The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1888-11-30

it was fifty years ago, and in New Eng
land. A little stern it was, no doubt;
but only as duty is always stern, holding
human waywardness to grand fidelity.
But it was not cramping or lettering. 1t
was not the regime of suspicious espi-
onage. We never had to watch for a
chance to play. We never said, "Ah !
there comes father; now we shall catch
it." We had our fun all round the farm,
and all through the day, whenever and
wherever four irrepressible boys could
get any kind of froic out of each other.
But we had to chink it in, you under
stand. The main thing was work. So
the play never lasted long enough for
surfeiting. We were always hungry for
it. And that gave a zest, you see, to the
holidays when they did come. They
were all the more to us, let me add, for
the character they took on in the light
of the earnest life we had to live in those
days, from our earliest childhood. 1t
takes a great deal more machinery to
amuse people now, than it did in those
days of simpler tastes and sterner moral
tiles. Things are voted stupid now, I'M
less the fun is exciting and uprOariOus,
or unless the festivity is costly, and spec
tacular, and just little perilous tomor-
atty. The baseball must be a contest
of professionals. The football must be d
pitched battle. The concert must be an
opera. The dance must be voluptuous.
The social party must be at its height at
midnight 1t is amusement running
riot. 1t is nothing unless intense. And
the more intense, the more it pals, like
the epicure's diet that destroys his taste
for the best and simplest things. But
fifty years ago we had no such surfeit OF
wild hilarities. And SO the holiday that
would now be accounted dull, in some OF
its features, was to US a very sweet and
sacred joy; not ali fun and feasting, but
all beautiful, and refining, and hallow-
ing festivity. Let me tell you how it
among the New England hills.
You must know, then, that, being the
only public holiday we should have for
more than six long months, we thought
great deal about it. We planned our
work so as to have it well done up be-
fore Thanksgiving. It was a shame to
the man whose corn was not all in the
barn before the last Thursday of Novem-
Der. And all through the autumn work,
we kept before us the Joy OF the coming
festival We thought OF it out in the
orchards, and said, as we shook down
the bins full and barrels full OF apples,
Now, won't these great big golden
fellows be nice for Thanksgiving" And
that made us think how the apples We're
something to be thankful for. Then out
in the cornfelds, where the pumpkins
always grew, we picked out the biggest
and the yellowest, great, futed, orange
tinted globes of pie stuff, bigger than
any boy of US could lit, and we said ;
"We'll have them for Thanksgiving
Won't they make a lot of pies, though ?"
And that made us think how the corn
fields were something to be thankful for.
So when we went foraging for chestnuts
up among the hills, and gathered the
walnuts up in the big walnut tree pas
ture, and the butternuts-We went four
miles to get those out OF the dear old
grandfather's meadoWs-as we slowed
them away up in the wOOdhOuSe cham
Der, we said, THEY'LL be good about
Thanksgiving And so, LAYING up
things in store all through the glad in
gathering of the autumn days, we kept
t1e coming festival in mind, till it grew
into something very dear and sacred in
our young hearts vision. All! nobody
knows half the meaning of the honest
feast who has to buy it all from the
market. You must plant the corn, and
pray for the rain upon it, and put your
own toll into it, and watch It's growing,
and wait for it's ripening, and sing the
{" Harvest Home" oyer it, if you want
to know what it is to be thankful for the
good Lords bounty.
Well, so we worked and waited, while
the vision grew into an eager expec-
fancy. The sweet September days went
swiftly by. The clear and crisp October
days went out into the dreamy haze OF
Indian summer. The dull November
days grew short, and gusty, and kee:
with the frosts and occasional snow
fakes of the Fastening winter The
flowers were gone. The green leaves
were gone the trees all bare. The birds
had flown. The ice had begun to
mirror the brooks and rivers. The very
grass had stopped growing and was
browning under the frosty sun. All ma
ture seemed TO be through with its service
and waiting for the benediction And
then came Thanksgiving Day, the sea-
sons beautiful benediction.
The Sabbath before, we had the first
token of it, in the reading of the Pro
clamation All that Proclamation 1t
was a reverent Acknowledgement of the
goodness of the Most High God, and
solemn summons of the people to a
sacred and solemn thankfulness for all
his loving bounty. And it came in
form BETTING the dignity and solemnity
of the occasion. 1t came directly from
His Excellency the Governor, an official
document sent to every minister of the
gospel in the commonwealth. 1t was
printed large, and as the minister un-
folded it and spread it out over the
pulpit, and read the stately words, and
held it up till our wondering eyes caught
a glimpse of the great seal of the State,
and we heard the Governors name, and
the name of the Secretary of State attest
ing the Proclamation, and closing with
the reyerent prayer, "God save the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts" it
seemed to us that the Commonwealth OF
Massachusetts was little grander than
any other land the sun shines upon
And it was that State document that did
it; that Proclamation, printed large, and
sent direct from His Excellency the |