Back Home by Irvin S. Cobb

AS THE Daily Evening News, with pardonable enthusiasm, pointed out at the time, three events of practically national importance took place in town all in that one week. On Tuesday night at 9: 37 there was a total eclipse of the moon, not generally visible throughout the United States; on Wednesday morning the Tri-State Steam and Hand Laundrymen's Association began a two-days annual convention at St. Clair Hall; and on Saturday at high noon Eastern capital, in the person of J. Hayden Witherbee, arrived.

And the greatest of these was Witherbee. The eclipse of the moon took place on its appointed schedule and was witnessed through opera glasses and triangular fragments of windowpane that had been smudged with candlesmoke. The Tri-State Laundrymen came and heard reports, elected officers, had a banquet at the Richland House and departed to their several homes. But J. Hayden Witherbee stayed on, occupying the bridal chamber at the hotel -- the one with the private bath attached; and so much interest and speculation did his presence create, and so much space did the Daily Evening News give in its valued columns to his comings and goings and his sayings and doings, that the name of J. Hayden Witherbee speedily became, as you might say, a household word throughout the breadth and length of the Daily Evening News' circulation.