The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1916-06-02

country, ana especially Cne business
men of the town, have contracted for
week of the highest class enter
tainments that money can deliver
here, and they are doing it because
they want the whole community to
have the benefit of it. They are
slaves to their business themselves,
most of them, and they hardly ex-
pect to get to take in the fun and
to receive the benefit of the cheer
ing, uplifting and educational influ-
ence of the chautauqua, but they
want the folks to go. 1t is the spirit
of father work all the time and
everybody else gets vacation but
daddy" Daddy keeps his nose to
the grindstone so much, he almost
forgets that he is human, or that
he needs any fun, or that he is going
to drop off one of these days and
make a big funeral.
This paper wants you, Mr.. Farmer,
to have your folks do as much of
their trading as they can the week
before and the week after the chau-
tauqua so these clerks and daddies
will not have much else to do but
to go to the entertainments. If you
and your folks have shopping to do
that week, plan to do it at times
when the entertainment is not on.
Keep away from the business houses
for an hour before the show begins
so they will have time to lock up
and go home and get the folks and
get in their seats long enough to
forget business before the fun starts.
We are not knocking on business;
we just want you to put in with us
to have a little fun for daddy. En-
courage him to close up or at least
let all the help go but one. Jolly
him about it and tell him IL he does
MT have all the fun he can while 1t
is going, you may quit trading with
him and buy your toothnicks of
Jones. That will fetch him.
Now about yourself; you have
worked as hard as anybody and we
want you at the fun too. OF course,
you have only thought of having
mother and the kiddies go while you
stayed at home and worked and ate
cold victuals. You are going to cling
to the idea that you can't all go. and,
of course, you are the one to forget
yourself. That's mighty good Of you
daddy, but this chautauQua doesn't
come but once year, and 1t may not
come again next year II we don't
take it in and laugh ourselves hungry
at the fun and listen till we're sur
prised at the good information we
are getting, and wink back a tear
once in a while at the things senti-
mental and pathetic. The chautau-
qua Is combination OF the best en-
there are. 1t Is enter
but not theatrical; education
al, but not bookish; moral, but not
churchy. The entertainers are work
ers from the ranks. Men graduated
from the school of hard knocks; men
and women who sing like the mock
ing bird; cartoonists who draw funny
pictures that make you laugh one
minute and shed tears the next; jok-
ers that sing and recite and do more
cute things than monk
ey and yet are perfectly proper and
genteel in everything and as innocent
as kitten. 1t will do your old
heart good TO pc tnere.
Now know what you are thinking
-clothes-forget it! Wear the best
you have and feel perfectly easy on
the fact that they are clean and that
there is a perfectly good man inside
of them. That is the main thing.
You are going TO say it is such
a busy time; SO it is, but we could
not get the chautauqua here in the
winter time and, il we had, the
children would have been at school.
We have to take 1t when we can get
it, and we have to take 1t in the
summer season when they can give
the entertainments in the big tent,
Tor it is too big for any hall in this
country. You are going to be busy
irrigating. Well, we have coaxed
the weather clerk for all the rain he
can spare and then some. He is
cracking the cistern and rounding up
all the clouds and the good angels
can do no more. If you can't attend
all of the sessions. look over the pro-
gram and pick out something that
looks good to you and be there. If