In the deserted park at Cypress Hill workmen appeared who cut down the
remaining dead trees. The Venus of Cydnos and the Apollo Belvedere were
pulled down from their pedestals in the dead hedge. One of the workmen,
a Calabrian, carted them off, scrubbed them clean of the corroding soot
and set them up in the back yard of his little house in the Flats. They
came to a good end, for the workman cherished them earnestly. In the
little garden behind his house, which by some miracle of devotion he
managed to fill with green things, he placed the two statues on
pedestals which he himself constructed of bricks and concrete. At the
base he planted ivy which flourished and spread over the cracked marble
and the adjoining fence. So in all the desert of the great mill town
there was one corner at least where beauty was worshiped in a humble
setting of cabbages and tomato vines. In the evening when the light was
not too bright, the little corner looked for all the world like a bit of
a Florentine garden.
The steam shovels set to work on a bright April morning with a terrific
sound of hissing steam, of grinding cables and clattering chains. In
great gulps they tore up the earth which had lain undisturbed since the
passing of the second great glacier. For the Town was not satisfied with
the destruction of the house at Cypress Hill; it was not content until
the Hill itself was scooped up and carted away. It was a wonderful feat
and brought the Town a vast amount of advertisement. Pictures of the
hill’s destruction found their way into the illustrated papers. They
were shown in movie palaces in every part of the country.
It happened that on the very day the steam shovels set to work Eva Barr
died in the boarding house where she had lived for more than a decade
upon the pension provided by her cousin, Lily Shane. Of the family which
had founded the Town, she was the last.
On the hill there remained a few people who remembered Cypress Hill in
the days of its glory. But most persons had never heard of Shane’s
Castle and knew nothing of Lily and Irene Shane. When their names were
mentioned, the old residents would say, “Yes ... Lily and Irene. Of
course, you never knew them. They belonged to the old Town. Lily was
very beautiful and a little fast, so the stories ran, although no one
ever knew for certain. Of course, they may be dead by now. I believe
Lily was living in Paris the last that was heard of her.”
That was all. Within a century Shane’s Castle had risen and disappeared.
Within a century the old life was gone, and with it the memory of a
great, respectable family which had made the history of the county. It
survived only in the name of the Town; and that it would have been
unprofitable to change since the Town was known round the world as one
of the greatest of industrial centers.