Now, it was not long before the promoters of a railway line from Atlanta to Malvern came knocking at the doors of Shady Dale. Mr. Sanders and a number of others were inclined to be more than hospitable to the enterprise, but old Jonas Whipple was opposed to it tooth-and-nail. His arguments in opposition to the enterprise will be thought amusing and ridiculous in this day and time, but it is notorious, the world over, that any man with money can have a substantial following without resorting to bribery, and there were many in Shady Dale, who, basing their admiration on the fact that he had been very successful as a money-maker, in the face of the most adverse conditions, were ready to endorse anything that old Jonas said; he was an oracle because he knew how to make money, though it is well known that the making of money does not depend on a very high order of intelligence. Old Jonas's objections to a railway were not amenable to reason or argument; it was sufficient that they were satisfactory to him. He had them all catalogued and numbered. There were six of them, and they ran about as follows: 1. A railroad would add to the racket and riot of the neighbourhood, when, even as things were, it was a difficult matter for decent people to sleep in peace. 2. (This objection was impressive on account of its originality; no one had ever thought of it). The passing of railway trains would produce concussion, and this concussion, repeated at regular intervals, would cause the blossoms of the fruit trees to drop untimely off, and would no doubt have a disastrous effect on garden vegetables. 3. The railroad would not stop in Shady Dale, but would go on to Atlanta, thus making the little town a way-station, and drain the whole county of its labour at a time when everybody was trying to adjust himself to the new conditions. 4. Instead of patronising home industries and enterprises, people would scramble for seats on the cars, and go gadding about, spending anywhere but at home the little money they had. 5. Every business and all forms of industry in the whole section adjacent to the line would be at the mercy of the road and its managers; and, 6. What did people want with railroads, when a majority of the loudest talkers had earned no more than three dollars apiece since the war?