The Glenwood post., 1923-05-10
u,cIe Tets Bed Tine Stories
Current Events for the Children
and Grown-ups, Too
A STORY ON COMMUNISM

"Gee! Goody, Goody! I'm ahead"
It was Ruth shouting as she danced
across the sitting room.
'Ahead of what:' asked Uncle
Ted, looking up from his paper.
"Ahead of Jack in money in the
savings bank,' replied Ruth. "Jack
has been ahead of me for quite a
while, but l got anead of him today.
I've got $56.40 and he has only $500
Mrs. Smith gave me so cents today for
taking care of her baby while she
went down town and now Pm ahead"
"Well, you won't be ahead long,"
ehimed in Jack, with a not altogether
satified look on his face. "Spring
is here and soon I will get lot of
jobs moving lawns and raking up trash
in peoples yards, and then 1 III get a
long way ahead of you"
"You may earn more than 1 do, but
you won't save any more,' responded
Ruth. "You always spend more than
I do"
elbow would it do to have just one
savings bank account and both of you
put your earnings in that account and
when either of you spends anything,
draw it out of your joint account"
inquired Uncle Ted.
"No, no, no,' exclaimed both Of
the children in unison.
"I should think you would like
that, Jack, because Ruth has the most
money saved up to put into the joint
account, and, besides, if you spend
the most, as she says you do, you
would have larger account to draw
on" suggested Uncle Ted.
"Well, I want to have something
to show for what I do, and if I spend
too much, don't want sister coming
around complaining about it.''
''And I dom It want any joint ac-
count, either" added Ruth. "I m
saving up so I can take trip to the
Grand Canon and the Yellowstone and
the other national parks. I don It
think Jack would spend more than his
share, even if we did have joint ac-
count, but if we kept our money to-
gether we wouldn It try so hard to get
little jobs to earn money, and we d be
tempted to spend more so as to keep
even with each other.''
"Well, well, you are not commun-
lists, are you, you little rascals?'
commented Uncle Ted.
"What's communism" asked
Ruth. "I never heard of such n
thing"
Communists are people who be-
1ieve in all working together and own
ing their property in common. That is
the way they are trying to do things
over in Russia now, although I suspect
that even the people who teach COM
munsm are not practicing it very
faithfully. The people who have hold
of the savings are pretty sure to be
living off the fat of the land while
the real working people go hungry.
So the people who cannot control the
savings are pretty sure not to work as
hard as they would otherwise.''
"Of course, there is lot of injus-
tice under our present way of running
things here in the United States. Some
people get too much and others have
too l,ttle-''
81 think Ruth got too much today
when she took care of Mrs. Smith g
baby" interrupted Jack. "Mrs
Smith was only gone half hour and
she gave Ruth so cents. That is Mt
the rate of dollar an hour, and
Ruth's time isn't worth it,
"Mrs. Smith is a better judge of
that than you are, Jack. She may
have been paying something extra be-
cause of Ruth IS even disposition and
her dependability. When some one is
willing to pay high price for some
other PERSONS services, it is pretty
good evidence that they are worth it.
Some day you may be a great lawyer
and people may be willing to pay you
$4,000 n year just as a retainer, even
if you do no actual work. If they do,