And Avanel whispers:—“I ask my heart:—Where is Hunter Kelly, and my heart speaks to me as though commanded: ‘The Hunter is again pioneering for our little city in the little earth. He is reborn as the humblest acolyte of the Cathedral, a child that sings tonight with the star chimes, a red-cheeked boy, who shoes horses at the old forge of the Iron Gentleman. Let us also return’.” It is eight o’clock in the evening, at Fifth and Monroe. It is Saturday night, and the crowd is pouring toward The Majestic, and Chatterton’s, and The Vaudette, and The Princess and The Gaiety. It is a lovely, starry evening, in the spring. The newsboys are bawling away, and I buy an Illinois State Register. It is dated March 1, 1920. Avanel of Springfield is one hundred years away. The Register has much news of a passing nature. I am the most interested in the weather report, that tomorrow will be fair. Written in Washington Park Pavilion, Springfield, Illinois. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. End of Project Gutenberg's The Golden Book of Springfield, by Vachel Lindsay