Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-11-27
THANKSGIVING.

Thanksgiving is day which fills us
 all with thanks and roast turkey, and as
 such day 1t is dear to the hearts of all
 Americans. Thanksgiving doesn't make
 us much noiso as does tho Fourth of Ju- ly, with it's freerackers, or as Christmas. with it's bells. The country is the only place Ill which Thanksgiving may be en- Joyed to its fullest extent, although there
 arc people who claim that it is not 1 without its own peculiar charm in tho smallest kind of flat. At first it may I seem absurd to the student of human
 affairs that l6 pound turkey should be able to perform with it's maximum grace Ill SIP fiat. But this fact is not Il mys- | tery when we como to look it squarely III the face and meet 1t with the mental dissecting knife. It is because these fiat | dwellers enjoy many Thanksgiving in the turkey of the present
 After the head of the family has gone to the table alone to do the carving, be- eanse he would not have sufficient elbow room if the family were congregated about him, they sit down and dream of the turkey, of the past when they were out on the farm looking across dreamy v1stas of nestling landscape, punctuated by the scareerow shivering in his straw hat and linen duster, to let the world know that summer was thing of the past And still they fancy they see this old searecrow standing among the corn stacks, with the wind blowing through his whiskers. They sec him right over there on the fire escape of tho neighbor- ing flat, for all tho flatscape to them is large area of farm land nestling with rcd leafed trees and mortgages that oan- not Do raised by hand and are not self raising like tho flour raised upon it.
 It has brought with it pleasant mem- orles which cover a period of 30 years. It only goes back to last March in the flesh, but it carries the man back to the time when he slept like top on corn husk mattress and arose in the early morn to gather the steaming pancake on the fly, long before he dreamed that ha would ever have to gather the matutinal horse car on the fly. It takes him back to tho old game of shinney, and brinYs back to him faces that had long since faded from his memory Out in the crisp chilly air lie shouts. sShinney on your own side'' as of old, and hears tha yelping of the hound, shining like pat ent leather with enthusiasm, and is stirred once more by the ripping whiz of the flushed partridge, and the reverber- ating bang of the sportsman S gun, that sounds so sweet in the aisles of the si- lent forest He will not wake from this pleasant dream of past happiness until the morrow, for then the turkey will be cold, and the logs of fancy's fireside will have been reduced to white ashes to stir fitfully i'll the vagrant gust of wind. Even when the turkeys shining carcass has beon chopped up to be util- ized as the base of an economic soup, the reminiscent charm will have vanished gracefully, like q $10 bill at q seaside resort, for the turkey, like love, is never itself again when once it's cold. It's feee are on tho ash heap and will strut about no more. Its head, with it's great pundreary whiskers of flaming rcd, will no more warble in the rosy kiss of dawn and fill the beholder with rosy anticipation of the jocund feast. It's work IS done, and its days are past, and now the family, so well begrimed with. gravy to the very eyes, sit and, regard one another in silent joy. The smaller members will have to take bath to get tho turkey off them. But the victory is theirs, as they sit in tho city fiat filled with visions of ecstasy and break the magic wishbone and wish that every one from the highest to the lowest has had just so merry and glad Thanksgiving as has fallen to their happy lot.
 R. K MUNKITTRICK