The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1901-04-18
BILL ARP'S LETTER
advent of April Brings Up Dis
cussion of All Fools Day.
RECOUNTS INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES.
little Ones Try to Fool the Old Man, But
He Was On to Their Sly Game
And Retaliated.

open. 1t was an April fool. Nothing
shows in my garden but the peas and
onions. The flowers make no prog
ress. There is no sweet south wind
to breathe upon them-no sunshine.
On Monday the grandchildren i'm
posed upon me with their Hindoo
pranks. They gave me cup of
chocolate with whipped cream on top,
and it was nothing but soapsuds. [
pretended to be fooled, but wasent;
I paid them back in various ways.
The Hindoos started this childish Gus
tom away back in the ages, and it still
pleases the children. And now Eas-
ter day is at hand and that is another
name that came down from the Pagans.
Ostera was their goddess of spring and
\ it was corrupted into Estera.
I How these old heather names do
stick to us. The names OF the days of
the week and of the months came from
them. SO did the planets and the
consultations. Even the prophets and
Job had to take them from the Egyp-
tians. But the Scotch people don't
call it Easter. They say Pascha day,
or passover day. They won't pattern
after anybody but John Knox, and he
said Pascha. But there is reason
for calling it Easter, for the coming of
spring-the opening of the earth and
the flowers is emblematical of the res
urrection-the opening of the Sayior's
tomb and His return to bless and COM
fort His people. This day cores
ponds closely with the jewish pass
over, and so they observe it.
Now I want the young people to
know that Lent is another word that
means spring. 1t is preceded by that
foolish festival called mardi gras-or
fat beef-and continues forty days in
remembrance of the Saviors long fast,
and it ends with Easter, and the COM
munion and other rejoicings. AS the
old almanacs would say, 'about
this time look for Easter hats and
flowers and fnery." Christmas is an
other festival day that is common to
all Christian nations. There are many
other days dedicated to the saints, but
in course of time it was found that
there were not enough days in the
year to go round, and SO the pope
stopped the sainting of so many and
had one day set apart as All Saints
day. The next day after that is All
Souls day, on which mass is said by
the Roman Catholics for the souls of
the dead who are in purgatory.
It seems that about 900 years ago
. oilgrim from the | oily land found q
hermit in Sicily who told him of an
opening between the cliffs of the
mountains near by that communicated
with hades, where Pluto lived. and
that he could see the sulphurous
smoke rising and hear the groans OF
the lost souls who were being torment
ed in hell and he had known some Of
them to escape through the prayers of
the priests and this made the devils
very mad and he could hear them
cursing the priests with awful impre-
cations. The pilgrim told all this
to the abbots and monks, and they
had day set apart to pray these lost
souls out of hell OF hades or purgatory
or whatever it is.
Besides these international days
there are national days in every coun-
try. Here we have the Fourth OF
July and Washington's birthday and
Decoration Day and some others.
Germany celebrates the birth of Cal
vim and Luther and the kaiser. Scot
land that of Sir William Wallace and
Bruce and John Knox. In old England
they celebrate the queens birthday,
Magma Charter day, Waterloo day and
May day. May day is the happiest of
all and has been long remembered in
verse and song and in dancing around
the May pole.
lTennyson wrote a sad, sweet poem
rallied the MAY Queen" Mexico cell
ebrates all the Roman Catholic days
and has one other that the rabble call
Judas Iscariot's day. 1t is the next
day after Easter. On the beautiful
trees in the piazza or park they sus-
pend pasteboard images of Judas Is
cariot-images as large as life, with
little holes bored in them from head
to foot and in every hole is fastened a
cannon cracker. At given signal the
fuse in every cracker is lighted and all
of them explode nearly at the same
time and such a terrific popping was
never heard outside of battlefield,
and poor old Judas is torn and rent
into a thousand pieces. This is just
sign of what they would do to him if
they had him there alive, but reckon
it is more for frolic than anything, for
they shout and laugh and dance the
hornpipe and make all the racket they
can.
Ben Franklin said that man was
bundle of habits. He might have
added "and superstltions, for most
all people have some belief in super
natural things. Two hundred years
ago almost everybody believed in
witches. Shakespeare wrote about
them in "Macbeth" and Burns in
sTam O'Shanter." The Puritans
drowned many innocent women from
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