Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1875-12-17
A jolly Season.
HOW CHRISTMAS WAS SPENT BY THI
EARLY DUTCH SETTLERS.

!
one must first fancy one of those quaint
old houses, high ridged, but with slowly
sloping roofs, with the social stoops and
the low, projecting caves, beneath which,
in fair weather, the solid burghers were
wont to congregate at twilight to smoke
their long pipes and to discuss the price
of bearskins and the chances of the Con-
necticut colonists to enter their town.
But it is inside the house, not outside of
it, that our business lies. There is the
the good uro'O in all her glory. Suppose
that it is in the forenoon. White capped
and bare armed the latter in spite OF
the season-she and her daughters are
sprinkling the floor with the whitest
sand, stroking it with broom into a
hundred fantastic curves, Furnishing the
huge oaken chest that stands in the par
lor, filled with the cherished home made
linen, and scrubbing until they look like
little suns the silver porringers, tankards
and ladies, never exposed except on
Christmas, New Years, Whitsuntide and
such feast days.
Is all this for company Oh, no.
Mynheer, of New Amsterdam, like his
successor, of New York, dimes at home
on Christmas day. The house has been
lighted up with the huge candlesticks
the Holland cupboard is bright against
the wall the house linen is as pure and
as clean as the good woman can make it
and the brass nails of the straight back
ed armchair of Russia leather shine like
diamonds. Where is the good man in
the meantime2 just at this time on the
commons or at Beekman's swamp, where,
along with the ancients, he is watching
the youngsters contest for the prize tur-
keys. He has been doing his best to be
the first to shout out merry Christmas
greeting to his neighbors; and now, may
be, he is swelling in recollections how he
used to shoot when he was young. Old
fashioned comfort was the mot d'ordre
during the day old fashioned hilarity
gave the step at night. Then, after the
Christmas dinner, if Mynheer be pa
triarch, he smokes his long pipe among
a crowd of dancing children and grand
children, and, as he listens to the squeak
of the fiddle, thanks old Stuyvesant
from his heart, for the music of the cat
gut.
And so that holy day was kept until
that dreary time for all true-born Knick-
erbockers when the Dutch troops march
ed out of the fort, and the English flag
was run up over the Stadt Huys-to
stay there a century or trihe over.
Every one knows that St. Nicholas is
no friend of war and it is not strange,
therefore, that the alarms of the drum
and the shrill terrors of the warlike fife
frightened the old gentleman away dur
ing most of the time the English and the
Dutch were settling their little matters
together The tiny reindeer were not
heard so regularly on the roofs of the
houses, and the gifts were fewer in the
big fireplace. Christmas languished
from 1864, when the town was first tax
en-, to 1874, when it was finally ceded to
the English. Fortunately, however, the
English were great sticklers for Christ
mas. They reared it high up and made
many salaams to it. "Now, capons and
hens, besides turkeys, geese and ducks,
with beef and mutton y says an old
writer" must all die for in twelve
days multitude of people will not be
fed with little. Now plums and spice,
sugar and honey, square it among pies
and broth. Now or never must music
be in tune, for the youth must dance and
sing to get them in heat, while the
aged sit by the fire. The country maid
leaves half her marketing, and must be
sent again, if she forgets pack of cards
on Christmas eve"
In this hearty way was it that our En-
glish ancestors kept their Christmas
with solid purpose of getting the most
out of the day. They found the day in
high honor-they only gave new zest
and greater latitude to it. Mynheer
donned his longest WASTED coat, his larg-
est tapped vest with the largest silver
buttons, and an immense number of pairs
of breeches, and smoked his longest pipe.
His children sang in the language they
knew, and he left his new friend to honor
the day as he preferred. OF something
the descendants of both have reason to
be thankful for. Both Mynheer Van
Something and English John kept up
the fires on the altar so effectually that
we have not been compelled to remake
the alphabet of reverence and then learn
to spell in it. All that we need care for
is, that we shall transfer it as bright to
the children who come after us.
BURNS Charcoal has heen discover |
ed to be a cure for burns.- BY laying a
piece of cold charcoal upon the burn the