Thursday, December 19, 1918
CHRISTMAS PLUMS
It is a catching affair – this spirit of Christmas – and the nearer it approaches the more contagious it becomes.
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Every time that Christmas comes around again, we wonder why we haven’t cultivated the Christmas spirit all the year.
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Here’s hoping that all our soldier boys, on land and sea, will have a few Christmas plums on the day of goodwill – even though this year they may be mostly in the pudding.
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Probably the girls are saying the same thing this year that they have said every year in the past: “Well, I’m going to start making presents right away for next Christmas.”
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We get most of the enjoyment of Christmas out of the dreams that come before and after. Oh, to dream of it before it comes, to enjoy it while it is here, and to appreciate it when it has gone!
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Not namin’ any names, we are willing to admit that there are folks in this world whose Christmas dinner doesn’t interest us in the least – except that we hope they’ll have plenty of food for reflection, and that after the meal is over, they’ll get their just desserts.
LOCAL MENTION
The soldiers are coming home on every train nowadays, and men in uniform can be seen on the streets any time. They look good to us.
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The First National Bank, Marlinton, will pay all new money during the Xmas holidays.
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Influenza has again broken out in the Levels, about forty cases being reported. The Hillsboro school is again closed.
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His name was August Rose, and he was charged with selling cider of such honest proportions that it had a right to be known by that dreadful word, intoxicant. Two hopeful young scions of prominent houses had turned up tight one memorable day and they laid the blame on the cider and the case soon resolved itself into a question of whether they might not have had already a start on building up the peak by something stronger.
August Rose was the seller of soft drinks, and while a soft answer turneth away wrath, soft drinks stir up anger in the neighborhood. The case came from far Durbin, and the jury pretty soon reversed the finding of the municipal court and turned August loose.
He immediately added to the intensity of the situation by sending a telegram to Durbin that he had been sent to jail for six months. He was something of a philosopher and he said he intended to make his adversaries feel good for a little while and then feel awful bad.
The trials over soft drinks always bring on an experience meeting by the touchers and the tasters and there is always a division of opinion as to whether the wash has any strength in it or not.
At the critical hour, perhaps some jury may say that there are persons who can simulate a drunk if they get hit with a rotten apple and they decide the question like the old woman did about the bologna:
It looks like sausage – it tastes like sausage – it is sausage.
At other times they do as they did in this instance and decide that it is a case of not guilty, but all the time, uneasy lies the head of the soft drink establishment.
August Rose is a hail and hearty old German who has been in this county for many years. He has been in America for forty-one years but he has never lost his accent. He gravitates between working in the woods by day and keeping a restaurant. He is interesting and always surrounds himself with friends. He is a pronounced character.
He kept a restaurant in Dunlevie when things were on the move in Pocahontas, and Dunlevie was an Eldorado for the entertainers of the husky woodsmen. August Rose has always maintained his establishment with a firm hand, fearless and just, and he ruled the roost…
August Rose is a good American and a week or so ago he received word that his son to whom he was attached in the strongest manner had been killed as a brave soldier of the American army in France, and so he has sacrificed his son on the altar of his adopted country…
DIED
June Sheets died at the home of his father, Samuel Sheets, at Hillsboro, December 18, 1918, of pneumonia following influenza. He was about seventeen years old and a most promising young man. Burial at Dunmore.
Henry H. Irvine died December 3, 1918, at his home near Warwick, and was buried the 4th in the Sharp graveyard. It seems that death was the result of Spanish influenza. He was 39 years of age, leaves a wife, four small children and other friends to mourn the loss. He professed a spiritual birth about four years before the time of his death, and the writer believes he has become heir of a better life. The day before he died, his wife requested him to tell her what he wanted her to do with the children and he didn’t tell her until the day he died, when he told her to trust in Jesus, the one in whom he was trusting.