Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town Stephen Leacock (ready to read books TXT) đ
- Author: Stephen Leacock
Book online «Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town Stephen Leacock (ready to read books TXT) đ». Author Stephen Leacock
The town, I say, has one broad street that runs up from the lake, commonly called the Main Street. There is no doubt about its width. When Mariposa was laid out there was none of that shortsightedness which is seen in the cramped dimensions of Wall Street and Piccadilly. Missinaba Street is so wide that if you were to roll Jeff Thorpeâs barber shop over on its face it wouldnât reach half way across. Up and down the Main Street are telegraph poles of cedar of colossal thickness, standing at a variety of angles and carrying rather more wires than are commonly seen at a transatlantic cable station.
On the Main Street itself are a number of buildings of extraordinary importanceâ âSmithâs Hotel and the Continental and the Mariposa House, and the two banks (the Commercial and the Exchange), to say nothing of McCarthyâs Block (erected in 1878), and Gloverâs Hardware Store with the Oddfellowsâ Hall above it. Then on the âcrossâ street that intersects Missinaba Street at the main corner there is the Post Office and the Fire Hall and the Young Menâs Christian Association and the office of the Mariposa Newspacketâ âin fact, to the eye of discernment a perfect jostle of public institutions comparable only to Threadneedle Street or Lower Broadway. On all the side streets there are maple trees and broad sidewalks, trim gardens with upright calla lilies, houses with verandahs, which are here and there being replaced by residences with piazzas.
To the careless eye the scene on the Main Street of a summer afternoon is one of deep and unbroken peace. The empty street sleeps in the sunshine. There is a horse and buggy tied to the hitching post in front of Gloverâs hardware store. There is, usually and commonly, the burly figure of Mr. Smith, proprietor of Smithâs Hotel, standing in his chequered waistcoat on the steps of his hostelry, and perhaps, further up the street, Lawyer Macartney going for his afternoon mail, or the Rev. Mr. Drone, the Rural Dean of the Church of England Church, going home to get his fishing rod after a mothersâ auxiliary meeting.
But this quiet is mere appearance. In reality, and to those who know it, the place is a perfect hive of activity. Why, at Netleyâs butcher shop (established in 1882) there are no less than four men working on the sausage machines in the basement; at the Newspacket office there are as many more job-printing; there is a long distance telephone with four distracting girls on high stools wearing steel caps and talking incessantly; in the offices in McCarthyâs block are dentists and lawyers with their coats off, ready to work at any moment; and from the big planing factory down beside the lake where the railroad siding is, you may hear all through the hours of the summer afternoon the long-drawn music of the running saw.
Busyâ âwell, I should think so! Ask any of its inhabitants if Mariposa isnât a busy, hustling, thriving town. Ask Mullins, the manager of the Exchange Bank, who comes hustling over to his office from the Mariposa House every day at 10:30 and has scarcely time all morning to go out and take a drink with the manager of the Commercial; or askâ âwell, for the matter of that, ask any of them if they ever knew a more rushing go-ahead town than Mariposa.
Of course if you come to the place fresh from New York, you are deceived. Your standard of vision is all astray. You do think the place is quiet. You do imagine that Mr. Smith is asleep merely because he closes his eyes as he stands. But live in Mariposa for six months or a year and then you will begin to understand it better; the buildings get higher and higher; the Mariposa House grows more and more luxurious; McCarthyâs 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 storeâ âand amusements! well, now! lacrosse, baseball, excursions, dances, the Firemanâs Ball every winter and the Catholic picnic every summer; and musicâ âthe town band in the park every Wednesday evening, and the Oddfellowsâ brass band on the street every other Friday; the Mariposa Quartette, the Salvation Armyâ âwhy, after a few monthsâ 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 re-estimate (based on the data of relative nonpayment 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 âdemisedâ 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 itâs 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
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