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THE YOUNG SOUTHERNER
All communications and contributions intended
for this department should be addressed to Mrs.
Louise T. Hodges, 83 East Avenue, Atlanta, Ga.
The Messenger.
When the wintry wood folds up her shroud
Revealing spots so dear,
And the snows upon the north-tipped slopes
Begin to disappear—
When the green springs upward to replace
Earth’s carpet brown and sear—
They’re bulletins: translated read,
1 ‘ Spring-time is almost here.”
When the Red-bird plies his questionings
1 ‘What cheer” to me “What cheer,”
When from the azure skies above
■Sweet bluebird notes I hear.
And “honks” of wild geese speeding north
Fall softly on my ear—■
They’re peremptory messages;
They tell me spring is near.
When from the distant south there rings
The clarion notes and clear,
And comes the wild voice, hastening
On wings—“ Killdeer,” “Killdeer”—
I bid farewell to winter
And we part without a tear;
For spring’s authentic messenger
Is come and spring is here.
—lsaac E. Hess, in American Ornithology.
Now that spring is here we shall all soon be wish
ing to get into the country—into the woods—even
if only for a day. How -we shall enjoy breathing
the sweet, fresh air, hearing the birds sing, gather
ing wild flowers and watching the sunlight shimmer
through the fresh, green foliage of the trees! If
there is a stream of water flowing with ripple and
murmur over a clean pebbly bed, we shall listen
to its low, dreamy music, and follow on to •where
the long, green ferns hang over and dip their cool
fringes into the deep still pools, and the little min
nows dart about among them with never a fear of
angler’s hook.
Skirting the woods close by perhaps we shall find
an old field, the home of numerous briar patches
where “Brer Rabbit” often finds a hiding place,
enclosed by a zig-zag rail fence. In the fence cor
ners we shall find a wreath of flowers, tall grasses
and weeds (there is beauty even in weeds, if we
look for it), and shall perhaps see fragile, bright
winged butterflies hovering over the flowers and
hear the humming of bees as they gather honey from
blossom and weed.
There will be beetles and ants and insects of va
rious kinds whose habits will be interesting to study.
There are scores of objects both of vegetable and
animal life to interest and delight us if we are in
touch and sympathy with nature in her humbler
forms.
I wish to make a request of the boys and girls
who read this page.
If you go into the country for a little stay or if
your home is there, enjoy all you can and learn
all you can then write to The Young Southerner
and tell us what has interested you most and why
you were interested. If you will do this lam sure
you can give us many good, entertaining letters. I
shall expect them.
“There are people across the Atlantic watching
us, and not a few of them are saying that a govern
ment l of the people, for the people, and by the
people’ can never last, because the people do not
know’ what they -want and what they need. This
will always be true of some voters; it has been
true in the past of too many of ours; but a better
time is coming now. People are realizing that good
citizenship inspires something more than the right
Conducted by Louise Threete Hodges.
of the ballot. It means the knowledge behind the
ballot.”
Yes, but what sort of knowledge? There is
knowledge that does not imply wisdom. The hope
of our country lies not only in the knowledge of her
citizens but also in their wisdom and integrity.
Every year a large number of young men attain
their majority and are allowed to cast their ballot
and share in the government of their country. The
character of these young men even more than their
knowledge, is of vital importance to the nation’s
government. The training for good citizenship must
begin with our boys and girls, for the future weal
or woe of our country rests with them. I say boys
and girls because, w’hile the girls of today who are
the women of tomorrow’ may never go to the polls
and cast a ballot (I hope they never will), they may
wield an influence in the affairs of government even
greater than that resulting from the casting of a
ballot.
Let us not, therefore, be indifferent to -what the
young people are reading and thinking and dream
ing.
They are reading and thinking and planning—-
their plans may be but dreams, but dreams somel
- become realities.
Let us give the boys and girls our best thought
and sympathy. Let us direct their dreams and am
bitions, but in doing it let us enter into their spirit
and feelings as much as possible, and remember
that we cannot put ‘old heads on young shoulders,”
and it would not be desirable to do so if we could.
With Correspondents.
Dear Mrs. Hodges:
I was in Atlanta a few days since and while
there subscribed for The Golden Age for the pur
pose of reading your department.
I have several grand children and I hope that
they and all our girls and boys will listen to the
suggestions and advice to be found on the page of
the Young Southerner, for I know they cannot fail
to be benefited by them.
The letters of the young people are quite interest
ing and many of them show that the writers are
thinking and starting in life in the right direction.
We would enjoy seeing more from the pen of
Brother Sam P. Jones. His articles of good, origi
nal thought would add much to the interest of the
paper. Dr. Broughton deserves a garland of the
fairest flowers and laurel in commemoration of the
many hard battles he has fought for the salvation
of sinners.
Now, dear Editor, if you will let a grandmother
in, I will perhaps give you a few hints of country
life since 1862.
With many good wishes for our Young South
erner department, I am,
(Sincerely,
Grandmother. (Mrs. L. H. M.)
Jackson, Ga.
I am delighted to have Grandmother with us and
I am sure her descriptions of country life since ’62
will be welcomed by our readers. L. T. H.
Dear Editor:
I want to write and tell you how much I enjoy
reading the Young Southerner. I think the letters
are fine and I would like to know all the writers.
Perhaps some time in my life I may have the pleas
ure of meeting somtf of them, but even if we never
meet we may learn to know each other through our
letters.
I like to sew, and sweep, and dust the furniture,
but I like to read also, and I am trying to be a good,
intelligent woman when I grow up so that I can do
some good in the world.
I like to hear music and lectures when they are
interesting, and I am very fond of pets, especially
dogs. But I suppose I have told you enough of what
I like, but I didn’t know very much else to tell you.
Your friend, Annie M. Lesterlee.
The Golden Age for April 26, 1906.
A Royal Lesson.
I have read a number of eulogies on the late
King Christian IX of Denmark, all of which he
richly deserved, but here is an anecdote of this no
ble-hearted sovereign I have never seen in a news
paper. It contains a suggestive thought for our
young people, and, also, for parents and teachers.
One day at the dinner table the heir apparent
asked his father what was the meaning of a word
he had never heard before. The word was lusing,
and is the Danish equivalent for our “box on the
ears.” The king asked his son where he had heard
it. The boy, blushing, confessed, after a little na
tural hesitation, that h"e had been out in the streets
amusing himself by ringing the door bells of pri
vate houses and then running away. At one door
an angry porter rushed out and shouted after him
that he would give him a lusing if he ever did such
a thing again. When the young prince had finished
his explanation his father said: “Very well. To
morrow you shall go with me to that very house and
beg the porter’s pardon for such rudeness.” Ac
cordingly the next day the king went with his much
abashed son and made him apologize.
That boy, now sixty-nine years of age, has re
cently succeeded to the throne of Denmark, and he
and his lovely, gentle-hearted queen are as much
beloved and honored by their subjects as was the
prince’s royal father.
Who Was Cinderella?
It has been said, “not one sweet girl in a thous
and knows the origin of the friend of her child
hood, Cinderella.” Her real name was Rhodope,
and she was a beautiful Egyptian maiden, who lived
six hundred and seventy years before the Chris
tian era. One day Rhodope ventured to bathe in a
clear stream near her home, leaving her shoes which
were very small, lying upon the bank. An eagle
passing above, caught sight of the little sandals and
mistaking them for a toothsome morsel, flew down
and carried off one in his beak. The bird unwitting
ly played the part of fairy god-mother, for flying
over Memphis where the king was dispensing jus
tice in an open air court, it dropped the shoe di
rectly at the king’s feet. Its small size and beauty
immediately attracted the royal eye, and the king
determined to know the wearer of so dainty a shoe.
Messengers were sent through all the kingdom in
search of the foot it would fit. Rhodope was finally
discovered, the shoe placed on her foot, and she was
carried in triumph to Memphis where she became
queen of the King Psammeticus.
Louise Crossley.
The oldest body of any human being now reposes
in the Egyptian gallery of the British Museum. It
is the body of a man who was buried in a shallow
grave hollowed out of the sandstone on the west
bank of the Nile in Upper Egypt. This man must
have hunted along the banks of the Nile before the
time of the earliest mummied king which the mu
seum posesses—before the time of Menes, who was
supposed to have ruled Egypt at least 5,000 B. C.
There were previous to that time two prehistoric
races, one the conquerors and the other the con
quered, from which sprang the Egyptian race of
the earliest dynasties. It is with these remote
stocks that this man has to do. Considering the
condition in which he was found, it is evident that
he was associated with a late period of the new
stone age of Egypt. He was buried in a character
istic neolithic grave, with his neolithic pots and in
struments of flint about him. There is, of course,
no inscription of any kind on the pots, knives, or
grave, all having been made long before the inven
tion of any written language.
—The American Antiquarian.
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