Judge — November 21, 1914 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A® COMRADES, we should never cease returning thanks for balmy peace, which still with us abides, while over Europe's crimson plain, all cluttered up with heaps of slain, the grisly terror rides. We go about our daily chores, in offices, on farms, in stores, remote from stress of war; and as we do our daily biz, we seldom think how much there is we should be thankful for. Itis not that our hearts are hard that we so carelessly regard the blessings that we know; the gods have shielded us so long from warfare, tyranny and wrong, we strangers are to woe. We take our blessings as they come, and oft, too oft our lips are dumb, when they should utter praise; from all our regi- ments and ranks there should be rising songs of thanks through- out our joyous days. Through golden autumn afternoons the farmer reaps his crop of prunes and puts it in the barn; no cannon wheels have torn his soil, no bursting shells disturbed his toil—he doesn’t care a darn. In peace he pruned his pumpkin trees and tended to his bumble bees, in peace he goes to town and puts his boodle in the bank; but seldom does he spring a thank for gifts the gods sent down, In peace the grocer sells his peas, in peace he wraps his musty cheese that tastes of kerosene; no soldiers shoot him in the back or rob his till or fire his shack or bust him on the bean. All day he sells his succotash, by night he counts his clammy cash, and none can say him nay; but when his plunder he has viewed, he has no time for gratitude -that is the grocer’s way. In peace the housewife sweeps her floors and oils the hinges of the doors and counts the chickens’ yield; she doesn’t read the list of dead, to see if her old man is sped on some red battle- field. She doesn’t send her darling sons to act as targets for big guns; her loved ones are close by. And yet she wears a chronic scowl and seems as gloomy as an owl and has a brood- ing eye. She does not know what sorrow means; she boils her spuds and bakes her beans, nor knows that all is well. She doesn't thank the gods who guide her footsteps o’er a country- side where peace and plenty dwell. Oh, let us change our frame of mind! Let us no longer be so blind, ungrateful and obtuse! Let us be thankful every day, as well as when we carve our way through turkey or through goose! Oh, let us pray and let us sing and let us quit this wretched thing of chafing at small ills; let us resolve we won't be cranks and not be stingy with our thanks and promptly pay our bills! The Frontal Convolution [Physiologists tell _us that the brain of men and the man-like ape are alike, except that the third frontal olution, which ix the center of epecch. is rudimentary in the ape, or totally lacking. With the develop- ment of this convolution, man appeared with the faculty of speech.] MES. ANTHROPOID was sitting in her ancient family tree And discovered that the baby which she rocked upon her knee Was different from all the rest, for in its evolution That baby ape had somehow found a frontal convolution. And with that convolution, which we designate the third, That little babe was able to articulate a word; For the frontal convolution, the frontal convolution Is the seat of human speech and is a glorious institution Sometimes. When the maiden in the parlor is requested to recite, And she rips a dozen yards off ‘‘Curfew Shall Not Ring To- night,’’ How happy all of us would be who hear her elocution, If only we could paralyze her frontal convolution! For without the convolution which we designate the third, That maiden of the curfew could not elocute a word. Oh, the frontal convolution, the frontal convolution! Without you we should all escape the joys of elocution Sometimes, And, also, I might mention that you're often sorely tried By your wife’s immediate ancestor upon the female side; But though you may be tempted to compel her dissolution, It were better far to amputate her frontal convolution For without the convolution which we designate the third, The jest about the mother-in-law would nevermore be heard! Oh, the frontal convolution, the frontal convolution! Without it this old joke would have to have a substitution Sometimes. —Edmund Vance Cooke. HIS FIRST THANKSGIVING