Newspapers / Jackson County Journal (Sylva, … / Dec. 21, 1939, edition 1 / Page 1
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I v R J : I I ^x m. ^ ^ 1^ ., |p" 1 11 ' ' PROLOGUE i . 1 ' i . tiTHESE cross-roads mail-box folks come to look on the mail carrier as they do. on the I . ?i ^ i_ family doctor, or - me preacner in some ways. He calls them by their first names. and visits with them in little short chats, and hurries wlieri they're lookin for ; letters from their children gone otrcYr or their sweethearts. And h? generally knows without no t I jjUch-edged envelopes when he's I brinpn bad news. Oh, it's a I greet life when you count your / friends by the country mailboxes, every single one of them [ with its own story of hope and I needs .** "The Candle in the Window*' is the story of Tod Witherspoon, J a gfiuled, shrewd, lovable old I man on a Western Kansas rural I mail route. His is the story of a I simple, yet glorious, Christmas. I The eternal story of brotherly I love?of peace on earth, good 1 I will toward men. V I Kait&tf teudetneaa^ I pathos.?they're all a part of, I "The Candle in the.. Window.** I Yon*11 find a lump in your throat when yon read it. It's not s sad story, but it's one that will rexnind you of past Christmas joys, of old-fashioned sleigh I bells, of holly-decked homes and the poignant pleasures and sorrows of childhood. And it will remind yon, too, of mother Christmas?just 1939 fears ago. There was no tinsel, bo glittering decorations. Just unutterable joy and supreme contentment* aT WAS a blizzard-beater night in early December, The highways were blocked by drifts, and train service on the Star City brand was annulled. A jolly crowd of us, hotel "regulars,* ' and storm-stayed commercial travelers, were gathered snug and warm in the Stai House lobby together. Among ouz number were four men, any one o1 whom, each in his own way, could bnyt entertained the entire company; They were old Abram Star, owner of the hotel, ?nd the richesl mtn in star county; Tec Jennings, bis clerk, the best dresser in town; Elbert McCullen, who, besides being attorney for the railroad, is the ablest lawyer on the upper Smoky; and a New York City salesman,. a man of the world, unmistakably Eastern, but altogether companionable. We joked and laughed,' and - chatted about the weather, the business outlook, European finances, the Oriental situation, off-year elections, the coniing holidays, and finallygrowing reminiscent, as homeless men will do sometimes?of Christmas days of other years. t . "Seems like Christmas would .wear out sometime,'' the salesman -declared. "It's so awfully overdone, or underdone, you'd think the rich would throw % up, and the poor ^ would give it up. Must be just the commercial value at the bottom Oi it that keeps it alive. Great guns! Just listen to that wind and sleet. . ^f?ks like w% would be here till Christmas ourselves. A country like this is no place tor my business. How do they know when the day comes out hare anyhow?" "Lota of ways of finding out," El pert McCutten declared;' "I guess ? s about the same Christmas here, ?aly two hours later, that they have . 00 toe Atlantic seaboard. And the^E - must be something besides commerV *5*1 value to it to either place. How . * about it. Abram?" "Well, mebDy us just an ok man's idear, but there's always t - memory deep down to every man'* m??dee that keeps him looking bacl I J?metimes to the best one he ev?j know, comparing all othei ^'hdtoaa days wtlli that one. Anc ' -' ," - / v :-' V- '1 " ' jV'. - i ""i3fcS:>* -1 r' t$ COUNTY ' jf|| ? 1 ?1 ????** Vii ' . ' -i ' : ' M flHtflflP 1P5 H CM E^'C*~*" .. It was thus we turned back remi| niscently, as homeless meh will do j sohietimes, recalling the outstand-1 ing Christmas days with each of us, when the street door opened suddenly and Tod Witherspoon kjlew in. ' Tod is the mail carrier Jon the rural route up the Smoky Hill val| 'ey?a shrewd, homely, intensely uilrM ruaiHl'I'T. Wn()"f list of friends is one with the community's census. In all western Kansas his is the longest, loneliest! route, with bits of the roughest road- ! way in it. But nobody ever heard | Tod complain, and there is no rec- j ord on the government files that he ! ever missed a day 6n it since it was established. ^ : "Room with bath? Please regis- 1 ter," Tec Jennings leaned" across the desk and greeted Tod with a . wide grin. "Get into this here warm corner. < 1 We've been savin' of it for you," ' Abram Star declared, j "Thaw yourself out a bit, old man, ! and then join in the services. We're j having an old-fashioned experience meeting," the genial salesman de! clared, jovially. ; "That's the stuff," Elbert McCul1 len Broke in. i "We've been hark1 ing back to Christmas days of yes[ teryear, seeing there will be another down on us in just a f-ew weeks. What was the best one in all your fife; Tod?"*** ~ v Tod is only a rural Jmaii carrier, i I yet nobody in the lobby that night; could equal him when it cam* to < telling a story in his own simple way. I wish I could repeat the one he told us that night just as he gave it to us. That would be worth listening to. But I cannot do it. We have heard him tell many a tale of his childhood among the Vermont hills, and when he settled down comfortably in his chair, we began to hark back to our own boyhood days to be ready for bis picture, out nobody could ever quite forecast Tod Witherspoon, any more than they could reproduce his quaint humor, and his appealing sympathy. What I am telling you here is only , a poor imitation of the real Tod as he told us of the best Christmas he had i ever known, [.; '"TAKES a night Iik? this to make | j * a fellow remember better things, i and rememberin' things is good for ' j all of us once in a while. Some ": winter, this,- for early December, I'll say. Awfully good for the wheat, ' j but not so easy on us rural routers.! But most folks in the country would ' rather have the snow than their mail on account of the crops next 1 i summer. And I don't know as I i can blame 'em. It's the crops they j J - r+A ! live by more'n tne aiar vuy ! zette, and the mail order catalogs, and tractor ads, and pamphlets on diseases of cattle and the like, th\at we're always packin' to them. 'Twa'rtt that way durin.' the World War, though, with everybody's I * hearts bustin' about their boys. Some of 'em was already over seas. ; You know, some of 'em got in ahead of their own government, and was either runnin' ambulances or goin' over the top them?~''?s, while <we j was still considerin' - etiquette of the situation. And ifgu'si of the boys, that wasn't over there already, or wasn't too flat-footed to ma^ch, or 1 too flat-headed for anything but a 1 roll-top desk brigade, was already 1 ' in trainin' camps waitin' to go any 'minute. I tell you, gentlemen, noth;. in' looked quite so good out in the rural districts?'specially to the mothers?as us mail-carriers joggin' over the hills, and up through the 1 canons of the Smoky River valley, and stoppin' at their corners. If they wasn't right down there themselves, where the neSts of mailtioxes was?stuck cm old wag on wheel set on a post, mebb$u**f mac sendin' the children dpwn,J , or watchin' from the winders to see~ i how long we stayed sortin' out the t mail there. Why I got well air quainted with more women them; r twenty months we was makin' the I World safe for submarines, an?sill< l petticoats, and safety-razors, than" , . I'd doaevin twenty years Before i Awful thtbg that war was. And yet : the best ChrSstmia^ ever see, or r middle 5? the thing, She Christmas ^1^^1917. Saint^Pe^r, himself. M SYL.VA, NC#rU CA1K :v in men w uxe custom or$ny own boyhood days of puttin' candles ir the winders on Christmas^vst and I conceived the notion of taki*' one to every mail-box on my route. There wasn't so many ojf 'An it would bust my bank account lo do it. That was the time I frcfee so near to death I didn't get ttyawed out proper till along about Wheat harvest the next summer. *V ljfaikes { me shiver in August now just to think of that Christmas Eve. Tod paused and slid back in hiitchair studying the face of the city Salomon 4 before he went on, ; You see, gentlemen, Uncle Sjfch's* ^ hired man out on these rural, routes knows a lot more about his p^plt . than the city man on the san^e ^ob does. . It's the humanest business they is under government control, and the biggest thing Uncle s Sam ever did, runnin' them lines idaily out into the lonely places that 'd i welcome your comin' if you, ntever V even brought 'em a post card; 3ort of a voice from the outside wfc>rld they've never had a chance to kriow; and it keeps 'em from turnin'janarchist, and hatin' imaginary oppressors, and breaks down th&fr litI tie prejudices against their neighbors. That's what the rural,recites have done everywhere; and' especially up in the pockets of the Smoky trni 11 i-i tij. ? iM i xxiu vaney wuere me was nugm; naryer, and shut in, and folks wits poor. That's where my , happiest Christmas come from, ' though, measurin' happiness by what's inside of you, and not by what somebody else can lay at your feet. > These cross-roads mail-boat folks come to look on the mail carrier as they do on the family doctor/or-the preacher in some ways. He caHs them by their first names, and Vist its with them in little short chats, and hurries when they're lookin' for letters from their children gene .. away, or their sweethearts. And; he generally knows without, no black- edged enveldpes when he's brinflnN bad news. Oh, it's a great life, full i of what the newspapers call 4fhuman interest," when you count your< . friends by the country mal>-beacefi^. every single one of them with, itk own story of hopes **pHAT holiday of 1917 meant a lot ** to fny route. Boys that had lived all their lives till thefc up in the hills, or out on these short-grass plains, boys that hadn't never seen a tree bigger'n the little lopus'es 'round the court-h&Use square, nor a : garden flower nor nothin' nearer?to it tha# this here burnin' bush shrub ?some of them boys was powerful close to the front line trenches in France that yearl And others was nailed down in trainin' camps that wa'n't none too cozy and homelike . *-1 * - .1 : xt. that bitter winter. Jno wonaer men folks watched for me like they'd watch for the doctor when the fever * is the highest. I see a, foreign post mark on a letter now and then today, and it takes me right back to them months when we wasn't too proud to fight; and our hearts wasn't so hard they wouldn't break. They was one family that never watched for me, though,, for they never had any mail at all, nor even a mailbox till some time that fall. , .That was Grandma Gabels 'way back in the hills. You couldn't see the house from the road, and if it . hadn't been for little P'like Gabel I'd never found 'em at all, I suppose. Odd little tyke as ever lived, -P'like was, the cub that give me the best Christmas I ever had. That wasn't his real name, of course, just a nickname I had for him. Nobody except a foreigner^ ever give a name like that to a< child, i I think they registered him as Tully Gabel when he started to school, but he was always just like P'like to me, and awfully interestin' though he was only a sturdy, round, button-headed, little nubbin, like most of the children on my route. But if you really study the little faces, as I've had plenty of time to do, comin' . and goin', all these years?children are like open books and easy to read; that's why they are children and not little grownups?if you study their faces, I say, they ain't no two of 'em alike. Little P'like had a mop of light hair gettin' darker, and the brightest brown pvpi; th** waa tjor (rive to see with, seemea to me ne cmua ana a put in the middle of ,the road, and as for the dark* he could look right through it, and walk without a stumblin' step straight where he wanted to go. * ? a vniintrster SO solid on I X1CVC1 w J ? his feet anyhow. And he wasn't no more afraid in the Slackest night that ever swallowed up the Smoky Hill valley, than I am settin' here in the Star House lobby. : I used to pick little P'like up and take him home from the school. { They say mail carriers can't do that some places. Well, there never was a postal regulation against bein' human ever reached as far as A my route. School was always ou?; "early them days hecause some of ]'the youngsters had miles to go. {They didn't start these school auto ' i busses in the sphool districts to pihfc up the- little .children till after the war. My route was a longer tfay fyi litt^^JMke, because it makes : a loop at the end. But he like* < ? ; " v ;'v t. c. '? ?&?: .' *??* -. ' ' 8j3?jk 'i , . 'V.' -J *' ' " //- rv-i'" , ' ' V 1 * ^ ? ? jJ* >7U;f.>? 1"{ v- *..??? ; IJw.. ' rv X-lNA, THURSDAY, DLC, 21. 1 ride. And he odUJd cut across irom the other side on h shorter way than the-one through 'hp canon side nearer to the school house, ard get home all right. That little chap y/ei a drecmer, livin' in a make-believe world all his own, like children will .sometimes if you let 'ein alone. , That was what give him his name. It was always "let's play, like,*' with him, and he shortened it himself to $$|t- "J)'li^e," He'd fp?jike" my old mail cart was a chariot and "p'like" the upper Smoky trail was a circus ring; that , the> rocks of the canon, were castles; "p'like" he was afl ?~ T mop tko trincr of fairv.' jU'IlitC, aiiu x v?ao un. * "3 " j land. 'Took a whale oT a lot of imagination for thar last "p'like.V but; that little fellow. was a whale at pretendin\ . ( Tod grinned at his listeners. No vian in Kansas ever looked less kingly than Tod IVitherspoon and he knew it. I DON'T believe old John Milton <* eve)* see more in his "Paradise Lost"/than little P'like Gabel could Tod paused train and his we v * I 1 create out of the sunsets and big bluffs and lonely trails up that barren valley. tT y r i ' ; -J Old Mrs. Gabel came here from Kentucky with him and her own boy^ Tobe.. The little cub was ^n df cats as the Gabels, neithe^, ijp" he was made of better stuff, primarily. But she was a wonderful woman spmeways, built big and stout out of rdal pioneer timber thdt stands up strong. They were awfully poor, never took even a paper 'cept what I'd rurv into their mail bo* for;'em once in awhile, after I found 'em out. I don't' think Mrs. Gabel ever read anything much ex cept her old Bible, and that was part readin* and part just hearsay with her. She tended her little ranch, and took care of the stock and crops, what 'she had of both, and. kept house, never buyin' anything hardly, but livin' on what she could produce on the place. It was a lonely life out on that little ranch, jiid back among the hills'from.the tr^i}, out of sight of anybody's house. Never a neighbor's light in a winder at night to tell her they was other human bein's like herself not-so far away. Tobe, her boy, must have been over thirty then, in years, mind you, but really not a day older'n little P'like. The neighbors out that way I told me that Tobe's older brother was lost in the Kentucky mountains just before Tobe was born, and Grandma Gabel grieved so for him ?they never did find him, and his father died from exposure huntin' for him?that .when Tobe came he just stayed a little boy in mind, happy and) good, and willin' to do anything hi was told. But he never' growed up. I They say there was something' wrong about fastening a gate, just j the other way 'round, that let thej lost child out some way, and he wandered off. Somebody up in the mountains, where most of 'em can't read a signboard, if there was any! there to read, saw the little fellow,. I and out of ignorance, started him I home tne wrong way?and he perished. ' Tobe has that mark, toof does everything backwards. I found that out when he put up a mail box, number 33, to please little P'like, because all the other children had mail-boxes. Tobe marked it ,<&?? instead of 33. ( , They teU^me, tooi* the neighbors do, that Httle Tully, as the Gabeis call* him, was found where some-J -- - ... 1 _ *! l.fi body that didn't want nun naa ?m him?mehby just a tiny cub. I don't know the p'ticulars of that?but anyway, when he was found, Grandma Gatel just took him to her heart iii place $? her own boy lost about a quarter of * century before. It was then she picked up and left Kentucky for good and all, and came to Kansas?to forget. . But you don't forget that way, gentlemen. You can't move away and leave your memories in the old hbuse with the broken step-ladder, and the cracked fruit jars. And Gfendma Gabel's heart stayed back in the mountains, ^nd she is ever thinkin' of their purine tops, and the little grassy coves Ridges. But little P'llke was the hanniest ' ftjawd*!' '> jf " v *' v-'- V - ' '* ' -A . i- ; V ; J mmmammtm vrnmmmmmmmmmmmmmimmmm*Maa^Ha^a 939 ; V $*,00 A TOAjt 1* i j kid on the upper Smdky the dcjy tria' box was put up, though, as f say. I they never haa any maih iftiat ! | didn't put into it myself 'for .them ; But that-youngster never -missed v, v day lookin' into it. Seemed like he ? was always longin' to get aTletter i from somewhere. And he'd gdt big ' eyed and all excited, if he found ar. 5 old circular, or something like} that, j in it, though he wasn't fooled'by | at all. He was too blamed quick for ? that. Buf he could "p'like" it was something for his grandma ? from . Kentucky,: because he knew she loved the okl Blue Grass country so. And when you think of the dry treeless little ranch hid' back in the Smoky Hill valley, you can't- wonder. School was heaven to little l*'like, and he licked up learnin' something j. wonderful. Seenhed like I could just j see his mind grawin' every day. It was like watchin' a vine on a trellis, the knowin' way he had of reachin' out and catchin' on higher up like., He was just a little deserted foundlin' of a. wood.scalf, picked up ather-hardened face grew tender. Im tne rs.entucKy mountains, outside of the protection of the State Game Laws, and worth nothin' at all, if i4 Uorln'l tn o nnnr irrnnronf it uaun i ottintu ivj c* , ignui auv} heart-broken woman he might sortl of take the place of her own boy I lost so many years before. And I* ^rou ^wa Hs^on ^ and know what's inside of 'em?I [ knew he was, all unlarowin', be. ginnin' .to be: a real light-bearer into I that lonely little home'on the ranch lost sight of in the' upper Smoky hills. He took every single thing he learned in the schoolhouse- along with him. And. it wasn't only just his little First Reader, and the numbers. It w^s clean finger nails, and bowin' his head to say the Lord's Prayer, and the most amazin' scraps of information from listenin' to the older classes recitin', all openin' a flew world to his big bright eyes and dreafnin' soul. ' - '.i? THE teacher out in-District 33? , the farthest one on my route, it was?was a strange girl that nobody j j knew anything about. You remem-1 I ber, Abrani, she come in here that fall one evenin' When the train was late, and left early the next mornin' ! for that school Settlement; and as far ds I know Star City never did . see her again. But teachers of lany j kind was so scarce in 1917 on ac1 .count of Red Cross, and high-grade pay for any-grade clerks in Wash-ifigton?'specially teachers worth a darn for a district like that one up on. the Smoky Hill, that they yvps only too glad to- get anybody willin' to come to them. Nobody knew how 1 long that war would hang on. The real smart ones was declarin' it couldn't end under ten years, j So when this girl wearin' one of I these sorority pins, and carryin' a ' diplOmy from sqme college, sort of dropped in from howhere and of- | fered to teach their school, District I 33 took, her as God's providence without a murmur. Her name was Ruth Ravenstow. She had big dhrk eyes, and about the prettiest hair I ever see. But her face was white as chalk. Never a bit of color in her cheeks, and nevef a smile on her lips, even when she was talking to the children that just adored her. j Just a hard, white face, with | no i A-P in if fVlOfi I liiUlC D1IUW VX ICtlUI Ml *V HUIM ? marble woman. There wasn't}no warmth of life about her, and ^et she had that strange soH of what you call magnetisnj, that draws everybody m spite of themselves. \ i The schoolhouse they had theh? it's just a pile of earth now?was |ah old j soddy built back in the l?te seventies or , early eighties?warm in winter, of course* as the soddies always was; i and big enough, too, for they was only eleven children in District 33. P'like's mailbox Was the same number, the only figures he knew when it was pfit up. H?'d read them on the old soddy door the mornin' he started to school, and like every other snip of learnin' they stayed -with him, and he used them." God's mercy was in it, too, but that comes later. Just a little sod school house andjless'n a dozen children, but Miss Ravenstow was i an angel of fight to them eleven kids that winter. You can't begin I to know how poor they were, and v pleasure. Miss Ruth had a little * . ... > M mm? <4* ** MmA i i, 1 ldvaitce out am tee oou> f I phonograph, the kind you can p i ' I into a hat box, , and a stack of i 4 v w'jjS sweetest song records you c r heard, all by real singers, toil \ Mebby she never dklsmile, bat s e had good taste, dainty end refin: i V to. the tips of her pretty white lingers. And she give them chfldrva the best things they'd ever know. Lord, how those hungry youngsters ate that music. Just never got enough of it. But it seemed to me ' that little P'like got the most of all of 'era out of it. Especially one record?"My Old Kentucky Home"?sung by a good rich baritone : voice, full and sweet. 'Way back in October PMlke worked out a plan to do his Christ' mas shopping early, but he ne\ er' told me about it till nearly Christ' mas. He was a close-mouthed lit- ? tie tyke if there ever was one, and J 1 L. _V..A VI. U 1? A 1 wucii iic uiui iiis u|? in irum ok his tongue it was like one of them abalone shells closin' up. j , You see, there's never any Santy Claus up that valley, 'specially in * :*| District 33.' They do what they can for1 their children, even in the lean years, but it never is much at best. And Grandma Gabel hadn't no time out of her hard days' work, week after week, from Christmas to Christmas, to make anything for little Tully?and never a cent to spend buyin' him anything. You can't make . holidays much of anything without them two necessities?time ,or man- . ey, or both. And after P'like started to school Tobe took to wanderin' off that fall, and his mother had to go huntin' for him through the canyon, and do all her work and her time was double full. . t But how that old woman did love music,' though she didn't sing any herself. Hard wo A bears down heavy on the singin' spirit if you add to it the memory of a lost child and tne nopeiessness or a living one. Ana little P'like, who could warble like a -y bird, never told her a word about the phonograph at school?he was ddd that way, always had more inside of him than he'd let on about But I found out later why he didn't tell her. She just loved to hear him * * singin' to her at her work, and he'd: '. 3 stand up before her and go clear ^ A through a song for her. But he kepi it all to himself that he was*lea rain | a new one to spring On her singthe song hfeio<^bde^^ cSd i Kentucky Home." His eyes wou!4^*v4$i just shine like the stafi reflected on the still Smoky waters when he'd tell me about it. And 'round in the 1 deepest part of the canyon, where the walls run up awfully higlC he'd have me stop still, and hear han sing it through. And he'd act out the way he was going to stand up . j before his grandma, Christmas morning, and do it, and her never dreamin' he knew the song she loved so well. Oh, boy! thfejoy that little critter did get out of the surprise he was plannin' seemed strange even to me who sees such a lot of the inside of the life out on the lonely rural ways lis routers follows. .< v T | "HAT rail l got Closer 10 my hmks * than ever before, owin' of course to the war; and closer to Grandma Gabel through little P'like; and closer to Miss Ravenptow. She had begun to watch for me, too, but wftb the saddest face I ever see in all my life. Never any expectation in it, nor the merest line as if she thought I'd topped to give her any mail, tho> '? I'd got the habit of stoppin' a i mute every single day, even if 1 did know she wasn't lookin for a letter.' ExC^^fAr^ucfiPmaH as comes to any teaeher, nothin' ever come to her that fall. No postmark but Star City wad ever on anything in her box; not a magazine, nor newspaper, nor nothin' but local ads -from them that get the County Superintendent's directory, and blank reports to be filled out by1 teachers every mjonth. And yet I could see shewas gtarvin' for something, if it wasn't a.letter. That's why I stopped every day, hopin' I could help her find it Little P'like seen 4t top.?That, was what his eyes was for?to see with. He used to watch her open her mail to find out . if it made her glad at all. Appeared like he was just starvin' to see her smile once. And he seemed to know by a; child's instinct it hadn't. It got on his mir.<! terribly. For a girl that never did ? ^ smile, day in and day,out, It was queer how those children did love that teacher. And especially P'like, who worshiped her from the first day. . She had put something so UCW OUU BWCCl UiW UW )>W1 u*/ Illtie child-life over at the Gabel , ^ ranch. "When things I want don't wsrii me," he confided to me one afternoon, "why I just p'like they do come anyhow. I wish I had afp'ionograph for my gnmdnfiu" |b > aid f it so wistful like. "B?t t hmn't and I can't ever get one, aad 1m never going to tell her there is ifr*." "Why mebby you can fat one when you grow hp, a big man, and vou will help her to have a lot cd thing*," I suggested to him riiItinpfWeI \j now whjr the little cub biwt mentioned the phonograph at home; "Won't I be like<MtJt, eod hbve to be tooked after, too*" bo a*ed wonderingly. y
Jackson County Journal (Sylva, N.C.)
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Dec. 21, 1939, edition 1
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