Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1922-12-14

HwNrV o,a,,a ny ~, no,,o,
mooAv.y, a .alse alarm, an imitation.
have tried both kinds, and so know.
A city Christmas has all the tin and
tinsel, and that Is ali. BY the time
you get as old and feel as young as /
! am, you find most of the plate worn I
off.
Honestly. boys land girls), / don't
think Santa Claus himself ever feels
very much at home except on rural
route He has a mighty poor job In
big town, with iiues instead OF Chin
neys, and everything. And It 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 tiue land, what Is worse. soft
coal fiue 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 liver
Even II 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 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 q 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 fresh lot Of playmates-and
sometimes they are 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
Ii 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
factores-and you never see him again
or any of his folks.
The boys you know this Christmas
: probably won't he around at all next
Christmas If you live in the city. That
is a funny thing about CITY folks I:
: they are always going somewhere and
never getting anywhere. Why even
IL the landlord didn't raise the rent
: October ! 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 / don't know what you think,
: but think that every family ought to
: have house of its own, a house II
: lives in year after year That is, OF
9 course, unless 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 q great
: thing to live In a home, not just 9
: house. and that is about the best place
and the only place, to have 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 ! wonder II 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 it, and Their
: get up and 90 out in the front YARD
: and realize that someone else owned
: that, too-why. you'd get so after
: awhile that, everything you saw, yOr
would wonder who owned It'll
: 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 II. or invite people to sta,
: out of 1t. just as you please. Why. tina
: is what brought the Pilgrim Fathers
= 10 America-they wanted a spot the,
So could call their own. ! don't say tina
: II was exactly back yard they want
= ed. but what they wanted was som.
: place they could play ball and ~
landlord of a king could come alonl
: and tell them to stop because the.
: might break some of the royal win
: dows. You know old King George III,
come along and try TO make them stol
: and you know what happened to tn
- royal windows. Zaml
And then there Is this matter O
: snow. You know some people DON
: think II Is much of a Christmas with
: out snow. Now. | know quite 10
: about snow because I've been az
quainted with lot of II. hav
: tramped through II up in the Hudso
Bay country. and I've wallowed aroun