Pine Ridge Council Chambers
| OUR lodge hall,
besides being the only building with an upstairs we got here in Pine Ridge,
is where our city councils hold forth on meeting day. It is the handiest
building at all fer all kinds of celebrates, which include everthing from
lodge meeting to pie suppers with singing afterwards. Mose Moots, who has
his barber shop downstairs, always has the keys to the lodge hall, which
is particular handy because Mose is always around someplace close when
fokes are needin to use the hall.
It were the lodge hall that Squire Skimp used fer his moving pictures house, and that got closed up that time on account of fire hazards. And ever since we lected a mayor and council there has been plenty of fireworks set off right there in the hall but nobody never stopped to complain about that. The biggest scare Abner ever got was one meeting day when he drapped right off to sleep during a argyment about a new hitching rack fer out in front of the lodge hall. Somehow er other, he got to passing bills and things in his sleep, one of em calling fer a ten storys city hall, anothern fer a pension fer ever member of the councils, a new police station and jail fer Grandpap, free pie fer everbody in Pine Ridge, a street car line, a move to change worsh day from Monday to Wednesday, a law preventing anybody from riding a girraft down Main street and anothern perventing a feller from eating squirrel. That last one got Abner so eksited he got to fighting with himself, which woke him up and he found everbody had left the meeting and gone home. |
Lodge meeting, which is ever other Tuesday,
is about the best social event we have here. Most everbody has some title
like Grand Exalted and All Wise Ruler, er maybe he is the Most Worshipful
Keeper of the Seal. Hit aint except on nitiation nights that the lodge
members get out in full uniform, and since ever growed man here is already
a member we aint had nitiation fer about the last two year or more.
When we do have nitiation, though, its generally remembered fer a long time. When everbody gets in the hall, the Grand Ruler shouts at the Regal keeper of the Gate and asks him if all the worshipful brethren are there. The gate keeper says "Yea--each and every member, Exalted Sir." And then the Ruler says "Tis well. Let the outer gates be barred and sealed so that none other may enter here." And there's a pearade of half the lodge to see if the back door of the hall is closed. Personal, it has always seemed like a durned fool question to ask if everbody was inside, because nobody in Pine Ridge would miss a nitiation on a bet, but they ask it anyways. About the best thing there is in connection with regular lodge meetin is the pie supper that generally follows, with the Women's Auxiliary taking holt of things and seeing that everbody is comfortable and full of pie before the evening is over. One other thing the hall gets used fer is band practice, and since everbody in forty mile knows when its band practice night there aint no use talking about that. |