" Bellefonte, Pa., October 26, 1923. THE BOY. By Ann Cobb. Everything's predestined So the preacher's say— Whist I'd been predestined To be my brother Clay. He's the only man-child Mammy ever bore. Four of us that’s older, Sev’'ral young-uns more. Eats with Pop and Grandsir’, While we women wait. Has his wings and drumsticks Waiting, if he’s late. Rides behind with Poppy, When he goes to mill, Fun’ral-meetings, anywhar Hit suits his little will. Folks delight to sarve him, Let him come and go,— No! he’s not so pettish, He's a marvel, though. Everything's predestined, And hit’s not so bad. We'd ’a’ been right lonesome With nary little lad. O—— i —— THE SERIOUS SIDE OF THE BOY PROPOSITION. By L. A. Miller. A few days ago I called into our leading ice cream parlor; a bright lit- tle boy, the only son of the family, was enjoying himself by circulating all over the premises, having a hilar- jous good time. The mother spoke up and said: “Boys, as a rule, know of no trouble; in fact, this is the happiest day of their existence; the parents furnish them with their eats, clothes, and everything that goes for their comfort, but wait until they grow up and are obliged to paddle their own canoe—then they will find more un- easy sledding.” I told her she did not view the situation philosophically; she should remember there are two sides to every existing proposition. I was raised a boy on a farm, and think I am in a position to give my views intelligently so far as the other side is concerned. Oh, ’tis a parlous boy; Bold, quick, ingenuous, forward, capable; He's all the mother’s from top to toe. —Richard III. I counted it a serious thing to be a boy. Not that it is particularly an unfortunate thing, but just merely a serious, solemn thing. To whom is it serious? These are grounds for a wide diver- sity of opinion on this subject. The boy files a long bill of particulars, in which he calls attention to the many ways in which he is imposed upon and his life made a burden. He fails to see why he was created to be thus jostled from pillar to post and back again. If he had a stinger like the hornet, or a battery secreted within like the electric eel, he would then im- agine he had been placed in this world to have a rough time, and nature, true to her considerate disposition, had provided him with means of de- fense. ; ? The parent comes up to the bar of judgment and flings a bill of indict- ments over the rail that is long enough to startle the court. He says he has great difficulty in making both ends meet under the most favorable circumstances. With the boy in the field there is no chance to keep even, because he undoes as fast as is done. What he cannot undo he spoils, and what he cannot spoil is of such little consequence that it would make no Ebpreciahle difference if it were spoil- ed. This parent will sit on the fence, in the quiet of his office, or behind the wood-shed and meditate, and cogitate, all about that boy, who is probably at that identical time up to his eyes in mischief. The parent tries to figure out whether or not it would have been better had that boy not been born, or if he had been born a girl. ° That same boy , whose father is mentally kicking himself, may be on that seif-same wood-shed fishing for | the dejected parent’s wig, with a pin- ' hook. The boy means no harm, but the law of compensation, as he under- | stands it, fully justifies him in using | any means for getting even. If not | on the wood-shed he may be in the | garage undoing the intricacies of the ' automobile. The mother has a soft side for her boy, notwithstanding he sometimes vexes her soul deeply. She looks for- ward to she time when his boyish chin will be hidden by a manly beard, and ‘when his whining, peevish voice will ring out in clear, shrill notes, com- manding attention in the councils of the mation, on the field of battle, or from the sacred desk. Even when most provoked she will say to herself: “Oh, well; he is only a boy.” ~ /As mother sits, aweary, after all Thave gone to bed, patching the torn pants, which her spouse would have paddled had not the shrewd young ~ philosopher studiously kept his face Wo the front, she may heave a sigh indicative of weariness, but it is not | the weariness caused by patching her | boy’s pants. On the contrary, the | over-time—if mothers are ever al- lowed over-time—is restful rather than weariness. Say, boy, your mother is your de- voted friend, and don’t you forget it. She may welt you sometimes, but even that is a blessing in disguise. | You may not realize just at the time: that it is for your good, but it will | dawn on you after many years. Only | too often does she allow her tender- | ness of heart to save your back. She may regret this weakness some time, yet she cannot help pleading with her own judgment in your behalf, and making promises for your future con- | duct. Thus she keeps going your bail | time after time. Is it better to be continually going bail for a boy; or would the effect be more salutary if he were allowed to stand trial and pay the penalty more frequently ? The evidence furnished by the po- | fice courts tend to show that the wild | and vicious, who have the means to promptly pay their fines, or have some friend handy to go their bail, rarely profit by being arrested. They ut up the necessary forfeit and go Porth on another tour, with no inten- tion of appearing before the magis- trate in the morning; whereas, if they had lain behind the bars all night, or had been compelled by their sureties to stand a hearing, they would prob- ably have had such a realizing sense of their folly as would have done them some good. On the whole it is probably better to have a hearing in the case even if sentence is suspend- ed. The town boy has a good case against the world, and one that never fails to arouse the sympathy of the truly philanthropic. He charges: That he is grossly imposed upon by mankind in general; just because he is little and not provided with the necessary means of defensse. That he is made to bear disproportionate bur- dens, because so few are able to esti- mate fairly what amount of strength and energy a boy possesses. That he is regarded as a nuisance in general, and a trial in particular, be- cause at times he gets in the way, and occasionally does something quite exasperating. That he is given no show for his white alley, because so many so-called men neb in and crowd him out. When corn planting is on the tapis he is expected to drop the pumpkin seeds and beans. One-half of the field is to be pumpkins and the other half beans. He must follow the corn drop- per and drop one pumpkin or squash seed in every alternate hill, or two string beans in every other hill. is expected to keep up with an expert corn dropper, whose feet are protect- ed from the hard clods and sharp pebbles by leather shoes, while his bare feet are not yet sufficiently tan- | ned to be briar and thorn proof. There may even be cracks on their soles or under the toes, or possibly the morning dews may have chapped the tops of them until they bleed, or may be a nail hanging by a slender shred of sensitive flesh—a souvenir of the first stub of the season—all combine to render every step painful. When harvest time comes he is ex- pected to carry the water for a per- spiring, thirsty set of harvest hands, gather al lthe sheaves and fetch the men’s coats from the other end of the field at quitting time. If there is any harder work in the harvest-field than this let some one stand up and make it known. Hoeing corn is always considered boy’s work, but he is usually yoked with one man and two bigger boys. The man takes the highest and best hoe, and the bigger boys take choices according to size, leaving the “kid” to take the old “gander neck” that is loose in the socket, splintered in the handle and dull as a country parson’s sermon. With all these hindrances he is ex- pected to keep up with the man and do his work just as wel.. No wonder he is discouraged and often looks at the stars and stumps in hopes of dis- covering some reasonable excuse for his having been sent to earth. This is bad enough in all con- science, but it is not all. Every time he steps on a sharp clod and shuts his eyes to keep from crying out, he sees saucy, red-gilled chubs leap up from the fishing hole at the end of the field and make faces at him, and lazy shiners turn their glistening sides to- ward the sun and wiggle their tails in a manner that says as plain as words: “I dare you to catch me.” Every now and then a big, fat cricket, good for at least three trout, hops la- zily away from him, and nice white grubs, curved to the shape of the hook, beckon him to take them in out of the heat. To gather sheaves or hoe corn with a nice, cool swimming hole within sight; of a bumble bees’ nest in the next field, is simply gnawing. A man may resist the temptation, but the time was when he could take them in at the cost of a licking. No wonder you cry out in your sleep and kick off the covers Can good come out of this torture of body and agony of soul? The boy who re- He | fuses to bend to the burden, to blister his hands on the split-handled rake, to chop wood with the worn-out axe— the good one being under the bed— to ride the sharpest--backed and | roughest-trotting horse on the farm . without even a sheep-skin, and to wait | until the second or third table is through eating before his turn comes, i never amounts to much. Boys, cheer up, our President of the | United States fifty years hence—is today a boy, same as you. | ——Vote for Herr for Prothono- tary. Three Biblical Towns Identified. Scholars report that they have identified the three biblical towns of | Shiloh, Bethany and Jeshanah over whose sites American, British and Danish excavators have been digging. Until a few months ago no archeo- logical work of any kind had been done over the sites of ancient Jewish towns in the highlands of Palestine. Borings over the site of Shiloh where the Hebrews kept the ark of the cove- nant disclosed clear stratification, rep- resenting early Israelite, Saleucido- Roman and Arab occupation. In the first stratum a flint sickle-edge was found, among other relics. This, con- sidered in connection with the fact that iron sickles were not generally used by the Israelites prior to the 11th century B. C., indicates some- thing of the age of the stratum. The findings so far are said to agree remarkably well with Biblical data. Bethany, the town in which Mary and Martha lived with Lazarus, has been identified with the village of Ananiah, mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah. The original name, it ap- pears, was Beth-Ananiah. In much the same manner scholars have iden- tified the town of Jeshanah, mention- ed in II Chronicles, whose site, it is believed, it now occupied by an Arab fort at Buri-el-Isannah. IN GROSS ADDITIONS TO BELL TELEPHONE PLANT so10 MILLIONS OF DOLLARS PENNSYLVANIA 1919 — 1923 ,000 $20,000,000 $30,000,000 upward. —~ This Year $30,200,000 We started the year with plans for the greatest telephone constructio Pennsylvania. : We expected to add twenty-five millions of ‘dollars in new equipment to the Bell System in this state. But the tremendously increasing demands for tele- phone service have forced us to revise our figures By December 31, 1923, we will have placed in one year $30,200,000 worth of new equipment, new n program ever attempted in telephones, new wire, new switchboards, new Cen- tral Office equipment, and new buildings. And our 1924 construction program «will probably C. Ww. run to $40,000,000. All this in spite of the fact that the three preced- ing years were greater than any six years in the telephone history of the state. We are building—building to keep pace with the demands of the people of Pennsylvania for tele- phone service. The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania 45 Heilhecker ONE POLICY, ONE SYSTEM, UNIVERSAL SERVICE, AND ALL DIRECTED TOWARD BETTER SERVICE TO TELL FORTUNES FOR HALLOW-EEN. Carve a large pumpkin with initials and mount it somehow so it will whirl. Hatpin in hand, each guest must pierce the whirling pumpkin, and whatever letter the pin strikes will be the letter of the one whom he or she will marry. ; PALMISTRY. On the wall tack a large white card- board hand which has had lines drawn upon it similar to one’s palm. Num- ber each line and have a list with cor- responding numbers to which to re- fer. Blindfolded, the guests point to the palm with a long cane, and what- ever line is struck tells their fortune. Line 3 may mean a long life; line 8, money, and so on. IS HE TRUE? Bowls of water are brought out and each guest asked to start two needles floating, naming one for herself, the other for some one she loves. If the needles float away from each other the loved one is untrue; if they come together he is true and happiness is assured. SHOOTING SEEDS. Give each guest a dozen soaked pumpkin seeds and set an empty bowl six feet away. Ask them to shoot the seeds into the bowl, by slipping through the fingers. The number of seeds in the bowl determines the num- ber of children to be had. CANDLE PUFFING. Set a lighted candle on a table in a darkened room. Blindfold the guest and start hi mtoward the candle. Give him three puffs to put out the light. If he does not succeed, marriage is not for him. If he puts it out in one puff he will be married before the year is out; if two puffs, he will be twice married; three puffs, married after fifty. ——Vote for Hoy for Recorder. —— Vote for Stover and Condo for Auditors. ——Vote for Ocker for Register. Hallow-een Pumpkins. The more pumpkins the better in Hollow-een decorations, so the less they cost the happier is a hostess. In- expensive and effective ones can be made from strips of yellow crepe pa- per cut across the grain and placed over a ball of cotton. Attach the strips to the centre of the bottom of the cotton ball, drawing them up over the sides to the centre of the top. Twist the top ends into a stem and cover the latter with green crepe pa- per. “Life-sized” pumpkins require strips about as wide as a newspaper column. ——Vote for Swabb and Spearly for County Commissioners. ——————r A ———— ——Vote for Taylor for Sheriff. mene leans ——Vote for Stover ard Condo for Auditors. 1 HHH (Hi J | AA EE eH I Ill HH LL Service HIS WORD has a wide mean- ing when applied to this Bank. It is not limited to banking and financial matters —but takes a much wider range. Is there any way in which experience and a desire to help may prove of benefit to you? If there is, call to See us. The First National Bank Bellefonte, Pa. 61-46 sms EEE) W. L. FOSTER, President = DAVID F. KAPP, Cashler. =I How'Thick is a Dollar Bill? OT VERY THICK—is it? Yet, by the thickness of the dollar bill they failed to bank, thousands of people have just missed success. The dollar bill in a Bank Account HERE is thick enough to support a man from disaster. Open an Account Today The First National Bank of State College State College, Pennsylvania OAPITAL $125,000.00 68-10 eee eee I eI) SURPLUS $125,000.00 Lec carta a rr J the Man vith Money to Burn never has the Chance to Build a Bonfire at, Fauble’s The days of lighting cigars with dollar bills are gone. ; Today—fortune owners and fortune hunt- ers—men who worry about their income returns and men who are worrying about their out-going rent—-they are all de- manding VALUE. Try us—now—or any day you are ready. We don’t want to rush you in the least, but we do want you to at least get as much for your money as it is worth. 2-Pants Suits $25 and Up....Stetson Hats ~ Walkover Shoes...Emery Shirts A. Fauble S222 NS MSS UST He le] Het] led Uhetf Uedf bed Ved