602 
attend Thanksgiving service to-day ?” My 
reply was, “ Why should I ? I have nothing 
for which to be thankful ?” My friend was 
astonished and grieved, not without cause you 
will admit. The question was propounded by 
one to whom Fate, or Providence we may hope, 
had been very gracious. It was answered by 
one whose life for two years had been a battle 
with the world ; and, she thought, a very 
rough side of it. A recent severe blow—the 
death of a dear friend—had been the last 
stroke of bitterness. Trials had succeeded 
each other, until it seemed useless to try to 
bear up and brave them longer. 
When the hour for service came, I rather 
reluctantly consented to attend. It was a 
glorious day and as we walked down toward 
the church, the passers by, one and all, 
seemed filled with the spirit of praise and 
thankfulness. I scon saw that there must be 
much good left in life, else why should all 
these people appear so satisfied and thankful? 
There was a mighty congregation that day; 
each and every member of it seemed to have 
come for the purpose of praising G-od and giv¬ 
ing thanks for His goodness during the past 
year. The words of the minister, grand in 
their very simplicity, were just such as the 
people were eager to hear. The whole service 
was singularly impressive; one which no per¬ 
son could attend without being somewhat the 
better for having done so. 
My trials and sorrows, numerous and severe 
as they had seemed, now were as nothing in 
comparison with the many blessings and com¬ 
forts I realized were mine each day of my 
life. Instead of the bitter cry, I could now 
say with that vast congregation. “O give 
thanks unto the Lord,for He is good, His mercy 
endureth forever.” As I remembered my 
rebellious feelings and untrue words of the 
early morning, I wondered at the change of 
a few hours. 
Many times since have I thought life hard 
and scarcely worth the living—who has not? 
But never have I been so discouraged, dis¬ 
heartened and rebellious as to feel, for an in¬ 
stant, that I had nothing for which to be 
thankful. How prone we are, when things do 
not go as we would like to have them, to for¬ 
get the abundant causes for thankfulness! 
So it is in our every-day life; our views, our 
feelings, even our disposition towards others 
are too often and too much affected by the 
one thing that may annoy us. Should they 
not rather take their coloring from the things 
that bring comfort and blessing? Just as we 
all (and perhaps I more than any one) are 
fretful when the weather is disagreeable, for¬ 
getting all the bright, beautiful days that 
have been—not even seeming to remember 
that, according to Nature’s laws made for 
man’s highest good, “Some days must be 
dark and dreary.” 
It is beautiful to see a character that al¬ 
ways, even under the most severe tasks, is 
able to look on the bright side and almost turn 
sorrow into joy. There are a few such char¬ 
acters. Thank God for them, their example, 
their influence! As this day of Thauksgiving 
approaches, let each one of our little circle 
think carefully of his or her surroundings, and 
see if the good things do not by far outnum¬ 
ber the unpleasant ones. Have we not dear 
ones whom we love and who love us? Are 
there not many poor unfortunates who are 
alone and well nigh friendless? Can we ever 
be thankful enough that we are not of them? 
Let us see if we cannot say with all fervor, 
“Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is 
within me, bless His holy name,” “ Bless the 
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His bene¬ 
fits.” 
“ The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow 
to anger and plenteous in mercy.” 
“ He hath not dealt with us after our sins, 
nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” 
“ Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the 
Lord: for He is good; for His mercy endureth 
forever.” 
THE FARMERS’ THANKSGIVING. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
True contentment lies in the full enjoyment 
of what we possess, be it much or little, and 
in never taking an inventory of what appears 
to constitute the pleasures of others as an 
estimate of our own conditions for gratitude. 
What seems to us to form in large part the 
happiness of some people, and which we at 
times are weak enough to covet, is very often 
a source of trouble, of endless fatigue and 
anxiety. Real happiness is of the heart, and 
as hearts differ, so each must nurture his own 
peculiar property and endeavor with sincere 
purpose to be just as happy as he can. It is a 
duty to be happy as much as to be honest. 
As the annual Thanksgiving Day comes round, 
when every ope is expected to feel a sense of 
gratitude, it is but natural and right that 
every man should try and see in his own occu¬ 
pation and circumstances peculiar sources of 
satisfaction to himself, and of gratitude to 
the Giver of all good gifts. In doing this, no 
given class have more for which to be thank¬ 
ful than the American farmers. 
First and foremost, maybe, in the category 
of their blessings, is the condition of being 
masters of themselves, of their land and of 
their time. They may toil early or late, in 
cloud or sunshine, as best suits their purpose 
and convenience. Although there are seasons 
of drive and hurry, there is a vast difference 
between being the servant of one’s own 
affairs, and being obliged to conform to the 
requirements of any employer. Every 
farmer must feel this, and however rigorous 
his life may be, his heart must throb with a 
sense of satisfaction at the thought that he is 
not the bondman of so-many hours a day, or 
the harrassed employer of “striking” laborers. 
Another note of thanksgiving with the farmer, 
should be the time-long honorableness of his 
work. To till the soil that the nations may be 
fed has been from the birth of man an occupa¬ 
tion dear to the hearts of the best and greatest 
of the race. To sow and plant, to watch the 
ever-unfolding marvel of Nature’s mysteries, 
to build the house, to gather about it garden, 
orchard and barn, to domesticate bird and 
beast, to beguile the bee into storing sweets 
for him, and earth and air to fill his granaries, 
is indeed to be Nature’s prophet, poet and 
priest. For him she is unvarying in her fresh¬ 
ness. At his board is none of the staleness of 
the shop or the market. The dew is on his 
fruit, the milk undried in his corn, and the 
delicate sweetness has not departed from the 
yield of the garden. He has Nature’s own 
seal for the excellence of the bulk of his food. 
The air he breathes and the water he drinks 
are free from the polluting sources of crowded 
towns. His children grow up in the freedom, 
temperance and strength of the country, the 
memories of their youth blended with riv¬ 
ulet and wood, with green meadow and graz¬ 
ing kine, with the glow of the hearth fire, the 
harvest of fruits and nuts, and all the varied 
tasks and delights of the changing seasons— 
dowered with the priceless blessing of being 
born and reared in the country. 
Another thing for which to be thankful, 
is to live where the most exquisite pleasures 
cost nothing; to realize Longfellow’s “ Perfect 
Day.” 
“I hear the wind, among the trees, 
Playing celestial symphonies, 
I see the branches dowdward bent, 
Like keys of some great instrument, 
While over me unrolls on high. 
The splendid scenery of the sky, 
When through a sapphire sea the sun, 
Sails like a golden galleon.” 
To him who hath eyes to see, this is surely 
no mean privilege, for to one whose life is 
spent in the crowded town, seeing only little 
parallelograms of sky between brick walls, 
and never a sunset, the open country, with 
its vast expanse of field and wood and sky, is 
a new, new world. The almost boundless 
variety in the work and life of the farm 
should be, in comparison with the narrow 
treadmill of many occupations, a cause for 
great satisfaction The practice of the law 
for the greater part of lawyers is the hard¬ 
est of drudgery. Tne doctor never knows 
when he can call a day or an hour his own—a 
profession of peculiar unrest and hardship. 
The merchant, the mechanic and the artisan 
all work within very limited lines, 
while the clerk at the desk, or the salesman 
behind the counter has a routine little better 
than the “mill-hand” in the cotton looms of 
New England. But the man with the farm, 
whether it be but the four acres of Cincin- 
natus, or the vast domain of the Western 
rancher, has a kingdom at his door. If he is 
a man in any liberal sense of the word, he is 
a dozen men in one—naturalist, botanist, geol¬ 
ogist, chemist, weather prophet, by turns, as 
the days go by, and insects, animals, flowers 
and stones, soil, atmosphere and clouds claim 
his attention. No two days can ever be quite 
alike, for although Nature seems ever to be 
repeating herself, her variety is infinite. A 
field of waving wheat or tasseled corn is as 
beautiful and unhackneyed to the eye to-day 
as a thousand years ago, and why leaf is leaf, 
and flower is flower, is a mystery as old as the 
centuries. The resources for entertainment 
to the owner of the soil are inexhaustible. 
No man tires of seeing his trees grow, or what 
bis grafts or seeds bring forth. People who 
weary of the country are aliens to it in every 
true sense. They see more in a shop window 
or a furniture store than forest or meadow 
has to offer, with its manifold wonders. They 
form that large class to whom Nature in some 
ungenial mood is lean in her dower, and 
leaves them with 
‘‘au aching void 
The world can never flU.” 
Some one, Lowell maybe, said; “I would 
rather sit down on a pumpkin in the country 
than on a velvet cushion in the town.” Web¬ 
ster used to say of his farm-home in New 
Hampshire, “It is the dearest spot on earth 
to me.” The ordinary city home is little more 
than a four sided box in which to eat and 
sleep, while the ordinary country home com¬ 
prehends the numberless tributaries of the 
farm, which in a thousand ways endear it to 
its owner—the garden in which the mother 
tended her flowers, the apple tree where the 
children had their swing and under whose 
fragrant boughs they built their play¬ 
house and frolicked at the game of life, the 
hill side where they coasted, the bubbling 
spring wherein the water was always cool; 
the shady seat under the arbor; the trees and 
shrubs planted by hands long folded from 
loving ministrations; the countless ties that 
make the country home and root the heart to 
it, that are impossible to homes of mere mor¬ 
tar and brick. 
It ever has been and ever will be charac¬ 
teristic of choice souls to love the country, 
and whatever may be their work in life, to 
plan and strive for a farmstead. The jostle 
and push, the scramble for place and work, 
the noise and confusion by day, the deep roar 
late into the night broken by the alarms of 
fire, all these characteristics of the town are to 
the sensitive and exclusive, intolerably weari¬ 
some and vulgar. Men who endure them for 
the day and have homes in the country to 
which they can flee at night cry, “How good 
it is to get away from it all, to come to this 
quiet, heavenly spot, to get away from peo¬ 
ple !” Sir Philip Francis said of Pitt. : 
“The lion walks alone! The jackals herd 
together.”—So people who only find delight 
in a crowd, may have no difficulty in prop¬ 
erly classifying themselves. To till the soil is 
certainly not the road to sudden wealth, nor 
always to moderate wealth slowly accumu¬ 
lated. If to make money is the chief aim of a 
man’s life, the country will seem undoubtedly 
too dull, or too slow, for his ambition, and 
unsuited to hastening the transforming of 
himself into a money-making machine. But 
if he has high aims for a full and rounded 
manhood, for innocent and enduring happi¬ 
ness, to be removed from the fret and worry 
of what goes by the name of business, to sit 
under his own vine and fig tree, to live a free, 
honest, self-respecting life, what else can 
offer so much as th6 farm? It is the one 
place where great comfort can be had free 
from all effort for display, for the ideal farm 
life is simple in all ways. There is in it no 
aping of the fashions and frenzies of the town. 
The sense of fitness and use harmonizes with the 
requirements and conditions of the life. Na 
ture, if intelligently entertained, will furnish 
beauty galore. The sparkle and glow of ,a wood 
fire on the hearth far outshine the gleam and 
gilt of the costliest saloon. There is as much 
reason in being proud of a fine orchard which 
we have planted as of a fine house, or equi¬ 
page, and even more, for it may in the end 
serve a nobler purpose while all the 
time it is more beautiful. The most 
exquisite and real pleasures are without bribe 
or price. It needs no garniture of fine lace or 
embroidery, or smock of silk, or cloth of gold 
to enjoy the best in life. So let us be thank¬ 
ful for what we have; for a life free in every 
good sense of freedom; for the humble home¬ 
stead growing in beauty with the years; for 
the honorable toil; for the song of birds; for 
the joyous childhood under the roof tree; for 
the modest plenty in house and barn; for the 
comfortable assurance that “God doth match 
his gifts to man’s believing:” for the gorgeous 
beauty of autumn, the grandeur of winter, 
the delicate loveliness of the spring-time; for 
all the sights and sounds which, if told, 
“ All men would to the country throng 
And leave the cities void.” 
Aud while thankful for our modest posses¬ 
sions which we individually hold, let us rever¬ 
ently remember the men whose courage and 
faith secured to us and to countless generations 
to come, we trust, this fair, free land, this most 
magnificent heritage of human liberty the 
world has ever seen, where freedom and law 
walk hand in hand, and where a day for na¬ 
tional thanksgiving is not only possible, but 
a heart-felt reality. 
FROZEN PUDDING. 
Make two quarts of rich boiled custard. 
Put into au ice-cream freezer and as soon as 
it begins to freeze, stir in a grated cocoanut 
and a few blanched almonds, which have been 
cut into bits. When frozen, scrape from the 
freezer into a mold and bury in cracked ice 
and salt. Just before sending to table, wring 
a cloth out of warm water and after wrapping 
around the outside of the mold for an instant 
to loosen the pudding, turn on to a flat dish. 
Excellent, and not very much trouble. 
MRS. ECONOMY. 
Woman's Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
THE GREAT NATIONAL WOMEN’S 
POTATO CONTEST. 
INSTRUCTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 
The R. N.-Y. proposes that its lady 
readers enter into a potato contest of their 
own. In the way of suggestion merely at 
this time, let us propose that the plot be 
33 feet square, or just one-fortieth of an 
acre. This is a very convenient size and 
shape. The plot may be larger but not 
smaller. Each contestant wiil choose her 
own method in every particular, the kind 
and quantity of fertilizer, or manure, the 
variety of potato, the distance apart to 
plant, etc., etc. It will not, of course, be 
required that the contestant do all or any 
of the actual work herself, but merely 
that it be done under her direction and 
supervision. The aim, will be to produce 
the largest quantity of merchantable potatoes 
on f lie chosen area at the least cost ; the 
standard of what constitutes a “mer¬ 
chantable ” potato to be fixed hereafter. 
The reports (to be satisfactorily substan¬ 
tiated) will give the full particulars as to 
the kind of soil, fertilizer, manure, variety 
of potato and method of culture, and 
are to be handed in before the first of next 
October. 
THE REWARDS. 
The R. N.-Y.’s further suggestion is 
that from 100 to 500 rewards, or souvenirs , 
be settled upon to be given to a corres¬ 
ponding number of the most successful 
contestants. 
We believe this to be a very laudable 
project and certain to do a deal of good 
in very many ways. 
The Jl. N.-Y. begs to express the hope 
that those of its friends who may take the 
above view of the project, will continue to en¬ 
courage it by donating suitable articles or by 
contributing suck moderate sums of money 
as in the aggregate may enable the committee 
{to be appointed) to extend the number of 
souvenirs as far as possible, and in this way 
help to secure a general interest and en¬ 
thusiasm throughout the entire potato grow¬ 
ing country. 
The Committee to examine the re¬ 
ports and to award the prizes will 
be made up of persons (either men or 
women as preferred) whose names shall be 
a sufficient guaranty of strict, impartial 
action. 
FINALLY. 
All of our female readers, whether young 
or old, who desire to enter the lists will 
kindly send in their names and addresses 
on postal cards, adding the words “For 
the Potato Contest.” 
The value of the souvenirs already 
promised amounts to over $600, as will be 
seen by reference to another page. Our 
lady friends are sending in their names for 
the contest freely and a grand national con¬ 
test, likely to engage the attention of the 
civilized world, is assured. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
Thanksgiving! It is here again, with its 
thoughts of past happiness and present sorrow 
for some; joys which make the past seem 
darker still to others; thanksgiving to us all, 
did we but know it. Talking once to a ven- 
When Bauy was sick, we gave her Castoria, 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castoria, 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castoria, 
When she had Children, she gave tbem.Castorls 
