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Page 34
As time wore on, roads were established; settlements became
thicker; mercantile trade followed barter, and money began to
circulate and to be offered and accepted in payment; wagons and
buggies replaced saddles and saddle bags; railroads were built;
newspapers and postal service became more numerous and easier;
the telegraph and later the telephone annihilated distance;
churches and school houses sprung up; the regular preacher took
the place of the circuit rider; factory-made shoes drove out the
"pair of fine boots"; power looms and hole-proof socks (in name
only) routed knitting needles; and so on, until now Sears-Roebuck
is trying to rout everybody and everything.
All these and many, many, more advances have been inaugurated
within the memories of many of you here today. Those among the
oldest of you have had the extreme good fortune of living within
the period of the last 75 years or more, when greater progress
along scientific lines has been made than was achieved in the
4,000 years preceding your time. Think of it my friends! . . .
What great good fortune has been yours!
What progress the future has in store I cannot know. Time only
can tell, and time goes on, while you and I dwell here for
comparatively only a day. And yet, if I were required to hazard
my judgment, I should be compelled to admit I firmly believe you
have seen more beneficial progress than will fall to the lot of
any individual to be born in the future. . .
To you Old Settlers this day has been set apart by the folks of
this community for your enjoyment and retrospection, and for our
education and benefit. . . And when those of us here on the
programme have finished, we want to hear you, by word of mouth,
recall those early experiences that will forever be lost unless
you impart them, that we, in turn, may hand them down to the
generations yet to come. They will soon be most valued
traditions. Books, paper, diaries and records have a most useful
place, but some of the things of greatest human interest are not
set down in the books or records--those little touches of color
and everyday heart interest, those daily privations and
abstinences--they never break into chronicle, and yet furnish a
large part of our romantic history.
I have at home a chair--a plain, hand-made wooden chair with a
wooden seat, with rectangular and cross red stripes, and on one
panel in the back is a hand-painted bouquet of flowers in colors--
all showing the hand of a careful, neat and skilled workman.
Underneath the seat is a faded and torn paper label on which is
printed "Black and Sons, Chair Makers, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania."
Just a plain straightback wooden chair. A more elaborate one
could probably be bought now for $2. And yet, my grandfather
brought that chair to my grandmother for her parlor on horseback
from Philadelphia to Russellville, in this County, some 80-odd
years ago, piled high on top of a big horseback load of goods.
Think of the effort it took! Think of the space it took away from
profitable calico! Think of the many, many times on that
thousand-mile horseback ride that grandfather looked back and
felt to see if it were coming along with the balance of the load.
Think of the many times it slipped to one side or the other and
had to be retied. Think of the many nights it had to be unloaded,
and the many mornings it had to be tied back on again. And
lastly, my good folks, think of the joy it gave that little old
woman up at Russellville--how she showed it to the neighbors; the
care that was subsequently given it; the wonderful pleasure it
gave her; and the proud feeling it secretly gave him. . . It was
she who told their children the story of that little chair.
That, my friends, is the kind of heart throb we are gradually
learning to ignore in these days of financial struggles. There
are those among you, who by denying yourselves, have given your
wives, sons and daughters saddle horses, pianos, automobiles and
even farms--and at great sacrifice--and there are also those
among you who have given your families their first iron stove, a
candle mold, calico dresses, and perhaps a little straightback
wooden chair.
Therefore, today let us go back. Let us forget the things to
which we have applied ourselves too assiduously, the things that
modern conditions have forced us to adopt and strive for. For the
day, at least, let us turn back to the days when you were young
and this community was young: To the days when you courted and
were courted in the chinked log house before the stone fireplace;
back to the time when catnip, tansy and peppers hung from the
rafters; back to the days of the smoke-house with its pungent
tang of hickory bark and corn cobs; when tomatoes were grown for
ornament and thought to be poisonous. Let us again go down to the
spring house and get a bucket of water to set under the gourd on
the kitchen table. Let's stir up the fire in the fireplace, hang
the pot on the crane or test the heat in the Dutch oven; carry
the ashes out and put them in the hopper. Let's you and I and all
of us go up and see how the dried apples are holding out, and
then look the hams over to see if they have any worms in them.
Let us hie back to the days when all debts fell due at Christmas
time; when mortgages were useless and practically unknown, and
when every man's word was his bond. Let's eat a dinner of bacon,
corn bread, milk and honey, and other wholesome things of those
days, on the back porch or in the summer kitchen, while the
younger girls shoo the flies off the table and the chickens off
the porch. And then tonight, after supper, let's gather around
the candle on the table, with Mother in the little chair knitting
and mending with her hands, and rocking the cradle with her foot,
while Father takes down the family Bible and piously reads a
verse. Then, on our knees, and with heads bowed, let us hear that
hallowed voice of Father, from whose nerveless grasp have long
since dropped the working tools of life, rise in fervent prayer
to Almighty God to protect us and keep us all safe from harm.
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