There was a pine table upon a raised platform, behind which Hiram Butefish remained, as before, the Club"s honored President.
In the corner was a stove which had been donated by the Methodist minister, because, presumably, of a refractory grate which it was found impossible to operate without profanity.
Into these comfortable and s.p.a.cious quarters, a goodly number of Prouty"s representative citizens came singly and in squads upon the occasion of this important meeting.
Each member had kept his own solution of Prouty"s problem closely guarded, so no man knew what his neighbor had to offer until that one"s turn came to divulge it. In truth, it had been a long time since a meeting of such piquancy and interest had been called.
After some little preliminary business, Hiram Butefish, with a candor which never before had distinguished his public utterances upon this subject, declared flatly that Prouty was in a precarious, not to say desperate, condition. The county treasury was empty, the town treasury was empty, and the warrants of either had little more value than the stock certificates of an abandoned gold mine. What were they going to do about it? Should they sit quietly and starve like a lost tribe wandering in the desert? Did they wish to see their wives naked and their children hungry? No! Mr. Butefish smote the table until the crack in the water pitcher lengthened. Then by all that was Great and Good, somebody had to think of something!
Mr. Butefish had only said what everybody knew, but his manner of saying it sent a chill over every one present.
"Doc" Fussel, whose sales during the day had been a package of rat poison and a bottle of painkiller, looked like a lemon that has lain too long in the window, when he arose and diffidently offered his suggestion for the relief of Prouty. The doctor"s voice when he was frightened had the rich sonorous tones of a mouse squeaking in the wall, and now as he ventured the suggestion that Prouty"s hope lay in raising peppermint, his voice was inaudible beyond the fifth row of chairs. In the rear of the room they caught the words "mint" and "still," and were under the impression that he was advocating the manufacture of counterfeit money and moonshine whiskey. As a matter of fact, the doctor advised the purchase of large tracts of land which could be flooded and transformed into bogs. These bogs were to be planted in peppermint, for which, he averred, there was an insatiable demand. The world had yet to have too much peppermint. So long as there were babies there would be colic, and so long as there was colic there would be a need for peppermint; therefore, reasoning along the dotted line from A to Z, there always would be a market. Peppermint was the one industry requiring small capital which had not been overdone. He could go to Illinois and purchase a secondhand still of which he knew, at small cost. A bottling works for preparing and labeling the essence could be established in Prouty, and there was no reason why, in time, Prouty should not become the recognized peppermint center of America.
When the doctor sat down, after giving the back of the chair which he gripped a farewell wring that all but tore it loose from its sockets, Mr. Butefish arose and congratulated him upon the novelty of his suggestion and recommended that it be investigated carefully.
There was excellent reason to believe that Walter Scales, at no remote date, had been handling kerosene and saltfish, for the air in his vicinity was redolent of these commodities as he arose when called upon as the next in order.
Before speaking of the remedy for the present stagnant condition of "the fairest spot that the sun ever shone upon," Mr. Scales stated that he wished to protest thus publicly against the practice which now obtained of pitching horseshoes in the main street of Prouty. There was nothing, he declared vehemently, which made so bad an impression upon a stranger as to see the leading citizens of a community pitching horseshoes in its princ.i.p.al thoroughfare.
Pa.s.sing on to the purpose for which he had risen, Mr. Scales averred that it was probable that he would be considered an impractical visionary when he made known his proposition; nevertheless, it had been long in his mind and no harm would come from voicing it. To his notion, the thing most needed to revitalize Prouty was an electric car-line.
This line should start at the far end of town, somewhere down by the Double Cross Livery Stable, possibly, and end at an artificial lake and amus.e.m.e.nt park a few miles out in the country--he waved his arm vaguely.
A street car whizzing through Prouty would put new life in it, and so hungry were its inhabitants for entertainment that he had no doubt whatever that the amus.e.m.e.nt park would make ample returns upon the investment.
Mr. Butefish made a note of Mr. Scales"s vision, but very much questioned as to whether Prouty was ripe for a street railway, since--he admitted reluctantly--such a project might be a little ahead of the immediate requirements.
Other suggestions followed--among them, the possibility of opening up an outcropping of marble in a canyon sixteen miles from Prouty. The marble, though badly streaked with yellow, would, it was opined, serve excellently for tombstones. Also, there was a clay peculiar to a certain gulch in the vicinity which was believed by the discoverer to contain the necessary qualities for successful brick-making.
Then "Gov"nor" Sudds arose in a flattering silence to give the Club the benefit of his cogitations. Something large always could be expected of the "Gov"nor." Although he lived in three figures, he thought in seven, and not one of the Gov"nor"s many projects had been capitalized at less than a million.
Conrad has said that listening to a Russian socialist is much like listening to a highly accomplished parrot--one never can rid himself of the suspicion that he knows what he is talking about. The same, at times, applied to the Gov"nor. He said nothing so convincingly that always it was received with the closest attention.
Now, as Sudds stood up, large, grave and impressive, he looked like a Roman Senator about to address a gathering in the Forum. No one present could dream from his manner that he had that day received a shock, the violence of which could best be likened to a well-planted blow in the pit of the stomach. As a hardy perennial candidate for political office, he had become inured to disappointment, but the present shock had been of such an unexpected nature that for hours Mr. Sudds had been in a state little short of groggy. The maiden aunt of seventy, upon whose liberal remembrance he had built his hopes as the Faithful hug to themselves the promise of heaven, had married a street car conductor and wired for congratulations. He had pulled himself together and staggered to the meeting where, though still with the sinking sensation of a man who has inadvertently stepped through the plastering of the ceiling, he was able to dissemble successfully.
Clearing his throat, the Gov"nor fixed his eyes upon "Hod" Deefendorf, owner of the Double Cross Livery Stable, and demanded:
"Among all the voices of Nature is there a more pleasing or varied sound than that of falling water?"
He paused as though he expected an answer, so "Hod" squirmed and ventured weakly that he "guessed there wasn"t."
The Gov"nor continued: "The gentle murmur of the brook, the noisy rumble of rapids, the thundering roar of mighty cataracts--can you beat it?" In a country where the school children giggled at sight of an umbrella, the question seemed irrelevant, so this time no one replied.
"Consider the rivulet as it glints and glistens in ceaseless change, the fairy mists of shimmering cascades, the majestic sweep of waterfalls--has Nature any force more potent for the use of man than falling water? No! None whatever! And I propose that we yoke these racing tumbling forces back there in yon mountains and make them work for us!"
The members exchanged glances--the Gov"nor was living up to their expectations of him.
"That accomplished, I propose," the Governor declared dramatically, "to take nitrogen from the air and sell it to the government!"
He looked triumphantly into the intent upturned faces into which had crept a look of blankness. There were those who thought vaguely that nitrogen was the scientific name for mosquito, while others confused it with nitre, an excellent emergency remedy for horses.
"They"ve done it in Germany," he continued, "and used it in the manufacture of high explosives. Is there any gentleman present who will tell me that what"s been done in Germany, can"t be done in Wyoming?"
The applause was tumultuous when he had further elucidated and finished.
To get something out of nothing made a strong appeal to Prouty. It was criminal for Sudds to waste his abilities in a small community. They wondered why he did it.
Hiram Butefish, who succeeded the orator, felt a quite natural diffidence in giving to the Club his modest suggestion, but as he talked he warmed to his subject.
"I am convinced," declared Mr. Butefish, "that the future of Prouty lies in fossils."
"Human?" a voice inquired ironically.
"Clams," replied Mr. Butefish with dignity. "Also fish and periwinkles.
Locked in Nature"s boozem over there in the Bad Lands there"s a world of them. I kicked "em up last year when I was huntin" horses, and realized their value. They"d go off like hot cakes to high schools and collectors. We could get a professor in here cheap--a lunger, maybe--to cla.s.sify "em, and then we"d send out our own salesman. We can advertise and create a market.
"Gentlemen," solemnly, "we have not one iota of reason to be discouraged! With thousands of acres available for peppermint; with more air to the square inch than any place else in the world, with an inexhaustible bed of fossils under our very noses, all we need to fulfill the dreams of our city"s founder is unity of effort and capital.
In other words--MONEY!"
"And the longer you stay in Prouty the more you"ll need it!"
The jeering voice from the rear of the room belonged to Toomey.
The Club turned its head and looked at the interrupter in astonishment.
He was sitting in the high-headed arrogance with which once upon a time they had all been familiar. Though momentarily disconcerted, Mr.
Butefish collected himself and retorted:
"Perhaps you have something better to offer, Toomey."
"If I hadn"t I wouldn"t offer it," he replied insolently.
The thought that came instantly to every mind was that Toomey must have had a windfall. How else account for this sudden independence? This possibility tempered the asperity of Mr. Butefish"s answer, though it still had plenty of spirit:
"We are ready to acknowledge your--er--originality, Mr. Toomey, and will be delighted to listen."
To Toomey it was a rare moment. He enjoyed it so keenly that he wished he might prolong it. Uncoiling his long legs, he surveyed his auditors with a tolerant air of amus.e.m.e.nt:
"I presume there are no objections to my mentioning a few of the flaws that I see in the schemes which have been outlined?"
"Our time is limited," hinted Mr. Butefish.
"It won"t take long to puncture those bubbles," Toomey answered, contemptuously.
Certainly he had made a raise somewhere!
"We will hear your criticisms," replied Mr. Butefish, with the restraint of offended dignity.
"In the first place, everybody knows that the soil in this country sours and alkalies when water stands on it." Toomey spoke as a man who had wide experience. He looked at "Doc" Fussel, who shrivelled with the chagrin that filled him, when Toomey added, "That settles the peppermint bog, doesn"t it?
"Take the next proposition: What"s the use of car-lines that begin nowhere and end nowhere? A cripple could walk from one end of the town to the other in seven minutes. You couldn"t raise enough outside capital to buy the spikes for it.