Za-a-a-am! At last here came the band, two and two, down the street, to the inspiriting strains of "Marching Through Georgia," with Will Derks at the head in a shako two feet high and performing the most marvelous gyrations with a shining brass baton. Throw it whirling right over a telephone wire, for instance, and never miss a stroke! Right through the crowd went the band, and in about ten minutes it came back to the lively step of "The Girl I Left Behind Me." Following the music came carriages, trailed off by Ben Kirby's gayly decorated grocery wagon; and in the first carriage of all were the Honorable G. W. Battles, the Honorable Timothy Battles, Judge Lampton, and last, but not least, that master of golden plenty, Colonel J. Rufus Wallingford! Ah, there rode the progress and prosperity, the greatness and power, the initiative and referendum not only of Battlesburg, but of a dozen once poor, now rich, villages between Lewisville and Elliston! Amid mingled music and huzzas the noble assemblage took their places upon the platform, the gentlemen in the front row, the ladies in the rear; and, at one side, was a table and a chair for that thoroughly alive representative of the press, Clint Richards. The band stopped abruptly. The Honorable G. W. Battles had held up his hand for silence. He had the honor to introduce the speaker of the day, Mayor Timothy Battles, but before doing so he would take up a trifle of their time, only a few brief moments, to congratulate his beloved fellow citizens upon the brave and patriotic struggle they had made to bring Battlesburg to such a thriving condition that it could attract Eastern capital; and in vivid, glowing, burning words he depicted the glorious future that awaited Battlesburg when she should become the new Queen of the Prairies, the new Metropolis of the Middle West, the new Arbiter of Commerce and Wealth! Nobody escaped the Honorable G. W. Battles. From the farmer's hired hand who tilled the soil to the millionaire whose enterprise had made so much possible to them, he gave to every man his just and due meed of praise, and there was not one within hearing of his voice who did not ache at that very moment to vote for the Honorable G. W. Battles, for something, for anything! For full forty-five minutes he introduced the speaker of the day, sitting down at last amid deafening cheers that were so aptly described in that evening's issue of the Battlesburg _Blade_ as "salvos of applause."