Newspapers / The Pinehurst Outlook (Pinehurst, … / Nov. 25, 1898, edition 1 / Page 2
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THE PINEIIURST OUTLOOK. 2 Agate no occurs in the state, and some material lit for cutting lias been found in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties. Some specimens of moss agate are reported from Orange county. Hutile of line texture has been cut into gems much resembling black diamond in effect but is not often found flawless enough for the purpose. Specimens of malachite, tourmaline, spinel, chrysolite, lazulite, carnelian and jasper have all been found, and occasionally acceptable gems result from these sources. Also from fresh water mussels in creeks and rivers are occasionally secured pearls of fair quality. Xorth Carolina and its Tie sources. A THANKSGIVING FORAGER. New England is the native home of Thanksgiving, and although it has for some years been kept as a national holi day, nowhere in our country does it blossom and bear fruit so vigorously as in its cold northeastern corner. Up there all the preparations for the great feast come along easily and natur ally. During the autumn the hills of Vermont and the little back yards of IUiode Island have resounded with the melodious gobble of fat turkej s. Cape Cod has blushed with cranberries, Maine and Xew Hampshire have been ripening their pumpkins for delicious pies. Con necticut has been whittling nutmegs with which to season them. The grocers and provision dealers know exactly what will be required of them and are ready for any demand that good housewives may make. The boy who drives the de livery wagon can look the mistress of the house squarely in the eye and say over all the things that will be necessary for the Thanksgiving dinner without stopping to take breath. He does not look like a youth who has devoted him self to the study of things recondite and mysterious, and yet he can tell you just what, and how much of each, goes to the making of a mince pie. Being born to Thanksgiving and brought up in the atmosphere of it, nat urally the Xew Englander never forgets it. Wherever he is he must have Thanks giving when its appropriate season comes around. If he is under an alien sky on the last Thursday in November, no matter how brilliant and beautiful its coloring, it has no charms for him. His soul will not be satisfied unless he can behold the crimson glory of cranberry sauce, the golden brownness of a pump kin pie, and smell the rich aroma of roast turkey, accompanied by sage and onions. He may not succeed in attaining to all these delights, perhaps not to any of them, but he will always try, whether he is dining at St. Petersburg, or Athens, or Hong Kong, or Dawson City, or the Xorth Pole. One of these Xew Englanders tells how he foraged for a Thanksgiving din ner in the pine woods of Moorf county, Xorth Carolina, several years ago : It was the morning of the day before Thanksgiving and as yet nothing had been obtained for the prospective feast except two quarts of very small onions. Blank despair sat upon the faces of my wife and I, as we saw the splendid din ner we had planned "shrink to this little compass." To be sure the collapse had not come all at once. For more than ten days previously we had been giving up things, one after another. First, mince pie had disappeared from our bill of fare. I forget how many of the nec essary ingredients were not to be had, but I know that apples was one of them and meat another. "Never mind," said my wife, "we came down here for our health, and it is fortunate for us that we cannot offset all the good the climate is doing us by eat ing mince pies." However, the grief of that renuncia tion was all we could stand for that day. and so we waited until the next before relinquishing our hope of a pumpkin pie. "No," said my wife, kindly but firmly, "we can't have pumpkin pie, that's set tled. But I think that sweet potatoes can be used instead of pumpkin in such a way that, if you don't look too hard at the pie and swallow it pretty fast, you'll think that is, you'll almost think it is the genuine article." After that the turkey and the cranber ry sauce and the plum pudding, one after the other, joined this solemn procession of vanishers, and now we were left alone with our onions. They were strong and faithful friends, beyond doubt, but oh, so little. There was noth ing they could do except to help us weep. "Well," said I, desperately, "I am go ing out foraging. You needn't expect me back until I have found something that is fit to eat on Thanksgiving day," and T started for the door. "Will it be cabbages, do you think?" my wife inquired with such innocence as usually covers, but does not conceal the deepest guile. I suppose she referred to a time, not very long past, when, on going away in the morning, 1 had promised to bring home in the afternoon something for our late dinner, and had fulfilled my promise by arriving about seven o'clock with two cabbages, a trifle larger perhaps, than the rosette on a coachman's hat. But I did not care for reminiscences just then, and so walked away in dignified silence. An hour later I was back home, flushed with triumph, but by no means happy. In a wooden box under my arm were four plump quail, which were the only kind of flesh except dry-salted pork, that the village market afforded. I had bought all there were, and though the quail is rather a small bird, yet four of them would be enough to furnish forth a respectable feast for my small family. I remembered a man in Maine who ex changed the whole crop of potatoes that he had raised on his little patch of ground for a couple of turkeys. When remonstrated with for thus disposing of about all he had to live on for the entire winter, he calmly replied that "he'd just as lives eat turkey as pertaters." In ex changing the enormous imaginary wild turkey, upon which my mind had been feasting for some weeks, for these four substantial little birds I thought I had made a very good exchange indeed. Hence my triumph. But the quail were alive. Hence my sadness. When I looked down through the slats that cov ered the box, and Bob White turned his bright little eye up at me; when I heard him talk in a soft, sweet, regretful voice to the others, it seemed outrageous to think of making a Thanksgiving dinner out of him and his brethren. However, the news with which my wife greeted me steeled my heart. While I was away a stranger had come driving over from the railroad station, and in sisted on staying with us for a while. He was a Massachusetts man, on his way to Florida. He had been recommended to make a short stay in that section, in order to break his long journey, for he was much out of health and easily tired. When his train had gone, he found to his dismay that he could not be accommo dated in the only hotel, on account of the illness of the landlady. So he had come to us, in the hope that we would not refuse him an opportunity to rest and regain his strength before going on southward. Of course we couldn't re fuse. In fact my wife had already es tablished him as comfortably as possible in his room, where he was now resting from the weariness of his journey. "He said he had come just in time to help us eat our Thanksgiving dinner," my wife remarked thoughtfully, as she surveyed two little dead quail lying on the kitchen table not long afterward. "But where are the other two? I thought you brought home four." "They they flew away," said I guil tily, and then added under my breath "I wish these two had got oil', also." "It does seem too bad to kill these poor little things, doesn't it?" said my wife. "But after all, I suppose it is a question of their lives or ours." "Yes, I suppose so," I assented gloom ily. "But I am not sure that Bob White is not a more valuable citizen than i am. At any rate he seems capable of picking up a living for himself and family in this region, and that is something I can't do." "I tell you what you had better do," said my wife cheerily, ignoring my last remark. "Go over to Mr. Comey 's and see if you can't get a chicken. No mat ter if it is rather small, I can put it with these quail and make some kind of a pot pie that will serve to keep us from star vation. Tell him we have company from the North, and that we must have one of his chickens, lie was a Massachusetts man himself once, and ought to have some sympathy for his fellow citizens, trying to make Thanksgiving cheer in a strange land." 1 went, and found Mr. Comey in a hos pitable mood. He invited me into the house and insisted on my sitting down to chat with him. But no, he would not sell a single chicken. He had but. few now, and they were all his personal friends. He would as soon think of sell ing his old father, who was at that very moment asleep up stairs. "Yes," said Mr. Comey, after debating the matter for a moment, "1 think I'd sooner sell my father. For really he is getting so troublesome of late that I can hardly manage him." While Mr. Comey was making these unlilial remarks a gaunt, black chicken had been wandering freely about the room, pecking at the heads of nails in the floor, and sometimes at the buttons on his master's shoes, all the time solilo quizing in a hungry, complaining tone. Just at this -moment it began to hop up the front stairs. "What is that chicken going upstairs for?" I inquired. "Deuce take him ! " cried Comey, start ing up. "He's all the time doing that. Goes up and walks all over father while he's lying on the bed. Makes him swear awfully. Hear that, now ! " There was a wild squawking and flap ping of wings, and scuffling of feet, fol lowed by a crash, and then the shrill PLANT LIFE, to be vig orous and healthy, must have Potash Phosphoric Acid and Nitrogen. These essential elements are to plants, what bread, meat and water are to man. Crops flourish on soils well supplied with Potash. Our pamphlets tell how to buy and apply Tertilizers, and are free to all. GERHAN KALI WORKS, 93 Nassau St., New York. Do You Want FINE JOB PRINTING? Our office is well equipped with New Modern Type First Class Presses Electric Power Competent Workmen Prices Reasonable. Give us a Call. THE OUTLOOK, Pinehurst, N. C. HOME Mfi)E BREAD Can be obtained at the store. Cooked Meats and Pastry should be Ordered the-day before needed. n
The Pinehurst Outlook (Pinehurst, N.C.)
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Nov. 25, 1898, edition 1
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