The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1920-12-22

have tried both kinds, and so know.
A city Christmas has all the tin and
tinsel, and that is all. BY the time
you get as old and feel as young as
am. you find most of the plate worn
off.
Honestly, boys (and girls), don't
think Santa Claus himself ever feels
very much at home except on rural
route He has mighty poor job In .
big town, with fiues instead of Chin
neys, and everything. And 1t is hard
to see where he gets room to turn a
sleigh and eight reindeer around. tiny
reindeer though they may be. He'll be
pretty certain to bump into a hydrant
or tip over on curb.
And with twenty families all using
one tlue (and, what is worse, q soft
coal tlue at that how in the world
is the most experienced Santa going
to find which is Browns and which is
Smiths, and where the Greens live?
Even If he dared rap and ask (Which
no Santa Claus is ever supposed to
do) nobody could tell him. For per-
haps the Browns and the Smiths have
never met" and the Greens might
live across the hall for a month be-
fore anybody thought to inquire their
name.
For that is one thing you don't get
much of in the city-neighbors. Some.
times when the woman across the
road keeps running in just when your
!. mother is canning, or baking, or treat
ing a shrt-bOsOm kindly but firmly
with a hat-iron, your mother may al
most wish that they weren't quite So
plentiful in the cOuntry-but she
wouldn't. She would miss them. Just
the same as you would miss having
the same boys to play with year after
year.
For in the city you are always get
ting u fresh lot Of playmateS-and
sometimes they are a mighty fresh
lot, too. OF course there are some
good kids, alsoT but it always seems
that Just when you get TO liking some
fellow up the street or across the alley,
the landlord boosts the rent and his
folks have TO move and you never see
him again. He may move only from
one side of the city to the other. but
it might as well be to another state.
1t Is five or ten or twenty miles
miles of houses, no, miles Of flats. and
streetcar tracks, and railroads, and
-factories-and you never see him again
or any of his folks.
The boys you know this Christmas
probably won't be around at all next
Christmas, if you live in the city. That
Is funny thing about city folks:
they are always going somewhere and
never getting anywhere. Why, even
IL the landlord didn't raise the rent
October | or May | or whenever the
lease expires, they might move any
way! People who live in flats instead
of homes are always looking for some
thing better and getting something
worse. They have the most wonderful
collection of rent receipts, but not
foot of ground, not roof or rafter,
they can call their own.
Now. don't know what you think,
but | think that every family ought to
have a house of its, own, house 1t
lives in year aSfer year. That is, of
course, unleyf the father has some
sort Of job that makes II necessary for
him to move TO some other town every
other year or so. But 1t Is a great
thing to live in home, not just
house, and that is about the best place,
and the only place. to have Christ
mas, n real, Sure-enough. honest-tO-
goodness Christmas
Most of you boys who live on the
farm and In the small town have that
kind of home, and wonder II you
know how lucky you are? Wouldn't
you hate to wake up Christmas morn
Ing AMI look at the ceiling aud realize |
that someone else owned ii, and then
get up and 20 out in the front yard |
and realize that someone else owned !
that, too-why, you'd get so after
awhile that everything you saw you
would wonder who owned II!
tell you, boys, It's a great satsfac-
ton 10 have back yard aud to know
people into il, or invite people TO stay |
out of IT, just US you please. Why, that |
Is what brought the Pilgrim Fathers /
TO Anlerlca-they wanted q spot they
could call their own. don't say that
II was exactly hack yard they want
ed bui what they wanted was some
place they could play ball and no
lanGInnl Of a king could come along
ahC AI ~, m 10 STOP because they
mirh' freak some of the royal win
iiuvs Won know Old King George aid
s'tr' 9'' . md try to make them stop
: ~ ''r tnaw wha; happened 10 the
re ~ windows, Inm
lsLil then there Is this matter NJ
'ho,. ION know some people don't
4, ~ !! l. much Of a Christmas with
~ snow- Now. know quite lot
N ~ aX Because I've been ac-
|nn'nsc,l With a lot OF II. I have
--,r'red through II up IN the Hudson
~ s~sspirv. md I've wallowed around