Lyon & Co. Lyon & Co. LYON & CO. LYON & CO. LYON & CO. Are showing the largest and best assortment of Christmas Gifts in Centre county. HANDKERCHIEFS. Handkerchiefs in Cotton from 21cts. up. Handkerchiefs in Linen Hem Stitched from 10c. to 33c. Handkerchiefs in Silk Hem Stitched from 15¢. to 50c. Handkerchiefs in Fancy Em- broidered Edges from Ec. to Tc. Handkerchiefs for Men in cot- ton, linen and silk from 5c. to 50c. We give you a small list of our large assortment to help you select. | UMBRELLAS. A handsome assortment of Um- brellas, newest styles in Handles for Men and Women. GLOVES. | A handsome assortment in Golf, | Kid, Lined and Unlined Fur top | Gloves for Men, Women and Chil- | dren from 25c. up. A big assortment of Sweaters for Men, Women and Boys from 50c. up. Neckties, all the new colors, new shapes, from 25c. up. Men’s, Youth’s and Boy’s Hats and Caps, all new styles, all prices. Men’s, Ladies and Children’s Slippers, big assortment, lowest prices. - Ladies Shirt Waists in silk, wool and part wool, all new styles, all sizes. B73 Black and colors from 50c. up. Furs, the largest variety, lowest prices. Children’s fur setts now $1.25, $1.50, $2.00. Ladies Fur Scarfs and long tabs from 90c. up. Special Holiday reductions in Ladies and Childrens Capes and Coats. Men’s, Youth’s and Boy’s Clothing and Overcoats. Blankets and Comfortables. Merry Christmasjandja Happy New Year to all our Friends. LYON & CO. Bellefonte, Pa. Shoes. Shoes. HOLIDAY GOODS. EXAMINE OUR DISPLAY OF HOLIDAY GOODS before Selecting your Christmas presents. We have a large variety of Slippers and Shoes appropriate for the purpose and the Prices are an attraction buyers cannot af- ford to miss. YEAGER & DAVIS, Tue Practical Suof MEN, Near Post Office, BELLEFONTE and PHILIPSBURG, PA. Bell Commercial } Telephones. 46-27-6m / we rer ——————— Jewelry. New Advertisements. ARMER WANTED.—A farmer with boys of his own for a 275 acre farm in Clearfield county. Farm is well stecked posses sion given at once and will pay yearly salary in cash, For particulars write or call upon ISAAC STRAW, 47-49-2t% Westover, Pa. RE YOU LOOKING FOR A SLEIGH? The season is here and it looks as if we will have plenty of sleighing this winter. If you are looking for a nobby Portland I have one that I will sell you at a bargain. In fact I have quite a lot. All the styles at the lowest prices and now is your time to buy. L. C. BULLOCK, 47-48 -3m Miiesburg, Pa. HoLIPAY GOODS. This season finds us with more and better stock than we have ever shown, and quality is always the first consideration here, WATCHES, JEWELRY, Dero AND CLEANING ni . SILVER and Repairing of Ladies and Gents GARMENTS, PLUMES, ETC. Our work is done at “The Paragon,” one of the largest and best Dyeing Works in the State. It is prompt and guaranteed. Call on or address W. H. DERSTINE, Tailor, Crider’s Stone buildin 46-41-1y Bellefonte, Pa. NAAT LST ATA A TL TL, SILVER PLATE, POCKET BOOKS, ETC. UDITOR’S NOTICE.—Estate of John H. Orndorf, late of Marion township, de- “ceased. The undersigned, an auditor appointed by the Orphans’ Court of Centre county to make distribution of the balance in the hands of C. M, Bower, administrator and accountant, to and among those legally entitled to receive the same will attend to the duties of his appointment on Friday, the 10th day of January, A. D. 1902, at 10 o'clock, a. m., at his office in Temple court, Belle- fonte, Pa., when and where all persons are re- quired to present their claims, or be forever de- barred from coming in upon said fund. HARRY KELLER, Auditor, Our line ot Silver Toilet Goods most complete, me [ O] eee F. C. RICHARDS SONS, 47-49-5t° High St. BELLEFONTE PA 41-46 = OLD SANTA IS REAL. BY HERBERT NORTHEN. NCE a clever Boston papa ceased to be- lieve in Santa Claus. He had bought a slate and pencil and figured it out that the sleigh which would contain the toys that come to all the little boys and girls in the world would have to be as big as a house and that the span of reindeer that could pull it would be forty tons too heavy to drag it up the walls of the first house for the trip over the roof. Many other strange things did this wise man find out with the help of his slate and pen- cil, and then he added them all up and found the sum total to be that Santa Claus is a myth. He joyfully told this to his little son, who was an advanced student of an- cient literature. To his great surprise, his little son seemed very glad, and when the amazed parent asked him wherefore he thus explained: “My worthy father, because of cer- tain ocular demonstration afforded by a surreptitious glance or two into our kitchen last Christmas eve I was grav- itating rapidly to the opinion’ that San- ta Claus does not exist. The only ex- planation of the phenomenon observed consistent with his existence seemed to be that he could at once take the ap- pearance of yourself, sir, and also of mamma, in your nightrobes and with your arms full of gifts for me, and this, too, while neither of you was in your own room. I established the alibi for you by a hurried visit. It is not to be marveled at that my faith in Santa Claus received a severe jostle. “But your conclusion revives my an- cient belief and puts it on a sure foot- ing. You have discovered that Santa Claus is a myth. Hurrah for the real, true Santa Claus, king of myths! Here- after I will believe in him, hope in him, adore him! “You appear astonished. parent, but perhaps that is because you do not un- dersiand myths. There is nothing so real as a myth. When I say that He- lios rides across the sky in a golden “YOU APPEAR ASTONISHED.” chariot every day, preceded by blush- ing Aurora, it is as true as if 1 say that the sunrise follows dawn in all the lands of the earth. When I say that Hiawatha wrestled with the corn and threw him and buried him only to see him rise again, I but speak of the fa- miliar industries of reaping and sowing and of the sprouting of the new plant in its time. “A myth is a folk tale deseribing well through personification the attri- butes or offices of the abstract. Yes, papa, write that down. Let us now apply the definition to Santa Claus. “Santa Claus’ office is to bring toys, sweetmeats or more useful gifts at Christmas. His attributes are gener- osity, benevolence, care for dependents. That office is actually filled; those at- tributes display themselves. Therefore, according to myth law, Santa Claus really lives and acts his useful and pop- ular part. “With a hint or two as to the man- ner of doing it, 1 will now leave you to pursue the study further. You will find it fascinating. Observe that Santa Claus comes out of the frozen north. That is as if you would say that the impulse of Christmas giving proceeds from the coldest heart at this season. Note that he drives reindeer, pleasing spectacle for the mind's eye. It is as if you should say that he seeks to make his guise or his gifts unusual, for the better enjoyment thereof. Consider that he comes down the chimney; to- ward the warm hearth of the home; that is a lesson to the children. Christ- mas gifts shower on the warm hearted and loving. “Father, I have only to add that I am warm hearted and loving. You will pardon me if I now go into the library and write a chapter of my book on the truths of mythology.” Or Why Little Johnny Green Ate His Christmas Dinner Standing Up. Johnny Green — Pa, 1 know wby you always ring the church bells so = loud on Christmas. Mr. Green (the church sexton)—Do you, my son? Johnny Green—Yes, pa. 2 3” } It’s so the neighbors won’t hear ma kickin’ about the cheap pres- ents you always give her. The “Forty Thieves.” An Oklahoma paper tells of a farmer who went to town and thought he would treat himself by attending an opera. He went up to the ticket window and planking down a $5 dollar gold piece asked for a goad seat, the show was the “Forty Thieves.” The ticket agent shoved out a ticket and a dollar in change. Picking ‘up the dollar, the farmer started out of the building. ‘“Hold on !"ecalled the ticket sell- er, “‘you’ve forgotten your ticket.’ Keep it, dern yer, replied the farmer; “‘T don’t care to see the other thirty-nine.’’ ORIGIN OF XMAS FESTIVITIES. BY G. L. LANGDON. Copyright, 1901, by Hamilton Musk. ] There are two reasons for Christmas feasting aside from the instinct which teaches us that the joy of holiday making is impossible or incomplete without goed eiting and drinking. One is that Christmas is the survival of one, or both, of two great pagan festi- vals; the other, that the mind of man in all times and conditions expressed rejoicing by the laden board and the brimming bowl Victory, good fortune, weddings, christenings, are celebrated today by dinners, as they have been for thou- sands of years, the practice undoubted- ly coming down from that prehistoric time when the victory over the animal was the means of supplying the feast. We can find trace of it and its con- comitant habit, giftmaking, in the book of Esther, where Mordecai says to his people that on the anniversaries of the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sor- | row to joy, and from mourning into a good day, they should make them days of feasting and of joy and of sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor. And what greater cause for rejoicing and the usual expression thereof could exist for the early Christians than the fact of the birth of Christ? It is true that there were differences of opinion in the early church as to the date, or even the season of the year, when that all important event ocecur- red. Clemens Alexandrinus tells us that it was kept by many Christians in April and by some in Egypt in the month Pachon, corresponding to our May, but long before the council of Nice had fixed the day, separating it from the Epiphany, a curious circum- stance had operated to fix forever the observance of it in the European mid- winter. Observing the course of the seasons and their relation to the growing or lessening length of the days, the Ary- ans inhabiting Europe had come to learn that at the winter solstice the decline of nature was over and that as the day lengthened ‘she revived until a few weeks later she walked abroad gladsomely again in the green garb of spring. It was a fitting time for uni- versal rejoicing. Nothing could be done afield. The bins and butts were still well filled and the cattle fat. It was also a time to remember the good- ness of the gods; to make sacrifice as well as to feast. Hence we find at the dawn of Chris- tianity two great midwinter festivals among the two most powerful branches of the Aryans of that period — the Saturnalia among the Romans on the south and the Thor feast of the Scandi- navians. It is a curious fact that they I appear to be identical as to time of | observance. { In Rome and wherever Rome had ruled long encugh to have planted her customs the Saturnalia was a season of sacrifice to Saturn of social equality and of riotous license. The slave in many households was permitted to be- come master for the week of the feast- ing, and his master executed the ridic- ulous orders which he gave. Buffoon- ery in street processions and in the homes was one of the chief elements of the festivity. Orgies indescribable formed another. Present giving was universal. The sea kings called the season Jule (whence Yule), and they celebrated it in gorging and drinking, besides making sacrifice to Thor. Around a great blaz- ing log, big enough to burn for the whole week of the gluttonous feast- ing, they flung the half bare ox bones in rude jest and passed the wassail bowl. The primitive church found these pagan festivals institutions which it could not uproot, so it wisely adopted them, turning the sacrificial rites there- of into worship for the born Christ, stripping the feasts of their grossest sensuality, but letting much of their joyousness remain. Besides the two great festivals men- tioned, there was another observed at the same time by a large family of the Europeans—the Gauls, Gaels or Celts— which was similarly adopted by the church as she spread her teaching among them, but this had a far less influence than the other two upon the customs which have marked the cele- bration of Christmas down to the pres- ent time. The reason is that there was more of sacrificial rite and less of feasting. in its celebration. From it, however, comes the kissing under the mistletoe, which with them was em- blematic of the union of man and wo- man and of the union of mankind with Baal. From it also comes the Christ- mas tree, dear to the little ones, a sur- vival of the hanging of votive gifts on their sacred pines. But out of the other two great pagan festivals arose the principal form that ‘the feasting took. Eating and drink- ing of the best, giving to the poor by right of their equality at that season, as well as the old mummery, practical- ly abolished since Puritanism tried to suppress the festival utterly in 1647, are easily and directly traceable to those pagan orgies. A MYSTERY SOLVED. “Oh, lady, give a luckless man A little Christmas gift!" Thus spake the wand’rer with the can, Who longed to get a lift. The lady was a spinster gay; Her wit was counted keen. She only gave the tramp a spray Of mistletoe so green. “‘Oh, lady, give a man a chance!*’ Bewailed the weary wight. “I'd ruther have a pair o’ pants Than any parasite!’ EARLE HookER EATON, ————————— ——People who depend upon a few branches of holly and window wreaths to furnish Christmas cheer are going to bed Christmas, sadder but wiser people. It’s Christmas in the heart that counts, the greens being but the garnish. A KLONDIKE CHRIS BY RODNEY LINHOLM THIAS [Copyright, 1901, by American Press Association. ] “Pay dirt, and five hundred to the pan, or I'm a liar!” “Oh, Bob, do you mean it? Seems too good to be true!” “Sure, Tom. Guess I know ‘color’ when I see it. There's fifty thousand to the box length when we come to wash out in the spring. Reckon that up, and see if you can make us out worth less than half a million apiece.” “Bob Burley, you're off your base. I can’t believe it.” “Believe it or not, Tom Herrick: but even you can tell what a nugget looks like after it's washed out, eh?” Burley scooped out a handful of clean, yellow nuggets varying in size from a cucumber seed to a hazelnut from the pan in which he was testing the dirt and held them out for his chum to examine. These two had been two months on the El Dorado branch of the Klondike, having come up here from Circle City on receipt of first news of a “strike” in this region. They had built themselves a hut, staked out a claim of 500 feet each along the creek and then set to work “burning out” the earth. Herrick and Burley had burned and drifted, drifted and burned, until at last they had an open shaft sunk quite fifteen feet, and, as Bob had declared, they had at last struck “pay dirt,” and had struck it rich. Tom took the handful of glistening nuggets from his partner, but said not a word. There was no doubt of the fact—at last gold had been found. “Well, old man,” said Bob, “what's the matter with you? Don’t you know what those nuggets mean to us?” “Don’t I just! Bob, if the claim turns out half as good’s you think we can both go home, can’t we, at the end of the summer?” “Right you are, Tommy, every time. If you hear me say it, it’s so! But there's one thing I feel compelled to say and which you won’t be so happy to INET YP Es LLIN bi vad / ) nN A 4 C4 1) ) “GOODBY, TOM, AND GOOD LUCK!’ hear, and that is we haven't got five pounds of flour nor an ounce of meat in the shack. And the deuce of it is this is the day before Christmas, and tomor- row we ought to celebrate.” “To be sure. Christmas doesn’t seem like Christmas without turkey.” “It doesn’t, hey? Well, what did we have last Christmas a year ago?’ “Bear meat and blubber, and mighty glad to get it too. Bat, all the same, it didn’t seem like Christmas, and I'll stick to it!” “No, Tommy, it didn’t. A Christmas dinner always should have a bird in it of some sort.” “Well, Bob, you're a better miner than I am, but you can’t beat me at hunting. The thermometer is down to twenty-six below, and the wind is howling great guns, but I don’t see any other way than to take my gun and try for a rabbit or a partridge.” “That's the talk, Tommy. One of us has got to attend to the fire, and you are the better hunter of the two. I don’t envy you the contract, though. It may be down to fifty below before night, so get back before the sun goes down, won't you?” “I'll try,” said Tom as he slid out into the cold, clad from throat to toe in furs. He carried a double barrel shotgun in the hoilow of his arm and a revolver in the belt, the latter in case he should encounter anything larger than the shotgun could bring down. “I’m going up to the mountain for ptarmi- gan,” were his last words to Bob, “so have a good pastry ready for ptarmigan pie some time early in the evening. “Goodby.” “Goodby, Tom, and good luck,” chattered Bob as he closed the door. Tom swung sturdily along through the fine, dry snow, which came about up to his knees, and derived exhilaration from the keen air and the prospect of sport. He crossed the creek, climbed the farther bank and came upon the level plateau, where the wind had wider sweep and the cold was more intense than in the sheltered ravine. It was a long stretch, and no object intervened to break the monotony, 80 he plodded ahead for over an hour and arrived at the summer snow line, where the ptarmigans dwell. The graceful ptarmigan, though brown of plumage in the summer when the snow is melted and the scant vegetation can protect it, was now pure white and hard to distinguish from the snow itself, into which it dove and from which it darted out like flying fish on the surface of the sea. i He was a good hunter, having carried a gun ever since he had been able to lift one, first practicing at the woodchucks and squirrels on the old farm, then extending his range to the moose and deer down in the woods of Maine. So when, all of a sudden, a white, spiritlike thing broke out of the snew and made off straight to windward he threw up his gun and toppled it over in- stanter. Several got away from Tom's shots, their movements were so erratic, and there was little to distinguish between snow white bird and bird white snow. At last, however, marking down where a flock entered a snowdrift, he made fbr it and stirred them up with his feet, and when they sailed out dropped three of them on the wing. In this manner, by pursuing the birds ciosely and keeping them on the move, he secured fourteen and then thought it about time to start for camp. But in all his windings and doublings while in pursuit of the ptarmigans he had so confused himself that he couldn’t find the trail back to the creek. The sun had long since set, and but a faint twilight remained, wile the cold air was getting colder, though the cutting wind had died away. Hours later, tired to exhaustion, tempted to yield to the intolerable drowsi- ness that was stealing over him, and to succumb to which he knew meant only death, ie Was staggering toward the bank of the creek. But it was far away, and he was not sure of his bearings, when he heard the report of a fire- arm. He answered by discharging his gun, and not long after Bob hove in sight, dragging after him a sled thickly piled with skins. ‘Zounds, old man, but I got scared for you! Here, tumble on to this sled. Bundle up in the furs and let me drag you back home. Not a word. Do as 1 tell you. I'm boss of this expedition, my boy. Another hour and you'd have lain down to sleep, now, wouldn't you?’ “I'm afraid I should,” drowsily muttered Tom. up, Bob. But, say, I got the birds, didn't 1%” “Yes, you did; but if you'd have gone to sleep they'd have come rather high.” But Tom heard nothing. He slept until the cabin was reached and long after he had been bundled into his bunk. When he awoke next morning, “Im just about done refreshed and recuperated, the first thing he saw through the curling smoke SR TS — ~ 24 | A PIE, 7% | NTO =) ; of the pit fire was his industrious partner packing the feuttéen ptarmigans ; into a pie. He had a dish as big as a milk pan and.twice as deep well lined with dough and garnished with all the ingredients. As he dexterously trimmed the top crust and set the dish down for one last admiring look he saw that the sleeper had awakened. “Hello, Tom, how d’you feel? Look at that! How's that for a pie, eh? Big enough to last a week, ain't it? Where'd I get the dish? Oh, Sam Reynolds and his brother Dave were here after you left, and they're coming over to the feed. By the way, Tom, wish you merry Christmas! Same to me? Oh, that’s all right! I'm a millionaire, you know, and, as for that matter, so are you! Pretty business for a millionaire, hey—picking ptarmigans and mak- | ing a scullion of himself generally? But never mind. There’s a good time a-coming by and by. Next year this time we'll have our horses and servants, sure’s you're born, Tommy, my son.” ? Thus Bob rambled on, the while setting the great pie carefully i of the pit, which had been heated redhot with a taken od ng bed. And there it simmered and sizzled and in the end turned a delicious brown just as Sam and Dave came over from their cabin, farther up the creek The pie was served from a stump which stuck up in the center of the hut. It was a pronounced success, and Dave declared that it “beat turkey all holler,” in which opinion he was supported by his brother Sam. Bob was heard to deelare—in fact, Tom said the same thing—that even if he went out with twice a hundred thousand ounces next season he would contrive to locate in a section where he could have ptarmigan pie for his Christmas dinner. —
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers