Chapter 7 - Page 2

road--a platformless, regulationless necessity;
and it is treated even by sick persons and young children with a
familiarity that sometimes affects the death-rate. There was a small
maiden aged seven, who honoured our smoking compartment with her
presence when other excitements failed, and it was she that said to the
conductor, 'When do we change crews? I want to pick water-lilies--yellow
ones.' A mere halt she knew would not suffice for her needs; but the
regular fifteen-minute stop, when the red-painted tool-chest was taken
off the rear car and a new gang came aboard. The big man bent down to
little Impudence--'Want to pick lilies, eh? What would you do if the
cars went on and took mama away, Sis?' 'Take the, next train,' she
replied, 'and tell the conductor to send me to Brooklyn. I live there.'
'But s'pose he wouldn't?' 'He'd have to,' said Young America. 'I'd be a
lost child.'

Now, from the province of Alberta to Brooklyn, U.S.A., may be three
thousand miles. A great stretch of that distance is as new as the day
before yesterday, and strewn with townships in every stage of growth
from the city of one round house, two log huts, and a Chinese camp
somewhere in the foot-hills of the Selkirks, to Winnipeg with her
league-long main street and her warring newspapers. Just at present
there is an epidemic of politics in Manitoba, and brass bands and
notices of committee meetings are splashed about the towns. By reason
of their closeness to the Stages they have caught the contagion of
foul-mouthedness, and accusations of bribery, corruption, and
evil-living are many. It is sweet to find a little baby-city, with only
three men in it who can handle type, cursing and swearing across the
illimitable levels for all the world as though it were a grown-up
Christian centre.

All the new towns have their own wants to consider, and the first of
these is a railway. If the town is on a line already, then a new line to
tap the back country; but at all costs a line. For this it will sell its
corrupted soul, and then be very indignant because the railway before
which it has grovelled rides rough-shod over the place.

Each new town believes itself to be a possible Winnipeg until the
glamour of the thing is a little worn off, and the local paper, sliding
down the pole of Pride with the hind legs of despair, says defiantly:
'At least, a veterinary surgeon and a drug store would meet with
encouragement in our midst, and it is a fact that five new buildings
have been erected in our midst since the spring.' From a distance
nothing is easier than to smile at this sort of thing, but he must have
a cool head who can keep his pulse level when just such a wildcat
town--ten houses, two churches, and a line of rails--gets 'on