a
P. GRAY MEEK.
GOD REST YOU MERRY GENTLEMEN.
God rest you merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas day,
To save us all from Satan's pow'r
When we were gone astray.
In Bethlehem, in Jewry,
This blessed Babe was born
And laid within a manger,
Upon this blessed morn:
The which His Mother Mary,
Did nothing take in scorn.
From God our Heavenly Father,
A blessed Angel came:
Shepherds
Brought tidings of the same:
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by Name.
“Fear not then,” said the Angel,
This day is born a Saviour
Of a pure Virgin bright,
To free all those who trust in Him
From Satan's power and might.”
The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind,
And went to Bethlehem straightway,
The Son of God to find.
And when they came to Bethlehem
Where our dear Saviour lay,
They found Him in a manger,
Where oxen feed on hay;
His Mother Mary kneeling down
Unto the Lord did pray.
Now to the Lord sing praises.
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth deface.
COMING BACK TO CHRISTMAS.
In the twilight chim smoke went
up, coal-stoves showed th home
windows, thick, slow snow f ifferent-
ly. All differently. Front gates slam-
med with a meaning as if they knew
what had just passad their curly iron
At horse-blocks sleigh-bells ceased
jingling with significant abruptness, as if
with some real reason for the sleigh's
stopping. In back dooryards stately
clothes-reels turned themselves as in the
knowledge that their fla pieces had
been washed out, ru out, wrung out
—however the household phrased it—for
an occasion more than mortal. Country
dooryards, country streets, the very faces
of the bird-houses peering over lattices,
lay in the soft hold of Christmas eve, as
if the spirit of Christmas were a spirit in-
deed, to which even homely things are
sweetly sensible.
A little child, a boy of seven, sat on a
gate-post of the house that was usually
home, but for the time seemed no home
at all. For some last offices of Christmas
his mother had that afternoon gone to
the city—that obscure place to which the
child had never yet penetrated and
which he associated with long trousers
and gold watches and automobiles and
other prerogatives of the time when he
he should be grown up . . . so early are
children infected with the love of things!
. . . His mother had said that she would
be back on the local at six o'clock; that
he might play on the pond until that
hour; that the key would be under the
mat if he wanted it, or he might wait for |
her, for those few minutes, in the front
yard. The little boy leaving the pond
shortly after the whistle blew, had run
all the way home, taken one look at the
dark house through whose sitting-room
window the coal-stove glowed like an
angry eye, and had climbed up on the
gate-post to wait.
A strange man, coming toward him up
the road from the drawbridge, brought
back to the child what he had heard his
mother say to a neighbor that morning:
“1s Grant Willet's to be let out
to-day?”
And the woman had answered:
“I s'pose he is. Let loose on folks, and
him without any place to belong. I s'pose
he'll put right for this town, anyway.”
The child thrilled deliciously as he saw
the man coming. If he were Grant Wil-
let! Grant Willet why, seven years before
the child was born—and the child had
been born for seven years—had been ar-
rested in the city in a strike, had attack-
ed the policeman, and, for resisting an
officer, had been sentenced to fourteen
years in a reform school.
“And him,” the village had observed,
sorrowfully, “having grown up night in
ou face and eyes. it seem possi-
e? ”
The stranger was coming on looking,
so to say, the village in the face, examin-
ing each of the houses with a kind of
friendly interest. He was youngish, huge,
with thick hair and brows, and the eyes
of a man who has lived forever. Oh, the
child thought, if it should be Grant Willet
. . » and he should whip out a bow and
arrow and a bowie-knife and brandish
the
Next best to a bowie-knife was this—
to have the stranger stopping to speak to
him. He y forgave
dress the
t, have privileges.
. ello!” the child
“I bet you don't know what tomorrow
is, Jovansd ie stranger.
“What?” the man asked.
a all answer the child suiled -a
made his face adorable. After it he turn-
ed away his head.
“Say it,” the man encouraged him.
J 36 Hib of thechilds tongtle workad at
his red mouth’s corner, he lifted one
and shook his head.
"Go on,” coaxed the man. “What's its
name?’,
"My mamma's gone to the city to buy
things for it,” volunteered the child then,
all at once. “She's gone there. She's
Soe there, She's coming home on the
“Oh,” said the man, "on the six. Well,
the six isin,” he added. “I was on it—
to the draw.”
“Maybe she'll come,” said the boy, pa-
tiently.
adi you better go in the house?” | ed.
CR
freel the way of ad-
TT An cutlaw, it | then
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION,
=O
VOL. 57.
don’t know what day gt yo He
hesitated, looking at child. erry
Christmas!” en abruptly, and moved
away swiftly.
But still the imp of perversity seemed |
in the child, an perhaps, of |
his shyness at t of who this strang- |
er might be; so he merely met the man’s
waiting look, and smiled, and watched |
him go down the street and was torn
with remorse that he had not talked with
him while he might. :
The seit of “Town caught say.
t stranger as he turned awa
Hh child in Ee dusk. It all looked
so absurdly as it had looked twenty years |
before. :
Eg
stuck u 's wi
just visible through the frost |
panes. There was the Messer drug-store,
with red and green globes ng and, |
outside, a cigar-stand with a
wreath of holly on his feathers. There
was the Everly home bakery with pink |
mosquito-netting in the window and
cocoanut-cakes with pink-sugar jenterisig. |
He be to read what the se =
"M hristmas,” t tters
a
en . Brisings. The cakes, now, look |
as if tl meantit. . . . .
He kept on looking at the words. |
Somehow the scattered holiday signs of |
the day seemed all to be concentrated in |
the pink-sugar lettering. He almost felt
as if the greeting were to him, but the |
feeling was lost in the im eti- |
tion on cake after cake. He found him-
self looking inside the bakery with un- |
defined wistfulness. It was like a great, |
Rotnely panty, with its bread and dough- i
nuts and cookies, a pantry with a wel-'
come for everybody. It seemed as if the |
place must say “Merry Christmas” spon-
taneously to any one who opened the
The man suddenly opened the bakery
door, whose swinging released a sharp |
bell that summoned Mrs. Everly from
the back room. She came hurrying, as if
she had left a hundred things unfrosted. |
But neither the shop nor Mrs. Everly!
said Merry Christmas. The man looked
at her intently and seémed to be waiting |
for something.
“Good evening,” she said briskly. |
“What's wanted?”
“What's wanted?” the man repeated, |
and looked about the store and then stood '
and looked down at her hands. When
she repeated her inquiry he realized that
he had been trying to see the finger
whose tip was gone and which once had
held him spellbound as she measured and
cut and tied.
“Excuse me,” he stammered. “I want-
ed to know—I want to ask you—the ho-
tel. Is it on this street?”
“Just a block on,” said Mrs. Everly,
with her professional patience. “At the
corner, on this side. You can't miss it.”
Already she was edging toward the
back room, but he lingered.
“You've got great doings in the town
tomorrow, I s'pose,” he said.
“That's what's hurrying me now,” she
replied pointedly, and nodded, and might
have turned her back. But it occurred
to the man that he had acted unwarran-
tably in intruding on her time, and then
making no purchase. He had had no oc-
casion to use money for a long time, and
there was in his pocket a bit, drawn that
day, that had long been accumulating to
his credit.
“Let me have one of the little cakes in
the window,” he said. i
She went to do his bidding, lifting up
the little cake as casually as if it bore no |
special import, and she was more con-
cerned about the frosting than the mes-
sage. She took her pay, returned the
change, said her thanks and did not meet
his eye—all as if the night were any
night and the cake were any cake. He
took it and went out. And, as he passed
the window,
“Well," he observed, “you said it if she
He deliberately tried Messer's drug-
store next. There the ceiling was hung
thickly with cat r which swayed in |
the draught from . Young Mes- |
per bows about huge bottles of perfume. |
“Evenin’,” said he, flicking a loop of |
the last bow. i
“Evening,” said the man, and stood for
a moment patiently watching the adjust- |
ment. “Nice evening?” He putit doubt- |
fully, when the bow was i
for a huge, smiling mouth below the face-
like stopper. |
“Why, ” said young Messer, frank-
ly. “tos,
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tio a ol he Slerk prac;
. soap? |
Manicure set—-we got 2 fine He 0’ roars. |
cute goods i plush Hoes. Is it forman, |
woman, or child?" he inquired. i
: “It’s for a child," said tbe man sudden-
y.
“I might of known," the clerk ore
“I'm a family man myself. How's |
this?” he wondered, bringing up a felt
lamb from glass-case
The man examined the lamb critically
and shook his head. He examined critic-
‘and no idlin",” he said and went off to
BELLEFONTE, PA. DECEMBER 20, 1912.
| i
“Well,” said the man, “I'm sorry you ally a dozen objects which the clerk of- | blamed if I will. It's bad enough to have him in a flood of feeling as the little
fered, and he discarded them all. He | to bleat that all day long to-morrow with-
ueezed bears and elephants, and decid- | out nning previous. Anything more
against the quality of their tones. I can do for you?”
Was it a boy or a girl, the clerk wanted The man looked at him steadily.
to know. It was, it appeared then, a boy. | “Anything more you can do for me!”
How old a boy? About seven or eight, he repeated. “What more can any man
the man thought. And when at length | do for another that’s been living a dog's
he had selected a box of paints, he ab- | life and has got a hankering to hear a
ruptly indicated one of the huge bottles decent word? What more can you do for
of He would take one of those.
perfume. me—what more can anybody do for any-
And at this the clerk surprisingly wink- | i
body than to mean Merry as at
ed again,as one who should convey his them? Say Merry Christmas, damn you!”
understanding that a Christmas of gifts said the man, and suddenly took ja-
for children was all very well, but he min Thatcher by the throat.
knew there were others to be considered The grocer’s look of pure surprise was
—women, now. . .
ue.
partly grasped the sign “We
wink, but he felt its unmistakable fellow- it,” Benjamin articulated, his fingers on
ship, and he winked, too. the other man's hand.
When the parcels were brought to him, “Not like that!” said the man, and
he took them from the clerk and looked shook him slightly. “Say it, and say it
at him half expectantly. | as if you meant it or I'll choke the life
“Nice Christmas weather,” the man ob- ' out of you!”
served. “You leggo my wind-pipe then,” uttered
“Rosy,” said young Messer, holding the Benjamin, not without dignity.
door for him. “Rosy.” Butit just hap-' The man complied, drew back, waited.
pened that it did not occur to the youth ' Benjamin, frowning, felt of his neck.
to wish the man a merry Christmas.; “Merry Christmas,” he said, sullenly.
That was a wish to be made exclusively, “Not that way!'’ repeated the man.
to young ladies, the lad’s impression may | “Say it as if you meant it right—from you
have run. | to me.”
“No Christmas nonsene about A4im,”said | Benjamin faced him angry,
the man to himself outside. “No, sir.. “Who are you that I should be wishing
Nothing but Christmas trade.” | you merry Christmases?” he inquired,
He had not meant to go into Hoard's irritably. "How do I know—"
meat-market. But the door stood open The man cut him short.
to let out a farmer with some crates, and “I'm made some like a human being,
because his eye fell on old Joe Hoard ain't I?” he observed, grimly. “I say to
chopping meat at the block the man you as one human being sys to ”
went in. And when he stepped on the | ‘Merry Christmas,’ I say. Now what do
saw-dust covered floor and breathed the you say back?”
“
Jou're that fierce about
cold, suet-smelling air of the place he He went a step nearer to Benjamin. Ben-
went over to Joe Hoard and stood close jamin was little, and he looked up at the
beside him. { man standing over him, athis brown face
“Give me five cents’ worth of sage,” he , under the mass of straight, graying hair,
said. j and at his brown bare throat; when
With no more than a unctory | he looked in this stranger's eyes he saw
glance old Hoard complied. His clumsy | there no threat, only something strong,
ngers tied the tiny package and took the ' that men like him obeyed.
coin. Then, as man lingered, he! “ ey hristmas. Merry Christmas.
raised his head. | Mer-ry Christmas,” said Benjamin. “Is
“Anything else?” he asked. | three times about enough?”
“Why, I don’t know,” returned the | “I won't press you for more,” said the
man, quizzically. “What else is there | stranger pleasantly, and leaned against
usually—on’ a night of this stamp!” | an apple-
rrel and regarded the ruffled
The butcher grunted. “Double work | little man.
answer the teleprone. { Then the stranger's eye fell on some
The man went on through the snow thingat the grocer’s elbow. It was a
with the paints and the perfume and the counter on which were displayed certain
package of in his hands. He put | articlesintended as Christmas gifts, but
the sage to his nose and the pungent | now lyingin that all forlorn state of the
odor brought with it thronging remem. | unbought on Christmas eve, astate which
| brances. He had no idea of buying sage, causes even red rubber balls and toy
only he had been so many times to steam-engines to develop a look of hav-
Hoard's for five cents’ worth of sage for ing faces, and they sad. There were a
dressing . he could smell the | lot of these gifts, and they were all for
Christmas turkey-dressing now. Old children. All for young children, say,
Hoard not to know him! Not to remem- | under ten. Many of them were for boys.
ber the time that he had sent him home At these articles the stranger looked, and
carrying a rope of bologna sausage So | what he had begun by sheer chance in
long that he had held both hands above | the other two stores it occurred to him
his childish head so that the sausage ends | 10 finish by design; and in his face the
should escape the earth. He could hear | feeling, the wish, and then the intention
old Hoard’s laughter yet. And now the | came to expression.
wouldn't.” ti
2
5
2
old man had no remembrance—the vil-
: lage had no remembrance. And it had
no Christmas greeting, it seemed, for a
stranger. He stood on the curb, looking
at the few hurrying figures in the little
street. The essential cruelty of Christ-
mas gripped him like a new wrong.
Everybody for himself and for those who
were dear to him and for children and
for the poor. He was not a child or a
beggar, and he was dear to nobody now.
So, it appeared, Christmas, too, had cast
him out.
Across the street was a store whose
glass was unfrosted, whose gas-lights
were many, whose look was that of silent
welcome. He crossed to it. This was
, Benjamin Thatcher’s grocery and general
goods store. In the window were a pyr-
, amid of oranges, a pile of mixed candy,
and a little barrel so as to pour forth
nuts. He remembered how every Christ-
mas in the old days these had taken the
had always hung a row of hams at the
back of his window and how they all
swung when the door was slammed—be-
Sond the hams and the bunch of bananas
puting more wood in thestove and using
is burnt coat-flap for a holder.
“My word,” man thought, “he
hasn't got a holder yet.”
He the door and went in. Ben-
jamin tcher came forward, rubbing
soot from his hand. The store was cheery
and warm, a half-barrel holly stood
the
and
man
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| “I'll have some of the toys,” he said.
| “Half a dozen of 'em. For a boy about
seven or eight. Oh, any of 'em. The
engine, and the band, and one of the
baseballs—and a couple of the games.”
Benjamin bustled. Whether this stranger
really wanted these things or was pur-
chasing then fom) sumption, this
mattered nothing. It was, in any case,
the amende , and the dealer in
him did his patron’s bidding with defer-
ence.
The man watched him quizzically and
when his parcel was ready.
“Still giving coffee-berries to the chil-
dren, Benjamin?” he asked, surprisingly,
“to Show your good-will? Or does an oc-
casional int escape you now in
your a age?”
For the first time Benjamin Thatcher
a lo Saami. ?
a 0 you you are, anyway?”
the grocer i uncertainly.
Then the stranger laughed, heartily,
not unmusically, not without bitterness.
And when he laughed his face became
mellow, with a kind of merry understand-
| ing, without a touch of impudence.
“That's what I don’t know any more,”
he said. “I thought I was a human, but
you folks in this town have been fiving
me to understand different. erry
Christmas!”
“Well!” said Benjamin.” Merry Christ-
mas! And if you feel like that ut it—
a happy New Year, too! But—"
“Oh, you needn't go that far, Benjamin
Thatcher!” said the man, and shut the
door, and left all the hams swinging.
The stranger retraced his steps alo:
the little street. And now not only the
look of Down-Town and all the little near
:
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little more controlled li
£
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52
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NO. 50.
street spoke to him without his knowing
what it said, but only recognizing its im-
memorial voices. . .
But in it all he went clinging to one
thought of warmth. For he was saying
| to himself:
“I don’t believe his mother came in on
{ the local. She'd have had time to get
down there from the station if I'd had
time to walk from the draw. And if the
key is under the mat. . .
It was almost dark now, and he hur-
on, trying to peer ahead to see if the
gate-post BIE little sentinel. He had
at being a figure in puzzling.
“She 't come yet. Ain't it a long
vary. the
“A very long time,” man said.
“How much longer will b You wait?”
The child stared. “Why, I got to wait
till she comes,” he said in t.
“She's my mother.”
“I see,” said the man. “Well, now,
look here. She hasn't come on the six.
The don’t get in till eight, does
it?—it didn’t use to. Well, now, didn't
you say the key is under the mat?”
The child nodded with that emptying
of the face of expression which leaves
wonder lying there naked.
“Well,” said the man, “I've bought a
few things here that I don’t know as I
really want. What do you say to our go-
ing in your house and seeing what's in
these packages?”
The Soy gave that sound that is,among
all possible sounds, one of the most de-
lightful—a child's little squeak of antici-
tion. He slipped from the post, lost
is balance, gathered hmself up, and ran
up the path.
“Come on!” he called. “I know how
to open the door!”
Inside, the coal-stove glowed red and
warm, and the little Fleing foom looked
used and lived in daily. e man tum-
bled the things in a deep chair,found and
struck a light, and, the child throwing off
his own coat, he did so, too. The man’s
clothes were cheap and new, but he was
scrupulously clean, and with his hat off,
the thick hair did not conceal the splen-
did head, the fine, full forehead. As he
turned, the child was balancing at the
table and holding up one foot.
“It's buckle sticks,” he explained.
got a crook in.”
“It's
big a little man would not wish to be
taken on a knee, himself knelt and drew
off the overshoe. Then he looked up at
the boy standing before him, his hair go-
ing out at the back where his cap had
made it rough.
“Shake,” said the man.
The child obediently put out his hand,
but he did not look at the man; his eyes
went past the man's face to the deep chair
filled with packages.
“Now then,” the man assented, and
arose and drew a chair where he could
watch best, “begin. And if you want "em
they're all for you. Christmas has start-
ed now—remember that!”
It is true that a child's eagerness for
possession does not always affect us as
ing the menace that it is, as being the
fatherhood of the man’s unwarranted
love for things. And this is because what
fires the child is not so much the love for
things, as such, as the love of magic. A
tied-up parcel bears the connotation of
the unknown. Itholds all mystery. It
is an adventure, It is to the child at once
the essence and the outermost border of
romance. He enters upon it as upon
some little star.
So the child enterned now. The paints,
the cake, the ball, the bottle of perfume,
the games, $ach was to him experience
ecstatic. Until it was unwrapped the
man had f the bottle of perfume
and with * t's a Christmas present for
you to give mother,” he placed it on
your
the table, and the child had hungover the
bottle, enchanted. With every gift he
flashed up to the the child-look of
mingled joy and d ief inreality,a look
that goes to the head and flowsin the
veins of the one who has occasioned it.
The moment fs mod = the world, a
precious intimacy. e watcher knows
that the toys will be broken, that essen-
tially it is not the objects that the child
ves—only sofeety of Surprise
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SE SER fa
The man, as if he understood that so!
—It takes 1,600 pounds of bread each day at the
Huntingdon reformatory and each Saturday 128
dozen ginger cakes are baked.
| —The postoffice at Pine Flats, Clearfield coun-
| ty, has been discontinued and patrons are being
served on a rural delivery route from Garman's
Mills.
—Johnstown's Hallow’en celebration committee
has just had its accounts audited. The expense
of the big time was $2,175.16 and the committee
! has a balance of $799.67 on hand.
| —Newberry chicken thieves seem to be plying
the trade “just for the fun of the thing.” Many
of the chickens are not taken away, but simply
cut down the back and left lying dead.
—Cresson borough: is to pay 17% cents per 1,000
gallons for water, instead of 10cents, as formerly.
The council has accepted the 75 per cent. raise
| and consumers will likely pay the bills.
~The Lewistown shirt factory wants opera-
tives; the knitting factory and silk mill are run-
ning full time and the holiday vacation of these
workers will be cut to the two feast days.
—Bertha Shultz, aged eleven years, cut her
throat a few days ago at her home in Benton. She
fell down stairs with a piece of earthenware in
her hand. It broke and cut a three-inch gash,
which is likely to prove fatal.
—Burgess H. C. W. Patterson, of Saltsburg, re-
cently had returned to him a pocket book which
he lost on Hallowe'en. It had been dropped into
the outside postoffice box during the night. Al
the valuable papers it contained were intact, but
of the $80 in cash, $30 were missing.
—Lycoming county commissioners have revok-
ed a franchise granted the Williamsport Passen-
ger Railway company for a right of way across
the Third street bridge. The franchise had been
available for five years, but the bridge hadn't ma-
terialized and the commissioners were not pleas-
ed at the delay.
~The mines of the Pennsylvania Coal and Coke
company at Bens Creek, on the main line of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, have been closed tem-
porarily, owing to the shortage of cars. About
700 miners are thrown out of employment. The
mines had been working on half time previously,
for the same reason.
--W. T. Huntington, of Lycoming county, set
out 1,000 peach trees last spring in the regular
way and 100 by the use of dynamite. Thelatter, in
comparison, have grown nearly twice as fast as
the others. Mr. Huntington intends to plant 500
moretrees in the spring. He says he will use dy-
namite to dig the holes.
~—At the State capitol in Harrisburg on Monday
two Patton concerns filed notice of increase of
debt, as follows: Patton Clay company, $150,000
to $200,000, and George S. Good Fire Brick com-
pany, $100,000. The Clearfield Sewer Pipe com.
pany, Clearfield, also filed notice of increase of
debt to the extent of $100,000,
~—Ethel Sergeant, a 16-year-old Northumberland
girl stepped out on the back porch at her home,
an unknown man jumped out from behind a fruit
tree, fired at her and disappeared. Her wound is
not serious, but she is suffering from the shock.
The man is thought to be one who has been
frightening people by looking in their windows.
~Coroner Potter, of Mifflin county, issued a
statement absolving the railroad company from
any blame for the accident which caused the
death of Isaac Dreese. Mr. Dreese was crossing
the tracks at a point some distance from the pub-
lic crossing and therefore was a trespasser. The
practice of crossing at this place has been com-
mon.
~The length of a cat's tail was the cause of a
fire alarm at Williamsport a few evenings ago.
Mrs. Lewis Henry was dressing when her pet cat
came purring around. Tabby jumped on the
dresser, and was about to jump off when her taij
struck the lamp, throwing it to the floor. It
exploded, but neighbors came to the rescue and
little damage resulted.
—Mrs. Theressa Roessner, widow of the man
for whose murder John Keeler was found guilty
in last week's Clearfield county court, died re-
cently at her home in Clearfield. She had, only a
short time before the murder, come home from a
Philadelphia hospital, enfeebled by a serious op-
erationand the shock of her husband's tragic
death is supposed to have hastened her own.
—The new Cresson State sanatorium for tuber-
culosis will be opened December 26th, according
to notice sent outby Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, com-
missioner of health. This sanatorium is the
highest inhabited »oint in the State and yet easi-
ly accessible to the main line of travel east and
west. The new institution will accommodate 360
patients; one half of this number will be advanc-
ed cases.
—Charles Johnson, a farmer living at Seven
Kitchens, was driving to Sunbury a few days ago,
when he heard the trot of an animal behind his
wagon. He turned out to let the team pass, but
nobody passed. Then he looked around and saw
a large black bear contentedly eating potatoes
from a sack it had torn open. Mr, Johnson hadn't
| any gun, so he let the bear continue its luncheon
undisturbed. After atime it dropped back and
disappeared in the woods.
—The thirty-third annual session of the Penn”
sylvania State Educational association, which
will be held at Harrisburg during Christmas
week, will bring to that city some of the most
noted educators of the country. The meetings
which will beheld during December 26, 27 and
28, will consist of the general sessions and the de-
| partmental meetings of city and borough superin-
tendents, county superintendents, High school,
college and normal school, graded school, ungrad-
ed school and child table.
—]J. S. Stewart, of the National hotel, Mifflin,
town, went to his refrigerator in the gray dawn
and found a man helping himself. He hit the in
truder a blow that made him easy handling for
the policeman who took him to jail. As he
answered the description of the man who had
held up and robbed Miss Minerva Snook, at Lew-
istown Junction. Miss Snook was sent for, bit
was met at Mifflin with a message that the man
had disappeared. The sheriff “didn't know"
whether or not any of his prisoners had escaped.
—Accompanied by his wife and twenty-four
children, Alexander Friss, a farmer, residing five
miles from the Wind Gap road, drove to Pitts-
burgh Saturday, a distance of twenty-five miles
in two wagons, to do his Christmas shopping. It
was the first visit of the children to that city,
When they left for home it was easily seen that
“dad” Friss was a good spender. Friss is 60
years of age while his wife is 64. Mrs. Friss has
given birth to five pairs of twins, two sets of trip-
lets and eleven other children. Three have died
in the last three years. “Dad” Friss believes in
the simple-life theory, and that is the reason he
refused to allow his children to pay a visit to the
wicked city until this time.
—A peculiarly sad accidental death occurred at
New Derry a few nights ago. Emanuel Wilson,
of Leechburg, went to visit his blind brother, W.
M. Wilson, at New Derry. The two were in La-
trobe and went home late in the evening, on the
way meeting and talking in a friendly way with
George and Lee Miller and Charles Peterson,
close neighbors. There was no oil in the lamp
when they reached the blind brother's home and
he started to get some of his neighbors. His vis-
iting brother started after him and they stood in
the road, discussing the possibility of getting oil
elsewhere, the mission not having been success-
ful. Suddenly there was the report of a gun and
the visitor fell dead inthe road. Neighbors were
aroused and the three above named were arrest-
ed. Peterson, who is charged with the shooting,
claims it was accidental.
505 RIS SSA