Thursday, August 15, 1918
Porter Kellison had a very valuable mare shot and seriously injured recently. The horse was in the pasture field, and came home with a bullet wound from a small caliber gun below her eye.
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The post office of Augment is discontinued as of August 15. Mail for this office goes to Marlinton.
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At a meeting of Edray District Board of Education here Tuesday the board decided to build a new school house on Buck Run near the McCollum place.
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We all had a primary last week and the voters rushed out to attend it like a congregation gathers at the Wednesday night prayer meeting.
At one precinct in this county where there were five election officers, the entire bag of votes was nine, and of these, three were spoiled and this left six to be counted. Now, we take it that the five election officers each knew how to mark a ballot, so the net result of that day’s work was that five men served a public of one.
The attendance in every part of the State was small. This indicates a good condition. It should not be used as an argument against the primary…
If an issue was presented that in any way endangered the country, the voters would swarm like bees and decide it…
Another thing that may account for the small turnout of the voters at the recent primary is that the political parties just now are in the melting pot, to say nothing of the day being a perfect hay day in a rainy season, and Americans were making hay both in this country and in France.
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Speaking of rattlesnakes and music, it’s not to be wondered at that rattlesnakes should be attracted by instrumental music for they are themselves no mean performers on the castanets. Men who believed that they had no ear for music have been moved by them. There is never a man who could not distinguish the tune played by a rattler and who did not respond to it. And any man who has heard it will never forget it, for there is nothing else just like it. It usually comes as unexpected as an alarm clock… A man never knows how far he can jump until he hears a rattlesnake in close proximity…
A local hunter had an opportunity of seeing the way in which the black snake seizes its prey. In walking along a road in the woods, a little ground squirrel crossed the road immediately in front of him and climbed the bank and ran up the root of a big tree. Just then a blacksnake struck and got him, and snake and squirrel rolled down the bank into the road in a bunch as round as a ball. The snake lassoed the squirrel and had wrapped it round and round and crushed the life out of it…
There are well authenticated cases of blacksnakes milking cows. We mean cases in this valley. Large snakes seem to have the power of lying in certain thickets near the pasture of the cows and having the cow come to the place to be milked by them. Blacksnakes, which milk cows, do it in this way, and do not run after the cows as might be supposed. A cow that has been charmed by a blacksnake, or whatever you call it, will go to the place where the snake is waiting for her, just as she would go to her calf to feed it.
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The huckleberry is now in season. It is the wildest and most charming of all the gifts of nature to man. It is the wildest of the wild. It is the closest thing that exists here to the Scotch heather that we hear so much about. In fact, it is heather. Though it is often found as undergrowth here, yet at the same time it does not grow and produce berries anywhere as well as in the open after the trees are removed. In this it is like other heather…
The huckleberry takes more nearly the place of bread and meat than any other fruit. It is on account of it being full of seeds, perhaps. Huckleberry pie will form an ideal one dish meal, and an army could fight indefinitely on a diet of huckleberries. Laborers can do as much work on a meal of huckleberry pie as they could if each had dined on ham and eggs, bread, butter, potatoes, beans, cabbage, salads, coffee, cheese, milk and dessert…
J. A. HOOVER
James A. Hoover died at his home in Marlinton last Thursday evening, August 9, 1918, after a long illness, aged 49 years.
On Friday his body was taken to Staunton for burial, after services in the Presbyterian church, conducted by his pastor, Rev. J. M. Walker, assisted by Rev. W. E. Keene.
Mr. Hoover is survived by his wife and their son, Callis, his father, Henry Hoover, a brother, Earl and a sister, Mrs. Shultz, all of Staunton. His mother died just a year ago.
Mr. Hoover came to Marlinton seventeen years ago and established a clothing store. By systematic attention this business developed into one of the largest establishments in the county. About a year ago his health began to fail, and his death came as no surprise to his friends.
Honest and upright in every transaction, Mr. Hoover was respected by all with whom he came in contact. Of a deeply religious temperament, he took an active part in church work. For many years he was a Deacon in the Presbyterian church.
