Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 210: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

by “Fo’ the fuhst time it may be said that the Fo’th of July is of almost univuhsal celebra- tion throughout No’th Cah’lina. This State bas not been much given to celebrations of the so’t in the past— ‘A& ND so fo’th and so fo’th.” The dig- nified, white-haired reader on the porch had abridged contemptuous- ly, his eye running dewn the newspaper article to its final phrase: “—-Hencefo’th the Fo’th of July is going to be as big a day in the So’th as in any otbuh pa’t of the Nation.” Colonel Blalock pointed one long and ominous forefinger at the afternoon gather- ing on his lawn; taking a savage bite at his even lengthier black cigar, always smoked dry, he pushed his gray hat fur- ther back on his leonine head. A most im- pressive picture he made—but it was his long forefinger that held them. His people sensed the unusual coming, and unusual things were more than rare m Callabee— not to mention as emanating from Colonel Trahern Blalock. _ } For a full minute he stood motionless, the finger bearing all the burden of his pregnant pause. he And the townfolk stared at that finger- tip, fascinated—just as you and I have been spelled under some orator’s com- manding digit, until we’d got hardened to Ferdinand Co it. In all the population of Callabee, North Carolina, not one soul had ever before felt the thrall of a threatening finger, to each one seeming so individually pointed; and all three hundred of them were there, in the Blalock front yard. A very unusual pro- ceeding. Now the colonel’s index-finger withdrew part-way, to angle itself grimly toward the editorial in his other hand. An offensive and a disturbing editorial, it appeared to be. “That piece of reading: ladies and gen’le- men, is to be found on the edituh’s puhsonal page-in the Cha’lotte Obsuhvuh of t’-day ” —he clenched the paper: and rapped it smartly against his open palm—“ t’-day, the Fo’th of July in this the Yeah of Ouh Lo’d, Nineteen Hundred and Nine- teen!” From his own soadty height, plus the four-step porch, Colonel Blalock gazed down paternally upon the small sea of faces for an instant before he resumed: ‘“““ A Day That Has Become Populuh,’ .the editoyul is headed. But it shall nevuh become,populuh with us folks heah in Cal- labee. And why do we decline to. be a pahty to this innovation? Is it that we feel a spite against the people of:the No’th,; be- cause of the late unpleasantness—ah— moah or less late now? No; we beah them no ill-will, The events of ovuh fifty yeahs 492 ra Digitized by (Go gle = NOOO Original from (C(O) S CO THE OHIO STATE UNIVERS