1484 
W* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 29, 1924 
Boys and Girls 
By Edward M. Tuttle 
We should all be glad to be living 
In this happy time of Thanksgiving. 
Drawn by Evelyn Underwood (13 years), 
New York 
Memory Verse 
THANKSGIVING SONG 
Summer is gone, 
Autumn is here; 
This is the harvest 
For all the year. 
Corn in the crib, 
Oats in the bin. 
Wheat is all thrashed. 
Barley drawn in. 
Apples are barreled, 
Nuts laid to dry, 
Frost in the garden, 
Winter is nigh. 
Father in Heaven. 
Thank Thee for all, 
Winter and Springtime, 
Summer and Fall. 
By Lydia Avery Coonley. 
Sent by Esther Kraft (13 years). 
New York. 
Thanksgiving time has come again. 
How much we have to be thankful for—- 
health, home, family, friends, school, 
books, music, pictures, the interesting 
outdoor world, our great country ! The 
boys and girls who read Our Page may 
well stop a moment to count their bless¬ 
ings. Y'ou have opportunity to make 
something worth while of life. You may 
look ahead with confidence to the days 
and years to come if you have the will 
to use every means of growing in body, 
mind and spirit. 
There Have Been Many Letters 
Since the October page and Our Birth¬ 
day page were issued your editor has had 
many letters from readers. Y~ou will 
find nearly 200 names on the list of con¬ 
tributors on page 1492. It has been an 
especial pleasure to receive some friendly, 
personal letters in which you let me 
share your work and play, your joy and 
sorrows. I was deeply touched at a 
heart-broken letter from a girl reader 
who has been one of our most constant 
and helpful contributors. She has lost 
her father and is facing with her mother 
and brother and sisters the problem of 
keeping the farm and home going with¬ 
out his loving guidance. Yet through 
her sorrow’ there was a note of courage 
that was good to feel. When death comes 
?iear to us, as it must to all sooner or 
later, we must not give up in despair, 
but rather take a new hold on life, for 
(he sake of the dear one who has gone, 
and try all the harder to meet each day 
bravely. 
An Interesting Trip 
Since last writing to his boys and girls 
your editor has had the privilege of tak¬ 
ing a little trip to Washington. D. 0.. and 
Charlottesville. Ya. Washington is full 
of wonderful sights, as some of you know 
who have been there, and as all of you 
will discover for yourselves some day, I 
hope. There are the Capitol, the Con¬ 
gressional Library, the White House, the 
National Museum, the Washington Mon¬ 
ument. the Lincoln Memorial, Potomac, 
Rock Creek and the National Zoological 
Parks, and many, many more. Across 
the river at Arlington is the great ceme¬ 
tery, the beautiful Amphitheater, and the 
tomb of the Unknown Soldier. An hour's 
ride down the Potomac River on the Vir¬ 
ginia side is Mount Vernon, the home 
of George Washington, a wonderful place, 
indeed. It is finely kept up and is full 
of historical furnishings. In Charlottes¬ 
ville, Ya., on top of a mountain just out¬ 
side of the city, is Monticello, the home 
of Thomas Jefferson, and across the city 
from it is the famous University of Vir¬ 
ginia which Jefferson himself helped to 
found. Perhaps in some future page I 
will tell you more of what I saw ? in all 
these places. 
Fall Fun 
(An original poem.) 
Such dandy times come with the Fall. 
Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving, nut parties 
and all, 
That none can help wishing that Au¬ 
tumn were here 
With all of its holidays and its good 
cheer. 
The pumpkin is yellow, the corn’s turn¬ 
ing brown, 
The farmers all hurry their produce to 
town, 
So none can help wishing that Autumn 
were hei-e, 
With all of its good times and its good 
cheer. 
Marie Collins (14 years) 
Connecticut. 
Shall School Work be Taken as a 
Pleasure or a Duty? 
Two months ago one of our readers 
presented us with this question, and 
asked for answers. A good many replied, 
and from them your editor has selected 
a half dozen of the best. They probably in¬ 
dicate in a general way how most of us 
feel in this matter. You will note that 
the question is which way shall we take 
school work. There is no question that 
to go to school is the duty of every boy 
and girl, just as it is the duty of every 
father to earn a living for his family, 
and of every mother to keep the home 
clean and bright and wholesome. The 
point is, shall we always be thinking of 
the duty side of it as a weight upon us, 
or shall we try to look for the pleasant 
side of school life? And the answer in 
one sentence might be this: ‘‘A duty well 
and cheerfully performed becomes a 
pleasure.” But here are the letters, and 
you may decide for yourselves: 
The question Edith Burnett asked as to 
whether school should be taken as a 
pleasure or a duty is certainly a hard 
one to decide. The only way I can fig¬ 
ure it out is that school work is a duty, 
and should be done with pleasure (That’s 
a funny answer). 
Charlotte Booth (16 years) 
New York. 
As I was looking over The R. N.-Y. 
I came upon the question : “Shall school 
work be taken as a pleasure or a duty?” 
I think it should be taken as a little of 
both. Y T ou should go to school because 
it is a duty you owe to your community 
and to your country. If you do not find 
pleasure in your school and your school 
work it is not worth your while to go to 
Drawn by Anna Mayers (14 years), 
Connecticut 
school. If you can find something inter¬ 
esting in your work, and take a joy in 
learning to do something, that is the true 
spirit of school. But if you go to school 
simply because dad or mother would put 
you to work if you didn’t, that is no 
kind of way for a future II. S. citizen 
to feel. I go to school for the pleasure 
of it. and to get an education, not be¬ 
cause 1 am forced to. Rowena L. 
Maine. 
I believe school work should be regard¬ 
ed as both a pleasure and a duty. It is 
a duty to our country to gain an educa¬ 
tion. At the same time, our duties may 
be done more easily if they are regarded 
as pleasures, and school w r ork is prob¬ 
ably no exception. Don’t you boys and 
girls think that you get more out of your 
school work if you learn your lessons 
willingly and take them as pleasures, 
than if you learn them merely because 
you have to? So while school work is 
really a duty, let us also regard it as a 
pleasure. Warren Brown (16 years) 
Vermont. 
I will say that school work by all 
means be taken as a pleasure. Some 
boys and girls consider it only as a duty 
but it should be a pleasure to us that we 
are able to come to school and study and 
learn from wonderful text books under 
the guidance of wonderful teachers. If 
we take school work as a pleasure we 
can learn it all the quicker and better. 
But if it is taken as a duty it often be¬ 
comes a drag, and we do not get it so 
well. Of course it is rather hard to look 
upon certain school work as a pleasure, 
but even the hardest problem in arith¬ 
metic becomes a pleasure to us if we can 
solve it. When we like a certain subject 
it is usually a pleasure to study it, but 
it becomes our duty to study' it if we do 
not like it. 
There is still another reason why 
school work should be a pleasure. Sup¬ 
pose there were no schools or colleges or 
any other places of learning. Just try 
to picture the awfulness of such a situa¬ 
tion, boys and girls. We could not read or 
write. We would be only half civilized. 
Let us learn to love our school work, and 
do it faithfully. Only by hard, diligent 
studying can we ever expect to accomp¬ 
lish our hopes, our desires, our all, and 
become great men and women. 
Lillian Kent (16 years) 
Michigan. 
If a person is broad-minded enough he 
can easily answer the above question. I 
think school work should be taken as a 
pleasure and not as a duty. Although it 
is a duty for children under a certain 
A Flying Tackle—Drawn by Esther Herr 
(15 years), Pennsylvania 
age they should take it as a pleasure. I 
am not attending school for the reason 
that I must or am forced to do so, but 
because I am fond of school. If every 
child took school work as a pleasure this 
world would be educated. I think that 
all young people who are fitted for a 
school education should take advantage 
of it. School is certainly a pleasure, and 
1 hope that most boys and girls will look 
at it in that manner. 
Wilhelmina Rasmussen (16 years) 
New York. 
Now, in regard to school work! I 
think that we should take school work as 
a pleasure rather than as a duty. Still, 
we must not overlook the fact that we 
owe it to our parents who are farsighted 
enough to give us a good education, and 
to our country which supplies schools 
for us, to make the most of our oppor¬ 
tunities. But it is when we take our 
school work as a pleasure that the great¬ 
est good may be obtained. Experience 
teaches boys and girls that they cannot 
work well unless their hearts are in the 
work. If we allow our interest to slack¬ 
en. the quality of our work is also bound 
to slacken. Therefore. we must say to 
ourselves, “I am doing this work because 
I take pleasure in doing it,” and we shall 
be more than satisfied with the results. 
(I take the above from personal experi¬ 
ence.) Edna Wilfert (17 years) 
New York. 
A Secret the Bank Holds 
(An original poem.) 
Follow the crooked little path 
To the cool and shady spring. 
And there you will see a hole in the bank 
That contains a sleeping thing. 
This sleeping thing is Johnny Chuck 
And he prides himself on the best of luck 
For he sleeps till comes the Spring. 
Amelia Stirewalt (13 years) 
Virginia. 
A Game to Play 
We play a game at our school that we 
find very exercising and exciting. We 
call it dodge ball. We have a volley ball 
we play it with. This is the way to play 
it. 
Take hold of hands and form a circle. 
Then number ones and twos alternately 
so that each team has half the players. 
The number ones go into the circle. Then 
the number twos, who have the ball, try 
to hit one of the number ones inside the 
circle. Whenever a player is hit he joins 
the circle again. When all the number 
ones are hit then the number twos go 
into the circle and they have to dodge the 
ball thrown by the number ones. _ The 
player who stays in the longest is the 
best dodger. Orvilla Oudt (14 years) 
New York. 
At Grandma’s 
Thanksgiving Day is coming, 
And a happy girl am I, 
We’re going to my grandma’s 
Where we’ll have pumpkin pie, 
And nice turkey fixed with dressing. 
And a lot of other things— 
Right glad am I that every year 
Ai Thanksgiving dinner brings. 
Author (?) 
Sent by Anna Obuch (12 years) 
New York. 
The Great Horned Owl 
This is the correct answer to last 
month’s Nature Puzzle, but your editor 
also gave credit to any who just said 
owl. However, all of our readers should 
be familiar with the fact that there are 
many kinds of owls, and should learn to 
distinguish between them. Of them all 
the great horned owl is the only one in 
North America that is harmful to poultry, 
and it is not very common except in 
densely forested regions. Other owls are 
very beneficial birds, because of the ro¬ 
dents and insects they destroy. 
One of our readers sent a fine pencil 
sketch of a great horned owl which he 
made from a museum specimen. You 
will find it printed here with his letter. 
Several others sent drawings also. Then 
w T e have contributed the first verse of 
a famous owl poem, and another letter 
telling a few more interesting facts about 
horned owls: 
The answer to last month’s Nature 
Puzzle is the great horned owl. I am 
inclosing a drawing which I made from 
a specimen in the museum in Poughkeep¬ 
sie. The horned owl is not very common 
around this section. The largest ow r l I 
have seen around here is the barred owl. 
Of course the screech owl is quite com¬ 
mon. 
I close with best wishes for Our Page 
and especially the Nature Puzzle in 
which I am very interested. 
New York. Henry Iviemle. 
In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower, 
The spectral owl doth dwell; 
Dull, hated, despised in the sunshine hour 
But at dusk he’s abroad and well! 
Not a bird of the forest e’er mates with 
him— 
All mock him outright by day; 
But at night, when the woods grow still 
and dim, 
The boldest will shrink away. 
Oh, when the night falls, and roosts the 
fowl, 
Then, then is the reign of the horned 
owl. 
From The King of the Night, 
By Barry Cornwall. 
Sent by Elizabeth Iloban (13 years) 
New York. 
The answ r er to the Nature Puzzle is the 
great horned owl. It eats field mice, rab¬ 
bits, birds and young chickens. All the 
indigestible parts of the food, such as 
feathers, bones and skins, are vomited up 
again in small pellets. Many of these 
pellets may be found under the owl’s 
roost. Horned owls hunt only at night. 
Their method of hunting is to sit very 
quietly on a stump or dead tree and hoot 
loudly. This frightens small animals, 
Draion by Henry Kiemle, New York 
and of course they stir or rustle a leaf. 
With his sharp ears “Hooty,” as we chil¬ 
dren call him, hears that small noise and 
flies on swift but silent wings to grab 
his prey. Janet Rose (11 years) 
New York. 
It is true that the horned owl hoots 
in a deep, loud tone, but the name hoot 
owl is commonly given to another and 
more familiar species, the barred owl. 
A New Nature Puzzle 
This plant grows in waste places on a 
green stalk two feet high or more. In 
the late Summer or early Fall it has 
two, three or four big .bulgy green seed 
