Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-12-24

tancc, DogBluR 0lm 10 come ana save MS
broken-hsarted daughter. BE did not
even 60 to the funeral, an absence noted
by the neighbors and which they subse-
quently recalled.
He hired the top of Prospect Hill and
built a watch tower where is now the OBJ
servatory. He had sense enough to know
that he must devise first off an instru-
ment to measure the exact length of q day
SO as to compare il With the exact length
of q following day. The instrument he
devised and used was probably of the
clepsydra order, as then there was water
enough in the harbor to suggest the idea
and to permit its realization. About the
time that would answer to August he
commenced his investigations; about Au-
gust 10 he became satisfied there could be
no doubt of the truth of the hypothesis.
In q fortnight the day had lost ons-six-
tieth of its length; rate at which in
about thousand days day would termi-
nate, leaving eternal night in sovereignty
supreme.
The poor boy, though eonsecrated to
pure science, was completely overcome by
the result of his investigations. He al
most wished he had never invented the in
fernal clepsydra and could still live along
in blissfu1 ignorance of his fate like the
rest of his kind. But now, what should
he dos He had gone too far to retreat
Should he tell his mother and frighten
that venerable party out of her few re-
manning witsl Should he inform his
youthful companions and ask them to
share with him his unsupportable bur-
dens! Day after day he hesitated. Each
day the unsympathetic clepsydra an
nounced the nearer approach of the catas-
trophe. Finally the strain became too
great for juvenile endurance. Seeing in
the morning paper an announcement of a
town meeting, he hesitated no longer.
Clearing his throat and steadying his
nerves by repeating ''The boy stood on the
burning" &C., &C., he boldly entered the
meeting; was recognized by the modera-
tor and made clean breast of the whole
business. The scene that followed must
have been too much for the reportorial
powers of the day, as no report is in exis-
tence. Many had already noticed that
something was wrong. A few had sus-
pected the truth; SO that when the whole
truth was presented with the heliometric
provings all recognized it and felt its pow
er. Everyone forthwith must have clep-
sydra, and the young hero, having paten-
ted the article, made such fortune that
under ordinary circumstances he would
have smiled. But those were times when
there was no smiling on Prospect Hill,
even within its most hospitable
mansions. A committee was ap-
pointed to assist at the watch tower,
and every morning and evening signals
were flashed giving the exact time of the
SUMS risings and settings. Everyone was
up before sunrise, thus setting an admira-
BILE example for future generations. But
can they in their misery be blamed, poor
things, if they lost sight of future gen.
erations? And is not the scornfu1 ignor-
ing of their example by the same future
generations full justification for the omis-
sions
1t began to be very cold. During the
benign sway of animal instinct man bore
the cold instinctively and provided for it
intuitively. Consciousness of cold was
new, and as alarming as the darkness. Was
man not only to be relegated to eternal
gloom, but to be frozen to death when he
got there!
On the first. of November it was an
nounced that during the preceding thirty
its duration; that the night was encroach-
ing perceptibly and the cold increasing
rapidly. A private view of these primi-
tive people of this time would have brought
tear to fully dessiccated eye. Religion
was as yet nebulous and offered no conso-
lation. No license had been voted; SO no
artificial courage was obtainable. They
went about in their homesp1n, half-spun
blankets, pictures of archaic despair. On
ly the EXTREMIST pangs of hunger could drive
them to prepare their broth, or to fry the
succulent frost-fish. Stock tickers were ne
elected; love making had come to "a full stop.
Even politics were as heavy as a yesterdays
pancake. In disconsolate squads the peo-
pie stood about the watch tower as hungry
dogs stand about an empty pail. There
was not particle of hope in their faces.
But there they stood, -begone, chilly,
| hungry. They did not yet know enough
| to commit suicide or even to swear. TheiI
wretchedness was purely negative, and al
| the more lacerating to the outside behold
er because negative. About the middle oi
November an astounding discovery was
made. 1t appeared that the day was moi
| losing so much at one end as at the other
/ In fact, on the sixteenth it did not lose any
thing at the sunset end the rude elepsydrs
| could indicate. The excitement occasioned
| by this announcement was tremendous. tn.
| grasping of the drowning man at the typi
cal straw was nothing in comparison with
the clutches at the tiny hope floating on tbs
/ surface of this bare announcement. TwC
1 parties were ut once formed: the sunriseri
i and the sunsetters. Never during tn,
most glorious epochs of the seventh wart
| were party lines so strongly drawn, parti
san feeling so rampant. How happy is I
distraction even in the face of overwhelm
ing and inevitable destruction Thougl
the day was shortening all the while it wa
| shortening less at the sunset end than q
the sunrise end. This was the point witt
the sunsetters, and here they undoubtedl,
had the bulge on the sunrisers. Again ol
the twenty-first and again on the twenty
fifth there was no perceptible loss at tn
sunset end. This so elated the sunsetter
that they proclaimed a feast for the tween
ty-seyenth to celebrate their continus
triumph over their political adversaries
binding their eyes to the common woe
To the credit of pristine times be it record
ed that they invited their rivals, who aC
cepted, not because they also were blin
to the common woe, but because they want
ed turkey.
But why prolong the narratives Does nc
every reader know how it all came ou
How early in December the sunrisers ha
an inning: how the brave little clepsydri
hero soon had the proud honor of pr
claiming that the shortening process ha
reached minimum; how, then, came th
glorious tidings that it had stopped alt
, Qether; and how, when on the twenty-fift
he whispered, with voice nearly gone frol
previous shoutings, that an increase Wa
! surely manifest, all the world broke fort
into p@ans of thanksgiving and has ev'
| | since joyously observed the anniversary
/ | its glorious deliverancel If this be not
| fair-to-middling version of the origin
: Christmas, let better be formulated.
Of course the gentle lassie was not def
after all and it came out that the funeral w
D job put up by the old man to melt the +
: bust heart Of the youthful statesman al
0 to fool the neighbors. Now that he hi
0 time to turn his thought from affairs
a state, he found that his heart had been 6
: the while pulsating with love beats. TIL,
f were married "quite soon" English "
t know and all Prospect Hill was given
g them by the moribund QS90) town as
r wedding present. There his descendant
r with bumpers 10 his memory, are about
: celebrate once more the return of the d
d which ever comes laden with blessed pro-
n ises of future joy and holiness.
b So here's to Christmas. Let each. %
]. eat his full, drink his fuller, but be
L rtr-- L.