Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1918 — HAPPENING IN OUR NEIGHBORING VILLAGES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENING IN OUR NEIGHBORING VILLAGES

John Dale was > KMsseuier caller Saturday Mrs. Chas Brin spent Sunday with Mrs. Roy Yhrtet. Lottie Nichols scei" fenday night with Mrs. CL WL Ssww. . Ifiss Creeta. Yhrtet jfat Sunday with Neva GarrSott off Art C. W. Snow & wizrkiig for Clarence Hurley ©f Wx-HEtffirid. John and Ira Dutiefs are building fence for Mrs. Gwr-ee Daniels. Bluford Terbei tnd family spent Sunday with Mrs. Sarai McCleary. Mrs. C. W. S®w ami Lottie Nichols was Gifford aser» Tuesday. John Dale and Eixfrrd Tarbet helped Charley Tnrrec haul hay Monday. Bluford Tories unf Everett McCleary delrv-jired hags at Rensselaer Wednesday. Mrs. Roy Tories: ami children and Lortiie XaeMite were Newland callers Monday. Mrs. Lizzie Ckener rs Kernan fs spending a few nays with, her sons. Jack and Sim du. Simon Cooper utd Sunfly aird Mrs. Lizzie Oooj-er Smit;.--£read with Jack Coojer u-i ftinfly Sunday. - ~ Miss Panline Ylsrbet spent from Friday evening until Sunday evening with Miss Grace Knapp of Wheatfield. Sunday school was weZ attended Sunday at Innejetn&eree. Everybody come again aid bring somebody with you.. Mr. and Mre. C_ W_ Snow and daughter Esther spent Saturday and Sunday with Clarence Hurley and family of Wtheatfielc. Mrs. Roy Tories: and children. Mrs. Chas Britt anfi Mrs. John Dale and children ea3e.fi em Mrs. Sarah McCleary Sunday -creating.

— GLFFOKD Jerne Grim was a 2eu.sseia.er goer Monday Will ObenchaiiL ealfed on George Lambert Monday Sunday school every Sunday at It *. m. Everybody uejrame. Charley Scott was a Medaryville visiter ever Heeds J 1 until Tuesday. Will Woolsey off tihe oal fields was in our burg last week taxying junk. Tom Lambert ban been «? north, of North Judson ctasmg a tag land deal Spring has eome aga£z same as ever, with the frags howfing and robins singing merrily. Chester Caster and Jaffa Akers, Jr, are working IMs week for Mr. Kimmert on the FUter Sarm. Ott Plnskia and Ma® Vesta Brown epent Sunday near Medaryville.

Roscoe Zook took them over in his Ford. Teddy Keen and Clifford and Jesse Grim, came home Saturday from Brook, where they have been husking corn. Jack Scott and Ida Davis, both of whom are working at Lafayette, spent Saturday and Sunday with relatives here. Charley Scott has traded his driving horse for a new gasoline engine, which he will put in his blacksmith shop. The farewell dance given at Reuben Snyder’s Tuesday evening .was Wen attended and everybody present enj'oyed themselves fine. Guy Zook, Lonzo Daniels, Will Steel and Grover Norris are at the Kankakee river this week fishing and hunting. Two of them returned Tuesday with about 400 pounds of fish. Another row occurred in our town Saturday night when about eight men got into a terrible fight. Some of them are carrying black eyes yet. They were going in every direction for a while during the melee. If we don’t get some on here soon to enforce the law on such occasions our town will be lost. Anybody looking for trouble can find it in Gifford.

JACKSON, TOWNSHIP, NEWTON COUNTY Fanners are talking of sowing oats next week. Some men regard home as a sort of coaling station. Not in years, hunters say, have wild ducks been so numerous. A child of Mr. and Mrs. Ira Chupp, age about three years, died last Sunday morning. Some of the farmers in this locality are hauling their damaged corn out and scattering it on the ground. With plenty of sassafras tea, dandelion greens, and cornbread and butter and eggs, what you beef-in about? In a shipment of hogs from Morocco recently, there were two of the Polanfe China breed, which brought the owner—B. F. McClatehey—lll2.l2 each. A writer asserts that Germany will emerge from the present war with a debt of more than a hundred billion dollars. If we owed that much money we wouldn’t pay it. Meet Senator Kenyon of lowa. ‘The Kaiser has no more chance of winning this war than a celluloid cat has of catching an asbestos rat m hen,” said the senator in a recent speech. Charles and Jay Makeever are entitled to recognition as being the proprietors of the biggest wood pile in. Jackson township. The blame

thing is a mile long. Well, two hundred feet anyway. The extreme cold winter, through which we have just passed, left us a few prairie chickens and their cheerful “booming” is now heard mornings and evenings, proclaiming the glad springtime. The writer bps been Informed that Charles T. Deardurff of this township, one of Uncle Sam’s boys, is now in the military police service and that he is well pleased with his job. He is stationed at Hlattiesburg, Miss, Wood sawyers are making their last round for this season. This has been a great winter for getting up wood, and most farmers are in a position to utterly ignore old King Coafband the entire coal family for a year at least. We were told not long ago that a hunter in the Kankakee region killed a hundred ducks in a day’s shooting this spring. The hunter aforesaid may kid himself into thinking that he fs a sportsman, but he isn’t, he’s, just a plain hog, with apologies to the hog, of course. Local weather prophets are predicting a dry spring, their prophecies being based upon the condition of the weather the first three days in March. But, come to think of it, last fall these same prophets predicted a warm, balmy winter, based upon the conditions of th? corn shucks. It is believed that hundreds of bushels of corn in this locality will be rendered practically worthless on account of mould. Many cribs of corn have, upon close examination, been found to be damp and mouldy in the center, a condition which will rapidly grow worse, no doubt, with the coming of warm weather.

Germany’s widely advertised drive on the western fronts reminds one of the man who tried to scare the bear, thinking it was a dog, “Well, by cripes,’’ said the man, “if you won’t scare I will,” whereupon he displayed a line of knee work which soon convinced the bear of the utter folly of trying to -overtake him. We shall have to call for a little help from the old retired farmer this year, it would seem, if we are to continue to feed the world. The old fellow’s joints may be a little rusty from long disuse, but we’ll bet a purty that when he gets out in the sunshine and gets limbered up, gets to feeling itis oats once more, he’ll raise more corn than half of the fellows who are making so much noise.

In the lexicon of the storebox philosopher there is no word so cruelly overworked as “damphool.’’ Let the merchant make a neV departure in business and he’s a “damphool,” let a farmer attempt to get out of the old rut and try something different —“damphool, and in the discussion of politics or religion the other fello-w always is a “damphool.” We knew a talking crow once that could say “damphool,” but the bird met a horrible death on night at the hand of an assassin.

About once in every so often we receive a letter from some m’sguided young person, requesting us to divulge the secret of writing poetry. Now, what do you think of that? Have we ever posed as a poet’ Have we not all along shown an almost hilarious willingness to let Bill Pfrimmer, Walt Mason and Brother Dwight Babcock do all of the poetizing, while we pursued the lowly calling of an agriculturist? Have we butted in at any stage of the game or anywhere along the line? We have written poetry in a desultory fashion, we’ll admit, but for home consumption only, and never with the intention of entering into competition with the longhaired, wild-eyed versifier to whom meterical composition is synonymous with bread and butter and a night’s lodging. We have some of our poems yet, and in order to secure more shelf room for our spring stock of personal adventures and hair-breadth escapes, we are offering to sell them at a bargain for cash. And while on the subject of poetry, why is it that so many young would-be poets are iimihued with the idea, seemingly, that they must write only of things that are depressing and enervating, when scores of cheerful and helpful subjects present themselves on every hand and fairly plead to be worked up into blank verse or rhyme? Why make people sad and cause them to spend their hard-earned money for liver medicine, when it is just as easy to have them laughing and eating three square meals a day. If we were to proffer advice to young writers we should say shun poetry as you would a pestilence or a poor relative. But, if yoi must write poetry, keep close to Nature’s heart, write of things as yonii see them,, and, above all, write in dialect. A poet may possess an ignorance so smooth and polished that it will be noticeable even in the dark, but let him stick to dialect and not one in a hundred will get wise to him. Here is a poem that we indited for private circulation during the cold winter of 1901. We give it herewith as an example of the advantages of dialect where the writer’s education was obtained largely by pursuing two lemon-color-ed mules attached to a sixteen-inch, left-handed plow. Note the rare beauty of this poem, the simplicity of language, and yet with what clearness every feature of the story is depicted: “It was a dirty night,” the old timer began, “Bout the most onclement I ever see. Dark! and the wind roarin’ like a Hun barrage And I war lost on the Kankakee. To be lost in the light o’ day War bad enuff, out thar in the chaparel, But at night, alone and - miles from home!

The idear was p’intedly and partlcler—well. di’ Gray, my mar’, waa that bad scairt That I didn’t know what to do. She a trimlid’ in every lim’ And prancin’ like a kangaroo. A wolf howled over on Frenchman’s slough Then another on Shafer’s hill, And at that the critters sot in on every hand A mouthin’ fit to kill. I was talkin’ to ol’ gray sort of soothin’ like, Tryin’ to ca’m her risin’ fear, When a wolf lep out of the underbreeh And charged ms in the rear. Now, Gray war an oncomon sagacious brute, * But that give her slch a fright That she p’inted her tall to’ds the azure dome And lep inter the b’lin’ night. Lord, how that thar mar’ did run! Down past Beegum Ridge, down past Bogus Isle— Them pesky wolves in hot pursuit And gainin’ all the while. . I brung ol’ Betsy to my face, She vomits a dost of lead, And the for’ard wolf lep up in the air Then cum down kerflumix —dead. The other wolves stopped jist long enuff To engage in a gory feast And then cum tarin’ on again, Fo’ty of ’em, at least. Ol’ Betsy spoke ag’iin and ag’ln, And each time a wolf ’ud drop, The others pausin’ every time To eat the dead wolf up. But why draw this story out? Follerin’ the nateral law, Them wolves kep’ eatin’ each ut’her up Ontil every gol-blamed wolf, save one, War koncentrated in that one’s capacious maw. Appendix How could old timer shoot so well in the dark? And with old Gray at such a hellofaspeed ? Well, now, we’ve thought of that, dontcherknow, It does seem strange, indeed.

MT. AYR (From the Tribune) Kinder Kennedy moved his family to Rensselaer Tuesday. Kinder has bought property in that town and will probably make that their future home. Mr and Mrs. Lawrence Gebhart of near Kankakee, Illinois, and Mrs. C. J. Hopkins and son Pfrimmer of Donovan, Illinois, were Sunday visitors here. * Mrs. Frank Cox accompanied Miss Blanche Merry home from Kentland Sunday and spent the day in the Merry home, returning to Kentland Sunday evening. Miss Gay Makeever and mother and Mrs. Ponsler attended a meeting in Morocco Sunday afternoon relating to the women’s registration, which begins April 19. Mrs. Charley Snow visited relatives north of Rensselaer the latter part of last week. Her niece and nephew returned home with her for an over-Sunday visit. Levi Gingerich and wife, whose home is at Woolford, North Dakota, but who have been visiting in Wisconsin and Ohio for about four months, are here visiting Mr. Gingerich’s sister, Mrs. Joe Miller. James W. Henderson of Potomac, Illinois, is visiting his daughter, Mrs. Henry Weston. Mr. Henderson, who is a veteran of the Civil war, has had the great misfortune of nearly losing his sight since his last visit here, now being barely able to distinguish light and darkness. The three-year-old baby of Ira Chupp died Sunday morning from pneumonia. The little one had not been well for several weeks and seeniod to contract additional cold at every turn, until Sunday when it passed away. The funeral services were held Monday afternoon and interment made in the Miller cemetery.

While handling a calf Friday at his home David Nay was thrown down and received a painful injury to his shoulder. The bone which fits into the socket was fractured and he has suffered much pain. However, he is now showing some signs .of improvement and it is hoped he will gain grounds on his injury very rapidly. State of Ohio, City of Toledo, Lucas County, ss. Frank J. Cheney makes oath that he is senior partner of the firm of F. J. Cheney & Co., doing business in the City of Toledo, County and State aforesaid, and that said firm will pay the sum of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for each and every case of Catarrh that cannot be cured by the use of HALL’S CATARRH MEDICINE. FRANK J. CHENEY. Sworn to before me and subscribed in my presence, this 6th day of December, A. D., 1886. A. W. GLEASON, (Seal) Notary Public. Hall’s Catarrh Medicine is taken internally and acts through the Blood on the Mucous Surfaces of the System. Send for testimonials free. F. J. CHENEY & CO., Toledo, O. Sold by all druggists, 75c. Hall’s Family Pills for constipation.