Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-01-01
MsMoRY's WINDOWS.
Drawing Aside the Curtain for a Retro
spect Of Youthful Days.

In his recent Thanksgiving address in
the Brooklyn Tabernacle, DR.. Tslmadge
gave the following vivid recital of his
b,cbood times, and which will be appro-
prla;ed By q large portion of the older
class of our readers as an accurate add
fond portrayal OF the long past scenes OF
their own youthful times in far away and
perhaps oblterated homes, but viewed
still with almost rapture through the open
windows of memory. He said
Then we have not only the present sur
roandings to make US hsppy, bat our
minds are crowded with vivid reminls-
cepces. On day like this the memory
becomes Kaleidoscope, and every minute
the scene changes. You give to the kali
ei6oscope of memory turn, and there
they are, natural as life, around the coun'
try hearth on a cool winter night. Hear
the hickory fire crackle and see the shad-
ows fit up and down the wall. Games
that sometimes well.nigh upset the chairs
blind mans buff, who's got the
button, 1.-THE popping corn" :" the mo.
Iasses pulling" and the witch stories that
made the neighbors' boys afraid to so home
after dark. Hickorynuts on one dish,
roasted apples on the other. The bolster.
Gus PLAYS of more bags on the mill,
"leap frog, -" catcher, around and around
the room until some one got hurt and a
kiss was offered to make up the hurt, the
kiss more resented than the hurt. High
old times Father an mother got up and
went into the next room because they
could not stand tn racket. Then, instead
of computations of conscience, worse
racket But now the scene Ia fading out.
The old fireplace is down and the house Is
down with It. One of those boys went to
sea and was never heatd of. Another be-
came squire in the neighboring village.
Another went to college and became MIN
iste1. Another died toe following summer,
and they are all gone, and you had better
turn the kaleidoscope quickly or you will
get US all crying
There Turn it no further, for l want
to see that old Thanksgiving dinner.
Father at one end, mother at the other,
and the children between, wondering II
father will ever get done carving the tur.
key. On, that prou5-struthng hero OF the
barnysrd, upside down, his plumes gone
and minus his gobble, stuffed with that
which he can never digest. The day be-
fore, at school, we had learned that Greece
was south of Turkey, but at that table we
found that turkey was bounded by grease.
The brown surface waiting for the fork to
plunge astride the breast bone, and with
knife sharpened on the jambs of the fire.
place lay bare the folds of white meat.
Give to the boy disposed to be sentimental
A. e -
the drumsticks, give to the one disposed TO
theological discussion the parsons nose.
Then the pies For the most part lost
art. What minoe pies, in which you had
all confidence, fashioned from all rich In
gradients, instead of miscellaneous lesv-
ings which are only sort of glorifed hash
Not mince pies with profound mysteries OF
origin. But mother made them, chopped
the meat for them, spiced them, sweetsned
them, favored them, and laid the lower
crust and the upper crust, with here and
there a puncture by the fork to let you
look through the light and tlaky surface
INTO the substance beneath. No brandy,
for cid folks were stout for temperance, and
cider about half way between new and
hard, with slight tendency to hard. But
| have always been opposed to cider-ex.
cept when it's good. Dear me What a
pie You deluded New Englanders can
talk till you are gray about your pumpkin
pies for Thanksgiving Day, but give me an
old-fashioned New Jersey mince pie. OF
the ten at that table all are gone save two
some in village churchysrd, some in city
cemetery-but we shall sit with them yet
at a brighter banquet. Better turn the
kaleidoscope.
Yea; there they go down this hill, head
first, on a sled, coasting. Clear the track
Four sleighs abreast and four in the rear,
the touch Of the toe the only rudder the
walk up hill, thrashing the numb fingers
around the body, more than paid for by the
descent swift as the sled of Laplander.
Many of our lives are only repetition of
that process, walking up hill for the sake
of riding down 1t,
Turn the kaleidoscope and you see the
neighborhood quilting. The mothers and
wives came in the afternoon, all wrapped
up from the cold, and their feet on foot
stove. When they got warm and took out
their needles and sat down 1t was a merry
group and full of news. Once in a while
needle would slip and make bad scratch
upon tie character of some absentee, but
for the most part it was good wholesome
talk. And in the evening, when the young
people came, and the old people were in
enc room and the young people In another,
in the latter there was some lively step
ping. When the black boy played
"Moneymusk even grandfather, in the
nex5 room, who had distributed many
tracts on the sin of dancing, was seen to
make his heel go. 1t seemed to me great
f,,rs nd nat RI oct
made. But the fact was that good neigh
borhood was quilted, warm sympathies
were quilted, lifetime friendships were
quilted and connubial bliss quilted. And
they stayed late. And such plays as you
had in that back room when you joined
hands and one of the loveliest stood IN the
ring What circumference to what a
center
Turn again the kaleidoscope and there is
the old meeting. house, made solemn and
sleepy humble. bees humming about the
old clapboards; horses under the shed
stamping at the flies choir in gallery with
a broken fiddle; farmers in their sleeves
aroused from their slumbers by the hymn
My drowsy powers, why sleep you so {"
aged mininter, good enough for translation;
the old church from floor to ceiling full of
old-tashloned religion, one ounce OF which
is worth twenty tons of the humbug of
modern evolution. Where's the old minis
ter now? Where are the leaders who sat
around the pulpit and list med till the ser.
mon got to the seventeenthly?
Turn the kaleidoscope again and there
is the old country school-house, where
the master pulled our ears till they have
always since been little out of proportion;
the tin cup out of which fifty drank with
out fastidiousness the CAD cut out of the
woods by the boy whowas to sufferit in his
own chastisement the modest house in
the woods, and the jealousies because a
pair of black or blue eyes would have I'm.
complimentary preferences the DULLES of
ten years old imposing on those of seven F.;
the rising of mirthful feeling among the
ribs, quaking the young diaphragm and
rising till it twitohed the corners of the
mouth and suppression was no more posi-
BILE, and though frowning schoolmaster sat