Arizona republican., 1892-01-01
NEW YEARS FOLKLORE.
J' II. Beadie Writes of Some Old TImo
 Indiana Expectations.

Indiana Expectations. some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
 The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
 And then they say no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time So Shakespeare says, or makes Mar cellus say and Horatio agree with him. but for some reason l could never dis cover, the traditions of the south and of southern peoples generally have trans ferred the larger share of these gracious influences to New Years night
 The rare Yankee" who penetrated to our section of the lower Wabash valley in the forties and fifties was amazed at our notions, and the New England critic sometimes said that our parents had been "Africanized" in their old homes in the border south. He meant, suppose, that the poor and middle class whites-the early settlers of the Wabash region-had imbibed the superstitions of the negroes; and there must have been some truth in , it, for surely we had many beliefs that no white race would have invented. "To watch the old year out and the new year in," was to see strange sights indeed.
 Then the cows would fall upon their knees and low in strange, prayerful way; the chickens would rise on their perches and stretch their wings as if in prayer; other animals would show devotion after their manner, and all nature would take on an appearance that indicated the beginning of new life. If the potatoes in store had sprout- ed as they too often did in a warm cellar the sprouts would often shoot out six inches in as many minutes, and if the ground near the smokehouse was bare, peculiar white plants would spring up.
 q have pulled shoots as long as my arm," one good old lady told me, but they never would keep, They jes' dried up and blew away before daylight"
 All this and much more I steadfastly believed, and why not? Hundreds of the best negroes in Kentucky had testified most positively to having seen such things, and though our own white folks had never been so favored, they did not contradict the old negroes and the old white people who had seen them. One sight, however, did see, and that was the world in an egg"
 If the sun shone bright on New Years day the trial was made by opening the south door of the dwelling and setting a glass half full of water on the floor in the sunshine. Into this an egg was broken, and as the contents slowly min gled with the water the bright rays of the sun illumining the mass would show in it men of various nations pursu- ing their various employments l saw the "egg men," a few of them, once when was about eight years old, but have never been able to see them since. Philosophers may supply the explana- tion. In those days, too, l often saw wonderful things in the clouds, in the coals of the wood fire and in the frost upon the window-angels, fairies and marvelously beautiful birds, lovely faces and deep vistas of garden and woodland 1 but cannot sec them now.
 New Years in the west and south was then sort of supplementary Christmas | -there was less rioting and more quiet, ! homely cheer On Christmas the ten dency was to gather at the village or | country store to drink and sing, shoot at a mark, wrestle and race; New Years | was the day for relatives and intimate friends to gather and partake of a boun- tiful dinner. It was about 1850 that | "watch night began to be observed | with religious services, at least in our neighborhood, and the old superstitions seemed to disappear all at once. No more praying cows or reverential roost- CTS, no more sprouting plants or linen in the egg, and no doubt the young people of that region would now hear with amazement that any one, no matter how ignorant, ever 'took stock in such things" J. II. BEADLE.