Springdale

“ Three hundred rag-cutters walked out of the Baldwin Mills an hour ago.”
“I didn’t know that the Baldwins ever had a strike in their mills.”
“They don’t often have one, and when they do, the world at large does not know about it, they have such a strong grip on the newspapers about here. My son, Tom, works on the Springdale Democrat, and he has told me a lot about these things. Springdale is about fifty miles from here, and the Democrat pretends to be an independent newspaper, and yet it never prints any news from Papyrus [55] which can possibly hurt Congressman Baldwin. ”

“ Women are called ivy; and the ivy has a hundred little fingers in every inch of its length, that strike at every flaw and crack and weak place in the strong wall they mean to overgrow; and so had Lillie. She saw, at a glance, that the sober, thoughtful, Christian life of Springdale was wholly opposed to the life she wanted to lead, and in which John was to be her instrument. She saw that, if such women as Grace and Rose had power with him, she should not have; and her husband should be hers alone. ”

“ The doctor took Ruth by the hand. Martin followed with the baggage and in another moment the train was winding its way down the track leaving Ruth and her friends on the platform of the station at Springdale.
"You leave the little girl in my charge," said the doctor to Martin. "I will see her home. You will not have any too much time to hunt up your friends and so we need not tax you further. Thank you, Martin, for your kindness to our little girl." ”

“ I remember a young man— (do you remember him?) —who was a great admirer of the Springdale Democrat, which [184] has been called the New England Bible. It is eloquent, in season and out of season, in advocating equal rights for the Southern negro and the Filipino, but never asks equal rights for the mill-hands of Papyrus. It does not hesitate to criticise the President of the United States, but its millionaire idol, Congressman Baldwin, is exempt from criticism. Can you defend this course?
“Let me urge one consideration which cannot fail to have weight with you. ”

“ Isaac Behunin had come to Dixie in the fall of 1861 and settled at Northrop until the flood in January, 1862, after which he moved to Springdale and built a home. In addition to farming in Springdale he visited Zion in the summer of 1863 and started some 156 operations there, building a one-room log cabin not far from where Zion Lodge now stands. ”

“ When a man has just found the greatest blessing of his life he may be forgiven for being dull to common things.”
“It seems to me that Cupid was working overtime last night,” remarked the Congressman to himself.
“I do not wish to make public what I know about Jehu Baldwin,” continued the voice from Springdale, “because I think that some older person put up the job, and has used Jehu merely as a tool; but unless you shall promptly withdraw your charge against Wycliff, justice will compel me to make a public announcement.” ”

“ Wayne explained and the man chuckled. “It’s a fine-sounding name all right,” he said. “How’d you like a job here with me, Sloan? I been looking for a feller for a week. There’s a guy up to Springdale that wants the place, and he’s coming down this afternoon to see me, but—I don’t know.” Jim looked out the window and whistled a tune thoughtfully. “He mightn’t do at all,” he went on after a moment, “and if you say you want to try it——”
“I do!” said Wayne promptly. “That is, if you think I could.” ”

“ In 1846 the Town of Primrose, immediately south of Springdale, also received its first Norwegian settlers, namely, Christian Hendrickson, wife Maria and three children, Caroline, Henry, and Charles. He had emigrated from Lier, Norway, in 1842, and worked four years in the lead mines at Wiota to pay his passage from Norway. Mr. Hendrickson drove from Wiota to Primrose with oxen, all his possessions being then a wagon, a cow, and seventy-five cents. He lived eight years in the log hut first erected and built a stone structure in 1855. ”

“ In a little while he had learned to read a newspaper with one eye and keep the other on the narrow window that looked out along the line; to mark with one ear the "down brakes" signal of the north-bound freight, clear in the siding, and with the other to catch the whistle of the oncoming "cannon ball," faint and far away.
When Jewett had been at Springdale some six or eight months, another young man dropped from the local one morning, and said, "Wie [Pg 257] gehts," and handed him a letter. The letter was from the Superintendent, calling him back to Bloomington to despatch trains. ”

“ She still had her little hall bedroom, and Mademoiselle was now given a room upon the same floor, though Ruth would have preferred her to be elsewhere.
"J'ai, tu as, il a," crooned Ruth one afternoon as she sat in the nursery, studying a lesson.
"Oh dear, I don't want to study French," she sighed. "It won't be a bit of use to me, for when I grow up I shall go back to Springdale. I may go sooner than that. None of the girls there will learn French. Well, perhaps Lucia will if she goes away to boarding-school, and perhaps Nora might. ”

“ She put her hand confidently in Martin's when she was lifted from the carriage and possessing himself of the valise in which Katie had packed Ruth's clothing, the butler took his way to the cars, smiling down at the child as he seated himself by her side.
"Now, ain't this a frolic?" he said. "I don't know when I would have got to see John Fox if it hadn't been for you, and now here I'm travelin' off to Springdale with a young lady." ”

“ On the other hand, tillable land in Zion Canyon was not brought under cultivation for a dozen years or more.
Flat lands suitable for agriculture in Zion were found in two areas along the canyon floor, separated by a mile or more of rocky, steep-sided canyon difficult to travel. The lower area, in which Springdale was located, was a narrow valley less than a mile wide and four or five miles long separated from the Parunuweap fork of the river by a reef of Shinarump Conglomerate, more resistant to erosion than the overlying Chinle shales in which the valley had been cut. ”

“ Ruth went on. "He looks much finer in his livery, and he is very stern and straight when he is in the dining-room though you wouldn't think it to see him now when he looks just like any one else."
"But why is he taking you to Springdale?" asked the doctor.
"Oh, because there wasn't any one else to do it and it was a good chance for him to go to see John Fox. Do you know John Fox? Uncle is away on business and Aunt Lillie has taken Bertie to Lakewood. Bertie is horrid, doctor; he broke my dear little mug that Billy gave me just because I wouldn't let him have Hetty to break up. ”

“ Avanel and I walk south to the city down beautiful Fifteenth Street. The city is the Fair and the Fair is the city, though there has not yet come the formal proclamation to the world of the opening. There is not one heart on the street but seems to be beating happily. The elation in the air on this perfect June night is worth a lifetime of groans. It seems to me that for this hour Springfield has been patiently toiling and staggering on, despite much sorrow and sin, for a century. ”

“ The voices of the children will be as noble as the discourses of the prairie winds that catch our tree boughs at sunset. Every house will be as delicate and subtle as the ferny hollows of the Sangamon. The convert will name many birds that will come at his call and he will feed them crumbs of this Blessed Bread in friendship.
“When Springfield has partaken of this manna for a generation, all things will become new. Leavening thoughts will come from all the street corners. Novel fancies will come from the coffee houses. ”

“ They are not on the map, but that matters little. We ought to be thankful that the dullness of the guide-book makers and topographists has still left us here and there serene bits of nature.
Springfield had a church, and a school, and a post office, and a tavern. It was a scattered sort of place, and a week of it would have proved the death of a city lady, accustomed to life only as it glows with color, or sparkles with the champagne of passion. ”

“ The old war between the town and the gown seems revived, with this difference, that the natives of Springfield act like the University students, and the finest World’s Fair visitors seem the real citizens of the place, insulted at the deeds of the freshmen. ”

“ These children will grow in stature and beauty for twenty years. And then these little sons of God will see the daughters of men, that they are fair, as it was in the book of Genesis, at the very beginning of time. The next generation of men in Springfield, born of the loves of these angels and daughters of the city, will be giants like Nimrod. These giants will drive out the former institutions with their own swords, forged for this special war. That generation will build many mansions of divine beauty, sheltering men and near-angels alike. ”

“ Having come now to the Sark, and across it into the long street of Springfield, and by the same token into Scotland, it is necessary to tell at length the story of “Gretna Green” marriages. It could scarce be told in more forbidding surroundings, for Springfield is one long street of gaunt, unrelieved commonplace, and neither the once notorious “Queen’s Head” inn on the right, nor the “Maxwell Arms” on the left, helps to relieve it in the least degree. But the devil’s in it if love can’t throw a rosy tinge over even such a scene, and doubtless Springfield looked entrancing to some. ”

“ Springfield has much more the appearance of a city than Worcester and Northampton, for there are at least some stone houses situated so closely together that they form a street. Colonel Lee had the goodness to take us in his carriage to the manufactory of arms, of which he is the director. It is situated about a mile from Springfield, in a very beautiful valley, on a rivulet. It employs daily two hundred and seventy-four workmen. These are settled in the vicinity of the manufactory, form a kind of colony, and have a school for their children. ”

“ Every highest, furtherest bud that opens day after tomorrow, or in a thousand years, will flash with a spark and a flame, that has climbed up hundreds and thousands of miles from the roots that touch all the gardens of our city, up the old streets of Heaven, where this vine blooms today.
In the twinkling of an eye, while the star chimes of Springfield are ringing new tunes, from the dimmest stars of the blue, from east, 320west, north and south, magic boats sweep down to the Amazonian field. ”

“ The city has been losing, since the election and the lynching, as much genius as it does deviltry. Sparrow Short who has been obliged to take down his pictures and hang them defiantly in his own studio, has turned into a profane old varlet, amazing to hear, and is inciting as many pupils of ours as possible to leave Springfield. ”

“ Springfield is a long straggling village, on a fine flat, sheltered on the north by a small chain of low but abrupt hills, and bounded on the south by the beautiful river Muskingum. The road or street is of clean gravel, and the [Pg 225] cabins are distinguished from those I had hitherto seen by their chimneys of brick, instead of stone or logs. There are some good brick houses building, and some taverns and some stores, which give it a thriving appearance. There is also a fine grist and saw mill at the falls of the Muskingum at the upper end of the town. ”

“ Somehow the gang of us who had idled away the summer afternoons in the sand-bar shallows beyond the Deep Hole seemed suddenly to grow into young men who must not neglect school nor business duties. Awkwardly enough but earnestly we strove to keep Springvale a pushing, prosperous community, and while our efforts were often ludicrous, the manliness of purpose had its effect. ”

“ There is a babble and a roar that is the beating of the vast heart of Springfield. Its rhythm goes into our footfalls every instant.
It is late, and Avanel insists on going on, in the intoxication of weariness, and will not let me take her to her house on Mulberry Boulevard. She leads me into the very thick of the great forest of Sunset Towers again, now “midnight towers,” she says to me, with her face flushed to a deep crimson from utter weariness, and her eyes heavy with the desire for sleep, and her determined little feet still dancing nervously on. ”

“ But the southeast 125point of the Springfield star system is a road that passes through the inner-wall gate at Taylorville and the outer at Pana, and points in the direction of Virginia and Richmond. Our fruit and flower devotees take all roads, but because of the wonders of the early southern spring many of them deem this the holiest way. There are found, more than other where, the botanizing pilgrims of the faiths of my friend Rabbi Terence Ezekiel and my friend Mother Grey and her daughter Roxana. ”

“ All phases of the race—the religious mystery, moving in harmony, cleanness, and self respect are not only a part of Springfield’s total personality, but of Springfield’s government, in the midst of apparent mob-law. ”

“ It is the dream of a human beehive far from the Marxian society. It is something on the newest New Harmony model, a Springfield that is democratic, artistic, religious, and patriarchal, and therefore following many of the most ancient forms and metaphors of orthodoxy, as an electric light may be softened and given its final character by the shell of an ancient horn lantern.
April 7:—This evening I take Avanel Boone to the Henry George dinner. ”