New-York tribune., 1881-12-25
LIAH'S FIRST CHRISTMAS
ny POSE TERRY COOKE.


Written for The Trtbonss Chos'r'Gs ISs4e.
"Thcre's yer Dnnkin"
And ne set down on the kitchen table n small
irregular shaped pumpain not a big smooth golden
sphere such as lay heaped the barn floor In hun
dreds.
@Oh. Father said his wife very gently. being a
little wan, meek-iaced creature, with scarce the
pungencv of n mouse the spirit OF weakly lamb
well what now p snapped Elijah Hosklns, turn
ing on the door-sll tc look at her under nus shaggy
eyebrows.
"Wby ha'nt We got no better than that It real
slim lookin', seems as though we'd ought to kinder
mt the bes' foot foremost seein' Abners comm to
Thanksgiyin' and Nettys comm to STAY"
ats GOOD 'nough Sary Ann. i got first-rate
offer for the rest Oh em TO Hickory Farm, aud they
won't take no runts there, now, tell ye It's good
,pourh | dono why folks has got to guzze and
siuft lest because its ThanksgIyin' Day. It's bad
enough to have ye set to that the bronze turkey had
10 be sarteTed for 4. | never see his excl for a
foowl and tegrutch him to be used 60 hum, when
bes worth i've dollars good rloney To the city, most
anywhere"
Ssry Ann held her peace, and the tyrant OF the
family took himself of. In his remarks about that
bronze turkey he said nothing of the fact that his
wife had given her black silk apron to neigh
wife in exchange for six eggs OF this mighty breed
three of which hatchod out into two cocks and a
hen. n pair were kept for breeding, and this one.
foreordan ned to be the chief ignre at Thanksgiving,
Mrs Hoskns had petted, pampered, walted on,
watched over and run after with an anxious care
its real parent never could have equalled She had
put pepper-corns its unwilling tongue for the
good of IT'S digestion; she had rubbed sulphur and
lard, kerosene oil, wornwOOd tea and nobody
knows what else into its infant feathers and
choDned onion tops and scadcd me Al and pussley
.x.1Or
plump aud glossy as Il ripe chestnut. and all ready
70 be killed for the feast. Yet Liah grudged 1t.
There are more than four" people like Elijah Hos
lius in the world; he hal been born into state OF
sin and misery as the catechism says, ground into
The dust by penHrlous and narrow parents, and the
awful poverty that is the lot OF some New-England
farmers who drag out life on its lonely hlllsldes
mare frugal in its fare than hcrmits, and far more
dreadful 10 END re- since its prvalons and distress
are not TO be endured alone.
'Iiah had inherited however, the fruit of all this
1aborous poverty in the shape of farm more
extensive than profitable; but free from mortgage
or debt of any kind. Principally woodland, II
had been unproduciive erough, and when he mar
ried Sarah Ann Parks he inducted the gentle, shy
voung girl into life of hard work and of sef-re-
pression which had almost worn her out but for
her children she would ave been very glad TO take
the place ready for her in the lonely little graveyard
at the foot of Saltash Mountain, where her father
and mother slept this long time; but she had that
mothely heart that is faii biu TO the very end aud
she resolved not only to live but to be rs cheerful
her life would allow for the sake of Abncr and
Netty, her hoy and girl
Abner had long since left home and the stern
rule of his father and worked his way up from the
youngest clerk IN o country store to lie cashier IN
Hayerferl Bank and now he was married, and had
Ia Int ha ho1 not
his hone for ten years; he was coming home to this
Thanksgiving for the second time only since he left
the farm twenty years ago, boy of fifteen. Per
haps if he had stayed with his father and spent his
life IN that band-tohand battle with the elemental
forces OF nature that farming means on the high
lands OF w-EDgland, Abner would have repeated
him in character; but what greed in the elder
man developed only into care, economy and thrift
In the yeanger; and to his work he carried the
same energy, persistence and shrewdness that dis
tinguished Elijah. Living among other people he