Newspapers / Polk County News and … / May 10, 1918, edition 1 / Page 8
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POLK COUNTY NEWS. TBYON. N. C. !J "A Great Net of Mercy drawn through - ffe" " . '. f jL iSli I ' $$W&W an Oczan of Unspeakable Pain" jgf' '- ' ''-dLQ' I 1 . Out-of the Trenches for. a Breathing Space i i sagj)ll( i I II 11 Hijf!:!;ll!!l ii P( I !h IilRi h!i llj; j. i'lii I V U II lill III I I I i II I 1 I ! 1 1 I ' ' . . : F 1 I Mill II I I I t I I 1 1 ' III I I I I I .. . ,:.r:, I I I I I ! I I I i f I II II I I I ' - I , it ' , I I ' ' I'M J 1 II IT 11 III I II i II I I I I I I Contributed by James Montgomery Flags. They ArerOur Boys; Get Ready, Everyone, for a Rush ! " The long train of freight cars whined and grumbled as It strove to stop. In the doorway of a great low building a white capped and gowned woman re leased a sunny smile and, turning so her voice carried into the building, called out, "They are ours; get ready for a rush." Just how she could tell they were "ours" would be hard to explain, for at the moment she spoke hundreds of the dirtiest, grizzliest men a woman ever saw came fairly tumbling out of the freight cars. A moment more she was welcoming this muddy rabble with a laugh and cheering words. Inside the building there were more women, all spick and span in white, with faces beaming, handing out good "home cooked" food over spotless tiled counters. Some of the boys fairly ran for the food ; others went into the long batteries of baths, throwing out their vermin ridden clothes to be sterilized while they scrubbed their bodies back to a healthy glow. What luxury it all was food, tables, chairs, things to read, games to play, paper for writing, a barber shop, a movie theater and good, clean beds ! No one ever though- that these hap py, smiling women might be tired, nor were they tired then, even though all day long they hid been serving train after train of French and English troops, literally thousands of them. Yet what did that matter? For these boys that came at the end of a long day these boys are "ours." If your boy is In France you may be sure he has a song of praise for the fine women at work In the railway canteens of our own lied Cross, for at every important railway Junction there is one of our Red Cross canteens and at each canteen there are 18 women real, true American women. SPEAKING OF MONEY Just How the Goodfields The Stingiest Couple in Town Helped the Red Gross "Speaking of money," said my sea faring friend of the Maine coast, "we used to have an old man here named Goodfield. When he was young he used to sing in the church choir that didn't cost . nothin and married one of the Emberses, but didn't have only one child, and it died, and time he got to be about sixty-eight years old he'd saved up and was hirin' out his mon ey at about as high a p' cent as any body. Made It all just tradin and bein' careful what he spent. 'Care ful?' He wouldn't buy Jiisself a pair of britches but once in eight years, and when his old sister that lived with 'em says one day she was bound to Bee what the Inside the pitcher show theater, looked like Just once before she died, why, old Goodfield and his wife says that was the last straw, and they fixed up and had her hauled off to live on the county. His wife was just the same as him, too. "Well, along about the middle o' the hard winter, three years ago, Goodfield took sick, and his wife told the neighbors they both thought It was a pretty good thing, comin' on him in the cold weather that way, be cause fuel was so high and a person In bed don't need to use any. They wouldn't hear of callin in the doctor, and for two or three weeks the neigh bors and old friends, most of 'em, was sure he was goln' to die, but then he begun to look so well there didn't hardly seem to be much hope. Old Goodfield Walks In. .He got to goln' out and shamblln' around again, and for awhile there wasn't nobody noticed anything much different I reckon I was the first, and ( It come about mighty queer. It - was like this: I was workin' in my shack one night pretty late, tryin' to Bpell out what was the matter with a carburetor .I'd brought up from my , boat when there come a tap on the door, and. old Goodfield walks in. I was kind Or "surprised to see him, but I dldn t say nothin 'cept 'Good eveninY and all of a sudden he says, Do you Know now much money I'm worthy Bv BOOTH TARKINGTON Of the Vjgilantes. "He said it just like that nothin' before it and I said, 'For the Lord's sake, Mr. Goodfield, what's the mat ter?" He looked kind of funny to me. " 'I'm worth a hundred and twenty four thousand three hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty-one cents,' he says. " 'Well, by Orry I I says. 3 "Well, sir, he begun to pant like he'd been runnin' up a hill; he got to heavin' like a winded horse; then he begun to cry and sob like a woman that's all excited when some one's just died. 'Well, by Orryl' I says. 'You better set down and quiet yourself,' I says. 'What's the matter?' " 'I got to die,' he says. 'I been sick,' he says. 'I been sick and I got to diel " 'Well,' I says, 'we all got to die.' "He kep' straight on cryin' and pantin and sobbin'. " 'Yes,' he says, 'but I never knowed I had to I I never knowed it before I was sick. I kind o thought I wouldn't reely haf to, when it come right down to it. " 'We're all fixed that way,' I says. 'We all got to have some sickness we won't get over.' "Well, sir, he let out a yell that just about rose my lalr. 'The rest of you ain't got a hundred and twenty-four thousand three hundred and sixty three dollars and fifty-one cents I' he hollers. 'And I got to diel' he says; and he kep on kind of shoutin' It 'I got to die ! I got to die I I got to die V -And then he pitches over before I could catch him and fell down on a couple o' busted lobster traps. "Ole Cap. Thitcomb, he woke up in his shack next door and put on some clo'es and come In, lookln' scared to death. Him and me picked Good field up off the traps and got him home, half carryin him., and him kind of whimperin and slobberln' right on to when we left him doubled up on a rickety chair at his own house. "Next day he was around. Just about the -same as ever, and never said nothin' about nothin', and the week after that he took Fred Owens boat in for a debt, and you couldn't told there was any thin' the matter with him. What I mean, you" couldn't told nothin on him in daytime, but after dark he'd go shaniblin all around the village, and then when it got late, If he see a light somewheres, he'd go In there and have a spell just the same he had with me. Scared people with them spells, he did. The Last of Goodfield's Money. " 'Long about September his wife up and supprised everybody, because she went to all the expense of havln' the old man declared insane and hauled off to the asylum. He cut his throat with a piece of broken bottle up there, and the funniest thing happened they found the old woman dead the same afternoon In their house here. The court gave the estate to a trust com pany, and I guess that was the end of old Gbodfleld's hundred and twenty four thousand three hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty-one cents. "Well, sir, you know all that about old Mr. and Mrs. Goodfield made a kind of a sensation, as you might call it, and there was quite a good deal of thlnkin' and talkin' about it here in the village. There was some that claimed they flggered out how It all was meant to mean somethln'. "Anyway, when the rail come from Halifax last December we sent off mighty near half a carlOad of first rate clothln right In a few hours, and there was two hundred and seventy odd dollars susscribed Just In the vil lage, and you know there wasn't hard ly any of us real sure we could see the winter through ourselves. "Yes, I'll put my name down for the Red Cross, and I'll shell out I guess you won't have , much trouble gittin' susscriptlons from the rest either. We got a good many boys from here over there now, and we wouldn't like to think of 'em shot and layln' out In the fields twistin' around and nobody to tend 'em1 because us at home hadn't found out yet that It's a mistake to think werre still goln to have our sav in's right nice and with us when we'ro dead 1" Marcel Gets His Bam Mended Red Cross Helps This 15 Year Old French Boy and His Family. nr Tiir linnilffll J ri e . W: I nr. RUKmAL ana lULLtliiAIE AcVipville. N. C. six weeks. Juno 11 T , Exceptional opportunities to those teachers whoV'.-4, improvement. . . Stroner courses id education. Complete courses for all grades of bo'h elemrf school teachers, supervisors and superintendents y nffinfinn tit ri nt no a nrl coiinnrv and other handwork, music, writing, physical trairi r,i Bible. Faculty composed of members of the 4 cnate taculty, anu or neaus or departments nnd normal schools. Especially strong in primirv their work. cates granted upon completion of the six cepted by the State B ard as satisfying professional stu ly. i tuition tee. $3.uu ior the term ? jm U I 11 MM Will Marcel is a man. He is Just fifteen years old, but yet he is a man. I say he is a man because in the last four years' time has burned Into his child Jieart marks that should wait for stern er maturity. He Is a man because he has the responsibility of a woman. He has no father. The Germans saw to that. Marcel has had to stand by and see his small brothers and baby sister ask in vain for food while he fought off the pressing call from his growing boy's stomach. He has Had to see tears from his mother's eyes drop on the plowed ground as she worked the soil his father would have tilled had he not gone away out of the peaceful ness of the Marne valley into the iron hail of the Aisne and on into the here after. The boy, who was now a man, work ed hard, yes. too. hard. With his hair less hands and his boy's strength he fought almost alone the unequal fight against want with what little help his frail mother could give. Mother Can Keep Children. One of the 70 or 80 local societies In France, handicapped : by lack of funds because" deluged by calls for help, tried to relelve the family by tak ing away the children. But to the tor ture twisted brain of the woman thi seemed like losing all she had. And then when everything seemed loit and despair came they heard the news: "No, it could not be true. They would help them with food and clothing? They would till the soli? Mend the barns and stay! near by to see that things went well?" Yes, and the children could stay, said the Red Cross, "as they had said to hundreds of others. . That was two years ago. Today this family is self supporting and has some to spare for the more needy ones, who still are being helped. Little Jean is taller. He looks well fed--and he Is well fed. The baby Is so roily poly that the dimples have come again. They are in good spirits on their feet once more. And MarceL He has finished the course that the Red Cross gave him in an agricultural school. It is he who has been running the farm so well. He did It all. At least they let him think so, for heaven knows he has seen the bottom of the bitter cup. And I know that the led Cross will want me to say he did It, for that Is the way tney work quietly, earnestly, efficiently, without stint, without waste, without boast. President JOHN E. CALEEE, Director INULUiai aim wuticBiaic iiioinuic, ttSIieVllle J THE LITTLE OLD LADY OF PANSY SQUARE Timidly she entered the Retl Cross Bureau and stood just within the door way. Her poor, dimmed old eyes spoke so eloquently : "I'm friendly, ladies, but a little afraid." Several of us rose, but Mrs. Craw ford reached her flrst and asked her to come in and sit down. "Oh, thank you so much," quavered, the old lady as she sat down. "You see, my boy my grandson has gone and" with Spartan fortitude she re strained the tears that glistened In her eyes "gone with his regiment. Now I'm all alone in my little cottage in Pansy Square. And, oh, ladles,; do any of you know the dreary loneliness when there is -no one who comes home at night?" We almost hugged the dear old lady, so forlorn, yet so brave. We drew up our chairs closer, and she told us her story. . The Httle old lady owned a vine embowered cottage in Pansy Square. There she kept house for her grand son, who worked in a downtown office. When America took up cudgels for de mocracy the lad. In patriotic feryor, was among the first to enlist "Ah, how 1 loved him and needed him!" whispered the old lady broken ly. "Hut my dear country needed him more.f So I told him to go. 'But what 'will you do, granny?" he asked. I told hlra 1 had enough, and so he went Brave, brave' heart! My hus band was a soldier, and I have his pension. But It, Is small. After pay ing the taxes on my cottage there was little left, and now It Is gone. I'm old, but I'm willing. All I ask Is a chance to earn my bread till tll he returns." Through the Home Service workers of her community the little old lady of Pansy Square has been provided withtslmple tasks, such as making pre serves and delicious cakes and Jellies, a' labor of love for her and an unfail ing, source of revenue. Some day, please God, her soldier boy ; will come back to the little old lady ot 7'ahsy Square, and he will find her as he. left her happy, comfortable and self reliant. Your Patriotic Call to D If if - ! Ut)J Our Home Paper ;--- -'. mm mi Week!. 1.00 .Year Our Home raoer The Progressive Farmer Maasey's Garden Book and YOU NEED THEM ALL MASSEY'j Garkn BoJ. 128 FagaiPj YOUR NATIONAL PATRIOTIC DUTY: Our President Ku Blde l3 to Southern farmers to raise more foodstuffs and to conserve iood supplies. TL: gressive Farmer, issued weeWy at one dollar a yeso, is considered highest aiiAo these pertinently vital subjects; and by reading it and practicing its preachments be contributing in no small way to YOUR NATIONAL PATRIOTIC ft vm td rrwniun tmttv o ATPionr m rrv. u :. : .t . , will get from Our Home Paper; and by reading it and patronizina hj advert wui De measuraDiy oDscrvmg i uui vAmmurMi i i taikiu lie DUTY. YOUR INDIVIDUAL PATRIOTIC DUTY: Professor Massey's Cdta for the Southern States, the fruitage of practical, experimental experience, it U single contribution of fifty years service to Southern farmers. Into it is packed U for seeding, planting and crowing every vegetable suited to Southern soils. tnortCj specific instructions as to what to do in the garden each month. This year and tW and the next, maybe, America will be called upon to teed the major portion of tfa pies of the Earth. 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Polk County News and The Tryon Bee (Tryon, N.C.)
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May 10, 1918, edition 1
8
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