Potato Pickers are ripe in the Land of Mears

Potato Pickers

-There is a land of enchantment up in the hill country south of Mears on the Cobb school road , because back of it are other higher hills and a sumac wilderness and in the northern fore- ground stretches a great plain where the big white barn and silo at Silver Hills Farm stand out like a giant castle , and where the lamp lights of Mears are like fireflies in the night . And up there in the high- lands is the stone castle of the Wood sisters and Clifton Warner , whom I have known for many years as intellectuals with homespun hearts . Such a house I might expect to find in the Swiss mountains , but here it is in architectual surprise on a farm house road , marvelous outside and in . But you will want to hear how the Wood sisters came to Be- nona . Thirty years ago I heard someone say that it was Capt . Wood who got the railroad stop put in at Bender and the little flag station depot built so the passengers trains could be halted by a wooden arm by day and by the flare of a lighted newspaper by night . To give him full credit I should have called him Colonel Wood , but the countryside called him Captain , and so let his memory be Captain . Abner Brownell Wood was a United States inspector of surveys when he was 28. He be- came a publisher and founded the Ovid Register . He published a news- paper for Owosso and Corunna . In Muskegon the Woods were close friends of the Hackleys and for 17 years Miss Julia Wood was li- brarian of the Hackley library . For 14 years her sister , Miss Susan Wood , served as a clerk for the Muskegon city board of education . Miss Julia had an education in music and was a pipeorganist whose vibrant diapasons quivered the aisles of a sanctuary . In 1888 Capt . Wood and his daughters began coming to the Benona homestead . He was a close friend of the president of the Pere Marquette so the flag stop could be arranged . One time Susan was riding up on the train and she over- heard a lady say : " Up here somewhere there is one family that can go out and wave a handkerchief and the train will stop for them . " Susan sat still in her seat . They didn't know who she was , neither did they know that the engineer on the train would get a telegram from head- quarters telling him to be on the lookout for the signal . But afterwards the depot and signboard were put up and Charlie Worden , or anyone else , could go to Shelby and do shopping between trains . At first the Woods lived in a lodge or frame cottage . In 1908 the stone castle was built . Their father had laid the cornerstone but did not live to see it

completed . And when the stones of the castle were all in place and the walls were plastered and the big fireplace was built downstairs and the smaller one upstairs in the hallway , then came an artist friend , George Hamilton Ford , to paint the murals around the walls of the long living room . The theme was the progress of the seasons from the first burst- ing life of the pussy willows , the robin's nest , the blossoming apple orchards , the foaming brooks of spring , with the arched bridges , the dandelion meadows , the hollyhock door yards , the old well sweep , the elms , the white birches bending beside the enchanted stream , the win- ter's snow with the red firelight shining out of the windows of thatched roof cottages . Yes , such was the procession of the seasons painted on those living room walls . Out in the yard they remembered their friends , for there was Loretta's Pool , Virginia Bower and Esther's Teahouse . The Wood sisters went in for thoroughbred stock and lots of fruit and from East Lansing they secured a young man , Clifton A. Warner , to manage their herd and their orchards . I used to go out there back in 1914 and the close years after and see Hughston McBain and John Dregge and Harry Whittier , boys from Grand Rapids high school , who spent their summers falling off a motorcycle and learning practical agriculture from Mr. Warner and filling up on Miss Julia's tea biscuits and honey . The World War came , calling Clifton , and the Wood sisters sold off their thoroughbred cattle and went away to work . They were in Virginia a while and for a time after the war they lived in the city of Washington and watched the lamplighter go his rounds with his step ladder and matches . Miss Susan took up the study of evidence and real property at a law college . Her sister did research study in the library of congress . Often they had tickets to the galleries in congress . Then they came back to the farm a while and later they lived in Cali- fornia at Laguna Beach where the artists set up their easels and the writers elaborate their stories . Clifton Warner experimented with soy bean culture there and he had become interested in the manufacture of soy bean products through his acquaintance with Mr. Haight of Muskegon . Even now in the Cobbtown castle the family eat soy bean butter on their soy bean bread . And it is mighty good . Out back of the house where the steps go down to the rock garden is a plaque on a tree which reads : Walled ' round about with age - old stones , A quiet and secluded spot Wherein to medidate and pray , Wherein to dream and work and play The Happy Hours away . " Mr. Warner made the carved plaque . You see he studied wood carving at Laguna Beach and you ought to see the marvelous hand tooled fruit tray he made from the limb of the old mulberry tree the storm broke down . There is a brac- ing smell in the camphor wood jar , and the heraldic crests of black and silver he carved and hung at the fireplace sides would take you back to the knighthood flavor of Ivanhoe . Julia Wood would not be happy without books and has 700 of them to keep her company . Susan is quite literary , as you can see by the verse on the tree I just quoted and by this she read to me : " Come sit ye down and bide a wee While o'er a cup of fragrant tea We talk of times that used to be . We tell some gladsome story o'er As we have done in days of yore , And in the shad- ing firelight rays Speak of the joys of yesterdays . Come sit ye down and bide a wee , We'll have a cup of fragrant tea . " Clifton Warner , the wood carver artist , who has had considerable experience as a manager of tea stores like the A. & P. , is part of the family . At present he helps out in the sales and service force at Cherry Hill Ranch , but often . drives four miles home to lunch . He wrote to his father in New England : " You ought to see my squash vine . It has grown up over a 16 foot silo and way beyond . " But his father wrote back with a twinkle in his pen : " Let me see ! I happen to remember that silo is 14 feet down in the

ground . " So the squash was not such a climber as Jack and the bean stalk but it served as food for laughter as well as food for the table . Yes , the Cobbtown hills are a purple mountain range of enchantment in the autumn haze and the stone castle with its leaded windows , with its attic of old trunks , with its carvings and paintings and heraldic family insignia , with its memories , intensifies the glamour of those hills that look down on the plains that stretch toward the village of Mears . RE - ELECT FRANK A. BURMEISTER , DEMOCRATIC CANDI- DATE FOR SHERIFF . ( Oceana County ) . HIS ENVIABLE RECORD ENTITLES HIM TO RE - ELECTION . ( Political Advertisement . )

In the face of gas rationing there is one man in Hart that can give you all the miles that are built into your car , by his precission instru- ments and his ability to operate them , which is all to your advantage . Steen's Superservice . Home of Blue Sunoco in Hart . adv . - James Mc- Louth , the well physician , was healing Charlie Vandeputte's pump this morning . It had stubbed its toe leather and was run down at the heel but Doctor Jim made it froth at the mouth again . Hugh Salisbury surveys the hillsides and beholds that apple trees are laden with fruit . In his apple castle he has storage space for 5000 bushels of rosy- cheeked apples , but they can be russets if they want to . - Frank Sloan is getting a septic tank in his yard , so the winter winds can howl all they want to and the dish water can laugh down the sing - Keith Cor- liss is getting a septic tank this week so he won't have to sit on the back step and wash his feet . Julia Shurman can draw horses , but if she had a set of sleighs she could have the horses draw her . - Mrs . Mary Kraft set three extra plates on the table because her daughters , Leona Walton and Mary Ann Ingraham , came up from Detroit and Mary Ann brought along little Bobby who is 18 months eute - Mabel and Fred Dean , who live close to the little inkspots of Inkster , are up visiting their parents at Mears and Sackrider . On Columbus Day Fred goes to the army . As John Raeth plows the furrows and scatters the wheat seed he dreams of the day when he can be a bread - winner for Marian Shoultz . - Miss Wood , the home economics teacher in the Shel by high school , won't let the girls sing any more while they sew , and she doesn't want the agriculture boys to come in and bother the canned peaches , or the human peaches either - Tice and Don can't make up their mind which of the girls at Shelby high school they should take out riding at noon . - Wayne Aebig is making a little romantic progress by getting acquainted with HER whole family . - The Mears ladizade met with Mrs. Swift Lathers Thursday . Little Nancy Draper , four years old , became very excited when word came that her father had arrived at the bus depot coming home from New York . She could hardly wait to get her coat on - Keith Corliss in Mears keeps quite a shelf of remedies in his drug department . For sneezes and wheezes he might have a bottle . Also fried cakes and yeast cakes and cakes of soap . adv . The Sanitary Meat Market on the east side of Shelby's Main street does custom butchering and cutting for farmers , adv .

If your radio won't sing when you tell it to , see Ev . Graff's radio service in the Russell Block . He answers 140 - F - 2 . adv .

The Weeks Lumber Company in Hart for roofing , windows , doors . Phil Wurthner can fix your car and make it purr cheerfully . He sells En - Ar - Co motor oil for happy lubrication .

Fill your bin with good coal . We handle Hilo , Supreme and - Monarch . Hard Coal , Coke and Mill Wood . Shelby Ice & Fuel Co. Phone 157 Watches , clocks , jewelry ; repairing a specialty . All work guaranteed . Rov L. Geisinger , Cor , 6th & Pine St. , Shelby . Phene 201

Resort property near lakes and streams for sale by Eva Hanson - Qs- born Agency in Hart . Headquarters for farms and village homes , adv .