Thursday, March 23, 1900
BUCKEYE
Stock has wintered up well so far.
John Beverage lost one of his best cows last week.
Lanty Cole attended the meeting, but it was not the meeting that took his eye.
The measles have about died down. There was but one death caused by this disease, an infant of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Webster.
Mrs. Owen Kellison and little son, Ross, came up from Hillsboro last week, where they spent the winter.
Some say there is bad behavior at church on Swago, but remember it is mostly the boys from other places (Ain’t it the truth!)
ARBOVALE
Dan O’Connell’s drive hung up one mile below Sam Cassell’s last Wednesday.
The snow fell about fifteen inches here last Thursday and the thermometer was down about zero.
Harry Gum has returned from Huttonsville where he has been driving a team for H. A. Yeager.
Samuel Bright has made 108 pounds of sugar already.
Several of the boys of their community came home from the drive with sprained ankles and sore feet.
Died, March 15, Harl Arbogast, aged 18 years, son of Brown Arbogast.
Sandy Patterson has moved to Zack Nottingham’s place.
DUNMORE
Grandpap George Mc-Laughlin, G. W. Wagner and other railroad men were in town one night last week.
Uriah Bird has been up several days, seeing how the land lies.
There is a move afoot for a road from Stony Bottom to the Big Spring; also around the Snake Den; from Dunmore to Meadow Dale; a bridge across the river the mouth of Sittlington Creek. This will open up a through straight road from Monterey to Linwood, a distance of 31 miles.
A little one year old child of William Galford’s died Monday.
Jacob Wooddell died at his home at Green Bank Sunday night, aged 70 years. Mr. Wooddell was an honest, upright, Christian gentleman and leaves many friends to mourn his loss
Three of the Italians who were blown up on the railroad, have been sent to the hospital for treatment.
Old Jack Nottingham, a faithful mule, died some time ago, aged 35 years. He had not been shod since the war.
Admiral Dan’s drive was at Leatherbark Monday night.
We are sorry to learn the misfortune which happened to our friend George B Sutton. He had his house burned with all its contents.
Coon and Buster Bowers killed a catamount last week nearly as big as a horse.
WHAT DOES THE TELEPHONE MEAN?
Nearby there is a pole to which an insulated wire is attached and when the ear is placed on it an aeolian sound is heard. It is reported a bear listened to it and thought it meant honey and undertook to get it out. A country boy heard it and wished to know if that was the way the news sounded while passing over the line.
So, it seems all parties were of the impression that the murmuring of the wire meant something and so far, they were correct, the error was simply as to what it does mean. To the writer, the meaning is so significant as to its possibilities on society that it matters but little how one may reason about the possibilities, so he reasons sensibly about the eye has not yet seen nor ear heard until very recently.
Socially, the telephone annihilates distance, and now families, ten, twenty and thirty miles apart, can converse as readily as neighbors used to do over the backyard fence, and be virtually as neighbors on adjoining lots. As to affairs of trade, the tendency is to make farmers and stock raisers the masters of their respective situations and be able to realize, at their homes, returns as favorable as if they were in the city markets, and that too without the trouble and expense of moving their products farther than the nearest station, if, indeed, that far.
Department stores must soon be prepared to do as well by the farmer, the mechanic and the grazer as the city store, or the home merchants will be left. The murmurings of the telephone means the disenthrallment of the producers and laborers from the middleman and reverses their relative positions, and opens up direct dealing with the manufacturer and consumer.
