, it's fighting and loving before we get any sense; and with
a town it's the same way, and I guess with the race it's the same
way--fighting and loving and growing sensible after it's over. Maybe
so--maybe so, Phil, comrade, but man, man," he said as he climbed on
his bench, "it's fine to be a fool!"

CHAPTER VII

In Sycamore Ridge every one knows Watts McHurdie, and every one takes
pride in the fact that far and wide the Ridge is known as Watts
McHurdie's town, and this too in spite of the fact that from Sycamore
Ridge Bob Hendricks gained his national reputation as a reformer and
the further fact that when the Barclays went to New York or Chicago or
to California for the winter in their private car, they always
registered from Sycamore Ridge at the great hotels. One would think
that the town would be known more as Hendricks' town or Barclay's
town; but no--nothing of the kind has happened, and when the rich and
the great go forth from the Ridge, people say: "Oh, yes, Sycamore
Ridge--that's Watts McHurdie's town, who wrote--" but people from
the Ridge let the inquirers get no farther; they say: "Exactly--it's
Watts McHurdie's town--and you ought to see him ride in the open
hack with the proprietor of a circus when it comes to the Ridge and
all the bands and the calliope are playing Watts' song. The way the
people cheer shows that it is really Watts McHurdie's town." So when
Colonel Martin Culpepper wrote the "Biography of Watts McHurdie" which
was published together with McHurdie's "Complete Poetical and
Philosophical Works," there was naturally much discussion, and the
town was more or less divided as to what part of the book was the
best. But the old settlers,--those who, during the drouth of '60, ate
mince pies with pumpkins as the fruit and rabbit meat as the filling
and New Orleans black-strap as the sweetening, the old settlers who
knew Watts before he became famous,--they like best of all the
chapters in the colonel's Biography the one entitled "At Hymen's
Altar." And here is a curious thing about it: in that chapter there is
really less of Watts and considerably more of Colonel Martin Culpepper
than in any other chapter.

But the newcomers, those who came in the prosperous days of the 70's
or 80's, never could understand the partiality of the old settlers for
the "Hymen's Altar" chapter. Lycurgus Mason also always took the view
that the "Hymen" chapter was drivel.

"Now, John, be sensible--" Lycurg