Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1909 — Page 7

THANKSGIVING IN THE SOUTHLAND.

The gold is on the pumpkin, and the gay nasturtium vine Is aglow with yellow glory in the sunny southern clime.

A SNOWED-IN THANKSGIVING

By EFF HATCH

Copyright, 1909, by American Preu Association I A WHENCE GREER, looking from his bedroom window, could see but snow as far as his eye traveled. It was snow on the window panes, snow on shrub and tree and hill, snow everywhere in all sorts of fantastic shapes and with yet more coming. The first big storm of the season was descending on the region whither he had come but two days before to spend his Thanksgiving vacation from city office duties in his uncle’s home. Already roads and even fences were obliterated. ••Hello, Lawrence!” came the voice of his uncle from below. “Guess we’ll

GERTRUDE CAME FORWARD WITH A GREETING.

would have returned home sorely disappointed had he not encountered at least one deep drift experience. At breakfast it was arranged that Lawrence, with old Jacob, should undertake the breaking through of the gully road as far as the Widow Bennett’s. At that point they would undoubtedly meet the Pearson boys from a mile beyond. Now, Lawrence had pleasant recollections of Widow Bennett’s hospitable home. As a boy it had opened its arms to him. and it was there he bad spent many an hour with Mrs. Bennett and her granddaughter, the brightest, black eyed, alert little girl that ever wore short skirts, rode on snowplows, called him “Uncle Law” and insisted on his own grownupness and bls fitness to advise her on her reading, her studies and even her ambitions. Gertrude, however, had been away at school these later winters and Lawrence had caught uo glimpse of her, although his aunt and even bls uncle had much to say of her attractiveness and loveliness as evidenced in the summer life of the place. “We ought to make Bennett’s by noon and get back here by chore time,” was the schedule announced by did Jacob. “If it gets any worse later in the day don’t try to get back tonight. Just bed at the Bennett farm and dig toward us in the morning," was the un-

have to dig out our end of the gully road this morning. Breakfast ready in ten minutes. Get on your heaviest togs. It’s a snifter this time.” This wasn’t the first time that Lawrence bad lent a hand in snow plowing and shoveling out the snowedins of his uncle’s district. Ever since he was a boy of fifteen, ten years before, he had been making annual winter visits to this best of all his uncles and aunts, and he

cle’s parting advice. The storm did grow worse and grew worse so rapidly that by the time they had covered three-quarters of the distance to the Widow Bennett’s Lawrence and old Jacob considered it advisable to detach the horses from the

GERTRUDE SO WBOTE.

snowplow and. mounted one on each horse, make their way to the Bennett farm. - _

“Worst storm ever!” saidMhe widow as she welcomed the two. “It doesn’t look as if we should get out for days. I was telling Gertrude it was mighty lucky for her that she came yesterday, for she couldn't possibly have escaped a snow blockade had she taken a train later.” Lawrence was all attention. “I say, little Gertrude isn't here, is she?" he asked. “Well, I don’t know as she is,” qulzsically replied the grandmother. “Little' Gertrude hasn't been in evidence for some years, but Miss Gertrude isn’t far away.” Boon there was a quick step and a laughing “Hello. Uncle Law!" as Gertrude came forward with a greeting that for its simplicity and heartiness and but for the ripened flower of womanhood before him might have carried him back a half dozen years. Lawrence Greer was not one easily to be carried off his feet, but be was too evidently in the air this time even to disguise the fact cleverly. "But 1 say. Gertrude, how on earth did it all happen?” looking her over from head to foot. "Years. Uncle Law, just years and the getting into touch with new kinds of life. You said it would be just as I’ve found it and also that 1 would some day forget my Uncle Law and that he told me so. But, you see, I haven’t forgotten either.” And she smiled as frankly as in the days when be told her, sitting on his knee, of the world that she would go into, through the gateways of school and experience and of the society, whose doors bad not then opened to her. That she hadn’t forgotten him and those talks to the child Gertrude gave Lawrence a thrill of real pleasure.

That afternoon and evening was a rare day in Lawrence’s experience of life. The storm raged furiously, and Lawrence, relieved of duty, gave himself up •;*> the spell of a renewal of acquaiutance that had all the novelty, piquancy and delight of a rare and agreeable discovery. What astonished Lawrence most were the frequently recurring and flatteringly delightful evidences that wherever she had been and however occupied during these Intervening years Gertrude had kept close tab on his own career and. furthermore, had found a certain inspiration therein. To be sure, that career had not been hidden under a bushel, for he was already sufficiently in public life to make him a marked man among influential men. Gertrude’s discriminating allusions to his work as commissioner, delegate or president of the board, to his work in correcting civic evils and in his other public activities betokened a peculiarly personal interest such as Lawrence had not before met and such as he least expected in any woman. His own mother and sisters had shown no such intelligent interest in his work, and even his brother, he was willing to wager, knew far less of his career than did this mere girl whom but yesterday, as it were, he had amused as a child, but a child that he loved. Was it possible that in shaping the ideals of life for a child he had unwittingly offered himself as an ideal to the heart of that child? If so would she find him worthy or not now that the years had proved him? Was her admiration only admiration? If more than that might it not yet be that some one else already forestalled him in her affections? How was he to know? It was near the close of the second day and drifting winds had made necessary a still further delay in breaking out the roads that opportunity offered itself to Lawrence to gain some light on the ever more tantalizing question of possible rivals in Gertrude’s affections. As for himself, Lawrence felt that his entire world was already revolving around this one young woman. Gertrude was showing him some photographs accumulated during the years of her girlhood. '. “But where is his picture?’’ asked Lawrence, interrupting her description of the photographs. “I have never asked him for one.* “Why so?” “I preferred the picture in my heart to any other.” “Does he know that?” “He must know it—by now,” with a baffling smile. “Can’t you give me ahy idea of what he looks like, some picture of him before you consigned him to your heart? Of course you must have had a tintype experience on some early excursion, been snapshotted on the lawn or kodaked somewhere.” An amused smile and a mischievous look came to her face as Gertrude took from Its separate envelope a carefully protected little kodak picture of a youth not yet out of his teens and a girl just entering hers. He was bending down the branch of a mountain ash that the girl might pick the red berries. She was trying by standing on her toes to reach yet a little higher. “Here is the gem of my collection, if you will see It. Perhaps you will recognize the subjects and recall the occasion. I have never become reconciled to the fact that you failed to bring those berries within my reach.” With Lawrence’s look of recognition and laugh at the all but forgotten circumstances of the time thus recalled came a puzzled expression, as if he were trying in some way to connect this picture with the question he had asked. At the same instant Gertrude’s face assumed the expression of one who fears she has said a word too much, and she hastened to call Lawrence’s attention to the writing on the back of the picture. "You wrote that line above, ’lt’s the reaching upward that counts.’ You asked me to write my own interpretation on the picture at some later time. I have never done so. I suppose I might do so now. What do you suggest?” “Will you write what I suggest and as your own?” He was now watching her face with intensest look. “Try me.” And she returned his gaze as directly. “Write, ‘lt takes two together to capture the higher prizes of life.’ ” And Gertrude so wrote and underscored it besides.

Our Noblest Bird.

The noblest of birds is the turkey. As the baldheaded eagle Is king. And now wneu the weather grows murky. With politics out of the fling. Other goods we may look at and long for While our hearts are with thankfulness puffed. But the bird of our hearts is alt ready And waiting, poor dear, to, get stuffed.

The Cynic and the Lowbrows.

“The stage is in sad need of something to elevate it.” said the earnest observer. "Perhaps,” answered Mr. Storming ton Barnes. “But the stage certainly does not need elevation as much as the foreheads of some of the people on whose money it depends.”—Washington Star

Stupid.

“I suppose you must have had a perfectly iovely time in the White mountains.” “No; it was awfully stupid. There was only one lady in the hotel where we stopped who knew the least thing about bridge;’’ Chicago Record-Her-ald.

Matter of Business.

Harker—That fellow Bright is playing both ends against the middle from a business point of vie#. Parker—How’s that? Harker—He operates three pie bakeries aud has just put a new cure for indigestion on the market.—Chicago News.

PRESIDENT BUCHANAN’S DAY OF FASTING.

The first general proclamation appointing a fast day was Issued by President James Buchanan Dec. 14, 1860, and reads as follows: “Numerous appeals have been made to me by pious and patriotic associations and citizens, in view of the present distracted and dangerous condition .of our country, to recommend that a day be set apart for humiliation, fasting and prayer throughout the Union. In compliance with their request and my own sense of duty I designate Friday, the 4th day of January. 1861, for this purpose and recommend that the people assemble on that day, according to their general forms of worship, to keep it as a solemn fast. “The union of the states is at the present moment threatened with alarming and immediate danger. Panic and distress of a fearful character prevail throughout the land. Our laboring population are without employment and consequently deprived of the means of earning their bread. Indeed, hope seems to have deserted the minds of men. Ail classes are in a state of confusion and dismay, and the wisest counsels of our best and purest men are wholly disregarded. “In this the hour of our calamity and peril to whom shall we resort for relief but to the God of our fathers? His omnipotent arm only can save us from the awful effects of our own crimes and follies, our own ingratitude and guilt toward our Heaveuly Father. “Let us, then, with deep contrition and penitent sorrow unite in humbling ourselves before the Most High in confessing our individual and national sins and in acknowledging the justice of our punishment. Let us implore him to remove from our hearts that false pride of opinion which would impel us to persevere in wrong for the sake of consistency rather than yield a just submission to the unforeseen exigencies by which we are now surrounded. Let us with deep reverence beseech him to restore the ft endship and good will which prevailed in former days among the people of the several states and, above all, to save us from the horrors of civil war and blood guiltiness. Let our fervent prayers ascend to his throne that he will not desert us in this hour of extreme peril, but remember us as he did our fathers in the darkest days of the Revolution and preserve our constitution and our Union, the work of their hands, for ages yet to come. An omnlpotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good. He can make the wrath of man to praise him. and the remainder of wrath he can restrain. Let me invoke every individual. in whatever sphere of life he may be placed, to feel a nersonal re-

HAVE A LOOK FINALE WIND UP CLOTHING SALE -‘I 1 have put the knife deep in the prices. Come and see for yourself All Hen’s and Boys’ Long Pants, Your choice of the lot, per pair sl. Boys’ Knee Pants Suits, Your choice, per suit $2. Men's, and Boys’ Long Pants Suits Lots. Any Suit in this lot -- - - $3, Lot 3. Any Suit in this lot - - - - $4, Lot 3.. Any Suit in this lot - - - - $5. Boys’ Knee Pants, per pair - - - . 25c All Overcoats at a Great Reduction It will pay you to call and look over this stock of goods. The above are only about half value. I. LEOPOLD Second door south of Fate’s flodel Restaurant. Van Rensselaer street.

WHEN IT’S EASY TO BE THANKFUL.

Out in grandpa’s cornfield, where the golden pumpkins lie, It’s easy to be thankful and to think of grandma’s pie.

sponsibilfty to God and his country for keeping this day holy and for contributing all in his power to remove our actual and impending difficulties. “JAMES BUCHANAN.”

Good Precedents.

The two precedents which the colonial governors had to guide them in ordering a day for thanksgiving were the national Thanksgiving held by order of good Queen Bess after the defeat of the Spanish armada and that of King James of England because the gunpowder plot failed to materialize.

A clergyman writes: “Preventlcs, those little Candy Cold cure Tablets are working wonders in my parish.” Preventlcs surely will check a cold, or the Grippe, In a very few hours. And Preventlcs are so safe and harmless. No Quinine, nothing harsh nor sickening. Fine for feerish restless children. Box of 48 for 25c. Sold by all dealers.

Did you notice the crowds carrying away the greatest bargains of their lives at the great closing out sale of the Chicago Bargain Store?