Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/19

 these various enterprises. All of this, with the smoke and noise, gave the place a comfortably progressive atmosphere, in addition to adding to its citizenship many artisans, trainmen, engine wipers, and subsidiary attendants upon the aristocracy of railroad life.

There was the river, the railroad along its shore, where cottonwoods laced with wild grapevines made green refreshment for eyes weary of summer heat glimmering over vast prairie lands; beyond the railroad, McPacken. The town seemed to empty upon the railroad, as one river empties into another, its principal street holding the little red depot, like an island, in its mouth. One stood on the station platform and looked upon all the consequence of McPacken, which was, no doubt, much greater than it appeared.

Beer kegs lay heaped in pyramidal pile on this platform at all times, if not empty ones waiting a train, full ones waiting a wagon. This pile of kegs seemed to be a proclamation to all who arrived, or lingered, or passed by, of the town's defiance, its aloofness in its wickedness from application of the commonwealth's laws.

Yet this was a wickedness of sullen defiance rather than one of lurid depravity; a wickedness that bribed county officials with the left hand while it dispensed beer with the right, practice common to Kansas towns of that time. It was a small-bore wickedness, rather despicable than destructive, which endured until the busy long arm could find time to reach out and squelch