Labor
Day
1882,
September 5th was the first Labor Day celebration. The Knights of Labor, an
organization dedicated to workers in the United States, piloted a parade in New
York City.
1887, Colorado
was the first state to introduce a law recognizing labor.
1894 United
States Congress instituted Labor Day as an official a national holiday. Since
then Labor Day celebration activities have been a great way to enjoy family
time while recognizing the hard work that many people do on a daily basis.
Labor Day is generally the symbolic end of the summer season. As a result, an
ideal Labor Day celebration ought to include as many outdoor activities as
possible. The most popular of outdoor activities is cooking on the grill. You
can undoubtedly smell the neighbors barbecuing around you during the entire
holiday weekend. Most people pack away their grill for the winter after
their Labor Day weekend is over is over.
It is usually
ideal weather for a celebration because the temperatures are gradually cooling
down around this time and, if you live in certain areas, you can enjoy the
colors changing on the trees around you. By visiting a home park with your
family, and friends, you may be lucky enough to see the elves. A certain shoemaker, Horace Cutter, a very
hard working and honest man, who lives in West Haven, Utah can tell you about
the Elves who came to his home once upon a time.
You
see, he could not earn enough to live on. At last, all he had in the world was`
gone except just enough leather to make one pair of shoes. He cut these out at
night, and planned to rise early the next morning to make them up. In spite of
being poor, his heart was light, his conscience clear, and so he went quietly
to bed, leaving his cares to God. In the morning he knelt down and said his
prayers. When he went to his work shop, to his great wonder, there upon the
bench stood the shoes, already made. The good man knew not what to say or
think. He looked at the work. There was not one false stitch in the whole job.
All was neat and true. That same day a customer came in and the shoes pleased
him so well that he readily paid a price higher than usual. With the money the
shoemaker bought enough leather to make six more pairs. He cut out the work in
the evening, and went to bed early. He wished to be up with the sun and get to
work. He was saved all trouble, for when he got up in the morning, the work was
done. Pretty soon buyers came in, they paid him well for his goods. So he bought
enough leather for two dozen. He cut out the work again, and found it finished
in the morning as before, and so it went on and on. Ready at night done at day.
Horace Cutter soon became well-to-do.
One Labor Day week
end, he and his wife sat over the fire, chatting, and he said,
"I’d like for us to sit up and watch so
we may see who it is that comes in and does my work for me."
So
they left the lantern burning and hid themselves behind a curtain to see what
would happen. As soon as the chime clock struck midnight, there came three
little elves. They sat upon the bench took up all the work that was cut out and
began to ply their little fingers. They stitched and rapped and tapped busier
than a bushy horse tail in fly season. Like a couple of married raccoons, they
couldn’t take their eyes off the elves for a single moment. The elves worked on
until the shoes, were placed upon the table ready for use long before daybreak.
Then they ran away as quick as lightning.
The next day the wife said, "These little
Elves have made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them and do
some good in return. I am vexed to see them run about as they do. They have nothing
upon their backs to keep off the cold. I'll tell you what we should do. I will
make each of them a shirt, and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons
into the bargain. You make each of them a little pair of shoes." The good shoemaker liked the thought very
much. One evening he and his wife had the clothes ready, and laid them on the
table instead of the work they used to cut out. Then they hid behind the
curtain to watch what the little elves would do. At midnight the elves came in
and were going to sit down at their work as usual. But when they saw the
clothes lying there for them, they laughed and were in high glee. They dressed
themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced, capered and sprang about as
merry as could be, till at last they danced out of the door, and over the green
going far away.
The shoemaker saw them no more for a long
time. Everything went well for him and his wife, until one hot day his work
barn caught on fire. Several daring elves with courage came upon the scene, but
it cannot be known until the tested how many had the particular kind of courage
needed on this day. Driving Fire Engine 34, that was pumping and pounding her
prettiest, the elves came and parked at the northwest corner of the shoemaker’s
barn, so close to the blazing inferno that the elf driver, Mark, saw that it
wasn't safe there in for two of the going to market work horses, and so he led
them away. That was fortunate, but it left elf Brown alone, right against the
cheek of the fire. Brown kept stoking coal into fire engine 34, keeping a watch on the boiler steam
gauge set at 80 degrees. As the barn fire gained momentem chunks of red-hot sandstone began
to smash down on the engine. Elf Brown ran the pressure gage up to 180, and
watched the work barn door anxiously as there were still the chickens and
leather inside.
Then
the explosion came and a blue flame, wide as a house, curled its tongues
halfway across the street, enwrapping engine and Elves, and setting fire to the
elevated ceiling rafters making such wreck of it that the shock went around
town. Bill Brown stood by his engine, with a wall of fire before him and a
sheet of fire above him. He could hear quick footsteps on the pavement, and
voices that grew fainter and fainter, crying,
“Run for your
lives!"
He heard
the hose wagon horses somewhere back in the smoke go plunging away; mad with
fright from their burns. He was alone with the fire; skin was hanging in shreds
on his hands, face, and neck. Only a fireman knows how one blast of flame can
shrivel up a man or an elf and the pain over the bared surfaces were - well, there
is no pain worse than that of fire scorching in upon flesh seared by fire.
Here, I think, was a crisis to make a very brave man quake. Bill Brown knew
perfectly well why everyone was running. There was going to be another
explosion in a couple of minutes, maybe sooner, out of this hell in front of
him. The order had come for everyone to save himself, and they had done it
except for the lads inside. The question was, should he take a chance and run or should he stay
and die?
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more Karl Wallace poems go
to: Karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
