Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1920-12-17

R/dT A city Christmas is
u. q make-believe, a hollow
.kery, false alarm, an imitation.
we tried both kinds, and so know.
,ity Christmas has all the tin and
lei, and that is all. By the time
get as old and feel as young as
Il. you find most of the plate worn
onestly, boys (and girls), I don't
k Santa Claus himself ever feels
much at home except on rural
e He has mighty poor job in
town, with hueS instead of CHM
and everything. And it is hard
&c where he gets room to turn
and eight reindeer around, tiny
leer though they may be. He'll be
y certain ~ bump into a hydrant
p over on curb.
id with twenty families all using
tiue (and, what is worse, soft
1lue at that how in the world
Ie most experienced Santa going
nd which is Browns and which is
dis, and where the Greens live?
II if he dared rap and ask (Which
Santa Claus is ever supposed to
nobody could tell him. For per-
IS the Browns and the Smiths have
7er met" and the Greens might
across the hall for a month be-
G anybody thought to- inquire their
me.
For that is one thing you don't get
UGH of in the city-neighbOrs. Some
mes when the woman across the
Dad keeps running in just when your
nOther is canning, or baking, or treat
ng a shirt-bosom kindly but firmly
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 a fresh lot of playmates-and
sometimes they are mighty fresh
lot, too. OF course there are some
good kids, also; but it always seems
that just when you get to liking some
Tow up the street or across the alley,
a. ndlord 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
1t 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
VI 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 q funny thing about city folks:
they are always going somewhere and
never getting anywhere. Why, even
if the landlord didn't raise the rent
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
aorse. They have the most wonderful
collection of rent receipts, but not a
foot of ground, not roof or rafter,
they can call their own.
Now, l don't know what you think,
but / think that every family ought to
have q house of its own, house it
lives in year after year. That Is, of
course, unless the father has some
sort of job that makes it necessary for
him to move to some other town every
other year or so. But 1t is great
thing to live in a home, not just
house, and that is about the best place,
and the only place, to have a Christ
mas, 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 l wonder If you
know how lucky you are? Wouldn't
you hate to wake up Christmas morn
ing and look at the ceiling and realize
that soIilc me else owned it, and then
get up and go 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 it!
/ tell you, boys, it's great satisfac-
ton to have back yard and to know
it's yours, and that you can invite
people into it, or invite people to stay
out of it, just as you please. Why, that
is what brought the Pilgrim Fathers
TO America-they wanted a spot they
could call their own. don't say that
it was exactly back yard they want
ed. but what they wanted was some
place they could play ball and no
landlord of a king could come along
and tell them to stop because they
might break some of the royal win
dows. You know old King George did
come alovg and try to make them stop
and you know what happened to the
royal windows. Fam!
And then there is this matter of
snow. You know some people don't
think it is much of Christmas with