Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1888-05-10
Thanksgiving at Sharon Farm
BY HUNTSVILLE wILpMAN.


long. Early Thursday morning, when
Bjah took the bright secured pail from
the rack on the sunny side of the
broad eaved old house. the hills about
Sharon farm were brown and scar; not
semblance of snow was in the atmos-
phere, only a dull leaden coloring off
toward the north. But by the time
the last patient mulley was stripped,
little furry of flakes beat against the
cow-shed window, and Bijah told
Grandpa Parsons that +" He'd be thum-
ed if it warn't going ter be reg Ter
Thanksgiv NJ weather arter all.
Hour after hour the snow continued
to fall. Softly like Il mantle it spread
over field and farm building. gradually
sitting down among the frozen heritage;
at first hardly showing the place of
hiding. but later asserting itself and
burrying the dead grasses and en-
shrouding the freshly plowed fields.
Ever and anon II lealless daisy or
broken stalk of the mullen still could
be seen bending under its load like
some discouraged sentinel of lost
cause.
BY noon the barren hills. the ram
bling fences. the long stumbling barns.
the straw stacks; the old homestead
were all alike beautiful in their gar
ments of white. "Der t'anksgiven
clos" little Gilbert said as he flatten-
ed his dminutive nose against the Win
dow pane.
Thanksgiving was the great day at
Grandpa Parsons. Christmas and New
Years were but feeble limitations.
There were good reasons for Thanks
giving being celebrated ut Sharon farm;
many things TO be thankful for, thought
grandpa rs he leaned back ia ais capa-
cous easy chair before The glowing
arch fire
The great cavernous arch was the
Mecca of Sharon farm. To-day it was
loaded down with its shaggy hickory
backlog and four sticks. and piled
high with apple tree limbs sending
forth its many colored flames in snap
ping, cracking play. filling the room
with genial warmth and an aroma of
orchard and forest. Grandpa Parsons
loved to have his chair drawn up be-
fore it and gaze into its sunny depth.
OF times Gilbert and Mary. Horace and
Helen would perch upon his knees or
draw up beside him while he would re-
late the story of Thanksgiving morn
ing long ago. They never tired of it.
To-day. as the fragrant smoke slow
iy curled from his pipe and hid him
from view for q moment and then
galloped up the chimney, his mind fell
away TO the past. He was but a little
boy again. The homestead was not so
old then; the clap boards were not 80
deeply furrowed with seams; the woods
came nearer the house-so near that
at eventide their heightened shadows
wrapped the home in premature
twilight and sent its inmates early to
bed
He remembered how his father and
uncle shot bear where now stands
the district school house. Everything
htS OihilEOhs ib bhOuEhNt bhO
great stone fire place--that was the
same. He thought of how on n winter
night he would bake long row of
sweet Npples before il, his face growing
ruddy rs he stopped to turn them
round and round before the glowing
Goals; and how pan of hickory nuts
would be cracked and eaten, while the
soft flames lit up the dusky room and
cast spectral shadows upon the
opposite wall.
He thought how, on such an evening
their laughter was checked by the soft
CRYING of child on the door step. It
was little girl. warmly wrapt. They
took it in and little Seth kissed it and
called it his baby sister Thankful. for it
was Thanksgiving highland grandpa
smiled in his reverie us he thought of
that happy time. The little girl grew
up and learned to call him "Budder
Sethe." They played together making
mud pies, hunting hens nests and nut
ting in the summer aud fall, and in the
winter the old arch was hundred fold
dearer now that II sister shared it.
Fifteen Thanksgiving went by, fill
ed with innocent mirth and thoughtless
play. Seth went from his dear roof
tree to distant academy. How proud
he was when he came home OH his
first vacation. and how much he had 10
tell Thankful of his school, his mates.
and one blue-eyed girl, who had stolen
his young heart. But Thankful was
quiet while he ran on with his many
triamphs. She tried TO sympathize
with him, but the tears came to her
eyes, and then she could only put her
arms around her brothers neck and
tell him how proud she was of him.
One time he brought his roommate,
Bonnie home with him. He loved Ben
ME, and he told Thankful she must