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Show ALONG LIFE'S TRAIL By THOMAS A. CLARK Deon of Men, University ' HUnoUi. (, 1024. Western Newspaper Union.) FATHER ,T INK upon Hue, and precept upon L precept," the Good Book says, but that was not altogether father's wav. He gave very few directions ; he laid down very few rules ; he was a man of action rather than of words. It was father's example when I was a boy that influenced me, and it Is the memory of his life today that makes me want to be what he was. I have no recollection that he ever once punished me; and though there was never any doubt that he was the head of the household, matters of our conduct he invariably left to mother, but ive knew what he wanted and we should never have thought of going contrary to his desires. None of us children ever got especially intimate with father; I think he did not know how to bring about such an intimacy. He was quiet, serious, rather stern in his methods, but always reasonable, always al-ways just, always absolutely sincere, and I respected hinr'liore than any other man I ever knew.' He was rather rigidly religious and he carried out his religious principles daily in our home life so consciencious-ly consciencious-ly that it never occurred to me that any man would be a religious hypocrite. uo you tninK sot was ins ieiuuc. "I never heard him excepting in church." I had never heard father excepting at home, every morning as regularly as the day came. He was shy outside of the family circle and seldom spoke or prayed before strangers. He was strangely undemonstrative, but during all the years of my childhood child-hood I never knew him to say a critical crit-ical or an unkind word to mother. She wns always right; whatever she did in his eyes was perfect. He was loyal to her from the day they met until the day he died. He was wonderfully kind to all dumb animals and looked out for them as if they had been his children. He never struck a dog, and he never went to bed on a cold winter night without giving a little extra thought to the condition and comfort of the stock on the farm. In early spring and summer he never allowed us to use the horses on Sunday. Sun-day. They had been working all week and they were entitled to a full day's rest, he argued. The old horses who had done us long years of service, he kept in ease and comfort until they died.. Honesty, kindness, unselfishness, 'respect 're-spect for work, loyalty to definite religious re-ligious principles, he taught me not so much hy precept as by the daily life he lived. When I was fifteen, he went out into the great unknown quietly, courageously, with absolute faith in the future. He knew in whom he had believed, ar-d he left to each of us something of his faithi It is a g.-ent heritage to have had a good father; it is a great privilege to keep through youth and early manhood man-hood this close relationship with father. THE DEAD ONES T RODE, not long ago, through the 1 village near which I lived when I was a boy, and interested myself in seeing how much was yet familiar to me. As I came into the town It was easy still to decipher the old familiar legends the last word in advertising in the early days painted crudely upon the fences bordering the highway. high-way. "Snyder Sells Shoes," "Visit Owen's Store for Bargains in Dry Goods," "Sale Pays Highest Prices for Country Products." The signs, too, which still hung over the entrances to the business houses recalled old nnmes and old memories: "C. L. Boon, Farm Loans nnd Insurance," Insur-ance," "Sally Shepard, Millinery," and so on as 1 went slowly down the street. But they were names only. Not one of the men or women hud for years had any part In the business or social life of the town. Charlie Boon had been dead for twenty rears, Sally Shepard had married ami moved to Kansas long ago. They were all dead ones so far as the life of the town was concerned. No one had had the ener-v or the interest to paint out the legends or take down the signs. Rut this currying along of useless or dead members Is not confined to mv native town. I read the obituary notice no-tice last week of a man In middle life and, among other things mentioned was the fact that he was a member of the Presbyterian church, though he Probably had not attended a church service for ten years. So fr s church was concerned, he had been a dead oi.s for a decade. It Is true of all organizations and communities. In church, social, civic and business organizations there are names carried on the rolls that nothing n.,,ro than names. T " , "en -.ring then, have had nothln g ' , for years with the progress and dev r;tr,T,,ii,e1of (" i-..io' th aie as dead as if t1(.v , , ""' the ground in the ooineh.rv No community or orgalZu,l,.n' h foe from these handicaps. OnW a B.nll percen.age of ,en ,s , , " ""P""sibilU(,s or the , !, organization to which ti, 1 "'n innuetice rs';;:,,:" f "-'"jj In nnv wav Timi- ... notice ; t C'I ""'T T"" ones. 7 are NlM1'llJ' Jeud |