The village of Thessaly took no pains to conceal the fact that it was very proud of itself. What is perhaps more unique is that the farming people round about, and even the smaller and rival hamlets scattered through the section, cordially recognized Thessaly’s right to be proud, and had a certain satisfaction in themselves sharing that pride.
Lest this should breed misconception and paint a more halcyon picture of these minor communities than is deserved, let it be explained that they were not without their vehement jealousies and bickerings among one another. Often there arose between them sore contentions over questions of tax equalization and over political neglects and intrigues; and here, too, there existed, in generous measure, those queer parochial prejudices—based upon no question whatever, and defying alike inquiry and explanation—which are so curious a heritage from the childhood days of the race. No long-toed brachycephalous cave-dweller of the stone age could have disliked the stranger who hibernated in the holes on the other side of the river more heartily than the people of Octavius disliked those of Sidon. In the hop-picking season the young men of these two townships always fell to fighting when they met, and their pitched conflicts in and around the Half-way House near Tyre, when dances were given there in the winter, were things to talk about straight through until hoeing had begun in the spring. There were many other of these odd and inexplicable aversions—as, for instance, that which had for many years impelled every farmer along the whole length of the Nedahma Creek road to vote against any and all candidates nominated from Juno Mills, a place which they scarcely knew and had no earthly reason for disliking. But in such cases no one asked for reasons. Matters simply stood that way, and there was nothing more to be said.
But everybody was proud of Thessaly. Neighbors took almost as much pleasure in boasting of its wealth and activity, and prophesying its future greatness, as did its own sons. The farmers when they came in gazed with gratified amazement at the new warehouses, the new chimneys, the new factory walls that were rising everywhere about them, and returned more satisfied than ever that “Thessaly was just a-humming along.” Dearborn County had always heretofore been a strictly agricultural district, full of rich farm-lands and well-to-do farm-owners, and celebrated in the markets of New York for the excellence of its dairy products. Now it seemed certain that Thessaly would soon be a city, and it was already a subject for congratulation that the industries which were rooting, sprouting, or bearing fruit there had given Dearborn County a place among the dozen foremost manufacturing shires in the State.
The farmers were as pleased over this as any one else. It was true that they were growing poorer year by year; that their lands were gradually becoming covered with a parchment film of mortgages, more deadly than sorrel or the dreaded black-moss; that the prices of produce had gone down on the one hand as much as the cost of living and of labor had risen on the other; that a rich farmer had become a rarity in a district which once was controlled by the princes of herds and waving fields: but all the same the agriculturists of Dearborn County were proud of Thessaly, of its crowds of foreign-born operatives, its smoke-capped chimneys, and its noisy bustle. They marched almost solidly to the polls to vote for the laws which were supposed to protect its industries, and they consoled themselves for falling incomes and increased expenditure by roseate pictures of the great “home market” which Thessaly was to create for them when it became a city.
The village had once been very slow indeed. For many years it had been scarcely known to the outside world save as the seat of a seminary of something more than local repute. This institution still nestled under the brow of the hill whence the boy Reuben Tracy had looked with fondly wistful vision down upon it, but it was no longer of much importance. It was yet possible to discern in the quiet streets immediately adjoining the seminary enclosure, with their tall arched canopies of elm-boughs, and old-fashioned white houses with verandas and antique gardens, some remains of the academic character that this institution had formerly imparted to the whole village. But the centre of activity and of population had long since moved southward, and around this had grown up a new Thessaly, which needed neither elms nor gardens, which had use for its children at the loom or the lathe when the rudiments of the common school were finished, and which alike in its hours of toil and of leisure was anything rather than academie.
I suppose that in this modern Thessaly, with its factories and mills, its semi-foreign saloons, and its long streets of uniformly ugly cottage dwellings, there were many hundreds of adults who had no idea whether the once-famous Thessaly seminary was still open or not.
If Thessaly had had the time and inclination for a serious study of itself, this decadence of the object of its former pride might have awakened some regret. The seminary, which had been one of the first in the land to open its doors to both sexes, had borne an honorable part in the great agitation against slavery that preceded the war. Some of its professors had been distinguished abolitionists—of the kind who strove, suffered, and made sacrifices when the cause was still unpopular, yet somehow fell or were edged out of public view once the cause had triumphed and there were rewards to be distributed, and they had taken the sentiment of the village with them in those old days. Then there was a steady demand upon the seminary library, which was open to householders of the village, for good books. Then there was maintained each winter a lecture course, which was able, not so much by money as by the weight and character of its habitual patrons, to enrich its annual lists with such names as Emerson, Burritt, Phillips, Curtis, and Beecher. At this time had occurred the most sensational episode in the history of the village—when the rumor spread that a runaway negro was secreted somewhere about the seminary buildings, and a pro-slavery crowd came over from Tyre to have him out and to vindicate upon the persons of his protectors the outraged majesty of the Fugitive Slave law, and the citizens of Thessaly rose and chased back the invaders with celerity and emphasis.
But all this had happened so long ago that it was only vaguely remembered now. There were those who still liked to recall those days and to tell stories about them, but they had only themselves for listeners. The new Thessaly was not precisely intolerant of the history of this ante-bellum period, but it had fresher and more important matters to think of; and its customary comment upon these legends of the slow, one-horse past was, “Things have changed a good deal since then,” offered with a smile of distinct satisfaction.
Yes, things had changed. Stephen Minster’s enterprise in opening up the iron fields out at Juno, and in building the big smelting-works on the outskirts of Thessaly, had altered everything. The branch road to the coal district which he called into existence lifted the village at once into prominence as a manufacturing site. Other factories were erected for the making of buttons, shoes, Scotch-caps, pasteboard boxes, matches, and a number of varieties of cotton cloths. When this last industry appeared in the midst of them, the people of Thessaly found their heads fairly turned. To be lords of iron and cotton both!
This period of industrial progress, of which I speak with, I hope, becoming respect and pride, had now lasted some dozen years, and, so far from showing signs of interruption, there were under discussion four or five new projects for additional trades to be started in the village, which would be decided upon by the time the snow was off the ground. During these years, Thessaly had more than quadrupled its population, which was now supposed to approximate thirteen thousand, and might be even more. There had been considerable talk for the past year or two about getting a charter as a city from the legislature, and undoubtedly this would soon be done. About this step there were, however, certain difficulties, more clearly felt than expressed. Not even those who were most exultant over Thessaly’s splendid advance in wealth and activity were blind to sundry facts written on the other side of the ledger.
Thessaly had now some two thousand voters, of whom perhaps two-fifths had been born in Europe. It had a saloon for every three hundred and fifty inhabitants, and there was an uneasy sense of connection between these two facts which gave rise to awkward thoughts. The village was fairly well managed by its trustees; the electorate insisted upon nothing save that they should grant licenses liberally, and, this apart, their government did not leave much to be desired. But how would it be when the municipal honors were taken on, when mayor, aider-men and all the other officers of the new city, with enlarged powers of expenditure and legislation, should be voted for? Whenever the responsible business men of Thessaly allowed their minds to dwell upon a forecast of what this board of aldermen would probably be like, they frankly owned to themselves that the prospect was not inviting. But as a rule they did not say so, and the village was drifting citywards on a flowing tide.
It was just before Christmas that Reuben Tracy took the first step toward realizing his dream of making this Thessaly a better place than it was. Fourteen citizens, all more or less intimate friends of his, assembled at his office one evening, and devoted some hours to listening to and discussing his plans.
An embarrassment arose almost at the outset through the discovery that five or six of the men present thought Thessaly was getting on very well as it was, and had assumed that the meeting was called for the purpose of arranging a citizens’ movement to run the coming spring elections for trustees in the interest of good government—by which they of course un............