York State Folks
Summary
In a clapboard Eden where lilac dusk settles over hand-hewn pews and the air still smells of fresh-planed pine, Simon Peter Martin—carpenter-king of wagon tongues and Village President—rules by the squeak of his gavel and the glint of patriarchal certainty. Myron, the taciturn organ-builder whose lifeblood is varnished mahogany and tempered reeds, has never once darkened the ballot box; but the coming scream of iron locomotives tempts him to cast a single, fateful vote. Into this crucle of creed and commerce wanders young love: Simon’s swaggering heir and Myron’s moon-faced niece, their pulse a metronome of stolen kisses beneath gas-lamps. The railroad referendum cleaves the hamlet—progress versus craft, steel versus wood, tomorrow versus yesterday—and Simon, sensing the erosion of his dominion, excommunicates his son, severs wages from the organ builder, and brandishes ruin like a thorned crozier. Yet the track is laid, the whistle splits the provincial silence, and lucre flows back to the old men in rivers of gilt consolation. Accrued fortune softens granite hearts; fathers embrace prodigals; the wheeze of a new church organ serenades a wedding. What began as a parable of patrician wrath dissolves into an autumnal idyll of reconciliation, where the locomotive’s soot perfumes the air with promise rather than fear.
Synopsis
Simon Peter Martin is the Village President, a man who exacts obedience to all his wishes. The two clash and the fate of a young couple, Simon's son and Myron's niece, is involved. The trouble arises over a vote of the villagers in favor of the railroad entering the town. The old organ builder meddles in politics for the first time and votes for the railroad, and thereby draws upon himself the wrath of the Village President, who is a wagon builder and fears the railroad will ruin his business. He casts his son adrift for daring to fall in love with his opponent's niece, and tries to ruin the old organ builder. But the railroad goes through, the wagon builder relents, and all is well in the end. Simon comes in time to bless the young couple and renew his friendship with Myron. The railroad has purchased his property and made him comfortable for life. Myron sells an organ for a large sum of money, and the life-long friendship of the old men is renewed and all are happy.
