Holiday Tales: Christmas in the Adirondacks

“Ah, friends, dear friends, as years go by and heads get gray, how fast the guests do go! Touch hands, touch hands, with those that stay. Strong hands to weak, old hands to young, around the Christmas board, touch hands. The false forget, the foe forgive, for every guest will go and every fire burn low and cabin empty stand. Forget, forgive, for who may say that Christmas Day may ever come to host or guest again! Touch hands.””

— W. H. H. Murray

“The surface of the snow sparkled with crystals that flashed colorlessly cold. The air seemed armed, and full of sharp, eager points that pricked the skin painfully. The great tree-trunks cracked their sharp protests against the frosty entrances being made beneath their bark. The lake, from under the smothering ice, roared in dismay and pain, and sent the thunders of its wrath at its imprisonment around the resounding shores.””

— W. H. H. Murray

“The sky hung over the frozen world like a dome of gray steel, whose invisibly matched plates were riveted here and there by a few white, gleaming stars.””

— W. H. H. Murray

“with good appetites and a cheerful mind let us all fall to eatin'.””

— W. H. H. Murray

“Through the voiceless darkness a few feathery prophecies of coming snow were settling lazily downward.””

— W. H. H. Murray

“When food is well prepared it delights the eye, it intoxicates the nose, it pleases the tongue, it stimulates the appetite, and prolongs the healthy craving which it finally satisfies, even as the song of the mother charms the child which it gradually composes for slumber.””

— W. H. H. Murray

“Cooking is more than an art; it is a gift. Genius, and genius alone, can prepare a feast fit for the feaster.””

— W. H. H. Murray