Oh, I'm going to be. Welcome to Snuscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep.

On Snuscast we read excerpts from Public Domain Works and occasionally original stories.

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This episode is brought to you by The Murmur of a neighbor's lawnmower.

Tonight we'll be reading the opening

to Stephen Lee Cox's 1912 Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.

This humorous and affectionate account

of small town life in the fictional town of Mariposa is inspired by the author's experience living in Ontario, Canada.

The book illustrates the inner workings of life in Mariposa, from business to politics to steamboat disasters.

Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths.

Chapter 1, the hostelry of Mr Smith. I don't know whether you know Mariposa. If not, it is of no consequence, for if you know Canada at all, you are probably well acquainted with a dozen towns just like it.

There it lies in the sunlight, sloping up from the little lake that spreads out at the foot of the hillside on which the town is built. 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 Bell except to run trips on the 1st of July and the Queen's birthday,

...