Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 289, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1920 — THE LITTLE HOME PAPER. [ARTICLE]

THE LITTLE HOME PAPER.

By Charles Hanson Towne in American Magazine. The little home paper comes to me, As badly printed as. it can be: It’s ungrammatical, cheap, absurd— Yet how I love each intimate word! For here am I in the teeming town, Where the sad, mad people rush up and down And it’s good to get back to the old lost place And gossip and smile for a little space. The weather is hot, the corn crop’s good; * They’ve had a picnic in Sheldon’s ■ Wood, And Aunt Maria was sick last week; Ike Morrison’s got a swollen cheek, And the Squire Was hurt in a runaway— More shocked than bruised, I’m glad to say, . Bert Wills—l used to play ball with him— Is working a farm with his Uncle Jim. The Red Cross ladies gave a tea, And raised quite a bit. Old Soli MacPhee Has sold his house on Lincoln Road; He couldn’t carry so big a load. The Methodist minister’s had a call prom a wealthy parish near St. Paul. And old Herb Sweet is married at ■ last — iHe was forty-two. How the years rush past! i But here’s an item that makes me see What a puzzling riddle life can be. “Ed Stokes,” it reads, “was killed in

France When the Allies made their last advance.” Ed f Stokes! That boy with the laughing eye. As blue as the early-summer sky! He ’ wouldn’t have killed a fly—and yet; Without a murmur, without a regret, He left the peace of our little place, And went away with a light in his face For out in the world was a job to < do > .. And he wouldn’t come home until it was through Four thousand miles from our tiny town And its hardware store, this boy went down, Such a quiet lad, such a simple chap— But he’s put East Dunkirk on the map!