The Boss of Little Arcady
Paperback
Regional: Middle AtlanticRegional: New EnglandRegional: South
Publisher: Katrinabooks
Published: Sep 2 2026
Pages: 286
Weight: 0.85
Height: 0.60 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
ate last Thursday evening one Jonas Rodney Potts, better known to
this community as Upright Potts, stumbled into the mill-race, where
it had providentially been left open just north of Cady's mill. Everything was
going along finely until two hopeless busybodies were attracted to the spot
by his screams, and fished him out. It is feared that he will recover. We with-
hold the names of his rescuers, although under strong temptation to publish
them broadcast.-Little Arcady Argus of May 21st.=
Looking back to that time from a happier present, I am filled by a genuine
awe of J. Rodney Potts. Reflecting upon those benign ends which the gods
chose to make him serve, I can but marvel how lightly each of us may meet
and scorn a casual Potts, unrecking his gracious and predestined office in the
play of Fate.
Of the present-to me-supreme drama of the Little Country, I can only say
that the gods had selected their agent with a cunning so flawless that suspi-
cion of his portents could not well have been aroused in one lacking discern-
ment like unto the gods' very own. So trivially, so utterly, so pitiably casual,
3 HARRY LEON WILSON
to eyes of the flesh, was this Potts of Little Arcady, from his immortal soul
to the least item of his inferior raiment!
Thus craftily are we fooled by the Lords of Destiny, whose caprice it is to
affect remoteness from us and a lofty unconcern for our poor little doings.
There is bitterness in the lines of that Argus paragraph, and a flippant inci-
vility might be read between them by the least discerning.
Arcady of the Little Country, however, knows there is neither bitterness nor
real cynicism in Solon Denney, founder, editor, and proprietor of the Lit-
tle Arcady Argus; motto, Hew to the Line, Let the Chips Fall Where they
May! Indeed, we do know Solon. Often enough has the Argus hewn inex-
orably to the line, when that line led straight through the heart of its guid-
ing genius and through the hearts of us all. One who had seen him, as I did,
stand uncovered in the presence of his new Washington hand-press, the day
that dynamo of Light was erected in the Argus office, could never suppose
him to lack humanity or the just reverence demanded by his craft.
We may concede without disloyalty that Solon is peculiar unto himself. In
his presence you are cursed with an unquiet suspicion that he may become
frivolous with you at any moment, -may, indeed, be so at that moment, de-
spite a due facial gravity and tones of weight, -for he will not infrequently
seem to be both trivial and serious in the same breath. Again, he is amaz-
ingly sensitive for one not devoid of humor. In a pleasant sense he is acutely
aware of himself, and he does not dislike to know that you feel his quality.
Still again, he is bound to spice his writing. Were it his lot to report events
on the Day of Judgment, I believe the Argus account would be thought too
highly colored by many persons of good taste.
But Little Arcady knows that Solon is loyal to its welfare-knows that he is
fit to wield the mightiest lever of Civilization in its behalf on Wednesday of
each week.
We know now, moreover, that an undercurrent of circumstance existedwhich
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