Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/154

 board. The ruined shacks had given place to neat frame-houses, and the queer people took the best of care of any sufferers from the outside world and often sent them back cured. Funny graft, eh? Tib said it was a case of similia similibus curantur. And, mind you, those people weren't rank crazy. They averaged enough rationality to prosper and to care for an occasionally violent voter. But they were peculiar, eccentric, and of course every little while some one would get to telephoning to himself and cutting up didoes.

"Well, when Tib heard of the settlement the scenario appealed to him, and naught would do but we hire bicycles and wheel up for a visit.

"‘We are all batty on some one subject,' he declared to me. 'I'm sane until it comes to shows. Another is evenly balanced until it comes to north poles, and so it goes. I'll bet these simple folk are more rational than the average alderman.'

"To cut across lots, we came to Tanker's at nightfall, and saw from the brow of a hill a scattering settlement of white houses. As we entered the main street we observed a grocery-store, a blacksmith-shop, and a small hall. And what surprised us was the busy-bee activity of a crowd of men bunched in front of the village smithy's place of business.

"‘What's doing, fair and merry sirs?" accosted