Life — December 1, 1900 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

“LIFE La The Golden Days of Yore. Goursy was aging; his digestion was he fs é growing uncertain; but his sporting blood was still warm. He had eaten a lob- ster and it lay heavy on him; and as he sat before his expiring fire, sleepy and out offsorts, he growled : “Christmas is getting to be an expensive bumbug. It has lost its savor, and is now merely a season of polite blackmail by friends and relations; one might as well be sandbagged on the avenue as looted in his home. Why can’t we get back to the merry old days of long ago, the sturdy days of our fathers, when Christmas was @ joy- ous, simple festival of merry-making and brotherly feeling; when gentlemen were gentlemen, and only gentlewomen were ladies ; and joust and feast made life one long sweet song? This isa beastly century and season.” Sourby had hardly finished his cynical speech when he was whisked up through the roof, rushed through the air, and dropped down, s into a frosty, snowy street of straggling houses. As he stood there shaking, too dazed to think, he saw coming towards him a tall man in the garb of the middle seventeenth century, carrying a long pike in one hand, alanthorn in the other. The stranger was an unpleasant looking person, and he glared ma- levolently at Sourby, and asked harshly : ** Whence come you at this hour? It is now two hours past sundown.” “Where am I?” gasped Sourby. * Half a league from the godly town of Boston in the Masaa- chusetts Bay Colony. Thou art a stranger, hence suspicious ; in strange and motley garb, hence a vagabond.” Then in a semi-soliloquy he muttered : *Perchance a foreign conspirator; an Amalekite, a son of Belial.” Then aloud: ‘Thou must come with me to a justice of the King’s peace.” “Oh, I'll go with you, fast enough, my picturesque friend. What might be on to-night, Old Sport? a bal masque, a Boston tea party, or what? Get me a rig, and I will be your chaperon, fair youth.” ‘A scoffer! a malignant!” hissed the stranger fiercely. “Know you not, thou scurvy varlet, that I am a constable and peace ofticer in this Colony ?” “ Great Scott!” muttered Sourby. ‘‘Isthisa jag, ora plain case of wheels? Colony! It must be the lobster and cock- tails. Say, old chap, what year do you think you're in, anyway?” “The year of grace 1668,” answered the man sternly. “And this is Christmas, 1668, is it?” said Sourby slowly. “This chap’s clock is slow, or I must be pretty well ahead of the times.” “Christmas!” the stranger shouted. ‘‘Ho! ho! Of a surety a French malignant, a Jesuit. Know ye not that the ancient superstition called Christmas is forbidden in this Colony? Ye who follow such heathenism are roundly scourged here and their ears nailed to posts. Verily are we done with the idle pomps and vanities of the Baby- lonish woman. In sooth thou must be some idle, sin- ful vagabond ; a Papist con- spirator.”” “Tm all of that, I guess,” assented Sourby, ‘‘if this be 1668. You say solemnly, you mad wag, that this is the merry old year of 1668, and that Christmas is a crime. You say you have no holly and ivy, no roast boar’s head, no wassail bowl, no yule log, no carols, no gleemen, no giddy time in the baronial ball. Do you mean it?” “ Peace, scoffer,” groaned the Puritan cop. ‘Have done with such sinful folly. The saints have none such vanities, The day thou callest Christmas has been purged from the calendar of the godly, and has become a time of fasting, prayer, and lamentation for evil. We fear the day of wrath, and here be no wassails, jousts, or painted Jezebels to sing unrighteous songs ; neither dancing, nor fiddling, nor the ways of Satan. Thou art even a son of Belial, and must with me to the bridewell.” comicbooks.com