The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1885-02-13

Marie B. Williams, IN Touth's Companion.
BURDETTE ON ADVERTISING.
His Experience ON a Rainy Day. and
the Moral He brew.
You know how like a house a fire it
rained last Friday? Well, we were run
ming from Philadelphia to New York, and
by and by we ran alongside a swamp. A
creek had overflowed its banks and swarm
ed all over a whole township. That's why
| called it a swamp. A wide waste of water
spread all over all the land in sight. In
the midst of the food a signboard bravely
lifted its head above the muddy seas. Its
chin was barely in sight, the water was
tapping the lower line, but it was doing its
duty nobly, and this was what the sign
board said, in big, brave, black letters:
'No picnics allowed IN these grounds
Now l nave known men for all the world
just like that sign board. They had occa-
sion at some time to say something that
was needed to be said right at that time.
For a day and a summer they just filled
the bill. They were the right men in the
right place, called to say the right thing
at the right time. And then-They could
never say anything else.
And they kept right on saying it. Day
and night, summer and winter, flood or
drought, in season and ont of season they
kept on saying it. Nobody was going to
picnic in that swamp yesterday. Nobody
wanted to. Nobody could. But every
once in a while you will find the nan in
the swamp shouting Keep out. Keep
out!'' when the whole United States army
couldn't drive anybody in. Having once
said or done a good thing, the man keeps
on at that n thing, until by and by the
people who don't want to picnic on his
premises mock at him and laugh him to
scorn.
The lonesome Jersey sign board, stand
ing chin deep in the flood and over head
in the rain, warning people not to have a
picnic in flannel suits and lawn dresses
that afternoon, brought to my mind a long,
dreary, dismal November day once pass
ed-how | passed it, only a merciful Prov
idence knows-in Chaplin, III. Chaplin is a
junction town. 1t rained all that day. Ii
got up about daylight to rain and kept on
raining harder every hour. | had to wait
all day long for the train ! wanted. In
the afternoon. when my letters were all an
swered and my newspaper was accom-
plished. / stood at the window and looked
dolefully ont on the flooded landscape.
The trees stood knee deep in the water.
Every thing was soaked. Everything drip,
drip, dripped. Whatever could float float
ed. What couldn't float sank. Water,
water everywhere. In the clouds, in the
air, on the ground, drip, gargle, splash.
deep and stream, swamp and torrent. And
right in all this universe of moisture a
great big sign, painted in white letters,
black shaded, on a board fence, a sign so
big thatyou could read it half a mile away,
and it stared me in the face even when I
shut my eyes and turned my back to it:
Bethesda Water at Hatch's."
Now. who the mischief wanted any
kind of water on a day like that 1t made
me so mad that Itried to quit looking at
it. But | couldn't. If | crawled under
the bed, it was there; if | thrust my head
into the fiue, it stared down the chimney.
BY and by, in utter despair, completely
knocked out and exhausted, | yielded to
my fate, went out in the rain, went right
straight to Hateh's and drank a glass of
Bethesda water, and if there was anything
in the world | hated, it was Bethesda
water.
As a newspaper man | could only draw
one moral from this: Persistent advertis-
ing will tell. Brook Ign Eagle.