To most young people, holidays mean simply freedom from lessons and a good time. All this they should mean—and something more.

It is well to remember, for example, that we owe the pleasure of Thanksgiving to those grateful Pilgrims who gave a feast of thanks for the long-delayed rain that saved their withering crops—a feast of wild turkeys and pumpkin pies, which has been celebrated now for nearly three centuries.

It is most fitting that the same honor paid to Washington's Birthday is now given to that of Lincoln, who is as closely associated with the Civil War as our first President is with the Revolution.

Although the birthdays of the three American poets, Whittier, Lowell, and Longfellow, are not holidays, stories relating to these days are included in this collection as signalizing days to be remembered.

In this book are contained stories bearing on our holidays and annual celebrations, from Hallowe'en to the Fourth of July.

October 31

The Eve of All Saints' Day

This night is known in some places as Nutcrack Night, or Snapapple Night. Supernatural influences are pretended to prevail and hence all kinds of superstitions were formerly connected with it. It is now usually celebrated by children's parties, when certain special games are played.

BY DAVID BROWN

As the world grows old and wise, it ceases to believe in many of its superstitions. But, although they are no longer believed in, the customs connected with them do not always die out; they often linger on through centuries, and, from having once been serious religious rites, or something real in the life of the people, they become at last mere children's plays or empty usages, often most zealously enjoyed by those who do not understand their meaning.

All-hallow Eve is now, in our country towns, a time of careless frolic, and of great bonfires, which, I hear, are still kindled on the hill-tops in some places. We also find these fires in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and from their history we learn the meaning of our celebration. Some of you may know that the early inhabitants of Great Britain, Ireland, and parts of France were known as Celts, and that their religion was directed by strange priests called Druids. Three times in the year, on the first of May, for the sowing; at the solstice, June 21st, for the ripening and turn of the year; and on the eve of November 1st, for the harvesting, those mysterious priests of the Celts, the Druids, built fires on the hill-tops in France, Britain, and Ireland, in honor of the sun. At this last festival the Druids of all the region gathered in their white robes around the stone altar or cairn on the hill-top. Here stood an emblem of the sun, and on the cairn was a sacred fire, which had been kept burning through the year. The Druids formed about the fire, and, at a signal, quenched it, while deep silence rested on the mountains and valleys. Then the new fire gleamed on the cairn, the people in the valley raised a joyous shout, and from hill-top to hill-top other fires answered the sacred flame. On this night, all hearth-fires in the region had been put out, and they were kindled with brands from the sacred fire, which was believed to guard the households through the year.

But the Druids disappeared from their sacred places, the cairns on the hill-tops became the monuments of a dead religion, and Christianity spread to the barbarous inhabitants of France and the British Islands. Yet the people still clung to their old customs, and felt much of the old awe for them. Still they built their fires on the first of May,—at the solstice in June,—and on the eve of November 1st. The church found that it could not all at once separate the people from their old ways, so it gradually turned these ways to its own use, and the harvest festival of the Druids became in the Catholic Calendar the Eve of All Saints, for that is the meaning of the name "All-hallow Eve." In the seventh century, the Pantheon, the ancient Roman temple of all the gods, was consecrated anew to the worship of the Virgin and of all holy martyrs.

By its separation from the solemn character of the Druid festival, All-hallow Eve lost much of its ancient dignity, and became the carnival-night of the year for wild, grotesque rites. As century after century passed by, it came to be spoken of as the time when the magic powers, with which the peasantry, all the world over, filled the wastes and ruins, were supposed to swarm abroad to help or injure men. It was the time when those first dwellers in every land, the fairies, were said to come out from their grots and lurking-places; and in the darkness of the forests and the shadows of old ruins, witches and goblins gathered. In course of time, the hallowing fire came to be considered a protection against these malicious powers. It was a custom in the seventeenth century for the master of a family to carry a lighted torch of straw around his fields, to protect them from evil influence through the year, and as he went he chanted an invocation to the fire. The chief thing which we seek to impress upon your minds in connection with All-hallow Eve is that its curious customs show how no generation of men is altogether separated from earlier generations. Far as we think we are from our uncivilized ancestors, much of what they did and thought has come into our doing and thinking,—with many changes perhaps, under different religious forms, and sometimes in jest where they were in earnest. Still, these customs and observances (of which All-hallow Eve is only one) may be called the piers, upon which rests a bridge that spans the wide past between us and the generations that have gone before.

The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

This day is now a holiday so that every man may have an opportunity to cast his vote. Unlike most other holidays, it does not commemorate an event, but it is a day which has a tremendous meaning if rightly looked upon and rightly used. Its true spirit and significance are well set forth in the following pages. By act of Congress the date for the choosing of Presidential electors is set for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in the years when Presidents are elected, and the different States have now nearly all chosen the same day for the election of State officers.

BY S.E. FORMAN

Read the bill of rights in the constitution of your State and you will find there, set down in plain black and white, the rights which you are to enjoy as an American citizen. This constitution tells you that you have the right to your life, to your liberty, and to the property that you may honestly acquire; that your body, your health and your reputation shall be protected from injury; that you may move freely from place to place unmolested; that you shall not be imprisoned or otherwise punished without a fair trial by an impartial jury; that you may worship God according to the promptings of your own conscience; that you may freely write and speak on any subject providing you do not abuse the privilege; that you may peaceably assemble and petition government for the redress of grievances. These are civil rights. They, together with many others equally dear, are guaranteed by the State and national constitutions, and they belong to all American citizens.

These civil rights, like the air and the sunshine, come to us in these days as a matter of course, but they did not come to our ancestors as a matter of course. To our ancestors rights came as the result of hard-fought battles. The reading of the bill of rights would cause your heart to throb with gratitude did you but know the suffering and sacrifice each right has cost.

Now just as our rights have not been gained without a struggle, so they will not be maintained without a struggle. We may not have to fight with cannon and sword as did our forefathers in the Revolution, but we may be sure that if our liberty is to be preserved there will be fighting of some kind to do. Such precious things as human rights cannot be had for nothing.

One of the hardest battles will be to fulfil the duties which accompany our rights, for every right is accompanied by a duty. If I can hold a man to his contract I ought (I owe it) to pay my debts; if I may worship as I please, I ought to refrain from persecuting another on account of his religion; if my property is held sacred, I ought to regard the property of another man as sacred; if the government deals fairly with me and does not oppress me, I ought to deal fairly With it and refuse to cheat it; if I am allowed freedom of speech, I ought not to abuse the privilege; if I have a right to a trial by jury, I ought to respond when I am summoned to serve as a juror; if I have a right to my good name and reputation, I ought not to slander my neighbor; if government shields me from injury, I ought to be ready to take up arms in its defense.

Foremost among the rights of American citizenship is that of going to the polls and casting a ballot. This right of voting is not a civil right; it is a political right which grew out of man's long struggle for his civil rights. While battling with kings and nobles for liberty the people learned to distrust a privileged ruling class. They saw that if their civil rights were to be respected, government must pass into their own hands or into the hands of their chosen agents. Hence they demanded political rights, the right of holding office and of voting at elections.

The suffrage, or the right of voting, is sometimes regarded as a natural right, one that belongs to a person simply because he is a person.

People will say that a man has as much right to vote as he has to acquire property or to defend himself from attack. But this is not a correct view. The right to vote is a franchise or privilege which the law gives to such citizens as are thought worthy of possessing it. It is easy to see that everybody cannot be permitted to vote. There must be certain qualifications, certain marks of fitness, required of a citizen before he can be entrusted with the right of suffrage. These qualifications differ in the different States. In most States every male citizen over twenty-one years of age may vote. In four States, women as well as men exercise the right of suffrage.

But the right of voting, like every other right, has its corresponding duty. No day brings more responsibilities than Election Day. The American voter should regard himself as an officer of government. He is one of the members of the electorate, that vast governing body which consists of all the voters and which possesses supreme political power, controlling all the governments, federal and State and local. This electorate has in its keeping the welfare and the happiness of the American people. When, therefore, the voter takes his place in this governing body, that is, when he enters the polling-booth and presumes to participate in the business of government, he assumes serious responsibilities. In the polling-booth he is a public officer charged with certain duties, and if he fails to discharge these duties properly he may work great injury. What are the duties of a voter in a self-governing country? If an intelligent man will ask himself the question and refer it to his conscience as well as deliberate upon it in his mind, he will conclude that he ought to do the following things:

Appointed by the President—usually the last Thursday in November.

Now observed as a holiday in all the States, but not a legal holiday in all. The President's proclamation recommends that it be set apart as a day of prayer and rejoicing. The day is of New England origin, the first one being set by Governor Bradford of the Massachusetts colony on December, 1621. Washington issued a thanksgiving proclamation for Thursday, December 18, 1777, and again at Valley Forge for May 7, 1778. The Thanksgiving of the present incorporates many of the genial features of Christmas. The feast with the Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin-pie crowns the day. Even the poorhouse has its turkey. The story of "An Old-Time Thanksgiving," in "Indian Stories" of this series, well brings out the original spirit of the day.

BY H. BUTTERWORTH

"Honk!"

I spun around like a top, looking nervously in every direction. I was familiar with that sound; I had heard it before, during two summer vacations, at the old farm-house on the Cape.

It had been a terror to me. I always put a door, a fence, or a stone wall between me and that sound as speedily as possible.

I had just come down from the city to the Cape for my third summer vacation. I had left the cars with my arms full of bundles, and hurried toward Aunt Targood's.

The cottage stood in from the road. There was a long meadow in front of it. In the meadow were two great oaks and some clusters of lilacs. An old, mossy stone wall protected the grounds from the road, and a long walk ran from the old wooden gate to the door.

It was a sunny day, and my heart was light. The orioles were flaming in the old orchards; the bobolinks were tossing themselves about in the long meadows of timothy, daisies, and patches of clover. There was a scent of new-mown hay in the air.

In the distance lay the bay, calm and resplendent, with white sails and specks of boats. Beyond it rose Martha's Vineyard, green and cool and bowery, and at its wharf lay a steamer.

I was, as I said, light-hearted. I was thinking of rides over the sandy roads at the close of the long, bright days; of excursions on the bay; of clam-bakes and picnics.

I was hungry; and before me rose visions of Aunt Targood's fish dinners, roast chickens, berry pies. I was thirsty; but ahead was the old well-sweep, and, behind the cool lattice of the dairy window, were pans of milk in abundance.

I tripped on toward the door with light feet, lugging my bundles and beaded with perspiration, but unmindful of all discomforts in the thought of the bright days and good things in store for me.

"Honk! honk!"

My heart gave a bound!

Where did that sound come from?

Out of a cool cluster of innocent-looking lilac bushes, I saw a dark object cautiously moving. It seemed to have no head. I knew, however, that it had a head. I had seen it; it had seized me once on the previous summer, and I had been in terror of it during all the rest of the season.

I looked down into the irregular grass, and saw the head and a very long neck running along on the ground, propelled by the dark body, like a snake running away from a ball. It was coming toward me, and faster and faster as it approached.

I dropped all my bundles.

In a few flying leaps I returned to the road again, and armed myself with a stick from a pile of cord-wood.

"Honk! honk! honk!"

It was a call of triumph. The head was high in the air now. My enemy moved grandly forward, as became the monarch of the great meadow farm-yard.

I stood with beating heart, after my retreat.

It was Aunt Targood's gander.

How he enjoyed his triumph, and how small and cowardly he made me feel!

"Honk! honk! honk!"

The geese came out of the lilac bushes, bowing their heads to him in admiration. Then came the goslings—a long procession of awkward, half-feathered things: they appeared equally delighted.

The gander seemed to be telling his admiring audience all about it: how a strange girl with many bundles had attempted to cross the yard; how he had driven her back, and had captured her bundles, and now was monarch of the field. He clapped his wings when he had finished his heroic story, and sent forth such a "honk!" as might have startled a major-general.

Then he, with an air of great dignity and coolness, began to examine my baggage.

Among my effects were several pounds of chocolate caramels, done up in brown paper. Aunt Targood liked caramels, and I had brought her a large supply.

He tore off the wrappers quickly. Bit one. It was good. He began to distribute the bon-bons among the geese, and they, with much liberality and good-will, among the goslings.

This was too much. I ventured through the gate swinging my cord-wood stick.

"Shoo!"

He dropped his head on the ground, and drove it down the walk in a lively waddle toward me.

"Shoo!"

It was Aunt Targood's voice at the door.

He stopped immediately.

His head was in the air again.

"Shoo!"

Out came Aunt Targood with her broom.

She always corrected the gander with her broom. If I were to be whipped I should choose a broom—not the stick.

As soon as he beheld the broom he retired, although with much offended pride and dignity, to the lilac bushes; and the geese and goslings followed him.

"Hester, you dear child, come here. I was expecting you, and had been looking out for you, but missed sight of you. I had forgotten all about the gander."

We gathered up the bundles and the caramels. I was light-hearted again.

How cool was the sitting-room, with the woodbine falling about the open windows! Aunt brought me a pitcher of milk and some strawberries; some bread and honey; and a fan.

While I was resting and taking my lunch, I could hear the gander discussing the affairs of the farm-yard with the geese. I did not greatly enjoy the discussion. His tone of voice was very proud, and he did not seem to be speaking well of me. I was suspicious that he did not think me a very brave girl. A young person likes to be spoken well of, even by the gander.

Aunt Targood's gander had been the terror of many well-meaning people, and of some evildoers, for many years. I have seen tramps and pack-peddlers enter the gate, and start on toward the door, when there would sound that ringing warning like a war-blast. "Honk, honk!" and in a few minutes these unwelcome people would be gone. Farm-house boarders from the city would sometimes enter the yard, thinking to draw water by the old well-sweep: in a few minutes it was customary to hear shrieks, and to see women and children flying over the walls, followed by air-rending "honks!" and jubilant cackles from the victorious gander and his admiring family.

"Aunt, what makes you keep that gander, year after year?" said I, one evening, as we were sitting on the lawn before the door. "Is it because he is a kind of a watch-dog, and keeps troublesome people away?"

"No, child, no; I do not wish to keep most people away, not well-behaved people, nor to distress nor annoy any one. The fact is, there is a story about that gander that I do not like to speak of to every one—something that makes me feel tender toward him; so that if he needs a whipping, I would rather do it. He knows something that no one else knows. I could not have him killed or sent away. You have heard me speak of Nathaniel, my oldest boy?"

"Yes."

"That is his picture in my room, you know. He was a good boy to me. He loved his mother. I loved Nathaniel—you cannot think how much I loved Nathaniel. It was on my account that he went away.

"The farm did not produce enough for us all: Nathaniel, John, and I. We worked hard and had a hard time. One year—that was ten years ago—we were sued for our taxes.

"'Nathaniel,' said I, 'I will go to taking boarders.'

"Then he looked up to me and said (oh, how noble and handsome he appeared to me!):

"'Mother, I will go to sea.'

"'Where?' asked I, in surprise.

"'In a coaster.'

"I turned white. How I felt!

"'You and John can manage the place,' he continued. 'One of the vessels sails next week—Uncle Aaron's; he offers to take me.'

"It seemed best, and he made preparations to go.

"The spring before, Skipper Ben—you have met Skipper Ben—had given me some goose eggs; he had brought them from Canada, and said that they were wild-goose eggs.

"I set them under hens. In four weeks I had three goslings. I took them into the house at first, but afterward made a pen for them out in the yard. I brought them up myself, and one of those goslings is that gander.

"Skipper Ben came over to see me, the day before Nathaniel was to sail. Aaron came with him.

"I said to Aaron:

"'What can I give to Nathaniel to carry to sea with him to make him think of home? Cake, preserves, apples? I haven't got much; I have done all I can for him, poor boy.'

"Brother looked at me curiously, and said:

"'Give him one of those wild geese, and we will fatten it on shipboard and will have it for our Thanksgiving dinner.'

"What brother Aaron said pleased me. The young gander was a noble bird, the handsomest of the lot; and I resolved to keep the geese to kill for my own use and to give him to Nathaniel.

"The next morning—it was late in September—I took leave of Nathaniel. I tried to be calm and cheerful and hopeful. I watched him as he went down the walk with the gander struggling under his arms. A stranger would have laughed, but I did not feel like laughing; it was true that the boys who went coasting were usually gone but a few months and came home hardy and happy. But when poverty compels a mother and son to part, after they have been true to each other, and shared their feelings in common, it seems hard, it seems hard—though I do not like to murmur or complain at anything allotted to me.

"I saw him go over the hill. On the top he stopped and held up the gander. He disappeared; yes, my own Nathaniel disappeared. I think of him now as one who disappeared.

"November came—it was a terrible month on the coast that year. Storm followed storm; the sea-faring people talked constantly of wrecks and losses. I could not sleep on the nights of those high winds. I used to lie awake thinking over all the happy hours I had lived with Nathaniel.

"Thanksgiving week came.

"It was full of an Indian-summer brightness after the long storms. The nights were frosty, bright, and calm.

"I could sleep on those calm nights.

"One morning, I thought I heard a strange sound in the woodland pasture. It was like a wild goose. I listened; it was repeated. I was lying in bed. I started up—I thought I had been dreaming.

"On the night before Thanksgiving I went to bed early, being very tired. The moon was full; the air was calm and still. I was thinking of Nathaniel, and I wondered if he would indeed have the gander for his Thanksgiving dinner: if it would be cooked as well as I would have cooked it, and if he would think of me that day.

"I was just going to sleep, when suddenly I heard a sound that made me start up and hold my breath.

"'Honk!'

"I thought it was a dream followed by a nervous shock.

"'Honk! honk!'

"There it was again, in the yard. I was surely awake and in my senses.

"I heard the geese cackle.

"'Honk! honk! honk!'

"I got out of bed and lifted the curtain. It was almost as light as day. Instead of two geese there were three. Had one of the neighbors' geese stolen away?

"I should have thought so, and should not have felt disturbed, but for the reason that none of the neighbors' geese had that peculiar call—that hornlike tone that I had noticed in mine.

"I went out of the door.

"The third goose looked like the very gander I had given Nathaniel. Could it be?

"I did not sleep. I rose early and went to the crib for some corn.

"It was a gander—a 'wild' gander—that had come in the night. He seemed to know me.

"I trembled all over as though I had seen a ghost. I was so faint that I sat down on the meal-chest.

"As I was in that place, a bill pecked against the door. The door opened. The strange gander came hobbling over the crib-stone and went to the corn-bin. He stopped there, looked at me, and gave a sort of glad "honk," as though he knew me and was glad to see me.

"I was certain that he was the gander I had raised, and that Nathaniel had lifted into the air when he gave me his last recognition from the top of the hill.

"It overcame me. It was Thanksgiving. The church bell would soon be ringing as on Sunday. And here was Nathaniel's Thanksgiving dinner; and brother Aaron's—had it flown away? Where was the vessel?

"Years have passed—ten. You know I waited and waited for my boy to come back. December grew dark with its rainy seas; the snows fell; May lighted up the hills, but the vessel never came back. Nathaniel—my Nathaniel—never returned.

"That gander knows something he could tell me if he could talk. Birds have memories. He remembered the corn-crib—he remembered something else. I wish he could talk, poor bird! I wish he could talk. I will never sell him, nor kill him, nor have him abused. He knows!"

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Born December 17, 1807   Died September 7, 1892

Whittier is known not only as a poet, but as a reformer and author. He was a member of the Society of Friends. He attended a New England academy; worked on a farm; taught school in order to afford further education, and at the age of twenty-two edited a paper at Boston. He was a leading opponent of slavery and was several times attacked by mobs on account of his opinions.

BY WILLIAM H. RIDEING

The life of Whittier may be read in his poems, and, by putting a note here and a date there, a full autobiography might be compiled from them. His boyhood and youth are depicted in them with such detail that little need be added to make the story complete, and that little, reverently done as it may be, must seem poor in comparison with the poetic beauty of his own revelations.

What more can we do to show his early home than to quote from his own beautiful poem, "Snow-bound"? There the house is pictured for us, inside and out, with all its furnishings; and those who gather around its hearth, inmates and visitors, are set before us so clearly that long after the book has been put away they remain as distinct in the memory as portraits that are visible day after day on the walls of our own homes. He reproduces in his verse the landscapes he saw, the legends of witches and Indians he listened to, the schoolfellows he played with, the voices of the woods and fields, and the round of toil and pleasure in a country boy's life; and in other poems his later life, with its impassioned devotion to freedom and lofty faith, is reflected as lucidly as his youth is in "Snow-bound" and "The Barefoot Boy."

He himself was "The Barefoot Boy," and what Robert Burns said of himself Whittier might repeat: "The poetic genius of my country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha, at the plow, and threw her inspiring mantle over me." He was a farmer's son, born at a time when farm-life in New England was more frugal than it is now, and with no other heritage than the good name and example of parents and kinsmen, in whom simple virtues—thrift, industry, and piety—abounded.

His birthplace still stands near Haverhill, Mass.,—a house in one of the hollows of the surrounding hills, little altered from what it was in 1807, the year he was born, when it was already at least a century and a half old.

December 25

A festival held every year in memory of the birth of Christ. Christmas is essentially a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving and of good will toward others. Many customs older than Christianity mark the festivities. In our country the observance of the day was discouraged in colonial times, and in England in 1643 Parliament abolished the day. Now its celebration is world-wide and by all classes and creeds.

BY CLIFFORD HOWARD

Of course Uncle Sam is best acquainted with the good old-fashioned Christmas—the kind we have known all about since we were little bits of children. There are the Christmas trees with their pretty decorations and candles, and the mistletoe and holly and all sorts of evergreens to make the house look bright, while outside the trees are bare, the ground is white with snow, and Jack Frost is prowling around, freezing up the ponds and pinching people's noses. And then there is dear old Santa Claus with his reindeer, galloping about on the night before Christmas, and scrambling down chimneys to fill the stockings that hang in a row by the fireplace.

It is the time of good cheer and happiness and presents for everybody; the time of chiming bells and joyful carols; of turkey and candy and plum-pudding and all the other good things that go to make up a truly merry Christmas. And here and there throughout the country, some of the quaint old customs of our forefathers are still observed at this time, as, for instance, the pretty custom of "Christmas waits"—boys and girls who go about from house to house on Christmas eve, or early Christmas morning, singing carols.

But, aside from the Christmas customs we all know so well, Uncle Sam has many strange and special ways of observing Christmas; for in this big country of his there are many different kinds of people, and they all do not celebrate Christmas in the same way, as you shall see.

IN THE SOUTH

Siss! Bang! Boom! Sky-rockets hissing, crackers snapping, cannons roaring, horns tooting, bells ringing, and youngsters shouting with wild delight. That is the way Christmas begins down South.

January 1

The custom of celebrating the first day of the year is a very ancient one. The exchange of gifts, the paying of calls, the making of good resolutions for the new year and feasting often characterize the day. The custom of ringing the church bells is of the widest extent.

The old-world custom of sitting up on New Year's eve to see the old year out is still very common.

The Century Magazine, July 1885

BY EDWARD EGGLESTON

New Year's Day was celebrated among the New York Dutch by the calls of the gentlemen on their lady friends; it is perhaps the only distinctly Dutch custom that afterward came into widespread use in the United States. New Year's Day, and the church festivals kept alike by the Dutch and English, brought an intermission of labor to the New York slaves, who gathered in throngs to devote themselves to wild frolics. The Brooklyn fields were crowded with them on New Year's Day, at Easter, at Whitsuntide, or "Prixter," as the Dutch called it, and on "San Claus Day"—the feast of St. Nicholas.

BY H.H.

The Chinese in California have a week of holiday at their New Year's in February, just as we do between the twenty-fifth of December and the first of January.

In the cities they make a fine display of fire-works. They use barrels full of fire-crackers, and the Chinese boys do not fire them off, as the American boys do, a cracker at a time; they bring out a large box full, or a barrel full, and fire them off package after package, as fast as they can.

In Santa Barbara, where I was during the Chinese New Year's of 1882, we heard the crackers long before we reached Chinatown. After these stopped we went into the houses. Every Chinese family keeps open house on New Year's day all day long. They set up a picture or an image of their god in some prominent place, and on a table in front of this they put a little feast of good things to eat. Some are for an offering to the god and some are for their friends who call. Everyone is expected to take something.

There was no family so poor that it did not have something set out, and some sort of a shrine made for its idol; in some houses it was only a coarse wooden box turned up on one end like a cupboard, with two or three little teacups full of rice or tea, and one poor candle burning before a paper picture of the god pasted or tacked at the back of the box.

It was amusing to watch the American boys darting about from shop to shop and house to house, coming out with their hands full of queer Chinese things to eat, showing them to each other and comparing notes.

"Oh, let me taste that!" one boy would exclaim on seeing some new thing; and "Where did you get it? Which house gives that?" Then the whole party would race off to make a descent on that house and get some more. I thought it wonderfully hospitable on the part of the Chinese people to let all these American boys run in and out of their houses in that way, and help themselves from the New Year's feast.

Some of the boys were very rude and ill-mannered—little better than street beggars; but the Chinese were polite and generous to them all. The joss-house, where they held their religious services, was a chamber opening out upon an upper balcony. This balcony was hung with lanterns and decorated. The door at the foot of the stairs which led to this chamber stood open all day, and any one who wished could go up and say his prayers in the Chinese fashion, which is a curious fashion indeed. They have slender reeds with tight rolls of brown paper fastened at one end. In front of the image or picture of their god they set a box or vase of ashes, on which a little sandalwood is kept burning. When they wish to make a prayer they stick one of the reeds down in these ashes and set the paper on fire. They think the smoke of the burning paper will carry the prayer up to heaven.

I asked a Chinese man who could speak a little English why they put teacups of wine and tea and rice before their god; if they believed that the god would eat and drink.

"Oh, no," he said, "that not what for. What you like self, you give god. He see. He like see."

February 12

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Born February 12, 1809  Died April 15, 1865

Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States. He was descended from a Quaker family of English origin. He followed various occupations, including those of a farm laborer, a salesman, a merchant, and a surveyor; was admitted to the bar in 1836 and began the practice of law in this year. He was twice elected President, the second time receiving 212 out of 233 electoral votes. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater, Washington, April 14, 1865, and died the following day.

BY HELEN NICOLAY

Abraham Lincoln was not an ordinary man. He was, in truth, in the language of the poet Lowell, a "new birth of our new soil." His greatness did not consist in growing up on the frontier. An ordinary man would have found on the frontier exactly what he would have found elsewhere—a commonplace life, varying only with the changing ideas and customs of time and place. But for the man with extraordinary powers of mind and body, for one gifted by Nature as Abraham Lincoln was gifted, the pioneer life, with its severe training in self-denial, patience, and industry, developed his character, and fitted him for the great duties of his after life as no other training could have done.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The above address was delivered by Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Gettysburg battle-field as a national cemetery for Union soldiers.

February 14

Custom decrees that on this day the young shall exchange missives in which the love of the sender is told in verses, pictures, and sentiments. No reason beyond a guess can be given to connect St. Valentine with these customs. He was a Christian martyr, about 270 A.D., while the practice of sending valentines had its origin in the heathen worship of Juno. It is Cupid's day, and no boy or girl needs any encouragement to make the most of it.

BY OLIVE THORNE

There's one thing we know positively, that St. Valentine didn't begin this fourteenth of February excitement; but who did is a question not so easy to answer. I don't think any one would have begun it if he could have known what the simple customs of his day would have grown into, or could even have imagined the frightful valentines that disgrace our shops to-day.

It began, for us, with our English ancestors, who used to assemble on the eve of St. Valentine's day, put the names of all the young maidens promiscuously in a box, and let each bachelor draw one out. The damsel whose name fell to his lot became his valentine for the year. He wore her name in his bosom or on his sleeve, and it was his duty to attend her and protect her. As late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this custom was very popular, even among the upper classes.

But the wiseacres have traced the custom farther back. Some of them think it was begun by the ancient Romans, who had on the fourteenth or fifteenth of February a festival in honor of Lupercus, "the destroyer of wolves"—a wolf-destroyer being quite worthy of honor in those wild days, let me tell you. At this festival it was the custom, among other curious things, to pair off the young men and maidens in the same chance way, and with the same result of a year's attentions.

Even this is not wholly satisfactory. Who began it among the Romans? becomes the next interesting question. One old writer says it was brought to Rome from Arcadia sixty years before the Trojan war (which Homer wrote about, you know). I'm sure that's far enough back to satisfy anybody. The same writer also says that the Pope tried to abolish it in the fifth century, but he succeeded only in sending it down to us in the name of St. Valentine instead of Lupercus.

February 22

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Born February 22, 1732  Died December 14, 1799

Washington was the first President of the United States, and the son of a Virginia planter. He attended school until about sixteen years of age, was engaged in surveying, 1748-51, became an officer in the Continental army, and President in 1789. He was re-elected in 1793. He was preëminent for his sound judgment and perfect self-control. It is said that no act of his public life can be traced to personal caprice, ambition, or resentment.

BY HORACE E. SCUDDER

It was near the shore of the Potomac River, between Pope's Creek and Bridge's Creek, that Augustine Washington lived when his son George was born. The land had been in the family ever since Augustine's grandfather, John Washington, had bought it, when he came over from England in 1657. John Washington was a soldier and a public-spirited man, and so the parish in which he lived—for Virginia was divided into parishes as some other colonies into townships—was named Washington. It is a quiet neighborhood; not a sign remains of the old house, and the only mark of the place is a stone slab, broken and overgrown with weeds and brambles, which lies on a bed of bricks taken from the remnants of the old chimney of the house. It bears the inscription:

Here
The 11th of February, 1732 (old style)
George Washington
was born

February 27

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Born February 27, 1807  Died March 24, 1882

Longfellow graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825; traveled in Europe in 1826; was professor at Bowdoin in 1829-35; again visited Europe 1835-36; and was professor at Harvard College 1836-54. He continued to reside at Cambridge. He is best known and loved for his poems, though he wrote three novels.

BY LUCY LARCOM

The poets who love children are the poets whom children love. It is natural that they should care much for each other, because both children and poets look into things in the same way,—simply, with open eyes and hearts, seeing Nature as it is, and finding whatever is lovable and pure in the people who surround them, as flowers may receive back from flowers sweet odors for those which they have given. The little child is born with a poet's heart in him, and the poet has been fitly called "the eternal child."

Not that all children or all poets are alike in this. But of Longfellow we think as of one who has always been fresh and natural in his sympathy for children, one who has loved them as they have loved him.

We wish he had given us more of the memories of his own childhood. One vivid picture of it comes to us in "My Lost Youth," a poem which shows us how everything he saw when a child must have left within him a life-long impression. That boyhood by the sea must have been full of dreams as well as of pictures. The beautiful bay with its green islands, widening out to the Atlantic on the east, and the dim chain of mountains, the highest in New England, lying far away on the northwestern horizon, give his native city a roomy feeling not often experienced in the streets of a town; and the boy-poet must have felt his imagination taking wings there, for many a long flight. So he more than hints to us in his song:

Longfellow's earliest volume, "The Voices of the Night," was one of the few books of American poetry that some of us who are now growing old ourselves can remember reading, just as we were emerging from childhood. "The Reaper and the Flowers" and the "Psalm of Life,"—I recall the delight with which I used to repeat those poems. The latter, so full of suggestions which a very young person could feel, but only half understand, was for that very reason the more fascinating. It seemed to give glimpses, through opening doors, of that wonderful new world of mankind, where children are always longing to wander freely as men and women. Looking forward and aspiring are among the first occupations of an imaginative child; and the school-boy who declaimed the words:

and the school-girl who read them quietly by herself, felt them, perhaps, no less keenly than the man of thought and experience.

Longfellow has said that—

and the simplicity of his poetry is the reason why children and young people have always loved it; the reason, also, why it has been enjoyed by men and women and children all over the world.

One of his poems which has been the delight of children and grown people alike is the "Village Blacksmith," the first half of which is a description that many a boy might feel as if he could have written himself—if he only had the poet's command of words and rhymes, and the poet's genius! Is not this one of the proofs of a good poem, that it haunts us until it seems as if it had almost grown out of our own mind? How life-like the picture is!—

No wonder the Cambridge children, when the old chestnut-tree that overhung the smithy was cut down, had a memento shaped into a chair from its boughs, to present to him who had made it an immortal tree in his verse! It bore flower and fruit for them a second time in his acknowledgment of the gift; for he told them how—

In its own wild, winsome way, the song of "Hiawatha's Childhood" is one of the prettiest fancies in poetry. It is a dream of babyhood in the "forest primeval," with Nature for nurse and teacher; and it makes us feel as if—were the poet's idea only a possibility—it might have been very pleasant to be a savage baby, although we consider it so much better to be civilized.

How Longfellow loved the very little ones can be seen in such verses as the "Hanging of the Crane," and in those earlier lines "To a Child," where the baby on his mother's knee gazes at the painted tiles, shakes his "coral rattle with the silver bells," or escapes through the open door into the old halls where once

Those verses give us a charming glimpse of the home-life in the historic mansion which is now so rich with poetic, as well as patriotic associations.

How beautiful it was to be let in to that twilight library scene described in the "Children's Hour":

Afterward, when sorrow and loss had come to the happy home, in the sudden removal of the mother of those merry children, the father who loved them so had a sadder song for them, as he looked onward into their orphaned lives:

March 4

The date was settled by the old Congress of the Confederation in 1788, when the procedure was established for the election of a President. It was decreed that the Electoral College should meet on the first Wednesday of January, the votes be counted by the House of Representatives on the first Wednesday of February, and the President be inaugurated on the first Wednesday of March. This March date was the 4th. March 4 has been Inauguration Day ever since.

BY CLIFFORD HOWARD

As you will remember, Thomas Jefferson was the first President of our country to be inaugurated at Washington. This took place in the year 1801, when our national capital was not much more than a year old; and you may imagine that the city was a very different-looking place from what it is to-day.

But now instead of a straggling town with a few muddy streets and about three thousand inhabitants, Jefferson would find our national capital one of the most beautiful cities on the face of the earth, with a population of nearly three hundred thousand; and on March 4 he would behold a scene such as he never dreamed of. Thousands of flags fly from the house-tops and windows, bright-colored bunting in beautiful designs adorns the great public buildings, all the stores and business houses are gaily decorated with flags and streamers, and everything presents the appearance of a great and glorious holiday, while the streets swarm with the hundreds of thousands of people who have come to the city from all parts of the country to take part in the grand celebration.

Everybody is moving toward Pennsylvania Avenue, where the parade is to march. No, not everybody: some fifty or sixty thousand make their way to the Capitol, so as to get a glimpse of the inauguration exercises that take place on the east portico; and although the ceremonies will not begin until nearly one o'clock, the great space in front of the Capitol is packed with people three hours before that time, some of them having come as early as eight o'clock in the morning to be sure of getting a good view.

Early in the morning Pennsylvania Avenue is cleared of all street-cars, carriages, and bicycles, and no one is allowed to step off the sidewalk. A strong wire rope is stretched along each side of the avenue, so as to prevent people from getting into the street.

Soon every window and balcony along the line is crowded with spectators. Even the roofs are black with people, and small boys may be seen perched among the branches of the trees, or hanging on to the electric-light poles. For a distance of nearly three miles, on each side of the street, people are packed so closely together that it is almost impossible for them to move. In every park and open space along the line large wooden stands have been erected; and these, too, are filled with those who are willing to pay for seats.

As the time for the morning parade draws near, the crowds become restless with eagerness and excitement. Policemen on horseback dash up and down the avenue to see that the road is clear, and every now and then a trooper or messenger in bright uniform gallops past. Suddenly the boom of a cannon is heard. The next moment there comes the distant roll of drums, and then, amid the inspiring music of brass bands and tremendous cheering, the procession appears moving slowly down the avenue on its way to the Capitol. Riding ahead is a squad of mounted police—big, brawny fellows, with glittering brass buttons. After them come the United States troops and naval forces, armed with their rifles and sabers that flash in the sunlight, and marching to the music of the famous Marine Band, while rumbling over the hard, smooth pavement of the avenue come the big cannons drawn by powerful horses. Then appears the chief marshal of the parade on his spirited horse, heading the body-guard of soldiers that surround the open carriage containing the President and the President-elect, sitting side by side. As the carriage, which is drawn by four handsome horses, rolls slowly along with its distinguished occupants, men and boys shout and cheer at the top of their lungs, and throw their hats into the air when their voices give out, while the women and girls wave their handkerchiefs and hurrah with the rest of the crowd. With hat in hand, the President-elect smiles and bows to the right and the left; and with the bands playing and people cheering, handkerchiefs fluttering and flags flying, he arrives at the Capitol a few minutes before noon. Here he meets with another rousing reception from the great mass of people who have been waiting for him for two or three hours; and it requires all the efforts of a small army of police to open the way for him and his party to pass into the Capitol.

Easter is the Sunday that follows the 14th day of the calendar
moon, which falls upon or next after the 21st of March.

This Sunday, when Christian churches celebrate the resurrection of Christ, is one of solemn rejoicing. Coming after the self-denials of Lent and at the beginning of spring, it seems naturally a time of hope and new life. It is the feast of flowers, particularly of lilies, and the name had its origin in a festival in honor of the goddess of spring. The esteem in which it is held is indicated by its ancient title, "The great day."

BY CELIA THAXTER

BY TEMPLE BAILEY

The General did not look at all as one would expect a general to look. He was short and thick-set and had a red face and a white mustache, and he usually dressed in a gray tweed suit, with a funny Norfolk jacket with a belt, and wore a soft cap pulled down almost to his eye-glasses.

And he always did his own marketing.

That is how he came to know Jimmy.

Jimmy stood at a corner of Old Market and sold little bundles of dried sage and sweet marjoram, and sassafras and cinnamon, and soup-bunches made of bits of vegetables tied together—a bit of parsley and a bit of celery and a bit of carrot and a sprig of summer savory, all for one cent. Then at Christmas-time he displayed wreaths, which he and his little mother made at home, and as the spring came on he brought wild flowers that he picked in the woods.

And that was how he came to know the General.

For one morning, just before Easter, the General came puffing down the outside aisle of Old Market, with his colored man behind him with an enormous basket. The General's carriage was drawn up to the curbstone, and the gray horses were dancing little fancy dances over the asphalt street, when all at once Jimmy thrust a bunch of arbutus under the General's very nose.

"Go away, go away," said the General, and trotted down to the carriage door, which a footman held open for him.

But a whiff of fragrance had reached him, and he stopped.

"How much?" he asked.

"Three cents," said Jimmy, in a hoarse voice.

The General looked at the little fellow through his eye-glasses.

"Got a cold?" he inquired gruffly.

"Yes, sir," croaked Jimmy.

"Why don't you stay in the house, then?" growled the General.

"Can't, sir," said Jimmy, cheerfully; "business is business."

The General looked at the little stand where "business" was transacted—at the little rows of dried stuffs, at the small basket of flowers, and at the soup-bunches.

"Humph," he said.

Then his hand went down into his pocket, and he pulled out a lot of change. After that he chose two bunches of sweet, pinky blossoms.

"Two for five, sir," said Jimmy.

"Hum," said the General. "You might give me some parsley and a soup-bunch."

Jimmy wrapped up the green stuff carefully and dropped it into the basket carried by the colored man.

"Nine cents, sir," he said; and the General handed him a dime and then moved to the next stall, holding the flowers close to his nose.

"You forgot your change," cried Jimmy, and rushed after him with the one cent.

"Keep—" But one look at the honest little face and he changed his sentence.

"Thank you, young man," he said, and away he drove.

After that Jimmy looked for the General, and the General for Jimmy. Their transactions were always carried on in a strictly business manner, although, to be sure, the General's modest family of two did not require the unlimited sage and sweet marjoram that were ordered from time to time.

On the Saturday before Easter the little stand was gay with new wares. In little nests of dried grasses lay eggs—Easter eggs, bright pink and blue and purple and mottled. Jimmy had invested in a dozen at forty cents the dozen, and he had hopes of doubling the money, for work surely counted for something, and he and the Little Mother had dyed them.

But somehow people passed them by. Inside of the market there were finer nests, and eggs gilded and lettered, and Jimmy began to feel that his own precious eggs were very dull indeed.

But when the General appeared around the corner, the boy's spirits rose. Here, at any rate, was a good customer.

The General, however, was in a temper. There had been an argument with the fish-man which had left him red in the face and very touchy. So he bought two bunches of arbutus and nothing else.

"Any eggs, sir?" asked Jimmy.

"Eggs?" said the General, looking over the little stand.

"Easter eggs," explained Jimmy.

"I've no use for such things," said the General.

"Oh!" said Jimmy, and in spite of himself his voice trembled. When one is the man of the family, and the Little Mother is sewing for dear life, and her work and the little stand in the market are all that pay the rent and buy food, it is sometimes hard to be brave. But the General did not notice the tremble.

Jimmy tried again:

"Any children, sir? Children always like Easter eggs, you know."

"No," said the General; "no one but a son in the Philippines—a son some six feet two in his stockings."

"Any grandchildren, sir?" hopefully.

"Bless my soul," said the General, testily, "what a lot of questions!" And he hurried off to his carriage.

Jimmy felt very forlorn. The General had been his last hope. The eggs were a dead loss.

At last it came time to close up, and he piled all of his wares in a basket. Then he took out a little broom and began to sweep in an orderly way around his little stall. He had a battered old dustpan, and as he carried it out to the street to empty it, he saw a stiff greenish-gray paper sticking out of the dirt. Nothing in the world ever looks exactly like that but an American greenback, and, sure enough, when Jimmy pulled it out it proved to be a ten-dollar bill.

Jimmy sat down on the curb suddenly. His money always came in pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters. The Little Mother sometimes earned a dollar at a time, but never in his whole life had Jimmy possessed a ten-dollar bill.

Think of the possibilities to a little, poor, cold, worried boy. There was two months' rent in that ten-dollar bill—two months in which he would not have to worry over whether there would be a roof over their heads.

Then there was a basket stall in that ten-dollar bill. That had always been his ambition. Some one had told him that baskets sold well in other cities, and not a single person had opened a basket stall in Old Market, and that was Jimmy's chance. Once established, he knew he could earn a good living.

As for ten dollars' worth of groceries and provisions, Jimmy's mind could not grasp such a thing; fifty cents had always been the top limit for a grocery bill.

But—it wasn't Jimmy's ten dollars. Like a flash his dreams tumbled to the ground. There had been many people coming and going through Old Market, but Jimmy knew that the bill was the General's. For the old gentleman had pulled out a roll when he reached for the five cents. Yes, it was the General's; but how to find the General?

Inside the market he found the General's butcher. Yes, the butcher knew the General's address, for he was one of his best customers, and would keep Jimmy's basket while the boy went to the house.

It was a long distance. Jimmy passed rows of great stone mansions, and went through parks, where crocuses and hyacinths were just peeping out.

At last he came to the General's.

A colored man answered the ring of the bell.

"Who shall I say?" he inquired loftily. "The General is very busy, y'know."

"Say Jimmy, from the market, please"; and Jimmy sat down on the great hall seat, feeling very much awed with all the magnificence.

"Well, well," said the General, as he came puffing down the stairs. "Well, well, and what do you want?"

"Please, sir, did you drop this?" and Jimmy held out the tightly rolled bill.

"Did I? Well, now, I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps I did, perhaps I did."

"I found it in front of my stall," said Jimmy.

What a strange thing it seemed that the General should not know! Jimmy would have known if he had lost a penny. He began to feel that the General could not have a true idea of business.

The General took out a roll of bills. "Let me see," he said. "Here's my market list. Yes, I guess that's mine, sure enough."

"I'm glad I noticed it," said Jimmy, simply. "I came near sweeping it into the street."

"And what can I pay you for your trouble?" asked the General, looking at the boy keenly.

"Well," said Jimmy, stoutly, "you see, business is business, and I had to take my time, and I'd like to get back as soon as I can."

The General frowned. He was afraid he was going to be disappointed in this boy.

"And so," went on Jimmy, "if you would give me a nickel for car-fare, I think we might call it square."

No uniform date in the different States

Arbor Day is a designated day upon which the people and especially the school children plant trees and shrubs along the highways and other suitable places. It was first observed in Nebraska. The State board of agriculture offered prizes for the counties and persons planting the largest number of trees, and it is said that more than a million trees were planted the first year, while within sixteen years over 350,000,000 trees and vines were planted in the State.

This custom, so beautiful and useful, spread rapidly, and now is recognized by the statutes of many of the States.

The exact date naturally varies with the climate.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

April 1

So old is the custom of playing amiable and harmless tricks upon the first of April that its origin is not definitely known. It is not a holiday and not worthy to be one, but it should be good for our sense of humor and that is one of the best things we can have. An April fool is sometimes called a "Fourth-month Dunce."

BY H.M.M.

The curious custom of joking on the first of April, sending the ignorant or the unwary on fruitless errands, for the sake of making them feel foolish and having a laugh at them, prevails very widely in the world. And whether you call the victim a "Fourth-month Dunce," an "April fool," an "April fish" (as in France), or an "April gowk" (as in Scotland), the object, to deceive him and laugh at him, is everywhere the same.

The custom has been traced back for ages; all through Europe, as far back as the records go. The "Feast of Fools" is mentioned as celebrated by the ancient Romans. In Asia the Hindoos have a festival, ending on the 31st of March, called the "Huli festival," in which they play the same sort of first of April pranks—translated into Hindoo,—laughing at the victim, and making him a "Huli fool." It goes back to Persia, where it is supposed to have had a beginning, in very ancient times, in the celebration of spring, when their New Year begins.

How it came to be what we everywhere find it, the wise men cannot agree. The many authorities are so divided, that I see no way but for us to accept the custom as we find it, wherever we may happen to be, and be careful not to abuse it.

Some jokes are peculiar to some places. In England, where it is called "All Fools' Day," one favorite joke is to send the greenhorn to a bookseller to buy the "Life and Adventures of Eve's Grandmother," or to a cobbler to buy a few cents' worth of "strap oil,"—strap oil being, in the language of the shoe-making brotherhood, a personal application of the leather.

But this custom, with others, common in coarser and rougher times, is fast dying out. Even now it is left almost entirely to playful children. This sentiment, quoted from an English almanac of a hundred years ago, will, I'm sure, meet the approval of "grown-ups" of this century:

May 30

It is said that the observance of this day grew originally out of the custom of the widows, mothers, and children of the Confederate dead in the South strewing the soldiers' graves with flowers, including the unmarked graves of the Union soldiers. There was no settled date for this in the North until 1868, when General John A. Logan, as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, designated May 30. It is now generally observed, and is a legal holiday in most of the States.

A Ballad for Memorial Day

BY MARY BRADLEY

June 14

The first recognition of Flag Day by the New York schools was in 1889, but it is now generally observed by appropriate exercises. June 14 is the anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes by the Continental Congress in the year 1777. This was the flag which, first raised over an American vessel by John Paul Jones, became the emblem of the new republic. In some places another day is set apart instead.

BY HENRY RUSSELL WRAY

While every lad and lassie in the land knows and has read all about the famous old Liberty Bell, too little is known of the origin and growth of America's dearest emblem—her flag. William Penn's city—Philadelphia—is gemmed with many historical landmarks, but none should be more dear to us than that little old building still standing on Arch street, over whose doorway is the number—239. For in a small back room in this primitive dwelling, during the uncertain struggle for independence by the American colonies, was designed and made the first American flag, known as the "Stars and Stripes," now respected and honored in every quarter of the world, and loved and patriotically worshiped at home.

The early history of our great flag is very interesting.

It is a matter of record that during the early days of the Revolution the colonists made use of flags of various devices.

It is nowadays generally accepted as a fact that the final idea of the Stars and Stripes as a national flag was borrowed from or suggested by the coat of arms of General George Washington's family.

The first definite action taken by the colonies toward creating a flag, was a resolution passed by Congress in 1775, appointing a committee of three gentlemen—Benjamin Franklin and Messrs. Harrison and Lynch—to consider and devise a national flag. The result of the work of this committee was the adoption of the "King's Colors" as a union (or corner square), combined with thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, showing "that although the colonies united for defense against England's tyranny, they still acknowledged her sovereignty."

This is the greatest secular holiday of our country, its observance being sanctioned by the laws of every State. The birthday of our liberty would be a hard one to fix, but by common consent the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is the one observed. The use of powder to celebrate the day is gradually going out on account of the large number of lives annually lost through accidents. It is known officially as Independence Day.

BY VICTOR MAPES

When the Fourth of July came, we had been abroad nearly two months, and during that time I think we had not seen a single American flag. On the morning of the Fourth, however, we walked out on the Paris boulevards, and a number of flags were hanging out from the different American shops, which are quite frequent there. They looked strange to us; and the idea occurred to Frank, for the first time, that the United States was one of a great many nations living next to one another in this world—that it was his own nation, a kind of big family he belonged to. The Fourth of July was a sort of big, family birthday, and the flags were out so as to tell the Frenchmen and everybody else not to forget the fact.

A feeling of this nature came over Frank that morning, and he called out, "There's another!" every time a new flag came in view. He stopped two or three times to count the number of them in sight, and showed in various ways that he, America, and the American flag had come to a new understanding with one another.

During the morning, Frank's cousin George, a boy two or three years older than Frank, who had been in Paris the preceding winter, came to our hotel; and, as I had some matters to attend to in the afternoon, they went off together to see sights and to have a good time.

When Frank returned about dinner-time, and came up to the room where I was writing letters, I noticed a small American-flag pin stuck in the lapel of his coat.

"George had two," he said in answer to my question; "and he gave me this one. He's been in Paris a year now, and he says we ought to wear them or maybe people won't know we're Americans. But say, Uncle Jack, where do you think I got that?" He opened a paper bundle he had under his arm and unrolled a weather-beaten American flag.

"Where?" asked I, naturally supposing it came from George's house.

"We took it off of Lafayette's tomb."

I opened my eyes in astonishment; while he went on:

"George says the American Consul, or the American Consul-General, or somebody, put it on the tomb last Fourth of July, for our government, because Lafayette, don't you know, helped us in the Revolution."

"They ought to put a new flag on every year, George says," explained Frank, seeing my amazement, "on Fourth of July morning. But the American Consul, or whoever he is that's here now, is a new man, George thinks; anyhow, he forgot to do it. So we bought a new flag and we did it.

"There were a lot of people at the tomb when we went there, and we guessed they were all waiting to see the new flag put on. We waited, too, but no soldiers or anybody came; and after a while the people all went away. Then George said:

"'Somebody ought to put on a new flag—let's do it!'

"We went to a store on the Boulevard, and for twenty francs bought a new flag just like this old one. George and I each paid half. There were two women and a little girl at the tomb when we got back, and we waited till they went away. Then we unrolled the new flag and took the old one off the tomb.

"We thought we ought to say something when we put the new flag on, but we didn't know what to say. George said they always made a regular speech thanking Lafayette for helping us in the Revolution, but we thought it didn't matter much. So we just took off our hats when we spread out the new flag on the grave, and then we rolled up the old flag and came away.

"We drew lots for it afterward, and I'm going to take it back home with me.

"Somebody ought to have done it, and as we were both American boys, it was all right, wasn't it?"

Right or wrong, the flag that travelers see on Lafayette's tomb this year, as a mark of the American nation's sentiment toward the great Frenchman, is the one put there by two small, self-appointed representatives. And the flag put there the year before, with fitting ceremony by the authorized official, Frank preserves carefully hung up on the wall of his little room in America.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Holidays, by Various

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