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"I would offer you a chair, but you see, sir," I went on, "I have lived in Montopolis only three weeks, and I have not met many of our citizens." I turned a doubtful eye upon his dust-stained shoes, and concluded with a newspaper phrase, "I suppose that you reside in our midst?" My visitor fumbled in his raiment, drew forth a soiled card, and handed it to me.
She was too gay a sort for Montopolis, so one day she slips off to another town and runs away with a circus. It was two years before she comes back, all fixed up in fine clothes and rings and jewellery, to see Mike. He wouldn't have nothin' to do with her, so she stays around town awhile, anyway.
I inquired. "Whiskey," epitomized Judge Hoover. "That explains him." I was silent, but I did not accept the explanation. And so, when I had the chance, I asked old man Sellers, who browsed daily on my exchanges. "Mike O'Bader," said he, "was makin' shoes in Montopolis when I come here goin' on fifteen year ago. I guess whiskey's his trouble. Once a month he gets off the track, and stays so a week.
I trust that women may not be allowed a title to all the curiosity in the world. Uncle Abner was the Complete History of Montopolis, bound in butternut. "O'Bader," he quavered, "come here in '69. He was the first shoemaker in the place. Folks generally considers him crazy at times now. But he don't harm nobody. I s'pose drinkin' upset his mind yes, drinkin' very likely done it.
I could not yet accept whiskey as an explanation. "Did Mike O'Bader ever have a great loss or trouble of any kind?" I asked. "Lemme see! About thirty year ago there was somethin' of the kind, I recollect. Montopolis, sir, in them days used to be a mighty strict place. "Well, Mike O'Bader had a daughter then a right pretty girl.
A strange requiem, you may say, over the body of a fallen, comrade; but if Jimmy Hayes could have heard it he would have understood. I sat an hour by sun, in the editor's room of the Montopolis Weekly Bugle. I was the editor. The saffron rays of the declining sunlight filtered through the cornstalks in Micajah Widdup's garden-patch, and cast an amber glory upon my paste-pot.
Upon it was written, in plain but unsteadily formed characters, the name "Michob Ader." "I am glad you called, Mr. Ader," I said. "As one of our older citizens, you must view with pride the recent growth and enterprise of Montopolis. Among other improvements, I think I can promise that the town will now be provided with a live, enterprising newspa "
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