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Thanksgiving Daye Frolick
SUGGESTIONS FOR AN ENTERTAINMENT IN THE STYLE OF YE OLDEN TYME. Sufficiently in advance to allow your friends time for preparation send out invitations to ye olden tyme Thanksgiving daye frolick, and intimate therein that appropriate costuming, in strict simplicity, is expected. The young women should wear print gowns and aprons and add the slight touch necessary to turn the prevailing tone of hair-dressing back one leaf farther in quaintness. The men must copy in dress Brother Jonathan's portraits. Have merely a violin, the "fiddle" of early days, for music, and dance gay country dances-the quadrille, Dan Tucker, Virginia reel, and so on, with calling off. The brighter the people that can be brought together and the better the acting of the parties the greater the success of the entertainment, of course. Cover the drawing-room carpet with crash, not only to assist dancing, but also to give an impression of bare floor primitiveness. Move away or cover up all elaborate bric-a-brac and sumptuous furniture. Decorate with corn-stalks, cedar boughs, pumpkins and strings of red peppers. A barrel or two of bright apples standing about would also add to the general effectiveness. In a conspicuous position place a table holding a tray of molasses candy and a large plain white pitcher of sweet cider for the guests' occasional refreshment. Have a large bowl of pop-corn on the table, also. Place on a table in a corner of the room a large pumpkin, decorated prettily with green.
Put on the pumpkin a card, on which is printed, "A guessing contest" of how many seeds this pumpkin contains. Place on the table a basket containing blank cards and a lead pencil, and beside a box with a slit in the cover to drop the cards in. Have each guest write their name on the card with the number of seeds they guess under it. The assistants should take turns in having charge of this table. When through guessing have two of the young people cut the pumpkin open and count the seeds, while another person looks over the cards and puts down on a piece of paper the highest and lowest numbers guessed. Those two numbers are each given a prize. Very few city people guess over 40 or 50 seeds, and great will be their surprise when the census registers five or six hundred. If there is an open fireplace in the room, popping corn there might prove a pleasant change from the dancing, the operation forming a pivot upon which to hang amusing old-time stories and "singin' schule" songs, both in solo and chorus. All this intersperse with the eating of popcorn and apples and the drinking of cider.
Rollicking dancing should end the evening, whatever the other diversions introduced may have been. And the old-time "groaning board" must be spread in the dining-room with early day favorite dishes-roast turkey and little pig served whole, baked beans and brown bread, Indian pudding, hot biscuits and rusks, cucumber and mango pickles, pot cheese, apple butter, damson preserves, fruit and pound cake and doughnuts, coffee with rich cream and glasses of milk. Every touch of realism in the hostess' arrangements, every quaint bit of phraseology or manner in the guests, will add greatly to the charm of the event.
A "RILEY" ENTERTAINMENT.
A "Riley" entertainment makes a very unique and profitable affair for charity organizations holding fairs. The decorations of the parlors consist mainly of paper, which should be artistically entwined about pillar, post and picture. A large picture of James Whitcomb Riley is placed upon the wall facing the entrance, and over it in pasteboard letters: "When the frost is on the pumpkin, And the fodder's in the shock."
The young people who take part in the entertainment are dressed to represent Riley's characters, and several of the most important preside over the booths. At one, which should be literally covered with paper flowers, ""Lizabeth Ann, she can cook best things to eat," sells cakes and pies. At another Riley's poems and photographs are sold, and at still another, "The raggedy man! He works for pa," knocks down apples from an improvised apple tree as fast as he can sell them. And among the purchasers are "Little Orphant Annie," "Granny's come to our house," "The fishing party," "Max and Jim," "Pa and ma and me, all three," and many others. While all are busy buying and tasting the good things, "The old band' marches in, Playing old tunes; Sich tunes as 'John Brown's body' and 'Sweet Alice,' don't you know?
And The camels is a-comin'" and 'John Anderson, my Jo."
Have printed on a large card a couplet from one of Riley's poems and hang it back of where the band is seated, for example: And stylisher and grander tunes, But somehow anyway I want to hear the old Band play such tunes as "John Brown's Body," etc.
Later in the evening some of the Riley poems are recited.