Hawk merchant can hope for is to sell provi-
sions and farm machinery and automobiles to
the rich farms where that first crop of stalwart
Bohemian and Scandinavian girls are now the
mistresses.

The Black Hawk boys looked forward to
marrying Black Hawk girls, and living in a
brand-new little house with best chairs that
must not be sat upon, and hand-painted china
that must not be used. But sometimes a
young fellow would look up from his ledger, or
out through the grating of his father's bank,
and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she
passed the window with her slow, undulating
walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by in her
short skirt and striped stockings.

The country girls were considered a menace
to the social order. Their beauty shone out too
boldly against a conventional background.
But anxious mothers need have felt no alarm.
They mistook the mettle of their sons. The
respect for respectability was stronger than
any desire in Black Hawk youth.

Our young man of position was like the son
of a royal house; the boy who swept out his
office or drove his delivery wagon might frolic
with the jolly country girls, but he himself

[[229]]

p228 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p229w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p230

v?