(Missouri Pacific and M., K. and T.) and stands on a bluff 100 feet
above the water. According to the two works of reference nearest to our
desk, its population is either 4252 or 4377. Perhaps the former census
omits the 125 men of the town who are so benighted as to smoke briars or
clays.

Delightful town of Boonville, seat of Cooper County, you are well named.
How great a boon you have conferred upon a troubled world! Long after
more ambitious towns have faded in the memory of man your quiet and
soothing gift to humanity will make your name blessed. I like to imagine
your shady streets, drowsing in the summer sun, and the rural
philosophers sitting on the verandas of your hotels or on the benches of
Harley Park ("comprising fifteen acres"--New International
Encyclopedia), looking out across the brown river and puffing clouds of
sweet gray reek. Down by the livery stable on Main street (there must be
a livery stable on Main street) I can see the old creaky, cane-bottomed
chairs (with seats punctured by too much philosophy) tilted against the
sycamore trees, ready for the afternoon gossip and shag tobacco. I can
imagine the small boys of Boonville fishing for catfish from the piers
of the bridge or bathing down by the steamboat dock (if there is one),
and yearning for the day when they, too, will be grown up and old enough
to smoke corncobs.

[Illustration]

What is the subtle magic of a corncob pipe? It is never as sweet or as
mellow as a well-seasoned briar, and yet it has a fascination all its
own. It is equally dear to those who work hard and those who loaf with
intensity. When you put your nose to the blackened mouth of the hot cob
its odor is quite different from that fragrance of the crusted wooden