The Missouri herald., 1922-05-12
FLOATING ANOTHER BOAT.

his tight canoe" on the crested
wave of journalism, being now ed
itor and publisher of the Steele En-
terprise. In two ways Mr.. York IL
now nearer home than he has been
for long time. In the first in
stance, Steele is the neighborhood
of his first acquaintedness with Mis-
souri, and Missourians, which dates
back to the fall of 1894, about twen-
ty-eight years. In the second place,
he is nearer home in his work than
he has been since he sold "The Hayti
Herald" about seven years ago and
became wanderer on the face OF
the earth, going from place to place
as journeyman printer and limo
type operator, following that ignis-
fat,ius that leads after, but never
to, the better perspective. All roads
that he followed, like the needle of
the compass, pointed ever the same
course; hence his arrival at his
starting point of over quarter of a
century ago. Steele, then in the
woods, was the hunters paradise.
but little of nature is left to tell of
those vanished days. With the dis
appearance of the tall and stately
forest trees have also disappeared
most of the pioneers, and the SOUND
of the hunters horn is heard no
more. A verse that applies ia an
other race and far more ancient
time, is also not out of place here:
You say they have all passed away.
The noble race, and brave;
| That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;
| That in the forest where they roamed
Is heard no hunters shout
| But their names are on your waters
And you cannot wash them out
After so far journey, not always
over smooth roads, the returned
travellers feet may be a little
bruised, his hair little hoar, and
his heart little sore, for those are
the fruits that grow most abundant
ly by the side of the road Of life. But
the gathering of these mean knowl-
edge, sometimes deeper love and
sometimes a satisfaction that we
could not otherwise have; for he
who knows only the path from his
cabin door to the spring and back
has a narrow vision of this big,
roaring, rushing, traffic-mad world
that rolls on as we roll off into OBJ
livion. So it is we'll, sometimes, that
a man has travelled, has reached the
end of his rope, has. ceased to drag
and has begun to dig, maybe at the
very spot where he dug first, where
his pick has lain and rusted through
the years.
We note that Mr. York recalls
that he floated over the townsite of
Steele in a Mississippi river ferry
boat in March, 1897, twenty-five
years ago, to which the editor Of
The Missouri Herald adds his cor
roboration, though we were not one
of the party to make the trip on that
occasion from Pemiscot bayou to
Cottonwood Point. We would say
may it never happen again, but as
we recall it now, "those were the
days"
1t requires no stretching of the
world has rotated since then, and
has whirled so fast that many of us
have been slung off to disappear
among the twinkling stars and the
great silence that lies beyond. Those
of us who are left have learned, let
us hope, to clutch the tighter to our
seats and dodge the tails of the COM
cts and meteoric rocks with which
we are necessarily bombarded.
We hope Mr.. York will now be
able to anchor his boat at Steele and,
as Noah, after his voyage of the
worlds greatest flood, find safe
landing, and there begin anew the
replenishment of the earth and his
pocketbook. Noah did not set out
for Ararat, neither did York for
Steele. But.
"One ship drives East, another drives
West,
AS the selfsame breeZes blow.
It's the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way we go.
Like the waves of the wind are the
waves of fateS
AS we journey along through life.
It's the set of the soul that determines
the goal
And not the storm and strifen