Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1915 — One Little Boy’s Thanksgiving [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

One Little Boy’s Thanksgiving

H CERTAIN Little Boy who lives in a family where children and holidays and dogs are all important factors in everyday life was talking about the next holiday. The Little Boy has a trait common to childhood of living largely in anticipation and-very little in memory. On the morning of Dee. 26 he awakes, unfatigued and alert, not to discuss yesterdays triumphs nor the wholesale unwise generosity of uncles and aunts. No, indeed! He begins his list for next Christmas. This Little Boy had finished a glori- '■ ous period of Halloween preparations, ; There was nothing he had not cut < and painted and planned that the mind of a five-year-old child could conceive of. He had had a glorious month of anticipation, and it had been crowned by a satisfactory Halloween revel, but memory was to him only an incentive' to further pursuit of joy, not a state wherein to rest awhile. “What’s the next holiday, mamma?” i asked Little Boy. “Thanksgiving, dear," answered mamma rather absently. Memory lin-' gers with mamma, as there is debris

enough to keep any feast in her mind for a day or so. “Oh, goodie! How soon it?” “About three weeks.” “Oh, that’s a long time! What shall we do to get ready?” “Why. we ll make pies and cookies.” “What else?” “Plum pudding and ice cream.” “And—go on, mamma, please.” “Nuts and raisins and cranberries.” “But—but. mamma, do you mean that Thanksgiving is just nothing but eating?” came the horrified rejoinder. Isn’t it too bad that thjs holiday that meant so much to our forefathers almost 300 years ago is now almost “just nothing but eating?” What could the mother do? She cast around in her mind—a mother’s mind is really more resourceful than the mind of a mere being who is not a mother—for something with which to glorify Thanksgiving to her child. Of course she finally dug up the story of the sufferings and triumphs of the pilgrims. She didn’t just read it out of a book to Little Boy. She word painted that forest and the little log houses, the pilgrim maids and men and the few queer, sober,' hardworking little children, the great bronzed Indians and the sunlight that glinted through the forest and through the hearts of these pioneer folk when they realized that God had so prospered their hard, hard work that there was food enough to last them during the coming winter. When the mother pictured the log bams and the rude bins and cells, all full of grain. Little Boy said. “Oh, I’m so glad!" “So were they, son, and so they set aside a day for their children’s children forever to thank God for all the good things that grow.” “Is there enough for everybody?” asked Little Boy. So then mother told him that, although there is enough for everybody, still everybody doesn’t get enotigh. She told him of all the kind people who try to help the “left out ones” on Thanksgiving day, and Little Boy, while they picked raisins and cleaned currants and made cooky men, planned one of everything for themselves and one for the “left out ones.” Thus Little Boy found: something in Thanksgiving besides just eating.— Mrs. Blanche Cole Rosedale In New York Evening Sun.

SOME YOUNGSTERS NOT “LEFT OUT” ON THANKSGIVING (SCENE AT PUBLIC DINNEB).