The enthusiasm that greeted this announcement was distinctly audible for two blocks each way on Main Street, and in the midst of it the Honorable G. W. Battles arose to once more make the speech of his life. He could assure Colonel Wallingford that there would be no trouble in influencing the City Council to grant him a franchise, for the Chamber of Commerce had means of coercing the City Council; which was a splendid joke, for every member of the City Council was also a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and they were all present. Such a quantity of mutual good will and esteem was never before uncorked in so limited a space as the social room of Odd Fellows' Hall, and Clint Richards was quite lost to find new adjectives for the front page of the next day's issue of the Blade. The glorious news, together with some striking illustrations of the healthy advance of Battlesburg real estate, was copied in the papers of Paris, London, Dublin, Berlin and Rome. In those towns, too, the same civic activity was exhibited, the same golden hopes were aroused, the same era of prosperity set in; and the papers of those villages vied with each other in chronicling the evidences of increased wealth that had come upon them. Franchises, therefore, were to be had by the munificent Colonel Wallingford without the asking. Before he could even appeal to them, village councils had given him the exclusive use of their only desirable streets for fifty years without money and without price. Ground for stations was donated everywhere, and when Wallingford started out to secure a right of way from the regenerated farmers, who in these days kept themselves posted by telephone and rural free delivery, his triumphant progress would have sickened with envy the promoters of legitimate traction lines.
Discarding the big touring car, he secured a horse and buckboard, and donning yellow leather boots with straps and buckles at the calf, appeared upon the road the very apotheosis of a constructive engineering contractor; and when he stepped to the ground, big and hearty, and head and shoulders above nearly every man he went to see, when he gave them that cordial handclasp and laughed down upon them in that jovial way, every battle was half won. The thorough democracy of the man—that was what caught them! Moreover, the value of every foot of ground along the traction line was to be enhanced; at every farmhouse was to be an official stopping point with a platform; cars were to be run at least every hour; it would be possible to go to town in either direction, perform an errand and get back quickly, at infinitesimal cost and without sparing a horse from the field; sidings were to be made everywhere, and wheat cars, whenever required, would be loaded directly from the fields, the cost of transportation being guaranteed to remain less than one half that charged by the railroad; express cars were to be inaugurated, and upon these, milk, butter, eggs, produce of all kinds, could be shipped at trifling expense.
Never in All Her Married Life Had She Enjoyed Any Position Approaching This
While Wallingford was enjoying this new rôle he had created, his wife had also her taste of an entirely new life. She had no more than settled down in her new house than Mrs. G. W. Battles called upon her. Following her lead came Mrs. Geldenstein and Mrs. Quig and Mrs. Dorsett and the other acknowledged social leaders of the town. True, they criticised her house, her gowns, her manner of speech, her way of doing up her hair, but, this solemn duty performed, they unanimously agreed that she was a distinct acquisition to the polite life of the place. Never in all her married existence had she enjoyed any position approaching this. They had been nomads always, but now she had actual calls to make, actual, sober, formal friendships to cement, all these made possible by her husband's vast importance in the community; and upon Wallingford's triumphant return from his campaign for the right of way he was surprised to find her grown so young and care-free.
"I like this place, Jim," she told him in explanation. "Let's fix it to stay here always."
He gazed down at her and laughed.
"What have you been doing?" he inquired. "Giving pink teas? Getting full credit for your diamonds and those Paris dresses and hats?"