uildings get
higher and higher; the Mariposa House grows more and more luxurious;
McCarthy's block towers to the sky; the 'buses roar and hum to the
station; the trains shriek; the traffic multiplies; the people move
faster and faster; a dense crowd swirls to and fro in the post-office
and the five and ten cent store--and amusements! well, now! lacrosse,
baseball, excursions, dances, the Fireman's Ball every winter and the
Catholic picnic every summer; and music--the town band in the park every
Wednesday evening, and the Oddfellows' brass band on the street every
other Friday; the Mariposa Quartette, the Salvation Army--why, after a
few months' residence you begin to realize that the place is a mere mad
round of gaiety.

In point of population, if one must come down to figures, the Canadian
census puts the numbers every time at something round five thousand. But
it is very generally understood in Mariposa that the census is largely
the outcome of malicious jealousy. It is usual that after the census the
editor of the Mariposa Newspacket makes a careful reestimate (based
on the data of relative non-payment of subscriptions), and brings the
population up to 6,000. After that the Mariposa Times-Herald makes
an estimate that runs the figures up to 6,500. Then Mr. Gingham,
the undertaker, who collects the vital statistics for the provincial
government, makes an estimate from the number of what he calls the
"demised" as compared with the less interesting persons who are still
alive, and brings the population to 7,000. After that somebody else
works it out that it's 7,500; then the man behind the bar of the
Mariposa House offers to bet the whole room that there are 9,000 people
in Mariposa. That settles it, and the population is well on the way to
10,000, when down swoops the federal census taker on his next round and
the town has to begin all over again.

Still, it is a thriving town and there is no doubt of it. Even the
transcontinental railways, as any townsman will tell you, run through
Mariposa. It is true that the trains mostly go through at night and
don't stop. But in the wakeful silence of the summer night you may hear
the long whistle of the through train for the west as it tears through
Mariposa, rattling over the switches and past the semaphores and
ending in a long, sullen roar as it takes the trestle bridge over the
Ossawippi. Or, better still, on a winter evening about eight o'clock you
will see the long row o