The Wrangell sentinel., 1920-12-23

l 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 I am. you find most of the plate worn of.
 Honestly, boys (and girls), I don't think Santa Claus himself ever feels very much at home except on a rural route He has a mighty poor job In big town, with flues instead of chim- 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 hydrant or tip over on a curb.
 And with twenty families all using one fiue (and, what is worse, soft coal flue 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 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-nelghbors. Some times when the woman across the road keeps running in just when your mother is canning, or baking, or treat ing shirt-bosom kindly. but firmly with a flat-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 a fresh lot of playmates-and sometimes they are a mighty fresh lot, too. Of course there are some good kids, also; but 1t 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
 
 him again. He may move only from one side of the city to the other, but 1t might as we'll be to another state. It 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 a funny thing about city folks {: they are always going somewhere and never getting anywhere. Why. even if the landlord didn't raise the rent October l or May l 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 a foot of ground. not a roof or rafter, they can call their own.
 Now. I don't know what you think, but think that every family ought to have a house of It's own, house 1t lives in year after year. That Is, of course, unless the father has some sort of job that makes 1t necessary for him to move to some other town every other year or so. But it is a great thing to live In a home, not just a house and that is about the best place, 1 and the only place, to have a Christ mas. real. sure-enough. honest-to- goodness Christmas.
 Most of you boys who live on the 1 farm and fin the small town have that kind of home, and I 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 someone else owned 1t, 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 1t! | tell you, boys, its a great satisfac- tion to have a back yard and to know it's yours. and that you can invite | people into 1t, 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 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 along 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 1t Is much of a Christmas with out snow. Now. l know quite a lot about snow because I've been ac. quainted with a lot of 1t. have tramped through 1t up in the Hudson Bay country. and I've widowed around in 1t in the summertime on top of the | Do toln kn kn1v