Going Back 



I know just how Hucks must have 

 felt, for not so many years ago a boy 

 revisited the old home in Iowa, and 

 vouches for the strange and absolutely 

 unaccountable, in fact impossible, 

 changes that have come over certain 

 well-known areas and dimensions. For 

 many years, when he was a very small 

 specimen, there was no railway line 

 through the county in which he had 

 been born. His father was the owner 

 of a small private bank that faced the 

 great brick Court House in the public 

 square, and one of the boy's earliest 

 recollections had to do with a string of 

 oxen, probably six or eight pair, strain- 

 ing and leaning heavily in their yokes 

 hauling a great steel safe being trans- 

 ported over land from a shipping 

 point some 30 miles distant. He will 

 swear that this safe stood at least 15 

 feet high, and it was painted green 

 and letters on it spelled "Herring," 

 and it came from Cincinnati. Maybe 

 that may mean something to some of 

 [77] 



