A STORY OF THE FLAG Victor Mapes 201

=PREFACE=

To most young people, holidays mean simply freedom from lessons and a good time.  All this they should mean—­and something more.

It is well to remember, for example, that we owe the pleasure of Thanksgiving to those grateful Pilgrims who gave a feast of thanks for the long-delayed rain that saved their withering crops—­a feast of wild turkeys and pumpkin pies, which has been celebrated now for nearly three centuries.

It is most fitting that the same honor paid to Washington’s Birthday is now given to that of Lincoln, who is as closely associated with the Civil War as our first President is with the Revolution.

Although the birthdays of the three American poets, Whittier, Lowell, and Longfellow, are not holidays, stories relating to these days are included in this collection as signalizing days to be remembered.

In this book are contained stories bearing on our holidays and annual celebrations, from Hallowe’en to the Fourth of July.

=Our Holidays=

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.

SHAKSPERE. King Henry IV, Part I.

=ST. SATURDAY=

[Illustration]

BY HENRY JOHNSTONE

Oh, Friday night’s the queen of nights, because it ushers in
The Feast of good St. Saturday, when studying is a sin,
When studying is a sin, boys, and we may go to play
Not only in the afternoon, but all the livelong day.

St. Saturday—­so legends say—­lived in the ages when
The use of leisure still was known and current among men;
Full seldom and full slow he toiled, and even as he wrought
He’d sit him down and rest awhile, immersed in pious thought.

  He loved to fold his good old arms, to cross his good old knees,
  And in a famous elbow-chair for hours he’d take his ease;
  He had a word for old and young, and when the village boys
  Came out to play, he’d smile on them and never mind the noise.

  So when his time came, honest man, the neighbors all declared
  That one of keener intellect could better have been spared;
  By young and old his loss was mourned in cottage and in hall,
  For if he’d done them little good, he’d done no harm at all.

  In time they made a saint of him, and issued a decree—­
  Since he had loved his ease so well, and been so glad to see
  The children frolic round him and to smile upon their play—­
  That school boys for his sake should have a weekly holiday.

They gave his name unto the day, that as the years roll by
His memory might still be green; and that’s the reason why
We speak his name with gratitude, and oftener by far
Than that of any other saint in all the calendar.