Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1920 — THE GOOD; NEW YEAR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE GOOD; NEW YEAR

by EMORY J. HAYNES

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IT WAS foretold forty years ago. New Year shall be a good one. Thia la the story of the prophecy. It depends upon you to believe IL Forty years ago a- lone skater upon the glaaty surface of a lake In norths era New England celebrated his solitary holiday. At the far end of hla ten-mile dash rested In the noonday sun, sitting at the base of a towering diff. Efe was a stonemason’s apprentice, a mere hoy workman. He habitually carried his steel chisel in his pocket Climbing high, and with much hasard, up the face of the towering rocks, he cut thia legend In the face of the mountain: “The New Year Will Be Good.” The bold lettering Is visible for mil as. TRa lake In summer Is a favorite resort of pleasure parties. Each year thousands of eyes have spelled out the cheery monograph, while boats passed, and many a hearty laugh haa rung with a heartier joy as old and young have approved the sculptured promise. It will long endure, for the steel cut deep, and the mountain will not remove, nor the pretty lake pass away. The boy did'hot date it Fortunately so, for that makes It fit every year and every reader. Why not for a century to come? A thousand times the question has been asked: “Who wrote It?” And no one knew. So It seemed some eternal truth of nature that the very rocks had miraculously inscribed upon themselves. It was true to anyone who would take the trouble to lift his eyes and read It In storms the snow silvered the lettering. In sun the words gleamed with lines of living light. A sentence by no means elegant, but crude and boyish rather. Yet what rhetoric could add to the abrupt and simple prophecy from a hopeful, healthy spirit? The New Year was to be just plain “good.” Was that enough? Is it not enough for us all? One good to you, another good to me. still another

good to others. But always to all who will grasp It, written on the very face of the turning globe, the next year will be “good.” Last summer a wealthy visitor at the lakeside hotel drew the proprietor to the corner of the veranda, and, lifting his glasses, asked: “Do you see those letters on the roclfs? I am the boy who cut them, January 1, 1847. You seem glad to know the author. I never revealed the fact. Why should I? “It is not because I said It that It Is true. No matter who says It, on a Happy New Year the New Year will be good. It Is true In itself. Happy the man or boy who says It, who feels it, and who will have it so. * “The mere freak of a moment, yet somehow later I awoke to the fact that I had written a life creed on my heart out of the hopefulness and daring of a boy.” Let us take the hope and courage of youth as the truth of this latest of our years. The New Year must be good. We will make It good. Can you not see those lettered cliffs? No visitor ever was dull to their magic spell, and many have read them through grateful tears.