There is a plain between the hills , Whose chains of distant blue Wall in the land of Mears .

This is the land of

Mears ,

Where the shining sand dunes gleam Under the western sky ,

By the side of the wide blue sea Where the light - house sends its nightly beara

And the smoking ships go by .

The shore - birds walk upon the sand Beside the water - line

And hear the waves that swish or rear They hear the whisper of their friends , The juniper and pine ,

That fringe the Golden shore .

This is the orchard clime

Where peaches and cherries grow And apple blosscms scent the breeze : For the lake has tempered the air Of the on - shore winds that blow Over the fruit - land trees .

The lakes and hills we cannot lose : The beauty of the landscape view Is ours for all the years .

We like the land of Mears And if we'd go go away

The sand dunes , lakes and plain , The maple trees and colored bills Would call to us until the day That we return again .

BY SWIFT LATHERS

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FAR COUNTRY WHO ONCE HAVE LIVED IN THE LAND OF MEARS :

We know not who you are nor whither you have gone , ner yet how many the days since you said good - by to the maples of the Golden City . We only know that once you lived in the Land of Mears and sometime went away . We feel that in the far country you some- times think of the land you left behind you where we are eating and sleeping and working out our own sal- vation by the gospel of toil .

Things are different now perhaps from the day you went away . There is a new spirit in community life . If you could come back tonight to the little town on the plain between the hills you could walk up town on the new cement sidewalks beneath the glare of the electric street lamps . Make your way up Fourth street and if you pause on the sidewalk in front of the little print- shop you might hear on the stillness of the evening the noise of the printing press turning out the News- paper That Is Different .

4

The Mears News is a work of art and ought to be encouraged . It is read with appreciation from the hill . country of the south to the Pentwater plains , from the Golden City down to the sea . But there are not enough . of us here in the Land of Mears to support a newspaper alone . We have gone out to seek subscribers all over the Golden plain and into the Benona highlands . We have gleaned the fields with more vigil than ever Ruth gleaned in the fields of Boaz . Yet we look into the store house and we turn away dissatisfied . The lack of enough subscribers means hours of unrequited teil in the Little Printing Office In Ourtown .

Therefore we invite you to send us fifty cents and join our circle of readers . You can read about the Wyckoff dog and the Brubaker pups and the doings of their masters and of the other Katzenjammer Kids of Mears , whose names and faces appear every little while in the

This is a picture of Hannah Pearson's cat named Violet which locked her father in the barn . The cat isn't finding many violets just now but Han- nah sometimes gives her a saucer of cow's milk .

The Rabbit Boys

Earl Weldon and Henry and Albert Lind got sixteen rabbits Saturday . They took two dogs along . They also had a gun .

Mr. and Mrs. Ensign Wosdhouse went back to Buf falo yesterday . They have been visiting his mother in Mears and their niece , Miss Josie Weodhouse of Peach Ridge . ' Twas the first time that Josie ever saw

her beautiful new aunt .

CHRISTMAS GOODS

I have a nice line of Christmas Cards , Stickers , Tags and Booklets that range in price from one cent to 25 cents . Also Cigars , Pipes , Tobacco , Box Candy ,

STATIONERY

Don't forget the Pioneer Eradium Luminous Clock we are giving away . You can see it just as well in a pitch dark room as you can at noon . See it in the window .

Sunday papers , Saturday Evening Post , Ladies Home Journal . Grand Rapids Herald : Let me show you some nice premiums given with a year's subscription .

Sloan of Course

GIFT SUGGESTIONS

Harmonicas 10c

Carpenter Sets 10c

Toy Brooms 10c Toy Stoves

Cake Dishes 10c

Toy Paints 10c

Stationery in Boxes 10c to 25c

Pocket Books 5c and 10c

Set of six fine tumblers in a holly box 55c

Christmas Cards 1e and 2 for 5c

Christmas Booklets 3c to 25 €

Initial Handkerchiefs

George Reid

West Golden

Carl Areklet started to school this week .

When Oxel and August Anderson went to Hart last week they took with them Aubry Hall , one of the little corridors in the parsonage .

Rev. Yantz of Hesperia spent Monday at Mr. Mor- ley's .

Leo Lambrix who has had a severe attack of pneu- monia is on the gain . Hazel Payne is staying with

Mrs. Herbert Hunter this week .

Tuesday morning Herbert Hunter took Mr. Yantz , Mrs. Hall and family to visit at the lighthouse . They returned in the afternoon leaving little Beaulah with her greatgrandmother .

This was the third week of the revival meetings .

C

اد

stands for

CHRISTMAS

and for

COLLINS

and neither one is very far away . At his store you can find decorative material , booklets and cards with Christmas thoughts .

boxes of candy at $ 2.50 to 10c .

There are

I WANT TO BUY A HORSE !

I want to buy a work horse , weight about 1100 to 1200. W. H. Beebe , one mile west of Mears .

GET THIS INCUBATOR

W. W. Tiffany has an " Old Trusty " Incubator , 100- egg capacity , for sale cheap . Ask the baker .

adv .

O. M. Wright lost the end board out of his wagon as he was going up the road . If you found it please return it right away and Mr. Wright will make it right with

you .

Charles Post of Onaway , who had been visiting his mother and his brother , Bert Post , returned last week . Henry Christian of the South Country will occupy the green house at Maple Avenue and Seventh Street .

Mr. Tripp works the Draper farm this year . He is living in Raymond Vandeputte's house across the road from John Smith's . - Peter Christensen whe has been living on the Elmer Ray place , will work for Jens Hal- berg this year .

Collins , the A. D. S. Druggist ,

of Hart ,

IS PLEASED

With the Mears Country .

If the people of the Mears Country will buy their Drugs , Stationery and Toilet Articles from him they will be pleased with

COLLINS

The Story of W. H. Beebe

Part III

The House In The Forest

There was a fire place in that little cabin in the for- est but it was not like the one in the Mears Hotel . In one corner of the room the sand was heaped behind a log hearth . A fire was built on the sand and the smoke ascended through an opening in the roof . Henry Bee- be and Increase Ripley used to lie before that fire and talk and dream while the stars looked down through the smoke - way .

They baked their pancakes there on an old spider over the coals , flour and water pancakes and brown gravy to put on them . Mr. Beebe showed me theold iron spider he got from Mr. Barnhart . It is still used once in a great while .

Sometimes they fished with lines in Round Lake . If they wished they could paddle the dug - out canoe . No- body seemed to know how it got there . Part of the winter they worked out at the Dutch Boys ' Mill .

The next summer Mr. Beebe went back to New York for a few weeks and was married in Friendship , New York to Miss Ann Harmes . He brought his young wife back to the little log cabin in the forest . Increase Ripley had gone away to the army .

She heard the wilderness noises and the wild beasts calling to one another . She scarcely went out of the cabin door without casting a fearful glance to the right and left lest some wild thing should be lurking there . But she was brave and she never once said : " Let's go back . "

The logs were ready for the building of their new house and one afternoon Henry Beebe went out along the Golden highways to invite the people of the country- side to come and help him build his house . There were few people in the township then . He needed them all .

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Jesse Davis , Superintendent

Penmanship Exhibit Boys Fifth Grade or below

Same

Girls

Penyanship Exhibit Boys Eighth Grade or below Same

Girls

Best Collection of Minera's and Rocks

25

25

25

25

25

Set of Six Original Design Drawings for Wallpaper Essay , " Why a Local Newspaper Benefits a Community " Contest open to pupils in Public Schools . Prize of Fifty Cents offered by The Inner Life Press . Essay , " The Benefit of the Fair to the Township "

Manual Training

J

Checker Board Boy or Girl below sixteen

25

25

25

Bread Board

Model of Ideal chicken coop

Domestic Science

For best bread , Girl below 17

Biscuit , Light

Cake , Layer

25

25

25

DEPARTMENT OF SPEED AND SPORTS

S. Lathers , Superintendent

For Boys below 15 200 yard dash , tug of war , approp- riate prizes . Potato race , three legged race . peanut race , bicycle and wheelbarrow races . For boys over 15 , 200

yard dash , half mile run , pole vault , wheel barrow race . Girls : 100 dash , potato race , tug of war , bicycle race wheelbarrow race . Appropriate prizes .

Genevieve Bush I as returned home from Hastings .

Miss Mary Tark is staying with Mrs. M. L. Johnson during the iatter's sickness .

Mrs. H. K. Branch of West Golden called on friends in Mears . Mrs. H. Branch and Mrs. F. W. Hoyt called on Mrs. O. H. Powers at Silver Lak : Sunday .

About forty of Miss Muriel Brubaker's friends went down to the Maccabee Temple last Friday evening to help her celebrate her sixteenth birthday .

Frank Brooker has returned from the hospital in Muskegon . Will Johnson has returned home from the north bringing home his brother Harry who was sick .

The executive committee of the Civic Association held a meeting Wednesday evening and recived the report of the Fair committee . Theodore and Irene Barton went to Muskegon Friday for a two . day's visit .

H. J Campbell has returned fen Fennville . Since his return he has visit d with is daughter , Mrs. Fred Reed , at Pentwater . Charles Swans n and family of Chicago are visiting his father , Swan Swanson .

There will be a dance in Ourtown Saturday night .

The Maccabee Tem ; 1 is the place .

George Reid is waiting for the cement workers to begin work on his sidewalk . Some of the earlier stages of a cement side- walk are observable in front of the Wright residence .

Oh it's a - coming , boys , it's a - coming , it surely is .

The sidewalk to the depot , of course .

Edward Brubaker and John Fuller walked to Pentwater Sunday arriving in time to take the evening train home .

From the Golden Stock Farm where Herbert Kelso lives now he struck out through the woods to Pete Richter's . He lost his way . At nightfall he stumbled out at the Big Bayou on Pentwater Lake . Across the water he saw the lights of little Pentwater and he knew where he was . Yes , it was " little Pentwater . " There . were two stores and perhaps a dozen houses . He came- along the shore and found the Round Lake road . In the inky blackness of ths night his good helped him to keep the road . If he wandered from the- road he called the dog , then held close to him until the animal brought him again into the highway .

dog , Fly ,

When he got to Pete Richter's at one o'clock he bor rowed a lantern . It was an ancient lantern highly dissim- ilar in design to the Dietz Tubular Blast which can be obtained at George Reid's store in Ourtown . Three wooden walls , window glass front and a candle walch was ever so short flickering in the wooden lamp - house , that was his lantern . How far will that little candle throw its beams ? He hoped it would last a mile . It did and so he came to Mr. Barnhart's at Round Lake and bor- rowed another and better lantern with a taller eandle .

He found Mrs. Beebe waiting in sleepless terror . She was sure she had heard every wild beast that roamed . in the Golden forest .

He

Twelve or fifteen came to the house - raising . Some women come along . The logs were assembled in their places and afterward Mr. Beebe put up the rafters and covered the roof with shingles he made himself . made stools and a bed and when the house was com- plete the people of the countryside came again to the house - warming . They came with ox teams . One load came from Leavitt . The new house was built where the barn is now and a yard for the pigs to live in was One night a squeal from : where the present house is . the pig pen proclaimed the presence of a bear and Mr.

Beebe went out of the door with his cap - lock rifle . The bear was biting the hog's head but when Mr. Beebe tried to shoot the cap didn't work and he went into the house to get more caps . The bear tossed the hog over the seven rail fence , went through the cornfield got his pork over another seven rails and escaped in the dark . He ate all he wanted there in the road by Lowell Mer- rill's barn .

Once Mr. and Mrs. Beebe were both out digging In- crease Ripley's abandoned potatoes over on the Davis farm when they heard the wolves howling down by Charlie Urtel's place . " Let's go home , " said Mrs. Bee- be . So they went and that night the wolves came and talked together on the edge of the clearing around the house .

The red man liked to stop at the Beebe home as he journeyed from Elbridge to his fishing grounds at Sil- ver Lake . Sometimes the floor was full of sleeping In- dians and sometimes they camped across the road where the Sweedish church is now . They traveled to their sugar bush at Tom Stout's old place , where Jim Foster lives now . Once when Mr. Beebe went down to Silver Lake he found 30 or 40 dug - out canoes corded together in the mouth of the brook , Singing Water , but the red men were away in the forest .

So the Beebes lived in the house by the highway's side and were friends to the red men . For fifty years they have watched the spread of civilization in the Gold- en peninsula . They were here before the building of the city , when the murmuring pines and the hemlocks covered the map - less streets of little Mears .

The Republican caucus will be held Saturday , March 27 , at 2 p . m . , and the Independent caucus will be at 7 p . m .

Call on E. E. Allen for all kinds of agricultural imple ments . He sells Moore plows and more plows . adv

I WANT TO BUY A HORSE !

I want to buy a work horse , weight about 1100 to 1200. W. H. Beebe , one mile west of Mears

GET THIS INCUBATOR

W. W. Tiffany has an " Old Trusty " Incubator , 100- adv . egg capacity , for sale cheap . Ask the baker .

O. M. Wright lost the end board cut of his wagon as he was going up the road . If you found it please return it right away and Mr. Wright will make it right with

you .

Charles Post of Onaway , who had been visiting his mother and his brother , Bert Post , returned last week . Henry Christian of the South Country will occupy the green house at Maple Avenue and Seventh Street .

Mr. Tripp works the Draper farm this year . He is living in Raymond Vandeputte's house across the road from John Smith's . - Peter Christensen whe has been living on the Elmer Ray place , will work for Jens Hal- berg this year .

Collins , the A. D. S. Druggist ,

of Hart ,

IS PLEASED

With the Mears Country .

If the people of the Mears Country will buy their Drugs , Stationery and Toilet Articles from him they will be pleased with

COLLINS

The Story of W. H. Beebe

Part III

The House In The Forest

There was a fire place in that little cabin in the for- est but it was not like the one in the Mears Hotel . In ene corner of the room the sand was heaped behind a log hearth . A fire was built on the sand and the smoke ascended through an opening in the roof . Henry Bee- be and Increase Ripley used to lie before that fire and talk and dream while the stars looked down through the smoke - way .

They baked their pancakes there on an old spider over the coals , flour and water pancakes and brown gravy to put on them . Mr. Beebe showed me theold iron spider he got from Mr. Barnhart . It is still used once in a great while .

Sometimes they fished with lines in Round Lake . If they wished they could paddle the dug - out canoe . No- body seemed to know how it got there . Part of the winter they worked out at the Dutch Boys ' Mill .

The next summer Mr. Beebe went back to New York for a few weeks and was married in Friendship , New York to Miss Ann Harmes . He brought his young wife back to the little log cabin in the forest . Increase Ripley had gone away to the army .

She heard the wilderness noises and the wild beasts calling to one another , She scarcely went out of the cabin door without casting a fearful glance to the right and left lest some wild thing should be lurking there . But she was brave and she never once said : " Let's go back . "

The logs were ready for the building of their new house and one afternoon Henry Beebe went out along the Golden highways to invite the people of the country- side to come and help him build his house . There were few people in the township then . He needed them all ,

E. W. Hoyt is

sufficiently improved to be able to go on the

street . Edward Hoyt of Bronson is here visiting his brother . A. W. Augur of Chicago gave an inter sting tatk on " The Prob- em of Religious Elucation " to the Bible Study class at the Meth- odist Episcopal church Sunday evening . Mr. Augur who is a teacher of physics in Lake high school , Chicago , is visiting his . brother , W. C. Augur .

The Baptist Ladies Aid Society met Thursday with Mrs. E. A .. Burgess .

The Methodist Ladies Aid Society met with Mrs. Henderson Thursday afternoon .

Mrs. Leo E. Deymann and little daughter , of Traverse City , Mrs. Charlotte Deymann of Montague , and Mrs Charles Plant of Owen , Wisconsin have been visiting with Mrs. C. P. Tucker .

Mrs. L. F. Swarthout and Kenneth r turned to Evansto , IN . Sunday night .

There came to the editor's desk ( ? ) this week a copy of the May wood Press , which contained ligh comp ei dat n of the work L. F. Swarthout is doing with his evangelistic travelogues in May wood , Illinois , where big tabernacle campaign his be narre On It was good , you bet . Mears knows . For Mears saw ; Mears , re members . L. F. Swarthout is a Mears boy and a very affirmative answer to the old , old question , " Can any good thing come cui cf Mears ? "

Mr. and Mrs. Will Robinson of Ferry are expected here Sunday to spend Sunday with her mother , Mrs. A. Evans .

Floyd Wolf gave a party to the West Golden yeung people Tues day evening .

The Mears News

A NEWSPAPER THAT IS DIFFERENT

Published by The Inner Life Press Swift Lathers , Editor

Oh , Nettie , Here Is Help At Last

Dear Editor : In regard to the dangerous plight Miss Morley is in with the Wolf at the door , why don't you suggest that she call Miss Hunter to aid her ? And do , Mr. Editor , let her know that that it might be dangerous for her to take a Knapp at this time . But oh Mr. Editor , do not forget to tell her that in case of emor- gency there is a strong young Branch growing near by and that maybe she could cling to that until help arrives .

A Resorter

Liberty Reid has seven white leghorns for sale at fifty cents each . They're thors ughbreds , [ Advertisement . ]

Miss Mamie Reid and Liberty visited at the light house Tues- day and Wednesday .

The carpenter man is at work at Morris Acres . The interior is being re - arranged and R. T. Morris is getting a modern farm

house .

Miss Rosamond Averill visited Mrs. C. B. Tucker last Friday .

The Golden Fair , September 11-12 The tickets for the fair will be ten cents . See the partial prem- ium list on next page .

Cannery for Sale

Mr. Calvin Liggett has left with me for sale a steam canner , for canning fruits and vegetables in metal cans . See me if interested .

W. C. Augur

From the Golden Stock Farm where Herbert Kelso lives now he struck out through the woods to Pete Richter's . He lost his way . At nightfall he stumbled out at the Big Bayou on Pentwater Lake . Across the water he saw the lights of little Pentwater and he knew where he was . Yes , it was " little Pentwater . " There were two stores and perhaps a dozen houses . He came along the shore and found the Round Lake road . In the inky blackness of ths night his good dog , Fly , helped him to keep the road . If he wandered from the road he called the dog , then held close to him until the animal brought him again into the highway .

When he got to Pete Richter's at one o'clock he bor- rowed a lantern . It was an ancient lantern highly dissim- ilar in design to the Dietz Tubular Blast which can be obtained at George Reid's store in Ourtown . Three wooden walls , window glass front and a candle walch was ever so short flickering in the wooden lamp - house , that was his lantern . How far will that little candle throw its beams ? He hoped it would last a mile . It did and so he came to Mr. Barnhart's at Round Lake and bor- rowed another and better lantern with a taller eandle .

He found Mrs. Beebe waiting in sleepless terror . She was sure she had heard every wild beast that roamed in the Golden forest .

Twelve or fifteen came to the house - raising . Some women come along . The logs were assembled in their places and afterward Mr. Beebe put up the rafters and covered the roof with shingles he made himself . He made stools and a bed and when the house was com- plete the people of the countryside came again to the house - warming . They came with ox teams . One load came from Leavitt . The new house was built where the barn is now and a yard for the pigs to live in was where the present house is . One night a squeal from the pig pen proclaimed the presence of a bear and Mr.

Beebe went out of the door with his cap - lock rifle . The bear was biting the hog's head but when Mr. Beebe tried to shoot the cap didn't work and he went into the house to get more caps . The bear tossed the hog over the seven rail fence , went through the cornfield got his pork over another seven rails and escaped in the dark . He ate all he wanted there in the road by Lowell Mer- rill's barn .

Once Mr. and Mrs. Beebe were both out digging In- crease Ripley's abandoned potatoes over on the Davis farm when they heard the wolves howling down by Charlie Urtel's place . " Let's go home , " said Mrs. Bee- be . So they went and that night the wolves came and talked together on the edge of the clearing around the house .

The red man liked to stop at the Beebe home as he journeyed from Elbridge to his fishing grounds at Sil- ver Lake . Sometimes the floor was full of sleeping In- dians and sometimes they camped across the road where the Sweedish church is now . They traveled to their sugar bush at Tom Stout's old place , where Jim Foster lives now . Once when Mr. Beebe went down to Silver Lake he found 30 or 40 dug - out canoes corded together in the mouth of the brook , Singing Water , but the red men were away in the forest .

So the Beebes lived in the house by the highway's side and were friends to the red men . For fifty years they have watched the spread of civilization in the Gold- en peninsula . They were here before the building of the city , when the murmuring pines and the hemlocks covered the map - less streets of little Mears .

The Republican caucus will be held Saturday , March 27 , at 2 p . m . , and the Independent caucus will be at 7 p . m .

Call on E. E. Allen for all kinds of agricultural imple- ments . He sells Moore plows and more plows .

adv

Summer Resort News

SILVER LAKE

BY MRS . JAMES LEVERE

Out of our village a stone road is leading ; close in the west the sand dunes are gleaming . Nestled beneath them in ripples of glee the waters of Silver are laughing at me . See the white sea gulls skimming away . There darts the wax wing n : ath the cool cedar shade . See the lone crane with his long legs wade seeking for snails and bugs neath the waves . There neath the trees our luncheon we spread , build a bright fire and boil us some eggs . Frankforts we'll fry and coffee make , then ' neath the ashes potatoes bake . Then when our luncheon we've stored away , rested awhile ' neath teh cool leafy shade , we'll climb the sand bluffs and gaze away and dream we are lost in the desert's maze , think we can see far over the sand and wavering line of an Arab's band and riding before on his snow - white steed a chief- tain bold with grace and ease . And on and on our dreams might go but we've got to go home and milk the cows and feed the pigs and then tend the hens and do the same old chores again .

C. A. Brubaker

sent in some funny answers in the prize contest . He was much pleased with his answers . If he doesn't win he will want to jump up and down and tear his hair .

THE MEARS NEWS

A NEWSPAPER THAT IS DIFFERENT

Published by The Inner Life Press

Swift Lathers , Editor

It is impossible to state the winners in the prize com- test at 6.17 o , clock Friday evening . All day long the editor has been too exceedingly busy to make any ten- der decisions . An announcement of the winner will be posted on the wall in the News effice Monday at 3 p . m . and remain there 25 hours . No other public announce- ment of the winners will be made ]

Sure , Brubaker's is THE place

to get candy , nuts , toys and Xmas presents and

Don't You Forget It .

บึง

T

The buying price of potatoes today is 55 cents ; of butter 24 : eggs 30 ; white beans $ 3.25 ; red kidney beans $ 4.50 .

The Averill warehouse shipped eleven carloads of ap ples this fall . One carload is 160 barrels .

Comic Weakly . You will read about your friends in the Land of Mears and you will await the coming of your paper with gladness . As when the big lake's breeze blows over the picnic beneath the pines at Juni- per Beach in the good old summertime so will the week- ly advent of the Mears News into your life be like the coming of a pleasant breeze . Send us half a cart - wheel . Do it and do it now .

THE PUBLISHERS

Henry Mier , who lives beside the rustling oak grubs of the Morris Lake country was in Hart yesterday and today as a witness in the circuit court in the Luther- Noret case .

Mrs. Mull says the Morris - Mull family will continue tosummer - resort in the Mears Hotel building this sum- mer and that maybe in the fall they will go into winter- quarters on the farm where they are fixing up a little Florida of their own .

Mr. and Mrs. Caleb Davis have returned from Plain- well where his brother's wife was buried .

The Curtis family have returned from Chicago to the goat farm . Byron remained in Chicago . Mrs. Curtis spent part of the week with her daughter , Mrs. Chris Pechumer .

Chester white boar ; Jersey bull . Will Powers .

Millinery

I invite the Ladies to come in and see the line of Ladies Hats I have received from St They are at the house .

Louis .

Prices Reasonable

Mrs. Frank Sloan