Produced by Colin Bell, Woodie4, Michael and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: cover] IN A LITTLE TOWN BOOKS BY RUPERT HUGHES IN A LITTLE TOWN Illustrated. Post 8vo THE THIRTEENTH COMMANDMENT Illustrated. Post 8vo CLIPPED WINGS. Frontispiece. Post 8vo WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY? Illustrated. Post 8vo THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. Frontispiece. 16mo EMPTY POCKETS. Illustrated. Post 8vo * * * * * HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK [Illustration: Frontispiece] In a Little Town [Illustration: Title page decoration] BY RUPERT HUGHES [Illustration: Publisher's mark] HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON IN A LITTLE TOWN Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published March, 1917 TO FREDERICK ATHERTON DUNEKA AS AN I-O-U OF HEARTFELT ESTEEM CONTENTS PAGE DON'T YOU CARE! 1 POP 42 BABY TALK 73 THE MOUTH OF THE GIFT HORSE 106 THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME 141 AND THIS IS MARRIAGE 173 THE MAN THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 191 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN IOWAY 222 PRAYERS 224 PAIN 232 THE BEAUTY AND THE FOOL 262 THE GHOSTLY COUNSELORS 267 DAUGHTERS OF SHILOH 285 "A" AS IN "FATHER" 356 FOREWORD There are two immortal imbecilities that I have no patience for. The other one is the treatment of little towns as if they were essentially different from big towns. Cities are not "Ninevehs" and "Babylons" any more than little towns are Arcadias or Utopias. In fact we are now unearthing plentiful evidence of what might have been safely assumed, that Babylon never was a "Babylon" nor Nineveh a "Nineveh" in the sense employed by poets and praters without number. Those old cities were made up of assorted souls as good and as bad and as mixed as now. They do small towns a grievous injustice who deny them restlessness, vice, ostentation, cruelty; as they do cities a grievous injustice who deny them simplicity, homeliness, friendship, and contentment. It is one of those undeniable facts (which everybody denies) that a city is only a lot of small towns put together. Its population is largely made up of people who came from small towns and of people who go back to small towns every evening. A village is simply a quiet street in the big city of the world. Quaint, sweet happenings take place in the avenues most thronged, and desperate events come about in sleepy lanes. People are people, chance is chance.