Newspaper History

Month: December 2022

  • Little Johnnie’s Fears

    From the Newark Evening Star, December 21, 1914.

    Where we used to live we had
        A fireplace, big and wide,
    An’ all that Santy had to do
        Was hold his breath an’ slide,
    An’ squeeze hisself until he fit
        The hole, an’ then jest drop—
    An’ he knowed where the stockin’s was,
        ‘Cause that was where he’d stop.

    Where we used to live it was
        No trick for him to climb
    Up to the chimbly on the roof
        An’ find us, Christmas-time;
    But now I’m worryin’ for fear
        He won’t know where he’s at,
    Or mebbe can’t get in at all!
        We’re livin’ in a flat.

    We’re livin’ in a flat, an’ say,
        You mus’ be mos’ polite,
    Or else the janitor he’ll go
        An’ lock you out at night!
    There ain’t no chimbly to our house
        Where Santy Claus can slide—
    There ain’t no fireplace—just a pipe
        About two inches wide.

    They heat our flat with steam—that’s why
        I’m afraid he can’t get in
    With all his toys, an’ drums an’ things,
        Unless he’s awful thin;
    An’ how’s he gon’ to wiggle out
        When he gets in? Gee whiz!
    There’s such an awful little hole
        There where the sizzle is!

  • Interlude

    From the Evening Star, December 20, 1914. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

    The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer;
        The headstones thicken along the way;
    And life grows sadder, but loves grows stronger,
        For those who walk with us day by day.

    The tear comes quicker, the laugh comes slower;
        The courage is lesser to do and dare;
    And the tide of joy in the heart falls lower
        And seldom covers the reefs of care.

    But all true things in the world seem truer,
        And the better things of earth seem best,
    And friends are dearer as friends are fewer,
        And love is all as our sun dips west.

    Then let us clasp hands as we walk together,
        And let us speak softly in love’s sweet tone;
    For no man knows on the morrow whether
        We two pass on—or but one alone.

  • The Tree of Life

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, December 19, 1914.

    In his mother’s sacred eyes,
        Lit from God’s own altar place,
    Earth grows heaven, and gray time dies
        In the infant’s smiling face.
    From the shroud of withered years
        Love and hope come young again,
    And the heart awakened hears
        Songs that make the life of men.

    Children’s lightsome laughter rings;
        Dull waste places hear their tread,
    And the gleams of gracious wings
        Light old chambers of the dead.
    All bright shapes of memory,
        All glad dreams of youth and love,
    Meet about the Christmas tree
        Underneath the mystic dove.

    Time and fate are babbling words,
        Vain vibrations of the tongue,
    Since the song God’s singing birds
        O’er the Babe of Bethlehem sung.
    Child of death that was to be,
        Child of love and life with men
    Round the holy Christmas tree
        Make us children, too, again.

    Eyes that are love’s deathless shrine,
        Where our holiest prayers arise,
    Blest and blessing, dear, divine,
        Little children’s happy eyes,
    In your light the dark years change,
        From your light all foul things flee,
    And all sweet hopes soar and range
        Round the Christ Child’s Christmas tree.

  • The Hunter

    From The Topeka State Journal, December 18, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

    He seeks no rabbits. They are too tame.
    He’s going out for bigger game,
    A thing he has wished to do
    E’er since he was a barefoot boy.
    He’s spent most all his hard earned dough,
    More than he could afford to blow
    Because he wants to go in style
    And do the thing up simply right.
    There’s nothing that he hasn’t bought
    By way of fixin’ that he ought.
    He’s all fussed up in hunting clothes
    Of loud design and out of sight.
    A week goes by. They get no word,
    And start to wonder what’s occurred.
    Until one day a telegram
    Fills them with nervous dread and fear.
    ’Tis short but very eloquent
    And everyone knows what is meant:
    “Mistaken for a deer.”

  • The Athabasca Trail

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, December 17, 1914. By A. Conan Doyle.

    My life is gliding downwards; it speeds swifter to the day
    When it shoots the last dark canyon to the Plains of Far-away,
    But while its stream is running through the years that are to be,
    The mighty voice of Canada will ever call to me.
    I shall hear the roar of river, where the waters foam and tear;
    I shall smell the virgin upland with its balsam-laden air;
    And in dreams I shall be riding down the winding woody vale
    With the packer and the packhorse on the Athabasca trail.

    I have passed the warden cities at the Eastern water-gate
    Where the hero and the martyr laid the corner-stone of state;
    The habitant, courier-du-bois, and hardy voyageur,
    Where lives a breed more strong at need to venture or endure?
    I have seen the gorge of Erie, where the roaring waters run;
    I have crossed the inland ocean lying golden in the sun;
    But the last and best and sweetest is the ride by hill and dale
    With the packer and the packhorse on the Athabasca Trail.

    I’ll dream again of fields of grain that stretch from sky to sky,
    And the little prairie hamlets where the cars go roaring by;
    Wooden hamlets as I saw them, mighty cities still to be,
    To girdle stately Canada with gems from sea to sea.
    Mother of a mighty manhood, land of glamor and of hope,
    From your eastward sea-swept islands to the sunny western slope,
    Ever more my heart is with you, evermore till life shall fail,
    I’ll be out with pack and packhorse on the Athabasca Trail.

  • At a Gate On the Hill

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, December 16, 1914. By Gervais Gage.

    At a gate on the hill in the parting hour,
        When the wind blew soft on the sea,
    He laid in the maiden’s hand a flower;
        “O sweet, thy pledge from me!
            Years shall be sped, the flower be dead,
                But not my love to thee;
                    O not my love to thee!
                It liveth still in a heart on the hill
                    In a tender memorie!”

    At a gate on the hill, in a weary hour
        When the rough wind vexed the sea,
    She held in her hand the faded flower;
        “O sweet, my pledge from thee!
            The years are sped, the flower is dead,
                But not thy love to me,
                    Tho there come no news from the sea;
                It liveth still in a heart on the hill
                    In a quenchless memorie!”

    On a grave by the hill he knelt—alone,
        The wanderer, back from the sea;
    He knelt alone by a white gravestone;
        And carven curiously,
            The scroll he read: —“The flower is dead;
                But not thy love in me,
                    Tho thou stayest long on the sea;
                By a higher hill it waiteth still,
                    At a fairer gate for thee;
                In a deathless tryst with thee!”

  • Warning

    From The Daily Missoulian, December 15, 1914.

    When she letteth thee recklessly spend,
        And laugheth to see thee go broke,
    Thou mayest jolly her on without end,
        For she taketh thee but as a joke.

    But when she demureth at price,
        And chideth for what thou hath spent,
    Thou art treading on treacherous ice,
        For the maiden hath solemn intent.

  • The Children Santa Claus Forgets

    From the Newark Evening Star, December 14, 1914. By James J. Montague.

    When the happy little children, up along the avenue
    Hark for Santa Claus’s coming down the yawning chimney flue,
    There’ll be other little children, in another part of town
    Where the streets are dark and grimy and the houses tumble down,
    Looking through the dingy windows toward the snowflake speckled sky,
    Wondering if they will see him when he comes careering by.

    Ragged, dirty little children, yet as eager for the joys
    That will come to countless houses with the Christmas morning toys,
    As the vastly happier children who awaken every year
    To the news from down the staircase: “Mr. Santa Claus was here!”
    Gaunt and pallid little children, oh so pitiful to see,
    But as hungry to be happy as all children ought to be.

    Such a little would delight them, just a trifling toy or two,
    Just one real old-fashioned Christmas that would make their dreams come true.
    Tell old Santa Claus about them, show the old man where they live,
    Let him leave them all the good things that he likes so well to give,
    Then go ‘round on Christmas morning, and you’ll find it’s well worth while;
    For the best of all investments is to buy a baby’s smile.

  • The Magic Mulligan

    From The Sun, December 13, 1914. By Arthur Chapman.

    A rider from the Two-Bar come with news from off the range:
    He said he’d seen a dust cloud that looked almighty strange,
    So he rode his bronco over, and there, as bold as brass,
    He seen a sheepman feedin’ his flock upon our grass.
    The rider turned home, pronto, and he got the boys aroused,
    And then they started, whoopin’, for where them woolies browsed.
    But I met ’em joggin’ homeward, and I heard the hull bunch groan
    When I said: “Now, turn back, fellers, I must play this hand alone.”

    I was mad clear to my gizzard when I started for the camp,
    And I thought of how I’d punish this vile, sheep-herdin’ scamp;
    I’d escort him to the deadline, where he’d run his sheep across,
    And in case I had to kill him, why, it wouldn’t be much loss;
    And with such thoughts churnin’ in me when I spied his wagon-top
    I rode up to the herder as he watched his wooly crop.
    But he simply grinned up at me, and he said: “Now, pardner, say,
    Let’s set down and have some dinner ‘fore we start to scrap to-day.”

    He had a stew jest ready and he dished a plateful out,
    And I set and et that plateful and I heard far angels shout;
    I could hear gold harps a-twangin’ and my rough thoughts seemed to melt
    As he dished another plateful and I loosened up my belt.
    Then I laid aside my six-guns while the herder dished more stew,
    And at last my foreman rode up, as I knowed that he would do,
    And he set cross-legged with me, and he et, and more hands come,
    And afore that sheepman’s cookin’ quite the loudest was struck dumb.

    It was mulligan he’d made there, all alone out on the hills,
    This here cook whose magic humbled all my fightin’ Toms and Bills;
    You kin talk of hotel dishes, made by chefs from furrin lands,
    But I’ll back this sheepman’s cookin’ ‘gainst all European brands.
    So I says, when we had finished: “You kin make yourself to home,
    You kin pick the choicest grazin’ and allow your sheep to roam;
    We will drive our cattle elsewhere—you kin have whate’er you seek—
    If you let us come to dinner, say about three times a week!”

  • The Call to Arms

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, December 12, 1914. By W. M. Leets.

    There’s a woman sobs her heart out,
    With her head against the door,
    For the man that’s called to leave her,
    God have pity on the poor!
        But it’s beat, drums, beat,
        While the lads march down the street.
        And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,
        Keep your tears until they go.

    There’s a crowd of little children
    That march along and shout,
    For it’s fine to play at soldiers
    Now their fathers are called out.
        So it’s beat, drums, beat,
        But who’ll find them food to eat?
        And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,
        Ah! the children little know.

    Ther’s a mother who stands watching
    For the last look of her son,
    A worn, poor widow woman,
    And he her only one.
        But it’s beat, drums, beat,
        Though God knows when we shall meet;
        And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,
        We must smile and cheer them so.

    There’s a young girl who stands laughing,
    For she thinks a war is grand.
    And it’s fine to see the lads pass,
    And it’s fine to hear the band.
        So it’s beat, drums, beat,
        To the fall of many feet;
        And it’s blow, trumpets, blow,
        God go with you where you go
        To the war.