Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1916 — THE HAND OUT. [ARTICLE]

THE HAND OUT.

By Walt Mason. The most of us are working hard to stock the cupboard shelves, to purchase coal and lime and lard, to ( clothe and feed ourselves. We plug along the best .we can, and always strive to keep a quarter for the felI low-man who has no place to sleep. . The boys are always needing shoes, | the girls for dresses call, and so we strain oty weary thews, to raise the I wherewithal. Down to our tasks ( we re always bent, to meet each | pressing need, and have a quarter I for the gent who has no place to i feed. We turn no beggar from the door, however hard we’re pressed; I we think, .“Ere many years are o'er, i like him we may be dressed: like him we may be unemployed, and i look as tough as he, and have a I dull and aching void where fodder . ought to be. Like him we may be , glad to sleep in some abandoned ; well: the cost of living is so steep j "ho can our fate foretell? And ■ when we for a handout plead, ‘ for hungry kids and frau, may peoI pie help us in our need, as we help others now."