PROGRAMME FOR THANKSGIVING.
(The room should be decorated with fruits and grains of the season, among them a large pumpkin, which will be appropriate to one of the recitations.)
SONG—Tune: “My Country.”
Honor the Mayflower’s band,
Who left their native land
And home so bright;
Honor the bravery
That crossed the winter sea,
For worship, fearless, free,
In cause of right.
Oh, they had much to fear,
Sickness and death was near
To many a one;
Foes did them cruel wrong,
Winter was dark and long,
Ere came the Springtime’s song
And burst of sun.
Honor those valiant sons,
Honor those fearless ones,
The Mayflower’s band.
Honor the bravery
That scorned all tyranny,
And crossed the stormy sea
To this fair land!
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES—Selected.
RECITATION—What I’m Thankful For.
I’m thankful that I’m six years old,
And that I’ve left off dresses;
And that I’ve had my curls cut off,—
Some people call them tresses.
Such things were never meant for boys;—
Horrid dangling, tangling curls—
They go quite well with dress and sash;
They are just the thing for girls.
I’m thankful I have pockets four,
Tho’ they’re almost too small,
To hold the things I want to keep;—
Some strings, knife, top and ball.
I’m thankful that we’re going to have,
All my folks and I,
Just a jolly dinner to-day,
With turkey and mince pie.
O, one thing more, my mamma says,
And what she says is true;
’Tis God who gives us everything,
And keeps and loves us too.
And so I thank Him very much
For all that I enjoy;
And promise that next New Year’s day
Will find a better boy.
RECITATION—The Pumpkin.
Ah! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the grey-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip, and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
O, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling;
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces were carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!
Then thanks for thy present!—none sweeter or better
E’er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o’er its baking than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Gold-tinted and fair as thine own pumpkin-pie!
J. G. Whittier.
SONG—Tune: “Yankee Doodle.”
What matters it the cold wind’s blast,
What matters though ’tis snowing,
Thanksgiving Day has come at last;
To grandmamma’s we’re going.
Wrapped in furs as warm as toast,
O’er the hills we’re fleeting;
To welcome friends, a merry host
And grandma’s smile of greeting.
The sleigh bells jingle merrily,
And though the flakes are flying,
At last beyond the hills we see
A little mansion lying.
I’m sure we’ll find sweet cakes and fruit
And pumpkin pies so yellow;
For grandma knows just how to suit
Each hungry little fellow.
RECITAL—Outside and In.
(May be recited by three girls; No. 1 remaining on the platform while No. 2 recites the second part, and both standing while No. 3 steps between and repeats the closing verse.)
Just outside the window,
Through the cold night air,
Snowflakes falling softly,
Dropping here and there,
Covering like a blanket
All the ground below,
Where the flowers are sleeping,
Tucked in by the snow.
They are dreaming sweetly,
Through the winter’s night,
Of the summer’s morning
Coming sure and bright.
2. Just inside the window
Firelight ruddy gleams;
On the walls and ceiling
Dance its merry beams.
White as outside snowflakes
Is the little bed;
On the downy pillow
Rests a curly head.
Like the flowers the child is dreaming
Of the long, bright hours of play
Coming as the darkness melteth
Into sunny day.
3. And above the sleepers,—
Be they child or flower,—
Our loving Father bendeth
Watching hour by hour.
’Tis his love which giveth
Blessings great or small;
’Tis his sun which shineth,
Making day for all.
ORATION—The Laboring Classes.
Sir, it is an insult to our laboring classes to compare them to the debased poor of Europe. Why, sir, we of this country do not know what poverty is. We have no poor in this country, in the sense in which that word is used abroad. Every laborer, even the most humble, in the United States, soon becomes a capitalist, and even, if he choose, a proprietor of land; for the West, with all its boundless fertility, is open to him.
How can any one dare compare the mechanic of this land (whose inferiority, in any substantial particular, in intelligence, in virtue, in wealth, to the other classes of our society, I have yet to learn) with that race of outcasts, of which so terrific a picture is presented by recent writers—the poor of Europe?—a race among no inconsiderable portion of whom famine and pestilence may be said to dwell continually; many of whom are without morals, without education, without a country, without a God! and may be said to know society only by the terrors of its penal code, and to live in perpetual war with it. Poor bondmen! mocked with the name of liberty, that they may be sometimes tempted to break their chains, in order that, after a few days of starvation in idleness and dissipation, they may be driven back to their prison-house to take their shackles up again, heavier and more galling than before; severed, as it has been touchingly expressed, from nature, from the common air, and the light of the sun; knowing only by hearsay that the fields are green, that the birds sing, and that there is a perfume in flowers!
And is it with a race whom the perverse institutions of Europe have thus degraded beneath the condition of humanity that the advocates, the patrons, the protectors, of our working-men, presume to compare them? Sir, it is to treat them with a scorn at which their spirit should revolt, and does revolt.
Hugh Legare.
RECITATION—A Thanksgiving.
(For six boys. They stand in a row and each steps forward to recite his verse).
For the wealth of pathless forests,
Whereon no axe may fall;
For the winds that haunt the branches;
The young bird’s timid call;
For the red leaves dropped like rubies
Upon the dark green sod;
For the waving of the forests
I thank thee, O my God!
For the sound of water gushing
In the bubbling beads of light;
For the fleets of snow-white lilies
Firm anchored out of sight;
For the reeds among the eddies;
The crystal on the clod;
For the flowing of the rivers,
I thank thee, O my God!
For the rosebud’s break of beauty
Along the toiler’s way;
For the violet’s eye that opens
To bless the new-born day;
For the bare twigs that in summer
Bloom like the prophet’s rod;
For the blossoming of flowers,
I thank thee, O my God!
For the lifting up of mountains,
In brightness and in dread;
For the peaks where snow and sunshine
Alone have dared to tread;
For the dark and silent gorges,
Whence mighty cedars nod;
For the majesty of mountains,
I thank thee, O my God!
For the splendor of the sunsets,
Vast mirrored on the sea;
For the gold-fringed clouds that curtain
Heaven’s inner mystery;
For the molten bars of twilight,
Where thought leans glad yet awed;
For the glory of the sunsets,
I thank thee, O my God!
For the earth and all its beauty;
The sky and all its light;
For the dim and soothing shadow
That rest the dazzled sight;
For unfading fields and prairies,
Where sense in vain has trod;
For the world’s exhaustless beauty,
I thank thee, O my God!
Lucy Larcom.
SONG—The Pilgrims. Tune—“Lightly Row.”
Long ago,
To our land
Came the Mayflower’s little band,
Long ago
To our land
Came the Mayflower’s band.
O, they came across the sea,
For the heart’s devotion free.
Long ago
To our land
Came the Mayflower’s band.
Winter, spring,
Slowly passed,
And the harvest came at last.
Winter, spring,
Slowly passed
Harvest came at last.
Then for all the blessings given,
Thanks they rendered unto heaven,
From that day
Came to stay,
Glad Thanksgiving Day.
TABLEAU—Harvest Home.
(Handsome lady, representing Ceres, surrounded by baskets or shocks of grain, wheat, corn, etc., with farmers in attitudes of gathering or binding the crops).
