And particularly have I been pleased to supply the girl graduates of our splendid Wetmore High School at Commencement time. Last year—spring of 1947—the garden did not show promise of early bloom of quality flowers, and I got the girl graduates some beautiful long-stemmed “Better Times” red roses, ($7.85 per doz.), from Rock’s in Kansas City. I planned to make this an annual contribution, whether at home or away, as a sort of commemoration of the fine Rose Garden I once owned. The garden is now owned by Raymond and Marjorie McDaniel. Before leaving in the fall for California, I told the girls I would send them roses by air mail—but, through an oversight of someone, I was not apprised of the date of the 1948 Commencement. And this was one time when the girls, through no fault of their own, (except possibly trusting another than a member of the class to do the notifying), missed getting some really high-class graduation roses—roses grow to perfection in California—which I think was more of a disappointment to me than perhaps to anyone else, unless it should have been my niece, Alice Bristow-Tavares, who was to have supplied two dozen extremely beautiful long-stemmed Etoile de Hollande red roses from her climbers. A Fresno florist had been engaged to pack them for mailing. LITTLE FILLERS In this volume will be found several “Little Fillers”—sayings of children, which have no connection with the various articles. They have been prepared to fill out the pages where the ending of a story leaves unused space—so that all articles may have a top-page heading. CONSIDERATE KID Having bought little three-year-old Karen McDaniel a 5-cent cone, and also one for her to take home to her little brother Harry, I laid a couple of nickels on the counter at the restaurant; and then put down a dime, and picked up the two nickels—this twenty-cents representing the sum total of my cash as of the moment. Karen said, “What you do that for?” I told her that I was going to purchase a 5-cent lead-pencil from Charley Shaffer at the drug store, and that I wanted to keep the nickels, as it would save time of waiting to get back the nickel in change, were I to keep the dime. She said, brightly, “He might not have a nickel.” I said, “That’s just it.” Not realizing the risk which I myself was cooking up at the moment, I said, “It’s never wise to take a risk when it can just as easily be avoided.” Placing the two nickels beside the little dime, I told her the dime was worth as much as the two bigger nickels. Thinking to see if she had caught on, I said, (rather badly stated), “Now, what you think—which would you rather have?” She smiled, almost saucily grinned, and reaching for the dime, said, “I’ll take the little one—you want to keep the big ones.” THE BOY OF YESTERYEAR Published in Wetmore Spectator May 29, 1931 By John T. Bristow