The Young Train Master

Excerpt.......Nestling among the hills of the Scioto valley, in the south-central portion of the state of Ohio, lies the little town of Wadsworth. Venerable in its age, proud of its history, the first capital of its state and the home of men famous i ... Read more

Excerpt.......Nestling among the hills of the Scioto valley, in the south-central portion of the state of Ohio, lies the little town of Wadsworth. Venerable in its age, proud of its history, the first capital of its state and the home of men famous in their time, it lives in the past rather than in the present, and life there moves in a quiet and dignified manner, conducive to peace but not to progress. Its streets, shaded by the elms planted by the pioneers, show traces of those early days; one of the old inns, with its swinging sign still stands; no roar of traffic disturbs its Sabbath stillness. Just to the east of it rises Mount Logan, named for the Indian chieftain known to every train-service, and there is a legend that, standing on the summit of that hill, the day before his death, he cast a spell over the surrounding country, in order that the peace of his grave might never be disturbed. However that may be, certain it is that a dreamy influence pervades the atmosphere and gives to the town an air of leisure and calm deliberateness which nothing can dispel. It had been founded more than a century before, when the country for a hundred miles around was an unbroken forest, by a little band of pioneers who, acquiring title to unnumbered acres by virtue of their service in the Revolution, pushed their way over the mountains from Virginia. Some of them brought their slaves with them, only to free them when they reached their new home. Other families from Virginia joined the little settlement and lent their hands to the battle with the wilderness. That southern flavour had never been lost, nor the southern deliberateness and dislike of innovation, nor the southern preference for agriculture rather than for manufacture. Less