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Lamar Strickland-Payne Writes Racy Story of Lrabel —Tells Holv He and the Editor of The Golden Age
"Started Off" Their Tlvo Weeks 9 Stay in Memphis,
Memphis, Tenn., April 4th, 1911.
FTER all, traveling is a go, when
you get off, harmoniously. It has
been almost a year since the Chief
and I hit the trail, across the broad
and beautiful waters of the Poto
mac, and plunged into a lively tax
icab near the head-waters of the
Patapsco, where the inhabitants go
down to the sea, in ships. Do you
I
know the name of that port-of-entry ? I do,
because I have been there —and all the Opti
mists. Those who saw the doughnut and not
the hole, /Xngelina!
The Chief imagines that I am a duck, and
that I love water. So, he hunted another port
for me to swim over. And I had to have a
train to bring me to that port. And so he
’phoned down to the Assistant General Pas
senger Agent of the S. A. L., all about the
matter.
I was spanked aboard in Atlanta about 5 :30
p. m. Such a lovely car awaited me, new and
just out of the shops. It reminded me of the
“Halcyon” in “The Mission Girl,” and gave
me a heavenly feeling. Two porters had to
assist me aboard, you know, because I have
a habit of drawing all the brew to my aid.
They were impressed by the cover of The
Golden Age, which was ultra-impressive, for
last week:
“Two Terrible Texans!”
For all the porters knew I was one of them,
and, perhaps, the most terrible.
The Chief had to tell his bride good-bye so
he did not get on board right at once. I didn’t
have a bride to say good-bye to, “don’t you
know,” so I told the Pullman car conductor
to file the grips and me away in the middle of
Lis palace car. He did.
Presently, the Chief bounced in on his
crutches, and the long train glided out. A
S. A. L. train, Angelina, never starts, and
bumps your little nose into the seat in front
of you, but always glides out. Bear that point
in mind, dear heart!
You know that I was ultra-glad that I was
seated aboard that train, for it started in the
direction of my La Granja, and I thought that
the Chief was just going to take tea with me.
But (she) went click, click over the shiny rails
of my interurban line, and we swung off, into
the yellow pools of an early April sunset. The
silver and dull gold chariot of Apollo sank
over the purple pine crests that evening, with
a gentleness, that Patrick Walsh used to
dream was. only peculiar to Augusta. “Please
go to sleep, Buster Brown,” it seemed to sing.
After that, the dining car porters gave the
first call for dinner. But the Chief was busy.
At the second call, he was still busy, with his
front page story. Then I remembered that I
had Uneeda Biscuits and silvery sided Scandi
navian smoked sardines —don’t get your
tongue twisted over this o-o-o-o-ing, Angelina
—tied to my grip. We got busy. Sardines
and biscuits vanished. The Chief took
a tremendous fancy to making biscuits
into sardine tongs, and playing soltaire fish
ing. I was given orders to prance forward,
and buy the Atlanta evening dailies. After I
left the Pullman. I forgot the names of the
evening papers. It was at Cedartown or
Rockmart. Why burden the memory with such
details? The Pullman car conductor spied me.
“My dear friend,” said I, “if there is a news
butcher aboard, waft him. with all due diplo
macy, toward the Chief!” Then said the con
ductor, “The news-butcher is not aboard to
night!” “Telegraph him,” said I. The head
conductor came to the Chief’s rescue. lie
searched through the cars, and found “The
Atlanta Journal.” The Chief and The Journal
TWO "INNOCENTS ABROAD”
The Golden Age for April 13, 1911.
are near neighbors. They seemed pleased to
meet one another.
10:45! I ambulated into the dining car, ad
mired the silver and the damask, tried to read
that old Chinese puzzle the Menu, saw that
something was a dime —and backed out. I
couldn’t hold anything more, don’t you know,
Angelina? Eating is such a bore anyway. I
rarely indulge, unless the waiters cut-the-pig
eon-wing. I love lamb, I mean squab on toast!
Squab is a sort of pigeon, isn’t it, dear?
Then I had a private audience with the por
ter. “How do you get hold of a table to play
on?” I querried. “Ask for it?” This was too
much for him. He ducked his head into upper
3. After awhile I understood him to say:
“Only two tables to a car, but you may have
one—to play on.” “My dollies,” I replied,
are in the tea grip.” Again his head went into
upper three. Then we went over to the draw
ing room, the porter and I. I wished to spend
the night there. “You must be married,” said
the porter. “Too-doo-dle !” I answered. “Not
with Easter so near.” Then I backed back to
the Chief. I explained about the drawing room
rules. “Please let me spend the night—with
you!” I urged. I was very humble about it.
He consent M.
At Birmingham I was a-bed. It came to
me that I had one lovely sister, a charming
cousin, and forty lost sweethearts, in Birming
ham. I was sorry, that I could not go out to
see them. But I was in bed. And when I
am in bed, I intend to stay in bed. What’s the
use of getting out?
That night I slept clean through Alabama,
and half of Mississippi. I hated to treat the
States that way, but I had to, don’t you know ?
They didn’t seem to mind, at all.
At Holly Springs I awoke, raised the cur
tain and examined the station. Then the train
pulled out into Mississippi landscapes, not so
different from dear old Georgia as you might
imagine, but low-lying, dreamy, and beautiful.
The train paused at a watering tank, and I
paused to point out to the Chief my bath-tub
in the swamps. But the Chief wouldn’t let
Apollo out of the window. However, I did
pretty good without it; although ’tis April,
don’t you know, when all of Sir Baden-Pow
ell’s boy-scouts wish to take to the woods, with
the long staff.
Then Memphis! Oh, Hello!
The porter bowed us out of his palace; and
I marched after the Chief, “hay-foot, straw
foot, lift-up-your-left-foot in front of your
right foot”—along the tracks. You always feel
kindly toward the big three-wheeler that has
brought you safe to the journey’s end. And,
I wished to shake hands with the Man of the
Throttle, who had turned the trick f but the
Chief, a porter and sundry grips were already
speeding through the station —Union or non
union, doesn't matter —on the high gear.
Friends captured the Chief, and he proceed
ed in a state of high and glorious triumph to
the Hotel Gayoso.
Now let me get you by your buttonhole,
and pay strict attention to my little song,
please. After frolicking over three States. An
gelina, during the night, I was in time for
breakfast in a fourth. Oh! but don’t we travel
these days? What? Just think of getting
outside of rolls and coffee and oatmeal, half
a thousand miles from your doll-house, and at
8:00 a. m.? I like to run on schedule, don’t
you? Your poise is so much better.
It was God’s day. And the Chief was going
to fill the pulpit at the great Central Baptist
Church. I missed the Chief’s lecture before
the Sunday school classes, because 1 had to
pull a small ox out of the ditch. When 1 had
the ox out, down I went in great state, for
church. It didn’t seem to matter which, but
the head porter gave me directions that led
me to the church where the Chief was going
to “tell the old, old story,” from April 2d to
16th.
Modesty for the Chief and his secretary,
make me to balk right here.
The Only Lonesome House.
(Continued from Page 1.)
owns a chain of these mess-holes and he
thought this new town would be a good place
to get a foothold. Before he had put bricks
and mortar together he was advised by sev
eral citizens that he could not sell near beer or
any other kind of intoxicating drinks in their
new town —for Campbell county had a special
law on this question in addition to the prohi
bition law of Georgia. But the liquor man re
plied, “That he didn’t care a blank about what
the law was, he would put an old soldier in it
who could sell without license, and the busi
ness would surely go on.” But he was told
that the mayor and council would not allow it.
“What do 1 care about your mayor and coun
cil,” answered Mr. Booze-seller. “I have elect
ed the mayor and council in many towns and
I can elect them in yours.”
“All right, Mr.—” said the fearless citizen
who was talking to him, “some of us just
thought we would save you some money by ad
vising against your erecting this house for a
beer saloon.” But he thanked them that he
didn’t need any of their advice, and the house
went up.
Mr. Booze-seller even went so far as to com
plete the upstairs to his swill house for his old
soldier partner to live in. He then put put a
“wet” ticket against the “dry,” and that same
wet ticket received just exactly six votes. D.
A. Carmical, the great-hearted founder of the
town, was elected by such an overwhelming,
crushing majority, that the owner of the new
drinkless saloon, folded his tent and silently
stole away. “For rent” and “for sale” cards
have hung on the house in vain. They tell
me that they actually tried to make coffins in
it, and the people refused to die and be buried
in “wet coffins.” It seems to be a house with a
hoo-doo, and is the only lonesome house in that
plucky, glorious town.
No wonder Union City is growing, and des
tined to larger grow with such a class of clean,
stalwart, fearless citizens!
Mark my words, it will become not only a
town of more factories and more commercial
progress, but it will be a home of special
schools and colleges. The new suburban elec
tric line from Fairburn to Atlanta runs right
through Union City, and puts it within an
hour’s run of Atlanta every hour in the day.
But I did not start out to write a commercial
article —I just wanted to put the crown on the
brow of such a brave, clean town, with such a
lonesome house as that dethroned abode of out
lawed spirits.
Yes, and a chaplet of honor, on the head of
Mayor- Carmical and his stalwart Councilmen,
who are determined to build a Greater Union
City, and keep it forever a spotless town.
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