The herald., 1920-12-16

HOChCIy, ldlSe alarm, an imitation
/ 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), l don't
think Santa Claus himself ever feels
very much at home except on a rural
route! He has a mighty poor job in a
big town, with flues instead of Chin
neys, and everything. And it is hard
to see where he gets room to turn q
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 a curb.
And with twenty families all using
one tlue (and, what is worse, soft
coal 1lue 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 q Shirt-bOsom kindly but firmly
with a fiat-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 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
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
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 1 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 a
foot of ground, not a roof or rafter,
they can call their own.
Now, 1 don't know what you think,
but think that every family ought to
have a house Of its own, a house 1t
lives in year after year. That is, of
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 1t is a great
thing to live In a home, not Just a
house, and that is about the best place,
and the only place, to have a Christ
mas, a 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 someone else owned 1t, and then
get up and 60 out in the 'front.' yard
and realize that someone else owned
hat, too-why, you'd get so after
awhile that everything you saw, you
would wonder who owned It'll
tell you, boys, it's a great satisfac-
ion to have back yard and to know
ts yours, and that you can invite |
people into it, or invite people to stay
'ut of ii, just as you please. Why, that
s what brought the Pilgrim Fathers !
% America-they wanted a spot they
'ould call their own. / don't say that
{ was exactly back yard they want
I'd. but what they wanted was some
'lace they could play ball and no
andlord Of a king could come along
md tell them to stop because they
night break some of the royal win
lows. You know old King George did
'ome along and try to make them stop
and you know what happened to the
'oyal windows. ZamI
And then there is this matter Of
now. You know some people don't
hink 1t is much Of a Christmas with
'ut snow. Now. ! know quite a LOT
lbout snow because I've been ac-
luainted with a lot Of Il. I have
ramped through IT up in the Hudson
Bay country. and I've walowed around
n 1t In the summertime on top of the
Rocky mountains. And want to fell