Breathitt County News from Jackson, Kentucky • Page 1

JI Fyyx lp I pi 4 lfi t4ft BREA HIT COUN NEWSV WIHK HAQINB Editor mid Publishor A NKWBiAiEK DI TED TO THE rNTKBKsTS OF EASTERN KENTUCKY ONE DOLLAR PElt YEAR IN ADVANOK 7 1 Volume IV Jackson Kentucky Friday Deccmbar 23 1904 Number 11 A Dolls Christmas A Quaint Tale of Life In the Nurs cry When Little Boys and Girls Arc All Sound Asleep By LAWTON JOHNSON JOHNSONI Copyright 1904 by Iurla NE Christmas eve a wax doll oat on a choir In pretty room In which number of children were lit lied A fire wns burn lug on till hearth Stockings were hanging to the innnlil to bo filled with toys fop the children wlm were sleep lug soundly doubtless dreaming of what they wore to receive In rue morn ing Tbo face of oiio of them deli cats fiilr hulml bay was turned ward Ito doff and she did not tire look big nt It for the face though pale uiil thin was very delicately molded On the mantel wero two figures In porcelain One wus a boy In an oll fashioned coat and knee brewhcs With a MUMli iiround lads wiilst and cockel hut and feather Ills right hand war thnut Into bU coat In front and he looked like figure of Napoleon Tliu other was girl with a short drosi and a sailor hut Her bend war pulse one aide mini she looked very well ntlsfled with herself Indeed abu wuc I turf pretty I How da you do said the girl Im age to tbe doll Dont you think this a pletsnut room 7 Indeed It In but Ive not BOO many 4g I was only born Sue mused I other children The doll noticed that I be bad great blue eyes which seemed ever so large as he looked wonderlngly at nil that was going on Then there I came knocking on the wall and the children knew that It was a signal for them to get back to bed and not take cold and buck they scrambled laugh hug tail tumbling over one another and covered themselves up Presently the father nnd mother came In mud distributed the toys The doll was for ono of the girls but thoM Insisted on having It himself Then I when all wero loaded with presents they carried them down to the breakfast room What day It wnsl The children wero racing about playing with their toys nnd people were coming In con till un II to see the presents and the nun shone brightly on the snow outside and limo fire shone brightly wltb in on the brass nnillrons and fender sod after dinner stories were old the children till they were nil astonished by the number of wonderful thing Hint happen The toy with tbo light hair mid blue eyes lay In his mothers arms hugging the doll with her breast pressed against Ida so that she could I WRITING TO DEAR OLD SANTA CLAUS I butr couldnt remember so abe said Instead Isnt it beautiful world It Do you think sot said the boy My sister and I have had a hard time getting Into It We were baked In a furnace nnd It was so hot Well dont tell mo about it interrupted the doll 1d rather hear about pleasant places The figures told her a great many things but the girl wan very vain of her beauty nod the boy was taken up with what lie knew about limo world of which the doll knew nothing nt all BO she didnt listen long but fell asleep while they were talking Suddenly she awoke with a start What tons that noise In the chimney She bad scarcely time to think about it when out on the hearth popped little figure In fur lIe unstrapped pack he carried nnd filled nil the stockings with toys Then he Jutntwd back Into the chimney und wns gone In a twin kllng This set tbe doll to wondering more than ever Everything was again silent except the clock which ticked very loud There were the children asleep In bed the little pale fared boy with his head testing on his arm the girl Image on tbe mantel with her bead on one side thinking how pretty she wits mid the boy thinking hoW much he knew about the world The doll sewn went to sleep pgalu pgaluIn In the morning she was awakened by a ahoutlng The children wens run slag about IIK their night clothes tuk lug their toys from their stockings and ekg like monkeys Tbo ful hairy edysyeat up In bed and looked on for IIi was too delicate to get up like the theV 1 I 1 fe hear Ids heart bent and she wondered why there was no such beating in her own heart This was the happiest mo neat she had ever known She wall only day old but something told her that nothing In the world could ever make her happier When the children went upstairs the boy Insisted on keeping the doll by him till he got Into bed when hU mother persuaded him to part with It till morning She placed on chair before the lire where he could see It till ho should go to sleep and the first thing on nwnkeiilng In the morning When the children were nil asleep tbe doll looked up from the chair at the images on the mantel She was too happy to go to sleep What lovely day I have had she saidJiwt Just wait replied the boy linage till you have been knocked about tbo World awhile and youll see He looked as wlso as an owl I think It very nice said tho girl lunge so long as you ore young and Uy but I dont like the Idea of get ting old anti cracked perhaps having my arms or legs broken off The wind Was rising without and I suddenly the tire blazed with a cheerful warmth It was very pleasant for awhile but presently it seemed to be too hot The doll thought she began to feel softening In her feet She didnt know what It meant but It frightened her It extended to her legs then she felt it In her arms and at lust In her face nnd neck A lug of wood fell down on the coals and the lire blazed higher hotter than ever The doll felt herself melting away I oure going said the boy figure SANTA CLAUS HIS BEEN HERE I I on the mantel Its Just as wc Iilio world Isnt all like this household Its Just ns well echoed the girl Image Your beauty will not have to fade I dont wnnt to go cried the doll mournfully I want to stay with my blue eyed boy The world may be full of sadness but there must be pleasure as well for It Is here There was something no plaintive In her voice that even 010 Images refrain ed from any further remarks The lire biased hotter and the wee which had ns yet only softened began to melt Something spattered on the floor It was drop of incited wax Oh that her little boy would get up and move her back from the tire nut he slept on peacefully and ns she had no voice for real children she couldnt call to him So the doll felt that she was melting away Drop by drop she fell on the floor The room with Its rich hangIngs the children sleeping the firelight dickering the shadows and above all the memory of her brief existence for after nil doll can only exist seemed to bo gradually fading away She sighed to think that she couldnt have been born with soul to be loved and goon i loving forever that she could not grow up like real child to see the un folding of nil tbo wonderful things In the world passing from one existence I to another Instead of going out alto gether Then she thought that she might never have been born at all never have hud the one glimpse of the happy household tho one Christmas The Gift I Didnt Get I A Christmas Poem by Peter McArthur Copyright 1904 by 1eter McArthur the blue eyed boy nnd tier single day I of love Ho she said cant under stand It I will try not td murmur but trust that It Is all for thebcM And then and then she awoke The horror of melting had only been dream She had fallen tiHleop before the hot fire but some jjfinl hand hud imam the chair back nud in a few moment sle was again clasped In the fond arms of her blue eyed boy CHRISTMAS IN MEXICO tll1 How the Day 1m Celebrated In Slip Lund of Via Dlaj In Mexico Christmas eye Is observed ns In Spain with the Viocliu Buena Tho streets and plazas nre thronged with people Of nil the shop windows HO pay and brllllaut In their holiday attire none is so bright ns the confectioners Nowhere Is the confectioners art carried to greater perfection At midnight of the Nochc Ilnena nil Mex Icu forsakes Its pleasures and repairs to the Mlsn del Gallo or mass of the cock high mass of the most Impos IllS character which in every one of the lJulIulll lIt temples reared by the Catholic church In fUll City of Mexico Is celebrated exactly at midnight on Christmas evt4 or morning to commem orate the Saviours birth All the churches have an augmented choir and large orchestra specially engaged for tho occasion The mass Is celebrated with every concomitant that can heighten Its effect and grandeur II A VE presents by the dozen i Meant to mate my Christmas glad From each uncle aunt and cousin I Dest a fellow eer had There a keepsake from my mother Father sent a check and yetI am thinking of another Of the one I didnt get HERE are glftfrom all tM fellows Pipes and things a chum will send i Theres a tie all reds and yellows From a girl who calls me friend you would think me far from slighted if you saw them alland yetI confess Im most delighted With the one 1 didnt getS HE told mi It was ready Shed prepared It long btforet Id been calling on her steady For at least a year or more She told me all about It And her eyes with tears were wet And Im happy ne er doubt It For that gift 1 didnt get HER attitude was altered When 1 called on her last night Sat my tale of lots I faltered And 1 guess 1 did it right And this little rhyme is Written Cause Im full of Joy you belt For a frosty little mitten Was the gift I didnt get AUt4Ao U11V WWWi1V lJW Wll I A Girl Who Cdb Friend The Christmas Tree How It Originated How It Is Secured For the Market and Some Interesting Leg ends of the Dim Past By WALTON WILLIAMS Copyright 1904 by American Pre I Association 111COPTrlght l11 iJIE Christmas tree goes so far TJIE Into the night of time that it is quite impossible to tell where or by whom It was first Introduced Almost every country has its legend claiming for Its own the tree which bears such generous fruit In Scandinavia It is said to have sprung from the service tree which germi noted from soil soaked by the blood of I two unfortunate lovers a claim sub stantlatej by the statement that flt Chrlstmastlde Inextinguishable lights gleamed from Its green branches In French romance of the thirteenth CUll tury great tree Is described whoso brunches are covered with burning candles and on whose top Is the vlslnu of a child with halo round Its bead the tree nnd candles representing man I kind and the child the Infant Saviour A beautiful Uerman story credits St Winfred with giving the Christmas I tree to tin world The story is Illus trative of tho gospel supplanting pa ganism Before group of convert tit Winfred felled great oak which had been an object of the worship tj the Druids A line young fir tree Im mediately appeared In Its place on see I lug which St Wtufred said This lit td it DlJoI tie tree young child of the forest shall be your holy tree tonight It Is the wood of peace for your houses ore built of fir It is the sign of an endless life for its leaves are ever green See how it points upward to heaven Let It be called the tree of the Christ Child Gather about It not in the wildwood but In your homes There It will shelter no deeds oC blood but loving giftsMany Many Germans hold that Martin Luther first conceived the Christmas tree One of the most popular of Ocr man engravings represents him sitting in the bosom of his family with alighted Christmas tree on the table before him Luther was traveling alone one Christmas eve The miow covered country anti the trees gleaming nt every point with the reflected light of the winter moon made upon the great reformer tho deepest Impression Going home he went Into tho garden and cutting a little fir tree brought it into the nursery put soma candles on Its branches lint lighted them to re produce the effect of the beautiful moonlit trees In the forest Antiquarians connect the Christmas tree with the great tree YggdraslI of Norse mythology or with the pine trees of the Homan saturnalia the pagan forerunner of our Christmas Others look to the ancient Egyptians ns orlg inators of the Idea These men wero wont to decorate tbelr houses at the time of the winter solstice with brunches of the date palm emblems of Immortality and of the starlit firmament In mediaeval times there was a tradition that holiness Invested nn II laminated tree Candles were used by the Jews in their Feast of Lights which wag celebrated at this season The Greeks also call Christmas the least of Lights The Itoinaiis In their saturnalia dec orated trees with Images of Itomnn gods as well as with candles and burned Yule logs in honor of these gods I The early Christians however frown ed upon all such pagan adjuncts to the Christinas celebration With them the Feast of the Nativity wns the extreme of solemnity amid they were ns much opposed to Christmas trees and lights music and laughter as were the lurl tansThe The first authentic account of the Christmas tree is not recorded until the sixteenth century It appears In II Ger man manuscript and as the Germans responded least to Latin Inlluenccs of nil the nations which fell heir to tho Human empires lands to them rather than to the Itomans must be ascribed the honor of Introducing It It was tho marriage of Queen Victoria to German prince which brought the mod ern Christmas tree to Knglaud and a German Immigrant started the custom in America The first Christmas tree In Irance was lighted In the Tullerles In IftJO by the Duchess Helena To view the great heaps of Christ eii5 I YI TAKING HOME THE CHRISTMAS TREE I I inns trees which line the market streets of our big cities Just before the hull days one would fancy that scarcely a tree could bo left standing of tho mur inuring hemlocks which constituted Longfellows forest primeval Every hard timber state in the Union Is called upon by Santa Claus for Its tribute of redolent balsam that be may have plenty of places on which to hang his presents There Is only one truo Christmas tree the balsam fir The hemlock proper has branches too drooping and flexible to hold great weight of Christmas gifts and the spruce while otherwise suitable lacks the spicy odor of the balsam This Is fortunate for the tree indst prized for Christmas purposes Is utterly despised by the lumbermen Before the Christmas tree Industry be gnu the tlr lands of Malno were actually exempted from taxation as worthless Now they arc worth from 10 to F15 an acre The Christmas tree cutters begin work early usually about tho middle of October While some of the men are Hitting others follow them and drag iho trees to the nearest open space where they are bunched and tied so that they will not come apart lu shipping At the nearest depot they are loaded on cars 2500 trees to the car The men receive SLfiO a day and board It takes seven men working five weeks to get out three carloads Tho Christmas tree output depends a good deal on tho weather With an open fall when thcv trees lire easy to get nt tho crop will be much larger than when the snow falls early and heavily If tho snow melts and then freezes on tbo branches It makes them brittle and they break In transit 1 THE MYSTIC MISTLETOE Once Feature of Inirnn Mite It Xow llrlonen to Lover From time Immemorial till white Iterrkd mistletoe bus played leading part In Yulclide festivities though It has not always conveyed the oscillato ry privileges which give It Its value lu the eyes of the romantic youth of to day Like so many other features of the Christmas celebration mistletoe has been borrowed from the pagans of antiquity and Christianized by the lapse of centuries TLe Persians be fore the birth of Christ used the mis tletoe In their sacred rites and In parts of India pagan priests still Incorporate It In their ritual It figures largely In Scandinavian mythology Baldur the son of Odin though a demigod win slain by spear of mistletoe a proof of Its magic powers It Is from the Druids of old England however that mistletoe 1ms come to us The Imildlcul priests sprung It Is said from the magi of the east the Wise men who worshiped at the cradle 1 of the Infant Saviour held the mistletoe as their most sacred possession and the cutting of the pretty parasite from the oak the tree which the Druids claimed God loved more than i any other was attended with thei I greatest solemnity On the Druids tea tival day grand procession leadingi two white oxen moved to the mystic grove There the oxen were fastened to the oak by their horns and whlloI I robed priest climbed into the leafless I branches and cut the bunches of mistletoe with a golden knife The oxeu were then sacrificed and religious sere Ices performed after which the procession returned to the temple in tbe forest and the mistletoe was deposited in tbe Druldlcal arcanum Besides taking its place In the roll gloss observances of the Druids the mistletoe which the priests gave a namo meaning all healing was made into many curious decoctions by proc eases in which times and seasons and Incantations were supposed to add to its mystcilou powers These medi cines were regarded as cures for human Ills generally whether of mind or body With the advance of civilization and the death of superstition mistletoe has lost its religious character but not Its popularity and the forests of England and of our own southern states arc as eagerly frequented by mistletoe gath erers ns over were the dark woods of the ancient Druids CHRISTMAS IN SWEDEN One Day When There Are Neither lurch Nor 1uor If you were In Sweden on Chrtstmqa jV i eve you would hear the church bells I begin to ring at 5 oclock for everybody stops work then and tho festivi ties begin in great earnest everywhere In the kingdom Class distinctions are forgotten and servants are allowed to sit at table with the family After supper comes the universal Christmas tree for Sweden Is one of the early homes of tl Is beautiful custom On Christians morning nt 0 oclock while it Is still dark you would go to i church for everybody goes unless you stayed at home to mind the lights in the house for every homo In the king dom is illuminated There Is almost sure to be deep snow and you would go to church in a sleigh Behind every ti sleigh you would see two boys stand jYi kIng on tbe runners and holding pine torches a beautiful spectacle as a long 4 procession of sleighs glides over the snow on forest road These torches are stuck up In circle around the church A whole week la given toi good chHT and hospitality I A IrloiiilHhlp Calendar A friendship calendar as Christmas gift was a source of much pleasure to an elderly lady living alone says Good 1 Housekeeping At her request each one of fiftytwo of her friends rcpre seating the fiftytwo weeks of the year furnished material for every day of the seven In his week Each one followed out Ills own Idea for tbe weeks calen dar contributing favorite quotations short poems anecdotes and remlnls cences some even adding cherished recipes In many Instances the contri butlons were original Others were II a lustrated with small pictures cat from current magazines The result wus a perpetual calendar each day representIng the loving thought of a friendy A Clirl lmn Game Christmas candles is a good old time game A lighted candle Is placed upon a table Tbu played Is blindfolded amid stationed with his back to the candle nbout a foot from it Hes then told to take three steps forward turn around three times then to walk 1j four steps toward the candle pod blow it out Ills attempt to do so will prob ably be ns amuftjug to the audience as disconcerting to himself Country Life In America AmericaThe Tho Line Drawn Ethel What do you Intend to give me for Christmas Uertle Would a kiss answer Ethel with sarcasm No Indeed I Mamma never allows mo to accept val uable presents from gentlemen Vurunir I Theres Christmas smiling In the sky Theres Christmas In the trees Theres Christmas lii the streets near by Theres Christmas In the breeze Its Christmas Christmas everywhere I No matter where you everJwhueJ Save when you gaze with mild despairti rI Into your pocketbook 1Ir Washington Star I Chrlulmn I1I1U The Christinas bills starI 1 Jive dad the chills Hell never climb The heavenly hllla Nor wear the angels Wings an trills 1 I Because them tnme Christmas bills Atlanta Constitution ti Vf rte ll ot i stsix o7.