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 trees around it in due course. There is a lot of compensation in a cottonwood tree for that arid short-grass land.

Exactly in the center of this square, where the very holy of holies of the court house would be, a plank platform had been built for the ceremonies of that historic day. There was a railing around it, where flags draped over, and a table with a pitcher of water cooled by a large lump of ice. Kansas orators are great fellows for drawing on the pitcher of water. Many a bright idea has been irrigated in the pause of pouring and drinking, to spring into flowery speech as marvelously as the juggler's rose in the pot of sand.

Here on this platform the judge of the circuit sat, with the congressman and other notables, among them the officers of the new county waiting for the oath that would harness them completely to their new dignities.

Bergen was there in his impressive coat, a white vest in place of the red one of ordinary wear. Red was a good color for a business vest, but in politics a man must show a symbol of virtue, let him live up to it as he would after getting the office.

Puckett was there, his slumping, useless shoulders drooping a little more than usual, it seemed, on account of his public exposure in an elevated place without a table to put his elbows on; and Major Simmons, hat tipped saucily over his left ear; and Ruddy, the mayorhardware man, looking as ill-favored as if he never had got over the loss of his window pane broken by the fittified man.

Schubert was on the platform, calculatively solemn,