Newspaper Page Text
out of the twenty girls could tell me the meaning of
the feast of the Passover. Oh, yes, they all wore
their daintiest muslin dresses and their sweetest
smiles. A side glance or a timid grin was ex
changed now and then with Dick or John who sat
across the church. After vain attempts at catching
their interest I was only successful in doing so by
telling them a romance which I remembered. Such
is the condition of our Sabbath schools, and what
are we going to do about it? Competent teachers
who will make the lesson entertaining as well as in
structive is what we need. Demand that the pu
pils be prompt. Encourage them with their lessons.
Impress upon their minds the value of the Bible
in a literary and social way. The use of maps and
globes is very helpful towards interesting the small
as well as the larger classes. Begin at the cradle roll
and reach the dear young children from the first to
love Christ and his teachings.
“Just as the twig is bent, .
The tree is inclined.”
Ivy, Ala. BEN IVY.
THE GATES OF PEARL.
Beyond where the sunset splendors
In banners of light unfurl,
I see, as I dream, the silver gleam
Os the City with Gates of Pearl;
And I seem to see my loved ones
Who left earth’s maddening whirl
To dwell in the Holy City,
With its gleaming gates of pearl.
Fair gates, "where seeking spirits
Their weary wings may furl
And enter the rest and the joys of the blest,
Behind the Gates of Pearl.
Belleview, Ga. MARY E. McMILLAN.
MADE WELCOME IN A NEW HOME.
In looking over The Golden Age of June 27 I was
glad to note in our Household so many familiar
names. Dear Geraldine, how gladly I welcome
you and indeed all the others for ’tis like coming
home again after being turned out to wander amid
the shadows. So many of us were standing with
folded hands, bowed heads and sad faces, homeless —
when 10, a light shone thro’ the shadows, a sweet
familiar voice called, “Another home! Come!”
Then our sorrow changed to gladness for we could
all meet again. Let us rally around our dear editress
and send her the sweetest, brightest, best thoughts,
and most beautiful fancies that come to us while the
flower-crowned summer is passing away. How many
of you read and admired “In Dixie Land,” by David
E. Guyton? I found it exceedingly interesting and
the tribute paid to our “Earnest Willie” was excel
lent. Was it not kind in him to allow us more room
in The Golden Age? And now let us all unite in
making it such a beautiful, restful home that all
who enter will remain. With best wishes to all,
Talbotton, Ga. MARY E. McMILLAN.
BRER RABBIT’S CLOSE CALL.
Whatever the negro lacks, he certainly has imag
ination —or perhaps you may call it fancy. There
are born story tellers among them. One of these
was little Pete —who was looked on as “nigh to an
idjet” by the other darkeys. Pete lacked good “horse
sense,” no doubt about that. If set to dropping corn
or hoeing cotton, he did the work so poorly that
he was soon dismissed and allowed to wander about
over the fields and woods, talking to the birds and
rabbits, that seemed not to be afraid of him at all.
He always carried a piece of bread in the bosom of
his old shirt, with which to feed the birds. He
prowled about at night—for he was afraid of nothing
—and he had wonderful tales to tell of the possums
and coons he met and what they did and said. He
declared the “wild creeturs” would talk to him when
he was by himself and he would repeat their con
versation with much earnestness. One morning he
came home after prowling about since long before
day, and got his breakfast from the cabin —a slice
of fat meat and a cold sweet potato. Throwing him
self down on the grass under the apple tree, he be
gan to eat and to laugh. “I des declar,” he said after
awhile, “ole Mistah Fox dun play Brer Rabbit er
mean trick.” “What was it, Pete? Tell it to us,” de
manded the children, for white and black liked to
hear Pete’s wonder tales. “Well, night befo’ las,
when de moon was jes risin Mister Fox he come
trottin up to whar Brer Rabbit an his wife was setin
out in frunt of der home in de brier patch an Brer
Fox say, ‘Howdy frens, I hopes I sees you well dis
nice moonshiny night.’ Brer Rabbit, he anser him
jes polite, caze he don trus Mr. Fox; he know’
he desateful. ‘l’s tollible,’ he say, ‘but my wife she ain
The Golden Age for July 11, 1907.
got no appetite; she cant eat nothin she gets.* ‘Maybe
she’d like some nice tender lettis and cabbage,’ says
Mister Fox. ‘I sho would,’ says Mrs. Rabbit, ‘but
whar’s such good truck to cum from. I ain’t seen
none in a long time.’ ‘Well, I can tell you where
deys’ a nice lot of it. It's down in ole man Stokes’
medder by de big poplar tree at de head of de
branch. It ain’t growin in de meadow, it’s in a
box, bul de box is wide open, an I could er got it my
self, only I ain’t no han to eat veg’tables, but I peeped
in, caze I was er huntin a little blue hen what went
to settin in er box, an it look so nice and green,
I say “I'll have ter tell neighbor Rabbit ’bout dis.
He’ll sho be glad to git some er dis nice vittles.” ’
‘I don’ like to go in no box,’ Brer Rabbit say. Tse
spicious er boxes.’ ‘Oh, es you’se dat scary, you better
let it ’lone an let Mis’ Rabbit keep er feelin bad an
hungry for tender vittles. I’m glad I ain’t sich a cow
ard I can’t pervide fer my fambly. So long neigh
bor,’ an he trot off grinnin to hisself, fer he jes
knowed Brer Rabbit’s wife goin to keep naggin him
till he bleeged to go an see ’bout dem cabbage an
lettis in de box down in ole Stoke’s medder. An sho
nuff it cum jest dat way, Brer Rabbit had to go to
have any peace, an so off he hopped and he fin de
box all right an look in and dar was de lettis an
de cabbage lookin mighty green an tender, an he
zamine de box all roun an aint seen nuthin
wrong. De do was prop up at de en wider stick
an he say to hisself, ‘I gwine be keerful not to tech
dat stick. I’ll go in an try de truck an den I’ll go
back after my wife.’ So, in he went, mighty keerful,
an he tuck er tender lettis leaf in his mouf but jes as
he was bitin it off, bam! de do fall an shot him up
in dar hard an fas. He try an he try to butt de doah
down but he caynt; den he try to scratch out but de
groun hard laker rock. He stay dar moanin and
groanin. all night Bout sun up he hears somethin
trottin up an den Mister Fox peep troo de crack,
and say: ‘Hi, hi, dar you is Neighbor Rabbit. You’se
a goner dis time. Good for you, I got you into
dis cause of yer imperance to me. I see de Stokes
boy and gal er commin now.’ He loped off and bine
by Brer Rabbit hear de Stokes boy holler out; ‘Oh
my trap’s down! It’s caught er rabbit.’ Den he lif
up de trap an he kotch Brer Rabbit by de hin legs
an hoi him up and say: ‘Look at him, Sis; aint he
fat?’ An de little gal say: ‘Oh, Buddy, let him loose;
see how pitiful he look outen his big eyes.’ An her
brudder say: ‘Youse er little fool. You hoi dis rab
bit tight whilst I set de trap ergin’. De little gal
take Brer Rabbit an he ’gwinst to squirm an squeal
an turn his eyes on de little gal, an she say to her
self: ‘I caynt stan dat; he’s beggin me to turn him
loose, to go back to his little chilluns; an she let
go er Brer Rabbit’s laigs, and away he jump an
den tuck down de branch wid his foot diggin in
de groun and his tail up. He tell me all bout it dis
mawning, jes so day an he say he gwine get even wid
Mister Fox es it takes him till Christmus..”
THOMAS LOCKHART.
Wellington, Mo.
COUNTING THE STARS.
There is so much talk about unhappy marriages,
that I want to stand right up in The Golden Age
meeting and give my testimony on the side of matri
mony. I have been married thirteen years (the fate
ful thirteen number) and my wife and I are still
sweethearts —glad of each other’s love and thank
ful for health, hope and four healthy rosy children
that have come to bless our home. My wife says
she first thought of me as a lover through my having
come at the “psychological moment” predicted by a
little fortune telling scheme she tried. She calls it
“counting the stars,” and this, my dear girls, is the
way it is done: Count just nine stars every night for
nine successive nights. Don’t speak a word that
night after the counting. On the tenth day, the first
stranger you meet will certainly be your destiny.
Try it, and see what will happen. 1 enjoy The Gol
den Age and I have put my opinion of the paper
into rhyme, as follows:
How do I like The Golden Age?
It is fine from the first to the final page.
I believe it will soon be all the rage.
For our cares and fears it helps to assuage.
Its pages are ever bright and clean;
No whiskey ads are upon them seen.
From its sermons comfort one may glean,
And a little fun is sandwiched between.
Earnest Willie, I wish you well:
Hope your subscription list will swell,
And the charming Household and Voices of Youth
Will do away with sadness and ruth
And make us children of love and truth.
GEORGE W. WHEELER.
Hattiesburg, Miss.
WHAT IS HIS NAME?
Many of the Household members are interested
in Southern writers. I would like to ask how many
of these know the name of the author of a song
which their mothers and grandmothers loved well to
sing in the days of their youth and with which
their fathers and grandfathers used to serenade their
sweethearts, to whom they had not found couiage
to declare their love. That song was called I d
Offer Thee This Hand of Mine.” And it was writ
ten more than half a century ago by a young man
who lived in Lynchburg, Va., when that city was in
“short pants.” There was the making of a great poet
in this young son of the Old Dominion, but, like
Keats and Chatterton, he died in his youth. It is
said “they whom the gods love die young.”
This boy, like Keats, was stricken through his
affections. He loved a young lady who had been
delicately reared in a home of affluence. He was
poor, and he loved her too well to ask her to share
his poverty. His song expresses this unselfish love
and renunciation in beautiful pathetic words. It be
gins:
“I’d offer thee this hand of mine
If I could love thee less.
But hearts as warm and pure as thine
Should never know distress.
My fortune is too hard for thee,
’Twould chill thy dearest joy,
I’d rather weep to see thee free
Than win thee to destroy.
I leave thee in thy happiness,
As one too dear to love.
As one I’ll think of but to bless
While wretchedly I rove.
Yet, oh when Sorrow’s cup I drink;
All bitter though it be,
It will be sweet for me to think
It holds no drop for thee.”
Whether or not the girl so devotedly loved and
touchingly renounced loved the poet in return, has
not come to us through the social records of that
day. I withhold the name of the author as I wish to
see how many of those to whom the song was so
familiar in the old days remember the name of the
Virginia youth, who wrote it as it were with his
heart’s blood.
ROSCOE HALL,
(“Smiling Jonas.”)
Autreyville, N. C., R. F. D. No. 1.
n
GRATEFUL TO THE GOLDEN AGE.
It is a pleasure to know that Earnest Willie has in
vited us Householders of the regretted Sunny South
into a pleasant home in his Golden Age. I feel sure
the new department will succeed under the guid
ance of talented, bright-spirited, cheery Ada Bryan.
I am glad to see many of the old Household band
with us here, and hope that more will join us. Os the
many hundreds who mourned the change of the
Sunny South into the Remus Magazine, none was
more full of regret to miss its weekly visits than I.
There was such a variety in the Sunny South House
hold, so much information, fun, bright thoughts and
helpful cheer and sympathy for the bereaved and
the afflicted, that its passing was felt to be a real
calamity. I do not believe that Mrs. Bryan loves
her new and finer home in the Remus Magazine as
she loved the old Sunny South, which she created.
We will miss her sweet chats and her interesting
“Timely Talks.” Will she not some time write a
message for The Golden Age? We are truly thank
ful to noble Earnest Willie for giving us space in his
excellent paper. He will welcome the shut-ins, too,
I am sure, for he well knows how to feel with them.
I am thankful that these lives are so noble, unselfish
and inspiring, and I will close this letter by a prayer
that the Household of The Golden Age may succeed
and may bring cheer and pleasure into many homes
of the South. “EARNEST JOE.”
Successful Work by Student
Workers.
Our Student Workers are already, many of them,
achieving encouraging success in soliciting sub
scriptions for The Golden Age during their vaca
tion. We want to help you, and we want your help.
"Write us and learn our offer for workers during
the summer. The Golden Age,
