The Simple Home Festivals

________________________________________________
_ DON'T you just love the simple old festivals,
like Thanksgiving Day and Christmas?

That's is one thing that Papa and Mamma
and I agree about. And this year we had a very
simple sort of Thanksgiving Day.

Of course, it's rather a bore if you have to invite
a lot of relations.

But one must always sacrifice something to gain
the worth-while things, mustn't one?

And what is more worth while than simplicity?

Simplicity! Simplicity! Isn't it truly WONDERFUL!

Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask myself:
"have I been simple and genuine today? Or have
I FAILED?

Papa always has two maiden aunts to Thanks-
giving dinner. Dear old souls, I suppose, but
frumps, you know.

And Fothergil Finch was there, too. I asked
poor dear Fothy, because otherwise he would have
had to eat in some restaurant.

I tried to be agreeable to Papa's aunts -- of
course. I suppose they are my great-aunts, but I
never felt REALLY related to them -- but how could he
know how terribly unadvanced they are?

Fothy's only real interests center about Art, you
know. And if he had talked of Art it would have
been better.

But, as he told me later, he thought he should
try to meet my people on their own ground and
talk of something practical.

Something with a direct bearing on life, you know.

So he asked Aunt Evelyn what she thought of
Trial Marriages.

She didn't know exactly what he meant at first,
but Aunt Fanny whispered something to her and
she turned white and said, "Mercy!"

Poor dear Fothy saw he must be on the wrong
track, so he changed the subject and began to tell
Aunt Fanny the plot of a new problem play. One
of the sex ones, you know.

"Heavens," said Aunt Fanny, and began to tremble.

And they drew their chairs nearer together and
each one took a bottle of smelling salts out of a
little black bag, and they sat and trembled and
smelled their salts and stared at him perfectly
fascinated.

This embarrassed Fothy, but he though his mistake
had been in talking about anything artistic,
like a play, so he changed the subject again. He
told me afterward that he felt if he could get onto
a really PRACTICAL subject all would go well.

So he asked Aunt Evelyn what she thought about Genetics.

"What are they?" asked Aunt Evelyn, her teeth chattering.

"Why, Eugenics," said Fothy. And then he had
to explain all about Eugenics.

They sat perfectly still and stared at him, and he
felt sure he had them interested at last, and he
talked on and on about Eugenics and the Future
Race, you know, and that led him back to Trial
Marriages, and then he go onto the Twilight Sleep.

And, as he said himself afterward, what could
be more practical?

But, you know, commonplace people never
appreciate the efforts that serious thinkers make for
them, and Aunt Evelyn refused to come to the
table at all when dinner was announced. She said
she had lost her appetite and felt faint.

But Aunt Emmy came. She asked the blessing.
Papa always has her do that on Thanksgiving Day
and Christmas and New Year's. And she made a
regular prayer out of it -- prayed for Fothy, you
know, right before him; and prayed for me too. It
was awful.

And afterward poor dear Fothy said he wished
he had talked about Art.

"It's safe," I said; "then people can't get
offended, for nobody knows what you mean at all."

"Oh," said Fothy, "nobody does?" And he went
away quite melancholy and injured. _

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