ly marked for travel, but they are sacred from
disturbance and remain on the platform forever; possibly the right train
never comes along. They serve to enthrone a few station loafers, who
look out from under their hat-brims at the faces in the car-windows with
the languid scorn a permanent fixture always has for a transient, and
the pity an American feels for a fellow-being who does not live in his
town. Now and then the train passes a town built scatteringly about
a court-house, with a mill or two humming near the tracks. This is
a county-seat, and the inhabitants and the local papers refer to it
confidently as "our city." The heart of the flat lands is a central area
called Carlow County, and the county-seat of Carlow is a town unhappily
named in honor of its first settler, William Platt, who christened it
with his blood. Natives of this place have sometimes remarked, easily,
that their city had a population of from five to six thousand souls. It
is easy to forgive them for such statements; civic pride is a virtue.

The social and business energy of Plattville concentrates on the Square.
Here, in summer-time, the gentlemen are wont to lounge from store
to store in their shirt sleeves; and here stood the old, red-brick
court-house, loosely fenced in a shady grove of maple and elm--"slipp'ry
ellum"--called the "Court-House Yard." When the sun grew too hot for the
dry-goods box whittlers in front of the stores around the Square and the
occupants of the chairs in front of the Palace Hotel on the corner, they
would go across and drape themselves over the court-house fence, under
the trees, and leisurely carve there initials on the top board. The
farmers hitched their teams to the fence, for there were usually loafers
energetic enough to shout "Whoa!" if the flies worried the horses
beyond patience. In the yard, amongst the weeds and tall, unkept grass,
chickens foraged all day long; the fence was so low that the most
matronly hen flew over with propriety; and there were gaps that
accommodated the passage of itinerant pigs. Most of the latter, however,
preferred the cool wallows of the less important street corners. Here
and there a big dog lay asleep in the middle of the road, knowing well
that the easy-going Samaritan, in his case, would pass by on the other
side.

Only one street attained to the dignity of a name--Main Street, which
formed the north side of the Square. In Carlow County, descriptive
location is usually