Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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THE BEANKSOME SLOGAN. 21 Then follows the calling. Every family in the village must visit every other family. The elderly men stay at home to receive. In- cidentally, the women are all there, too. The first day they call Ia. their own village; the second and following days they go to visit: their relatives in other villages. They keep up relationships even with ' forty-second cousins. Duty and pleasure are combined, for does not each visit mean a square meal? If the Chinese did not, as a rule, work so hard they could not so heartily enjoy their long vacation. Without this vacation they could, not, during the rest of the year, work so well. This period of leisure becomes thus a safety-valve to the nation. IN THE V AR OF 1812 BY MARIE PABKES. We usually think of old (houses in connection with England, but there are many interesting old houses in Canada also. They may not have stood for hundreds of years, but long enough, at least, to have romantic tales told of them. There is one about an old house in Niagara Peninsula. You may wish to know the exact location, but I shall not tell you, for if I did I might get into trouble for putting something in print which is no business of mine. I have an old aunt, who was born only a few years after the war of 1812,. She has a marvellous memory, and has told me dozens of interesting and amusing stories of the war. I only wish I could remember them half as well as she does. However, I will try to tell you correctly this story in which an old house figures. In the year 1813, a company of United States soldiers were re- ported as approaching the village in which my aunt ' s grandmother lived, with her husband and three children. Their house was the one of this story, and was situated on the main street, between a tavern and a china shop. Business was very slack at this time, and the proprietors of these two establishments were away back in the country gathering apples. They had therefore left two small boys and a girl of nineteen, the children of their neighbors, in charge of both lines of business.

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20 THE BEANKSOME SLOGAN. are made of fine lattice-work, making everything as fresh as the} can afford. In the Western countries family gatherings are desirable, but difficult. Families divide and scatter to the ends of the earth. But in China the family is already at home. Only a few of its male members are away, and these re turn for this holiday; for if a Chinaman cannot go home for the New Year he is sure to be ridiculed by the people with whom he is staying las well as by those of his native village. So, dreading ridicule even more than the loss of a meal, if kept away by something over which he has no control, he is like a wet hen or a fish out of water. There is a noticeable absence of the old clothes during the time between the first and fifteenth days of the new moon. Glad rags for every man, woman and child, even though some be rented ! They love bright colors, and so a combination of bright green, scarlet, orange and purple would look magnificent on a Chinaman, and be considered quite in good taste. The debt-paying function occupies the last day of the old year. Some Chinese truisms are : Everybody needs to borrow, Every- body is obliged to lend money (almost everybody oweis money to someone else) , No Chinaman ever pays down cash unless he is obliged to do so, No Chinaman ever pays a debt until he is dunned and dunn ' ed often. Further, in paying a debt, he pays but part of it at a time. It is easily seen, then, that the collecting machinery is necessarily intricate. Each store, no matter how small, has its own army of men to gather in its debts. At the same time these men collect their own debts, and, while collecting, endeavor to dodge their own creditors. They are at once the most practical and most sentimental of the human race. New Year must not be violated by duns for debts, but the debt must be collected. New Year though it be. For this rea- son one sometimes sees an urgent creditor going about early on the first day of the year, carrying a lantern, looking for some one. This artificial light shows that, by a social fiction, the sun has not yet risen, it is still yesterday and the debt can still be claimed. New Year ' s Eve and lall through the night there is a great deal of banging of firecrackers, to delight their own ears and scare away the evil spirits . On the twenty-third day of the previous month, the old Icitchen god had been discharged and now they install a new one in its place. On the second day all the male members of a suitable age go to tlie family or clan graveyard, and there make offerings to the spirits of their ancestors.

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THE BPtA TKSOME SLOGAN. When the people came rushing up the village street shouting The Yankees ! the whole family were at dinner in their own house. They had kept little of value there, as the war-like times kept them con- tinually on the watch for an invasion by the Americans. But there was a whole cellar-full of wine and eatables in the tavern, all the winter ' s provisions, and a new consignment of china in the shop. What was to be done ? If the goods had been their own they might have trusted to good luck, but as their neighbors ' property, it must be guarded ! Suddenly Gertrude, the girl, said, Why not bring everything we can into the house, and put them in the room where father keeps his good furs? It was a brilliant suggestion, for the door to that one small, strongly-built room was hidden by the sidebo ' ard in the dining-room. Her father dealt in valuable furs, and always kept any specially fine ones in that room. The whole family immediately set to work to move the goods from the two houses into this room. Meanwhile, the Amerieans were com- ing nearer -and nearer, and they knew that they would not have time to complete their work unless the soldiers were delayed in some way. It was no easy task, and no quick one, to remove many casks of wine, whole hams, and crates of china, and there were only two young boys, one man, one girl and one woman to do it. Again the girl ' s wit came to their aid. She said, You know the roads are terribly muddy, and they will be having a hard march. I shall go and try to persuiade them to let me show them the easier but longer way over the common. It will give you at least ten min- utes more, for, of course, they will come straight to the tavern if they can ! Her mother objected, as she feared the men might harm the girl, but at I ' ast she consented, and Gertrude ran down the street to intercept the soldiers. When they came in sight she found that the majority were dead tired and swearing profanely. Nothing daunted, she finally made the captain notice her, and explained that she would take them round to the tavern by a longer, but easier, route if they would trust them- selves to her guidance. He finally consented, as he saw that his men could stand little more of the rough road; also, the girl was pretty and he was young. When they reached the tavern everything was put away but some fruit, one ham and a keg or two of beer. The soldiers satisfied their hunger and thirst, but there was not enough liquor to become drunk on, and they did not know that in a tiny, oonoealed room in the next house there were quantities of liquor and food. From that day