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Show THE.DAY3 REAL THAN 1C5 GIVING j4- ' A-twJWrtSv' few Shall Not Ring Tonight" was hi,-w 7 fE VEN those early Thanksgivings that crop up in history are associated wath much usually too much turkey and cranberry sauce and pie. As a child, of course, he was thankful that Thanksgiving day had to come on Thursday every year, instead in-stead of flopping all over the week and coming in turn on Saturday and Sunday, when there would be holiday anyway. For is there anything so tragic as a holiday that does not fall on a school day? Thursday is just right, for then, you see, the school people reason that there Is no use bringing the children back for one day, and they might as well have Friday, too. Thanksgiving on Wednesday would be overstepping the mark, since they would not allow two extra days, and Friday meant only one day oft, Thursday was the one to choose, and looking back now you cannot help wondering how the president ever happened to hit upon such an altogether satisfactory day. On Wednesday, you will remember, not much work was done, for everybody every-body was looking forward to the "in-tertainment." "in-tertainment." Perhaps you even spoke a piece. If you did your selection was limited, for the poets seem to be kept so busy grinding the mills for Christmas that they have not one little lit-tle inspiration left for Tranksgiving. But what Thanksgiving poetry there is agrees on one point a lively veneration vener-ation for the "eats." No matter how the poem starts dinner will be served by the end of the last verse. Take that one you recited about "Thanksgiving Eve." Sentiment riots ia the opening lines. The snow falls gently outdoors, for the scene is not laid In Baltimore, Md., where they usually reserve snow for a Christmas treat. We have a touching picture of the little ones creeping silently to bed. you get in a melting good, sort of anticipating that when the youngsters reach the attic the poet is going to spring a vacant crib at you. But no. Listen! It was Thajiksgiving eve, don't you think. The pies were In rows on ths pantry shelves. And nice things to eat and nice things to drink, Resignedly looked for the morrow to bring A miserable end to everything. Net dril It rhymes especially and tie last line Is painfully ambiguous as to where the miserable end is going to strike, but -what matter when the rows of pies and various beverages are safe on the shelf. After you had stumbled through this, getting purple-red in the face and wondering why all those "fellers" you could lick with one hand down in the school yard should look so terrifying assembled before the platform, you beat a precipitous retreat, falling over a hole in the carpet on the way. The next number on the program was "The First Proclamation," done another boy. The family of that other boy had suffered because of "The First Proclamation," for it was to be recited in costume. Now, how should a plain American mother know in what garb Governor Bradford delivered de-livered that first proclamation? Father Fa-ther found a picture of the Pilgrim Father in the history and thought that would do well enough, and grandfather grand-father said: "Oh, pshaw now; don't he look like one of them bg-hat fellers fel-lers around Pen-Mar?" Finally they borrowed a suit that a neighbor's son had worn when he went as John Alden to a .mask ball, though it was much too large, and Johnny protested violently against wearing it Just so does a simple thing change the course of a noble life. If the suit had not been too large Johnny might have been able to take his mind from his appearance and divert it to the lines he was to speak, but terror that the boys would guy him occupied his young brain to the exclusion 'of all else. I .... '' M f:- I SSg. F-o r';-fv:trrffi5 THE THANKSGIVING PIE, " 'And now,' said the governor, 'gazing 'gaz-ing abroad,' he began. Pause. ' " 'And now,' said the governor " Pause. ( "'And now ' " And now Johnny burst into tears and rushed from the platform, stumbling stum-bling over the hole in the carpet on the way. Then teacher got up, you remember, and said if you would all excuse Johnny she would read the poetn, and there being nothing else to do under the circumstances but to excuse Johnny, you permitted her to go on with "The First Proclamation." The poem was no exception, for you found that in even those early days Governor Gov-ernor Bradford's Thanksgiving greeting greet-ing had to do with "eats." So shoulder your matchlocks, masters, there is hunting of all degrees; And fisherman, take your tackle and scour for spoils the seas. And maidens and dames of Plymouth, your delicate crafts employ, . To honor our first Thanksgiving and make it a feast of Joy. ' We fail of the fruits and dainties so close at our hand In Devon, Ah! they are the lightest losses we suffer for sake of Heaven; But see In our open clearings how golden the melons lie; Enrich them with sweets and spices and give us the pumpkin pie. Remember it, don't you? But even then it perplexed you to know why you were hearing so much about pumpkin pump-kin pie as an attribute of Thanksgiving Thanksgiv-ing when in all your Innocent young life you had never tasted a pumpkin. pump-kin. You did not know then that "pumpkin" is sort of poetic license for any kind of Thanksgiving pie. One of the very limited collection of poems for this season was dedicated to "Thanksgiving Pies," and this was delivered by a girl of the school, because be-cause of her deeper understanding of the subject. Such baking, boiling, tasting, beating! Such preparation made for eating! Such unpremeditated joys For little hungry girls and boys. You could hardly wait for tomorrow to come when you heard these lines. It was a very long poem, all about how the hungry girls and boys of a certain household appeased their hunger with pies cooling on the pantry shelf, and you thought how nice it must have been to eat those pies "twelve in number, num-ber, brown as umber," though you had not the remotest idea what umber was for, save to rhyme with number. But you had a very definite idea that what would happen if you and your hungry little playmates should go and do likewise like-wise with the pies cooling right then out on your mother's shelf. And right when your mouth was "watering like anything," that elocutionist elocu-tionist from the big girls' class came and and told teacher she was going to recite a Thanksgiving poem for the little. children and teacher said-"Vyy said-"Vyy well,- if you wish to." As for you you didn't wish her to Y'ou did not like her brand of poems "Cur iil her repertoire, and "The Pojs, Boy" and "Spartacus to the Gladiators" Gladia-tors" and another about Robespiorr in an unspeakable place wheio u10, poet would ne'er have sent him had been better behaved. Naturally you did not know the names of Uio poems then. These you have leariud since from constant reading. At that time you knew what she was going i0 give by the gestures with which sh9 began, and every piece she ever spoke struck terror to your young soul. -Even her Thanksgiving treat' for tti ' children made you feel shamefaced about having been so excited over the holiday. "Thanksgiving for what?" and he muttered mut-tered ft curse For the plainest of food and an empty purse? But it is Idle to talk of a poor man't woes. Even after this lapse of years these features of the Thanksgiving entertainment en-tertainment linger in your memory and spring up when, you pick up the paper and read the president's Thanks, giving proclamation or the youngsterg come in from school and announce: "Say, pop, I got to speak a plecs Thanksgiving. Do you know any?" After a while, of course, Thanksgiving Thanks-giving came to have other significance, signifi-cance, too. There was the first year you wore long trousers and a flower in your buttonhole. It would be more appropriate to say bouquet in your lapel, for that was the season that men wore the most enormous chrysan- themum they could find as a bouton-niere. bouton-niere. They simply could not get the flower big enough. Remember how the cartoonists took it up and depicted depict-ed the gilded youth wearing hugs cabbages in their buttonholes? But it was a very serious matter to you, the selection of your chrysanthemum the Thanksgiving you donned long trousers, and you finally decided upon a great yellow one that made you appear ap-pear to be bearing a glowing pumpkin, to the Thanksgiving feast. Then after you attained to the dignity dig-nity of a sweetheart to take to ths Thanksgiving matinee. How did the-theater the-theater come to be so inseparably connected con-nected with Thanksgiving celebration? It is, at any rate, so that when you present yourself at the box office aa the afternoon performance is about to begin the man inside is apt to ast superiorly: "Do you prefer to stand 1 on the first floor or the second?" But you did not stand. You sat. "Eats" got shoved into the background back-ground around this period, and, dinner din-ner being late, as Thanksgiving dinner din-ner usually is, you instantly had to ask to have your pie saved for supper, sup-per, the clock pointing perilously near the hour of two, and the girl yet tc be "called for." Many Thanksgivings have come and gone since that time and the celebration celebra-tion for you now probably means lining lin-ing up your little family and marching them down to grandmother's where they will have a long, happy day playing play-ing and fighting with cousins from other oth-er offshoots of the parent tree, for -about the only distinctive feature ot thanksgiving, save the -church service and "eats" and the football game, I the homecoming it inspires. Then there is a hurry and bustle ia the old house that it has not known since the boys and girls married and left one by one. The newest baby must be admired by all, and the family connection is called upon to notics that Bob's youngest no longer wean dresses. Then the women go into the kitchen, kitch-en, and by and by there is wafted out aromas from cooking things that ought never have been thought up in these-days these-days of high prices. But for once th housemother forgets the high cost of living. She beats up eggs as if they were selling around a cent apiece and, honestly, the way she droP3 hunks of butter' into pots and pans you would think it just most nothing at all. But, like Christmas, Thanksgiving Thanks-giving comes but once a year, and if we can't be a bit extravagant then, what is the use of having the old i holiday? |