There is a wharf beside the lake, and lying alongside of it a steamer
that is tied to the wharf with two ropes of about the same size as
they use on the Lusitania. The steamer goes nowhere in particular,
for the lake is landlocked and there is no navigation for the
Mariposa Belle except to "run trips" on the first of July and the
Queen's Birthday, and to take excursions of the Knights of Pythias
and the Sons of Temperance to and from the Local Option Townships.

In point of geography the lake is called Lake Wissanotti and the
river running out of it the Ossawippi, just as the main street of
Mariposa is called Missinaba Street and the county Missinaba County.
But these names do not really matter. Nobody uses them. People simply
speak of the "lake" and the "river" and the "main street," much in
the same way as they always call the Continental Hotel, "Pete
Robinson's" and the Pharmaceutical Hall, "Eliot's Drug Store." But I
suppose this is just the same in every one else's town as in mine, so
I need lay no stress on it.

The town, I say, has one broad street that runs up from the lake,
commonly called the Main Street. There is no doubt about its width.
When Mariposa was laid out there was none of that shortsightedness
which is seen in the cramped dimensions of Wall Street and
Piccadilly. Missinaba Street is so wide that if you were to roll Jeff
Thorpe's barber shop over on its face it wouldn't reach half way
across. Up and down the Main Street are telegraph poles of cedar of
colossal thickness, standing at a variety of angles and carrying
rather more wires than are commonly seen at a transatlantic cable
station.

On the Main Street itself are a number of buildings of extraordinary