New Hampshire Neighbors — Watson Hill

New Hampshire/Maine, 1916

Frank Wilkinson and family from East Wakefield called to see his father Sunday for a short time. They came in an automobile.

Mrs. Ruth K. Moulton is spending her vacation on the Hill with her mother, Mrs. Sadie Kezar.

Mr. H. S. Rass and family returned to their home in Boston Saturday after spending a very pleasant summer at Hornheam Hill.

Mrs. Ida Waston[*] called on Mr. and Mrs. Eli Wilkin Sunday afternoon.

Most everyone is getting back to the city now and it leaves the summer places kind of lonesome until another year.

Mr. and Mrs. Alphonse Wilkin and son of Salem recently spent a few days with his father.

Miss Nellie Kezar spent the weekend of last week in Rochester returning Monday.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 3.

Note: [*] Perhaps should be Ida Watson since the place is Watson Hill. Just a guess (educated), but I left it Waston.

Lessons of Winter

1874

There is no season of the year so well calculated to bind us together in the ties of a common brotherhood as is winter. Nature claims and receives our sympathy in all her varied aspects.

In the spring we rejoice in her renewed activity, and greet with delight her balmy air and budding beauty. As the summer approaches, we disperse to behold her in new phases and to enjoy her cool breezes from mountain and sea. In the fall we witness with tender sadness the departure of the gorgeous foliage and rich bloom, and still linger lovingly among her shadows. But when nature puts on her winter's dress, she bears a different message to us all.

With the bleak wind and stinging frost she sends us from her presence for a time, and bids us draw closer to one another for warmth and comfort. She brings more forcibly to the mind the delights of home and friends, and at the same time speaks impressively of the pain and sorrow, poverty and woe that call for sympathy and help.

Each season has its appropriate lesson, and that of winter is surely intended to strengthen within us the spirit of humanity that shall blossom into brotherly love and kindness. As the dusk of twilight calls the children away from outdoor play to assemble in the home, and brighten the family with their cheerful presence, so winter calls the human family from their summer rambles into a more intimate communion and sympathy with each other.

It is a pleasant task to learn one part of winter's teachings, that which relates to social and domestic union. The festivities of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the long winter evenings, the cheerful fireside, the lectures, concerts and social gatherings, the hilarity of the young, and the cheerful sympathy of the old all draw families and friends together in closer bonds.

All honor to the merry pastimes, the genial society, the friendly harmony which winter inaugurates. Let parents and children devote themselves more assiduously to each other, let brothers and sisters strengthen fraternal love by kindly offices and close companionship, let acquaintances blossom into friends, and friendly intercourse ripen affection, and, above all, let the sympathy thus developed serve to inspire each with higher purposes and nobler aims, and one part of winter's mission, will have been accomplished.

Summer's Slipping (poetry)

1922

Poems You Will Enjoy
By Berton Braley

SUMMER'S SLIPPING
The summer's almost gone again,
And fall is coming on again,
When we must really get upon the job;
When we must quit our pleasuring,
And start once more to treasuring
The work that keeps the busy
world athrob.

The small boy thinks unpleasantly
Of school days coming presently;
He'd like to have vacation all the year.
Fall styles are in the stores again,
We'll soon read football scores again,
And apples on the menu will appear.

Straw hats will soon be laid away,
And Palm Beach suits will fade away,
And oysters will again be fit to eat.
Dramatic stars will flash again,
And college boys grow brash again,
And we won't be complaining of the heat.

Thus, after summer's lazy days,
We'll have the golden, hazy-days
When we'll have lots of pep on which to call,
As back to work we turn again,
To earn the coal to burn again,
When winter comes along right after fall!