Newspapers / The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.) / Dec. 31, 1914, edition 1 / Page 6
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lsti'V,-rJm S&i fi- To all pood-by. Mj' task is done. I'vo swuig- the circ!9 cf th sun. I've given all that Life r"?tows. I've dealt Fate's cards tj friends, to foes. I've touched you each with joy and care. Drawn wrinkles here, smoothed wrinkles there. And if I've frosted temples gray, I've made warm lips to kiss away The chill. Tho' Death, tho' strife I've visited I've granted Life. I'm Time. I've robbed your cradle de&r, Yet I ask you your eying Year, H ive I not filled it? Answer free, If I've robbed you have not you cheated me? Have not you sought to kill me Timet Have not you wasted me God's gift sub lime? Misspent me, mocked me, wished me on my way. Loathed and reviled me prayed another day. And when I granted it, mocked that one. too. Are we not quit at evens I and you? Tis Kismet Fate. Old World, good-by, My cycle's done I faint I die. Oh. World! dear World at last my dream is true. Through all eternity I've longed for you. Impatient of the years I had to wait. Each nerve aquiver, list I be too late. And now I'm here and all ef yeu are mine For my brief reign. Yet, also, I am thine. For use abuse hut treat me as you may Remember this I'll give and take away. A nd but this moment bom but half awake, I'll tell yeu now what I'll both give and take. I'll take a life from out you here and there. I'll give a lover true a sweetheart fair. :.' cf jour fondest hop:s I'll steal awcy, I'll grant a grain of wisdom day by day. And tho', perchance, I should take Peter's all. With lavish hands I'll shower it on Paul, I'll smite some of you with an iron glove, I'll. purse some others with my tenderest love, I'm 'both your queen and slave. I now make way. This night is yours. Tomorrow you'll repay. Bring forth the jesters. Fill the cup of cheer. ' You've waited me forever. World, I m here. The 1915 Boy. "I will not put pins In my dear teach er's chair." (Tacks will hurt just as much, anyway.) "I will not quarrel and fight with ay big brothers in 1915." (What have 1 got a little brother for?) "I will not play hookey from school to go ishlng or swimming." (That Is, In the winter time.) "I will be a regular attendant at Sunday school." (At Christmas time and just before the summer excursion, of coarse.) "1 trill not take mother's currant jelly from the pantry without per mission." (Her raspberry Jam is good enough for me.) "I will be kind to dumb animals, such as tigers, Hons and elephants." (Stray cats and dogs, however, had better keep out of this neighborhood.) "l- wlll not (Oh, gee, that's enough. They say the good die young, and I want to live nntll I catch that red headed boy on the next block who stuck his tongue out at me yesterday!) 3EVVYEAB PROPHETS By CENE MOHGAN. NYUODY who says the world 13 grow iiiK less supeiviiiioi: nutst be talking through the ear-llapa nn his ran. Kvcry yi'ar about hinuary 1 old Suprrstition allows it self like a b.lia lit;oU monster in a laundry basket. To be sure, we 10 longer take out insurance against ghosts, ana if we saw a hobgohlin we'd want to know why the hotel bellho-,) had grown those whiskers. Put there is one kind of su perstition which we seem to be giving more encouragement all the time, and that is the New Year prophecy. The true New Year prophet Is a cheerful soul. If he ever has any good news concerning the ft ture, he care fully nibbles at the hard ground with a pii kiix and buries it. Tad news, calamity, disaster, catastrophe, misfor tune, these are the staple groceries in whic h he prefers to deal. And he has sut h a clever way of making good, too. The New Year prophet wears crepe to work every morning while he is put ting his forecast In order. He also wtars a long, sad face and murmurs ever and anon that the worst is yet to come. He does this in order that the world may grow pale and weep and shudder. He just loves to show us a good time. The way the New Year prophet makes good on his predictions is to promise every kind of bad l ick there is, from famine to earthquake, and from plague to war. As this globe of ours has been enjoying a steady diet of these things since the year one, the New Year prophet rarely goes wrong, but just waves his printed predictions i:; side down and warhles, "I told you 0." He is a sure-thing player, and na-ely takes a chance that is not a sixty-to-one shot. For instance, he is safe in forecast ing a typhoon in the Pacific ocean, which will destroy shipping, but he wouldn't dare to predict that James Jones will pay me that ten dollars he owes me before the first of next April. He finds it advisable to foresee a fam ine in China any old thing can hap pen in China but under no circum stances would he venture the belief that I will surely keep all the good resolutions I made on the evening of December 30. If I thought the ray was steady and the hours not too long for indoor work, I believe I should like to take up the work of making New Year prophecies. For the benefit of enter prising employers. looking for bright young men at this kind of work, I have made up a few sample prophecies for 1915. It makes no difference how I did it. whether by crystal gazing or by scientific methods. However, I ac complished It without the aid of a medical almanac or other weapons. For instance. I predict that: In January the days will be a little longer, and ice will be cheap. On Jan- Murmurs Ever and Anon That the Worst Is Yet to Come. uary 21 the coal bin will be empty, and father will chop up a parlor chair. The month of February will take only 29 days to pass a given point. The weather will be extremely unset tled, and when it is not stormy the air will be quite calm. In spite of the cold spell cherry trees will bloom around February 22 in all candy store windows. March will come In like a lamb afraid of waking the baby, and will go out like a leonine monster who has just overheard someone say he is get ting fat. Rain checks will be issued in case this condition is reversed. There will be some warm weather, which will cause optimists to throw aside their overcoats and shed their thick, prickly underwear. When the cold spell gets back on the job, fresh. frozen optimist will be one of the del icacies of the season. April will come In with a sore foot, having kicked an opera hat which com pletely surrounded a brick. April will be a wet month, and early umbrella crops will bj reported from many re gions. Fido will here begin to shed his fur. Now there's a prophecy which shows what I can do. To confess up, there was nothing difficult about it. For any one can be a New Year prophet. Yes, without any previous training, or ex perience in sending spirit messages collect, instead of paying the boy your self. I It's safe to propliecize that in the yeur 1C 15. A. D., you are going to keep most of your good resolutions if you 1 made them in an eurnest. sincere, try again spirit; instead of iu the usual, automatic way, like giving a fence its annual whitewash. It's safe to fore cast that you'll keep out of debt, that you'll increase your bank account'and that you'll get your gilt-edged license for health and happiness if, instead of growing dreamy-eyed and wonder ing what the New Year may bring On January 21 the Coal Bin Will Be Empty. forth, you step out on the right foot, with your eyes to the front. Decide that when old Dame Fortune meets you you'll be plugging along 1 1 straight and narrow path, and then she won't have room to side-step you. He your own prophet and predict a year of hard work and square living for yourself. You should worry while the professional New Year prophet is dusting off his shelf-worn stock of plagues, famines, volcanic eruptions and crop failures in Helgoland. ABE MARTIN ON NEW YEAR Thoughts by a Philosopher About the Man Who Swears Off Has Hard Time for a While. Sometimes when a feller who kin drink or leave it alone gits t' lookin' back o'er th' year jest closin' an' sums up all th' things he's done or undone, nil th' energy an' money he's wasted an' all th' things he's missed or neg lected in that regretted time, th' paet looms up like a piece o' tar soap. Then he quietly resolves t" bid good-by t' th' social cup an New Year's day, little dreamin' o' th' colossal struggle jest around th' corner. Th' feller who has long been used t' fortifyin' himself with a stimulant on over' occasion has purty tough sleddin' for a while after he swears off. Tner's th' ordeal o' buyin' a new hat or at tendin' a banquet. Th feller who kin drink or leave it alone alius smells like a Deer Creek distillery after he buys a new hat, an' he'll often train fer weeks when titer's a banquet ahead. Sometimes he'll set clean thro' a banquet, or at least till th' last syllable of an address on "Th' Weddin' o' th' Oceans" lias died away in th' cigarette enioke. Put how a feller's whole style o pitchin' changes when he once gits thoroughly established on th' water wagon an' begins t' talk natural fer th first time since th' first baby come! How his patient wife misses his glowin' account o' th' day's earnin's when he used f stall thro' th' evenin' meal! How his associates miss his decided views on ever' question that comes up! How th' one-legged news boy on th' corner misses his lavish generosity! How he kicks on th' gro cery bill! How his waistcopt pockets bulge with segars, iulU one repre sents' a 15-cent drink that he's muffed while in th' hands o' friends, an' ho his little children miss th' peppermint drops that used f fall from his over coat as he flung it carelessly across th' piannf r. Lafe Bud says that gittin' on an off th' water wagon is th' only exercise some fellers ever git. Abe Martin, in American Magazine. A New Year's Wish. To become an (-Xpert at forgetting, just to forget all the unkind acts, the deep wrongs, the mean words, the bitter disappointments just let them go, forget them the memory wili be come quick and alert to remember the things worth remembering, the mind given to beautiful things, worth-while things, and to remember always that I am In the presence of God, this is my desire for the New Year. Good-by, Old Year. Peace to its ashes! Peace to its embers of burnt-out things; fears, anxieties, doubts all gone! I see them now as a thin, blue smoke hang ing in the bright heavens of the past year, vanishing away Into utter noth ingness. Not many hopes deceived, not many illusions scattered, not many anticipations disappointed, but love fulfilled, the heart comforted, the soul enriched with affections. Longfellow. Help! "'Gentleman offers to exchange a Christmas present tor something useful'" Cliildren and Old . . vi-y 1 JkJ4 IN "C HILDREN are conservative beings, even old fashioned, when It comes to choosing toys. They aren't up to date and as full of the modern spirit of progress and invention as the toyniakeis be lieve them to be." Thus spoke one who is a sort of professional Santa Claus that is, he has played the part at so many Sun day school Christmas parties that be sometimes imagines he is grow ing cot ton whiskers. "They display the same quaint, sim ple, old-fashioned taste as their grand fathers and grandmothers when they were children," he continued. "Most of them, do. anyhow. Every year the toy manufacturers break loose with a new crop of automatic racing cars, aeroplanes, submarines, fire engines and kicking donkeys. If the children were constructed on the same nervous clock-work plan, they would give old Santa Claus no rest unless he kept up with all the modern inventions. In stead of toy soldiers they would de mand mortar batteries, and they would not be satisfied with mooley cows, but would demand that they have pedi grees and give only certified milk and cream. "They would not accept a Noah's ark unless it was a combination of the steamship Lusitania and a modern cement bungalow, with sleeping porches, twin-screw propellers, elec tric searchlights, wireless apparatus, second chattel mortgage In fact, all the comforts of ship and home com plete. They, would require Mr. Noah to carry a pilot's license as well as a college degree in natural history. All the animals would have to be trained to do tricks, and poor Noah's family would have a fine time herding them while wearing wooden raincoats and stove-pipe ha'.s. "Fortunately children, real children, are not constructed that way. They want their rks on the old-fashioned plan, whereby you lift off the roof and find Noah minus his head, and most of the animals trying to hobble on three legs. "Automobiles in miniature, with real TO KNOW FUTURE HUSBAND Many Old English Customs and Su per titions Center Around Christmas. All down the ages girls have been eager to find out their Suture destiny wheth-r they will be "old maids," or, as they are now called, "bachelor girls,'' or wives and mothers. Christ mas, as well as all the other festivals, has been allotted its customs and su perstitions through which the secret of the future may be learned. To find tbe answer to the impor tant question, wife or old maid, a girl had to go alone on Christmas eve and knock on the henhouse door. If a cock answered her knock by crow ing, she would be married, but if no cock crowed in answer, then she would be an old maid. This under taking would require a good deal of courage ib the old days of supersti tion, as on Christmas eve evil spirits were supposed to have increased pow er and ghosts were supposed to prowl around. . II a girl wished to know the name of her future husband she took four onions and named each one after a boy friend. She then placed one In each corner of a room and the one that sprouted before January 6 bore the name of the man she would marry. In some districts this was carried out rather differently. Several onions were selected and named and placed close together, and the one that sprouted first gave the name that was to be hers. We can Imagine how carefully the warmest place would be chosen for some special onion. - Fashioned Toys upholstered seats and rubber tires may fascinate a small boy for a few bours, but you'd better place your faith in a good, old-pattern roiking horse, with saddle and stirrups, fid a mane and tail of real hair. The lock ing horse is not going out of fashion by a long ways, and I predict that in the horseless age, if that time ever comes, our children's children will be jerking the mane of a wooden 'horsey' and whipping him on his painted flanks, and trying to feed him crack ers. Also, they'll be failing off his back and bumping their little fore heads in the old-fashioned way, and 'horsey' will have to be thrashed and locked up In the clothes closet for his bad behavior. "And as for dolls, you've got to give them real 'baby dolls' and not grand ladies in the latest tango gowns and hat 8. For the last 50 years or so doting parents who are well to do have been trying the experiment of present ing their little girls with waxen fash ion models only to find the precious one crying for the rag baby of the laundress' daughter. Children show the real mother instinct when they spurn the 'play-child' which is too dressy and up to date. "I have one friend, the father of a large and lively family. I make him happy every Christmas time by pre senting his kids with a bunch of cheap, mechanical toys. After about half an hour of winding them up, the little ones tire of the clicking wonders and return to their woolly dogs, rubber dolls and other simple favorites. That is when father's fun begins. He in sists on winding up the toys and run ning them all Christmas day, osten sibly for the pleasure of his young sters. He does not cease winding until tbe toys begin to get out of order, and then he has the additional pleasure of trying to repair them. Sometimes I think that a manufac turer could make a fortune selling toys just for grown-ups. Seeing a bunch of adults busy working me chanical toys reminds me of the time when the wh?le family insists on tak ing little Johnny to the circus. HE WAS THANKFUL. "John," said the Loving Wife, "I in tended to get you a nice new nckktlo for Christmas, but I am ashamed to acknowledge that In the rush of the shopping I completely forgot It" "Thank you, nevertheless," said the Happy Husband. ANNUAL "HOLLER" DAY. When children have their Christmas ton The house will ring- with laughter say; And thus. In truth, Yy girl and boys. Is Christina mad a "hollar" day. I ni 1 a 5 AUinstmasiarol HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW HEAR along ear rtreH Pais the minstrel throngs; Harlot They play $0 tweet. On their hautboy, Chriztmat ongsl Let us by tlia fin Eoet higher Sing them till th right expire ,V December ring Ecery Jay the chime; Loud the gleemen ttng In the street their nerry rhyme. Let u by thtfo Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! 5HEPHERDS at 'he grange, Where the Babe too bom. Sang with many a change Chrlstma carol until mom. Let u by theire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! 'T'HESE good people tang ' Songs devout and tweet; While the rafters rang. There they stood with freezing feet. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! TUNS In frigid cell i V At this holy tide. For want of something else, Christmas songs of times have tried. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! 1tHO by the fireside stands, ' Stamp his feet and tingt; But he who blow hi hand Not so gay a carol brings. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! It- .wmwfffffWftvwN HANGING MISTLETOE Origin of Custom Associated With Christmas Festivities. Plant Is Surrounded With Many Su perstitions in European Countries Sign of III Omen In Some Parts of Ireland. HE good old custom of bang ing mistletoe from the ceil ing at the Christmas festivi ties is said to have its origin in the idea that since tbe ass: plant did not have its roots in tbe ground no part of it should ever be permitted to touch the earth. Among the Saxons the fact that mis tletoe was suspended frosn the woof of a dwelling intimated to the way farer that the hospitality of the house was at his disposal, and beneath its branches friend and stranger, vassal and lord, gathered in comradeship and good cheer. The religious aspect of the mistle toe tradition, which had its origin in the Druidical rites aud tbe gathering of it by the archdruid with his gold en sickle, merged later into a purely social symbol, and the idea of Bimple hospitality developed into one of mer rymaking and a somewhat riotous en tertainment. The kiss of the Scandinavian god dess expanded into the custom of a kiss given for every berry that grew on the bough. Small wonder that, in spite of the mistletoe having origin ally existed in tbe odor of the sanctu ary, the church came to regard it as an entirely pagan symbol and refused to allow It to participate with the lily and the evergreen in the Tsletide decorations. There is an ancient belief that the mistletoe was the tree from which the holy cross was hewn and that after this was made the plant withered and ever afterward became a mere para sitic growth, clinging for support to ether and cturdier tree:. Other stories, however, credit It with divine gifts in the healing of dis eases and the expulsion of evil spirits. Ram, the high priest of the Celts, re- ceivid in a dream the intimation that by means of the plant he would be enabled to save his people from the plague which was decimating them. To celebrate their delivery he insti tuted the feast of Noel (new health), a midwinter holiday, which has come to be considered coincident with tbe new year. In many parts of the United Hfns- dom the silver berries and the gray- green leaves of the mistletoe ar looked upon as anything but aa em blem of good cheer; on tbe contrary, the plant is regarded with dread as be- in tha hrinror of 111 luck 6Bd me biF,u of ill omen. This superstition exists hnth in Devonshire and in ire-ana. and. strange to aay. in neither of these places does the plant flourish, owing, has it to tha fact that both incurred the displeasure of the Drus and were in consequence cursed In 1. - ht their soil became in capable of nourishing the sacred In tha sixth book 01 -lengthy description of the mistletoe is given by Virgil, who mskes the Sybil describe to his hero the exact spot In hades where he will nnd it growing. There is little doubt that the strange ethsal appearance or the little Optra Jberry is largely re sponsible teihjt mystic character has enjoye . f I g the people of Ters natltf -CjJ & the earliest leal time' j
The Courier (Asheboro, N.C.)
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Dec. 31, 1914, edition 1
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