The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1905-05-03


where the hazel bushes line the wind
ing roadside and where in summer the
COWS stand in the meadows, in the sub
urb Of Beverly Hills stands row OF
four cottages. Each of the four cot
tages is occupied by branch Of the
Shonts family, says the Chicago Trib-
une. In the gray one and half story
house where the June roses climb up
on the porch and try to look in at the
window a venerable couple, Mr. and
Mrs. Henry y. Shonts, live. Their son,
Theodore Perry Shonts of Chicago, is
the newly appointed chairman of the
Panama canal commission.
Instead of being the proudest mother
an Illinois at the honor that has been
conferred upon her son Mrs. ShOnts
at the announcement ''wept bitter
tears" They were as big as that ar
table explained her husband with a
chuckle. NO; we don't think much of
the boys new job. Too many skaeters
and yellow fever germs in Panama"
The good couple. both of whom have
completed more than fourscore years,
still regard Theds as the boy who i'll
his Sunday school days remembered
200 verses Of Scripture in a week"
Proud of that record, no future con
quests Of the new commissioner quite
can equal that prodigiOus feat. Theds
himself stands six feet in his stockings
and, from appearances at least, should
III IN
proof.
Nevertheless the old folks are I'M
reconciled They do not share the ell
thusiasm that prompted Miss Eva
Shonts Of the Young Peoples Christian
Temperance union to send d telegram
to her big brother congratulating him
upon the patriotic mission that he is
about TO undertake.
''Theds was a good boy when he was
young said Mrs. Shonts, with a depre-
catory shake Of her head. He never
went out nights then or went chasing
away 70 foreign parts. I don't know
where he got those ideas in his head.
We didg't teach them to him. Theds
was fine boy once
"He was brought up United Pres
byterian, and when he was six years
old we took him with US from Pennsyl-
Vania, where we were raised, across
the mountains into the wilderness OF
Iowa. There wasn't any Presbyterian
Sunday school in Crawford county, so
we sent him to the Methodist school.
Every morning he would learn thirty
verses from the Bible, and when Sun
day came. with the 200 verses in his
mind he would recite them in his class
at Sunday school. They used to give
him cards and banners for his good be
havior. But I'm afraid he doesn't get
many cards and banners now.
"Only once he went to sleep in
church 1t was at the end Of long
sermon We went home without him,
and we couldn't imagine where he was.
We knew he never went out nights.
Finally we found him CURED up on the
cushions of the family pew and sound
asleep in the dark church,
The religious strain i'll the Shonts
family dates back to the sixteenth cen
fury The great -great-and-more
grandparents of the Panama
commissioner were pagans. They had
captured a pretty golden haired maiden
In the wars. This little maid, they dis
covered. always was reading. They
found the book one day under Il stone.
where she had hidden it. 1t was tie
gospel of St John. The great-great-
great-and- more great grandparents read
this book and became converted.
They were locked up in a castle by the
sea The jailer also came under the
religious influence and assisted them
to drop down from window into
a boat that tossed in the dark waves.
Theodore's earliest heroine was the
golden haired maid who read the gos-
pei of st John out in the meadows
while she watched the sheep. AS he
heard his father tell the story by the
open fireSide of the country home he
often imagined her to have been
stolen princess. the daughter of bat
tie king. Later when be was sixteen
years old, according to his father, like
many other boys of the same 0Ga he
fell j love with an old maIdA
@Nhy, she was ten YEATS older than
be was" declared Mrs. Shonts. He
had begun 10 teach school out in the
country where the pupils, both the boys
and girls, were older and bigger than
be was Theds got along fine, He al
ways did with anything he undertook.
"We sent him to college when he
was quite young. I'm afraid he didn't