The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1908-02-20
A LITTLE GOSSIP.
That New Year Leaf.


We will all wet our thumbs now and
turn over the new leaf am always
glad of anything new, be it a new lot OF
kittens in the wood shed, new hat or
new year.
| have grown up with lot of old beds
and chests with glass knobs on them
the kind the antique collectors rave over
and sometimes | have been tempted to
get the practical man away some day
and sell the whole lot of it to the second
hand man. l want to start over again.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox puts it this way:
Give me new things when the old prove
weak,
Or fail me- in MY hour of darkest need
Why perish with the ship that springs a
leak?
Or lean upon a reed?'
There are enough of new resolutions
being made now to pave even the side
streets and alleys of the place where
they are popularity supposed to go. Some
of us are going TO resolve to leave off our
sins of commission and some of us are
going to bolster up our matters of omis-
sion, but we are all going TO try, try
again, and it is mighty comforting
thing to have a chance at doing better
"a clean page to try on.
| do not think that the school children
nowadays use thumb cards, but we did.
Each child had a thumb card to put in
the arithmetic and one in the geography.
so that when we held the book our small
damp thumbs would not leave trac es of
mud pies and marbles on the page to
mar the problem of y plus and how it
could be equal to z; or blot Cape Horn
off the map. One reason we had to be
careful was that the books were entailed
and mother thought it no more than fair
to the heir apparent that the property
should be we'll cared for. Being, however,
the last of a long line" the property
sollcitude. considerably be-thumbed.
When we first began to talk about the
Philippines | had no idea where they
were, and L believe yet they were not in
my book.
But this new leaf in the big book we
are handling, has not been thumbed by
anybody before us and, thank goodness.
we can turn it back and hide the old
one, and the new one is ours to make or
to mar.
| am only going to contribute one stone
to that paving and it will be a very
small one. My resolution is that I'm
going to use a thumb card. l do not
want my leaf soiled, for some day the
winds of adversely, or even high gale
of prosperity, may blow over and hutter
the leaves of the old book and the world
and his sneighbor will look in, then l
want my problem of loving my enemies
and doing good to those who despitefully
use me to be there-worked out in detail
proven and explained, and / want my
Cape of Good Hope and good works,
too, to be there-right where they be-
long, on the southern coast of this map
of my life.
Yes, | shall use a thumb card. l
used to have a way of looking ahead in
my books and thinking how nice it
would be if only l was over there, and
how easy it would be to learn that les
son if only | could get past the one 1
was on, and / am not sure that some of
us have not been looking over to the
leaf of the new year with somewhat the
same idea, and we will find our mistakes
soon enough, for as we advance the les
sons are more difficult, and if we have
not learned the rule on the page for to-
day we cannot solve the problem on the
page for tomorrow.
And, believe me, this page of 1908 is
going to be hard one because we have
advanced to the hard part of the book.
The temperance people are to be their
hard part, because their enemies have
begun to fear them. Ten years ago,
when we were on the floor, playing with
our blocks, nobody paid any attention to
us. We learned a from b and then one
day we spelt out word that looked
like this: reorganization" We went into
the first reader ana read out of it how
that if a man would vote like he prayed
his vote and his prayer would both 90
farther-we read the lesson over and
over; we read it out aloud and some of
us even said it for a speech-and people
began to listen
We have turned page after page as
we studied the lessons and some of them
have not been easy. 1t was hard enough
to make 81 and 81 more equal So when
we needed the five to feed the child and
cIothe the sick wife of the man who had
lust ''been out with the boys Just ''hav-
ing a good social time, you know. and
there is no harm in a drink of whiskv.''
Why, dear me, no; none whatever. pro-
vided the drink does not get inside the
man!
But these lessons nave been learned
as we came to them, and now the tenn
perance people are beginning to write
If you will notice you will see in almost
any newspaper specimens of their work
1t reads like this: "Another town goes
dry" or, High license closes the saloons
in Biboville.'' And now the task is be-
fore them of writing on this new leaf
"Prohibition'' in letters so plain that
the wayfaring man, though a drunkard,
will have to stay sober and spend his
money for something besides rum.
Then the new leaf is going to be hard
to keep clean because there is a great
problem in politics to be worked out
and men are going to forget that they
were born free and go and sell them
selves to another man. Men are going
to hand out money for campaign pur-
poses and the ''good of the party that
ought to go to buy the baby new cap
or the tired wife carpet sweeper
1t is going to be hard on the house