“Soon or late to all our dwellings come the specters of the mind; Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the darkness undefined. Round us throng the grim projections of the heart and of the brain, And our pride of strength is weakness, and the cunning hand is vain. In the dark we cry like children; and no answer from on high Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white wings downward fly. But the heavenly help we pray for, comes to faith and not to sight, And our prayers themselves drive backward all the spirits of the night.”
The last celebration of Thanksgiving was about the most startling that any of the Hope Farmers remember. I have passed this holiday under quite varied conditions. “Boy” on a New England farm and in a boarding-house, cattle herder on a Colorado ranch, sawyer in a lumber camp, teacher in a country school district, hired man and book agent on a Michigan farm, “elocutionist” in a dramatic company, “professor of modern languages” (with a slim grip on English alone) in a young ladies’ seminary, printer’s devil in a Southern newspaper office, ditcher in a swamp, and other capacities too numerous to mention. A man may perhaps lay claim to a bit of helpful philosophy if he can find some fun in all such days and carry along in his mental pocket “much to be thankful for.” He is sure to come to a time in life when these “treasures of memory” will be very useful. I would not refer to family matters that might well be marked “private” and locked away with the skeleton in the closet if I did not know that the plain, simple matters of family record are things that all the world have in common.
A pirate or a man trying to hide himself might have seen virtues in the dull, misty fog that settled upon the city the night before Thanksgiving. Grandmother had been slowly failing through the day. The night brought her greater pain than ever. All through these long months we had been able to keep from her the real nature of her disease. I took it upon myself to keep the children happy. If we grown-ups found it hard to be thankful we would see that the little folks put out enough thanks for the whole family. I took them down to the market to pick out a turkey! We had a great time, and finally found a turkey fat enough. The market man gave each of the children a handful of nuts—and they now want Mother to give him all her trade. They went home fairly radiant with happiness. Was it not better for them to go to sleep with the pleasant side of the day in their hearts rather than the shadow which the rest of us could feel near us?