314 
February 23, 1924 
qhe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Pastoral Parson and His Country Folks 
By Rev. George B. Gilbert 
The Skating Season. — Yes, the 
boys are in the full swing of skating and 
how nice the pond we made has been for 
them; to have them skating right out 
here by the house instead of being away 
off somewhere. No ice to harvest yet 
but there is five inches over there and 
we hope to get some in a few days. They 
have found out a great way to sharpen 
their skates. You get a good-sized round 
file—about an 8-inch size—and put it 
between two boards or strips about halt 
an inch down from the edges of the 
boards, and screw it up tight in the 
bench vise. Then take the skate and run 
it back and forth in this little valley 
with the file at the bottom and the strips 
making the sides. Talk, about sharp 
skates, and they will stay sharp toi 
such a long time, too. _ . ... 
Hard Work. — Skating is certainly 
hard w'ork or rather hard play. v\ hen 
a boy gets around 12 or 13, how much 
he needs a man about. Boys some way 
turn from womankind, however kind, to 
menkind at about that age. At this 
time they tend to get saucy to then 
mother and a “smart aleck ’ streak comes 
over them. Clossie has been having a 
very bad attack of this malady. His 
mother speaks to him and he womd seem 
to fly all to pieces. So irritable. A boy 
at that age doesn’t know himself, lhe 
Parson had a nice little talk with lum 
yesterday. Yon can talk with a boy like 
that all right-only do it by himself He 
is dreadfully sensitive to ridicule How 
terrible it is the way so many bawl a 
boy out—or a girl either—right befoie 
other people. Then they wonder why 
bovs and girls take no interest in the 
home affairs and want to leave home. 
When a man yells at a boy lie pays a ter¬ 
rible price for it later. It is the most 
expensive thing he can do. . 
New Jersey.— The Parson is getting 
acquainted more and more with Jersey 
folks and more and more he likes them, 
lie was down to Trenton for a part of 
farmers’ week and attended and spoke at 
the meeting of the Federated 1 own and 
Country Church folks. In this State we 
tried to have meetings and convention^ 
of what we called the rural ministers but 
it was hard to get many together. Tim 
Parson sees now our mistake. Iiiei 
is a very small number of strictly open 
country ministers and their n «“ b er lb 
very rapidly growing smallei. l ien too 
the town'and country church work is de- 
(ridedlv interwoven and really piacticalty 
•ill of the work done in the country is 
being done and will have to be done by 
those living in nearby villages. There 
are 102,000 town and country churches 
in this country. But they are poorly 
distributed without any regard to Lie 
need. In some places a chmch to JO 
folks and in others a church to 10.000 
Seven out of a hundred country villages 
have no church and more than one-third 
have no minister and only one out of five 
has the full time of a country minister. 
It is estimated that it would take .»4.000 
more ministers to put one in every coun¬ 
try village. A great many of these 
church buildings need sifting out and 
should be made into libraries or com- 
munity houses and at least two-thirds of 
those kept as churches should be made 
° V Isolation Gone— One man at this 
convention gave quite a talk on hov the 
isolation of the country was gone To 
be sure it is not as bad as it used to be. 
The tether of the farmer has been won¬ 
derfully lengthened by the auto and the 
telephone. The Parson’s opinion is that 
the ’nhone is a tremendous benefit while 
often the auto is rather the reverse. 
Some bovs want to run the auto all the 
time and it costs so much more to run a 
car than one thinks when it is bought. 
Of course the Parson gets some auto 
mileage allowance from the missionary 
society he works for and that is a great 
help ' We kept pretty careful account of 
the monev paid out on the cars last year 
_the Ford and the Chandler. It came to 
a little over $500. That is a lot ol 
money to lay out in a year on cars But 
of course the cars help us to pick up 
quite a little going around giving com¬ 
munity socials and parties. Besides a 
car in a family where there is not un¬ 
limited money is apt to be a lot of worry. 
The danger of getting killed or killing 
others is always a nightmare. But when 
it comes to the ’phone everything is in its 
favor. The company pays the expense. 
It is the greatest boon to women. They 
can visit over it to the joy of the other 
subscribers on the line; when lonesome 
they can just run to the ’phone and cali 
up a relative or neighbor. It is a great 
thing for the young folks; the girls beaus 
• can ’phone to them. The young people 
do not feel so cut off. They will be will¬ 
ing to stay in the country longer. Then 
as a matter of health, it is wonderful to 
have a ’phone in the house and be con¬ 
nected up with a doctor. A clinical ther¬ 
mometer and some castor oil and some 
fever medicine and some mustard and 
some iodine and some good common sense 
and a talk with the doctor and a family 
can do a good deal toward getting well 
by ’phone if anyone gets sick. 
A Printing Press. —Some time ago 
the Parson had a letter from one Walter 
Jacques of Newark, N. J., in which Mr 
Jacques most kindly offered to give the 
Parson for the use of the boys a hand 
printing press and a tine lot of type of 
various kinds. lie even paid the freight, 
on it and sent the Parson some money to 
buy such things as were needed, like pa¬ 
per, to get it going. The whole thing 
weighed 2.200. Then, through the cor¬ 
respondence that followed, Mr. Jacques 
offered ,if we could get no one else, to 
come and show the boys how to use it. He 
was to stay here at our house. He could 
not come till warm weather as his health 
was not of the best. After this we wrote 
him and wrote him and wrote him and 
never could get any reply. The letters 
were not returned and it appears that 
someone got them. A local printer 
showed us something about how it worked 
but we have never made any use of it, 
no snow ice on top. Such ice is really 
too thin to put in and all you can say of 
it is that it might turn out better than 
none. Yesterday however we got quPe 
a lot of very good frosty six-inch ice. As 
the Parson did not get in till two o’clock 
the night before we did not get a ve y 
good early start. We could get about 
00 more cakes in the icehouse, and want 
to fill it-just as full as we can, as a neigh¬ 
bor is going in with us and no doubt we 
shall lose a good deal of it. Not being 
able to pack it down for good yet. we 
cover it up with old canvas when there 
comes a thaw, and it is most all thaw 
this year, then uncover it on frosty 
nights. 
The Pond. —One thing is certain ; if it 
had not been for the pond, the boys and 
the Parson made, we would not have had 
any ice so far. That pond is the great¬ 
est thing on the farm, possibly barring 
the crop of young ones. The Parson feels 
like running around among all the coun¬ 
try folk and urging them to make a 
pond on the farm somewhere. It used to 
be always “making dams” with the Par¬ 
son but now he is switched over to dig¬ 
ging out ponds. If half the energy had 
been put in digging out a pond down on 
the flats by the brook on the old farm in 
Vermont that was put in making dams 
The Beginning of a Trained Nurse 
and it doesn’t look as though we should. 
We feel very badly about this as this 
man was very fond of this outfit and 
wanted someone to have it who would 
appreciate it. It was evident he had 
taken the very best of care of it for many 
years, even loving care. 
Has Its Use. —It would seem now as 
though none of the Parson’s family would 
ever use it. In a big town, like the one 
near us, with many modern printing out¬ 
fits, with all electric and modern equip¬ 
ment, it would seem that a small hand 
press could hardly compete with them. 
In a smaller village that had no such 
outfits a man, especially an older man, 
who understood the business might well 
make a good living. Unfortunate as it 
would seem, in these days, everything 
tends toward big combinations and the 
small unit finds it hard to compete. Some 
of this is unpacked and the best way to 
move it again would be by auto truck. 
The Parson now thinks he would prob¬ 
ably pass it on to anyone who thinks 
they could use it as the original owner 
wished. Perhaps some one knows some¬ 
thin^ about this man and could write to 
The Rural New-Yorker office. In his 
last letter, that we ever got, he spoke of 
the possibility of his going South for his 
health. 
The Ice Crop.—A week later, and 
here it is Sunday afternoon, the tenth of 
February. The Parson started down coun¬ 
try and' Old Jim balled up and slipped 
so", and there was so much ice under 
the three or four inches of snow—and it 
was snowing hard—that he turned about 
and came home. It is growing warmer 
and turning to rain and the Parson went 
over to the ice house and covered up the 
ice with a canvas. There may be better 
ice yet but we have not dared to delay as 
the sun is getting high. Ice is ic-e this 
year, so far at least. The big commer¬ 
cial houses about here are not filled at all 
as yet. We cut some six-inch ice about 
three weeks ago, but the thermometer 
jumped to 50 above by noon and we had 
to quit. Then about a week later we 
cut some five-inch ice. this was good and 
find it all too easy. Why say “no” till 
we say to ourselves, “Why not?” The 
very fact that he wants to do a thing is 
not a- reason why he shouldn’t but a rea¬ 
son why he should. And what makes a 
home different from any other place, 
what makes a home a home? A man re¬ 
marked to the Parson the other day, 
“You don’t seem to have any trouble get¬ 
ting your boys to stay at home.” The 
Parson had not especially thought of it 
either way, but it really seems to him 
that it would be something of a job for 
anyone to lure them away from home. 
The swimming hole and the skating pond 
and the popcorn by the old kitchen stove 
and jumping up from the table and mak¬ 
ing a cup of cocoa when they want and 
the handiness to the bread box, these 
are things that make a home for a boy. 
But about that taffy. Clossie declares 
he has already stirred it over half an 
hour and it won't “come.” He is call¬ 
ing for lemon but Mrs. Parson says he 
will have to put in some vinegar. Mrs. 
Parson has now begun to stir up some 
cakes for supper and Mr. Parson asks if 
there is any maple syrup left. Mrs. Par¬ 
son looks inquiringly at Clossie who is 
still stirx-ing the taffy. Yes, there was a 
little syrup left but as there was but 
little molasses in the jug, Clossie poured 
the last of the maple syrup in with it. 
Well, well, never mind. There is a jar 
of lovely grape jelly that a good woman 
down country donated the other day and 
we will have that on the cakes. 
That Settee. —But to return to New 
Jersey. The Parson goes down there for 
a three days speaking tour the last of 
this month and also for the minister’s 
school at New Brunswick next June be¬ 
ginning the sixteenth, Monday and last¬ 
ing for five days. Try to get your min¬ 
ister and his wife to come to this school 
if you live in or near New Jersey. They 
will know how to tell stories, use pic¬ 
tures, and give some great community 
socials when they come back. The Par¬ 
son will probably be free about three 
evenings that week for speaking any¬ 
where in that section. It was down in 
Jersey that the young minister went off 
and heard a great sermon by a preacher 
who was rather dramatic. “What better 
can I do than give my people this very 
thing, acting, stunts and all” said he to 
himself. So next Sunday he started in 
passing out the other fellow’s dope. Now 
at one point in the sermon he was sup¬ 
posed to throw himself down violently 
on the end of a settee such as stands 
back of so many pulpits. Now the set¬ 
tee back of his pulpit happened to have 
casters and the other fellow’s didn’t!!! 
The congregation got a good deal more 
of an illustration than was expected. The 
minister and the settee went right over 
the end of the platform, the minister 
landing on the floor and the settee on top 
of him. No doubt the point he was mak¬ 
ing was well driven home. 
there would have been a rival to Lake 
Champlain. A brook either washes the 
dam away completely or else it fills it up 
with mud. Dig out a hole and let a little 
of the brook run down into it from up 
above if you can. You make a little 
pond for this in the brook if need be, and 
no matter if it fills up with mud, so much 
the better. How handy it has been to 
get the ice right by the house in our own 
pond ; it didn’t seem like any work at all 
this year. And such a time as the boys, 
especially Clossie, have had skating on the 
pond and right where we can see and 
the pond so safe—about five feet in the 
deepest part in Winter. What a lot of 
ice can be got from a comparatively 
small pond. Then we had another big 
surprise when we got up on the flats. We 
had heard all sorts of ideas on how deep 
a pond had to be to saw ice, three feet, 
four feet, no one said two feet. As a 
matter of fact we cut right along w r here 
there is not more than a very few inches 
of water under the ice. To be sure the 
saw goes down into the soft mud quite a 
ways but this does not seem to hurt any¬ 
thing. The Parson could not understanl 
what made the end of the new cross-cut 
saw so shiny till he thought of how it 
goes down in the mud. We mark both 
ways with a horse ice-plow, saw one way, 
and cut the other with a crow bar, so 
really there is very little to saw, one 
man sawing can keep four other men 
and two teams busy. The Parson uses 
an ice shaver in packing and fills all the 
cracks with shaved ice, as there is no 
snow to use for this. When this is done 
well, he doesn’t bother much about break¬ 
ing joints. 
Clossie and Taffy. —As the Parson 
is sitting here writing, Clossie is making 
some fudge. He seems to be having a 
dreadful time at it and constantly yells 
for his mother’s advice. The Parson 
heard him ask if there was. any molasses 
in the jug. The answer being that there 
was a little, the next question -was 
“Could he make some fudge.” Mrs. Par¬ 
son told him he could. It is too easy to 
say no all the time, so many mothers 
A Legal Fee 
Chaunc-y M. Depew in his autobio- 
graphv tells of one of the first legal cases 
he handled. Some well-to-do man had an 
involved case covering quite a little prop¬ 
erty. Mr. Depew spent much time dig¬ 
ging out the law, and presented a bill 
for $5. • 
“That’s too much for a young fellow, 
said the client. “I’ll give you $3,” and 
he did-. . _ , 
Later this man was not quite satisfied, 
so he went to a famous lawyer with the 
same case. This man told him just ex¬ 
actly what Depew had done, and charged 
him $150. Reputation is a great asset. 
One of our readers, an expert farmer, met 
a lawyer friend on the street. The lawyer 
opened first. 
•“John, I have a piece of preperty l 
want to sell. All around the house is 
bare ground instead of a fine lawn. We 
cannot seem to make grass grow there. 
It would add 50 per cent to the value if 
I had a good lawn. How can I fix that 
land?” 
John explained carefully how to use 
lime and bone meal and what seed to use. 
“Thank you,” said the lawyer, “have 
a glass of sode with me.” lie put John’s 
advice in practice and made a great suc¬ 
cess of the lawn. A few months later the 
same men met on the street. This time 
John wanted a little advice. 
“Say Henry, I have a neighbor who is 
troubling me about a line fence. Can he 
put a barbed wire on top without my 
consent?” 
“He can, but you can get damages if 
your stock are hurt—that is if you do 
not give consent to the barbed wire.” 
“All right, thank you—I brought in a 
bushel of apples for you. Left them at 
the house.” 
At the end of the month John received 
a bill about as follows: 
For legal advice. $10. 
John was no fool if he was a farmer. 
He promptly made out another bill and 
mailed it to Henry: 
For advice about soil, $15. 
Neither bill was ever paid. 
The Actor: “Yes. sir, some one 
aimed a base, cowardly egg at me.” 
The Other: “And what kind of an egg 
is that?” The Actor: “A base, cowardly 
egg is one that hits you—and then runs.” 
—Sydney Bulletin. 
