Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1918 — JACKSON TOWNSHIP, NEWTON COUNTY [ARTICLE]

JACKSON TOWNSHIP, NEWTON COUNTY

It is pro-ally weather. Don’t take any chances oh that seed corn. Recent rains have brought out oats and wheat wonderfully. Silence is a mighty good substitute for wisdom even in time of peace. It doesn't matter so much who started this war so long as the allies finish it. John Wildrick, a pioneer, died recently at his home in Colfax township, after a long illness. Mr. and Mrs. Marion Dunn, living east of Rensselaer, visited with the family of Clarence Blankenbaker last Sunday. We told you so. Old Newton county has gone over the top in that little old Liberty bond matter. Yon just nach’ly can’t keep old Newton down. It is reported that Uncle John Huffy of Mt. Ayr, whose illness has been mentioned in The Democrat from time to time, is slightly better. W. H. Myers of the Morocco Courier was on the sick list last week. Charley Davis, of the Kentland Enterprise lent a helping hand in getting out the Courier. It would seem, too, that the person who presumes to take issue with the most reverend William Sunday on any subject is simply a d—d —! —1 —! —I —1 and then some. When a man’s church is so d “yellow’’ that it will not permit him to take up arms in defense of his country, his fireside and his family, theft the sooner he gives that particular church the eternal the better. Cora M. Kalfise, age thirteen years, of Beaver township, invested in a 150 Liberty bond recently, besides buying some war stamps. She earned her money by raising

steep, geese and ducks. God bless you, Miss Cora," may you live long and prosper. Farm journals just now are loaded with advice as to when to plant corn, but the old Indian custom of planting when the young oak leaves are about the size of a squirrel’s ear is as safe and reliable probably as anything you will get on this subject out of the /arm journal.s Ernie Schanlaub of north Jackson township has a patch of spring wheat which is unusually promising, and, from what we have been told, this is true of spring wheat generally in this locality. It is to be regretted that a larger acreage of spring wheat was not planted this season, as the weather has been quite favorable for small grain crops of all kinds. If this war goes on much longer the world may awake to the fact that there is such a thing as a trillion. Old Jeb Snyder, him that we went to school to, used to tell us that a trillion was the product of a million involved to the third power, or the number represented by a unit with eighteen ciphers annexed. Jeb advised us not to worry over this trillion affair, however, stating that it would never molest anyone if let alone. But time may prove that Jeb was mistaken. Mrs. Clarence Blankenbaker bought a Liberty bond last week, intending to pay for it with a calf of which she was the owner. But now kindly observe how red-eyed misfortune will at times pursue a person even when engaged in a most righteous cause. The very next day that calf took a misery In its internal mechanism and crossed over to the great beyond—acted like a blame slacker just when it was needed to furnish the sinews of war. Husband most likely will pay for that bond.

Reading Billy Sunday’s criticisms of the late Golonel Robert Ingersoll, brings to mind the time when that other great evangelist—Moody—in a sermon, was “moved by the spirit’’ to roundly abuse the Colonel. A newspaper reporter called on Ingersoll the next morning and found that gentleman reading Moody’s attack and apparently enjoying it hugely. “What have you to say. Colonel, in reply to Moody?” asked the reporter. “Not a word, not a word,” answered the Colonel, beaming with good humor. "What is your opinion of Moody as a man’’’ was the next question propounded by the reporter. “Moody is a good man, but woefully ignorant,” returned the great orator. “Why, young man,” be continued, "that poor fellow actually believes that his God at one time worked at the carpenter trade over around Jerusalem.” If some writer (purloins your brightest remarks don’t get mad and cut up ugly, for most likely you yourself are not wholly innocent in this respect, although yoti may honestly think you are. To show what we are trying to get at, a magazine writer not so very long ago had occasion to use the following: “A liar should have a good memory.” A few days later this man received a letter from another writer in New York, who claimed that he—the New Yorker—was the originator and sole patentee, so to speak, of that remark, and intimated that the magazine writer was no better than he ought to be for stealing the fruits of his powerful intellect. Imagine, now, the feelings of the New Yorker when the supposed literary thief proved by history that Quintilian, the Roman rhetorician, and who was born fortytwo years after Christ, used identically the same words in his “Institutions of Oratory,” and that the remark had been used by various other writers from the time of Quintilian on down to comparatively recent years. Moral —When you work off an especially bright remark on an unsuspecting public don't flatter yourself that you are the originator of that remark, for ten to one some old patriarch has beaten you to it by several hundred years. Ever ride in an automobile when the steering apparatus was out of kilter? If you haven’t don’t try it The other day we were invited to ride in a machine afflicted thusly, and the fact that we are alive to tell the tale is due solely to a run of luck never paralleled nerhaps in the annals of history. The owner of this crippled “tin Lizzie’’ said he was going to Morocco to get “her fixed,” and, with this understanding, we climbed aboard and settled down to drink in the wild, rugged scenery lying between “Jack Brown’s corner” and the city aforesaid. That automobile was headed straight for Morocco, but at the command to go forward It turned tail and started for Mt, Ayr hellety bent. It probably would have reached that mart of commerce, too, in time had not its attention been attracted to an open gap along the road, through 'which' it dashed and circumnavigated a ten-acre field of fall plowing three times before it could be choked off. It was finally coaled out on the highway, again headed towards Morocco, and it glided along as purty as you please until a stray dog attempted to cross the road in front of it and right off it began once more to show tfie cloven hoof. That thing which we call instinct probably warned the dog of impending disaster, for hie turned and zig-zagged down the road, bellowing lustily. Would yon believe it, dear reader? That automobile followed the canine in his meanderings with all the persistency and malignancy of a peace-at-any-price Hun pursuing a demoralized Russian, and it never let up until it caught poor Growler on the rotunda and lifted him over the fence into an oats field. The machine did fairly well after this little episode until it came to a school house, when it suddenly left the highway, crossed the playground and poked tig nose inquiringly into

the coal house. Here the owner called his machine a name which reflected decidedly on its parentage, and smarting under the insult it backed out of the coal bin, tore around back of the school house, and reaching the road, it shot forSvard at a mighty rate of speed, along an open ditch, the starboard tires never once missing the brink more than a quarter of an inch. After numerous other thrilling stunts it reached the garage at Morocco, where a man in a red sweater jumped onto it and held it down, while another fellow who resembled Dutch Bill somewhat hog-tied it and otherwise rendered it' helpless.