Even before the war, this
county-seat town was a place of no little importance, and many a good
tale might be told of those exciting days when the woods were full of
guerrillas and bushwhackers, and the village was raided first by one
side, then by the other. Many a good tale is told, indeed; for the
fathers and mothers of Corinth love to talk of the war times, and to
point out in Old Town the bullet-marked buildings and the scenes of many
thrilling events.
But the sons and daughters of the passing generation, with their sons
and daughters, like better to talk of the great things that are going to
be--when the proposed shoe-factory comes, the talked-of mills are
established, the dreamed-of electric line is built out from the city, or
the Capitalist from Somewhere-else arrives to invest in vacant lots,
thereon to build new hotels and business blocks.
The Doctor says that in the whole history of Corinth there are only two
events. The first was the coming of the railroad; the second was the
death of the Doctor's good friend, the Statesman.
The railroad did not actually enter Corinth. It stopped at the front
gate. But with Judge Strong's assistance the fathers and mothers
recognized their "golden opportunity" and took the step which the
eloquent Judge assured them would result in a "glorious future." They
left the beautiful, well-drained site chosen by those who cleared the
wilderness, and stretched themselves out along the mud-flat on either
side of the sacred right-of-way--that same mud-flat being, incidentally,
the property of the patriotic Judge.
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