This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE COUNTRY BOY
151

bottom pants we wore trousers legs so tight that it was difficult for some of us to get our feet through them, and it was at the beginning of the tight-pants craze that a fellow with a curled moustache and a pocket knife with a girl’s picture in it and fifty pairs of roller skates came to Silverton.

He started a skating rink in one of the big vacant halls on Main Street, and the first week there was standing room only. The second week about half the skates were in the shops for repairs and several of the town’s best citizens had hard work to straighten up. The proprietor of the skating rink made a big hit socially. He wore a new brand of perfumery and refused to give the receipt, so there was no competing with him along that line. The bottoms of his trousers were not any bigger than the