obdurately in favor of a rag carpet to the remon st rances of tho the storekeeper and the protests of his hie wlad he retorted with the remark well by gum I 1 aint coln to stop step around barefoot on no oil cloth with the thermometer to 16 15 degrees below zero and make fires ever mornin an git out ashes I 1 tried that one winter ani want a carpet sost I 1 can make fires barefoot an climb back in bed till the old woman gits coffee ready they compromised on rag carpet to please the old man in the summertime there are the horse races occasionally and there la is just as aa much juggling and working in ringers tit at a county hor horse sera race ce as there over ever was at a big race track I 1 dont know of any easier way in the world to lose money than to bet it on a country horse race unless it Is iii to io play poker with tofal total strangers there was a good track at our county seat and the best way to on enjoy joy it was to go out and see the horses run and let tho the other fellows do tho the betting when the county fair came there were all the old and time honored institutions of the side show the prize bull the largest pumpkin the three card monto monte man and the little pea that hold held the shell where you always guessed it hero was pink lemonade and the harp harmless iless necessary peanut here were the proud and haughty stall stallions forns and curly necked bulls hero here at any time you could hear bear the lowing of the herds the crowing of roosters and the bading baaing of silly sheep here the farmers leaned over the pens and stalls over the and boxes that held the cattle hogs poultry and various paraphernalia of the exhibits and talked gesticulated and affirmed loudly about the merits and demerits of different breeds and crosses and here the inevitable girl and her fellow promenaded promenades with balls oi of pop cord and bags of peanuts in their hands happy in their ignorance of response responsibility bill tv basking in the foot fool ashy time between freedom and matrimony in n the evenings the band now occupying a position of local kroml nonce nence discoursed from their instruments the wild and fluctuating notes of various misfit strains and the hearted lady and the headless wonder divided honors with the enormous python and the beautiful albino odthe of the side bidet tents tants barkers blatant of voice and brazen of demeanor tore off strips of verbal dissonance in praise of their wares or exhibits and many a hard earned quarter w was s beguiled to their cavernous pockets kerosene lights flared wildly and all went merry as a marriage bell until time came to douse the lights and prepare for tomorrow the marshal an imposing spectacle with his glittering star and awful air of authority drilled tl up and down through the crowds and represented with an imposing length of whisker the inviolable majesty of the law at the county seat the oldest settlers always lived those who had been in the legislature with lincoln those who had listened to the antebellum debates old settlers indeed the grass itself was old on their graves the mossy lichens were ancient on their tombstones at the county seat the revivals were usually held and all the people from the surrounding country crowded in to hear the noted evangelists here too of course the principal papers of the county were printed one of thorn them having been published by the same man for 60 years A very ably edited paper too its edit editorials were full of lire and energy and its makeup and selection of news denoted the possession of ability and journalistic prescience of a high order here was also the hotbed hot bed of political intrigue for here the plans for the elections were consummated and here the offices were distributed to the successful aspirants the county seat had once been a manufacturing point but its rival to the west had long sipco since outstripped it in material slower power and had manufactories manu factories that sent their products to the ends of the world and each year this growing rival perfected little by little its plan to wrest away from the present county seat its importance as aa the real hub and there was a slow insidious feeling in and about the town that eventually its hated opponent would capture the coveted honor and leave the present courthouse a mere barracks in the public square a melancholy reminder of the days that were every year the old soldiers held their reunion at the county seat and their march past the courthouse and their meeting in the evening was ivas one of the occasions for oratory ry rind and the revival of the days when the call for volunteers came but each year the line grows thinner each twelvemonth twelve month makes gaps in the ranks and to the children of those who marched to the front the recollections of those times Is dim indeed to their grandchildren it Is a holiday there Is always about a county seat which la Is losing its grip some sense of self preservation some spas attempt to revive public spirit and senda send a current of action along the veins of the town dut bill no town can advance without a restless activity and a steady plane of public spirit and in our county seat the spirit of sleepy hollow was rampant its iti streets were unpaved from year to year its sidewalks barely kept out of the mud during favorable conditions its electric service was inadequate its water works primitive and subject to breakdown its revenues uncertain and insufficient and yet from tho the clarion voiced columns of the one real paper in the tha town there was always the note not 0 of f courage the herald of warning the tocsin of encouragement but as it was in the beginning so now and so it should ever bo be that this county seat was doomed to dry out affa disappear from sight as an entity and a social community and sink into the shadows a forgotten hamlet it was off of the main traveled track tho the steam highways and it was far from any river that might give it a hint of ra reviving power it was shunned 0 of f manufactories manu factories and its commerce depended largely on its position as tho the county seat and yet inch by inch the encroaching advances of the nearby town came seeping and gnawing at the foundations of its power and month by month its citizens either heedlessly or slothfully ignored the rising tide and issue by issue the sentinel at tho the gate gaie the editor of the weekly paper sought in vain to arouse a healthy flow of public spirit which should give the town a renewed vitality and check the approach of its impending dissolution but bitt with placid and cow like ilke corn com plaisance the citizens ate slept and put pui on clothes they did not and do not now know the doom that encompasses them around about we sav sani it with every day that dawned foi the election which deprives it of its iti courthouse court honse means the funeral of the th town for then will the shouting of the tha captains and the tumult die indeed within its ita precincts then will the gaudy trappings of the county fall and the spangled garishness of the tha street fakirs fakiri wither and be not then will the dust pile ankle high in the streets and no dabbling of occasional jetson jets of water disturb its muffled folds then will the courthouse be boarded up and left to the wind and rain then will their inhabitants creep rip van winkle like ilke from their gardens to their houses intent only on the almanacs for their mental pabulum and the church bells for their final summons then will the glory of ichabod such as it was be entirely departed and legend and reminiscence i 0 only be left to tell of the departed activities of the deserted county seat |