Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-04-20
American Holidays.
BY GAIL HAMILTON.

Once there was little girl who would
have been very happy with her two chill
dren, Emilius Alvah and Mary Maria, but
for the sad thought which underl1y all
her enjoyment that time was coming
when she could no longer play with DOLE.
Grown people had no dolls. What there
could be to enliven the dreariness of ex-
istence when dolls should have gone by,
the little lady could not imagine; and she
found that cold comfort in the determi-
nation that she would set herself resolutely
to drawing, and find in making pictures
such satsfactio as might be left when the
real piquancy of life should have passed
away.
But the years came and went. Mary
Maria disappeared wholly from the eyes
of mortals, and no man knoweth her
sepulchre to this day. Emilius AL
vab, with badly battered face, and a
sadly shattered ankle, and a shocking
bad hat, lay on high shelf III dark
closet and, strange to say. no one
mourned him. His little mother grew
to womanheod and, for the waste she
looked to endure, she found life so ex-
ceeding bright and sweet and full that
she never had regret, but only plea
SAINT memory, for Emilius Alvah and
Mary Maria. SO. -ge-. 4a..- ssz .a.
just as it is with individuals so it is
with nations. Just as it would be for a
woman to 90 back to her dolls for amuse-
ment ia it for a mature and intellectual
nation to go back to the antics of crude
and rollicking PERIOD or to attempt to
adopt the antics of crude and rollicking
nation. There was time when English
1 Al L.
| wives by climbing creased poles aud run
ming sack-races. Men and women 10 Italy
may still entertain themselves by putting
on grotesque garments, and peltipg each
other with sugar plums. But surely the
| American populace never presenter a
more melancholy spectacle tn IN in its
late attempt to be jolly under equally
creditable circumstances A&-A-A 81
| Yet the attempt was not, necessarily,
childish or unworthy. There is n vague
idea that Americans are too sedate, that
they have not sufficient relaxation, that
they ought to appoint more holidays. But
what does the idea spring from? Amuse-
meat is for health, happiness, effe ctive.
4 ness. DO not the Americans live az long
as other people? Are they not the hap.
piest people in the world ? Are they real.
ly less effective than any other? What
do we want of holidays? Probably we
have come nearer than any other nation
TO equaliZing work. A greater proper.
| tion of persons are actively engaged in
business smaller proportion are suffer
1 ing from intense and prolonged overwork
i And just in the ratio of the squ 4lization
diminishes our need of holidays. The
American workman is L OF a child with Q
4 set task, not slave with an oppres sive
burden, but free intelligent. stlf-respect.
i ing, and self-guiding man. He lays out
bis own life. He reaIs the re.
| ward of his ltbors. His work does not
mean simply bread. and butter, and a
dance under the May pole, but solid beef
and padding, deaconship in the chnrcb,
two weeks summer board in the country,
a piano for his daughter, and high school,
and perhaps college for his sen. Set him
running sack-race, indeed! He literal
ly is the populace, at least of New Eng
land. The quiet country village, with its
one meeting house and four school houses,
may have few exceptional tatterdema-
lions, recognized and tolerated, living
from hand to mouths little Bohemia.
half butt, half burden. But the mass Of
the people are such as the deacon afore-
said. They do not thank you for holt
| days. What they want more than the
State prescribes they can take for them
selves without ! prescriptions Some
times, when they come home from sh D
or market, they will buy mask,
with which their children will delight
aud sffeight themselves for week !;
but a wagon load of men and
women going about the streets in sober
earnest masks, bowling to right and left,
seems to them simply silly. A man strid-
ing along the sidewalk in yellow fan-i
mel surplice merely makes a guy of him
self, and they gaze upon him with pro.
found soberness. If they have any money
to spend in sugar-plums, the sugar plums
are safely wrapped in brown paper bags.
and bestowed in their govercoat pockets
for the delectaiion of their own little folks
not for grown up strangers. Tournament
trowsers trimmed with tinsel lace look
wonderfully incongrrous over stout Yam
kee leather boots and our familiarity
with circus riders and outriders make the
haberdashery of knighthood show marvel
ously mean under the broad daylight oil
the nineteenth century. -
Whatever amendment is made for our
relief from work must be made in accord
ance with our constitution, national and
serfssrs "a sessN 4kEW q !