The Supply Republican (Supply, Okla.), Vol. 18, No. 42, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 20, 1919 Page: 3 of 8
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THE REPUBLICAN. SUPPLY, OKLAHOMA
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The cornstalks stand like sentinels against the sunset gold,
As if to guard the autumn days from winter s biting cold;
ROYAL FEASTS
, OF OTHER DAYS
When Thanksgiving Had Its Old-
Time Setting of Indian Sum-
mer and Country Hos-
pitality.
AN It be that not only the
M times are out of joint, but the
iJ seasons, too, are changing? Is
nature at this late day trying
some experiments and setting back the
hands on her dlalplate of months?
Certainly this November weather is
not the kind we read about when our
grandfathers tell of “the good old
times," of the “big snows” and “when
the land was now.” For days we have
lived as if summer skies were brood-
ing over us, and were it not for the
hare 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 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 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 the seashore. In the Old World
this season Is sometimes called “the
old man's summer,” and the feast of
good St. Martin, which falls In the first
week of November, is known as “the
old man's holiday”—perhaps because of
Its unexpected short-lived charm.
Needs a Country Setting.
Thanksgiving, of course, is truly a
country affair, and in the city loses
half its charm. The very word has
come to mean something of country
ways and country living, country prod-
ucts and country hospitality. It
smacks of all things rural, of hills and
fields and lanes and woods, ripe fruit,
perfect vegetables, loaded corncrib,
shining cattle. One cannot celebrate
Thanksgiving aright, in a town flat, or
a brown-stone mansion, certainly not
In a boarding house or dining car.
Thanksgiving day means a rambling
house in a great green yard, a quaint,
old gambrel-roofed cottage near a
country road, a log cabin In a ten-
ncre patch; houses full of old-fashioned
furniture and with room for all the
family and the kinsfolk and the stran-
ger within the gates. It means love
of home and great-hearted hospitality,
the coming back of the children, the
welcome of the old folks.
The ideal Thanksgiving must have a
setting, of snow. It must echo to the
ring of sleigh bells and the neigh of
the horses In frosty weather. No mat-
ter what the weather for weeks be-
fore, there should be snow In good
time. The sun rises on a dazzling pic-
ture of white field and glistening wood-
land. A veil of magic beauty covers
fence and road, the yard so brown nnd
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 transforma-
tion scene.
Like a Thrice-Told Tale.
The Thanksgiving dinner of the
country’s earlier days has been de-
scribed so frequently that It is like a
“thrice-told tale, signifying sound and
nonsense," so vividly that one can al-
most taste the dainties. Modern kit-
chens could not cook those 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 assem-
bled dishes. Merely to recite their
names would tempt the most pitiful
dyspeptic.
Roast pig, hot and brown, roast
spare ribs, pink and cold; roast tur-
key, Juicy and tender, full to bursting
with perfect stuffing; potatoes, snow-
white and mealy; boiled onions, like
shining pearls; stewed tomatoes, of
deepest red; coldslaw, 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 soar; cran-
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and custard and cherry and mince—
but, best of all, because most 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 dough-
nuts and cheese, gingerbread and beat-
en biscuit and honey; apples and nuts
nnd popcorn, and cider froqj the home
press, made for the occasion and with
just the right twang to Its bubbles.
Royal Feasts and Feasters.
Such royal ftasts needed royal feast-
ers. the keen winter air and long 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
sickness the day after this Thanks-
giving dinner. Nobody was in a huirj
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 need-
In some neighborhoods the day would
end in a Thanksgiving dance, but this
was not a prevailing custom. Perhaps
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
An
Old
-»The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast.
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed.
jvm
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soloed Dickies, sweet and soar; cran- “Fly Away to m.v tvauve “““
berries; glowing like heaped-up rubles, others so long ."“JIT oidfolks*
and pies, of all sorts and sizes, apple l of far-off Joy to the old fo .
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For dull ease broken
By sharpest dole,
For the dart that is driven
Through flesh to soul;
For wrath made sterner
By right’s eclipse,
For brave songs breaking
From pain-wrung lips—
We praise Thee, O Godl
For faith that la bom
From the burning nest, „
For the spirit's flight
On Its starward quest,
For peace that dwells
At the heart of strife,
For death that scatters
The seed of life—
We praise Thee, O Godl
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Our rural ancestors, with little blest.
Patient of labor when the end was rest
Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual
grain,
With feasts and offerings and a thankful
strain. —Pope.
The favorite way of celebrating
Thanksgiving in New England was, of
course, first with prayer and a sermon.
In which the minister told his congre-
gation the many things they had to be
thankful for. The church was generally
decorated with fruits and grains, and
when the custom became national this
was continued. The Idea of the Thanks-
giving dinner In New England was to
have all of the fruits of the harvest,
and turkey became the principal meat
course because this bird was so plenti-
ful and was caught In the wild state
and prepared most appetlztngly by the
housewives.
Then there was pumpkin pie, and as
cranberries grew in great quantities in
New England states the sauce of that
berry was a fitting addition to the
turkey course. Plum cake, or, as it has
come to be known, fruit cake, was a
favorite for the Christmas holidays In
England and was brought over with
other dainties by the first of the set-
tlers, and the recipes for making treas-
ured by the housewives.
Meat pies, or, as we call them, mince
pies, came later In the list of good
things for Thanksgiving.
With the very earliest settlers the
day was, indeed, a day of prayer, and
little else besides, but later It became
a feast day, as well, and it was a poor
family, Indeed, In New England that
could not afford a turkey for Thanks-
dvlng dinner.
m&m
Many Causes for Gratitude.
We have reason to be grateful for
our abundant harvests, which suffice
to feed us at home and empower ns
to give substantial aid to the starving
war-wasted peoples abroad; to be hum-
bly thankful for the wealth that en-
ables us to succor those who have mat
all that is so precious In our own eyes.
In gratitude for our manifold national
and personal blessings we all have oc-
casion to “bless the Lord, and forget
not all His benefits.”
HIS famous poem comes to
mind with each recurring
Thanksgiving day, and carries
us back to 1621 when the land
was young and our pilgrim forbears
were laying the first foundation stones
of our great American republic. To
them belongs the credit of having cele-
brated the first Thanksgiving day in
New England, but not the first in
North America. Historians remind us
of the fact that In the year 1578 an
English minister named Wolfall con-
ducted a Thanksgiving service on the
shores of Newfoundland. The min-
ister was with an expedition under
Frobisher which brought the first Eng-
lish colony to settle on those shores.
It was in this pious spirit or grati-
tude that the Pilgrims on the “stern
and rock-bound coast” of Plymouth
“praysed God" in sincere gratitude for
the way in which he had delivered
them from all the dangers of the deep
that the Mayflower had gone through.
We of the luxurious plenty of our day
would feel that we had little for
which to be grateful if we had no
more than the Pilgrims had on their
first Thanksgiving day. Dangers known
and unknown encompassed them round
about, and their days were filled with
hard labor, while their fare was of the
plainest and the future was uncertain.
But they had stout hearts In which
hope ran high. Of the American
Thanksgiving one historian says:
“The annual celebration, as we have
It In its present form, Is essentially of
American conception. The settlers of
Jamestown, the Dutch of New York,
the Pilgrims of Plymouth, and the Pu-
ritans of Boston were in every respect
devoutly religious people. They were
cornerstones in the great temple of
republican government on this side of
the Atluntlc. The first written consti-
tution in all history was an American
document. In that It was written in the
cabin of the Mayflower on Saturday,
Nov. 11. 1620, as that unique craft
swung at her anchor In Provincetown
harbor, the first six words being ‘In
the name of God, Amen.’ This phrase
laid the foundation stones of our
western civilization. These men
brought but little with them, hut left
much to posterity. If this were the
only thing they left us, the American
Thanksgiving day, their names would
be Immortalized. It gives Joy to the
humblest of peoples. On the follow-
ing autumn there was held a 'grande
thanksgiving.’ The most condensed ac-
count of this ‘grande thanksgiving’ can
be found in a letter written by Ed-
ward Winslow, sent to a friend in
England, as follows: ‘Our harvest be-
ing gotten In, our governor sent out
four men on fowling, so that we might
after a special manner rejoice togeth-
er, after we had gathered the fruits of
our labors. They killed as much fowl
as with a little help beside served the
company about one week. At which
times among other recreations we ex-
ercised our army, many of the Indians
coining amongst us, and among the
rest of their greatest king, Massasoit,
with some 90 men, whom for three
days we entertained and feasted, and
they went out and killed five deer,
which they brought and bestowed on
our governor and upon the captain
and others.1"
The Thanksgiving Witch
m ■ ^HERE'S a witch In the kitchen
|j who's baking and brewing,
E And mixing and molding, and
elftlng and stewing.
She Is up to her elbowe In raleins
and spices,
As she chops and Bhe peele and she
minces and sliceB. .
Around her the fragrance of pumpkin pis
Each'mlnute a new kind of dainty dls-
As stirring and steeping, and basting and
sieving. __
My capable sweetheart prepares for
Thanksgiving.
O! this witch In the kitchen has wovet
around me . . .
A spell that In happy enchantment has
bound me. ,
Compounded of fruit cake and cranberry
Jelly
And dressing with onions deliciously
smelly, ... jt
And turkey all crinkly and wrinkly and
tender.
And celery, plume-topped, and snowy
and slender,
And her magic has made me determined
to win her
To preside as my brids at my Thanks-
giving dinner.
-MINNA IRVING.
(Copyright. 1»1». Western Newspaper Union)
Not Essentially American.
Our American Thanksgiving is usual-
ly considered our one native contribu-
tion to the holidays of nations, as It*
observance originated with the New
England fathers. Perhaps the fathers
themselves liked to think of it In this
originative way and so wished It per-
petuated—as something that had flow-
ered on the bleak rock of their per-
sonal struggle. It was to be peculiarly
their day, peculiarly a heroic New Eng-
land day, an American day. So in a
sense it is; so in a senBe It Is not.
Many other nations have had such
days of thankfulness.
For Part and Coming Mercies.
Thanksgiving is a season of appre-
ciation for what has come to the coun-
try as well as for what it has escaped.
On both counts the people of America
have abundant reason on this day to
express their gratitude in accordance
with the national Institution so wisely
ordered long ago.
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Mayfield, J. W. The Supply Republican (Supply, Okla.), Vol. 18, No. 42, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 20, 1919, newspaper, November 20, 1919; Supply, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc848381/m1/3/: accessed April 24, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.