Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1899-01-25


Mexico.
81 Once more from this far corner of the
earth, and on this New England anniver
sary of blessed tradition, would |, self
expatriated exile, venture to speak word
Il of graduation to those who started out
with me to tread the wine press OF life,
Il and like the oaks of their native hills have
q wcathered the tempests Of winters while
other real and splendid monarchs of the
forest have gone down before its storms.
These, on this Thanksgiving Day, to-
rether with the scenes in which we were
Young actors, are this moment transfg
/ ured on he great screen of the years that
hangs before the eyes of memory. | do
not see them now with thin and frosted
locks, and ON their worried faces the tan
n cled map of care, but rather they are to
me now, and ever will be, as they were in
q the heyday of youth-thc bright bod
iments of the laughing eye and rosy
Il cheek. and aureoled with the light OF life's
q morning, instinct with ringing laughter,
n and the formation of virile being.
Il To the>t, still strong in life's desires and
purposes, tut with passions subdued and
4 tempers mellowed by the salutary lessons
of experience, do address myself for we
4 still tace with confidence and quiet salts
faction the future before US, even though
it be as in other days, " hen from the Grim
son sands OF the arena the Roman glad
iator, covered with wounds, was wont to
face the imperial Caesar and cry almost eX
ultingiy: ave who are about to die, sa-
lutte thee.''
| still remember with keen delight all
the rambling paths across the fields, the
brown hills and wooded heights of old
Hancock, where every swimming hole is
stil the pool Sloan TO me, and even the
dead 'in their green tents whose curtains
never outward swing still speak to me
with the old voice of other days, and the
boar ocean still rolls familiar in and
pulses along the shore, lulling me to sleep
with its low monotone and telling the
secrets of It's mysterious realm and the
storms that heaye lis mighty breast, to
break its heart at last on the pebbles of
the scalloped coast, As when /, a barefoot
boy, wandered along its solitary wastes.
find them a, they were then, for;
"'Ti- -wact to hear lie vat, l-dos'- honest bark
Bay dccp-auuthad welcome AS We draw near
home,
lis SWEEP To know there is an eye will mark
our eom4t.,, aud look brighter when come"
To-day viii gather at the generous
tables of New England, heaped high with
spoils from orchard ami farm, the Ing
absent ones from school and the far dis
tant city. The " hite bearded sire of the
family will be there to sit at the head and,
reaching out his patriarchal hands will
rehearse uuconseieusly maybe, the invo-
cation in Burns "Cotters Saturday
Night, and by his side, unless the shadow
of death be on the vacant chair, will sit
the angel of his youth and the benedic-
ton of manhood, with the sweet FROST
light of heaven in her once raven braids
and the soul of consecrated love still
beaming from patient and gentle eyes, and
the fruition of the present quickened by
pleasant recolleetions of the past. The
tiaxen haired grandchild, a rose leaf
blown from Hesperides, will ill the room
with sunshine, while peals of happy laugh
ter will drive out the ghosts of care till
the timbrel OF conscious music, like voices
heard across the sea- will charm those grim
old listening rafters that nave witnessed
many like gathering and have seen new
faces come and old faces go for more than
a century.
\ day at my old home in dear New Eng
land has no counterpart this side of
heaven. The brown stubble sparkling
with frost that is perishing i'll the breath
of the oncomlng sun, the pathetic day
wearing away in Somber beauty, the deep
4 ening twilight deepening into Older night,
the roisterlng boys and girls bounding
u home from school, here and there twink
ling light in the silhouetted farmhouses,
II the last responsive echoes of the hammer
answering back to the complaining anvil,
where
a "Chi'dreu cumtag home from school
"A Look in at the open door
Ri They love to zee the blazing forge
# And hear the bellows roar,
# And catch the burning sparks that Ny
MI Like chat from the threshing floor"
III The old masters can only hope to imi-
tate a true picture like this; they cannot
Eeurpass it. On a day like this let him
#& no has been blessed with abundant pros
1erity, whether by an indulgent fortune
~ his own personal thrift, pour into the
shp of want cornueopia of gladness and
thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Day in New England, the
genesis of the occasion, has been the theme
OF story-teller, of poet and artist, since the
hour OF its birth, and has been treated in
%avery style imaginable, ranging from the
most pathetic pastoral to the wildly gro
M&1sque and laughable. The moralist and
4 nricaturist alike find never failing sub
ct in THE Return of the Prodigal Som.
their hands he seems to be character
th interesting and unique, but why
IS ere shnula he anNLhin launhah HE in