depot, an eating-house, and a Y; and
it was nothing else.

"We've come up here," said Jim, "to show you probably the smallest town
in the state, and the only one in the world named after me. We wanted to
show you the whole line, and Mr. Schwartz felt as if he'd prefer to turn
his engine around for the return trip. The last two towns we came
through, and hence the first two going back, are old places. The third
station is a new town, and Conductor Corcoran will take us back there,
where we'll unveil the name of the station, and permit the people to
know where they live. While we're doing the sponsorial act, lunch will
be prepared and ready for us to discuss during the next run."

On the way back there was a stir of suppressed excitement among the
passengers.

"It's about this name," said Miss Addison to her seat-mate. "The town is
on the shore of Mirror Lake, and they say it will be an important one,
and a summer resort; and no one knows what the name is to be but Mr.
Elkins."

"Really, a very odd affair!" said Miss Allen, of Fairchild, Antonia's
college friend. "It makes a social function of the naming of a town!"

"Yes," said Mr. Elkins, "and it is one of the really enduring things we
can do. Long after the memory of every one here is departed, these
villages will still bear the names we give them to-day. If there's any
truth in the belief that some people have, that names have an influence
for good or evil, the naming of the towns may be important as building
the railroad."

I was sitting with Antonia. Miss Allen and Captain Tolliver were with
us, our faces turned toward one another. General Lattimore, with Josie
and her father, was on the opposite side of the car. Most of the company
were sitting or standing near, and the conversation was quite general.

"Oh, it's like a romance!" half whispered Antonia to us. "I envy you men
who build roads and make towns. Look at Mr. Elkins, Sadie, as he stands
there! He is master of everything; to me he seems as great as Napoleon!"

She neither blushed nor sought to conceal from us her adoration for Jim.
It was the day of his triumph, and a fitting time to acknowledge his
kinghood; and her admission that she thought him the greatest, the most
excellent of men did not surprise me. Yet, because he was older than
she, and had never put himself in a really loverlike attitude toward
her, I thought it was simply an exalted girlish regard, and not at all
what we usually underst