Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered

79/260in de store and you kin look after things whilst Ah drum up thingsotherwise.”“Oh Jody, Ah can’t do nothin’ wid no store lessen youse there. Ahcould maybe come in and help you when things git rushed, but—”“I god, Ah don’t see how come yuh can’t. ’Tain’t nothin’ atall tuhhinder yuh if yuh got uh thimble full uh sense. You got tuh. Ah got toomuch else on mah hands as Mayor. Dis town needs some light rightnow.”“Unh hunh, it is uh little dark right long heah.”“ ’Course it is. ’Tain’t no use in scufflin’ over all dese stumps androots in de dark. Ah’ll call uh meetin’ bout de dark and de roots rightaway. Ah’ll sit on dis case first thing.”The very next day with money out of his own pocket he sent off toSears, Roebuck and Company for the street lamp and told the town tomeet the following Thursday night to vote on it. Nobody had everthought of street lamps and some of them said it was a useless notion.They went so far as to vote against it, but the majority ruled.But the whole town got vain over it after it came. That was becausethe Mayor didn’t just take it out of the crate and stick it up on a post.He unwrapped it and had it wiped off carefully and put it up on ashowcase for a week for everybody to see. Then he set a time for thelighting and sent word all around Orange County for one and all tocome to the lamplighting. He sent men out to the swamp to cut thefinest and the straightest cypress post they could find, and kept onsending them back to hunt another one until they found one thatpleased him. He had talked to the people already about the hospitalityof the occasion.