The Henry County weekly. (McDonough, GA.) 18??-1934, November 19, 1909, Image 2
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.