<h2><i>Legal and Local Holidays in the United States.</i></h2>
<br/>
<p class="in"><b>JANUARY 1, New Year's Day.</b> On this day the Flowing Bowl is
filled—and emptied—and the Genial Palm circulated in forty-three
States and Territories out of forty-nine. In Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the Indian Territory
there is no celebration. The natives are too busy collecting good
resolutions and bad bills.</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>FEBRUARY 22, Washington's Birthday.</b> (George, not Booker), is
remembered by thirty-eight of the States. On this day, in the public
schools, are shown pictures of George Chopping the Cherry Tree and
Breaking Up the Delaware Ice Trust, Valley Forge in Winter, and Mt.
Vernon on a Busy Day. The Pride of the Class recites Washington's
"Farewell to the Army," Minnie the Spieler belabors the piano with
the "Washington Post March," and the scholars all eat Washington
Pie, made of "Columbia, the Jam of the Ocean."</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>MARCH 17, St. Patrick's Day and Evacuation Day</b>, when the British
redcoats got out of Boston and Patrick evicted the snakes from
Ireland. For observing the day, wear a turkey-red coat, or vest, and
put a bit of green ribbon, or a shamrock, in the buttonhole—the
green above the red. On Easter day, wear a scrambled egg in the same
place.</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>APRIL 19, Patriot's Day.</b> A New England successor to FAST DAY—the
slowest day of the year. Originally invented for Fasting and Prayer.
Now used exclusively for opening the Baseball Season, Locating a
Seashore Home for the Summer, and watching Red-Shirted Diogenes at
his Tub.</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Little drops of water,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Little lines of hose,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Make the mighty Muster<br/></span>
<span class="i2">As ev'ry Laddie knows.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>MAY 1, Moving Day.</b> Observed everywhere by The Restless Tenant.</p>
<hr />
<div style="margin-left: 1em;">
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Memorial Days">
<tr>
<td width="25%" class="tdl" style="border-right: 2px black solid;"><b>APRIL 26</b></td>
<td width="40%" class="tdc" rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle;"><b>Memorial Days</b></td>
<td width="35%" class="tdl" style="border-left: 2px black solid;"><b>In "Dixie"</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl" style="border-right: 2px black solid;"><b>MAY 30</b></td>
<td class="tdl" style="border-left: 2px black solid;"><b>In the North</b></td>
</tr>
</table></div>
<p class="in">A Symphony in Blue and Gray.</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>JUNE 17, Bunker Hill Day.</b> Celebrated in Boston, Mass., by a
procession of the Ancient and Horrible Distillery Company, a few of
the City Fathers in hacks, a picked bunch of Navy Yard sailors and
occasionally a few samples from a Wild West Show. For 24 hours,
pistols and firecrackers are allowed to mutilate Young America <i>ad
lib</i>.</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>JULY 4, Independence Day.</b> A national holiday, invented for the
benefit of popcorn and peanut promoters; tin horn and toy-balloon
vendors; lemonade chemists; dealers in explosives; physicians and
surgeons. A grand chance for the citizen-soldier to hear the roar of
battle, smell powder, shoot the neighbor's cat, and lose a night's
rest—or a finger.</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>LABOR DAY, First Monday in September.</b> The only day when labor
works overtime. An occasion when the workingman takes a cane in
place of a dinner-pail and proudly tramps the streets behind a real
silk banner and a Hod Carrier on a Cart Horse.</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>THANKSGIVING DAY (Last Thursday in November).</b> A day devoted to the
annual division of Turkey—with Greece on the side—by the Hung'ry
folks.</p>
<hr />
<p class="in"><b>DECEMBER 25, Christmas Day.</b> Another national holiday, marked by
the following observances: Filling the young and helpless with a lot
of fiction about Santa Claus, the old chimney fakir, who went up the
flue long ago; making a clothesline of the mantelpiece and robbing
the forest of its young; swapping several things we'd like to keep
for a lot of stuff we don't want; and, finally, putting on in church
a Sunday night performance of light opera, known as "The Sabbath
School Concert."</p>
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