Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/32

 opposite direction he was sure to have his curiosity gratified. His roving eyes came back to the grease wood flat and rested there speculatively. Suddenly his jaw dropped and a crumb rolled out. He looked as though an apparition had risen before his bulging eyes. Involuntarily he sprang to his feet and cried, " My Gawd — what a great place to start a town ! "

The idea came with such startling force that it seemed to the Major as if something broke in his brain. Other ideas followed. They came tumbling over each other in their struggle to get out all at once. A panorama of pictures passed so swiftly before his eyes that it made him dizzy. His eyes gleamed, the color rose in his weather- beaten cheeks, the hand with which he pointed to the grease-wood flat below trembled as he exclaimed in an excitement that made his breath come short:

"The main street'll run up the creek and about there I'll put the Op'ry House. The hotel'll stand on the corner and we'll git a Carnegie Libery for the other end of town. The High School can be over yonder and we'll keep the saloons to one side of the street. They'll be a park where folks can set, and if I ain't got pull enough to git a fifty thousand dollar Federal Buildin' — "

Then came the inspiration which made the Major stagger back:

" I'll git the post office, and name it Prouty ! "

He felt so tremulous that he had to sit down.

It seemed incredible that he had not thought of this before, for deep within him was a longing to have his name figure in the pages of the history of the big new state. Tombstones blew over, dust storms obliterated graves, photographs faded, but with a town named after him and safely on the map, nobody could forget him if he wanted to.