Factoryville, as we found this morning, was one of these very small places which, to one weary of metropolitan life, occasionally prove entertaining through an extreme simplicity and a sense of rest and peace. It was, as I saw sitting in my dressing gown in our convenient wooden swing, a mere collection of white cottages with large lawns or country yard spaces and flowers in profusion and a few stores. Dr. A. B. Fitch, Druggist (I could see this sign on the window before which he stood), was over the way sweeping off the sidewalk in front of his store. I knew it was Dr. A. B. Fitch by his solemn proprietary air, his alpaca coat, his serious growth of thick grey whiskers. He was hatless and serene. I could almost hear him saying: “Now, Annie, you tell your mother that this medicine is to be taken one teaspoonful every three hours, do you hear?”
Farther down the street H. B. Wendel, hardware dealer, was setting out a small red and green lawnmower and some zinc cans capable of holding anything from rain water to garbage. This was his inducement to people to come and buy. Although it was still very early, citizens were making their way down the street, a working man or two, going to some distant factory not in Factoryville, a woman in a gingham poke bonnet standing at a corner of her small white home examining her flowers, a small barefooted boy kicking the damp dust of the road with his toes. It reminded me of the time when, as a youth in a similar town, I used to get up early and see my mother browsing over early, dew-laden blossoms. I was for staying in Factoryville for some time.
But Franklin, energetic soul, would have none of it. He had lived in a small town or on a farm for the greater part of his life and, unlike me, had never really deserted the country. Inside the room, on the balcony of which I was already swinging and idly musing, he was industriously shaving—a task I was reserving for some city barber. Presently he came out and sat down.
“Isn’t it wonderful—the country!” I said. “This town! See old Dr. Fitch over there, and that grocery man putting out his goods.”
“Yes!” replied Franklin. “Carmel is very much like this. There’s no particular life there. A little small-town trading. Of course, Indianapolis has come so near now that they can all go down there by trolley, and that makes a difference.”
Forthwith he launched into amusing tales of Carmelite character—bits too idle or too profane to be narrated here. One only I remember—that of some yokels who were compelled to find a new hangout because the old building they frequented was torn down. When Franklin encountered them in the new place he said quite innocently: “This place hasn’t as much atmosphere as the old one.” “Oh, yes, it has,” rejoined the rural. “When you open the back windows.”
Speed was shaving too by now, inside, and, hearing me sing the delights of rural life (windows and doors were open), he put in:
“Yes, that’s all well enough, but after you’d lived here awhile you mightn’t like it so much. Gee! people in the country aren’t any different from people anywhere else.”
Speed had a peculiarly pained and even frightened look on his face at times, like a cloud passing over a landscape or something that made me want to put my hand on his shoulder and say, “There, there.” I wondered sometimes whether he had often been hungry or thrown out of a job or put upon in some unkind way. He could seem momentarily so pathetic.
“I know, I know,” I said gaily, “but there are the cows and the trees and the little flower gardens and the farmers mowing hay and——”