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Looking inside, the General would roar: "Hello, Billy, my boy." The less distinguished members of the escort would call: "Morning, Billy." The Governor would pipe: "Good morning, William." Then a patient-looking little man with hair turning gray along the temples would come down the steps and shake hands with each one of the party. All Elmville shook hands when it met.
The news had come that a touring presidential party would honour Elmville by a twenty-minute stop. The Executive had promised a five-minute address from the balcony of the Palace Hotel. Elmville arose as one man that man being, of course, General Deffenbaugh to receive becomingly the chieftain of all the clans. The train with the tiny Stars and Stripes fluttering from the engine pilot arrived.
But Elmville "Billied" and "sonned" him to his concealed but lasting chagrin, until at length he grew more reserved and formal and studious than ever. There came a morning when Billy found among his mail a letter from a very high source, tendering him the appointment to an important judicial position in the new island possessions of our country.
How much more magnificent, impressive, and spectacular, then, was the scene at public functions when the General would lead forth the silver-haired relic of former greatness, like some rare and fragile waxwork figure, and trumpet his pristine eminence to his fellow citizens! General Deffenbaugh was the Voice of Elmville. Some said he was Elmville.
Never until now when a Northern President of the United States should clasp hands with ex-war-Governor Pemberton would the breach be entirely closed would the country be made one and indivisible no North, not much South, very little East, and no West to speak of. So Elmville excitedly scraped kalsomine from the walls of the Palace Hotel with its Sunday best, and waited for the Voice to speak.
And now when he was old, and enjoying a richly merited repose outside the swift current of public affairs, his townsmen loved to do him reverence for the sake of the past. The Governor's decaying "mansion" stood upon the main street of Elmville within a few feet of its rickety paling-fence.
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