“We’ll be good, Toddie, if you’ll let us stay and you’ll play with us,” the children entreated, and the game began, with Thaine between Leigh and Jo. 196
When Asher Aydelot joined the group inside Darley Champers rapped on the desk and called the men to order.
“Gentlemen, let’s have a businesslike proceeding,” he said. “Who shall preside at the meeting?”
“I move Jim Shirley be made chairman. He’s the best looking man here,” Todd Stewart said, half seriously.
The motion carried and Jim, looking big and handsome and kindly as always, took the chair.
“I’ll ask Mr. Champers to state the purpose of the meeting,” he said.
“Gentlemen,” Champers began with tremendous dignity, “I represent the firm of the Champers Town Company, just chartered, with half a million dollars’ capital. Gentlemen, you have the finest valley in Kansas.”
The same was said of every other valley in Kansas in the fat years of the boom. But to do Darley justice, he had never made a finer effort in his life of many efforts than he was bent on making tonight.
“And this site is the garden spot of it all,” he continued. “The elevation, the water power at the deep bend of Grass River (where at that moment only a trace of water marked the river’s grassy right of way), the fine farming land—everything ready for a sudden leap into prosperity. And, gentlemen, the A. and T. (Arctic and Tropic) North and South Railroad will begin grading down this very stream inside of thirty days. A town here this year will be a city next year, a danged sight bigger city than Careyville will ever be. Why, that town’s got its growth and is beginning to decay right now. The A. and T. will miss it comin’ south, by ten mile.”
He paused and looked at the men before him. They 197 were farmers, drooped to rest after the long summer day’s work, yet they listened with intense eagerness. Only Asher Aydelot sat in easy dignity, looking straight at Darley Champers with steady interest. The four years’ training in the University of the Civil War had not been overcome by his hold on the plow handles. And no farmer will grow hopelessly stooped in shoulders and sad of countenance who lifts his face often from the clods beneath his feet to the stars above his head.