“Huh!” grunted Tom.
“Some folks from the East went out there and settled,” said Dan, “and after a while they decided that, as the town was growing fast, they’d plat it out.”
“What’s that?” asked Tom.
“Why, lay it out.”
“Oh, was it dead? Thought you said it was growing?”
“Shut up, Tommy, and let’s hear the worst,” said Nelson.
“So they got the surveyors to work and pretty soon they had a nice map of the town with streets and avenues running all around into the prairies. Then the question of naming the streets came up and they decided they’d name them after the citizens of the place. So they started in and named the main street after the Mayor, Jones Street. And so on until they’d used all the names and hadn’t begun to get through. So they thought again and decided to use their wives’ names. So they had Mary Street and Matilda Street and Jane Street, and still there were lots of streets left. So they started then on their children’s names and used those all up. Then——”
“It sounds like a blamed old lie to me,” said Tom in a loud aside.
“So,” continued Dan, missing Tom’s shin with his foot by half an inch, “after they’d got through with their Tommy Streets and their Susie Streets they didn’t know what to do, because there were still a lot of streets away out that hadn’t been named. So some one suggested that they might use the names of the dogs. So they did that. There was Hover Street and Tige Street and Towser Avenue——”
“Towser Avenue!” giggled Tom.