Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1919-12-23
They GATHER AT BERT'S
Yorkyllls Boys and Their Accepted
" RendezOuS.
The ATTRACTION OF ASSOCIATION
Story Of the Development Of a Local
Institution Of Strong lnterest-The
Power of Habit and the Natural De-
sire of the Association of Like With

| Institution OF strong, interest," ne
Power of Habit and the Natural De-
sire of the Association of Like With
Like.
By One of Them.
Almost every boy who has grown to
manhood in Yorkville and the county
around during the past fifteen years
knows Berts. Scores of York county
raised men now residing in different
sections of the county and in many
localities Of the state and the nation
and the world have at some time or
other during their respective lives loaf
ed at Bert's. That is, almost all those
boys grown to manhood in the past
fifteen years who have grown to man
hood, and who have ever done any
loafing anywhere at all, have loafed at
Bert's. ...... ..'.... =,
Loafers at Bert's have constituted
and do constitute almost every calling
and every trade known in life. There
are bankers in York county and in
other counties who have. loafed at
Bert's. There are lawyers and doc
tors and dentists and preachers and
farmers and automobile men and
soldiers-men Of every profession who
have sat by the stove at Bert's on cold
winter nights and spat upon the red
hot heater just to make Bert mad.
There are men in government service
and in other public service who have
played hockey from the Yorkville
Graded school when w. E. Dendy or
John c. Allen, D. J. Brimm, B. C.
Riddle or ]. Harvey Witherspoon was
superintendent. Those men have often
found a safe refuge at Berts.
They Say Good-sye.
Bert's is not only a place where a
goodly portion Of younger Yorkville
and York county has bought apples and
oranges and candies and cigars and to-
bacco during the past fifteenSyears or
so. Bert's is a fixture-an institution!
It furnishes always year in and year
out, another sign of the approach of
|
Yorkville boys, arriving at their
ma ajorities land some long after) come
to the conclusion that they want to
Craze in pastures which they corsider
more green than those of York county,
one Of the last places they go to say
goodbye Is to Bert's in order that they
might bid adieu to the loafers there,
When they come back on a visit-that
is those who do not come back for
good, and the most of them do come
back for good, especially those who
have drunk much water at the old we'll
which used to be open for the public
at the corner Of Main and Liberty
streets, they go to greet the loafers at
Berts Immediately after they have
greeted the people at home.
Almost every Yorkville boy and every
York county boy who is away at
Christmas time and who has the
money to get back home; of If he be
included among those who do not have
to take money but other reasons into
consideration when the twang OF the
December air and longing for an un-
explainable something permeates his
being at Christmas, comes home then.
They start coming a week or two
weeks before Christmas and sometimes
the holiday is over before they arrive.
None knows this better than Bert.
>-ono ~, o,,op tbair own rnothers and
fathers and sisters and brothers are
gladder to see them than Bert, al
though he wouldn't admit 1t for the
privilege OF having a carnival exhibit
on the lot next door for month. That
! is just his way.
A Sure Sign.
But there Is something in the air
when Bert begins to hammer and
patch the straight -bottomed chairs
which have seated the "bums" as the
loafers have called one another during
the past fifteen years. 1t is sure
sign of Christmas when all of those
chairs are made sound and secure and
when more boxes for kindling wood
are cut up and a larger supply OF coal
| is laid in. 1t is a sure sign Of the
Christmas season when big boxes OF
candy and oranges and apples and sup
plies Of firecrackers and Roman
candles and the like are laid In at
Berts. There is something up when
Bert sets the black piccarinny which
has grinned out of the window on the
right at passcrs-by for the past ten
years or more at little different angle,
and shines the doll's face with cloth,
causing it to take on a more ebony
hue.
! There is always something up when
Bert begins arranging goods and
changing their position and sweeping
| and brushing and Strengthening up
generally. Every loafer Of the past
fifteen years knows that it is near un-
! to Christmas. Bert doesn't volunteer
any information-just keeps busy.
The Return.
1t is two weeks perhaps, before the
first of the Christmas wanderers re-
turn to the home port. Perhaps the
first night and surely not later than
the second night after his arrival, he
goes down to see the buns at Berts.
l MI, a,,p,pd fire aDninR