Monday 8 October 2012

Thanksgiving - 1883



Mary’s Thanksgiving: A Plain, Unvarnished Love Tale for Today: Written Especially for Canada’s Great Daily by that Gifted But Unappreciated Genius, The Idle Spectator.

Spectator  November 8, 1883


Thanksgiving day came late this year, and winter had already set in. It was bitterly cold. The wind whistled shrilly around the corners, and pedestrians hurried adown the streets with their hands thrust deeply in their overcoat pockets. They shivered as they walked. The wind seemed to pierce through their warm winter clothing, and chill them. The hard snow crunched beneath their feet as they went along. Blue faces and red noses were everywhere. In a dull sky the pale, yellow wintry sun was shining but with only strength enough to make the snow on the housetops settle down solidly.
        In a frame house on John street north, just near by the bridge that stretches over the Grand Trunk railway track, Mary Jantzen was sitting. Tall and straight was Mary, with clear cut, regular features, and a wreath of yellow golden hair coiled in a simple knot behind. Her eyes were of a deep unfathomable blue, and no person could say that she was not a beautiful girl, but just now her face was sad and sorrowful, and the gaunt caresses of care and want had marked her cheek.
For her lot was a hard one and her story unhappy. Ten years ago they had come to Hamilton to live, she and her father and her mother and Nellie, aged 3, and little George, whose advent into this world of joys and sorrows had only been but a few short weeks before. Mary herself was thirteen years old then. She had no money or property. Old George Jantzen was an honest, hard-working shoemaker, who depended on his day’s pay for their daily food. Neither himself, nor his wife were at all provident, and while they might have saved money and put by something for a rainy day, had they practised proper economy, they unfortunately, continued spending all that was made, and left themselves without any provision for the future. Three years after reaching this city, the father was taken sick with pneumonia, and after a few days confinement to his bed, died. His fellow workmen in the large manufactory, in which he was employed, clubbed together and paid his funeral expenses and made a small purse for his wife. They were poor themselves and couldn’t do much, but their hearts went out with the financial comfort they gave. For three years longer, Mary and her mother lived and supported the two children. Then Mrs. Jantzen followed her husband to the unknown country, and Mary was left all alone with the little ones. By this time, she had grown to be a beautiful girl, and as a consequence had lots of lovers. Her nature was one calculated to attract a man. Sweet and pure and honest, with a firm belief in human goodness and integrity, upright and true herself, and believing everyone else the same, she was an oasis in this desert we call the world, where boys in their teens are confirmed skeptics, cynics and philosophers. A diligent student, she had managed to read a great deal, and her reading had been of the better class, so that when her mother died, she possessed an education above the average girl in her position.
Below her, on the same street, lived John Derroon. Honest and brown and ragged was he, and there was a world of love for Mary in his heart. To him she was the girl of girls, the one and only one, though he was several years older than she was. A year before her mother’s death he had gone to her and told her of his great love. In the far west he thought he could make a competence, if not a fortune, quickly, and if she would only wait for him awhile, he would return to her and marry her, and Mary, who had long ago given up her trusting little heart to him, leaned her head upon his breast, looked shyly up with the love peeping out from her great blue eyes, and their troth was plighted. And Jack went away. Five years had passed since then, and Jack had not returned. No word had come to her now for a long, long while. A dozen letters had reached her during the first few months, and after that she heard no more. But her heart was true to him now, as it ever had been, and not one doubt of him ever crossed her mind. What kept him away and silent, she did not know, nor could she even conjecture, but she felt sure it was all right.
She had had a hard struggle of it since her mother’s death. There was the rent to pay, fuel to provide and the two children, both of whom were too young to be of any assistance, to provide for. But she had struggled on. Heaven only knows how. Slow starvation her existence had been, but she battled manfully with poverty, and kept the children from want. But of late, work such work as she had been in the habit of doing, had been slack. Little by little, the small stock of furniture had grown gradually less, and this morning, with the last thing in the house that could by hook or by crook be parted with, gone to the second-hand store and pawn shop, she sat in the poor little house while the children slept. The larder was empty – there was not even a crust of bread in the house. A rusty stove stood in the bare and cheerless room, but there was not so much as a piece of pine board around with which she could make a blaze and take the chilly edge off the dense cold that seemed to fill the room. And this was Thanksgiving Day ! Outside the church bells were ringing their glad, joyous peals, sounding loud and plain through the clear and frosty atmosphere. Happy men and women she could see through the windows, hurrying past to church to thank God for all His mercies and goodness, and to chant in His praise. And this was Thanksgiving Day ! The thought came to her, and the words seemed filled with a terribly cruel mockery. “Thanksgiving day,” she said to herself bitterly, “but not to me – not to me ! For what should I return thanks to the almighty ? For what my God ? For what ?”
She burst into tears, and it did her good. Her feelings were over-wrought and strained, and the relief to the mental tension composed her again. “I must be calm and brave,” she said, “ for the children’s sake.” By and by they awoke, dressed themselves, and came out. They were pale and weak-looking. They wanted food, but there was none for them, they knew or they would have got it at once. They had wanted a great many times lately when it had not been forthcoming and they had got now so that they did not ask for it. They bore the privation patiently, but they looked at Mary wistfully. She caught the glance and interpreted it correctly. And then she commenced crying again. Not passionately this time, but with long convulsive sobs that shook her frame. “They want food,” she cried, “ and I have none to give them. My God ! My God !” The tears drew forth the children’s  sympathy for their sister. Nellie went up putting her arms around her neck. “Never mind, dear,” she said, “ George and I can bear it. “ George manfully acquiesced. He was ten years old now, and quite a brave and handsome little fellow. But he was cold and starving, and moved by his sister’s sob, the tears presently commenced stealing silently down his cheek. They followed faster and faster, and at last he commenced to cry as if his little heart would break. Nellie, sad and wan, so like her older sister, was the only one of the three whose eyes were dry. She still kept her arms about her sister’s neck and tried to comfort her with loving words. By and by, Mary’s sobs ceased, and she dried her red and swollen eyes. Then she sat, and waited, and talked with the other two. The day wore away, and the night began to fall. The keen pangs of hunger were momentarily growing worse, and harder to bear. Towards seven o’clock Mary rose and put on her bonnet and the old shawl that had once been her mother’s. “I’m going out, dears,” she said simply, “to try and get something to eat. Wait until I return.” She kissed them both and went out. A kind-hearted woman whom she knew lived up the street. She would go to her, she thought, and try to get relief, and tomorrow, Ah tomorrow! She shuddered as she thought of it. Unless something happened, tomorrow meant more starvation, and perhaps death. And this was Thanksgiving day The tears streamed down her face again. “My God!” And she walked on.
In the meantime the children sat in the comfortless room and waited for her return. Presently a knock came to the door and Nellie answered. A tall, bearded stranger stood there. He took in the appearance of the room and its occupants at a glance, and trembled slightly.
“ Does Miss Jantzen live here?” he asked.
“ Miss Jantzen does,” Nellie replied. “My mother is dead>
“Dead?” And your sister – where is she?”
“She is out just now after – after –“
“After what?
“Something to eat, sir.”
The stranger looked at her and smiled.
“Are you hungry, little one,” he asked.
“Oh, very. We have had nothing to eat all day.
“Nothing to eat all day,” he repeated, and his glance again wandered over the room. “Nothing to eat all day! Poor child, poor child.” Then he seemed to hesitate. “I will be back in a moment,” he said again presently.
He walked to the corner grocery store, and in a few minutes returned, bearing a couple of loaves of bread and several small parcels. These he left with the children and walked rapidly away again. George and his sister got to work with a ravenous appetite upon the food thus unexpectedly procured. In a few minutes Mary returned, bearing a small basket of provisions. The children hurried to tell her of what had happened in her absence. She was puzzled. She could not understand it But suddenly a thought struck her. What if it should be Jack? At this idea all sorts of wild hopes flew into her head. She was devoured with a feverish anxiety. In an instant her hunger had left her, and she could think of nothing but the mysterious deliverer. Another knock at the door, which, when opened, revealed a man with a sleigh outside.
“Miss Jantzen live here?”
“Yes.”
“ These things are for her then.” He took out a couple of large baskets filled to overflowing, and set them down. The children lugged them in. They were full of good things. Another knock, and a boy with a sleigh full of wood appeared. Mary was wild with hope and anxiety. But she bustled about, and lit a good fire in the stove. An hour or more passed. A footstep came rapidly down the street, and stopped in front of the door. She flew across and opened it, though she was so nervous and trembling that she could hardly unhook the latch. The stranger stood outside.
“Mary,” he said simply.
Oh! Jack,” she cried. “Is it you at last?”
And he answered her: “My darling, it is.”

What happened after that concerns neither you nor me, gentle reader. Mary had something to be thankful for after all, and the moral of this little tale isn’t hard to find. It is this: That God in His greatness, His goodness, and His mercy has given each and every one of you something to be thankful for today. Ask Jack and his wife, and they will tell you that too. They have been married now for many years, and Thanksgiving day to them is the most sacred day that ever comes.

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