THANKSGIVING

By

META SCHOOLEY LAWS

              The stone fireplace of the kitchen in the big hewed- log home that was the second house built on the homestead remained when we were children-indeed it fell but a few years ago.

             The iron crane was in place-the big fire-irons, two of them, were intact, and grandmother still used some of the smaller pots and kettles, and the long-handled spider, that were a part of the culinary equipment of those far-off days.

             It was Thanksgiving eve-let me see-more than forty-five years ago! Can it be possible that we, too, are growing old.

             The Thanksgiving dinner had been prepared-the fowls were ready for the big oven, rows of pies, big sponge cakes and fruit loaves, jellies, sauces, pickles, brown and white bread-a big batch of each. Mrs. Apartment Dweller of today would be sure she had entered a bakery could she have entered that pantry!

             But grandma pushed her “specs” up on her forehead and shook her head-“They are not like the old bake oven used to make them,” she remarked-and no oven can roast fowl like we used to cook them on “the spil” before that old fireplace.

             We children, were always ready for a story of the old days, and grandma in a reminiscent mood, so we crowded around her while she told us how the Thanksgiving dinner was cooked when father and his brothers and sisters were children; of how the fire was built. Grandfather burned the brick for it himself. Then the coals raked out, and bread and pies and “stir-cakes” were baked. Maple sugar or syrup was nearly always used in her bakery then; but at Thanksgiving or Christmas some of the cakes were made with loaf sugar-scraped, of course. (Who does not know that Sugar Loaf Hill, the big dune just west of Port Colborne was so named because its shape is similar to an old-fashioned sugar loaf.)

             Cranberries from the near-by marsh, dried fruits stewed with maple sugar – these were the bill of fare. There was no canned fruit in those days, though the wild berries and other fruits were preserved, or as grandma said, “put down in big stone jars for occasional treats.”

             We could see its long deal table, with its home-spun linen cloth, the benches on each side of it-a few wooden chairs-while nearby the old crippled uncle rocked in his arm chair until the feast was ready. Then his quavering voice repeated the opening verses of the great Thanksgiving Psalm,-“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” And we children used to wonder if the old man, whom we had never seen but whose chair is still in our home as this is written, feeble and crippled as he was, unable to move without help, could have been, as grandma described him-cheerful and thankful.

             Indians were frequent visitors in those days. They made baskets for the settlers and on this day an old squaw came to the door and shared the feast. She would not sit at the table, but crouching in front of the fireplace ate, and with an “ugh” of satisfaction, picked up her load of baskets and went her way.

             In the evening the boys and girls gathered from far and near-the Ellsworths, Haines, Edsalls, Sherks-and who not, and the rafters rang with their merry laughter. Someone was sure to bring a fiddle, and the evening sped away to the music of Money Musk or The Irish Washer Woman, and others of those old time dances-father, a little boy, watching them.

             We heard steps on the front verandah, and hurried with mother and grandma to greet them-aunt and cousins, who came to the old home for Thanksgiving-the evening and its stories in the big parlor decked with pressed autumn leaves, and the bright red berries of mountain ash or the bar-berry shrub. Then we children listened to the Thanksgiving Psalm as grandma read it, and father lead in a hymn, “The Lord’s my Shepherd.”

             It is Thanksgiving time again. The dear old home has passed into stranger hands. In the quiet Ridge cemetery grandfather and grandmother have long been sleeping. Their children and their friends, who used to share with them their feasts, have followed too.

             We gather- we, the third generation of this pioneer stock, the men and women who laid the foundation of this banner county of the banner province of the Great Dominion. And we gather around the table laden with the day’s feast, we, too, bow our heads and repeat reverently, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.

             Chief among these is that our lot is cast in this great land, of whose wealth of possibilities, but the fringe has been touched, but the chiefest of all that in our veins flow the blood of the pioneers; in our hearts are their ideals; in our keeping is the land they loved and cherished.

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

4 November 1926