A monologue by Nixon Waterman.
New York: The Century Co., 1920. Well, yes, I calculate it is a little quiet here. For one who has been about the world and traveled far and near. But maybe because I never lived in any other place, to me the town seems about as lively as a good town ought to be. We go about our business in a quiet sort of way, and never think of the outside world except once a day. We gather at the depot, where we laugh and talk and spin our yarns and watch the people when the train comes in.
Si Jenkins is the justice of the peace. He always spends his money on a newspaper, which he glances through and lends to some of the other fellows. We all take turns and chat, and each one tells what he would do if he were this or that. In a quiet sort of way, before an hour has gone, we get a pretty good idea of what’s going on and it gives us lots to think about until we meet again the following tomorrow when the train comes in. When I get lonely, I hang around the barber-shop or corner grocery, where I talk about the growing crop with fellows from the country. If the sun isn’t too hot, we go to pitching horseshoes in Jed Thompson’s vacant lot behind the livery stable. Before the game is done, as likely as not, some fellow will say his nag can clean outrun the other fellow’s and they take them out and have a spin. But all get back in town before the train comes in. I see in the papers that some folks, when summer’s here, pack up their trunks and journey to the seashore every year to keep from getting sunstruck. I have a better way than that, for when it’s hot, I put a cabbage-leaf inside my hat and go about my business as if it wasn’t warm. The fact is I’m not doing much sense since I moved off my farm. And folks that love the outside world, if they have a mind to, can see all they ought to of it when the train comes in. Yet I like excitement, and there’s nothing that suits me more than to get three other fellows, so as to make an even four, that knows the game just to a T, and spend a half a day in some good place fighting out a battle of croquet.
There’s Tubbs, who tends the post office, old Doc Smith, and me. And Uncle Perry Louden. It would do you good to see us fellers maul them balls around. We meet time and again, play and play and play until the train comes in. Taking it all in all, I bet you’d have to look around a good, long while before you’d find a nicer little town than this one. The people live a quiet sort of life, not caring much about the world with all its woe and strife. Here, I mean to spend my days, and when I reach the end, I’ll say, “God bless you!” and “Goodbye!” to every faithful friend. And when they follow me to where there ain’t no care nor sin, I’ll meet them at the depot when the train comes in.
