Be Not Afraid!

It was Christmas Eve, and after supper, Katherine Alyse and Mia Bella were in the parlor having hot chocolate and cookies.  And Lo!  Jane appeared unto them.

“Be not afraid!” she shouted.

“Jane,” inquired Katherine Alyse, “why are you dressed like that?”

 Leah joined them.  “Jane and I are involved in the children’s nativity pageant at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church.”

“I am portraying the Angel of the Lord.” Jane explained.

“And I am directing it,” said Leah, “I offered Jane the role of Mary, but she turned it down.”

“For to personate the Blessed Virgin,” Jane said, “smacks of Mariolatry.  I know that is not a big deal in this day and age, but hard it is how old habits do die.”

 “Besides,” Jane went on, “I know the Angel of the Lord’s speech down pat, having heard it read all my life.”

“Let’s hear you do it,” said Mia Bella.

  “Be not afrayed, for behold, I bring you tidinges of great joy, that shal come to al people: for unto you is borne this daie in the cytie of David a saviour, which is Christ the lorde. And take this for a signe: ye shall fynde the childe wrapped in swadlyng clothes, and layde in a maungier.”

  

“Glory to God on hye, and peace on the yearth, and unto men a good wyll!”

Merry Christmas to all from the Girls of the Big House by the Park!

(The Book of Common Prayer, 1559)

Thanksgiving Preparations

 Thanksgiving Morning, and Samantha and Nellie were hard at work in the kitchen, getting a day’s-worth of cooking underway.  Julia came into the kitchen, in the company of her cousin, Melissa.

“Happy Thanksgiving, girls,” said Julia, “You remember my cousin, Melissa, from Fridley, Minnesota?”

“Ah, yes,” said Nellie, “The fair-haired flirt!”

“Nellie!”  Samantha scolded, “That’s not a nice thing to say!”

Melissa laughed.  “Not to worry, Samantha.  That is a soubriquet I am proud to own.”

“Melissa will be joining us for Thanksgiving.”  Julia went on.  “She was visiting boring relatives in New York City and took the train up here to have a livelier time with us.”

“There will be plenty of room for another place setting,” said Samantha, “and there’s more than enough food.”

“But I should be helping you,” said Melissa, “What needs doing?  Dicing carrots?  Shelling peas?”

“You’re a guest,” Nellie responded, “and you don’t need to do anything but be fed and entertained.”

“I feel I ought to do something for my brown bread and butter,” said Melissa, “But I don’t want to get in the way.”

Nellie smiled, “It’s a big kitchen, and there’s room for us all.  If you’d really like to help, how are your pie-making skills?”

Melissa laughed again.  “Why, pumpkin pie is my specialty!  No Thanksgiving table is complete without one!”

She set to work at once.

“Ask anyone in Fridley, Minnesota, and they’ll tell you, Melissa Gotz’s pumpkin pies are the absolute best!”

 

RELAXING AT PINEY POINT

The water of Goose Lake was choppy and the steamer was late, but Samantha and Nellie finally arrived at the dock at Piney Point and made their way up to the cabins.

 “Shall we set up housekeeping in one of the small cabins?” asked Nellie.

“I’d rather not,” answered Samantha, “The beds are lumpy and the roofs sometimes leak.”

 

They were agreed to move into the Lodge, so they could each have a room to themselves and be close to the kitchen.

 

They quickly settled into a casual routine.  They hiked the forest trails.

 

They made the traditional annual visit to the site of Fort Augusta Sophia to lay flowers on little Charlotte Fitzwarren’s grave.

 

Then they had a nice picnic nearby.

 

They carried out a new tradition and left out a bowl of bread and milk on Midsummer’s Eve so that the fairies would leave them alone for another year.

 

They were not surprised the next morning to find the bowl empty.

 

One particularly lazy afternoon, Samantha found Nellie sitting outside the Lodge with a very frivolous book.

“It is highly unusual,” she said, “for so little to happen while we are here.  No one has gotten lost, we weren’t attacked by angry fairies, and we haven’t discovered any long-lost graves.”

“I’m perfectly content,” replied Nellie, “to just relax in the woods by the water, and not read anything challenging or improving.”

 

So that is what she did.

Easter Sunday, April 23, 1905

 Jane and Leah were just getting home from Easter Morning Eucharist at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church.

“Katherine Alyse says that today is the official start of White Shoe Season,” said Jane, “Methinks I should take part in this quaint custom that I may be a well-rounded Twentieth-Century Girl.”

“The hats are not bad either,” put in Leah.

 

Kelly Ann came into the dining room with several Easter baskets.  “We have waited for you to get back before we started the egg hunt,” she said, “How was the service?”

“Splendiferous!” Jane was enthusiastic.  “For a small-town parish, St. Annes’ certainly knows how to put on the dog for special occasions!  Never had we anything like this when I was back home.  Golly Ned!  The music, the hymns, the stained glass, the statues, the gold candlesticks, and the vestments!”

“And enough incense to choke a horse,” added Leah.

 

“Sundays back home were so dull and boring,” Jane continued.  “Glad am I to have been supratemporally transmigrated to a time after the Oxford Movement, and the Romanizing of the Anglican Church.  It is like going to the theater now!”

“Well, hang up your hats and let’s start hunting,” said Kelly. “Nellie and Bailey were the Easter Bunny this year; let’s see how well they hid the eggs.”

  

Gila came in and Kelly said, “Come on, Gila, take a basket and join the hunt!”

Gila hesitated.  “I do not know if in this Christian custom I should take part.  That is for you girls.”

Kelly smiled.  “But it is so much more than that, Gila.  Colored eggs at this time of year are fertility symbols, sacred to the Anglo-Saxon goddess, Eostera, Goddess of the Spring.”

Gila frowned, “I think our rabbi back in Lialkadorf would say that is even worse!”

“There was a colored egg on the Seder Plate Thursday night,” Jane observed, “This seems to be a fairly common custom.”

“Besides,” informed Kelly, “some of the hidden eggs are chocolate.”

 

Gila did not have to think long.  “Oh . . . In that case, I think that in the secular observance of this fairly universal Spring Festival I can take part.  After all, what we did with Purim this is like.”

 

The hunt commenced!