_To Them As Thinks The' Ain't No God The' Ain't None, So Far As They're Concerned_ THE NORTH WIND'S MESSAGE By DANFORD G. BRITTON [Illustration] [Illustration] Outside the North Wind howls and blusters. As I sit by the friendly hearth; And a picture comes in the leaping flames From the land of the mystic north. Where the silent trails lie dim and pale In the glistening ice and snow; And the hunger cry of the lean wolves' wail With the mercury sixty below. There the jackpine's ghostly shadows Ripple the snowy path; While the gray clouds scud like a roaring flood From the north wind's howling wrath. And for those who travel that great white waste In the numbing cold and frost, Death lies in wait, like the hand of fate. Stop fighting once--and you're lost. But though the trail may be hard and crooked, With many a twist and bend, There's gold at the foot of the rainbow For those who stick to the end. Though it's not so much what you win, If you lose, it's about the same; But the test of a real man's metal, is, Friend, are you still in the game? So when you're near discouraged And tempted to quit the fight, Why remember the test of the long grim trail, In the north land's arctic night. [Illustration] [Illustration] IN MEMORY OF HENRY CLAY MANLEY By THOMAS McMORROW WHERE WOULD YOU TURN IF YOUR WHOLE FUTURE DEPENDED ON YOUR EARNING CAPACITY AT THE END OF EIGHTEEN MONTHS--AND YOU WERE OUT OF A JOB? AN INTERESTING QUESTION TO A CERTAIN YOUNG AMERICAN, AND WITH AN INTERESTING ANSWER I "Now, if _I_ was running this country," said Paul Manley, lighting a new cigarette, and ending a diatribe against things as they were in the U. S. A. in the year 1920, "I tell you what I'd do! First I'd----" A customer descended hurriedly from One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street into Hepp's Bargain Basement where Paul was employed as sales clerk. "Want a pair of shoes!" "What kind of shoes?" grumbled Paul. He would have liked his job in Hepp's Bargain Basement well enough if it weren't for customers always coming in and taking his mind off important affairs. "A good, strong shoe I'm not hard to suit," said the customer, a gray-haired and well-dressed business man. "You're going to wear them--not me, mister," said Paul, yawning. He rose slowly from the bench at the back of the little shop, and came forward. He was a tall and skinny youth of about twenty. "Sit down, will you?" The customer sat down, thrust out his foot, and glanced at the clerk. Manley had walked away toward the shelves. The customer grunted, pulled a foot-rest to him, and began to unlace his shoe. "I don't want a tan shoe," he said a moment later.