Newspaper Page Text
Henry County Weekly.
R. L. JOHNSON, Editor.*
Entered at the pestofflce at McDon
ough as second class mail matter.
Advertising Rates: SI.OO per inch
per month. Reduction on standing
contracts by special agreement.
When respect departs, asserts the
Chicago News, love packs its grip and
takes a vacation.
Suggests the New York Tribune:
Rattle Harbor is appropriately named
as a port for Arctic explorers.
A sinner, on the Atchison Globe,
Baid to a preacher today: “This weath
er is hotter than h —l.” “For your
sake,” replied the preacher, “I hope
BO.”
“The Man Without a Country,” is
an excellent tale. Somebody ought to
be able to write as a companion story,
thinks the Philadelphia Ledger, “The
Statue Without a Niche.”
A Texas physician says: “A motor
car is the safest place during a thun
derstorm” Of course, this may be all
true enough, says the Washington
Herald, but it is rather hard to bor
row a motor car every time it thun
ders.
The mountaineers of the Philippine*,
are being reclaimed, according to offi
cial report, by means of intertribal
athletic contests. Does anybody tell
us, inquires the New York World, that
footbal is employed in tapering oft
from the festive sport of head-hunt
ing.
The rule that postmen need not en
danger their lives by entering for the
delivery of letters premises where vi
cious dogs are running loose is emi
nently sensible, asserts the New York
Tribune. There is seldom reason in a
civilized community for having dan
gerous brutes at large, and if people
insist upon indulgence in the practice
they should be made to pay for the
privilege.
Medill McCormick of The Chicago
Tribune, has no mercy on the English.
At a moment when “Sprechen Sle
Deutsch?” will throw any Briton into
a cold sweat he writes to The Lon
don Mail that w r e care a good deal
more for Germany than for England,
and go to Germany for most of our in
tellectual imports, and if England
wants the support of our sympathies
ehe had better find some way of ac
quiring it. In the present state of the
British mind all this is very brutal.
The institution of a school of deport
ment for saleswomen and other women
wage earners in Chicago is interest
ing as a symptom of social develop
ment, to the New York World. How a
•
girl should csnduct herself toward an
employer and to what extent she
should accept invitations from him;
what her demeanor should be toward
fellow employes of the other sex;
how she should dress; her attitude
toward car conductors and in public
places —these are among the ques
tions of etiquette in which instruction
to be given to young business wo
men. No doubt there is a field for such
a school. The increased participation
of women in commercial life has
brought about new relationships, half
social, half business, to which parlor
manners do not apply. Some surprise
may be felt that the alert professorial
staff of the University of Chicago has
overlooked the need of tuition of this
kind and allowed an outside agency to
originate it. But what has become of
the American mother as a teacher of
conduct? Once it was in the home
that girls learned how to behave. The
principles inculcated may have been
old-fashioned, but they served the de
mands made upon them. There is no
recollection of a school of manners
for the Lowell factory girls of a for
mer generation or for the pioneer
army of individual maternal responsi
bility to be ultimately farmed out one
by one? The Chicago school of man
ners is in some of its aspects douot
a joke. But behind it is the sober fact
of a general inclination to delegate
home duties to other hands.
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS,
By MRS. MARY# B. WINGATE.
f thank Thee, O our Father,
V V For all Thy tender care,
And ask that we may ever
Thy gifts with others share.
We thank Thee for the comforts,
The common joys of life;
For health and strength to labor,
Freedom from want and strife.
Thanks for our common blessings,
The friends that cheer our way.
'Tis joy for them to labor,
'Tis sweet for them to pray.
f (7}qfp6cr/rp ?
Mary Acker sat on the foot of the
bed, her bank-book on her knee, a
pencil between her fingers, and a
frown on her low, broad brow.
“Twenty-nine from seventy-five
leaves forty-six,” she murmured to
herself. “Even then it won’t be so
very much. The silk in that waist is
worse than a second, and the hat
looks as though it came off a bargain
counter —which it did.”
The frown deepened and the pencil
made uncertain, imaginary lines in
midair.
“Oh, dear, what’s the use of living
in a city and being nobody—because
it takes a million to be somebody?”
rft 1 1«■ juT jj§®w
—A. 11. Coonradt, Illinois, in Leslie’s.
She flung down the pencil and the
book, marched over to the bureau,
and resting the palm of her hands on
Its top, she studied the reflection in
the mirror. Yes, she was pretty!
And she didn’t need a mirror to tell
her so. The admiring glances of men
who passed her on the street and the
outspoken admiration or unveiled
jealousy of the girls in the store
where she clerked had told her this
every day since she had come to town.
And with a certain sense of satisfac
tion she realized further that she was
a very different girl from the fright
ened country lassie who had started
in as a wrapper at Blank & Dash’s
department store two years back.
It had been a hard struggle. She
had lived at first at a working girls’
home, but as her salary had been
gradually raised she had gone to a
more attractive boarding-house. Still
she realized more and more each day
that she was a mere atom in this city
life. She had made a few acquaint
ances at the church where she had
enrolled, but Sunday often found her
too tired to leave the house, or she
had a little washing or mending to
do. Somehow she had never been
able to fraternize with the girls at
the store, and the invitations which
she had received from callow youths
who shared her work behind the
counter had been unattractive. Very
different had been her picture of the
new life in Boston, when, in defiance
of the wishes of her family, and of
Jim Coleman, who had been her
avowed suitor ever since he had car
ried her books to the district school,
she had turned her back on Newton
Village and her face toward Boston.
Thanks tor the highest blessings
Thy matchless love has given,
Faith in the world’s Redeemer,
Hope of a home in heaven.
Thanks for the disappointments
That oft our hopes assail;
They teach us to look forward
To joys that cannot fail.
And so, though tears are falling
O’er joys forever flown,
We thank Thee for the sorrows
Our human hearts have known.
—Christian Herald.
She was going to see life. She was
going to be one of those bachelor
maids that she had read about. She
would be a part of the picture and
action of the great city, and now, to
day, she realized for the first time
that she had an opportunity to take
part in the glittering side of life. She
had received an invitation from Har
old Goldman, who sold the firm but
tons and buckles. It was at this coun
ter that Mary worked, and young
Goldman had been attracted to her
from the first, but for some reason
which the girl could not explain she
had gently parried his invitations.
This morning, he had
touched the right cord and she had
responded. He had been folding up
his samples and stopped suddenly.
“Gee, but I dread the day after to
morrow! Holidays in town are al
ways lonesome if you don’t know a
lot of people.”
Mary nodded her head; she had
been dreading Thanksgiving Day.
“I tell you what,” continued Gold
man, “let’s celebrate together. You
put on your glad rags and we’ll go to
the .” (A fashionable cafe for
the Bohemian and theatrical set).
Just for a minute Mary’s eyes
sparkled. She realized that the girls
within earshot were consumed with
envy. Then something in her Puritan
up-bringing rebelled. A hotel dinner
on Thanksgiving Day; a show instead
of a quiet evening with relatives and
friends around the family hearth
stone. But only for an instant did
this thought obtrude. She had al
ways wanted such experiences. Gold
man was a salesman; he could afford
it. She accepted promptly. Then
she went upstairs to the suit depart
ment with the firm intention of pur
chasing the “glad rags” to which
WHO’LL GET THE THANKSGIVING DINNER?
/ ; V
. • ... - -
Goldman had referred. Still, night
found her with the raiment unpur
chased.
“It is so cheap,” she sighed to her
self, as she thought of the factory
made silk gown and the ready-to-wear
hat at which she had looked.
Another thing that bothered her
was the fact that she could not forget
the imitation jewelry Goldman wore,
and a certain obnoxious brilliancy
that she had noted at times in his
eyes. His conversation, too, was not
the sort Mary had been accustomed to
in her social life at home. It was the
jargon of the city shops, of the girls
she did not like. She did no| so much
object to drawing her savings from
the bank to buy the clothes as she did
object to wearing them. Something
within her cried out against> mock
finery.
She was still debating the question
w'hen a knock sounded at her door.
The maid handed her a bulky express
package addressed in her father's
stiff, irregular handwriting. Mary
ripped the cords and an exclamation,
half laughing, half tearful, escaped
her lips. Pies and cakes there were,
home-made cheese, ndts and ears of
popcorn, raised on the farm. She
read the note with brimming eyes:
“Dear Daughter—l reckon you can
get pies in Boston, but not the kind
your mother makes. We are sending
you this, thinking perhaps you might
give some of your girl friends a treat
on Thanksgiving night, and wishing
you could spare the money to come
home for the Thanksgiving dinner.
Maybe another year you can do so.
Of course we know it costs you an
awful lot to live in town, and things
have not gone very well on the farm
this year, so we can’t afford to send
you the money. We’ll be thinking of
you, though, on Thanksgiving Day.
“Your affectionate father,
“JOHN ACKER.”
Mary read the letter through twice.
Girl friends! She had none. She
hardly knew the people in the house
where she boarded. She thought of
the seventy-five dollars in the bank.
What had she been saving it for? To
buy fine clothes when she became part
of the city life; and how far would
seventy-five dollars go? She asked
the question bitterly.
All of a sudden she seemed to see
her mother in the big, cheeful kitch
en, singing over the preparations for
a Thanksgiving dinner. But would
she be singing with a daughter far
away from her in a strange, lonesome
city? No, they did not look on her
as being lonesome; no doubt she was
having a very good time, for Mary
had always kept up appearances in
her letters. And then she happened
to see the postscript on the back of
her father’s note:
“Jim Coleman bought Deacon Wil
son’s store at the Corners. He’s fix
ing it up in good shape, and they say
that Myra Wilson’s going to stay and
clerk for him.”
Just how it happened Mary could
never tell, but suddenly the picture
Wet
foiled Turkey. Oyfltr^fouce
ft Celery Cranberry Jelly.Vyf
(I<yhcs Potatoes, foked Oniofl/. .Sj
of Goldman, the salesman in his
mock jewelry, came before her and
offended her mental vision.
*******
It was 4 o’clock the next day be
fore she thought of him again, she
had been so busy with her prepara
tions to leave town. Now she hurried
to the telephone.
“Oh, Mr. Goldman,” she exclaimed
as she heard his voice at the other
end of the wire, “I am going home for
Thanksgiving, so I can’t take dinner
with you to-morrow night.”
“Well, you’re a wonder,” in dis
gusted accents, “to throw a fellow
down like this at the last minute.
You’re a peacherino, that’s what you
are.”
The rebuke fell on heedless ears.
Mary’s next visit was to the tele-
graph office. She wrote three mes
sages and tore them up. The final
one said: “James Coleman, Newton
Village: Send word to mother I’ll
be home for Thanksgiving and al
ways. ”
“Myra Wilson, indeed,” she mur
mured, as she made her w r ay to the
superintendent’s desk to hand in her
resignation. “I guess I can give her
pointers on clerking."
****•••
The train slowed up at Newton
Village. As she sprang from the
steps of the car the figure she was
looking for loomed up in the keen
November twilight.
“Oh, Jim! ” was all she said, but the
man understood-, and as he tucked
her into the sleigh he looked straight
into her eyes.
“I reckoned if anything would
bring you back Thanksgiving would.”
She bent forward so that he could
hardly catch the words:
“But it wasn’t Thanksgiving Day,
Jim, it was—you.”—McCall’s Maga
zine. ,
English agricultural societies have
started a sparrow crusade. Bounties
are paid for birds and eggs.
%
■mm
Thanksgiving Day.
New Year’s Day we share with
all the world, and Christmas and
Easter with all Christendom. The
Fourth of July is emphatically our
own day, but it is purely patriotic in
its significance. Thanksgiving Day
is as distinctively American as the
Nation’s birthday is, and it is sacred
to the two strongest forces in Ameri
can life.
There are plenty of people abroad,
and some at home, who do not be
lieve that our people are eminent for
religion or domesticity. But they
are. And one evidence of it is this
very day of annual observance. It
may be quite true that a great part
of the population does not go to
church on the last Thursday of No
vember, and it is evident that much
of the day is devoted to football and
other outdoor sports. But the day
was never a fast day; quite the con
trary; in its primitive form and its
New England surroundings it was a
feast day, so far, at least, as the sup
plies of food permitted. It was a
day of public worship and thanksgiv
ing to God, but even the New Eng
lander did not go to church all day;
he devoted no inconsiderable share
of it to hearty eating.
Religion has always been a great
power in American society—a fact
sometimes lost sight of in the mul
tiplicity of religious bodies; it is
sometimes supposed that mere de
nominational partisanship takes the
place of real, deep religious feeling.
This is not so. No people in the
world are more strongly moved by
religious feeling in distinction from
religious ceremonial and religious
habits, and to no people is it more
natural to give thanks to God for
national and individual blessings.
Some Englishmen come over here,
glance at our family hotels and our
apartment houses and go back to
their own country with the story
that there is no home life in Amer
ica. It is as great a mistake as we
Americans make when we imagine
the French to be without domesticity
because their vocabulary has no pre
cise equivalent for our w'ord “home.”
The truth is that dorfies’icity is a
human and not a national feeling,
and if we have no right to claim pre
eminence in its possession, we are at
least justified in claiming to be in
ferior to no other nation in our love
of home and in the strength of our
family ties.
Thanksgiving Day originated in
New England at a time when the col
onists had little to give thanks for
except that they were still alive. Its
observance became national about the
time of the Civil War, because that
intensified our national feeling, and
its result gave us occasion for pro
found thankfulness. Because it is a
day devoted to the recognition of
man’s dependence upon his Creator,
and to reunions of families, it has
appealed strongly to fundamental
American instincts, and has estab
lished itself East and West, North
and South.
The American people have at this
time abundant reason for thankful
ness in the continuance of peace; in
the abundant harvests, and in the
absence of epidemics and calamities.
Much as there is to condemn in bus
iness and politics, and frequent as are
private scandals, we believe that
American progress is not limited to
the acquisition of wealth, but that
the standards of public and private
life are slowly advancing; that pub
lic spirit and generosity are growing
virtues; that domestic virtues were
never more esteemed, and that the
American people as a whole will be
entirely sincere to-day both when
they—or a good many of them—as
semble in their churches to give
thanks to God, and also when around
their well loaded dinner tables they
renew their expressions of family af
fection.
—Life.
