the community-house, where the dinner is waiting. The men sit on one
side of the table and the women on the other. At the head sits an old
man called the elder, who begins the meal by saying grace, after which
each one in turn gets up and, lifting the right hand, says in a solemn
voice, "God is love." The dinner is eaten in perfect silence. Not a
voice is heard until the meal comes to an end. Then the men and women
rise and sing, standing in their places at the table. As the singing
proceeds they mark time with their hands and feet. Then their bodies
begin to sway from side to side in the peculiar manner that has given
this sect its name of Shakers.
When the singing comes to an end, the elder chants a prayer, after which
the men and women silently file out and leave the building.
=AMONG THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS=
"You'd better look out, or Pelznickel will catch you!" This is the dire
threat held over naughty boys and girls at Christmas-time in some of the
country settlements of the Pennsylvania Germans, or Pennsylvania Dutch,
as they are often called.
Pelznickel is another name for Santa Claus. But he is not altogether the
same old Santa that we welcome so gladly. On Christmas eve some one in
the neighborhood impersonates Pelznickel by dressing up as an old man
with a long white beard. Arming himself with a switch and carrying a bag
of toys over his shoulder, he goes from house to house, where the
children are expecting him.
[Illustration: A VISIT FROM PELZNICKEL]
He asks the parents how the little ones have behaved themselves during
the year. To each of those who have been good he gives a present from
his bag. But--woe betide the naughty ones! These are not only supposed
to get no presents, but Pelznickel catches them by the collar and
playfully taps them with his switch.
=IN PORTO RICO=
The Porto Rican boys and girls would be frightened out of their wits if
Santa Claus should come to them in a sleigh drawn by reindeer and should
try to enter the houses and fill their stockings. Down there, Santa
Claus does not need reindeer or any other kind of steeds, for the
children say that he just comes flying through the air like a bird.
Neither does he bother himself looking for stockings, for such things
are not so plentiful in Porto Rico as they are in cooler climates.
Instead of stockings, the children use little boxes, which they make
themselves. These they place on the roofs and in the courtyards, and old
Santa Claus drops the gifts into them as he flies around at night with
his bag on his back.
He is more generous in Porto Rico than he is anywhere else. He does not
come on Christmas eve only, but is likely to call around every night or
two during the week. Each morning, therefore, the little folks run out
eagerly to see whether anything more has been left in their boxes during
the night.
Christmas in Porto Rico is a church festival of much importance, and the
celebration of it is made up chiefly of religious ceremonies intended to
commemorate the principal events in the life of the Saviour. Beginning
with the celebration of his birth, at Christmas-time, the feast-days
follow one another in rapid succession. Indeed, it may justly be said
that they do not really come to an end until Easter.
[Illustration: BETHLEHEM DAY IN PORTO RICO]
One of the most popular of these festival-days is that known as
Bethlehem day. This is celebrated on the 12th of January, in memory of
the coming of the Magi. The celebration consists of a procession of
children through the streets of the town. The foremost three, dressed in
flowing robes to represent the wise men of the East, come riding along
on ponies, holding in their hands the gifts for the Infant King;
following them come angels and shepherds and flute-players, all
represented by children dressed in pretty costumes and carrying garlands
of flowers. These processions are among the most picturesque of all
Christmas celebrations.
=AMONG THE MORAVIANS=
For many days before Christmas the Moravian housewives in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, are busy in their kitchens making good things for the
holidays--mint-cakes, pepper-nuts, _Kümmelbrod_, sugar-cake, mince-pies,
and, most important of all, large quantities of "Christmas cakes." These
Christmas cakes are a kind of ginger cooky, crisp and spicy, and are
made according to a recipe known only to the Moravians. They are made in
all sorts of curious shapes--birds, horses, bears, lions, fishes,
turtles, stars, leaves, and funny little men and women; so that they are
not only good to eat, but are ornamental as well, and are often used by
the good fathers and mothers as decorations for the "_Putz_."
Every Moravian family has its _Putz_ at Christmas-time. This consists of
a Christmas tree surrounded at its base by a miniature landscape made up
of moss and greens and make-believe rocks, and adorned with toy houses
and tiny fences and trees and all sorts of little animals and toy
people.
[Illustration: A CHRISTMAS "PUTZ"]
On Christmas eve a love-feast is held in the church. The greater part of
the service is devoted to music, for which the Moravians have always
been noted. While the choir is singing, cake and coffee are brought in
and served to all the members of the congregation, each one receiving a
good-sized bun and a large cup of coffee. Shortly before the end of the
meeting lighted wax candles carried on large trays are brought into the
church, by men on one side and women on the other, and passed around to
the little folks--one for each boy and girl. This is meant to represent
the coming of the Light into the world, and is but one of the many
beautiful customs observed by the Moravians.
=IN ALASKA=
"Going around with the star" is a popular Christmas custom among some of
the natives of Alaska who belong to the Greek Church. A large figure of
a star, covered with brightly colored paper, is carried about at night
by a procession of men and women and children. They call at the homes of
the well-to-do families of the village, marching about from house to
house, headed by the star-bearer and two men or boys carrying lanterns
on long poles. They are warmly welcomed at each place, and are invited
to come in and have some refreshments. After enjoying the cakes and
other good things, and singing one or two carols, they take up the star
and move on to the next house.
These processions take place each night during Christmas week; but after
the second night the star-bearers are followed by men and boys dressed
in fantastic clothes, who try to catch the star-men and destroy their
stars. This part of the game is supposed to be an imitation of the
soldiers of Herod trying to destroy the children of Bethlehem; but these
happy folks of Alaska evidently don't think much about its meaning, for
they make a great frolic of it. Everybody is full of fun, and the frosty
air of the dark winter nights is filled with laughter as men and boys
and romping girls chase one another here and there in merry excitement.
=IN HAWAII=
The natives of Hawaii say that Santa Claus comes over to the islands in
a boat. Perhaps he does; it would be a tedious journey for his reindeer
to make without stopping from San Francisco to Honolulu. At all events,
he gets there by some means or other, for he would not neglect the
little folks of those islands away out in the Pacific.
They look for him as eagerly as do the boys and girls in the lands of
snow and ice, and although it must almost melt him to get around in that
warm climate with his furs on, he never misses a Christmas.
Before the missionaries and the American settlers went to Hawaii, the
natives knew nothing about Christmas, but now they all celebrate the
day, and do it, of course, in the same way as the Americans who live
there. The main difference between Christmas in Honolulu and Christmas
in New York is that in Honolulu in December the weather is like June in
New York. Birds are warbling in the leafy trees; gardens are overflowing
with roses and carnations; fields and mountain slopes are ablaze with
color; and a sunny sky smiles dreamily upon the glories of a summer day.
In the morning people go to church, and during the day there are sports
and games and merry-making of all sorts. The Christmas dinner is eaten
out of doors in the shade of the veranda, and everybody is happy and
contented.
=IN THE PHILIPPINES=
"BUENAS PASQUAS!" This is the hearty greeting that comes to the dweller
in the Philippines on Christmas morning, and with it, perhaps, an
offering of flowers.
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS IN THE PHILIPPINES]
The Filipino, like the Porto Rican and all others who have lived under
Spanish rule, look upon Christmas as a great religious festival, and one
that requires very special attention. On Christmas eve the churches are
open, and the coming of the great day is celebrated by a mass at
midnight; and during all of Christmas day mass is held every hour, so
that every one may have an opportunity to attend. Even the popular
Christmas customs among the people are nearly all of a religious
character, for most of them consist of little plays or dramas founded
upon the life of the Saviour.
These plays are called _pastures_, and are performed by bands of young
men and women, and sometimes mere boys and girls, who go about from
village to village and present their simple little plays to expectant
audiences at every stopping-place. The visit of the wise men, the flight
into Egypt--these and many other incidents as related in the Scriptures
are acted in these _pastores_.
=New Year's Day=
_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.
=EXTRACT FROM "SOCIAL LIFE IN THE COLONIES"=
_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.
=A CHINESE NEW YEAR'S IN CALIFORNIA=
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."
=Lincoln's Birthday=
_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.
=ABRAHAM LINCOLN=
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.
[Illustration: LINCOLN'S HOME AFTER HIS MARRIAGE]
His advancement in the astonishing career that carried him from
obscurity to world-wide fame--from postmaster of New Salem village to
President of the United States, from captain of a backwoods volunteer
company to Commander-in-chief of the army and navy--was neither sudden
nor accidental nor easy. He was both ambitious and successful, but his
ambition was moderate, and his success was slow. And, because his
success was slow, it never outgrew either his judgment or his powers.
Between the day when he left his father's cabin and launched his canoe
on the head waters of the Sangamon River to begin life on his own
account, and the day of his first inauguration, lay full thirty years
of toil, self-denial, patience; often of effort baffled, of hope
deferred; sometimes of bitter disappointment. Even with the natural gift
of great genius, it required an average lifetime and faithful,
unrelaxing effort to transform the raw country stripling into a fit
ruler for this great nation.
Almost every success was balanced--sometimes overbalanced--by a seeming
failure. He went into the Black Hawk war a captain, and through no fault
of his own came out a private. He rode to the hostile frontier on
horseback, and trudged home on foot. His store "winked out." His
surveyor's compass and chain, with which he was earning a scanty living,
were sold for debt. He was defeated in his first attempts to be
nominated for the legislature and for Congress; defeated in his
application to be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office;
defeated for the Senate, when he had forty-five votes to begin with, by
a man who had only five votes to begin with; defeated again after his
joint debates with Douglas; defeated in the nomination for
Vice-President, when a favorable nod from half a dozen politicians would
have brought him success.
Failures? Not so. Every seeming defeat was a slow success. His was the
growth of the oak, and not of Jonah's gourd. He could not become a
master workman until he had served a tedious apprenticeship. It was the
quarter of a century of reading, thinking, speech-making, and law-making
which fitted him to be the chosen champion in the great Lincoln-Douglas
debates of 1858. It was the great moral victory won in those debates
(although the senatorship went to Douglas), added to the title "Honest
Old Abe," won by truth and manhood among his neighbors during a whole
lifetime, that led the people of the United States to trust him with the
duties and powers of President.
[Illustration: HOUSE IN WHICH LINCOLN LIVED WHEN HE WAS ELECTED
PRESIDENT]
And when, at last, after thirty years of endeavor, success had beaten
down defeat, when Lincoln had been nominated, elected, and inaugurated,
came the crowning trial of his faith and constancy. When the people, by
free and lawful choice, had placed honor and power in his hands, when
his name could convene Congress, approve laws, cause ships to sail and
armies to move, there suddenly came upon the government and the nation a
fatal paralysis. Honor seemed to dwindle and power to vanish. Was he
then, after all, not to be President? Was patriotism dead? Was the
Constitution only a bit of waste paper? Was the Union gone?
The outlook was indeed grave. There was treason in Congress, treason in
the Supreme Court, treason in the army and navy. Confusion and discord
were everywhere. To use Mr. Lincoln's forcible figure of speech, sinners
were calling the righteous to repentance. Finally the flag, insulted and
fired upon, trailed in surrender at Sumter; and then came the
humiliation of the riot at Baltimore, and the President for a few days
practically a prisoner in the capital of the nation.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND TAD]
But his apprenticeship had been served, and there was to be no more
failure. With faith and justice and generosity he conducted for four
long years a war whose frontiers stretched from the Potomac to the Rio
Grande; whose soldiers numbered a million men on each side. The labor,
the thought, the responsibility, the strain of mind and anguish of soul
that he gave to his great task, who can measure? "Here was place for no
holiday magistrate, no fair-weather sailor," as Emerson justly said of
him. "The new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four
years--four years of battle days--his endurance, his fertility of
resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting."
"By his courage, his justice, his even temper, ... his humanity, he stood
a heroic figure in a heroic epoch."
[Illustration: THE LINCOLN MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD]
What but a lifetime's schooling in disappointment; what but the
pioneer's self-reliance and freedom from prejudice; what but the clear
mind quick to see natural right and unswerving in its purpose to follow
it; what but the steady self-control, the unwarped sympathy, the
unbounded charity of this man with spirit so humble and soul so great,
could have carried him through the labors he wrought to the victory he
attained?
With truth it could be written, "His heart was as great as the world,
but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong." So, "with
malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as
God gave him to see the right," he lived and died. We, who have never
seen him, yet feel daily the influence of his kindly life, and cherish
among our most precious possessions the heritage of his example.
[Illustration: STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. BY AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS]
=THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS=
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.
=O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!=
O captain. My captain. Our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! Heart! Heart!
Leave you not the little spot,
Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O captain. My captain. Rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
O captain. Dear father.
This arm I push beneath you;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
But the ship, the ship is anchor'd safe, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won:
Exult O shores, and ring, O bells.
But I with silent tread,
Walk the spot the captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
WALT WHITMAN.
=St. Valentine's Day=
_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.
=WHO BEGAN 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.