The Lamar register., 1915-11-03
NOVEMBER

Latin noVem (mneD, ana was placed
in the calendar by Numa Pompilius.
Numa was a great lover of Indian
summer, and he inserted November
into the calendar for the purpose of
prolonging it. He said it was not
good for the Romans, who were rap
idly leaving the country and going
into the city, to lose that homely rel
ish for life which had always charac-
terized them in the Fall. He said that
if all men were like Lucillius, who
dined with his friends every night up
on broiled lobster and patie-de-fol-
gras, it would not be long until the
empire would not have any stomach
and people like the Goths and Van
dals would over come it. He set
everybody an example by supplying
the royal table with everything that
makes appetizing the Autumn. He
had a royal smokehouse, and there
was nothing finer in the evening than
the perfume of hickory wood and sug-
ar ham floating through the crevices
of that institution. He kept pigs
on his north porch. He priced chit
Inns, and could eat cracklings. His
apple butter was initiated in all the
big grocery stores. He was the in
ventor of the Roman beauty apple,
and it was customary during affairs
of state for him to dive into his ma
hogany desk and get out a big red
apple for everybody. He could eat
hatful of persimmons, and it was one
of the humors of Rome to watch for
him on his tiled porch in the early
n,arning turning his pawpaws. He
was a man attuned to all the romance
of Nature, and to see him stealing
out at lunch for a piece of pumpkin
pie was to assure all Rome of his
profound democracy. A good many
Romans thought it impossible to pro-
long Indian summer; but Numa
thought it could be done, and it gen
orally can.
November was greatly loved by the
Romans. 1t was then the great gen
erals like Caesar got in their deadly
"oIh uBbn tlAt tAANAiAANs ~ 49,
pire There was no mud TO get stuck
in. Soldiers were full of vim and
vigor. Horses danced. Much the
same spirit that possesses a football
team animated the Roman army.
The soldier could see his breath on
the air. He had to jump around lively
to keep his feet warm. He arose in
the morning with a spring in his
back, and when he swung his shield
on his left arm and took his sword
in his right hand he was a bear. Rome
was a conquering nation. She tried to
maintain three or four fronts all the
time, and in the Fall she always made
a big drive into the four cardinal
points of the compass. If it were easy
in Egypt, she shifted troops to Spain,
where it was probably hard. Thus 1t
was that with each year the Empire
grew larger, and when the Romans
sat down to their Thanksgiving din
ner they had great things for which
to be thankful. That theory of life
fell into decay after Rome fell, but 1t
is coming back now. The Kaiser IS
making everybody in Europe believe
in it pretty fast, and we are begin
ming to believe in it over here. 1t is
a question whether it is the correct
theory of life. No man can say. Cae-
sar thought so, and in debate with
the pacifists in the Roman Forum he
beat them so badly that Brutus and
two or three others assasinated him
when he left the hall. Marc Antony
said this clinched the arguments for
Caesar, but he subsequently concluded
that this was small satisfaction to
Caesar and had his murderers exc
cuted.
The festive calf will sniff the breeze
And spring the hinges in his back
Ard helping out the plumbers ease,
The plumbing will begin to crack
The wild goose tooling down the sky
viii hit it up another speed