Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - Thanksgiving Stories

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Starting point is 00:00:46 please go to sleepcove.com slash support. That's sleepcove.com slash support. If you can't support the show right now, please subscribe with the bell to get alerts on all new free content thank you have you ever gazed in wonder at the great pyramid have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun

Starting point is 00:01:16 or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti if you have you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast every week we explore tales of this ancient culture The history of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt. Hello and welcome to Sleep Cove with Christopher Fitton. A place to come for a great night's sleep. Please listen to this recording in a place where you can safely go to sleep.

Starting point is 00:02:01 Tonight I'm reading the story, two Thanksgiving days. Gentlemen by O. Henry. In the story, O. Henry talks about tradition, where one man buys another man's meal every year for nine years on Thanksgiving Day. It's a short story with a profound ending, and I really hope you enjoy it. To Thanksgiving Day gentlemen.

Starting point is 00:02:38 There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all Americans bless their day. The president gives it to us every year. Sometimes he talks about the people who have the first Thanksgiving. They were the Puritans. There were some people who landed on our Atlantic shore. We don't really remember, but. about them. But those people bought turkey on the first Thanksgiving Day. So we have turkey

Starting point is 00:03:27 for Thanksgiving dinner. If we have enough money to buy turkey is a tradition. Yes, Thanksgiving Day is the one day of the year that is purely American. It is the story to prove to you that we have old traditions, but it is because we are so young and full of life. We do everything quickly. Stuffy Pete sat down on a seat in the New York City Park named Union Square. It was the third seat to the right as you enter Union Square from the east. Every Thanksgiving day for nine years,

Starting point is 00:04:27 he had sat down there at one in the afternoon. This had happened to him. There were wonderful things. They made his heart feel full of joy, and they filled another part of him too. They filled the part below his heart Thanksgiving days. He had been hungry. It is a strange thing.

Starting point is 00:04:57 There are rich people who wish to help the poor, but many of them seem to think that the poor are hungry only on Thanksgiving Day. But today Pete was not hungry. He had come from a dinner so big that he had almost no power to move. His nightgreen eyes looked out from a grey face on which there was still a little food. His breath was short, his body had suddenly become too big for his clothes

Starting point is 00:05:34 it seemed ready to break out of them they were tall you could see his skin through a hole in the front of his shirt but the cold wind with snow in it felt pleasantly cool to him the stuff he peat was overheated with a warmth

Starting point is 00:05:56 of all he had had to eat. Their dinner had been much too big. It seemed to him that his dinner had included all the turkey, all the other food in the whole world. So he sat very, very full. He looked at the world without interest, as if it could never offer him anything more. their dinner had not been expected.

Starting point is 00:06:31 He had been passing a large house near the beginning of that great broad street called Fifth Avenue. It was the home of two old ladies of an old family. These two old ladies had a deep love of traditions. There were certain things they always did. On Thanksgiving Day at noon,

Starting point is 00:06:55 they always sent a service. servant to stand at the door. There he waited for the first hungry person who walked by. The servant had orders to bring that person into the house and feed him until he could eat no more. Stuffy Pete happened to pass by on his way to the park. The servant had gathered him in. Tradition had been followed. Stuffy Pete sat in the park, looking straight before him for ten minutes, felt a desire to look in another direction. With a very great effort, he moved his head slowly to the left. Then his eyes grew wider, and his breathed his feet in their torn shoes at the end of his short legs was coming across 4th Avenue towards Stuffy's seat. Every Thanksgiving day for nine years

Starting point is 00:08:08 the old gentleman had come there to find Stuffy Pete on his seat. That was a thing that the old gentleman was trying to make into a tradition. Every Thanksgiving day for nine years he had found Stuffy there. Then he had led Stuffy there. Then he had led Stuffy. Duffy into a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner. They do these things more easily in old countries like England. They do them without thinking about them. But in this young country, we must think about them. In order to build a tradition,

Starting point is 00:08:50 we must do the same thing again and again for a long time. The old gentleman loved his country. He believed he was helping to build a great American tradition, and he had been doing very well. Nine years is a long time here, the old gentleman moved straight and proud towards the tradition that he was building. Truly feeding stuffy peat once a year was not a very important tradition. There are greater and more important traditions in England But it was a beginning It proved that a tradition

Starting point is 00:09:35 Was at least possible in America The old gentleman was thin and tall and 60 He was dressed on in black He wore eyeglasses His hair was whiter and thinner Than it had been last year His legs did not seem as strong as they had seemed the year before

Starting point is 00:10:00 as this kind old gentleman came towards him stuffy began to shake and his breath but he could not move from his seat so the old gentleman I am glad to see that the troubles of another year have not hurt you you continue to move

Starting point is 00:10:26 in health about the beautiful world for that blessing you and I can give thanks on this day of Thanksgiving. If you come with me, my man, I will give you a dinner that will surely make your body feel as thankful as your mind, to the old gentleman said every time. Every Thanksgiving day for night. The words themselves were almost a tradition.

Starting point is 00:10:58 Always before, they had been music to stuff his ear, but now he looked up at the old day, gentleman's face with tears of suffering in his eyes. The snow turned quickly to water when it fell upon his hot face. The old gentleman was shaking with a cold. He turned away with his back to the wind and did not see Stuffy's eyes. Stuffy had always wondered why the old gentleman seemed sad as he spoke. He did not know that it was because the old gentleman was wishing that he had a son. A son would come there and strong before Stuffy

Starting point is 00:11:50 and say, In remembrance of my father, the old gentleman had no family. He lived in a room in one of the old houses near the park, but the old gentleman had no family. He lived in a room in one of the old houses. In the winter he grew a few flowers there. In the spring he walked on Fifth Avenue.

Starting point is 00:12:25 In the summer, he lived in a farmhouse in the hills outside New York, and he talked of a strange bug he hoped someday to find. In the full season, he gave Stuffy a dinner. These were the things that filled the old gentleman's life. Stuffy Pete looked up at him for half a minute. helpless and very sorry for himself gentleman's eyes were bright with the giving pleasure his face was getting older every year but his clothes were very clean and fresh and then stuffy made a strange noise he was trying to speak as the old gentleman had heard the noise nine

Starting point is 00:13:20 times before, he understood it. He knew that stuffy was accepting. Thank you, I'm very hungry. Stuffy was at very full, but he understood that he was part of a tradition. His desire for food on Thanksgiving Day was not his own. It belonged to this kind old gentleman. True, America is free, that there are some things that must be done. The old gentleman led stuffy to the restaurant and to the same table where they had always gone. They were known there. Here comes the old man, said a waiter,

Starting point is 00:14:06 that buys that old no good fellow a dinner every Thanksgiving. The old gentleman sat at the table watching. The waiters brought food and more food, and Stuffy began to eat no great and famous soldier ever battled more strongly against an enemy. The turkey and all the other food were gone almost as quickly as they appeared. Stuffy saw the look of happiness on the old gentleman's face. You continue to eat till was finished. Thank you, Stuffy said. Thank you for my thanks. Thanksgiving dinner, then he stood up heavily and started to go to the wrong door.

Starting point is 00:15:00 A waiter turned him the right direction. The old gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 and left $0.15 more for the waiter. They said goodbye as they did each hear at the door. The old gentleman went south and stuffy went north. stuffy went around the first corner and stood for one minute where he was found he was picked up and taken to a hospital

Starting point is 00:15:35 they put him on a bed and began to try to discover what strange sickness had made him fall as an hour later the old gentleman was brought to the same hospital and they put him on another bed and began to try to discover what his sickness could be.

Starting point is 00:15:57 Doctors met that nice old gentleman over there, he said. Do you know what's wrong with him? He's almost dead for need of food. A very proud old man, I think. He has had nothing to eat for three days.

Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - Thanksgiving Stories

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