Spring in Mariposa
The little town of the title is Mariposa, Canada. During the cold, icy, snowblown winter months, it is as safely protected from the tempers as any other northern city. Once the snow melts, however, things change…sort of.
“Mariposa is then a fierce, dangerous lumber town, calculated to terrorize the soul of a newcomer who does not understand that this also is only an appearance and that presently the rough-looking shanty-men will change their clothes and turn back again into farmers.”
Mr. Smith
The tone of the book is conversational—indeed, it is basically a one-sided conversation between the narrator and the reader—and over the course of the conversation many character who are really characters are introduced, gossiped about, psychologically probed and discussed. The ungainly Mr. Smith, hotelier, is one of the major figures in town and metaphor is put to excellent use in description him:
“When you meet Mr. Smith first you think he looks like an over-dressed pirate. Then you begin to think him a character. You wonder at his enormous bulk. Then the utter hopelessness of knowing what Smith is thinking by merely looking at his features gets on your mind and makes the Mona Lisa seem an open book”
Peter Pupkin
The narrator seems to take an especially fond interest in relation the travails of Peter Pupkin and the ups and down of his love life. Or lack thereof. Or something, anyway. Keep in mind that Sadie is not the girl Peter Pupkin has been linked with throughout the narrative to this point:
“Pupkin walked home to his supper at the Mariposa House on air, and that evening there was a gentle distance in his manner towards Sadie, the dining-room girl, that I suppose no bank clerk in Mariposa ever showed before. It was like Sir Galahad talking with the tire-women of Queen Guinevere and receiving huckleberry pie at their hands.”
Abuzz with the Hum of Politics
Mariposa may be a little town of not much consequence—and those are the words of the author—but like many such villages, politics is great sport. After all, when there is not much else to do, there is always political disagreements. As for this little village:
“anybody in Mariposa who says that he has no politics is looked upon as crooked, and people wonder what it is that he is `out after.’ In fact, the whole town and county is a hive of politics”
Peter the Great Pupkin
Peter Pupkin’s love live—or lack thereof—has descended to that point of despondency in which self-destruction seems the way to destroy that pain brought on by another. One night he goes to the bank in which he works and puts a revolver to his head. And then occurs one of those unexpected lightning strikes of fate capable of transforming losers into the winners, goats into heroes and self-pity into civic responsibility. And it all begins with the faint sound of a vault opening:
“As Peter Pupkin stood there listening to the sounds in his stockinged feet, his face showed grey as ashes in the light that fell through the window from the street. His heart beat like a hammer against his ribs. But behind its beatings was the blood of four generations of Loyalists, and the robber who would take that sixty thousand dollars from the Mariposa bank must take it over the dead body of Peter Pupkin, teller.”
