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VOICES OF YOUTH
A Little Child Laughed.
“ From the Baltimore Sun.
A little child laughed—and the sun came out,
A little child laughed—glory echoed his shout.
The birds caught the wonder and carried it far
In the song that they sang to the clouds and the star.
A little child laughed—and the shadows and mist
By the beams of love’s beautiful sunshine were
kissed.
A little child laughed—and our burden and care
Fell away as our sorrows fall away after prayer.
Award in Hero Contest.
We had hoped to be able to announce the award
of our Hero Contest this week, but owing to circum
stances this must be delayed yet a little while. We
have one excellent reason for this, and it is that
we want our young readers to have just one more
chance. We know many of you are exceedingly busy
with school work just now, and that any writing on
the outside is more or less difficult, but maybe a
“hero letter” sent to us would serve also for a com
position when you have to write one. Suppose you
tell your teachers of our contest and ask if this
isn’t possible? Some of you may have to contri
bute to a school paper, too, and surely a hero story
would be appreciated by your editor of that quite
as much as by the editor of The Golden Age.
Os course these are only suggestions, and whether
any more stories are received between this week
and next or not, the award will surely be announced
then.
Answers to Longfellow Puzzle.
1 — Old Clock on the Stairs.
2 The Wedding Day.
3 The Bridge.
4 The Spinning-Wheel.
5 Village Blacksmith.
6 Snow-Flakes.
7 The Stars.
8 — The Rainy Day.
9 Woods in Winter.
10 — The Indian Hunter.
11 — The Phantom Ship.
12 — Christmas Bells.
We hope this puzzle has served to amuse many of
you and that some have already sent us in answers,
so that we may publish them next week, but we have
not waited to let you have the answers, for we
know many are curious as to what these answers
are. Every poem mentioned in this list will bear
careful reading, and while some of them are well
known, others are not read as much. We espe
cially commend “The Phantom Ship” as one of the
comparatively little known Longfellow poems, for
it chronicles an event which is said to have really
happened in colonial days.
“The Bridge” and “The Rainy Day” are perhaps
the most popular poems in this list, although “The
Old Clock on the Stairs” may be the best known
one.
With Our Correspondents.
HENRY W. GRADY CHOSEN AS AN IDEAL HERO.
Dear Brother Willie: —I come for my first time
to greet the writers of The Golden Age, and to an
swer the question of who is the greatest hero. Os
course, there will be many different beliefs, but my
ideal hero is Henry Woodfin Grady. He was born
in Athens, Ga., May 24, 1850, and died in Atlanta,
Ga., on December 23, 1889. He was the son of Chris
tian parents. While yet a boy he was left to a
mother’s spiritual teaching and guidance. How well
she performed this sacred trust let the beautiful life
of the son attest. The material out of which she
was to form religious character was easily molded in
this direction. The blessed Master had sealed the
infant lips with the kisses of His love, and the lovely
child grew into the noble and unselfish man. At
the age of fifteen, under the pastorate and preach
ing of the venerable Dr. H. H. Parks, he connected
himself with the Methodist church at Athens. On
the same occasion, the girl who afterwards became
his wife connected herself with the same church.
Our lamented brother was blessed in many ways,
but especially so in having for his life companion a
noble, Christian woman. He was one of the South’s
greatest temperance workers. He did more to unite
The Golden Age for February 28, 1907.
the North and South than any other one man. In
fact, the last speech of his life was a complete sac
rifice. He is the greatest model hero in my mind
this side of the Son of God.
“The bars of Eden had unclosed
And seraphim in waiting stood,
And joyously they gazed to know
That Grady was the angel’s choice.”
Long live The Golden Age. ODESSA HAYS.
Rockmart, Ga. Age 14 years.
P. S. —Come again to Piedmont, Brother Willie.
We children enjoyed your talk so much. O. H.
This is an excellent letter, and the reasons given
for selecting Henry Grady as a hero are good ones.
Mr. Grady was not only a great man, a great south
erner and a great Georgian, he was more, for he was
a good man, as Odessa says, and a man whose heart
was attuned to the highest understanding of Chris
tianity where it touched the every day life. And this
is the only sort of Christianity that is worth while.
Unless the followers of the Christ-teaching strive to
be as honest and true in every act, and even in
every intention, as was the Master himself, then
mere professions of Christianity are worse than
meaningless. We cannot always reach the highest
ideals which we may form for ourselves, but we can
“hitch our wagons to a star” and in aiming at the
highest fall short. perhaps, but land on some high
ground.
Unless Christianity can keep the heart full of
gentle sympathy and tender appreciation of human
needs and human sufferings, unless it can help us
to practice a justice that is almost love and a kind
liness that is almost consecration, then we do vio
lence to the Teacher whose own life radiated with
just these very qualities. All of this Henry
Grady tried to do, and to be and now that he has
passed from earth to receive, we hope, the reward
due him, we know that his memory is kept green and
his life held in reverent recollection, not because
he professed Christianity, but because he practiced
it in his daily life, in the world of men.
A DOG HERO.
Dear Golden Age:—You let me see my last letter
in print, and I was so glad, that I am writing you
again. You asked us to tell about heroes, and lam
wondering if everybody will think it very strange
if I tell about a dog hero I know. If courage and
real love make a hero, then I am sure the big oid
St. Bernard dog we have has proved himself a hero.
My father says he comes of a race of dogs which
were trained to do deeds of bravery. I never once
thought about that, and I know mother did not
either, for when I tell you what our dog did, you will
see why we loved him just for himself. You remem
ber I told you in my other letter that I live in the
country, very far away from any neighbors. Weil,
I have a little baby brother only two years old, and
one Sunday when we were all at church, he slipped
away from his nurse and got lost. It was a cold day,
and the snow was on the ground. The nurse could
see the little footprints for a while, and then lost
them. When we got home, she was crying, and told
mother how she had the baby out in the road, and
just went back into the house a minute, and when
she got back he was gone. Father at once began a
search, and it was not till late in the evening, just
about dusk, that we found the baby. In the confu
sion, nobody had missed the big dog, Prince, but the
dog had understood, and had gone to ffnd baby, too.
He got to the little fellow first, and must have been
just in time, for when father got to them both, he
found Prince holding tight to the baby’s little coat
with his teeth, and just beside a mill stream that
was flowing very fast. We all know if Prince had
not stopped him the baby would have fallen into the
stream, but the brave dog just stood there all day in
the cold and kept our precious little brother from
harm. Now, dear readers of The Golden Age, and
dear editor, too, wasn’t that the act of a hero?
Maybe this letter is too long for publication. Any
way, I want you to have it, for I do want our Prince
to have a place among human heroes. Your little
friend. MARJORIE WARD.
Why, your story of a dog hero is just fine, dear
Marjorie, and every one who reads it must feel in
terested in it. You are right to love a dog like
that, and he was indeed a hero. As your father
said, he belongs to a race of dogs trained to deeds
of valor. These dogs get their names, you know,
from the monks of St. Bernard, who live on a high
Swiss mountain which is snow covered for most of
the year, and the dogs are useful in helping the
good monks to rescue persons lost in the snow. But
whether your Prince was following inherited in
stincts or not, he was a brave dog, and a good one,
and we would like to hear more of him.
Why?
(The Scrap Book.)
Why, when a person displays a cowardly spirit,
do we say that he “shows the white feather”?
Because in the days when cock fighting was a
popular sport a white feather in the tail of a bird
was taken as evidence of inferior breeding and cour
age, and the term became common among the slang
phrases of the period as applied to persons who
showed a lack of courage.
Why do physicians place at the head of prescrip
tions the letter R with a line through the tail?
Because the letter represents the Latin word
recipes, the imperative of which means “take,” and
the little dart (originally a thunderbolt) is the sym
bol of Jove or the Latin god Jupiter, which invests
the writer with authority. The sign, therefore,
means, “By my authority, take this,” but properly
translated is, “By Jupiter, take this.”
Why do brides wear veils at the marriage cere
money?
Because it was the Anglo-Saxon custom to per
form the nuptial ceremony under a square piece
of cloth held at each corner by a tall man, the ob
ject being to hide the bride’s blushes. From hiding
both bride and bridegroom the custom changed until
the bride only was shielded from the inquisitive
gaze, and a veil was substituted for the cloth.
Why is caoutchouc called rubber?
Because an English artist discovered, in 1770, that
the gum was admirably adapted for rubbing out
pencil marks and spread the knowledge among his
contemporaries. For half a century after this it was
used for no other purpose in England, and so gained
its name.
Why do persons sigh?
Because an interval of several seconds, during
which the walls of the chest remain rigid and cause
oxygen starvation, always follows moments of men
tal disquietude; when nature demands her supply of
oxygen the deep inhalation occurs, the expiration
after which we call a sigh.
Why do we speak of various sorts of triumphs as
constituting “a feather in one’s cap”?
Because it was once the custom for Hungarian sol
diers, in their wars with the Turks, to place a feath
er in their caps for each Turk killed, and the one
who could show the most feathers was treated with
the greatest respect.
Why are imitation diamonds called “paste”?
Because most of them are made of a paste which
is composed of red lead, rock crystal, carbonate of
potash, borax and white arsenic. This substance is
technically known as “straas.”
The Wheelbarrow.
It takes a great man to do a little thing sometimes.
Who do you think invented that very simple thing
called a wheelbarrow? asks “The Boy’s World.” Why
no less a man than Leonardo da Vinci. And who
was he, do you ask?
He was a musician, poet, painter, architect, sculp
tor, physiologist, engineer, natural historian, botanist
and inventor, all in one. He wasn’t a “Jack at all
trades and master of none,” either. He was a real
master of many arts, and a practical worker besides.
He lived about the time Columbus set sail for Amer
ica, and was born in the beautiful city of Florence,
in Italy.
Perhaps some of you may feel a little better
acquainted with him when you are told that it was
Leonardo da Vinci who painted one of the grandest
pictures in the world—“ The Last Supper,”—a picture
that has been copied many times, and engraved in
several styles, so that almost everyone has an idea
of the arrangement and position at the table of the
figures of our Lord and his disciples; though it is
said that, without seeing the painting, no one can
have the faintest conception of how grand and beauti
ful it is.
And only to think how many of the thousands of
hard working Americans really own, in the wheelbar
row, an original “work” of the great Leonardo
Vinci!
Conducted by
the "Editor.
