The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1916-12-22

And now we again approach the
Christmas season; only those OF my
age can appreciate the changed senti-
ment regarding this holiday in the last
sixty years; and with those brought
up in the Puritan atmosphere of New
England the change is the more
marked. | never knew a church OBJ
servance of Christmas till 1865. In
my boyhood the public schools were
sometimes in session on that day; but
it was custom to have vacation
coering New Years Day, and usually
including Christmas. 1t was the Gus
tom to hang up our stockings Christ
mas Eve, but the making of presents
was usually confined to the younger
children, and theirs would be small
articles such as a jack-knife and fruit,
with possibly a book. l have still a
gift-book from relative in 1858, but
it was at New Years. But the delight
of the stocking hanging, and finding
it Christmas morning bullying full,
it seems to me is not equalled now-a-
days with the many gifts.
One Christmas of those early days
stands out boldly in my memory; it
was that of 1857. In my native town
were two beautiful lakes, called ponds,
and each year there was sure to be
drowning accidents from venturesome
boys on too thin ice over the deep
water; the outlet of one of these
ponds, after detouring towards an
other town, turned to the neighbour
hood where l lived; it was bordered
by great marshes which by the winter
IL of
except where the river flowed the
depth of water over those flowed
marshes was not over four feet. and
mostly on three feet; thus being shall
low the ice formed quickly, and l
never knew of drowning in our sec
ton of the town, although dpckings
were not uncommon. In those marshes
there were low rounded hills, and
some high lands jutting out into the
meadows; these latter supplied re-
semblances of promontories, and be-
hind them were bays and CULTS, to
which the school boys gave names
found when studying geography. Not
far from the border of the marsh, and
surrounded by high level ground was
a deep hole about fifty feet deep in
which water would rise to the level
of high-water on the marsh; | used
to wonder how that round, deep hole
with its slanting sides, had been
formed. Later when studying the
Ice Age of our country l understood
it; all that region hat been blanketed
with glacial ice, anC. that hole had
been formed by huge iceburg
grounding and melting there; the sur
rounding lands being formed by the
glacial gravel bourne by the ice; not
far off, surrounded by a great cedar
swamp, was small round pond, which
the boys said was "bottomless;" its
shores were bog-peat, and the bottom
of the pond of the same, which nc
long pole had been able to fathom
There an enormous iceburg had
rested, and when melted left the pond
The fences of the region were mostly
stone walls, the angular shapes oil
which showed they had been torn of
and carried by the ice. In pasture
near my home l used to play on Z
rock rounded up about a foot above
the earth and about four feet across
is so happened that when a railroad
went through that hill that rock wa!
in the path, and to my wonder i
proved to be the upper end of an egg
shaped boulder, from twelve to fifteer
feet long, standing upright; thus i
had ben left with the glacial gravel al
around it; now that whole region i:
as easy to read geologically as a book
but then was as unintelligibfe to m,
as a page of black Hebrew Well,
have wandered back into the Ice Age
when l started out to write abou
Christmas day 1857. 1t had come of
cold and the whole surface of man,
hundreds of acres Of flowed meadow
was glare ice The day before partie.
had been arranged for skating, Ions
trips and games. By midforenoon W.
were on the ice, crowds of us; feast
ing had been enjoyed at Thanksgiving
time, and Christmas dinners were no