The Chemawa American, April 23, 1919, Page 4, Image 4

T H E CHEMAWA AMERICAN
PAGE, 4
that is familiar to nearly ;?alD English-speaking people,
thanks
to the newspapers and the widespread habit of
From an exchange we are pleaded to reprint the fol­
reading
novels.
lowing unusual article, in which some of the possibil­
.
In
all
probability, few.¡ would ever guess how this
ities of the future are suggested:
School debaters will soon be able to add to their list name came to be applied to them so we propose to
of stock subjects for debate, the question: * Which Ts> “ spill the beans.” Years ago Sir Robert Peel was
the greater friend of man, the potato or the beet?” instrumentar in having a regular police force take the
place of the old constabulary. Shortly afterward
And there will be a lot to say in favor of th e beet. some wag began speaking of the officers as “ bobbies,”
Some of our millions of minor American poets might playing familiarly on Sir Robert’s name, and this
compose an ode to this vegetable. The beet is a pro­ nickname soon became a permanent fixture. They
lific producer of succulent root and , the coarser kinds hav^.also been called “ peelers,” from ,the surname
Peel, but ‘bobbies’ {is ,tne more common and gener­
make excellent cattle feed.
ally used nickname,
People who keep poultry hang a beet up in the
chicken house and it is a great thing for the chickens
MARK TWAIN’S EAST HOURS
to have to peck at; it exercizes them in winter and al­
One of Mark Twain’sclosest friends was Dan Beard,
so gives them needed vegetable matter. The finer the artist;? who ?illustrated a number of his works and
varieties of beets make a grand dish for the table, eith­ who was with the humorist; when he passed to “ that
er boiled or pickled, and the tops are fine, for greens. unknown and silent shore.” Speaking of him some­
The variety of beet known as chard is one of the most time after his death] Mr. Beard said:
There was a sideof Mark Twain’s nature that most
useful vegetables in the whole catalog of garden Sttiff.’ persons never knew. He was one of the bravest men
In this beet;the growth goes to the tops and yields an I ever knew. He knew he was going to die:—knew
inexhaustible supply of greens the season through—or it days before he passed away. You may know that
the cause of his death was angina pectoris. In his
tire yeSr, found in some latitudes.
The possibilities of the humble beet are shown by, last, days he wasseized frequently with paroxysms of
pain but he never lost his patience or good humor.
the fact that by cafeful selection it hqs been, encour­ He would cotne out of one of these paroxysms, with a
aged to produce up to 25 percent of sugar. , A beet is smile on his face and a joke on his lips.
Mr. Clemens died on Thursday. He was joking
an individual sugar factory, arid its importance* as
such is shown by the fact that when the war started With his friends almost Up to the hour of hisJ death.
practically half the world’s consumption of sugar was His only daughter was with him constantly. On the
Wednesday before he died I went up to the house and
derived from beets. And the latest thing is that spe;- his daughter came Out Weeping. Naturally L jumped
cially selected beets are being sold by seedsmen for at the conclusion that Mr. Clemens was dead but she
planting-in flower gardens; the foliage is so beautiful assured me that he was still alive.
“ I knew that ffiy father was dying,” she said, “ but
that these beets are now used for purely ornamental
I was not prepared for the doctor’s statement that he
purposes.
might not live through the day. Like any other wo­
One advantage of the beetis that it doesn’t exhaust man would have done, I broke down. Father re­
the soil as most vegetables do; on the contrary it proved me. He said: ‘Daughter, you must not
helps build up the soil. If someone would only de­ weep. Your mother never shed tears, neither did
velop a strain of beets that would give milk, produce your father. I am an old man; my race is run. All
of my playmates, boys and girls, and men and women,,
butter arid lay eggs, all would be forgiven. j
have gone. There is none left except Henry W atter­
You think this is a joke, but it isn’t; vegetable son. I am not afraid to die.’ ”
dairy and poultry products will be the common thing
HER NAME IS A PALINDROME
before many years. The possibilities are there; they
merely await, the patience, and energy of some Edison
Apropos of the signature of Wm. Smith which reads
or Burbank to see and develop them. The time is the same, no matter which side of the paper is « held
coming when the equivalent of meat,? milk, butter up, as was illistrated in the Pathfinder several weeks
and eggs will be raised in the home garden, as well ago, aDeseret,: Üfah, reader tells us that the hearer of
the name, Norma Damron, discovered,when, she was
as Starch, sugar, etc. And in addition alcohol for nine years old that the name reads the same backward
running autos and farm motors, if, not to get get as forward., It is therefore a palindrome and a remark­
able one for the | reason that it was evidently purely
drunk on, will? likewise be produced locally. .
accjdentab j
A palindrome it will be recalled, is a word, phrase
A “BOBBIE”
clause that reads the same from right to left as
In America policemen are commonly called “ cops” or
from left to right. A classical example is “ Madam
or “ coppers” presumably because they “ cop” or cap­ I’m Adam,” reputed to have, been the form used by
ture evildoers». The,policemen of England and partic­ Adam in introducing himself to Eve in the ¡..garden of
\
ularly London are popularly called “ bobbies,” a,name Eden.
THE BEET