Thursday, November 24, 1898
The Marlinton football team showed great pluck in riding to Frost, 19 miles, in a blinding snowstorm last Saturday and playing that team when the storm was at its height.
When the roll was called at Frost the full 11 was there, having ridden from home on horseback and in buggies and ready for the game.
Football is a fine school. It trains mind and body. Young men who come on time in their sports when young will do the same in business when they are older. It makes men bigger and better – “Captains courageous whom death cannot daunt.”
The Frost men were of the same stuff – ready to play if it snowed cats and dogs, or the wind blew up great chunks of sod. It was the greatest game, considering the elements, ever played in the county.
Tom, Tom, the preacher’s son,
Stole a pig (skin) and away did run,
Frost was beat
The pig was eat,
And Tom sent flying down the street.
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Peter Warwick passed through Marlinton last Thursday on his way to Sawyers, on Williams River, to bring home the remains of his son, who died while working in the lumber camp in 1897. He was in a two horse wagon and he had a difficult journey before him. He decided to go by W. McClintic’s camp and to return that way if he found it practicable. If not, the return journey would have to be made by Addison.
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The Baltimore Sun, in speaking of the magnificent display made by the city markets in the matter of Thanksgiving turkeys, has this to say of West Virginia turkeys: “There is said to be no doubt that the finest turkeys come from West Virginia. They are corn fed turkeys and never stray into the tobacco fields, like the Virginia turkeys, or get scraps like the Tennessee turkeys. It is worth knowing that at Thanksgiving the hen turkey is far preferable to the gobbler, but at Christmas the thing reverses itself, and the gobbler is the favorite. It is simply turkey nature and that is all there is about it.”
CHEAT MOUNTAIN SNOWBALLS
Hog-killing in progress, and qualified “pig-stickers” are much in demand.
William Painter has a heart as big as himself. He is a typical woodsman – true as steel.
Jake McAtee is going to Davis to the lumber camp. He says a workman, like himself, can earn a dollar a minute there.
All come out to Mingo Concert Friday evening. Mingo String Band cannot be beaten for melody.
We thought Old Santy had got to Mingo last Saturday, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be a grizzly mountaineer of Cheat, who had got caught driving in the blizzard.
Joe Miller can snore louder and farther than three men and a boy can see. He once snored clear through a partition, which keeled over and smothered a man in the bed in the next room.
MILL POINT
There is no doubt that men are created for the accomplishment of some good in the world, but the calling cannot be read from the heart or the hand. There is a science called astrology that will show to a man the exact calling or occupation for him, and no man can have genuine success unless he follows the pursuit he is made for. Mill Point now has a Professor in Astrology.
The camp of Gypsies now at Marvin is without a doubt the largest ever in the county. They are now preparing to leave, but for the last two weeks, things have been kept stirring on their account such as horse trading, horse racing and fortune telling. The Gypsy mode of fortune telling is nothing more nor less than a sort of mind reading, accompanied by an acquaintance with human nature. By continual practice, the Gypsy can with some accuracy tell with some accuracy their passions and desires, by simply glancing at the open countenance.
