Said one item, "A string of electric lights, on a street leading up one of our hills, looks like a necklace of brilliants on the bosom of the night." Old Little Arcady had not electric lights; nor the Argus this exuberance of simile.
Again: "This new game of golf that the summer folks play seems to have too much walking for a good game and just enough game to spoil a good walk." Golf in the Little Country!
The advent of musical culture was signified by this: "At least thirty girls in this town can play the first part of 'Narcissus' pretty well. But when they come to the second part they mangle the keys for a minute and then say, 'I don't care much for that second part—do you?' Why don't some of them learn it and give us a chance to judge?"
The Argus had acquired a "Woman's Department," conducted by Mrs. Aurelia Potts Denney, wife of the editor,—a public-spirited woman, prominent in club circles, and said to be of great assistance to her husband in his editorial duties. The town was proud of her, and sent her as delegate to the Federation of Woman's Clubs; her name, indeed, has been printed in full more than once, even by Chicago newspapers. Some say that wisely she might give more attention to her twin sons, Hayes and Wheeler Denney; but this likely is ill-natured carping, for Hayes and Wheeler seem not more lawless than other twins of eight. And carpers, to a certainty, do exist in Little Arcady.
One Westley Keyts, for example, lounging in the doorway of his meat-shop, renewed acquaintance with the wanderer, who remembered him as a glum-faced but not bad-hearted chap. Names recalled and hands shaken, Mr. Keyts began to lament the simple ways of an elder day, glancing meanwhile with honest disapproval at a newly installed competitor across the street. The shop itself was something of an affront, its gilt name more—"The Bon Ton Market." Mr. Keyts pronounced "Bon Ton" in his own fashion, but his contempt was ably and amply expressed.
"Sounds like one of them fancy names for a corset or a patent lamp," he complained. "It's this here summer business that done it. They swarm in here with their private hacks and their hired help all togged out till you'd think they was generals in the army, and they play that game of sissy-shinny (drop-the-handkerchief for mine, if I got to play any such game), and they're such great hands to kite around nights when folks had ought to be in their beds. I tell you, my friend, it ain't doing this town one bit of good. The idea of a passel of strong, husky young men settin' around on porches in their white pants and calling it 'passing the summer.' I ain't never found time to pass any summers."
The wanderer expressed a proper regret for this decadence. Mr. Keyts reverted bitterly to the Bon Ton market:—
"Good name for a tooth powder, or a patent necktie, or an egg-beater. But a butcher-shop!—why, it's a hell of a name for a butcher-shop!"
The wanderer expressed perfect sympathy with this view of the shop legend, and remarked, "By the way, whose big house is that with the columns in front, up where the Prouse and old Blake houses used to be?"
The face of Mr. Keyts became pleasanter.