People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1892 — WOODLAND. [ARTICLE]

WOODLAND.

Oats 28030 cents. Corn, new 33035; old, 35036. We greet the readers of the Pilot with a happy New Year. May their lives be long and prosperous, is our wish. The Central House will change proprietors the first of next week. The Presbyterian congregation at this place have at last secured the services of a minister, named Cort, as pastor for the coming year. There were three Christmas trees. (O! We don’t mean real trees like those that grow all around “Reformer,”) but places where presents were distributed. Only one had a real tree and that at the Presbyterian church, which was loaded to the top with some very handsome presents for both rich and poor. At the Baptist church they used Jacob's ladders, every round of which contained an appropriate gift for some one. The Methodists made a considerable change from the old ways by erecting a brick grist mill in the church, and from the windows of the mill the miller gave out the presents that were being ground out by a huge wind mill on top of the building. It was a very novel affair and created considerable amusement for young and old.

A blizzard resembling a Kansas cyclone struck this vicinity some time Saturday nigfit and by eaTly Sunday morning the ground was covered with snow to the depth of two or three inches. A young lady that has the cheek to step into her best fellow’s father’s place of business and tell the old man that she “can’t go that evening with his son,” has the grit. All the fellow has to do is to “stick t© the willows” a little while longer and a complete victory will crown his efforts. John Parker brother of exsheriff, Hugh Parker, was buried at this place last Saturday afternoon. He was formerly deputy postmaster at Goodland and was well and favorably known.

Will Collins, Will Perry, Clyde McCurry and Hugh Constable are home from Valparaiso on one or two days’ visit. The latter, we are informed, has taken the measles and will not return with the rest of the crowd.

That flinty-hearted, dyspeptic and gout-afflicted old bachelor who suggested many years ago that “women ought to be kept off the streets between the hours of 12 a. m. and 4p. m. during Christmas week, ought to have been in Goodland during Christmas week, provided he had any business at a toy store here. He would have gone to sbme secluded spot and taken a great big allopathic dose of kerosene. Women wrapped up big dolls, women wrapped up little dolls. White dolls, black dolls and jumping jacks all came on an equal footing and were dumped together and wrapped' in the same colored paper by fair hands, young hands, old hands and some dirty hands. Men pushed along aisles between pretty clerks, fat clerks, lean clerks, and big footed ones that blocked the store rooms so that men matrimonially inclined turned away in disgust. Then they moved farther down the crowded street and dropped in at a beer saloon with the remark, “I’ll bet I can go through this room without walking on women’s corns and having all my suspender buttons pulled off in those drug stores trying to buy a last year’s tin top for brother Sam’s first “kid.” The weather indications for Goodland last Monday morning were as follows: At Commissioner Wisher’s, north Goodland, 13 degrees below zero; V. B. Jenks’ coal yard, east Goodland, 10 degrees below zero; A. J. Kitt’s, west Goodland, 8 degrees below; F. Gilman’s, south Goodland, 6 below.

Mr. Harris, of Mt. Ayr, son of Henry Harris, of Rensselaer, was in town Monday morning en-route for Kentland, where he is serving as petit juror. He made the trip from Mt. Ayr on a hand-car and says he didn’t have to take off his over-coat to do the pumping either. Miss Cones, of Indianapolis, daughter of the great overall man, is visiting relatives in Good land, this week. Georgia, Myrtle and Miller Castle, daughters and son of our former school principal, are visiting friends here this week. Henry Barnett, of Momence, a former resident of Goodland, was in town Monday.

Ten or twelve coal cars, with the draw-bars broken, had to be repaired here last Sunday before they could be moved any farther. For the benefit of “Reformer” in the Pilot we will say we l have besieged the Herald office I for a week, almost day and I night, in order to give “Re- ■ former” a correct status of Mr. Kitt’s present political pulse. We utterly failed until after the cold weather struck town Monday but we caught him between two revolutions of his job press and found his condition very good. The cold breeze had somewhat lowered his temperature, but if nothing worse happens he will recover. He was able to converse perfectly rational and says he has nothing to regret from the step he has taken and never felt better in his life over a political defeat. He says he would have been no applicant for the post office here if he had remained a Democrat till this election. There is every reason to believe that if Mr. Cleveland had been elected four years ago. instead of Mr. Harrison, Mr Kitt would have gone out of the post office just the same, for he is no political crank. Can “Reformer” say as much? Jack the Ripper.