The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1934-11-15
WINTER NIGHTS

WINTER NIGHTS
The seasons change rapidly. But a
short time ago, we were sweltering
on front porches during the evenings
and battling with numerous mosqui-
toes and, withal, finding life more or
less unpleasant.
Summer passed.
The brilliant days and crisp nights
of autumn quickly followed, and now
the real breath Of winter is being felt.
This is being written in front Of the
evening home fire and the sharp edge
on the night air gives to the blue gas
flame a home-like cheerfulness. Look
ing in to the open CRATE from which
comes the subdued hiss of the burning
gas, one wonders when and where man
first learned the use of fire. Perhaps
he discovered that burning logs left
by passing forest fires, which had been
started by lightning, were warm and
comfortable. Perhaps, it slowly
dawned upon his dull mind that fire
could be moved from place to place
by taking up sticks with burning ends.
In this way fire became one of the
most useful things that man has
brought under his control during the
whole course of human history.
49,
Looking backward now across the
few brief years which I have known,
I see in memory many happy scenes
when merry parties buoyant with the
vigor and hopefulness of youth, gath
cred before the huge stone freplaces
in which large logs were slowly
melted into glowing embers, played,
danced and sang needless of the Bit
ing wind and the freezing crust on
the ground outside.
Social outlets were so few that the
average country boy and girl did not
mind three-mile walk through the
icy night with each other after the
parties came to a close. Sometimes
they discovered snow was peppering
down and this only gave new tang of
adventure to the situation. Some
how, the SHOWS which came in boy
hood seemed to be something perma-
nent. We felt that we had lost the
old world of humdrum reality and by
a strange fate had been ushered into
fairyland. What dreams we dreamed!
What scenes of adventure were
wrought in our imagination by the
swirling columns of peppering flakes
as they swathed, as with mighty
blanket, silent hill and dale! No
doubt some of US dreamed that a kind
ly fate would some day make US
wealthy and great. But in the pres
ence Of driving snowstorm my
proudest dream was that I would
some day find myself in a land of
perpetual winter where the snow came
pattering down every day. Somehow
l imagined Santa Claus lived in such a
region and that when he became ac-
quainted with me he might call fire.
quently instead of only once year.
49,
fire are no less cheering as I look
back to them now. There was wide
stone jamb on each side of the big
fireplace in my grandmother's living
room. On this jamb she kept her
clay pipe with its long cane stem.
On this jamb, she also toasted for
several days the leaf of homegrown
tobacco she expected to smoke. After
lying in this position near the fire,
the leaf would become dry and brittle
and would be easily crumbled and
made ready for the pipe. No picture
of contentment which I can recall
seems so complete as that of my aged
grandmother, her eyes closed and her
head, resting against the back of
tall chair, drawing blissfully at the
stem of her ancient clay pipe.
Winter evenings now may have
music and speeches from everywhere,
but somehow they seem to lack-for
an old man at least-the snug COM
fort which was radiated from the
melting hickory logs heaped in the
huge freplaces of the long gone
years.