Thursday,
June 14, 1917
A Canadian lynx was killed at Split Rock, on S. S. Varner’s place. Early Monday morning while John Slanker was eating his breakfast, he heard a fuss among his chickens. On going out, he saw the lynx making off with a hen. He started his dog in pursuit and went back for his gun. The dog soon treed the lynx and Mr. Slanker coming up soon put an end to the chicken thief. Mr. Varner sent the body off to have it mounted. The Canadian lynx is rarely found here now. It is the big wild cat of our higher mountains, known locally as the catamount. It is not to be confused with the bay lynx or wild cat, which is so numerous in this section.
THE MESSAGE
TO GARCIA
ANDREW PRICE AT
COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES
AT HILLSBORO
I come here as a duly licensed retailer of advice. I do not know any occasion equal to this to give good advice. I know that it falls on stony ground in most cases, and in others the tares choke it later, but as long as time shall last, grey headed men will stand up before classes of young people in their commencement exercises and fire advice upon their devoted heads, until they cry for mercy.
It is a poor weak way of trying to impress you with your opportunity, and to try to make you realize that when you have topped the hill, that you will groan in spirit and be troubled because you did not make the most of your opportunities and so prepare for an old age “serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night.”
Some of you who are here before me tonight will live to see the day when a generation yet unborn will rise up and call you blessed. On the other hand, some of us face unknowingly and unafraid, some awful tragedy such as goes to making the sum total of human life. We are all in the fell clutch of circumstance. We are not entirely masters of destiny, but there is one rule that we can observe, and one that will bring us through credibly in the great majority of cases, and that is: As you travel along the road of life and come to the places that the roads fork, always turn to the right…
If you could only know how you could better yourselves by shaping your lives right at this time, you would save yourselves much misery and vain regrets hereafter.
The years that go slow, pile up so fast.
One of the greatest impressions made upon my young mind was the implicit trust and confidence placed in Lieutenant Rowan when he was entrusted with an important message to General Garcia. Rowan was an army officer and a native of the nearby county of Monroe. General Garcia was in Cuba in an inaccessible place and to get a message to him it was necessary to suffer great peril and privation. A hostile country had to be traversed and the country itself offered unusual difficulties. In order that the insurgent general could operate in harmony with the forces of the United States, it was necessary that he have word; the messenger was chosen with great care as to his fidelity and as a man who would not undertake anything he did not carry out. The messenger succeeded in reaching Garcia; the plans of the army chieftain succeeded and Elbert Hubbard recognizing the rare qualities of dependability that caused Rowan to be chosen, wrote a book about it and called it a “Message to Garcia,” and in this way fame came to the West Virginian. Ever since, among the cognoscenti, the highest praise that can be given a fellow mortal is to say that he is the kind of man that should be selected to carry a message to Garcia. It means that he can be depended upon. There is no sun too fierce; no night too dark; no hill too high; no river too deep; no storm too wild; no way too long; to turn him from his purpose, or to keep him from fulfilling a promise that he has made…
HILLSBORO
The former graduates from Hillsboro High School met on the evening of May 30 at the home of Dakota Kirk to form an alumnal organization. The purpose of this organization is to keep alive the friendship already formed at Hillsboro High School and to create a warm feeling with the new student body. The association hopes to add much to the good school spirit already existing. They have as their aim for each alumnus to secure a new student each year. With such an organization as this to back the school, a very prosperous future is expected. All graduates of the school were back but three, who were at a distance and their work prevented their return… The coming senior classes are going to have “to hump” to be the center of attraction at commencement seasons. The alumnal will hold at least one business meeting and a social each year…
Henry Beard was pain-fully hurt by being thrown from a horse one day last week, and he is still unable to walk.
H. M. Harr has bought A. W. Hill’s house and lot.
W. A. Browning has bought a number of lots adjoining his property from A. W. Hill.
SCHOOL BOOKS
Making some inquiries among the experts we find that there is a division of opinion as to whether the mistake was made this June or the June five years ago. It bears out an old theory that a mistake was made when they scrapped the McGuffey readers. It is true that they had become trite to the teacher. But to the child they were ever new and when all were educated in McGuffey there was an aid to conversation that was not to be ignored. Quote McGuffey for precept and example and the point told. The sophisticated school experts thought the gems tiresome, so they grasped at the tinsel of some latter day newassthentic [sp]. The result is that in five years they are sick and tired of him, and loudly demand a change. Who knows but that if he were allowed to endure that he might be another McGuffey and establish another common fund of wisdom that might be drawn on by the common people with the certainty that they were speaking in a standard academy to a people that had something in common…
But be that as it may, we leave it to the educators to prescribe the new books. We are willing to bet however, that before another five years passes they will find that the new dolls are stuffed with sawdust, too.
BROWNS CREEK
We are having fine growing weather, and the farmers are busy working their corn.
Everett Dilley of Dilleys Mill was calling on friends here Sunday.
Moody Moore and Amos McCarty are cutting logs for Jake Loury.
There will be an ice cream supper at Browns Creek school house Saturday night, the proceeds for the benefit of the church. The public is cordially invited. Com one and all and let us do our bit for a good cause.
ARBOVALE
B. M. Arbogast returned home last week from Elkins, where he had been to see his sister-in-law, Mrs. Emma McClintic, who has been quite ill for some time.
Uriah Hevener returned last Saturday from Washington, D. C.
Misses Flora and Mabel Gillispie returned home Saturday from Huntington where they had been attending Marshall College.
L.D. Wooddell was at Marlinton Saturday to see his son who is in the hospital.
DUNMORE
Asa and Neal Barlow were in town Monday, looking after stock.
Arnett, Joe and John G. McLaughlin are home from Akron, Ohio, where they have been at work for a year.
H.M. Moore and wife motored to Front Royal, Va., last week, where their son graduated. He returned home with his parents.
We should have a county road from Dunmore to Raywood and from there to Deer Creek and up to Cass on the east side of the river. The Warn Lumber Co. pays taxes enough on their railroad and mill and all the timber, that they should have a road to their town and they will help build the road. There are a half a dozen men in Raywood who have automobiles and cannot get in with their machines.
Born to J. O. Campbell and wife, a daughter; and to Willis Gum and wife, a boy, last week.
