Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1912 — The Helping Hand. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Helping Hand.

We get a good many contributions for this column, but for various reasons we cannot use them. One reason is that some of them do not fit the column, being either too long or too broad—as was the case with Hector Burnoff's virile and vigorous chant rdyale on the subject of the directoire gown. Another reason is that we love to work. Nothing is so delightful to us as to sit down and, having decided upon the shape, size and general contour of a poem, select a well-ripened ■idea and adorn it with words, oscillating, as it were, between the Century dictionary and Walker’s justly celebrated aid to rhyming. Mr. Walker often rhymes by spelling and not by sound, and you have to pick the words out by their terminal facilities instead of by their initial letters, but at times he is a help. We have hung back coyly with regard to spring poetry this year, waiting for the simon-pure inspiration, when the divine afflatus would sift into our soul and we could throw ourself, so to rpeak. The other day we took off our hat and stood beneath the orchard [ trees, waiting for the naiads and 5 dryads to dance through the distant 1 forest, but the nearest we came to such a vision was the tobacco and corset ads on the billboards impinging I upon the perspective. Just while we are in much dolefulness over the fail-

ure of. the afflatus to afflate, and also filled with quinine and regret as* a result of standing in the damp grass, we receive a poem on spring from the facile pen of Lucile Geraldine' Putts. Miss Putts does not mince matters nor gloss over anything, but,strikes at the heart of her subject and dares it to dotage- We feel that shp has so thoroughly poetized this spring that it needs no attention, -on our part. ■ Her poem is as follows: The orchard is in bloom And the bees begin to Hum Among the many trees; Some are apple, some are plum. _ How fine it is to see The grass grow on the ground So green and velvety It Is growing all around. nt The geranium is transplanted To the outdoors once again, And the little visiting children Merrily chase the hen. The little birds a're twittering At sunrise in the east, And everybody is happy, w Considerable, at least. All nature is enraptured When spring’s glad word is spoke And Ijlfe is musical, BUt Oh, my heart is broke!

There is a touch of poignant sadness in the last stanza which reminds us to some extent- of Alfred Austin’s “You and Me,” but aside from that Mr. Austin himself could not have written a sprite poem to equal this -one. No, not teen though he were dosed with Pierite sarsaparilla until the last vestige of that tired feeling had left him.