a committee to go up to Jefferson City to protest
to the Legislature against the proposed innovation. The committee
contended to the Legislature that the railroad would cut off trade by
starting up rival towns. It also contended that ox-teams had been used
for many years and were reliable, rain or shine, whereas in wet weather
the railroad tracks would get slick and be impracticable. Moreover, and
moreunder, there was no danger of an ox-team blowin' up and bustin' and
killin' somebody.

The railroad was melted to acquiescence by the appeal, and went its way
some ten miles west of Canaan. Towns sprang into being along the line of
the serpent's coil. Canaan said all right, but wait till the spring
rains come. The rains came, the trains went by over the slick tracks
gracefully. Canaan said all right, but wait till something busts. Time
passed, nothing busted. The County was careening westward. There was no
stopping it. Canaan kept her head high, but her heart grew as cold as
ice. Then the paper up at the new railroad station of Shaleville crudely
referred to Canaan as "that benighted hamlet." It was too much. When
Crittenton Madeira reached Canaan from St. Louis, the first thing that
he proposed for the city of his adoption was the Canaan Short Line, and,
coming at the opportune moment, the consummation of that proposition
placed Madeira at the head of Canaan's municipal life for the rest of
his days. In a very short time after he came to Canaan, Canaan not only
had a railroad, but her own railroad. Reassured, bland, she caught step
with progress, by and by saw that she was progress, and settled back
into her old superiority. Her trade prospered anew, the cotton came to
her depot, she got accustomed to the noise of her two trains daily, and
had lived through many contented years when the twentieth of September
of 1899 opened up like a rose, fair, fragrance-laden, warm, around her.

Out on the face of the day there was nothing to suggest change or
crisis, nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be hopeful for, a day like
yesterday, like to-morrow, a golden link in a golden monotony. At Court
House Square, a few farm-teams, strapping mules and big Studebakers,
stood at the hitching rail. A few people came and went up and down and
across the Square. Occasionally a mean-natured man said "huh-y!" to a
cow or "soo-y!" to a hog in the middle of Main Street. Some coatless
clerks, with great elbow-deep sleeve protectors on their arms