Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/117

 a conference with Marvin Hewitt, President of the C. & R. W. who had showed them the blue prints, and, as he put it, any reasonable man could see it would be utterly impossible to strike Calias in the route they desired to go. The railroad wanted to strike the Government town sites, but the president told them that if at any time he could do them a favor to call on him, and he would gladly do so.

In a few days a man named John Nodgen came to Calias. Towns which had failed to get a road looked upon him in the way a sick man would an undertaker. He was a red-haired Irishman with teeth wide apart and wildish blue eyes, who had the reputation of moving more towns than any other one man. He brought horses and wagons, block and tackle, and massive steel trucks. He swore like a stranded sailor, and declared they would hold up any two buildings in Calias.

The saloon was the first building deserted. The stock had not been removed when the house movers arrived, and in some way they got the door open and helped themselves to the "booze," and when full enough to be good and noisy, began jacking up the building that had been the pride of the hopeful Caliasites. In a few weeks a large part of what had been Calias was in Megory and a small part in Kirk.

It had stopped raining for a while, and several large buildings were still on the move to Megory when the rain set in again. This was the latter part of July and how it did rain, every day and night. One store building one hundred feet long had been