Elizabeth Gordon

“ Now what are some of your ideals as Scouts?”
“Well,” said Billy, “we’re divided into three classes. Tenderfoot, that’s what Bob White and I are as yet, but we’ll grow—second class Scouts and first class. According to Scout law one must have honor, loyalty, unselfishness, friendliness, hatred of snobbishness, must be courteous, be really kind to animals, and always obedient to fathers and mothers ’n Somebodys, be gentle, fair minded, save money, look out for fires and clean up after oneself.” ”

“ Most children do not understand the importance of cutting wild flowers instead of tearing them up by the roots.”
“I ought to understand it unless I’m a dunce,” laughed Billy, “you and Mom tell me about it often enough. But why is it called Mayflower when it always comes in April? Of course I know its real name is Trailing Arbutus.”
“The Mayflower,” said Somebody, “is spring’s first messenger wherever it will grow, and its appearance is governed by the length of the winter, and not by the calendar. ”

“ Now we are engaged in the great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield 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 power to add or detract. ”

“ You’ll find that men had to delve into mathematics, the mysteries of astronomy, the wonders of physics and chemistry, before they could force the hands on the dial to tell you when to start for school or to catch your train. As you look at a clock, remember that every time the minute-hand passes from one of its marks to the next, it shows that this huge globe on which we live has covered more than 1,000 miles of its headlong journey. ”

“ Billy grinned. “What time do you look for Mayflower fruit?” said he.
“Along about wild strawberry time,” said Somebody.
[41]
The “Mayflower”
[42] About Pearls
“MY,” said the boy named Billy. “I nearly broke my tooth on the bone of this oyster. Isn’t it funny? It’s as round as a shot and just as hard.”
Everybody laughed, but Somebody said, “That isn’t a bone, Billy; old Mr. Oyster has no bones. That’s a pearl. Too bad you didn’t find it before it was cooked, because then you might have had it set in a pin to wear in your scarf. Now that it has been cooked, it is worthless.” ”

“ He knew that Judas Iscariot, one of his own disciples, would betray him to the chief priests and magistrates who hated him, because they were afraid he would convert the people and uncover their own wickedness. Christ Jesus knew that he must suffer violence at the hands of those who hated goodness so that he might prove beyond shadow of doubt, by his resurrection, that love is greater than hate—that love is always victorious, because God is Love. ”

“ Because it is due to him and to him only that we are not broken up into small independent states, but are gathered together under the best flag that the sun ever shone upon. Never has the world seen a greater example of wisdom, patience, patriotism and moral courage than animated his every act. ”

“ The Ancients lighted bonfires on that night to scare away ghosts and witches.
“The Romans had a festival in honor of Pomona, the goddess of fruits, in which apples featured, which accounts for the custom of bobbing for apples in tubs of water, which to this day the young folks think is so much fun.”
“That’s all right for girls,” said the boy named Billy, “but regular fellows can find something better to do.” ”

“ The Pagans had a festival at this season of the year called The Birthday of the Sun of which they were very fond. Out of this grew the idea of using that time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the spiritual Sun of the world. This gradually took the place of the old pagan festival.”
“The singing of Christmas songs is an English custom, is it not?” asked Billy.
“Yes,” said Somebody. “There are many beautiful old-world customs which were left behind when the Puritans came to the new world in search of a place in which to worship in their own way. ”

“ The boy named Billy scrubbed with right good will. “It’s coming off,” he said. “Say, Somebody, please tell me why Easter doesn’t stand still, like Christmas and New Year’s Day. What makes it come in March one year, and likely as not in April the next? A day is a day, isn’t it? Then why do we never know when to look for it? Last year we gathered pussy willows, and this year it’s cold enough to skate.” ”

“ These little sea animals are called polyps and the coral grows inside their soft outer structure just as your bones do inside your flesh. Among the greatest architects in the world are the little coral-making animals, creatures of shallow water in the warmer seas. Some kinds live all alone, but the commoner ones live in colonies of many individuals united by a stalk with many branches—sort of a family tree you might say—indeed they were once called plant animals. ”

“ But so imitative are we all that it was not long before everybody was saluting everybody else, which did not suit the aristocratic army men, who then resolved to make their salute so hard to learn that it could not be imitated without real military service, so that an outsider using it would brand himself as a commoner by his incorrect manner of saluting.”
“And so that’s how it became,” said the boy named Billy. “Well, I may not be a soldier, but I am going to get it if Sergeant Jim’s patience holds out.”
“You may not be a soldier, but you are a soldier’s grandson,” said Somebody. ”

“ CLOCK About Clocks
“LOOK at my new wrist-watch! Mom gave it to me for my birthday—isn’t it a beauty?” said the boy named Billy. “Radium dial ’n all; I can see what time it is in the dark. Handy when I’m on hikes, no more stopping to scratch matches. Stem winder ’n everything.”
“Goodness, Billy,” said Big Sister. “Anyone would think to hear you that there never was a watch like that of yours. We all have watches.”
Billy grinned. “Well,” he said, “I’ve wanted it so long. A fellow needs something to tell time by. Who discovered how to tell time anyhow?” ”

“ In growing potatoes, the most perfect tubers should be chosen, cut in pieces and planted; the new plants grow from the eyes or buds on the cuttings.
“The cultivation of the potato has played an important part in the history of Europe. In certain parts of Germany it helped to check the famines caused by the Thirty Years’ War. By 1688 it had become the staple food of the Irish peasantry, and the failure of the potato crop in 1845 and the resulting famine started the first great wave of Irish immigration to the United States.” ”

“ About Wolves
“LOOK at this funny old pair of curly-toed skates that I found in that funny old horse-hair trunk in the attic,” said the boy named Billy. “They look like toys, and seem about big enough for little sister. Nobody ever could have really used them to skate with, could they?”
“Those skates were your great-grandmother Ellen’s racing skates,” said Somebody, “and if they had not been rather practical and not at all the toys they look, in comparison with the ones in use now, you would not be here this afternoon.”
“Why?” demanded the boy named Billy, sensing a story. ”

“ Large shipments of shamrocks are brought to the United States for Saint Patrick’s Day.”
“So the shamrock is the National emblem of Irish people,” said Billy.
“Yes,” said Somebody. “And it is said that no snake can live where it grows.
“Perhaps if one will take the trouble to think it out, one may find in that belief the idea of faith and loyalty and love of country for which the Irish people are noted, and that emblematically it means that no traitor to Ireland can live near the Shamrock.”
“I see,” said the boy named Billy, “they feel as we do about our Eagle, don’t they?” ”

“ About Carrier Pigeons
“BOB WHITE’S carrier pigeon has lost its mate,” said the boy named Billy. “He won’t eat or take any notice of anything—just sits humped up making queer little sounds as if he were grieving. Do you suppose that he realizes what has happened to the little mate?”
“Perhaps not, in so many words,” said Somebody, “but he misses her and realizes that things are different. It’s a well-known fact that carrier pigeons never replace a lost mate, which reminds me of a story I heard about pigeons, out in Washington State, which might interest you.” ”

“ Carl von Linné, the great Swedish naturalist and botanist, discovered that pearls could be grown by opening the shell of the oyster and slipping a small bead of lead or wax inside the shell and then putting the oyster back in his bed for three or four years. Acting upon that idea, the Chinese and Japanese people have established great pearl raising industries and turn out a large amount of pearls every year. They are very pretty, and of good color, but being flat on one side they cannot be made into necklaces. In several of our states the fresh water clams are pearl bearers ”

“ All day long they prayed—and just before evening there came a white cloud from the west which proved to be millions of sea-gulls, every one of which had brought along a perfectly good appetite for black crickets, and before you could say Jack Robinson there wasn’t a single cricket left to tell the tale. ”

“ To the Indian everything in Nature had a real personality and was inhabited by a spirit either good or bad.
“They believed in monsters, and fairies and witches. The women were the only ones who could declare war, and when prisoners were brought in they had the right to adopt them into the tribe, or if they did not like them to send them to death.”
“Sweet and gentle ladies, weren’t they?” said the boy named Billy. “I’m glad that they’re just folks nowadays.” ”

“ Today the observance of Christmas is universal. In England and America the little folks hang up their stockings in a row before the fireplace—in France the children place wooden shoes on the hearth to receive their gifts, and Norwegian children have a lot of fun hunting their new toys which have been tucked away in unexpected places. ”

“ The Fairies in the West of England are very careful of the Strawberry Crop
[57] All we know about Strawberries
“STRAWBERRIES and cream for supper,” sang out the boy named Billy, “wild ones. Got ’em over in the clearing in the woods where the fire ran through last year. Whoppers! I wonder how they ever got there, and why do we call them strawberries? They are far from being the color of straw. Just look at my hands.” ”

“ I’m going to get it,” said the boy named Billy. “Sergeant Jim says that when he first went into the service he just hated the salute. But after a while when he began to know what it meant, he didn’t mind it. What does it mean? Why should a soldier salute an officer? An officer’s no better than a soldier, is he?” ”

“ Growing from seed seldom produces satisfactory potatoes, but seedsmen plant them in the hope of discovering new and desirable varieties, as did Burbank when he grew from seed the potato which bears his name. ”

“ No matter how much you know of poetry or prose, you cannot consider yourself well read unless you are thoroughly acquainted with the Bible.”
“It is wonderful that the language has been kept so beautiful after all those translations and copyings,” said the boy named Billy. ”

“ The world will little know 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. ”

“ There was a custom of the young Pagans by means of which they chose their dancing partners for the day, of writing the name of a young man and a young woman and having a drawing. The young man keeping the young lady whose name he had drawn, as his partner for the day.
“The Christian Pastors of the churches objected to this fun making and so they put the names of Priests in the boxes to be drawn in place of the young women, and St. Valentine’s name came out as the guardian or saint of the day. ”

“ Somebody smiled. “The kind you men wear are made of various things. The very fine ones are made from Beaver fur and Coney fur, and Molly Cotton Tail furnishes material for a great many with her long hair which is chopped very fine, and some are made entirely of wool. The braid for the straw hats comes almost entirely from Italy, China and Japan, but is sewed and blocked in this country.”
“Do we make many hats here?” asked Billy.
“Yes, indeed,” said Somebody, “making hats was one of our earliest and most profitable industries. ”

“ The Gregorian or New Style calendar as this one was called is the one we are using today.
“New Year’s Day has been celebrated in various ways since the dawn of civilization, and if today we could travel around the world on a magic carpet what a wonderfully interesting sight we would see!
“If you were in China you might think the Chinese saved their holidays to celebrate all at once. They close their shops for several days while they make merry with feasts and fireworks and general exchange of gifts and good wishes. ”

“ There was a pigeon fancier in Seattle, who, during the great war, raised carriers for the government, and in order to train the young birds for use in the battle-fields, he used to take them on the engine of the Shasta Limited train, which is the fastest one going south out of Seattle, down as far as Centralia, a small town on the line, where no stop is made by the limited, and then to liberate them and let them make their way back home. ”