The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-12-20

envy who smites the right ear with
passing greeting, yet are we ever ready
to turn the other without the imposition
of a commandment
The holiday vacation was announced
at school. There was happiness upon
every face but Ruth's. Through the va
cation to Christmas the gathering gloom
intensified with each successive day.
Poverty is the inheritance of crime
successfully prosecuted. In defense OF
her father the lawyers laid waste the
home of Ruth The benefit of their skill
/ in caviling secured for him sentence
of only 20 years. Had he kept his home,
his other savings and the whole amount
embezzled-but undefended pleaded
guilty his sentence through the mercy
of the court could not have exceeded
that statutory maximum.
Christmas was coming by undOubted
evidence; it was in the air. in the happy
sum- in the voices of the children, in the
expectant look of every creature except
Ruts
! do not know whether to attribute
to the ancient Greeks kindness or bad
judgment in their invention of Lethe,
the river of forgetfulness. Souls con-
demned were lasted across 1t from
lands of ice to realms of fire. dashed
back and forth increasingly through the
streams of Lethe, where in each soul for
got the past. How keen is chilling Ice
in memory of fire! How blistering seems
the flames when mindful of contrasted
icy airs
For Ruth there was no river of for
getfulness. The old Christmas stood
out in strong contrast to the new
; Needless for her to have known the po-
: cts conviction THAT a sorrows crown
of sorrow is remembering happier
, things" the elegiac of her heart vibra
! ted its strings to that accord
r Santa Claus could not have loved hel
e anyway. Among all his correspondents
o herself one of them in happier days, M
letter of invitation came from Ruth: NJ
: ! diagram of the chimney for his conven
= fence; nothing to show, to expedite mat
= tiers, where her stockings were to b.
= hung; her letters became snow boun'
in her heart
: Santa Claus, king of the Frigid Zone
5 the monarch whose throne is haloed b,
n the frost-rainbow Aurora Borealis, wa
e in the mind of Ruth cold-hearted i'm
q postor This was her conviction afte
e her mother had revealed to her-t
spare herself and saint-that the rein
r deer sledman is a myth
o, blissful ignorance, keep our chill
o dren until necessity calls for wisdor
e that is grief!
= This iconoclasm broke for Ruth ever
y idol in her childhood temple, except on
~ reared to pride
= These #Nebraskans, given only rarel
-s to state pride in illustriOus citizens
- needed the words of their statesma
- ]. Sterling Morton, father of Arbor Da7
~ and refused to desecrate the forests h
q cutting down a spruce LOT THEIR
In mas tree. Instead of an evergreen the
decided to build a ship in the pulpit an
v freight that with a cargo of trinkets fc
Is the children
A. Too we'll did Ruth realize that thi
Or ship, anchored in the harbor whe1
10 words of Holy Writ are meetest f
a. life's successful voyage, sailed from n
ne mort where friends remembered her.
Pride. then. made it's first effort
er assert itself Though angels may haN
d. fallen for its exercise, humans hay
no risen to greatness for its presenc
IN Herein was Ruth's pride made NANTES
Emboldened by the one greeting
tie Blanche. she approached her with tn
er strata gem:
II. blanche, you have given me lots
sc presents. So have given you. Will yt
ne do something for me? / will pay you
re- Assured by Blanche that she wou
of do. anything for her. Ruth continued:
Ter Take to the church on Christmas e
ar for me a basket of things / shall 81
you, and have them put in the ship I
n me. Cards will be tied to each presei