Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

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Stephen Leacock. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Preface

ONE. The Hostelry of Mr. Smith

TWO. The Speculations of Jefferson Thorpe

THREE. The Marine Excursions of the Knights of Pythias

FOUR. The Ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Drone

FIVE. The Whirlwind Campaign in Mariposa

SIX. The Beacon on the Hill

SEVEN. The Extraordinary Entanglement of Mr. Pupkin

EIGHT. The Fore-ordained Attachment of Zena Pepperleigh and Peter Pupkin

NINE. The Mariposa Bank Mystery

TEN. The Great Election in Missinaba County

ELEVEN. The Candidacy of Mr. Smith

TWELVE. L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa

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I don't know whether you know Mariposa. If not, it is of no consequence, for if you know Canada at all, you are probably well acquainted with a dozen towns just like it.

There it lies in the sunlight, sloping up from the little lake that spreads out at the foot of the hillside on which the town is built. There is a wharf beside the lake, and lying alongside of it a steamer that is tied to the wharf with two ropes of about the same size as they use on the Lusitania. The steamer goes nowhere in particular, for the lake is landlocked and there is no navigation for the Mariposa Belle except to "run trips" on the first of July and the Queen's Birthday, and to take excursions of the Knights of Pythias and the Sons of Temperance to and from the Local Option Townships.

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On only one point difficulty still remained. That was the closing of the bar. Mr. Smith could never bring his mind to it,—not as a matter of profit, but as a point of honour. It was too much for him to feel that Judge Pepperleigh might be out on the sidewalk thirsty at midnight, that the night hands of the Times-Herald on Wednesday might be compelled to go home dry. On this point Mr. Smith's moral code was simplicity itself,—do what is right and take the consequences. So the bar stayed open.

Every town, I suppose, has its meaner spirits. In every genial bosom some snake is warmed,—or, as Mr. Smith put it to Golgotha Gingham—"there are some fellers even in this town skunks enough to inform."

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