Thursday, December 20, 1895
A SIDEWALK from the bridge to the courthouse is assured. The Development Company very generously gives half of the cost which will be several hundred dollars. The rest is raised by private subscription.
KNAPPS CREEK
WINTER and no wood!
DIED: OF erysipelas at her home near Frost, December 14th, Miss Cuba Sharp, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Sharp. She was a member of the M. E. Church, North, a devoted Christian, and always walked in the footsteps of Jesus. She will be very much missed in the church and by her parents and friends, but we all know she will reap a great reward in Heaven, which we all shall reap if we follow her example… Funeral service was conducted at the Frost church. Her remains were laid to rest near the home she loved so well…
Mr. Zane Moore and Captain J. A. Moore were over at Mt. Grove last week dehorning cattle.
Miss _____ does not deny that Uncle Homer calls occasionally and often throws kisses, but can’t get close enough to kiss her!
Has not been any weddings for a few days, but don’t know how soon Uncle will come out. –
“Buck and Berry”
COMPULSORY EDUCATION
An education is the birthright of every American boy and girl, and when necessary should be given them at a sacrifice. Throughout Great Britain, the country most resembling our own, public education is compulsory.
Several states of the American union have adopted a like system, and why should West Virginia allow herself to fall into the background?
The words of the poet may be true:
“You can lead a horse to water,
But you cannot make him drink,
You can send a boy to college,
But you cannot make him think.”
Maybe you can’t make your boy think, but you can send him to school long enough to learn to read and write, then he may possibly acquire the habit of thinking for himself. Our country is rapidly drawing to an era when to read and write will be required of every voter, and ten years hence, there will be no excuse for a young person, either sex, who cannot.
A Christmas Story
Going on ten years ago, there was a pleasant home somewhere in the limits of Pocahontas County whose inmates made a great deal of the Christmas week.
The children believed in an actual Santa Claus, and talked much about his coming, and wondered what he would bring them. One evening the father observed, “Do you ever think, my daughters, there are places where children live that Santa Claus never comes to see? He has so many places to go that he fails to bring some little children Christmas gifts?”
The little girls became silent and this attracted the attention of their parents, and they saw them with quivering lips and ready to weep from sympathy for the homes where Santa Claus would not be.
Presently they said, “Papa, suppose you take the money you were going to send Santa Claus for us, and tell him not to come here this Christmas, but take our money and go where he has never been yet.”
The parents concluded to give some of their own money for their children’s pleasure, but it was understood the money offered by their children should be used as they had proposed. The money was sent to an eminent minister in the city of Brooklyn, and its purpose explained. He acknowledged the trust and promised to see that it would be given where Santa Claus had never been, if such a place could be found.
In two or three years there came a letter from that minister’s wife stating that Brooklyn had been searched, but no place as indicated was found. She had carried the money with her in their journeys to England, the Continent, and to the Holy Land and still found no one overlooked by Santa Claus, and so the money was brought back to America.
Soon after, a morning paper gave the particulars of a death from starvation in one of the tenement lodgings for immigrants. As soon as the item was perused, the lady hastened to the place indicated, and was the first to bring relief to the sufferers. She found an emigrant family recently landed, and while the father was absent seeking employment, the mother had perished from hunger, and five children were on the verge of starvation.
The first food that came to them was procured by the money devoted by the little Pocahontas girls, two or three years previously.
The father, through grief and privation, seemed to be in a hopeless and helpless condition, and the police and physicians believed he would soon be insane and be sent to an asylum.
The clipping from that morning paper contains a graphic description of the scene witnessed by the lady in the tenement as she entered with her gift.
A more pathetic picture can scarcely be imagined, but it was not very long until other helpers came, and the suffering children were nicely cared for.
So long as their unknown benefactors live, the memory of their self-denial will afford pleasure to think over. Upon these tender hearted children will ever rest the blessing of the poor; the value of which cannot by duly estimated.