Newspaper Page Text
Thanksgiving Day.
When the orchards with blossoms are blushing,
Pfie willows unrolling their leaves,
And the fields the tender wheat flushing,
'that soon would be waving with sheaves,
Not then went the toiler to labor,
The task of subduing the earth,
With the sound of the pipe and the tabor,
With anthems of joyance and mirth.
Nor yet when processional flowers
Passed on through the light or the gloom,
When the vivid and pioturesque hours
Laughed out in a splendor of bloom.
When the oriole, royal and golden,
Flashes lot th like a jem in the sun,
Still man by stern duty was holdeu,
Not yet was the victory won.
When the vines on the trellis was burdened
With cluster’s all purple and sweet,
When the hand of the worker w-as guerdoned
With bounty ot harvests complete ;
When wide over mountain and valley
The banners of autumn, unfurled
In a vast and magnificent rally,
Shed lustre and pomp o’er the world ; —
Then, pausing to think of the story
Of promise, fulfillment and cheer,
The hope and the faith and the glory,
The crown of the beautiful year,
From tbe stress of our care-weighted living,
The strain of our hurrying days,
We break and uplift a thanksgiving
To God, who is worthy of praise.
And what if the storms lie beforo us,
The days that are weary and cold,
Since the 1 >ve that is vigilant o’er us
Guards ever the young and the old,
Still answers the earnest endeavor
With more than a measured reward,
And suffers our weariness never
To slip from the grasp of the Lord.
So, silvered-haired father and mother,
So, middle-aged sturdy and strong,
So, dear little sister and brother,
Join voices and hearts in the song ;
To the sound of the pipe and the tabor
Weave chorals of gladness and mirth,
For the toiler may rest from his labor,
And plenty hath dowered the earth.
JACK’S MISTAKE.
A THANKSGIVING STORY*.
“We must try to keep Thanksgiving
Day after a fashion,” sighed Mrs.
Spikenard to her daughter Florelia;
“though, to'be sure, two poor chickens
and a bought pie won’t be much of a
dinner.
“IIow different it used to be in the
country, where we used to kill the
fattpst gobbler in the flock for Thanks¬
giving dinner, and made pumpkin
pies with scuds of fresh eggs and rich
milk in ’em ! An’ fur vegetables, we
had .sweet potatoes, an’ squash, an’
pickled cabbage, an’— But, law ! it’s
different in the city—that is, if you
ain’t made of money ! The markets
are lined with turkeys *u fowls of all
kinds, an’ vegetables by the wagon¬
load; but it takes a forchin to get 'em
a’most. I give thirty-five cents fur them
two pore-lookin’ chickens, an’ ten
fur that little measure of turnips. I
did want to git a few cramberries fur
sass, but Jack had sot his heart on
havin’ a pie, so I got one.”
Mrs. Spikenard shook her head as
she turned over the contents of the
little worn market-basket on the
kitchen table.
“Oh, we can make quiet a nice din
ner of these,” said Florelia, lifting up
the chickens; “and I have a nickel
left, We can buy a dish of jelly with
it. I walked home to-night, and saved
it on purpose.”
“But it won't seem quite like a
Thanksgiving dinner unless we have
some one to help us eat it,” persisted
Mrs. Spikenard. “I’ve alius been used
to havin’ the house full on Thanks
giving Day, an’ it don’t seem jest right
to set down an* eat what we’ve got all
by ourselves.”
“There’s old Mr. Barber, that lives
up in the third story,” suggested Flor-
ella. “He’s us poor as we are, if not
poorer. Suppose we ask him to eat
dinner with us?”
“Why, to-be-sure,” said her mother,
brightening up. “I’ll send Jack up
to ask him as soon as he come3 in.”
The Spikenards occupied two tiny
rooms in the back part of a respectable
three story house in Cote Brilliante.
The rooms were small and not very
comfortable, to-be-sure, but they were
decent and cheap, and poor as they
were it took about all Florelia could
earn as “saleslady,” in a commercial
house down town, to pay the rent and
buy food, fuel and clothing for herself,
her mother, and eight-year-old Jack,
who went to school, and wore out
more jackets and trowsers than he
was worth, so his mother declared.
Jack soon came in from the bakery,
where he had been sent for a loaf of
bread, and was at once dispatched to
invite old Mr. Barber to the Thanks¬
giving dinner the next day.
Mrs. Spikenard was setting the ta¬
ble for supper, and Florelia was cut¬
ting the loaf of bread, when he came
running back.
“All right, mother ! Mr. Barclay
says he’ii come.”
“Mr. Barclay /” cried Florelia.
“Mr. Barclay !” shrieked the widow.
“Oh, Jack, you never asked him!"
“Yes, I did,” declared Jack, boldly.
“W'hy, you told me to ask him !”
“I said Mr. Barber, you dreadful
boy! And now, what are we going to
do?”
Florelia began to cry.
“Two little chickens as big as par¬
tridges, and a few miserable turnips
and a pie. Oh, Jack, Jack! what
made you do such a thing?”
“Well, shall I go back and tell him
not to come?” asked the boy, prac¬
tically.
“No, no—of course not !” cried his
sister, drying her tears and beginning
to laugh at the ridiculous side of the
affair. “We must make the best of
it now of course; but what will he
think of us? I can stuff these mis¬
erable little fowls with some stale
bread-crumbs,” she added, as her
mother looked hopelessly on. “And
we must polish up our bits of silver
and ‘ put the best foot foremost;’ but
it will be a ridiculous Thanksgiving
dinner, after all.”
Mr. Bernard Barclay was a bach
ellor, well-to-do, and good-looking,
Florelia admitted, who occupied the
second-story front-room in Mrs. Loyd’s
house, and took his meals at a restau¬
rant, as Mrs. Loyd only kept “room¬
ers”—that is, she let lodgings only,
without board.
Mr. Barclay had frequently bowed
to Mrs. Spikenard, as they met in the
halls or on the stairway, and had even
exchanged a few words with Florelia,
on the front steps; and once he had
brought her home from the street-car
under his umbrella, during a heavy
■ ra i n
But what would he think of them
for inviting him to a Thanksgiving
dinner?—and such a dinner, tool
Florelia lay awake half the night
puzzling her head over this problem.
The sun shone out on a clear, frosty
Thanksgiving Day, the next morning,
and Florelia and her* mother were
bustling about, putting the little
; rooms in holiday order, when shuffling
steps came up the stairway, a thump
j j n g knock sounded on the door, and a
shock-headed boy asked:
j “Mrs. Spikenard live here?,’
j “Yes, said the widow, wonderingly.
“That’s my name.”
j “This here’s fur you, then. Nothin’
j to pay.”
And having deposited a well li led
market-basket on the table, the boy
shuffled away, leaving the widow and
her daughter staring at each other
with astonishment.
“It’s a mistake!” cried Florelia.
Rut no, there was a card, with Mrs.
Spikenard’s name and number, care¬
fully attached to the basket; and hav¬
ing made sure it was meant for them,
Florelia fell at once to rifling it of its
contents.
“A twenty-pound turkey, I do be¬
lieve! Just look, ma! and half a
pumpkin! A paper of sugar. Eggs
— two dozen of ’em at least—and sweet
potatoes. Half a dozen lemons; now
I can make some lemon-pies. And
raisins, and currants, and citron, and
ginger. What else, I wonder? This
is sage, for the dressing, and here’s a
bucket of something—oysters! And a
paper of cranberries—and that’s all.
But who could have sent them?”
Florelia and her mother stared
blankly at each other, while Jack
helped himself to currants and raisins,
unrebuked.
“If ’twa’n’t fur the oysters an’ lem¬
ons, 1 sh’d think ’tvvas sister Sary sent
’em,” said Mrs. Spikenard, at last,”
“It’s a God-send to us, anyway,
wherever it came from,” declared Flo
rella. “And I’m going to get dinner
right away. And now we can ask old
Mr. Barber, too, after all.
The twenty-pound turkey was soon
sputtering in the oven, and the aro¬
matic odor of lemons and spice filled
the little kitchen and floated out
through the hallway, penetrating even
to Bachelor Barclay’s very door.
The dinner was a success. The oys¬
ter soup, roast turkey, the sweet pota¬
toes, the lemon and pumpkin pies and
cranberry sauce were cooked to perfec¬
tion, and Mr. Barclay could not Help
contrasting his ionely dinners* at thu
restaurant with this cozy meal; with
kind-hearted Mrs. Spikenard presiding
over the coffee-urn, and pretty, violet¬
eyed Florelia busy helping every one
but herself.
Old Mr. Barber, too, with his digni¬
fied, old-school manners, was no de¬
traction to the merry party around the
well-spread board. And when it was
all over, and Bachelor Barclay had
gone to smoke a cigar in the solitude
of his own room, he mentally decided,
as the blue wreaths curled over head,
that “it was not good for man to be
alone.”
In fact, before many moons had
come and gone, pretty Florelia Spiken¬
ard had resigned her situation as
“saleslady,” and assumed the more re¬
sponsible position of housewife, with
the matronly title of Mrs. Bernard
Barclay.
And not until then, did Mr. Barclay
confess that he had sent the basket
which had so puzzled Florelia and her
mother.
“I overheard your conversation,
when you discovered Jack’s blunder,”
he confessed, “and, of course, on learn¬
ing the circumstances, I thought it
was only my duty to help you out of
the dilemma.”
And Florelia only laughed at her
husband’s explanation, and declared
she had suspected him all along.
But a load was lifted from Mrs.
Spikenard’s mind, for, according to her
own confession, “she couldn’t skeerse
lev sleep o’ nights, fur wondering
where on ’arth that basket come
from.”— Helen Whitney Clark.
A straight line is the shortest in
morals as in mathematics. — Maria
Edgeworth.
A Remarkable Experience.
Mr. Arkcil, editor of the Albany Jour¬
nal,. who is only tnirty-one years of age,
has a most remarkable history, writes a
correspondant of the New \ ork World.
lie is the son of Senator Arkell. He
was in his father's factory when he was
seventeen years of age, at the moment
of a terrible gasoline explosion. The
workman who was with young Arkell
was blown out of sight. Not together enough
was left of him to be gathered Arkell, who
for identification. Young covered his
did not lose consciousness, for
mouth and eves, and made a dash
the door. The building in which the
explosion took place became filled at
once with black smoke.
The boy butted his way with his head
through five doors, going literally
through fire. In his passage he became
frightfully burned. The time of the ac¬
cident was winter. When he finally
reached the outer air he rolled in the
snow, and left in the snow the front and
back of both of his hands and the cover¬
ing of much of the lower part of his face.
He was burned so hopelessly that the
doctors for along time despaired of him.
Senator Arkell, who was on one of the
upper floor-; of the building when the
explosion took place, escaped by drop¬
ping from a window down a fall of
twenty-five feet upon a strip of bare
rock.
His son was in bed for two years. His
face was so badly burned that it was im¬
possible for the natural skin to recover
it. Ilis hands were equally afflicted.
Senator Arkell discovered in his reading
experiments in the direction of trans¬
planting skin from one person to another.
He asked the surgeons in charge of his
son to try this experiment. The result
was one of the most interesting known
in the chapters of surgery.
Upon the face of young Mr. Arkell
there were transplanted 85t> pieces of
skin from the arms of various people.
The result is that his face was entirely
built up, so that to-day, while he bears
very heavy scars, he yet looks very well,
considering what he has been through.
Mexican Peculiarities.
The Mexicans exhibit perplexing ele¬
ments of character. They are industri¬
ous, but not thrifty. While Mexico is
the market for the cheapest and most
inforior goods, tLo population Is addict¬
ed to vanities of a luxurious and costly
nature, to which the import trade con
tributes very little except jewelry. Hats
of uncut felt of gray colors, and adorned
with silver embroidery, costing five to
titty dollars, are everywhere met with.
Saddles and bridles costing $100 to
$500 are in general use. The country is
full of small silver coin used for buttons
and often as ornaments down the outside
seam of the pantaloons. The national
vanity shows itself among the beggars
as well as the most profligate reduce class.
Women will go without food, or
their subsistence to beans and bread or
take chances in the lottery, and the men
will expend their last dollar on a mag¬
nificent sombrero. No country affords
a more deeply interesting study, and
while it is difficult to perceive that it is
making any progress at all so far as re¬
gards the great body of the population,
it is easy to see that it is patiently evolv¬
ing ideas of what a better condition
means.
The chronic disposition to defer every¬
thing to manana, and the slow, moving
thought and physical action so annoying while
to Europeans and Americans alike,
it adds to the cost of every article in
trade, is not wholly without reason in
this peculiar climate. At the high alti¬
tude of the Mexican plateau, 7,000 to
9,000 feet above sea level, along which
the Central railroad is built, the air is
thin and dry, intensely Tariffed, evapora¬
tion is rapid, oppression of the heart
common to all strangers, and physical
and mental exertion lias limits that seri¬
ously interfere with business energy.
The fact is so pronounced that it is
something of a problem itself without
reference to other obstacles, whether any*
foreign colonization will ever sustain it¬
self on this plateau. —Boston Bulletin.
A Novel Time Piece.
A Salt Lake City jeweler has invented
a novel time piece in the shape of a
steel wire stretched across his window,
on which a stuffed canary hops from
left to right, indicating as it goes the
hours of the day by pointing with its
beak to a dial stretched beneath the wire
and When having it the figures from 1 to 24.
reaches the latter figure it
glides across the window to 1 again.
There is no visible mechanism, ail being
inside the bird. The inventor says he
was three years in studying it out.