The Henry County weekly. (McDonough, GA.) 18??-1934, November 22, 1907, Image 2
Being the True Stcry That Grandmother Gibbons Told Her Grandchildren Every Thanksgiving and Birthday. “1 was eight and your great-aunt Virginia ten when we had the Thanksgiving and birthday in one, which we never forgot. Our mother was a Southern woman. She gave to her first child the name of her be loved State. If Virginia had been a boy his name would have been George Washington. When 1 was born two years later to a day I was named Georgio Washington. Your great-grandfather died three months before I was born. Our birthday came the 20th of November, so near to Thanksgiving that mother always celebrated the two days in one. “This that I am going to tell hap pened long before the Civil War; for the first time in our lives the Thanks giving Day for Massachusetts was appointed on the 20th day of Novem ber. We, all went early to the meet ing-house the Sunday before, for we knew wo were going to hear the Thanksgiving proclamation. All the children in the meeting-house kept wide awake that morning, and Virgie and I nudged eacli other when the minister opened ihe proclamation with a rattle and spread it on the desk. “Wo knew what wap. coming. We could repeat the conclusion word for word. ‘Given at the Council chamber ♦n Boston this day * * * by His Ex cellency the Governor, George N. Briggs, and by the advice and consent of the Council.’ That, sounded great, and when the minister repeated slow ly, ‘God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,’ it was grand! 1 felt as if I filled the meeting-house, be cause if George Washington had no f been the ’father of his country,’ where would Massachusetts be? “The night before the great day tve were standing at the kitchen ta ble, watching mother unjoint the boiied chickens for the chicken pie, when the clock struck 8. She lighted a tallow candle and gave it to Virgie. It was our bedtime. ‘Oh,’ said I, as I dumped down in the feather bed, ‘isn’t it beautiful, Virgie, to have birthdays and Thanksgiving all to gether? A.fid isn’t mother kind? I’m just as happy!’ , “ ‘So am I,’ said Virgie, giving me a hug. ‘I know something.’ .. ..... . . i dSKBU IB & whisper. “Then she told me that she was going to get up before anybody else, in the house and steal out softly, and go to the north pasture and get some red berries to hang over George Washington’s portrait, in the front room, to please moth a, and because it would be appropriate to my birth day. ‘Let’s,’ said i. it will be splen did,’ and then I tol l liar, what was true, that she was always thinking of something to please somebody, and then we said our pi i,y a . and cuddled down to sleep. “It didn't seem but i minute after that when I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Virgie was ah ady tying her lenthernshoestring.i. ’Georgie Wash ington Howe, get up this minute; it’s ns light as a cork,’ she said. Tm not going to put up my hair, it will take too much time, and it will keep me warm,' and she 1 t fall a cloud of gold over her shoulders.” Grand mother Gibbons’ voice always trem bled a little here. "You’ve seen the portrait of your gr at aunt Virginia, children. It’s true wliat I told you. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw; her hair was like spun gold. “We put our surtouts over our thick woolen dresses, tied on our warm woolen hoods an t tiptoed ou* for fear of waking !' mi > in the shed. Virgie asked me to wait on the stone step while she hrmVght a bowl of mother’s chicken broth. It was thick and nourishing. It tasted good. “We drove the cow:; to the north pasture every summei morning; we knew every nook an i corner of it, but we’ didn’t know the difference be tween broad daylight and moonlight, and great was our surprise when we reached the pasture bars, to see the moon going down, md no sign of morning, but Virgie kept hold of my hand and said, ‘Nev i mind, Georgie Washington, we can find the path, and the flat rock by the black walnut tree, if the moon doesn't shine.’ “ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but how can we find the berries if it’s pit; h dark, Virgie?’ “ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it. won’t be dark long; it can’t, because everybody knows it's time for the sun to rise when the moon goes down; and lots cf times I’ve seen the sun and moon shining both together in the sky, haven’t you, Georgie Washington?’ “‘Yes,’ I said, stumbling into a thorn bush and beginning to cry, ‘but. Virgie, this doesn't seem like the path; where’s the black walnut tree, and flat rock? They ought to be here, but they aren't here!’ “ ‘We may be a little out of the path, Georgie Washington,’ she said bravely, ‘but anyway, we are in thp right pasture, and here’s a rock with a back to it, so let’s sit down and wait,’ and she put her arm in a motherly way around me, and pil lowed my red hooded head upon her shoulder. ‘l’m glad I didn’t put up my hair.’ “ ‘So'm I, Virgie,’ said 1, as I nestled against the soft cushion. ‘Your hair is the loveliest I ever saw, Virgie, and mine is Bhort and stiff like bristles. I hate it.’ “ ‘But you’re real good, Georgie Washington, and as soon as ever we get home, I’m going to give you a real boughten doll,’ she said, ‘to have for your very own birthday, and to keep always.’ ” Grandmother Gibbons did not need to tell the children tnat she had kept the “boughten doll;” they had all seen it. “Well, children, the next thing, it seemed the stars all faded, and the darkness deepened around us. I don’t know how long we waited, while I lay with my head pressed against fHi HIS REPENTANCE:. Mf v'Hl Dy Laura fc .Richards f m *rf V X\A Bj|ly went' dinner When the midnight hour struck, fjf !/ Wll day , Billy boy was ill, -WJ V Vji With htj Had to take a bitter draft j/l' V\\ dujt across the way. And a brownish full. I //I v. 4 Bat him down at two o'clock, “Hotber, a mistake l made!’// // f-w M.. n ’t rise till f'lv/e, Sipbed the little sinner. M*ir V»I Ne’er stored eating all the time, “Cause I thought that I was l&J ▼ Sure <ls I’m cuWe Bitter than the dinner VlW' your great-aunt Virginia’s shoulder, but I heard her calling to me, *Gecr gle Washington, this will never do. You must not go to sl.eep; we must get up and walk around.’ “ I don’t want to walk around, Virgie,’ I said. ’1 want to go home, that’s what I want.’ “ ‘We’ll walk toward home,’ said Virgie, taking hold of my hand, and starting up. ‘We’re not in tli 3 path, but we can’t be far from it, and we must keep walking, for you must not go to sleep. Here’s the black walnut tree.’ “Virgie gave a sudden spring for ward, and fell. She told your great grandmother Howe, after it was all over, that it seemed as if she fell tulles and miles. Then it came over her like a flash, we had come through the wrong bars, and were over the gorge! That dreadful gorge where we were never allowed in broad day light’ Virgie fell till she stopped on a ledge not larger than her two feet, but her hair had been caught by an out-reaching tree branch, and it held her. True to her nature, her first tbought,even then, was for me. “ ‘Georgie Washington, are you up "here?' she called. Her voice sound ed through the darkness far away. ” ‘Yes, Virgie, lam here!’ I think my teeth chattered. ‘Where are you?’ “ ’Stand still! Don’t stir a step! Don’t go to sleep, we’re over the gorge. I’m caught by the hair and we must wait!’ “No one will ever know, children, how long we waited. It seemed to me as if all at once I grew to be a woman. It seemed to me as if God had given Virgie’? life into my keep ing. 1 kept calling down to her, telling her tha, it would soon be lighter, and that I felt sure that some way, somehow, I could save her. “At last It came, children, the first streak of the morning! I stooped over, and looked down that awful abyss, but the sight only gave me courage. ‘Virgie,’ I cried, and my teeth didn’t chatter this time, for when God wants us to do anything, children, no matter how difficult, He will give us the will and the strength to do it. ‘Virgie, I can see you, you are not half way down, but keep still a low minutes, and I can save you’.” “How did you do it, grandma?” always asked the children. “I didn’t know how I was going to do It, at first, but I began, very slowly, to make my way, not straight, but in a zigzag fashion, slowly and carefully down to the shelf over which Virgie hung. There was a lit tie platform of rock, on which I stopped. It was growing lighter every minute, as I reached up to the twisted tree branch. Thou God let me see how I was going to be able to save my sister. You know how I did it, children.” “You untwisted her hair,” from the children in chorus. ”Yes, those beautiful. Strong locks of hair, all kinked and snarled and held as in a vise, partly with my teeth, partly with my fingers, 1 loos ened every golden thread. “ ’Now,’ 1 said, ‘Virgie, you are free' Catch hold of this limb that I swing down to you! Catch hold and climb!’ ’Oh, Georgie Washington,’ she cried. ’I can’t! I'm dizzy! I shall faint.’ “I eould\see that her strength was failing, but I wouldn’t give up that 1 could save her; so I put all of my self into my voice, and I may have prayed, but I didn’t know it, then. “ No, you won’t faint, Virgie,’ I called. ‘You won't faiut; you won't fall! You can't; you’ve got the limb. Now here's my hand; let’s climb! We can see every step now, Virgie.’ "We climbed slowly, s*ep by step, zigzagging, picking cur way up, and gaining courage till at last we fell in each other’s ar ns, on to the level at the top, and that is' the way I met an emergency, the Thanksgiving and birthday we never forgot. And that is the way I saved your great-aunt Virginia.”—From Good Housekeep ing. DREAM | AST NIGHT I iiad a fearful dream; 1 tremble even yet! 1 saw a table long and wide, with many dishes 'set: And at one end I seemed to lie, helpless, aDd fat, and hot, And could not move a foot or wing to hasten from the spot! My stomach was uncomfortable; I could not draw my breath, Nor make a sound, howe’er I tried; I really felt like death! I couldn’t seem to find my head; my heart was out of place, And somehow I had sadly lost my dignity and grace! Then such a racketing arose, and scurry ing through the hall. And then a lot of people came —master, and wife, and all The children who h»d been so kind and given me loads to eat— They danced around my prostrate form; my downfall was complete! Deceitful creatures! that they are; for in my dream they said “Ha, ha, Old Turkey! Wn ere’s vour pride now you have lost your head?” 1 quivered with my burning wrongs, but no one seemed to care. For all sat down around the board and bowed their heads in prayer. And then my master, that good man, took up a dreaded knife, And held it slantwise over me; I trembled for my life! But when a great fork pierced my breast, 1 gave a jump anil scream, And nearly tumbled off my perch in wak ing from my dream! “Downside Up” —lf the Creatures Were Masters and the Man Underling. Monkeys are remarkaDly keen ot sight, but deficient in sense at smell. THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. INTERNATIONAL LESSON COM MENTS FOR NOV. 21 BY THE , REV. I. YV. HENDERSON- 4! * Subject: YY'orld’s Temperance Sun day, \ Rom. 14:12-23 Golden Text, Rom. 14:17 Memory Y'erses, 19-21. The nub of the lesson is to be found in the stumbling block and the judgment seat. We are to be scrupulous in all things as well as in the use of intoxi cating liquors lest we shall be stum bling blocks. And we are further to be very careful because we are to render account before the judgment seat of the Almighty according to our deeds in this life. It is usual to apply this scripture to the man or woman who uses intox icants. Especially is it applied to the Christian man or woman who uses liquor. And it is well. Drink is a good thing to dispense with regard less of our rights. It is a waste of money. Its pleasure is fallacious. Its consequences are too uncertain and may be definitely vicious. Its influence may be worse than we ever dream it could become through us. Taking all things into consideration it is no unwisdom to say that every man ought to leave liquor entirely alone as a beverage. But while it is the custom Ir re member what we ought to do with liquor or ought not to do with it in its personal relations to us it is quite as largely the fashion to forget that the most of us, especially those of us who are given the suffrage of a free manhood in this land, deliberately place liquor as a stumbling block in the way of men. And we do it by permitting the business to exist at all. We do it by granting it the right by and with the consent of the Govern ment, which in fact we are, to create as well as to supply a demand, to bring sorrow and misery and destruc tion and death into the homes of our fellow-men. ■ It is not enough that a man shall refrain from drinking intoxicating liquor himself. He must see to it that so far as his consent at least is concerned the Government will not be allowed to grant a license to a business which the whole Southland for economic and moral reasons is getting rid of, which the courts of the country have declared to be a nuisance and to have no constitution al right to exist, w'hicb is admitted to be a chief agent of the forces of wick edness wherever it is found, which debauches government and destroys the opportunity for multitudes of men, women and children to possess that peace and contentment and chance in life to which under the Constitution of this Country as under the laws of Almighty God they are entitled. Furthermore it is illogical for a Christian man who has done his duty in the premises so far as his civic re lations to his own community or com monwealth is concerned to refuse to wage the fight relentlessly against the national forces of this organized iniquity. For we are not simply a confederation of States, we are a na tion. And Massachusetts helps to make the laws that regulate the pub ! lie policy of the State of Oregon. The South makes law for the North as well as for itself. And if it is wise for a man to refuse the sanction of his suffrage to the allied forces of the liquor business in the State of Georgia it is no less wise for him to protest against a governmental ac quiescence to its national existence. A man who is an abolitionist so far as the saloon is concerned in the city of Boston has no business to be any thing else than that as a citizen of this United States. The liquor business will go when the church ceases to allow it to be a stumbling block in the way of a na tion. And it will not go before. But whether it go for economic or for moral reasons its end is in sight and sure. For it is as unscientific as it is immoral to allow it to exist. To perpetuate it is to perpetuate a plague and a national disgrace. And we will not do it. We ought to refuse to sanction it at all because of the fact that we shall give an account before the judgment seat of Christ according to our deeds done in the flesh. It is doubtful that any Christian man will upon sober second thought care to admit in the presence of Almighty God that by and with his personal consent as a citizen of America the curse of the American saloon, ruined homes, blighted lives, sank precious souls for whom Jesus died in the mire of unspeakable iniquity. It is doubtful if any of us if we thought »f it carefully would care to have upon our souls at the judgment day any portion whatsoever of the blood that has been wrung from innocent hearts by the viciousness of the liquor business. But so long as we perpet uate it we are responsible In no un real fashion for it, for its crimes, for its attendant misery. God grant that soon we shall all see that to grant a license to the liquor business is no better than li censing a brothel or incest or murder or all the crimes upon the code. God grant that soon the church will see 'the blood that is upon her hands. For we have stood so idly by and given our consent. Like Paul when the church awakes to a consciousness of her wickedness there will be an exhibition of religious consecration that will revolutionize the world. Eternal Life. Eternal life is not a quantity—it is quality. It is not something we receive when the pilgrimage is over; it is something we have at this pres ent moment. —Rev. G. C. Morgan, Presbyterian, New York City.