Part 6

“So you see,” said the boy named Billy, “I’ve got a good right not to like to carry one.”

“M-m--yes,” said Somebody. “Only you will observe, that as soon as people began to really realize what a very sensible article it was and how much it saved them in the way of spoiled clothes, not to mention damp shoulders, of course they didn’t mind at all what a few foolish ones thought who did not know a good thing when they saw it.”

“Time for school, Billy,” called Mother, “and never mind taking your umbrella--the rain is over.”

“Oh, goody!” exclaimed the boy named Billy.

Hallowe’en

“What are you going to do with that monstrous pumpkin, Billy Boy,” asked Big Sister, one crisp autumn day.

“Going to make a Jack O’Lantern of it,” said the boy named Billy.

“Somebody, why do we dress up and make believe we’re a lot of witches on Hallowe’en when we know there is nothing like that in the world?”

“All Hallow Eve,” said Somebody, “is the name given to the vigil of Hallowmas, which falls on the night before the Feast of All Saints Day. The Ancients lighted bonfires on that night to scare away ghosts and witches.

“The Romans had a festival in honor of Pomona, the goddess of fruits, in which apples featured, which accounts for the custom of bobbing for apples in tubs of water, which to this day the young folks think is so much fun.”

“That’s all right for girls,” said the boy named Billy, “but regular fellows can find something better to do.”

“What, for instance?” asked Big Sister.

“Oh, making Jack O’ Lanterns, and playing tricks on other fellows,” said Billy.

“I know a fine trick that a lot of husky chaps like you and Bob White and your gang could play on another fellow,” said Somebody.

“What is it?” asked Billy. “We’re game for almost anything that you could suggest.”

“Old Grandsire Johnson, who lives all alone in that little house at the edge of town, has just had his winter’s coal delivered,” said Somebody. “I think it would be fine if the Hallowe’en spirits would go up there while he is at prayer meeting tonight and put it all in the shed for him.”

“Oh, fine,” said the boy named Billy. “I know a bunch of healthy spooks that would just love a little job like that.”

About Wolves

“Look at this funny old pair of curly-toed skates that I found in that funny old horse-hair trunk in the attic,” said the boy named Billy. “They look like toys, and seem about big enough for little sister. Nobody ever could have really used them to skate with, could they?”

“Those skates were your great-grandmother Ellen’s racing skates,” said Somebody, “and if they had not been rather practical and not at all the toys they look, in comparison with the ones in use now, you would not be here this afternoon.”

“Why?” demanded the boy named Billy, sensing a story.

“Your great-grandmother Ellen,” said Somebody, “was considered to have been the most expert skater, the most fearless rider, and the most popular young lady in the section of the country where she grew up, and on the day of which I am speaking, she had one of the most thrilling adventures ever staged anywhere, not excepting the movies.”

“A _really-so story_!” exclaimed the boy named Billy, “and in the family, too!”

“It was many, many years ago,” said Somebody, “and happened away up in the wilds of Maine, where your great-great-grandfather lived with his family on the farm which he had taken away from the forest.

“Nobody lived at the head of the lake, which was long and narrow and more like a river in appearance, except your great-great-grandfather and his sons and daughters; but half way down, about ten miles, there was a small village, where the post-office was and where the young people of the surrounding country used to gather for their dances and good times. So one day in winter, when great-grandmother Ellen was about seventeen years old, she started out early to skate down to the settlement to a party. The party proved entertaining, and also the farewells detained her, and she was dismayed to see that just as she was getting her last skate-strap firmly fastened, the sun was going down behind the tall hemlock trees.

“Ten of the thirty minutes it would take her to skate home had gone and all was well, then far behind her she heard the long-drawn hunting call of the timber wolf.

“A few moments later, almost parallel with her, there broke from the forest a pack of the hunger-stricken beasts. Instantly the girl swerved in a skilful zigzag--and instantly the wolves swerved in the same direction--their long claws slipping on the ice as they swerved. On they came again and again. Sometimes they were so near that their snapping jaws almost caught her skirts, and to gain time she managed to unwind her long wool scarf, which she allowed to float behind her, to be seized and torn to pieces, which gave her a moment’s advantage. Then, just as she was wondering how much longer she could go on there were shots, and the pack scattered, leaving behind several of their number.”

“What happened?” asked the boy named Billy.

“The men, coming in from work, discovered Ellen was late, and one remembered he heard wolves down the lake. He picked up his rifle and skated down to meet his sister.”

“May I have these skates?” asked Billy. “I like to look at them and remember that they belonged to a real girl. I’ll hang them on my wall.”

“I’m sure that great-grandmother Ellen would be very happy to have them belong to you, Billy. You’re just the kind of boy that she would have approved of,” said Somebody.

How Thanksgiving came

“Gobble, gobble, gobble,” said Mr. Turkey Cock proudly spreading his wonderful turkey tail fan and looking as pompous as no one but he can look.

“Oh, you funny, conceited bird,” said the boy named Billy, “you won’t be so noisy next Thursday when we have you for Thanksgiving dinner. But that reminds me--won’t somebody please tell me why the turkey is called our National bird? I thought it was the eagle. And why do we always have Thanksgiving Day on Thursday?”

“Well, you see, Son,” said Somebody, “it started this way. As you of course know, our Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers came over in the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock on November 21st, 1620; just one hundred and two brave souls in a strange land, full of strange people who might well resent their being there. Although it was late in the year and cold weather, they managed to build themselves houses of a sort; but with the best that they could do more than half of them perished that first terrible winter.

“When Spring came, those who were left, with the help of the Indians, bravely planted the crops and started to make a home in the wilderness. The Indians gave them corn for seed and taught them how to plow the land and fertilize it, and with the seed that they had brought with them they managed so well that when harvest time came they had a bountiful yield. To express their gratitude to God who had so marvelously prospered them, as well as to show their friendliness to the Indians, Governor Bradford issued a proclamation to the effect that they would have a Thanksgiving feast to which Chief Massasoit and his braves were to be invited, which should last from Thursday morning until Saturday night. That was in October, 1621.

“But the Pilgrim Mothers, remembering the harvest festivals of England, with the barbecued sheep and oxen which they used to have, said ‘How can we make a feast? We have no meat.’ ‘Meat,’ said Governor Bradford, ‘why the woods are full of it.’ So he sent four of his very best riflemen out into the forest for wild turkeys, and they brought back so many that there was enough meat for the three days feasting for the colonists and their guests, the Indians. And ever since then no Thanksgiving feast could be really right without a nice plump turkey.”

“Did the Indians like the feast?” asked the boy named Billy. “Indeed they did,” said Somebody; “they liked it so well that Chief Massasoit sent his young men back with a gift of nice fat deer which they had shot especially for the colonists. Chief Massasoit wanted to show Governor Bradford that the Indians knew how to play fairly.”

“So that’s how Thanksgiving became,” said the boy named Billy.

“Yes,” answered Somebody, “but it was a long time after that before it became the good old holiday that we know now.

“In the first year of his office, President George Washington issued a proclamation recommending that November 26, 1789, be kept as a day of “national thanksgiving” for the establishment of a form of government that made for safety and happiness. After that, it was only held at odd times, but in 1863 it became a National holiday and the last Thursday in November is always proclaimed by the President as a day of prayer and thanksgiving.”

“We’re going to have the whole family here for dinner this year,” said the boy named Billy; “and we’re going to have turkey and cranberry jelly and pumpkin pie ’n’ everything.”

“_Gobble_, gobble, gobble,” remarked Mr. Turkey Cock.

“We shall!” remarked the boy named Billy, laughing.

Christmas!

“God rest ye merry gentlemen Let nothing you dismay, Remember Christ our Savior Was born on Christmas day,”

sang the boy named Billy, a bit off key. “_Billy_” begged Big Sister, “please get that correctly--you’ll throw the whole choir off if you sing it that way--come to the piano and I’ll drill you until you can _sing_ it!”

“Run along now, you’re letter perfect,” said Big Sister after a half-hour of practice, “I’m going to wrap up my gifts now, and it’s no fair peeking, either.”

“Oh, I don’t care anything about your gifts,” said Billy, “I’m going to stay right here and Somebody is going to tell me all about Christmas and why we give gifts and everything. Was it because the wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus?”

“Perhaps,” said Somebody, “but it seems more likely that it grew out of the realization of God’s great gift to the world--the gifts of Love and Friendliness and Peace which He bestowed upon us in sending His only son to teach us how to live.”

“‘Peace on earth, good will toward men,’” quoted Billy softly. “That’s enough to make people happy.”

“Christmas was not always the happy time that it is now,” said Somebody. “The early Christians had rather a hard time of it.”

“I remember,” said the boy named Billy, “I never could understand how they had the courage to keep it up.”

“They were upholding Truth,” said Somebody, “and Truth is the strongest thing in the world.”

“Was Christ really born on December 25th?” asked Billy.

“Probably not,” said Somebody. “The Eastern church celebrated January 6th, as the date of birth, calling it Epiphania, while the Western church celebrated December 25th, calling it Natalis. The Pagans had a festival at this season of the year called THE BIRTHDAY OF THE SUN of which they were very fond. Out of this grew the idea of using that time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the spiritual Sun of the world. This gradually took the place of the old pagan festival.”

“The singing of Christmas songs is an English custom, is it not?” asked Billy.

“Yes,” said Somebody. “There are many beautiful old-world customs which were left behind when the Puritans came to the new world in search of a place in which to worship in their own way.

“In Devonshire, England, it is said that the bees sing all night long in their hives the night before Christmas, and if you are wise you will go and wish them a Merry Christmas and hang a bit of holly on each hive, else you may get no honey next year.

“And you must on no account ask to borrow a match or a bit of fire on Christmas day, because fire is the symbol of the heart of the house and of happiness, and you must always add to and not take away from the happiness of others.

“In spite of the Puritan’s striving to leave behind them all the old legends, several did survive. I remember that one Christmas Eve when I was a small child, my mother being away at a party, I was taken at midnight out to the stable to see the cattle, who were supposed to be on their knees, worshipping the child who was born in a manger.”

“And were they?” asked the boy named Billy.

“I couldn’t really say,” said Somebody, “but they all scrambled to their feet when they saw the light of the lantern, and asked for clover hay. It seemed to me that we had disturbed their slumbers!

“In Norway is a most beautiful old custom that might well be copied everywhere,” went on Somebody, “which is called ‘The Ceremony of Feeding the Birds.’ Two or three days before Christmas bunches of oats are placed on the roofs and tied to the branches of trees and shrubs, loads of grain being brought into the towns for the purpose. And no one would dream of sitting down to his own dinner without first giving every animal on the place an extra portion in the name of Christ.”

“How did the Christmas-tree custom first begin?” asked Billy. “There is a tale to the effect that St. Boniface once came upon a group of Pagans at the Thunder Oak to which a living child had to be sacrificed every year, and, holding the Cross in front of the victim told the story of the coming of Christ. The child was saved, and the Oak destroyed by lightning, and in its place was seen a young fir tree pointing with its tall green finger toward heaven. From that time on Christianity was openly professed, until it has now covered the whole world.

“Today the observance of Christmas is universal. In England and America the little folks hang up their stockings in a row before the fireplace--in France the children place wooden shoes on the hearth to receive their gifts, and Norwegian children have a lot of fun hunting their new toys which have been tucked away in unexpected places. Everywhere it is above all the children’s holiday.”

“That’s interesting,” said the boy named Billy. “Thank you and Merry Christmas, Somebody.”

“Same to you Billy Boy,” said Somebody.