JIMVILLE 



that stripe. His improprieties had a cer- 

 tain sanction of long standing not accorded 

 to the gay ladies who wore Mr. Fanshawe's 

 favors. There were perhaps too many of 

 them. On the whole, the point of the 

 moral distinctions of Jimville appears to 

 be a point of honor, with an absence 

 of humorous appreciation that strangers 

 mistake for dullness. At Jimville they 

 see behavior as history and judge it by 

 facts, untroubled by invention and the dra- 

 matic sense. You glimpse a crude equity 

 in their dealings with Wilkins, who had 

 shot a man at Lone Tree, fairly, in an 

 open quarrel. Rumor of it reached Jim- 

 ville before Wilkins rested there in flight. 

 I saw Wilkins, all Jimville saw him ; in 

 fact, he came into the Silver Dollar when 

 we were holding a church fair and bought 

 a pink silk pincushion. I have often 

 "5 



