THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL AND OTHER REMINISCENCES OF URBAN AND SUBURBAN LIFE [Illustration: "I'll Never, Never, Never, So Long As I Live"] The Booming of Acre Hill By John Kendrick Bangs Illustrations By C. Dana Gibson Published 1902 in New York and London TO WILLIAM LIVERMORE KINGMAN WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARDS These stories by Mr. Bangs have appeared from time to time in _The Ladies Home Journal, The Woman's Home Companion_, and the various publications of Messrs. HARPER & BROTHERS. CONTENTS THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL THE STRANGE MISADVENTURES OF AN ORGAN THE PLOT THAT FAILED THE BASE INGRATITUDE OF BARKIS, M.D. THE UTILITARIAN MR. CARRAWAY THE BOOK SALES OF MR. PETERS THE VALOR OF BRINLEY WILKINS THE MAYOR'S LAMPS THE BALANCE OF POWER JARLEY'S EXPERIMENT JARLEY'S THANKSGIVING HARRY AND MAUDE AND I--ALSO JAMES AN AFFINITIVE ROMANCE: I. MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS'S IDEAL II. MISS HENDERSON'S STANDARD III. A GLANCE AT MISS FLORA HENDERSON HERSELF IV. A BRIEF GLIMPSE OF MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS V. CONCLUSION MRS. UPTON'S DEVICE: I. THE RESOLVE II. A SUCCESSFUL CASE III. A SET-BACK IV. THE DEVICE ILLUSTRATIONS "I'LL NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, SO LONG AS I LIVE" DURING THE INTERMEZZO THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL Acre Hill ten years ago was as void of houses as the primeval forest. Indeed, in many ways it suggested the primeval forest. Then the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company sprang up in a night, and before the bewildered owners of its lovely solitudes and restful glades, who had been paying taxes on their property for many years, quite grasped the situation they found that they had sold out, and that their old-time paradise was as surely lost to them as was Eden to Adam and Eve. To-day Acre Hill is gridironed with macadamized streets that are lined with houses of an architecture of various degrees of badness. Where birds once sang, and squirrels gambolled, and stray foxes lurked, the morning hours are made musical by the voices of milkmen, and the squirrels have given place to children and nurse-maids. Where sturdy oaks stood like sentinels guarding the forest folk from intrusion from the outside world now stand tall wooden poles with glaring white electric lights streaming from their tops. And the soughing of the winds in the trees has given place to the clang of the bounding trolley. All this is the work of the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company.