On the Prairie

Chamberlain, S. Dak. is a prairie town, pop. 1,300, with a grain elevator and lumberyard. The C. M. St. P. & P. Ry. crosses the muddy Missouri River there. The tiny town contains an Indian School, a hospital, four doctors.

Not much ever happens in Chamberlain, especially since old (90 years) Charles Morey Lockwood left for the Soldiers' Home at Minneapolis, Minn. where he could find some "rough, tough pinochle players." He believes himself the last northwesterner alive who ran away from the First Battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861). On the anniversary he tipples from a bottle of burgundy kept in a bank safe.

Last week something happened. Every seventh person in Chamberlain became feverishly ill with typhoid. Six died. It was noised that an Indian boy who might have been a carrier of typhoid had swum in the freezing Missouri, contaminating the water. But the fact, and full explanation was, that the chlorinator which makes Missouri River potable for Chamberlain people broke down.

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