Tárogató, 1944-1945 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1944-10-01 / 4. szám
TÁROGATÓ IS has given me so wide experience.” It is said that some of the finest passages in Munthe’s “Story of San Michele” were written after he had suffered partial blindness. He writes, “I have come back a different man. I seem to be looking out upon the world with my one remaining eye from another angle of vision. I can no more see what is ugly and sordid. I can only see what is beautiful and sweet and clean.” There is a peculiar grace about people who have learned to take life as they find it and then live it out bravely and happily and without envy or rebelliousness. They do not dwell upon their plain looks, their shortness of stature, their lack of fortune or any other physicial limitation that life has brought them. They have got beyond the ridiculousness of small distresses and have set their hearts on issues so great that the soul dominates the body and they have got beyond being anxious about their stature, their plain looks or any of their infirmities. It is not so much the equipment that a man has that counts as what he does with it. The wise soul accepts life as it is as his capital account to work with. He knows this is God’s world; and in God’s world it is possible to make all things, the joyful things and the bitter things, the things that make one sob and the things that make one sing, the things that impoverish and the things that make one rich, it is possible to make all these things work together for good. “The common problem yours, mine, every one’s, Is—not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be—but, finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means: a very different thing—Ex. —United Church. THE LOBSTER’S NEW SUIT By Walther J. Cross What happens when a lobster gets too large for his suit? A lobster can keep on growing larger and larger, but he is unable to make his shell grow larger with him. Finally, he finds himself much too large for his shell. What is he to do? When a lobster finds that his suit is too small for him, he discards it by wriggling out of the shell. But without a shell a lobster is very helpless—a prey to all kinds of sea life, including other lobsters. So, he usually discards his shell in some little hiding place on the sea floor—behind a stone or inside a hole. Then he begins to swallow water. He keeps drinking and drinking until he is twice his former size. When he has made himself as swollen as possible, he begins to build a new shell of lime compound around himself. When the shell is complete and the lobster feels secure in his armour, he ventures out. Of course, when he lets out the water he is much too small for the new suit, but by eating and growing it wall one day fit just right. How?ever, when the new suit is no longer large enough, he will have to go through the same procedure. Eventually, if he is able to survive all the perils of the deep sea, he may attain a growth of almost three feet in length. PATHFINDERS TO ALASKA “Long ago vast herds of caribou routed the true Alaska Highway,” declares Mrs. Peg Deeder, author and pioneer of the Francois Lake area in northwestern British Columbia. The far inland route, via Edmonton, was chosen for the present military road partly for strategic reasons. But folk in the west-coast states, British Columbia and Alaska, long have demanded another road closer to the coast —a continuation of “Route 109” from Mexico. From time immemorial the caribou, in their great migrations, followed the course of least resistance and padded trails which are still plainly visible. They found the best fords, crossed the summits by the easiest passes, and carefully avoided the mud and muskeg which gave the builders of the military highway so much trouble. In turn, the Indians followed the deer; the trapper and prospector followed the Indians, and big pack trains followed them. Many reached the Klondike in the days of the Gold Rush over this route, while not a single pack train reached the Yukon from Edmonton without losing their horses and coming close to starvation. Many others died in the attempt. The North West Mounted Police imprived some of the trapper’s trails, and when surveyors and engineers finally arrived they invariably found themselves within yards of the original trails of the fourfooted pathfinders- Thus it appears that when the coast road to Alaska is finally built—as northern devel-
