CHAPTER V—TECUMSEH STREET
TECUMSEH STREET was the fourth street back from the river. Tradition said that the father and Certain aunts of the man who laid out the street had been scalped by Tecumseh, the Indian. It was the only distinguished event in his family, and he wished to commemorate it.
The street was paved with undressed Medina. The newspaper offices were all there, and the smash and scream of undressed Medina under traffic was in the columns. It was satisfactory to Port Argent. The proper paving of streets in front of newspaper offices was never petitioned in the Council. Opposite the offices was a half block of vacant lots, a high board fence of advertisements around it.
The space between was packed with a jostling crowd. A street lamp lit a small section of it. Lights from the office windows fell in patches on faces, hats, and shoulders. A round moon floated above the tower of The Chronicle Building with a look of mild speculation, like a “Thrice Blessed Buddha,” leading in the sky his disciple stars, who all endeavoured to look mildly speculative, and saying, “Yonder, oh, mendicants! is a dense mass of foolish desires, which indeed squirm as vermin in a pit, and are unpleasant to the eye of meditation. Because the mind of each individual is there full of squirming desires, even as the individual squirms in the mass.” No doubt it looks so when one floats so far over it.
Opposite the windows of The Chronicle (Independent-Reform) and The Press (Republican) the advertising boards were covered with white cloth, and two blinding circles shone there of rival stereopticons. There was no board fence opposite The Western Advocate (Democratic), and no stereopticon in the windows. This was deplored. It showed a lack of public spirit—a want of understanding of the people's needs. If there could be no stereopticon without a board fence, there should be a brass band.
The proprietor of The Advocate sent out for a bushel of Roman candles, and discharged them from his windows by threes, of red, white, and blue. This was poetic and sufficient.
The stereopticons flashed on the white circles the figures of returns, when there were any, pictures and slurs when there were no figures,—a picture of a cage full of riotous monkeys on The Chronicle circle, underwritten, “The Council,”—a picture of an elderly lady with a poke bonnet and lifted hands of reprehension, on the Press circle, underwritten, “Independent Reform.”
“Auction of the City of Port Argent!” flashed The Chronicle. “Office of M. Wood. Cash on Delivery of Goods.”