The usual formula of incidents peculiar to an uneventful town and its
vicinity: The countryman from "Jessup's Crossing," with the cornstalk
coffin-measure, loped into town, his steaming little
gray-and-red-flecked "roadster" gurgitating, as it were, with that
mysterious utterance that ever has commanded and ever must evoke the
wonder and bewilderment of every boy. The small-pox rumor became
prevalent betimes, and the subtle aroma of the assafoetida-bag
permeated the graded schools "from turret to foundation-stone;" the
still recurring expos? of the poor-house management; the farm-hand,
with the scythe across his shoulder, struck dead by lightning; the
long-drawn quarrel between the rival editors culminating in one of
them assaulting the other with a "sidestick," and the other kicking
the one down stairs and thenceward _ad libitum;_ the tramp,
suppositiously stealing a ride, found dead on the railroad; the grand
jury returning a sensational indictment against a bar-tender _non
est_; the Temperance outbreak; the "Revival;" the Church Festival; and
the "Free Lectures on Phrenology, and Marvels of Mesmerism," at the
town hall. It was during the time of the last-mentioned sensation, and
directly through this scientific investigation, that I came upon two
of the town's most remarkable characters.
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