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Show ROYAL FEASTS OF OTHER DAYS When Thanksgiving Had Its Old-Time Old-Time Setting of Indian Summer Sum-mer and Country Hospitality. Hos-pitality. CAN it be that not only the times are out of joint, but the seasons, too, are changing? Is nature at this late day trying 3ome experiments and setting back the hands on her dialplate of months? Certainly this November weather is not the kind we read about when our grandfathers tell of "the good old times," of th? "big snows" and "when the land was new." For days we have lived as if summer skies were brooding brood-ing over us, and were it not for the bare trees and silent woods we could almost fancy ourselves in that land of pure delight where spring immortal reigns. This is the real Indian summer, so often talked of, but so seldom experienced experi-enced in perfection, a writer in the Boston Herald asserts. All over this part of the world we hear of it, day after day of warm and comfortable weather, when the sun shines faintly through the clouds of mist and purple smoke veils all harsh outlines and unsightly un-sightly objects; day after day with skies of melting tenderness and soft zephyrs playing in the tangled locks of little children romping in field and wood. The windows are thrown open,, doors set ajar, and the fire goes out Upon the hearth. Everybody wants to get out, in the open, to wander on country roads, to climb the hill and find thfl seashore. In the Old World this season is sometimes called "the old mar's summer," and the feast of good St. Martin, which falls in the first week of November, is known as "the Did mai.'s holiday" perhaps because of ts unexpected short-lived charm. Needs a Country Sotting. Thanksgiving, of course, is truly a country affair, and in the city loses aalf its charm. The very word has come to mean something of country ways and country living, country products prod-ucts and country hospitality. It smacks of all things rural, of hills and 5elds and lanes apd woods, ripe fruit, perfect vegetables, loaded corncrib, shining cattle. One cannot celebrate Thanksgiving aright, In a town flat, or 3 brown-stone mansion, certainly not In a boarding house or diniug car. Thauksgiving day means a rambling house in a great green yard, a quaint, old gamhrel-roofed cottage near a country road, a log cabin In a ten-acre ten-acre patch ; houses full of old-fashioned furniture and with room for nil the family and the kinsfolk and the slran-1 slran-1 ijer within the gates. It means love i of home and great-hearted hospitality, the coming hack of the children, the ! tc'-ome of V-s old folks. The ideal Thanksgiving must hove a setting of snow. It must echo M the ring of sleigh bells and the neigh of ' the horses in frosty weather. No, matter mat-ter what the weather for weeks before, be-fore, there should be snow in good time. The sun rises on a dazzling picture pic-ture of white field and glistening woodland. wood-land. A veil of magic beauty covers fence and road, the yard so brown. and ugly but yesterday, hides now under a mantle of snowy swansdown. All night it fell, noiselessly, stealthily, mysteriously, this first coming snow of the year, and made of this common earth a bit of fairyland, a transformation transforma-tion scene. Like a Thrice-Told Tale. The Thanksgiving dinner of the country's earlier days has been described de-scribed so frequently that it is like a "thrice-told tale, signifying sound and nonsense," so vividly that one can almost al-most taste the dainties. Modern kitchens kit-chens could not cook those incomparable incompar-able dishes. Such a feast could not be served in courses, or brought on in piecemeal. In those days the table literally "groaned with its burden" and glowed with the beauty of the assembled assem-bled dishes. Merely to recite their names would tempt the most pitiful dyspeptic. Eoast pig, hot and brown, roast spare ribs, pink and cold ; roast turkey, tur-key, juicy and tender, full to bursting with perfect stuffing; potatoes, snow-white snow-white and mealy ; boiled onions, like shining pearls; stewed tomatoes, of deepest red ; coldsiaw, that pale green dainty. Perhaps there would be a pot-pie of chicken, or squirrel, or quail, a dish of hominy, or turnips, or corn. Celery in bouquets of bleached plumes ; beets, cut in scarlet roses ; spiced pickles, sweet and sour; cranberries cran-berries ; glowing like heaped-up rubies, and pies, of all sorts and' sizes, apple and custard and cherry and mince but, best of all, because most appropriate, appro-priate, the old-fashioned pumpkin pie, a lost delight, and, like Poe's heroine "vanished now for evermore." In the days of real Thanksgiving, there was no ice cream, no bar-le-duc, no creme-de-menthe, no pousse-cafe, no treacherous cocktail nor subtle pick-me-up. For dessert there were doughnuts dough-nuts and cheese, gingerbread and beaten beat-en biscuit and honey ; apples and nuts and popcorn, and cider from the home press, made for the occasion and with just the right twang to its bubbles. Royal Feasts and Feasters. Such royal feasts needed royal toasters, toast-ers, the keen winter air and long sermon ser-mon combined to make the only true sauce, the simple, honest hunger of simple, honest people. Nowadays we hear of "the keen, sharp pangs of the morning after." Nobody ever heard of a sickness the day after this Thanksgiving Thanks-giving dinner. Nobody was in a hurry to get off to the theater or card party, for 1 o'clock was the dinner hour, and the sleigh ride home through clear winter sunlight was the best of all digestants, if such a thing were needed. need-ed. ' In some neighborhoods the day would end in a Thanksgiving dance, but this was not a prevailing custom. Ferhaps the visitors would spend the night, would gather round the fire and tell stories, or listen to some . newcomer with tale of adventure or deeds of daring. And there was always music ; some one would play on violin or bass viol, perchance a little piano or quaint melodeon. People sang ballads in those days. "On the Banks of Allan Water," "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes," "Fly Away to My Native Land," and others so long unsung, are like dreams of far-off joy to the old folks. |