He was shifting back and forth and sweating through his shirt, despite the fact that he’d brought along two cronies to back him up. He was standing with his eyes open and his arms at his sides, neither eager to be there nor in a hurry to leave. It would be something they could talk about in the barbershop and hair salon for weeks to come.įor his part, Emmett looked fantastic. They weren’t shouting or grinning, but they were glad to have happened along at just the right moment. The people who had gathered to watch seemed excited, at least in a midwestern sort of way. And who did I find at center stage? None other than Emmett Watson-being taunted by some corn-fed kid with a corn-fed grievance.
Tossing the rest of my ice cream cone in the trash, I walked over to get a closer look. Fast approaching was even a mother with a stroller and a toddler at her side. There were hayseeds in hats, dowagers with handbags, and lads in dungarees. From fifty feet away I could tell they were a representative sample of the local electorate.
And sure enough, when I came around the courthouse, there was a semicircle of citizens ready to prove the point. But in a town this size, when a piano falls out of a window and lands on a fellow’s head, there’s a good chance you’ll know why he deserved it.Īt any rate, Morgen was the sort of town where when something out of the ordinary happens, a crowd is likely to gather. Living in the big city, rushing around amid all that hammering and clamoring, the events of life can begin to seem random. Like a person who wants to make some sense of the world. And there’s a certain kind of person who would rather live here than anywhere else-even in the twentieth century. There’s a certain charm to a town like this. Howdy, I said to the two ladies coming in the opposite direction, neither of whom said howdy back. As it turned out, they could have settled on seasons and suits because seventy-five years later the town was still only four blocks square. According to the mechanic who’d given me a lift in his tow truck, back in the 1880s the town elders spent a whole week deliberating how best to christen the streets before deciding-with an eye to the future-that the east-west streets would be named for presidents and the north-south streets for trees.
The town was laid out in a geometric grid with the courthouse right in the middle. The great thing about Morgen, Nebraska, is it only took a few minutes. In some cities this can take you days to accomplish. I want to understand the layout of the streets and the layout of the people. Whenever I come to a new town, I like to get my bearings.
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