TYAN SA ERIN eg
ILE
RE
Brain
“Bellefonte, Pa., January 29, 1926.
Ey
LIFE’S JOURNEY.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
As we speed out of youth's sunny station
The track seems to shine in the light.
Dut it suddenly shoots over the chasms—
And sinks into tunnels of night.
And the hearts that were brave in the
morning
Are filled with pining and fears,
As they pause at the City of Sorrow
Or pass through the valley of Tears.
But the path of this perilous railway,
The hand of the Master has made,
With all its discomforts and dangers,
We need not be sad or afraid.
Roads leading from dark into darkness;
Roads plunging from gloom to despair,
Wind out through the tunnels of midnight
To fields that are blooming and fair.
Tho’ the rocks and their shadows surround
us,
Tho’ we catch not one gleam of the day,
Above us fair cities are laughing
And dipping white feet in some bay;
And always, eternal, forever,
Down over the hills in the west,
The last final end of our journey,
There lies the great Station of Rest.
Tis the grand central point of all rail-
ways
All roads cluster here where they end,
'Tis the final resort of all tourists.
All rival lines meet here, and blend;
All tickets, or mile-books, or passes,
If stolen, or begged for, or bought,
On what ever road or division,
Will bring you at last to this spot.
If you pause at the City of Trouble,
Or wait in the Valley of Tears,
Be patient, the train will move onward,
And sweep down the track of the years.
Whatever the place is you seek for,
Whatever your aim on your quest.
' Whatever your aim or your quest.
You shall come at the last with rejoicing
To the beautiful Station of Rest.
THE PATENT LEATHER KID.
They called her that for four rea-
sons as evident to the naked eye as
she was.
An inventory of her would have
run as follows, starting at the top:
An impudent patent leather cap; a
frenzy of curls; a pitifully exquisite,
pitilessly derisive, recklessly painted
face ; a child’s throat; a slender-
shouldered white torso submerged
just in time (sometimes a little too
late) in a bodice of patent leather,
strapped over the shoulders, wrink-
ling about a boyish waist hardly
slighter than the limber hips hidden
by a flare of patent leather skirt; the
mere beginning of a pair of trunks;
a long hiatus of all costume; a pair
of patent leather slippers.
The hiatus was filled by two of the
nimblest imaginable legs, their knees
of tremulous cream curdling and
dimpling at joints so finely modeled
that the beholder thought less of girl
than of silken machinery or pliant
jewelry.
The Kid danced wildly well in a
shady cabaret where her only protec-
tion from herself or her company was
the understanding that she was the
special sweetie of the up-and-coming
young prize-fighter “Curly” Boyle,
known in the perverse accent of cer-
tain native New Yorkers as “Coily
Berl.”
The Patent Leather Kid’s name—
if you believed what she told you
“which was always inadvisable”—was
Fay Poplin. Where she got it no
one knew, but it was surely never
from her mother or father—if she had
ever had either. Still, it was the only
one she used, and you could take your
change out of it.
She had a wildcat inside the lithe,
impossibly white body inside the
glossy, flexible armor of patent leather
impossibly black for all its flashing
light. And there was a world of ugly
wisdom back of the eyes that were,
one minute, impossibly innocent; the
next, intolerably wise.
Usually as restless as spilled mer-
cury, Fay might have been a stat-
uette of marble and onyx as she leer-
ed across the table at Curly Boyle
where he was attacking a beefsteak,
and recounting the fight he had just
won.
Fresh from the throb and peril of
the ring, he described each lead, block,
jab, with the fire, if not the vocabu-
lary, of a poet. But Fay took it all
with a bitter-sweet smile of contempt-
uous amusement. Now and then she
would toss him a celery-top, in lieu of
an ironical flower, or a sprig of pars-
ley from the platter he was cleaning
up. At last she broke right in on the
climax of the knock-out punch.
“Boy, you sure are the gravy!
There’s no denying it, for you admit
it yourself; and you ought to know.
But how come the newspapers keep
saying your fights are all fixed and
you only knock out set-ups?”
“Ah, who cares what the doity
sheets say!”
In her face there was the meekness
of a little girl lisping a prayer, but
a she-devil’s malice in her drawl as
she asked: “Say, Coily, just what is
a set-up?”
He was good only at fist-repartee.
He countered feebly: “Ah, go chase
yourself! You know dam’ well what
a set-up is.”
“Do I, dolling? A guy was tellin’
me that set-ups are has-beens or
never-wases who get paid to stand
up just long enough to be knocked
out. But Coily Berl would never beat
up a poor gink who was hired to lay
down, would you, deer-ree?”
Curly rolled his eyes in helpless
agony toward his manager, Jake
Stuke, and Jake growled at Fay: “Ah,
lay off him, can’t you? Or I might
pass you a poke in the jaw myself!”
“Yes? And what'd mama be doin’
in the meanwhile, pet? Wrappin’
this chiny platter round, your bald old
bean, maybe. Say, what right you
got to take a mortgage on a nice boy’s
life and toin him into a crook? . Coily
used to could lick all comers, but now
he wouldn’t dast bawl out that little
Wop waiter without you looked him
| over, signed him up to lay down, and
| took the long end of the gate.”
Jake almost wept as he pleaded:
“Say! say! say! soft pedal that stuff
can’t ya? Don’t I know what Coily’s
got? Ain't I noissin’ him for the
champi’nship of the woild? Ain't I
got him a clean record of eighteen
knock-outs, se’m decisions and not one
draw 2?” ;
Fay murmured with adorable won-
der: “Oh, it was you that did all
that knockin’-out, Jakie? It wasn’t
Coily, after all.” ;
“Shut your trap, will ya?” Curly
snarled. “Or do you want me to shut
it for you?” :
“Anything from you sweethot, is
a gift from hev'm.” ;
Stuke stopped Curly’s fist on its
way over the table, and tried to si-
lence this Patent Leather gnat:
“Ah, wait ta minut, wait ta minut.
Wha’d’ you say, Kid, if I'd ’a’ match-
ed Coily up wit’ some old vet'ran
twicet his weight wit’ twicet his ring-
gener’lship, and he’d ‘a’ knocked Coily
cold in the foist round of his foist
fight? How about t’at, eh? How
about it? If I'd ’a’ did your way, he
couldn’t get into a p’liminary at the
Y. W. C. A. Prize-fightin’s a sci'nce;
you can’t loin a fella to be a champ
in one lesson any more’n you can loin
him to play the violin in one lesson.
You're some dancer and I never seen
nobody could shimmy like you can,
unless it was a horse in fly-time, But
you didn’t loin that in one night, did
va? What if some of the sport writ-
ers do say Coily fights fixed fights?
Look what they done to Lincoln!
They shot him, didn’ ’ey? And who
was it got crucified? Or had you
heard about ’at?”
There was a miserable wisdom in
this; though, of course, Fay could
never admit that Jake was right about
anything; so she cooed: “Excuse me
for livin’, dearie. In my childish
ignor’nce I thought a fighter was a
guy who fought another fighter. I
see it’s somethin’ like shadow-boxin’.”
But she had heard her cue and was
out on the floor doing her stuff while
the saxophonists gargled and snored.
The light darted about the patent
leather surfaces of her costume, and
dreamed upon her snowy flesh, while
her ruthless little frame telegraphed
messages of an insolence and audac-
ity that could never be said or sung.
But. oh, how beautiful she was!
Curly glared at her with a passion-
ate hatred. For everybody else he
had a heart full of icewater. The only
patriotism he had was his mad long-
ing to be the champion of the United
States and to beat down all foreigners.
And everybody was a foreigner to
Curly—a man from the Bronx or
from Flatbush no less than an ‘invader
from remote New Jersey, Australia,
Ireland, or any other point west.
Then even such patroitism as he
had was destroyed by the World War
when it broke up Europe and fascin-
ated America. For it hurt the pres-
tige of all pugilists an shut off their
future glories. In the public mind
-corfibat- with. a single adversary on
a roped platform presided over by a
referee to enforce the rules, was con-
trasted with the exploits of martyrs
in cloud-wrapt airships or ooze-invad-
ing submarines or in corpse-lined
trenches, with the slaughter of to:-
mented myriads, the crumbling death
of cities and villages and the increas-
ing woe of nations. The war was like
a battle royal with the fighters blind-
folded and nothing barred. If there
was a Referee he never intervened.
When at last, with the rush of an
uncontrollable mob, America joined
the riot, Curly Boyle felt that his
country had turned traitor. There
was nothing but talk of volunteers,
guns, ammunition, bayonet practice.
The sacred word “fight” was diverted
to the base uses of war. In the
throngs about the prize-ring, uniforms
were less conspicuous than ordinary
clothes.
In the cabaret the uniforms made
a wild uproar over Fay, and Curly
could tell that their applause pleased
her as she had never been pleased be-
fore. She looked as if she wanted to
cry. Tonight when she came back
panting and sank down at the table,
she had forgotten her sarcasm. She
said:
“Coily, I bet you’d look grand in
khaki or a navy-blue lowneck. You're
a hot dresser, but there’s a soitain
sumpin’ about a uniform » :
“Yeah!” said Curly. “I been
thinkin’ about it. But I can’t make up
me mind which soivice to jern up
with.”
Jake Stuke raised a hand.
“Accordin’ to our little contrack,
Mr. Berl, if any mind-makin’-up is to
be did, I do it. I do the brain woik
and you do the fist woik;. and right
where I book you. Suppose you en-
listed like a fool; what'd they do to
you? Set you to peelin’ a million
potatoes! Suppose you cut your
t'umb off or get camp-sickness, or
break your back; where are you?
Supposir’ you got into the trenches
and come home wit’ a crutch under
each arm, if you had any arm to put
a crutch under. They'd wave a few
flags over you, and call you a coupla
heroes, and then forget you. You'd be
a lousy bum panhandlin’ for poke-
outs. No, sir, you stick to the woik
I’ve laid out for you and leave the
guys that’s afraid to use their fists.”
Curly nodded. “I guess you’re right
at that.”
Jake grew magnificent: “Why, if
they was any danger—like a ninva-
sion or somethin’, I’d shoulder a rifle
meself. But half o’ these volunteers
that’s rushin’ to the tailors to get in-
to uniforms is simply stuck on their
shapes. This patertism stuff is the
bunk. It’s like what Fay says: the
uniforms is becomin’ and that’s all
there is to it.” '
“I guess you got the right dope at
that,” said Curly.
Was it a sigh of relief or of re-
gret that slipped from Fay’s lips?
The veil of almost tenderness in her
eyes was gone, leaving ‘them hard and
bitter again. They softened only as
she glanced about at the eager lads
in khaki or blue blouses.
Curly knew those eyes of hers and
jealousy chocked him. All soldiers,
sailors -and marines: were immediate-
ly added to his gallery of enemies.
“Gradually the pubilc went plumb nut-'
.Stuke and: Molasses whispered
ty, and began to call for the draft,
compulsory service, a something they
called universal conscription. If the
act passed, everybody would have to
volunteer whether he wanted to or
not. Even Stuke was worried.
Curly wasn’t afraid of nobody, but
a guy hadda right to stick to his own
specialty.
Fay, though, could not seem to get
his idea into her solid ivory noodle.
She was growing so warlike that she
would rather dance with a soldier or
a sailor than listen to Curly talk ring
stuff. There was a funny look on her
face all the time. Curly tried to
knock it off once or twice, but it kept
coming back. Especially when the
band played “The Star-Spangled Ban-
ner.” And somebody was always
playing it. Go to a theatre or a
movie or a restaurant and you hadda
keep standing up half the time. You
coundn’t begin to chaw a potata but
what the band would begin to bump
the bumps with that old “O-oh, say,
can you see by the dawn’s oily light—
—"” On the street you was forever
tipping your hat to the flag as if it
was a lady friend. Curly added the
flag to his other favorite hates.
One afternoon when he was strol-
ling along Fit’ Avenya with Fay, for
a little light exercise before the bout
of the night with the Jersey Skeeter—
the biggest man he had taken on yet—--
they were checked at a crossing by a
regiment moving up the
There was always a regiment moving
up the street. J
The mob at the curb trod on Curly’s
toes with no thought of who it was
they were shoving. When he was
pushed out into the street by a gang
of lunkheads behind, two big stiffs of
cops put their hands on his chest and
used him for a battering-ram. And
one of the cops sang out:
“Hello, Curly, where’s your uni-
form?”
“Where's yours, you big bum?”
was the best Curly could think of.
Then he leaned. out and looked down
the line of the pop-eyed populace, and
saw the hats spilling off as if a wave
were breaking along the curb.
Another flag was coming along!
A flag was always coming along!
Curly eyed the leaning standards
slanting north as the Stars and
Stripes beat backward in a writhe of
red and white and a twinkle of stars
in a restless blue. He hated them so
that he kept his hands at his sides
and his hat on his head.
The bareheaded idiots around him
stared at him in wrath. People mut-
tered:
“Hats off!”
“The lid! The lid!”
Curly did not move. A stunied
runt next to him had the nerve to say:
“Take it off before I smash it over
your ugly mug!”
Curly’s answer was a contemptuous
elbow-jab that took the guys wind and
doubled him up. An old man, griz-
zled an tall, whispered over Curly’s
shoulder:
“Uncover, man; the flag is coming.”
“Ah, to hell wit’ the rag!” paid
Curly. ‘
There was a movement in the crowd
as if a snake were coiling to strike,
and Curly made ready te learn these
dubs who they were talking to. Sud-
denly his hat was whisked off by some
unknown hand. Curly whirled and
searched for it, but could not find it.
Fay, who was standing at his side,
had evidently not noticed the atroc-
ity, for she was staring at the sol-
diers.
Just then the troops were checked
by some jam ahead; and people wait-
ing to cross the street made a dash
to pass between the platoons marking
time. Fay caught Curly’s arm and
urged him forward. He was swept
across, looking frantically for his hat
among the hurrying feet.
There are few things as sacred to
a man as his hat and Curly was in a
1 mood to assault the whole town when
Fay said: ‘“Here’s your bonnet,
dearie.” She glanced at his fist.
“Don’t waste that mallet on me, boy;
save it for the Skeeter.”
Curly snatched the hat from : her
hand, jammed it on his head and
struck out for his training-quarters,
leaving her flat. When he turned to
see if she were following, she was
gazing at the soldiers, whese bayonets
flowed beyond the heads of the wit-
nesses in a long saw-blade of steel.
All this put Curly in high spirit for
the bout. The Jersey Skeeter had
more height and weight and a three-
inch longer reach than Curly, but only
courage to submit for a few dollars
to the brief death of a knock-out. It
had been agreed that the fight was to
go four rounds before the Skeeter
took the count; but Curly was so
furious that he forgot his instruc-
tions, and went right after the Skeet-
er with that low menacing prowl of
his, brushed aside the Skeeter’s hands
with his open left glove and drove
his right.to the chin with a zing that
rocked the Skeeter’s head almost to
sleep, and woke the crowd to frenzy.
The Skeeter fell into a clinch and
mumbled: “Hey, whatta hell? Easy
on dat stuff.”
Curly flung him off and almost
dropped him with a blow to the heart.
The Skeeter went into another clinch
and Curly smote him over the kidneys
so hard that he straightened with a
yowl, only to be doubled up with a
‘jab in the pit of the stomach.
Curly soon had the Skeeter so cock-
eyed that only -the bell saved him.
v0
Curly to slow up and ease along till
the fourth round or he’d have a dead
man on the canvas.
The second was so stupid that the
crowd grew rabid as the two men fan-
ned the air, fell into clinches until the
referee did all the work and the crowd
howled. ;
“Say, whyn't you kiss each other?”
“Give the poor beezer an ice-cream
cone, sweetheart.”
“Nah, make it a cream-puff apiece.”
Curly could not endure ridicule and
he sent the Skeeter cowering against
the ropes, trying to cover himself in
a ‘dozen places with only two useless
fists. | - The magnificence of Curly’s
shoulder-blades, rippling and’ glisten-
ing in the. downward flare of. light,
and the pure mechanical beauty of his
jabs and uppercuts, filled the stodgiest
spectator with a sense of beautiful
street.
efficiency. The many-voiced had one
voice.
“Put him out!”
Curly glanced around inquiringly
at Stuke, and Stuke afraid of the
crowd, nodded and called through the
ropes, “Give him all you got, boy!”
With his left hand, Curly set the
head of the Skeeter in just {Ze posi-
tion to knock it off, drew back that
right meat-ax of his, and—a regi-
ment marched by! The band played
“The Star-Spangled Banner.” There
was a racket of people getting to their
feet; then a hush of attention.
Curly paused to think up a proper
curse. The Skeeter, glancing between
his gloves, saw that Curly’s jaw had
sagged and his hands had dropped.
The much abused Skeeter could not
resist the chance.
too pretty.
The Skeeter made a sledge-hammer
of himself and caught Curly just be-
low the inverted V of his ribs. As
Curly crumpled the Skeeter’s right
hand came up from the floor, met the
point of Curly’s jaw, slammed it shut
and jarred off every nerve in his head.
Flop went Curly, knocked out twice
at once. Before his soul could get
back into his body the sexton’s fatal
forefinger was beating the death-
knell over him, and chanting “Six!
Seven! Eight!”
By the cry of “Nine!” Curly had
forced one paralyzed arm to action
‘and heaved his two-ton weight up to
his left elbow. At “Ten and out!” he
had his right: palm -on-the.canvas and
Curly was sitting
was-prying his ‘other shoulder out of
the ground where it had taken root.
His head came up as if it were made
of lead and his eyes were pitiful with
fog and wonder.
He could hear faint sounds of cheer-
ing several miles away and the next
thing he knew was his dressing-room,
with his black sparring partner and
his fat adorer, Puffy Kinch, work-
ing over him; and Stuke trying to look
like a good loser.
Curly tore off his gloves.and sobbed
and wailed as only prize-fighters can
weep. His three disconsolate retain-
ers tried in vain to console him. Stuke
was kind enough to say: “Now that
you know how it feels to be knocked
out, you’ll be all the better for it.”
But the Skeeter gave him the only
comfort he could accept. The Skeeter
put his head in to apologize and Curly,
with a howl of joy, dragged him in,
beat him senseless, and kicked him
out. Then he wept again. He out-
wept his own shower-bath.
He would not have gone to the cab-
aret where the Patent Leather Kid
always waited for the good news, but
he hardly dared let anyone else tell
her how it came about. When he ar-
rived she was dancing with a tipsy
young lieutenant, who hugged her so
tight that the two ensigns who dog-
ged their steps could not cut in.
Fay danced the uniform toward
Curly and hailed him. “Hey, Coily,
how many rounds did he last before
you handed him his K. 0.2”
Hearst's International-—Cosmepolitan.
What is News.
In a book published over a cen-'
tury ago in London there is a curious
definition of news, which is by no
means out of date in our own time.
The author points out that the word
“news” is made up of the four letters
that indicate the main points of the
compass, N. S. E. and W., and he
adds: “As news implies the intelli-
gence received from all parts of the
world, the very word itself points out
its meaning.” And, quite in harmony
with the prevailing fashion of the
time he adds a little moral philosophy
saying: “This expressive word also
recommends the practice of the fol-
lowing virtues: Nobleness in our
thoughts, equity and fairness in our
dealings with all men, wisdom in our
councils and decisions and sobriety in
our enjoyments. In our day the let-
ter S, however, might well stand for
the word speed in connection with
news. For of that they knew little
in the days when the man of a hun-
dred years ago made his interesting
discovery.” This writer once had a
conversation with Dr. William Hous-
ton, who was parliamentary reporter
tor “The Toronto Globe” in Ottawa.
“One day,” he said, “the government
resigned. I wrote the story, intend-
ing to hand it to the carrier for On-
tario, ‘who would deliver it two days
later at my paper. However, I kept
the manuscript in my pocket and for-
got about it. And yet when I went
to Toronto a week later, I found that
the important news had not yet been
received, and when I handed in my
story it was still a ‘scoop’ on the other
local journals.”
local journals.”—By Pierre Van Pas-
sen.
Hot Dog!
What is a hot dog? Well it is
mostly bull, bull meat mixed with
pork, highly spiced, steam cooked and
smoked over hickory smoke. It orig-
inated in Bologna, Spain, so long ago
that only the main facts may be re-
called. They used to slaughter an
enormous number of bulls in the
arenas of Spain in days when bull
fighting was more popular and more
brutal than it is today.
It looked more like a great eco-
nomical crime to see so much prize
beef wasted. But nobody wanted bull
beef just so; bulls are tough and not
so delicious as cows and steers are.
A butcher in Bologna had an idea and
bought bulls that were killed in the
bull ring and made the meat into a
sausage, mixed with pork and highly
seasoned. Bologna sausage appealed
to the popular taste.
Germans borrowed the formula,
put the same sausage mixture into
small casings and Bologna became
“Frankfurter” in Frankfort and
“Weenie” in Vienna. Coney Island
gave it the name of hot dog and pop-
ularized it.
- One stand in Coney Is that has
been selling hot dogs for ® half a
century is reputed to have a sale of
five to ten tons of Frankfurters a day
in the busy season. Somebody has to
sell a lot of em to get rid of that 400
million pounds a year.
——Subscribe for the “Watchman.”
i
1
1
:
i
A
i
1
ancholy.
Pessimistic View of
Life Not Warranted
“Not to be born is best, and next to
die as soon as possible.” This was
the pessimistic view of life expressed
by Sophocles. Most philosophers and
intellectuals of ancient times agreed
with him. Life was looked upon as
an enigmatic affliction rather than a
divine dispensation.
“These diagnoses were hased upon
a mere consideration of symptoms.
They were made in almost complete
ignorance of the underlying physical
causes of human misery,” is the as-
sertion made by Dr. Eugene Lyman
Figk in Forbes Magazine.
“Many years of experience in sift-
ing and sorting human types, in search-
ing for the causes of physical failure,
have convinced me of the falsity of
this pessimistic philosophy. No one
would wish to live in a world abso-
lutely devoid of struggle, pain, grief or
suffering.
“The world is as we view it. If we
view it through billous colored spec-
tacles it is a bilious world. I have
seen a man with big brain and dom-
inant personality, fundamentally capa- .
Me of a joyous, self-confident exist- |
ence, wholly transformed into a pes-
simistic and walling misanthrope by so
crude a’ thing as flat foot. Others
have been similarly affected by pol-
soned or infected physical states, while
sometimes. the reverse is-true.and the
body suffers because they are un-
happy; others are unhappy because
they slump.”
Mr. Pooh Waited Long,
but Opportunity Came
Mr. Waldemar X. Pooh, inventor and
manufacturer of the Double-Cross
bucket for catching lambs, writes as
follows: “I was just a clerk when my
opportunity came. I had brought
some papers to the president of the
company—he was in conference, as
usual—when the third vice president,
the best-dressed man I ever saw be-
fore he took to stripes; sald! ‘Let us
ask Pooh.’ The directors took one
look at me and laughed; but the third
vice president hushed their mirth.
“‘We are In desperate straits,’ he
sald gravely. ‘Everything else has
failed. What have we to lose?
“Then he turned to me and in the
tone of one who Is almost beaten, in- |
quired: ‘Pooh, what word of five let-
ters means a cold dwelling-place? We |
can only think of a New York apart-
ment.” :
“For a moment the circle of worn,
tense faces upset me, but I pulled my-
self together, ‘Igloo,’ 1 cried, and as
the room rocked I knew that my
chance had come.”—Kansas City Star.
Beloved Old Gossip
ror 100 years the world has enjoyea
die “indiscreet - and. delightful - confi-
dences-of Samuel “Pepys, a. writer in
the Mentor remarks. There is a mar-
velous array of women in the diary;
women of station and artisans’ wives
and serving maids and titles and ac-
tresses, and the wife who was only fif- |
teen when she married him. He loved
them all, including his wife, of whose
beauty he was proud—and jealous, too.
He was stingy with her till shortly be-
fore she died, along toward the end of
the diary; but Pepys shows his pride
in such an entry as this: “My wife ex-
traordinarily fine today in her flower
tabby suit everybody in love
with it, and indeed she is very fine and
handsome in it.”
Beautiful Redbird
Another name for the redbird is the
cardinal grosbeak. They are a pride-
ful lot, these grosbeaks, and with rea-
son. The cardinal grosbeak is first
cousin to the blue grosbeak, the scarlet
pine grosbeak, the orange, white and
black evening grosbeaks and to others
. of the lordly tribe. In all the graces
of bird life they stand separated from
the common flock. Nature lavished its
colors upon them, and the gift of
music was not forgotten. James Lane
Allen gave a tribute of praise to the
beauty of the cardinal beside which all
other tributes are and must be futile.
“Old” and “Young” Nick
The use of the name “Old Nick” ap
olied to Satan originated in the com-
parison drawn between the machina-
tions of his satanic majesty and those
of Niccolo Machiavelli, one of the
greatest Florentine statesmen, born
1469. He was crafty and dissembling,
a firm believer in “the end justifies
the means.” Samuel Butler in his
“Hudibras” in writing of Machiavelli,
says “Nick Machiavelll had ne'er a
trick though he gave his name to our
old Nick.”
Old Christmas “Dance”
One beautiful feature of the “Mess
de Gallo” in the great cathedral of
Seville is a strange mystical dance on
“interweaving the steps” by the choir
boys, who thus dance before the high
altar. This reverent dance, which is
given but twice a year, is marked by
the chanting of the choir boys, who
carry tall lighted candles as they
cross and recross up and down the
wide choir steps. One of the occa-
sions is the celebration of midnight
mass on Christmas eve.
Put Life Work First
The hours will come, and come to
every man, when task work quivers and
palpitates with life; but perhaps they
only come because we have been faith-
ful, with a certain grimness, through
the days of gloom. Let a man hold to
his life work through mood and mel-
Let him hold to it through
headache and through heartache. For
he that observeth the wind will never
sow; and he that regardeth the clouds
will never reap.—G. H. Morrison.
»
&
FARM NOTES.
—Dairy stables should be kept
clean, allowed an abundance of light,
and kept well-ventilated.
—Are the brood sows getting plenty
of exercise these winter days? Be
sure that they also get sufficient pro-
tein and mineral matter to maintain
their body weight and develop a good
litter of pigs.
| —The flanks and udders of dairy
cows should be kept clipped during
the winter months. Cows are thus
more easily cared for and cleaner milk
, will result, Pennsylvania State Col-
lege dairy specialists say,
i —Now is the time to plan changes
in your flower borders or shrub plant-
ings. These can all be worked out
on paper and the materials ordered
now so that the work can be out of
the way early in the spring.
| —A row of annual flowers in the
garden may provide table decoration
for the home all summer. Include in
! your seed orders these flowers to pro-
vide a succession and a variety of
bloom through the season: Calendula,
Alyssum, Ageratum, Verbena, Larks-
pur, Cornflower, Nasturtium, Zinnia,
Gypsophila, Aster.
—Have you selected the location
for this year’s vegetable garden? A
permanent site has an advantage over
the policy of moving the garden each
year in that the soil may be more
rapidly and permanently improved
through the annual addition of quan-
tities” of animal and: green manures
and commercial fertilizers.
| —If hatching eggs are to be collect-
ed for early season incubation, it is
| time to place the breeding males in
the pen, specialists at the Pennsyl-
vania State College say.
i It is just as undesirable to use too
many males as too few. The proper
ratiy is one male to 20 females for
Leghorns and one male to 12 or 15
‘females in the case of American or
! dual purposes breeds.
| —In feeding orphan lambs many
think that cow’s milk should be di-
luted with water but since the analy-
‘ ses of ewe’s milk shows it to be richer
in fat than cow’s milk this practice
i is entirely unnecessary. For the first
i week the orphan should have some
| ewe’s milk, if possible. A good way
ito get it is to take the lamb to the
;ewes whose lambs are not yet old
enough to take all the milk.
The orphan should be fed milk
often, but it should not be given a
large amount at one time until it is
| two or three weeks old.
Upon the first day of its life an
, ounce “two tablespoonfuls” is a lib-
‘eral feeding and it is safer to. feed
‘only half that amount, but it should
be fed at least every two hours.
It is most convenient to feed the
‘milk from a bottle to which is at-
; tached a medium-sized nipple of the
: swan-bill type. The bottle should be
{Kept thoroughly clean and the milk -
" should be fresh and at a natural tem-
!-perature; that is 100 degrees. In or-
i der to maintain the temperature, the
“bottle containing the milk. shouldbe
‘kept in a vessel partly filled with
| water heated to 100 degrees or slight-
‘ly above.
| After the lamb is two or three
| weeks old, it is not necessary to feed
it more than two or three times a day.
| Sometimes an ewe has two lambs and
; only enough milk for one. In such a
i case it is usually possible to bring the
|lambs along nicely by supplementing
her supply with cow’s milk. As they
learn to eat grain and hay, the milk
feeding can be gradually diminished
and finally discontinued.
—Plow corn stubble late in the fall
. “after November first.” Plow deep
and thoroughly in order to bury the
stubble completely to a deapth of six
inches. After November first the
borers are too sluggish to work their
way up to the surface if buried to a
depth of six inches. Most of the
buried borers are killed by the un-
favorable environment, and the few
moths that emerge in the spring are
unable to force their way up through
the packed soil.
Spring Plowing—While fall plow-
ing is the better practice from a corn
borer control standpoint, spring plow-
ing is possible under some conditions
if it is done before the fifteenth of
May. In fields lightly infested very
few borers will be found in four inch
stubble of ensilage corn, which is cut
earlier than the field corn. Such stub-
ble may safely be left until spring.
However, an examination of the stub-
ble for the presence of borers should
be made before it is decided to let the
plowing go until spring.
. Spring plowing should be the rule
where cornstalks have been broken
off at the ground level during the
winter, as described later. It should
be preferred over discing.
Seeding—The practice of seeding
on disced corn stubble is strongly
condemned in the infested territory.
However, under existing circum-
stances, if corn-stubble land must
be seeded without plowing, such seed-
ing should be limited to fields in which
the cornstalks have been cut or broken
off at the ground level, and all corn
remnants removed. :
Corn on Cob—Corn should not be
kept on the cob after May 15, but
should be shelled and bagged. From
this time on, shelled corn will not
mold if kept in a dry place. Where
corn is intended for seed, germina-
tion tests should be made and the
seed selected and shelled before May
15
Corn cobs must be burned, for they
may harbor many borers. The prac-
tice of throwing the cobs into pig pens
should be discontinued ‘in the in-
fested area, unless the uneaten por-
tions can be recovered in condition
fit to burn.
Hogging Down—Corn in infested
fields should not be “hogged down.”
The corn is only partially consumed,
and the field is left in such. a con-
dition that it is impossible to plow
the remnants cleanly to a depth of
six inches, or to recover them for
burning.
Spring Clean-up—All cornstalks,
cobs, and other corn remnants, in-
cluding silage, remaining about the
premises should be destroyed by burn-
ing before May 15 of each year.