I am not the only person interested in old-time things. There are others who can speak and write about them far better than I. One such person is Miss Florence Nelson of Livermore, Maine, whose new book I am pleased to commend to your attention. Under the imprint of the Falmouth Press in Portland, Miss Nelson has written a volume which she entitles “Lest We Forget”. That trite, nostalgic title does not do the book justice, for its contents, though indeed nostalgic, are anything but trite.<\/p>\n
Miss Nelson is an accomplished writer, with a style that gives both clarity and pungency to the scenes and incidents, the customs and objects, the anecdotes and sayings, which she brings to us from grandmother’s day. Her present home at Livermore is a Mecca for visiting artists, authors and teachers. A former teacher of Latin, Miss Nelson has a background of sound classical education and wide travel from which to view in perspective the admittedly narrow scene of the old New England homestead of two generations ago. She is not writing from hearsay. From the broad perspective of a busy, erudite and traveled life, Miss Nelson can now write about things of long ago, II all of which she saw and part of which she was”.<\/p>\n
Within the first two pages of Miss Nelson’s book one encounters the Balm of Gilead tree. What memories that revives! There was such a tree in my grandmother’s yard at Bridgton. Among a lot of old snapshots is one of my brother, then five years old, standing with his little cart beside the huge trunk of that spreading tree. Under its shade the whole family, including all the in laws, used to gather on warm Sunday afternoons, after one of grandmother’s enormous dinners.<\/p>\n
What is the best proof that people lived on now abandoned spots where not even an old cellar-hole remains? Lilac bushes! It is the lilacs, says Miss Nelson, that provide the best evidence of homes gone by. On this program I have previously referred to the amazement of mid-westerners at what we Maine folk call a set of buildings. To be sure, the term is now loosely used to denote all the near-by buildings on a place, including a barn across the road. But the phrase “set of buildings” originally referred to house, sheds, and barn, connected in one long\u00b7line. The arrangement, admittedly dangerous in case of fire, had the big advantage of permitting passage from house to barn without going out-of-doors. An example of Miss Nelson’s delightful style is her witty and original simile taken from the old grammar books. “A Maine set of buildings”, she writes, “is like a compound sentance, with the two principal clauses, barn and house, connected by the conjunction ‘and’ — <\/strong>the shed.”<\/p>\n I certainly recall that the parlor in old-time Maine homes was said to be reserved for weddings and funerals. I had forgotten what O. Henry would have called a third ingredient until Miss Nelson’s book reminded me. The parlor, she says, was reserved for weddings, funerals and the minister. Probably that was true in most country homes, but not in the case of my boyhood, because the one incident I best remember about a minister’s call concerned the combined living room – dining room, between the kitchen and the parlor in our house, and it also concerned that brother who stood with his cart under the Balm of Gilead tree. My paternal grandmother was a devout Methodist who would never countenance a game of whist or even High Low Jack, but she was an inveterate player of solitaire. She knew she wasn’t supposed to have playing cards in the house, but she probably rationalized that she must be allowed some liberties as a Methodist in a Universalist household.<\/p>\n One day she was busy at her solitaire in the living room, with my brother~ then four or five years old,playing on the floor. Suddenly my mother rushed into the room saying, “Your minister’s coming up the street \u2022. I think he’s coming here. ‘.’ Hastily grandmother gathered up her cards, got out her Bible, and ordered brother to pick up his scattered blocks. In came the clergyman. Sober, religious conversation had scarcely begun when my brother rushed up to grandmother, holding out a card in his hand. “Here, Grammy”, he said, “you forgot your ace of spades.”<\/p>\n Miss Nelson gives a description that would fit many an old-time Maine parlor, certainly the one in my own boyhood home. Red ingrain carpet with a rose pattern, partly covered with hooked rugs. Slippery, haircloth furniture ornamented with knit tidies. How I recall especially the uncomfortable old sofa with springs that all but penetrated a youngster’s hide! The marbletopped table with the big family Bible. The shell that was said to hold yet within itself the roar of the sea. The cardboard motto “God Bless Our Home”. The what-not loaded with bric-a-brac. My own home had neither melodeon nor parlor organ, which Miss Nelson mentions, but it did have the closed blinds to keep the sun from fading the carpet and wall paper.<\/p>\n Miss Nelson says so much about the cellar that I thought I must call her to task for not mentioning the old word cellar-way, which meant the commodious entrance at the top of the cellar stairs. But, finally I caught her using the good old word. What a host of good things were stored in those cellar-ways; pies by the dozen, pickles, jam, butter, milk, cheese, and hosts of other goodies. In the cellar were the bins of apples and vegetables, the barrel of salt pork, and a lot of other necessities. But it was the cellar way that kept many things handy for both housewife and raiding youngsters. As for the attic, Miss Nelson says, “An attic in a New England homestead was often a history of New England told in things.” Speaking of the old leather-covered trunks, she writes: “In one such trunk were a changeable green and black silk dress and a shirred bonnet given a wife by her husband if she would give up smoking. She had always smoked her little clay pipe after meals to aid digestion.”<\/p>\n As for the woodshed, some of us remember it not as Miss Nelson does for its pleasant odor of curing wood and its big, frightening spiders, but for a use which she mentions all too casually. Perhaps some of us owe more than we realize to that occasional, but stern, command: “All right, son, come out into the woodshed.”<\/p>\n How delightfully Miss Nelson writes of the hobbies of grandmother’s day~ the making of patchwork quilts and crazy quilts, of hair wreaths and samplers, of hooked rugs and braided rugs. How feelingly she pays respect to the old watering troughs, the ferries, and the wandering bands of gypsies. With one item Miss Nelson brings back a memory long forgotten: Larkin soap. Is there a man or woman who lived in a Maine country town fifty years ago who did not .at sometime ring door bells to sell Larkin Soap for the varied and lurid premiums offered? Neither the Fuller Brush Man nor the Saturday Evening Post boy ever quite replaced the Larkin Soap clubs.<\/p>\n The old-time things I have mentioned tonight are only a few of those in Miss Nelson’s splendid book. It is replete with fond and lingering memories. I recommend it as the perfect Christmas gift for friend or relative who remembers the good old days.<\/p>\n Now let us turn from old-time things to the foremost issue of our own day — the threat of communism as it spreads through Asia. When we confront these problems, we over and over again see how easily the almighty dollar gets in the way of the noblest ideals. While we would stop communism by diplomatic means, we proceed to encourage it by economic means. Listen to what that competent and experienced correspondent, A. T. Steele, said at the Herald-Tribune Forum:<\/p>\n “Our trade with China is more important to the Communists than it is to us. And the Communists are not doing badly, even without our government’s recognition. Published figures show that the Communists imported more than $4,000,000 worth of goods into North China ports during the month of September and exported more than $3,000,000 worth. Interestingly, the United States was well up in front in this commerce. In August more than 40 per cent of Tientsin’s trading going and coming was with our country.” It’s an old, old story. Patriotism exercises a slim hold where profits are concerned. We should not soon forget the scrap iron sold to Japan in the 1930’s, scrap iron that came\u00b7 back to us in the bodies of American boys killed far from home.<\/p>\n What a common thing is school. How unquestioningly we Americans take it for granted. How hard it is for us to realize what lack of education means to millions of people in the world. At the Herald-Tribune Forum Mrs. Brandon, famous correspondent just returned from Java, was asked the question, “What future do you see for an independent Indonesia?” Because, as some of you will recall, I had been present at the meeting of the Security Council of the U. N. last January, when our Mr. Jessup made his bitter denunciation of Dutch obstruction to Indonesian independence, I was especially interested in Mrs. Brandon’s reply. What future did she see for an independent Indonesia? She said: “The new independence must retain some sort of partnership with the Dutch. Need for Dutch assistance arises from the fact that Indonesians lack training, knowledge and experience with government, business and trade. Less than eight per cent of the 78,000,000 people are literate. In a nation where now only one person in twelve can read or write, education will be slow, expensive and difficult.”<\/p>\n Even in this land of knowledge and plenty — these bountiful United States — there is much to show that education is still slow, expensive and difficult. Progress means eternal vigilance and constant struggle against ignorance. One innate right of every child is the right to know. If peace and harmony ever come to a war-torn world, they will come not through atomic bombs and annihilation of enemies, but through education — through the spread of knowledge that teaches us, as Mme. Pandit put it, to have respect for what the other fellow sincerely regards as his truth, and a capacity to suffer for what we consider to be our own truth.<\/p>\n How long has it been since cows were driven to pasture through the streets of Waterville or Bangor? No doubt there are men now living in both cities who thus drove cows. If so, let’s hear from them. Harry Vose, the dry goods salesman, tells me that his brother Thomas used to drive cows from the corner of Western Avenue and pleasant Street in Waterville down Silver Street and Lower Main Street, across the Ticonic Bridge, to pasture in Winslow.<\/p>\n Harry tells me of a man still living who used to drive a cow from the Western Avenue end of Burleigh Street to pasture beyond Cool Street. Were cows ever pastured on the old circus field in the vicinity of what is now West, Bartlett and Burleigh Streets? Who knows? Come forward, you old cow drivers, let’s hear from you.<\/p>\n Year: 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #42, broadcast on November 13, 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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