Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1883-12-21

Christmas carols had been sung to them by
nurses aud mothers aud grandmothers the
Christmas holly spoke to them from every
berry aud prickly leaf full Of dearest house
hold memories. Some Of them had been
men of substance among the English gentry
and in their prosperous days had held high
festival in ancestral halls in the season Of
good cheer Elder Brewster himself had been
rising young diplomat in the court Of Eliz-
abeth, in the days when the lord keeper Of
the seals led the revels of Christmas as lord
of misrule
SO that, though Sunday morning arose
gray and lowering, with snow flakes lowering
in the air, there was Christmas in the thoughts
of every man and woman among them-albe-
it it was the Christmas of wanderers and ex-
lies in wilderness looking back to bright
hOme-hres across stormy waters.
The men had come back from their work
on shore with branches Of green and pine
and holly, and the women had stuck them
about the ship, not without fearful thoughts
Of old home places, where their childhood
fathers and mothers did the same.
Bits and snatches of Christmas carols were
floating all around the ship, like land birds
blown far out to sea.
Down in the cabin Rose Standsh was hush
ing little Peregrine, the first American born
baby, with Christmas lullaby.
See here" quoth Miles Standsh, when
my Rose singeth, the children gather round
her like bees round flower. Come, let us
all strike up q goodly carol together. Sing
one, sing all, girls and boys, and get bit of
Old Eugland's Christmas before tomorrow,
when we must to our work on shore"
Thereat Rose struck up a familiar ballad
metre OF catching rhythm, and every voice
of young and old was soon joining in it.
The cheerful sounds spread themselves
through the ship like the flavor Of some rare
perfume, bringing softnes5 of heart through
a thousand tender memories.
Anon, the hour of Sabbath morning wor-
ship drew on, and Elder Brewster read from
the New Testament the whole history of the
Nativity, and then gave a sort of Christmas
homly from the words of st. Paul, in the
eighth chapter of Romans the sixth and sew.
enth verses
The only record of Christmas Day in the
Pilgrims journal is this
Monday, the 18th, being Christmas Day,
we went ashore, some to fell timber, some to
saw, some to rive, and some TO carry and so
no man rested on that day. But towards
night some as they were at work, heard
noise OF Indians. which caused us all to go
to our muskets but we heard no further so
We came aboard again, leaving some to keep
guard That night we had sore storm Of
Wlnd ana ram. But AT nlght the shlpmaster
caused MS to have some beer aboard"
So worthly kept they the first Christmas,
from which comes all the Christmas cheer of
New England to-day There is no record
how Mary Winslow and Rose Standish and
others, with women and children, came ashore
and walked about encouraging the builders
and how little Love gathered stores of bright
checkerberries and partridge pums, and was
made merry in seeing squirrels and wild rab.
bits nor how old Margery roasted certain
wild geese to a turn at woodland fire, and
conserved wild cranberres with honey for
sauce. In their journals the good pilgrims
say they found bushels of strawberries in the
meadows in December. But we, knowing
the nature of things, know that these must
have been cranberries, which grow still
abundanty around Plymouth Harbor
And at the very time that all this was doing
in the wilderness, and the men were working
yeomanly to build a new nation, in King
James's court the ambassadors of the French
king were being entertained with maskings
and mummeriugs, wherein the staple subject
of merriment was the Puritans
So goes the wisdom of the world and its
ways-and 20 goes the wisdom of God
J.