The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-01-11
Bill Arlp's Letter.

evidence of my undying devotion to hei
to see me wandering about the house
lonely and forlorn every morning for an
hour or two, and forbidding even the cal
to walk heavily while she sleeps. That
goldfish business comes to me honestly
from my fathers side, and my mother
put up with it like good, considerate
wife, and we children grew up with an
idea that it was good. I've heard of a
young couple who got married and went
off to Augusta on tour, and the feller
stuck his fork into a Goldfish ball and
took a bite. He choked it. down like
hero, and when his beloved asked him
what was the matter, replied: Don
say anything about it, Mandy, but as
sure as you are born there is something
dead in the bread.
Well, we can make compromises about
all such things as habits and tastes, but
there are some things that won't com
promise worth a cent. If a girl has been
brought up to have a good deal of free
dom, and thinks it no harm to go waltz
ing around with every gay Lothario who
loves to dance, and after she gets
Teller of her own, wants to keep at it
and have polluted arms around her waist.
she had just as we'll sing farewell to
conjugal love and domestic peace for
=, is against the order of nature for a
loving husband to stand it, and he
oughtnt.
And now another busy year has gone
gone like the water that has passed over
the dan-gone never to return. 1t has
carried many friends along with it and
left sad memories in the household, but
on the whole it has been a good year to
us all and Providence has been kind.
Now is the time to look back and re-
view the past, as did old Janus for whom
January was named He was the porter,
the gate keeper, of heaven, and had two
faces-one to look back and the other
forward into the mysterious future
Numa Pompilius gave him his name and
his high office, for he was next in power
OF Jupiter. He added two months to the
calendar and called one January for
Janus and the other February for the
mother of Mars. Until then there were
but eight months of forty-six days each.
Numa added two more, which gave them
thirty-six days each, and January was
the fourth month and remained so for
more than two thousand years. April
was the first month until two
hundred years ago. Why it was
changed / cannot understand, for April
is much more like the beginning of a new
year than January. April comes from
aperio, to open-the time when the earth
opens and the grass comes up and the
flowers bloom and the birds sing But
the names of almost everything seem to
conform to that old mythology, and we
can't get rid of it. My great-grand-
father lived and died under that old CAL
endar when April was the first month
OF the year. julius Caesar and Augustus
Caesar stuck in two more months and
made the year of twelve months of thir-
ty days each, but April remained the first
month and ought to be now.
But whether Christmas be in December
or in April, we love the old superstitions
that. chase around this season of joy and
gladness. l always thought it a pretty
idea of man to be weighed every Christ
mas or New Year-to put his acts and
deeds in the balances. the good on one
side and the bad on the other, and and
let him rise to heaven or fall below it
as the scales might turn. This is not
an orthodox doctrine, for it is said that