Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1885-12-04
The best Saturday play was training, as
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the boys called playing soldiers
'Training day" was thu day when the mill
tia marched out to the meeting house green
and we're reviewed by their officers. And the
boys, who looked on with delight, celebrated
their "training day" as often as leisure Sat.
urday would permit
They hadn't many holidays. Christmas
was frowned upon, as festival OF the Eng
lish church upon which their ancestors had
turned their backs when they came to this
country. But Thanksgiving was the chief
feast day Of the year. To meeting in the
forenoon, to hear good strong sermon on
the state Of the country and then home to
a grand dinner of turkey and chicken pie,
plum pudding and pies Of pumpkin, apples
and minoe, with dessert of apples and ci.
der, and grand game of blind mans buff in
the evening-that was Thanksgiving day,
and while they we're in the midst Of their fes-
tvities, perhaps a great snow storm would
come and block up the windows and doors,
so that their only way out the next day would
be through tunnollod drift.
Sometimes on a market day, the boy goes
into Boston with his father, who with we'll.
filled saddle-bags rides his big bay horse,
while his son jogs slowly beside him on an
old Dobbin. They cross the river on fat
ferry boat worked by a chain which stretch
es across the strevm, and they enter town by
the road leading IN over The Neck" where
they meet the New York stage which has
been for two weeks on its way from that city,
bringing mails aud passengers
In Boston be sees gent lemen in their pow
dered wigs, braided queues, cooked hats, lace
ruff 80, small clothes and knee buckles, and
gilt buttons on their coats. Occasionally, too,
a carriage with a black footman or a coach
man-slaves, they we're Ce ,ar or Cato by
t. -, koI ,,,,N, a. - oil
her slaves free though men we're beginning
to think that they could not conscientiously
say, IAN men are born free and equal, while
they held any in bondage.
He IL always glad when business takes his
father down to the wharves, so that be may
see what is coming from or going to other
parts of the world. Perhaps a schooner is in
from the Barbados, loaded with molasses,
and another is loading for the same port with
salt fish. A ship from England, which has
been Eve or six weeks on the way, is unload.
ing window glass, salt, calico, broadcloth,
hardware, and many a simple thing that the
New Englsnders could make for themselves
IL the mother country would allow them to
do 30.
Jonathan stands under the great elm that
has already received the name of Liberty
tree" and he sees relocated soldiers in the
streets, and hears on all sides talk of the
British war ships in the harbor.
His father buys q copy of Poor Richards
almanac" published by Benjamin Franklin
in PhiladelphiR, and also a newspaper the
Massachusetts Spy, and carries them safely
home to read at his leisure, for a newspaper
was a rare treasure in those days. And the
buying Of the newspaper reminds me to tell
you what sort Of money Jonathan uses, when
he has any to use-which, to tell the truth.
is not often.
He has coppers or pennies three times as
large as our present cents. Then he has
sometimes silver sixpenc or ninepence OF
little piece called fourp ence ha' penny, and
occasionally a Spanish pistareen, which is
worth about 20 cents. He has seen pine tree
shillngs, which were used in his grandfath-
er's day, but there are no five or ten-cent
pieces, no quarter or half dollars, though
there are big Spanish silver dollars much
used by the merchants.
II he is sent to buy sugar or molasses for
his mother, he is herhaps told that the price
is lone and sixpence," or two and six, " or
three and nine" What mystery such
prices must be to you to-day
His father last year bought his wife cali.
co gown at four and sixpence yard, made
very likely, of American cotton-for cottor
had been growing in South Carolina for the
last twenty years, and was already exported
| to England and manufactured. But Good
wife Dawson will not wear any more British
calico. She will prefer her own homespur
dresses and the independence that Gomez
with them.
One singular event of Jonathan's boyhooC
| | must not omit to mention. He had the
small-po that is, he had it given to him oil
purpose. He went, with his mother and two
sisters and half-dozen of their neighbors
to a lonely house on an island, and there th'
whole party had the small pox together. AT
ter they were well, others took their place
for the same purpose. Vaccination had no
be en- discovered, and it was found that takinI
the smallpox by incubation, as it was called
made the disease less dangerous, so it wa
the custom for people to save themselve
from the worst form of it by taking the light
est.
Although Jonathan is New England boy
he has never seen the American flag, TO
there was no American flag in his time evei
the pine-tree flag had not yet been made.
He has never celebrated the Fourth of Ju
ly; for as yet there has been nothing to dis
tinguish that day from others. But he wi
live to call it Independence day" and I
think of it as the birthday of great nation
He is British subject while boy. Whe
he is young man he will be a soldier in III
revolutionary army and fight under the star
and stripes. And long before he is an oil
man he will be good citizen of the free an
Independent republic of the United States.