“Then the train would pull into this station to the sad sweet notes of the oompah horn, and the delegation of leadin’ citizens would file in behind the car, and the first leadin’ citizen would get red in the face with his Welcome talk, while we four slaves of the people were hustling the President’s speech to the depot telegraph wire before he said it.  People’s Choice, he stands on the back platform with one hand in his bosom, and says he:  ’Fellow-citizens of Basswood Junction, I am proud to see before me this large and distinguished gatherin’ of our noble North American fauna.  My visit to your pleasant valley is wholly without political significance.  These noble et cetera; these smilin’ et cetera; these beautiful et cetera, fill me with the proudest emotions of et cetera.  This, our great and glorious et cetera; Basswood Junction has four magnificent factories, and is the centre of three great trunk lines of railroad which radiate et cetera; it is destined to be a great commercial et cetera.  And what could be more confirmatory of the sober, practical judgment of the citizens of this flourishing community than the fact that they have produced and given to the world that distinguished statesman and gentleman, the Hon. Charles D. Bastrop, who is your representative in the Congress of the United States and who has always et cetera, et cetera?  ‘Fellow-citizens, the issue before this country to-day—­’ and that was where he would hit his gait.

“He had three of these, and on the schedule laid out by the chairman of the Central Committee he couldn’t spring any two alike closer together than a hundred miles.  The whole business would take about five minutes to a station.  We would put number Two, or number Three, or whichever it was, on the wire, while the People’s Choice was talkin’, provided we could catch the station agent, who on such occasions was bigger than the President.  Then, toot! toot! and we were off for the next Basswood Junction, to show ’em who was their spontaneous choice.

“Well, that was all right, and it was easy work to report.  The only thing was not to get number One speech mixed up with number Two or number Three at any given point.  The Honorable Secretary had to attend to that.  So all the time we were bored for something to do.  What we was hopin’ and longin’ for all the time was that some one in the opposition at some station would haul off and throw a brick at the car.  Then we would have had some News.”

“Oh,” said I, “you got to wanting news!  You had a narrow escape.”

“Maybe,” said Dan Anderson.  “I admit I got to likin’ the game.  I think, too, I did get to understandin’ what news was.  So one day, when I was mighty tired of the four-factory, railroad-centre, leadin’-citizen business, I mixed up the speeches on the Honorable Secretary between stations.”  Dan Anderson blew a faint wreath of blue smoke up toward the blue sky and remained silent for a time.