Wakamin is a town with a soul. It used to have a
sentimental soul which got thrills out of neighborliness and "The
Star-Spangled Banner," but now it wavers between two generations,
with none of the strong, silly ambition of either. The pioneering
generation has died out, and of the young men, a hundred have gone
to that new pioneering in France. Along the way they will behold
the world, see the goodness and eagerness of it, and not greatly
desire to come back to the straggly ungenerous streets of Wakamin.
Those who are left, lords of the dead soul of Wakamin, go
to the movies and play tight little games of bridge and aspire only
to own an automobile, because a car is the sign of respectability.
Mr. Gale felt the savorlessness of the town within ten
minutes after he had arrived. He had come north to wind up the
estate of his cousin, the late proprietor of the Wakamin Creamery.
Mr. Gale was from the pine belt of Alabama but he did not resemble
the stage Southerner. There was a look of resoluteness and industry
about his broad red jaw. He spoke English very much like a man from
New York or San Francisco. He did not say "Yessuh," nor "Ah
declah"; he had neither a large white hat nor a small white
imperial; he was neither a Colonel nor a Judge. He was Mr. Gale,
and he practiced law, and he preferred lemonade to mint juleps. But
he had fought clear through the War for the Southern Confederacy;
and once, on a gray wrinkled morning before a cavalry battle, he
had spoken to Jeb Stuart.
While he was settling up the estate, Mr. Gale tried out the
conversational qualities of the editor and the justice of the
peace, and gave up his attempt to get acquainted with the Wakamites
- except for Mrs. Tiffany, at whose house he went to board. Mrs.
Captain Tiffany was daughter and widow of Territorial Pioneers. She
herself had teamed-it from St. Paul, with her young husband, after
the War. The late Captain Tiffany had been the last commander of
the Wakamin G. A. R. Post, and Mrs. Tiffany had for years been
president of the Women's Relief Corps. After the barniness of the
Wakamin Hotel Mr. Gale was at home in her cottage, which was as
precise and nearly as small as the whitewashed conch shell at the
gate. He recovered from the forlorn loneliness that had obsessed
him during walks on these long, cold, blue twilights of spring.
Nightly he sat on the porch with Mrs. Tiffany, and agreed with her
about politics, corn-raising, religion, and recipes for hot
biscuits.
When he was standing at the gate one evening of April, a
small boy sidled across the street, made believe that he was not
making-believe soldiers, rubbed one shin with the other foot,
looked into the matter of an electric-light bug that was sprawling
on its foolish back, violently chased nothing at all, walked
backward a few paces, and came up to Mr. Gale with an explosive,
"Hello!"
"Evening, sir."
"You staying with Mrs. Tiffany?"
"Yes, for a while."
"Where do you come from?"
"I'm from Alabama."
"Alabama? Why, gee, then you're a Southerner!"
"I reckon I am, old man."
The small boy looked him all over, dug his toe into the
leaf-mold at the edge of the curb, whistled, and burst out, "Aw,
gee, you aren't either! You don't wear gray, and you haven't got
any darky body servant. I seen lots of Confederuts in the movies,
and they always wear gray, and most always they got a body servant,
and a big sword with a tossel on it. Have you got a sword with a
tossel?"
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