Buy tires as you 
buy livestock 
All horses have four legs. All tires are made 
up of rubber and layers of cotton cord or fab¬ 
ric. 
But all horses are not equally valuable—-and 
neither are all tires. 
A horse of good blood and breeding is nat¬ 
urally worth more than a “plug.” If you were 
offered your choice at the same price there isn’t 
any doubt which one you would take. 
Why not buy tires with the same sound j,udg- * 
ment? 
v For a quarter of a century Kelly-Springfield 
tires have been recognized as the “blooded 
stock” of the tire world. The Kelly tires of 
today are the best we have ever made, yet now, 
because of greatly increased production in our 
huge new plant, 
It costs no more to buy a Kelly 
KELLY—TIRES 
American Agriculturist, February 23, 19 ] 
A Fireside Reflection 
End of a Man Who Was Selfish, Wicked and Crut 
T his is not a 
true story save 
in rather shadowy outline. In my boy¬ 
hood I knew the man who has suggested to 
me the story of David but I shall not tell his 
name or give any hint that might identify 
him or recall him to remembrance, al¬ 
though if I did it would not matter, for 
there is no one who would trouble to de¬ 
fend bis memory. He bore an honored 
Puritan name and sprang from a line of 
forbears who had been men of affairs, 
prominent and looked up to in the County 
for a hundred years. They had been 
godly men and well beloved who lived 
truly and well and served their generation 
in their time but he was hard and selfish 
and wicked and cruel and feared not God 
neither regarded man, so that at length 
men came to speak of him by a bitter 
phrase that I will not repeat. 
Yet he was, according to his light, a 
good farmer and made money from the 
soil and robbed the widow and the father¬ 
less and prospered according to his kind 
and lived to be old and died ,as he had 
lived with his face not toward the light 
and went out into the darkness alone. 
That was almost forty years ago. 
I was just a little lad beside my father's 
door when I used to see Old David riding 
past but I knew what men whispered 
concerning him and I thought him a man 
forgotten of God and accursed. So to¬ 
night I revive again his memory and claim 
the right to tell of his passing and to add 
thereto some details which no one can 
ever know—for this is the unquestioned 
privilege of the teller of tales. 
The farm where he dwelt lay some¬ 
where (it does not matter just where) on 
the Eastern New York Plateau and it 
was a dimpled land with broad, pleasant, 
rolling fields lying in the lap of the hills. 
Some of the hills were high but they were 
smooth and rounded so that men tilled 
them to their summits and they were full 
of limestone pebbles so that alfalfa grew 
surely and easily wherever one cast seed. 
It was a good and generous soil that 
brought forth ungrudgingly and on these 
fields his fathers had lived and wrought 
since Colonial days. . 
By JARED VAN WAGENEN, Jr. substantial as 
its builder. 
The last owner was in many ways 
worthy representative of the family 
He was neither a miser nor a spend thfj 
nor a sluggard nor a drunkard. He \r 
just selfish and wicked and ruthless 
hard and now, well past the four-seo 
years, he was about to die. He had liv 
a* lonely man so long that men con 
hardly remember when things had bee 
otherwise, but up in the burial-pla 
among the other Burlingames was 
woman’s grave. The atone above it 
etched and mellowed by the suns ai 
frosts of sixty years but one might s 
read there that her name was Esther- 
that she was wife to David—that her a 
was twenty-four years and that her 
was with the Lord. There was no 
living who could say that he remember* 
her but it was pleasant to believe that 
was a sweet and loyal woman, loving 
beloved, and it was a bit of gracious cha 
ity to believe that perhaps David mig 
have walked another and better path hi 
Esther remained to bear him company, 
The first Burlingame, according to the 
custom of his time, had set apart a little 
square of ground—a pleasant .spot crown¬ 
ing a hillock—had fenced it with-a high 
stone wall and in thought at least had 
consecrated it forever and here they 
buried their dead. 
Thus it came to pass that in time they 
made a goodly and rather numerous com¬ 
pany—these Burlingame men and women 
lying there in dignified, orderly array, 
each with the feet toward the East as the 
Christian dead of all the centuries lie so 
that on the Resurrection Morning each 
one might stand erect with his face toward 
the sunrise and Jerusalem and the Great 
Judge ready to give answer concerning 
the deeds done in the body. You might 
read there cut in the burial slabs their age 
and brief bits of their history. Most of 
them were old, for they were a hardy, 
virile race, but here and there under 
stones smaller than the rest lay infants 
for whom mothers had wept unavailing 
tears, nor were there lacking memorials 
to sons and daughters cut down in their 
morning. 
They were a godly race—stern, perhaps, 
but sure of their faith and their integrity 
and on their stones were graven quaint 
old pious rhymes and Scriptural texts 
and, strangest of all, perhaps, David’s 
father, a worn old man going down into 
the grave, had caused to be set above him 
a phrase which seemed a sort of last word 
—a defiant, ringing challenge flung out 
to a faithless world: “I SHALL ARISE.” 
The farmhouse had been built in the 
days when labor was abundant and tim¬ 
ber without value and it had been a fa¬ 
mous country mansion in its time and 
now after near a hundred years it still 
stood plain and square and solid and 
David had been ill for almost a wee 
Four days before the doctor had be* 
called—the first time he had nee* 
medical care since the far-off day w 
he had measles in his mother’s arms, 
he came of a tough-fibered race and b 
never known anything except abounds 
health. The doctor, like his patient, tv 
old but he belonged to the type of a 
who never lay down the burden until 1 
end. He was a busy man, hard-bitten 
many years of country driving, carefe 
of roads or weather and he still cared 
a scattered country practice that cover 
many square miles. However rudimet 
tary his school training might seem 
compared with our standards, it was 
least as good as any available in his til 
and any deficiencies in this respect n 
amply atoned for by many years of experi 
ence coupled with a sure medical sen 
and aptitude for his profession. 
At his first visit he had no difficulty 
diagnosing the malady. To him it hi 
seemed evident from the first mome 
that in the case of a man of eighty.fi 
with pneumonia of both lungs there cod 
be only one conclusion; nevertheless, 
acted upon the fine code of his professi 
which bade him steadfastly fight for 13 
and never give up the struggle until 
was ended. So immediately following 
first visit he had wired to a profession 
friend in the city asking for a train 
nurse—the very best that could be foun 
and six hours later he had met her at 
train and driven her out to the farm an 
had seen her installed at her task, 
himself had been calling twice a day 
This afternoon he was making 
second visit. The sunset of the shof 
February day was drawing on. It 
what men call a hard winter. The sno 
lay deep and drifted over valley, hill at 
wood and the coming night promised 
be one of bitter cold. He tied his hoi 
to the h itching-post by the gate as 
walked up the path to the door. T 
doctor was thoughtful that night an 
noted the farmstead and its surrounding 
Nowhere did he see evidences of neglf 
or decay. The grim old man in the grfl 
bed upstairs might be sick unto dea 
but the well-ordered farm carried on 
if the hand of the master still guided 
every affair. Age had brought to 
house only dignity rather than decs 
It was well-painted and in perfect reps 
and the polished old window' pai 
gleamed in the late afternoon sunl$ 
Behind the house rose the big red gam! 
roofed barn—a later addition to the fai 
Nowhere could he see a missing clapboai 
or a sagging gate. He looked off acrt 
the rolling fields. There were no scrag? 
fence rows and the stacks of hop P 0 ' 
stood up above the snow in orderly arrt 
( 1 Continued on 'page 193) 
