Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-11-20
Ehrsttng Gl1at

Indian summer. which someone
fancifully inclined has called natures
interlude. has made a longer stay
than usual in the valley of the Sus-
quehanna and incidentally shattered
another of those Central Pennsyl-
vania farming legends which one
runs across every now and then. We
are all familiar with the goosebone
prophet and we recall how Jonas
Gish would HE his way to the county
almshouse when the sausage skins
were inclined to be thick and not
even appointment by the late Judge
Weiss as tipstaff could tempt hm
forth until the chickweed had ap-
peared The latest tradition or wea-
ther sign or whatever you chose to
call it which has been broken by the
fine weather we have enjoyed is that
when there are three white frosts in
! a row there will be a rain. There
| have been more white frosts without
rain this fall than known for long.
long time. Ten days ago the fields
| were covered with the white mantle
| OF early winter and q week ago roofs
of houses glistened in the sunlight
and warned people to think about
covering the fires well at night The
prolonged Indian summer, which
many of us hope will run until
| Thanksgiving Day, has been boon
to builders and farmers and men en-
gagged in outdoor work and the way
they have been making haste while
the autumnal sun remained about the
mountains back toward Sterrett's
| Gap has been worth mentioning.
Where carpenters and plasterers and
| pipe line men or others would do 1T
! they had the chance to work extra
and over time and be paid according
| ly. Consequently there has been
more progress made this month on
buildings than for a long time and
the farmers who have been going
| from frosty sunrise to chilly even
tide have been bemoaning the fact
that farm labor is so scarce.
Col. Thomas M. Jones, the news
paperman, who was taken ill yester-
day, had a funny experience at. the
Capitol last week. He was just about
to walk into the Hall of the Repre-
sentatives, where the county teach
ers' institute was in session when n
speaker, who, was dilating upon the
| English classics exclaimed. Now,
! there's Tom Jones'.
Some one in the audience knew the
newspaperman and snickered. Peo-
pie turned their heads, but the lee
| turer not knowing the reason APP
peared annoyed and repeated Now,
there is Tom jones'
| The newspaperman walked right
| on through the side aisle of the
| chamber a little red, but carrying
out the bluff of not comprehending.
Tom, they are paging you" re-
| marked DR.. j. George Becht, Secre-
| tary of the State Board of Educa-
| ton, as he went by. BY that time
the lecturer was ION" and the clas-
sizes slipped cog.
1t is an interesting fact that while
the late Senator James p. McNichol
always handed out twenty-five cent
| cigars to friends he never smoked
them. He smoked five-centers.
Many time the Philadelphia sena-
tor would hand out from pocket
seemingly bottomless the finest ci-
gars and then dive into another anu
take out a nickle bloomer.
Col Harry w. Shoemaker, the AL
toona publisher and author. has
written an interesting article for the
last number of In the Open, the or
gan of the Wild Life League in which
| he discusses fueds among hunters
this to say about dogs running deer:
perhaps the new dog law, passed in
the interest of sheep-owners, will re-
duce the number of stray dogs at
large in the mountains; in this in
stance, the stock raiserS and sports
men have a common platform, the
abolition of the stray dog. And it
is patriotic platform these days
when the food supply must be in
creased as a wartime necessity; ven-
ison and mutton. both are needed in
an underfed world. Though the feud
spirit as it affects man and man has
about passed away, the killing of
dogs of prominent lowland farmers
and sportsmen, even when caught in
the act of tonguing deer creates Il
certain animosity against the noun
tain hunters"
A new form of deviltry in regard
to gardens has turned up. In many
parts of the city people who had cul-
tivated gardens during the summer
relied upon the general understand
ing existing that there should be mu-
tual projections of gardens from
thieves The Legislature helped it
along by providing stiff penalty for
anyone doing damage to gardens. So
the people who had gardens allowed
the sticks and poles for beans and
tomatoes and other crops to remain.
But they make such good firewood
that the temptation appears too great
for others to resist
Col. William B. Meetch. who has
hunted all over North America, has
gone south to try his hand at the
game in the swamps and woods of
Florida. The Colonel VIII spend most
of the winter in that section.