Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1918 — THE FORK IN THE ROAD. [ARTICLE]

THE FORK IN THE ROAD.

In one of our neighboring states, a'town has recently been wiped off the ihainroad,’ and another town put on it. The peculiar manner in which it happened ought to be of deep concern to every small town merchant in Indiana, because the same sort of happening is very possible to any sleepy town. In order to tell you this story we will call the two towns “Sleepy Hollow’’ and “Wakeville.’.’ It appears that the little townin question, Sleepy Hollow, was unfortunate in having a lot of sleepy merchants. They were not very Aggressive. They .felt sb sure that the farmers must trade with them that they did not care very imuch what was done to keep abreast of the times.

Now it appears that most of the farmers went to this town by one particular road. About half a mile from town there was a fork in this road and, by turning off, another town might be reached, just three miles away, and the farmers began to turn off, and they turned off with such regularity that soon the fork of the road was very much more traveled than the main road leading into Sleepy Hollow. Now here is where the strange thing happened: The road commissioners decided to macadam the main road and, when they came to this fork in the road, it was seen that the farmers were using the

new road so extensively that they decided to continue the macadam through • Wakeville. As a consequence, Wakeville got on the main line while Sleepy Hollow was sidetracked. —Business Chat.