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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:06:52 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19909-8.txt b/19909-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90f9f94 --- /dev/null +++ b/19909-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10026 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know, +by Various, Edited by Asa Don Dickinson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Asa Don Dickinson + +Release Date: November 23, 2006 [eBook #19909] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD +SHOULD KNOW*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 19909-h.htm or 19909-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19909/19909-h/19909-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19909/19909-h.zip) + + + + + +What Every Child Should Know Library + +GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW + +Edited by + +ASA DON DICKINSON + +Editor of +"The Children's Book of Christmas Stories," Etc. + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "When we rounded the last patch of scrub pines and came +upon the long gray house fairly blazing with light ... the effect was +stunning."] + + + + +Published by Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., for +The Parents' Institute, Inc. +Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine" +52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York + +Copyright, 1915, by Doubleday, Page & Company + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +The Publishers desire to acknowledge the kindness of the Century +Company, Ginn & Co., the J. L. Hammett Company, Harper & Brothers, the +Houghton, Mifflin Company, the J. B. Lippincott Company, the Lothrop, +Lee & Shepard Company, the Outlook Company, the Perry Mason Company, +Charles Scribner's Sons, and others, who have granted permission to +reproduce herein selections from works bearing their copyright. + + + + + +CONTENTS + +(Note.--The stories marked with a star (*) will be most enjoyed by +younger children; those marked with a (dagger) are better suited to +older children.) + + +*The Kingdom of the Greedy. _By P. J. Stahl_ + +Thankful. _By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman_ + +Beetle Ring's Thanksgiving Mascot. _By Sheldon C. Stoddard_ + +[dagger]Mistress Esteem Elliott's Molasses Cake. _By Kate Upson Clark_ + +The First Thanksgiving. _By Albert F. Blaisdell and Francis K. Ball_ + +[dagger]Thanksgiving at Todd's Asylum. _By Winthrop Packard_ + +How We Kept Thanksgiving at Oldtown. _By Harriet Beecher Stowe_ + +*Wishbone Valley. _By R. K. Munkittrick_ + +Patem's Salmagundi. _By E. S. Brooks_ + +Miss November's Dinner Party. _By Agnes Carr_ + +*The Visit. _By Maud Lindsay_ + +The Story of Ruth and Naomi. _Adapted from the Bible_ + +Bert's Thanksgiving. _By J. T. Trowbridge_ + +*A Thanksgiving Story. _By Miss L. B. Pingree_ + +[dagger]John Inglefield's Thanksgiving. _By Nathaniel Hawthorne_ + +How Obadiah Brought About a Thanksgiving. _By Emily Hewitt Leland_ + +The White Turkey's Wing. _By Sophie Swet_ + +*The Thanksgiving Goose. _By Fannie Wilder Brown_ + +[dagger]An English Dinner of Thanksgiving. _By George Eliot_ + +A Novel Postman. _By Alice Wheildon_ + +[dagger]Ezra's Thanksgivin' Out West _By Eugene Field_ + +*Chip's Thanksgiving. _By Annie Hamilton Donnell_ + +[dagger]The Master of the Harvest. _By Mrs. Alfred Gatty_ + +*A Thanksgiving Dinner. _By Edna Payson Brett_ + +Two Old Boys. _By Pauline Shackleford Colyar_ + +A Thanksgiving Dinner That Flew Away. _By Hezekiah Butterworth_ + +[dagger]Mon-daw-min. _By H. R. Schoolcraft_ + +A Mystery in the Kitchen. _By Olive Thorne Miller_ + +*Who Ate the Dolly's Dinner? _By Isabel Gordon Curtis_ + +[dagger]An Old-fashioned Thanksgiving. _By Rose Terry Cooke_ + +1800 and Froze to Death. By _C. A. Stephens_ + + + + + + +THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THANKSGIVING STORIES + +THE KINGDOM OF THE GREEDY + +BY P. J. STAHL. + +TRANSLATED BY LAURA W. JOHNSON. + + This fairy tale of a gormandizing people contains no mention + of Thanksgiving Day. Yet its connection with our American + festival is obvious. Every one who likes fairy tales will + enjoy reading it. + + +The country of the Greedy, well known in history, was ruled by a king +who had much trouble. His subjects were well behaved, but they had one +sad fault: they were too fond of pies and tarts. It was as +disagreeable to them to swallow a spoonful of soup as if it were so +much sea water, and it would take a policeman to make them open their +mouths for a bit of meat, either boiled or roasted. This deplorable +taste made the fortunes of the pastry cooks, but also of the +apothecaries. Families ruined themselves in pills and powders; +camomile, rhubarb, and peppermint trebled in price, as well as other +disagreeable remedies, such as castor ---- which I will not name. + +The King of the Greedy sought long for the means of correcting this +fatal passion for sweets, but even the faculty were puzzled. + +"Your Majesty," said the great court doctor, Olibriers, at his last +audience, "your people look like putty! They are incurable; their +senseless love for good eating will bring them all to the grave." + +This view of things did not suit the King. He was wise, and saw very +plainly that a monarch without subjects would be but a sorry king. + +Happily, after this utter failure of the doctors, there came into the +mind of His Majesty a first-class idea: he telegraphed for Mother +Mitchel, the most celebrated of all pastry cooks. Mother Mitchel soon +arrived, with her black cat, Fanfreluche, who accompanied her +everywhere. He was an incomparable cat. He had not his equal as an +adviser and a taster of tarts. + +Mother Mitchel having respectfully inquired what she and her cat could +do for His Majesty, the King demanded of the astonished pastry cook a +tart as big as the capitol--bigger even, if possible, but no smaller! +When the King uttered this astounding order, deep emotion was shown by +the chamberlains, the pages, and lackeys. Nothing but the respect due +to his presence prevented them from crying "Long live Your Majesty!" +in his very ears. But the King had seen enough of the enthusiasm of +the populace, and did not allow such sounds in the recesses of his +palace. + +The King gave Mother Mitchel one month to carry out his gigantic +project. "It is enough," she proudly replied, brandishing her crutch. +Then, taking leave of the King, she and her cat set out for their +home. + +On the way Mother Mitchel arranged in her head the plan of the +monument which was to immortalize her, and considered the means of +executing it. As to its form and size, it was to be as exact a copy of +the capitol as possible, since the King had willed it; but its outside +crust should have a beauty all its own. The dome must be adorned with +sugarplums of all colours, and surmounted by a splendid crown of +macaroons, spun sugar, chocolate, and candied fruits. It was no small +affair. + +Mother Mitchel did not like to lose her time. Her plan of battle once +formed, she recruited on her way all the little pastry cooks of the +country, as well as all the tiny six-year-olds who had a sincere love +for the noble callings of scullion and apprentice. There were plenty +of these, as you may suppose, in the country of the Greedy; Mother +Mitchel had her pick of them. + +Mother Mitchel, with the help of her crutch and of Fanfreluche, who +miaowed loud enough to be heard twenty miles off, called upon all the +millers of the land, and commanded them to bring together at a certain +time as many sacks of fine flour as they could grind in a week. There +were only windmills in that country; you may easily believe how they +all began to go. B-r-r-r-r-r! What a noise they made! The clatter was +so great that all the birds flew away to other climes, and even the +clouds fled from the sky. + +At the call of Mother Mitchel all the farmers' wives were set to work; +they rushed to the hencoops to collect the seven thousand fresh eggs +that Mother Mitchel wanted for her great edifice. Deep was the emotion +of the fowls. The hens were inconsolable, and the unhappy creatures +mourned upon the palings for the loss of all their hopes. + +The milkmaids were busy from morning till night in milking the cows. +Mother Mitchel must have twenty thousand pails of milk. All the little +calves were put on half rations. This great work was nothing to them, +and they complained pitifully to their mothers. Many of the cows +protested with energy against this unreasonable tax, which made their +young families so uncomfortable. There were pails upset, and even some +milkmaids went head over heels. But these little accidents did not +chill the enthusiasm of the labourers. + +And now Mother Mitchel called for a thousand pounds of the best +butter. All the churns for twenty miles around began to work in the +most lively manner. Their dashers dashed without ceasing, keeping +perfect time. The butter was tasted, rolled into pats, wrapped up, and +put into baskets. Such energy had never been known before. + +Mother Mitchel passed for a sorceress. It was all because of her cat, +Fanfreluche, with whom she had mysterious doings and pantomimes, and +with whom she talked in her inspired moments, as if he were a real +person. Certainly, since the famous "Puss in Boots," there had never +been an animal so extraordinary; and credulous folks suspected him of +being a magician. Some curious people had the courage to ask +Fanfreluche if this were true; but he had replied by bristling, and +showing his teeth and claws so fiercely, that the conversation had +ended there. Sorceress or not, Mother Mitchel was always obeyed. No +one else was ever served so punctually. + +On the appointed day all the millers arrived with their asses trotting +in single file, each laden with a great sack of flour. Mother Mitchel, +after having examined the quality of the flour, had every sack +accurately weighed. This was head work and hard work, and took time; +but Mother Mitchel was untiring, and her cat, also, for while the +operation lasted he sat on the roof watching. It is only just to say +that the millers of the Greedy Kingdom brought flour not only +faultless but of full weight. They knew that Mother Mitchel was not +joking when she said that others must be as exact with her as she was +with them. Perhaps also they were a little afraid of the cat, whose +great green eyes were always shining upon them like two round lamps, +and never lost sight of them for one moment. + +All the farmers' wives arrived in turn, with baskets of eggs upon +their heads. They did not load their donkeys with them, for fear that +in jogging along they would become omelettes on the way. Mother +Mitchel received them with her usual gravity. She had the patience to +look through every egg to see if it were fresh. + +She did not wish to run the risk of having young chickens in a tart +that was destined for those who could not bear the taste of any meat +however tender and delicate. The number of eggs was complete, and +again Mother Mitchel and her cat had nothing to complain of. This +Greedy nation, though carried away by love of good eating, was +strictly honest. It must be said that where nations are patriotic, +desire for the common good makes them unselfish. Mother Mitchel's tart +was to be the glory of the country, and each one was proud to +contribute to such a great work. + +And now the milkmaids with their pots and pails of milk, and the +buttermakers with their baskets filled with the rich yellow pats of +butter, filed in long procession to the right and left of the cabin of +Mother Mitchel. There was no need for her to examine so carefully the +butter and the milk. She had such a delicate nose that if there had +been a single pat of ancient butter or a pail of sour milk she would +have pounced upon it instantly. But all was perfectly fresh. In that +golden age they did not understand the art, now so well known, of +making milk out of flour and water. Real milk was necessary to make +cheesecakes and ice cream and other delicious confections much adored +in the Greedy Kingdom. If any one had made such a despicable +discovery, he would have been chased from the country as a public +nuisance. + +Then came the grocers, with their aprons of coffee bags, and with the +jolly, mischievous faces the rogues always have. Each one clasped to +his heart a sugar loaf nearly as large as himself, whose summit, +without its paper cap, looked like new-fallen snow upon a pyramid. +Mother Mitchel, with her crutch for a baton, saw them all placed in +her storerooms upon shelves put up for the purpose. She had to be +very strict, for some of the little fellows could hardly part from +their merchandise, and many were indiscreet, with their tongues behind +their great mountains of sugar. If they had been let alone, they would +never have stopped till the sugar was all gone. But they had not +thought of the implacable eye of old Fanfreluche, who, posted upon a +water spout, took note of all their misdeeds. From another quarter +came a whole army of country people, rolling wheelbarrows and carrying +huge baskets, all filled with cherries, plums, peaches, apples, and +pears. All these fruits were so fresh, in such perfect condition, with +their fair shining skins, that they looked like wax or painted marble, +but their delicious perfume proved that they were real. Some little +people, hidden in the corners, took pains to find this out. Between +ourselves, Mother Mitchel made believe not to see them, and took the +precaution of holding Fanfreluche in her arms so that he could not +spring upon them. The fruits were all put into bins, each kind by +itself. And now the preparations were finished. There was no time to +lose before setting to work. + +The spot which Mother Mitchel had chosen for her great edifice was a +pretty hill on which a plateau formed a splendid site. This hill +commanded the capital city, built upon the slope of another hill close +by. After having beaten down the earth till it was as smooth as a +floor, they spread over it loads of bread crumbs, brought from the +baker's, and levelled it with rake and spade, as we do gravel in our +garden walks. Little birds, as greedy as themselves, came in flocks to +the feast, but they might eat as they liked, it would never be missed, +so thick was the carpet. It was a great chance for the bold little +things. + +All the ingredients for the tart were now ready. Upon order of Mother +Mitchel they began to peel the apples and pears and to take out the +pips. The weather was so pleasant that the girls sat out of doors, +upon the ground, in long rows. The sun looked down upon them with a +merry face. Each of the little workers had a big earthen pan, and +peeled incessantly the apples which the boys brought them. When the +pans were full, they were carried away and others were brought. They +had also to carry away the peels, or the girls would have been buried +in them. Never was there such a peeling before. + +Not far away, the children were stoning the plums, cherries, and +peaches. This work, being the easiest, was given to the youngest and +most inexperienced hands, which were all first carefully washed, for +Mother Mitchel, though not very particular about her own toilet, was +very neat in her cooking. The schoolhouse, long unused (for in the +country of the Greedy they had forgotten everything), was arranged for +this second class of workers, and the cat was their inspector. He +walked round and round, growling if he saw the fruit popping into any +of the little mouths. If they had dared, how they would have pelted +him with plum stones! But no one risked it. Fanfreluche was not to be +trifled with. + +In those days powdered sugar had not been invented, and to grate it +all was no small affair. It was the work that the grocers used to +dislike the most; both lungs and arms were soon tired. But Mother +Mitchel was there to sustain them with her unequalled energy. She +chose the labourers from the most robust of the boys. With mallet and +knife she broke the cones into round pieces, and they grated them till +they were too small to hold. The bits were put into baskets to be +pounded. One would never have expected to find all the thousand pounds +of sugar again. But a new miracle was wrought by Mother Mitchel. It +was all there! + +It was then the turn of the ambitious scullions to enter the lists and +break the seven thousand eggs for Mother Mitchel. It was not hard to +break them--any fool could do that; but to separate adroitly the yolks +and the whites demands some talent, and, above all, great care. We +dare not say that there were no accidents here, no eggs too well +scrambled, no baskets upset. But the experience of Mother Mitchel had +counted upon such things, and it may truly be said that there were +never so many eggs broken at once, or ever could be again. To make an +omelette of them would have taken a saucepan as large as a skating +pond, and the fattest cook that ever lived could not hold the handle +of such a saucepan. + +But this was not all. Now that the yolks and whites were once divided, +they must each be beaten separately in wooden bowls, to give them the +necessary lightness. The egg beaters were marshalled into two +brigades, the yellow and the white. Every one preferred the white, for +it was much more amusing to make those snowy masses that rose up so +high than to beat the yolks, which knew no better than to mix together +like so much sauce. Mother Mitchel, with her usual wisdom, had avoided +this difficulty by casting lots. Thus, those who were not on the white +side had no reason to complain of oppression. And truly, when all was +done, the whites and the yellows were equally tired. All had cramps in +their hands. + +Now began the real labour of Mother Mitchel. Till now she had been the +commander-in-chief--the head only; now she put her own finger in the +pie. First, she had to make sweetmeats and jam out of all the immense +quantity of fruit she had stored. For this, as she could only do one +kind at a time, she had ten kettles, each as big as a dinner table. +During forty-eight hours the cooking went on; a dozen scullions blew +the fire and put on the fuel. Mother Mitchel, with a spoon that four +modern cooks could hardly lift, never ceased stirring and trying the +boiling fruit. Three expert tasters, chosen from the most dainty, had +orders to report progress every half hour. + +It is unnecessary to state that all the sweetmeats were perfectly +successful, or that they were of exquisite consistency, colour, and +perfume. With Mother Mitchel there was no such word as _fail_. When +each kind of sweetmeat was finished, she skimmed it, and put it away +to cool in enormous bowls before potting. She did not use for this the +usual little glass or earthen jars, but great stone ones, like those +in the "Forty Thieves." Not only did these take less time to fill, but +they were safe from the children. The scum and the scrapings were +something, to be sure. But there was little Toto, who thought this was +not enough. He would have jumped into one of the bowls if they had not +held him. + +Mother Mitchel, who thought of everything, had ordered two hundred +great kneading troughs, wishing that all the utensils of this great +work should be perfectly new. These two hundred troughs, like her +other materials, were all delivered punctually and in good order. The +pastry cooks rolled up their sleeves and began to knead the dough with +cries of "Hi! Hi!" that could be heard for miles. It was odd to see +this army of bakers in serried ranks, all making the same gestures at +once, like well-disciplined soldiers, stooping and rising together in +time, so that a foreign ambassador wrote to his court that he wished +his people could load and fire as well as these could knead. Such +praise a people never forgets. + +When each troughful of paste was approved it was moulded with care +into the form of bricks, and with the aid of the engineer-in-chief, a +young genius who had gained the first prize in the school of +architecture, the majestic edifice was begun. Mother Mitchel herself +drew the plan; in following her directions, the young engineer showed +himself modest beyond all praise. He had the good sense to understand +that the architecture of tarts and pies had rules of its own, and that +therefore the experience of Mother Mitchel was worth all the +scientific theories in the world. + +The inside of the monument was divided into as many compartments as +there were kinds of fruits. The walls were no less than four feet +thick. When they were finished, twenty-four ladders were set up, and +twenty-four experienced cooks ascended them. These first-class artists +were each of them armed with an enormous cooking spoon. Behind them, +on the lower rounds of the ladders, followed the kitchen boys, +carrying on their heads pots and pans filled to the brim with jam and +sweetmeats, each sort ready to be poured into its destined +compartment. This colossal labour was accomplished in one day, and +with wonderful exactness. + +When the sweetmeats were used to the last drop, when the great spoons +had done all their work, the twenty-four cooks descended to earth +again. The intrepid Mother Mitchel, who had never quitted the spot, +now ascended, followed by the noble Fanfreluche, and dipped her finger +into each of the compartments, to assure herself that everything was +right. This part of her duty was not disagreeable, and many of the +scullions would have liked to perform it. But they might have lingered +too long over the enchanting task. As for Mother Mitchel, she had been +too well used to sweets to be excited now. She only wished to do her +duty and to insure success. + +All went on well. Mother Mitchel had given her approbation. Nothing +was needed now but to crown the sublime and delicious edifice by +placing upon it the crust--that is, the roof, or dome. This delicate +operation was confided to the engineer-in-chief who now showed his +superior genius. The dome, made beforehand of a single piece, was +raised in the air by means of twelve balloons, whose force of +ascension had been carefully calculated. First it was directed, by +ropes, exactly over the top of the tart; then at the word of command +it gently descended upon the right spot. It was not a quarter of an +inch out of place. This was a great triumph for Mother Mitchel and her +able assistant. + +But all was not over. How should this colossal tart be cooked? That +was the question that agitated all the people of the Greedy country, +who came in crowds--lords and commons--to gaze at the wonderful +spectacle. + +Some of the envious or ill-tempered declared it would be impossible to +cook the edifice which Mother Mitchel had built; and the doctors were, +no one knows why, the saddest of all. Mother Mitchel, smiling at the +general bewilderment, mounted the summit of the tart; she waved her +crutch in the air, and while her cat miaowed in his sweetest voice, +suddenly there issued from the woods a vast number of masons, drawing +wagons of well-baked bricks, which they had prepared in secret. This +sight silenced the ill-wishers and filled the hearts of the Greedy +with hope. + +In two days an enormous furnace was built around and above the +colossal tart, which found itself shut up in an immense earthen pot. +Thirty huge mouths, which were connected with thousands of winding +pipes for conducting heat all over the building, were soon choked with +fuel, by the help of two hundred charcoal burners, who, obeying a +private signal, came forth in long array from the forest, each +carrying his sack of coal. Behind them stood Mother Mitchel with a box +of matches, ready to fire each oven as it was filled. Of course the +kindlings had not been forgotten, and was all soon in a blaze. + +When the fire was lighted in the thirty ovens, when they saw the +clouds of smoke rolling above the dome, that announced that the +cooking had begun, the joy of the people was boundless. Poets +improvised odes, and musicians sung verses without end, in honour of +the superb prince who had been inspired to feed his people in so +dainty a manner, when other rulers could not give them enough even of +dry bread. The names of Mother Mitchel and of the illustrious engineer +were not forgotten in this great glorification. Next to His Majesty, +they were certainly the first of mankind, and their names were worthy +of going down with his to the remotest posterity. + +All the envious ones were thunderstruck. They tried to console +themselves by saying that the work was not yet finished, and that an +accident might happen at the last moment. But they did not really +believe a word of this. Notwithstanding all their efforts to look +cheerful, it had to be acknowledged that the cooking was possible. +Their last resource was to declare the tart a bad one, but that would +be biting off their own noses. As for declining to eat it, envy could +never go so far as that in the country of the Greedy. + +After two days, the unerring nose of Mother Mitchel discovered that +the tart was cooked to perfection. The whole country was perfumed with +its delicious aroma. Nothing more remained but to take down the +furnaces. Mother Mitchel made her official announcement to His +Majesty, who was delighted, and complimented her upon her punctuality. +One day was still wanting to complete the month. During this time the +people gave their eager help to the engineer in the demolition, +wishing to have a hand in the great national work and to hasten the +blessed moment. In the twinkling of an eye the thing was done. The +bricks were taken down one by one, counted carefully, and carried into +the forest again, to serve for another occasion. + +The TART, unveiled, appeared at last in all its majesty and splendour. +The dome was gilded, and reflected the rays of the sun in the most +dazzling manner. The wildest excitement and rapture ran through the +land of the Greedy. Each one sniffed with open nostrils the appetizing +perfume. Their mouths watered, their eyes filled with tears, they +embraced, pressed each other's hands, and indulged in touching +pantomimes. Then the people of town and country, united by one +rapturous feeling, joined hands, and danced in a ring around the +grand confection. + +No one dared to touch the tart before the arrival of His Majesty. +Meanwhile, something must be done to allay the universal impatience, +and they resolved to show Mother Mitchel the gratitude with which all +hearts were filled. She was crowned with the laurel of _conquerors_, +which is also the laurel of _sauce_, thus serving a double purpose. +Then they placed her, with her crutch and her cat, upon a sort of +throne, and carried her all round her vast work. Before her marched +all the musicians of the town, dancing, drumming, fifing, and tooting +upon all instruments, while behind her pressed an enthusiastic crowd, +who rent the air with their plaudits and filled it with a shower of +caps. Her fame was complete, and a noble pride shone on her +countenance. + +The royal procession arrived. A grand stairway had been built, so that +the King and his ministers could mount to the summit of this +monumental tart. Thence the King, amid a deep silence, thus addressed +his people: + +"My children," said he, "you adore tarts. You despise all other food. +If you could, you would even eat tarts in your sleep. Very well. Eat +as much as you like. Here is one big enough to satisfy you. But know +this, that while there remains a single crumb of this august tart, +from the height of which I am proud to look down on you, all other +food is forbidden you on pain of death. While you are here, I have +ordered all the pantries to be emptied, and all the butchers, bakers, +pork and milk dealers, and fishmongers to shut up their shops. Why +leave them open? Why indeed? Have you not here at discretion what you +love best, and enough to last you ever, _ever_ so long? Devote +yourselves to it with all your hearts. I do not wish you to be bored +with the sight of any other food. + +"Greedy ones! behold your TART!" + +What enthusiastic applause, what frantic hurrahs rent the air, in +answer to this eloquent speech from the throne! + +"Long live the King, Mother Mitchel, and her cat! Long live the tart! +Down with soup! Down with bread! To the bottom of the sea with all +beefsteaks, mutton chops, and roasts!" + +Such cries came from every lip. Old men gently stroked their chops, +children patted their little stomachs, the crowd licked its thousand +lips with eager joy. Even the babies danced in their nurses' arms, so +precocious was the passion for tarts in this singular country. Grave +professors, skipping like kids, declaimed Latin verses in honour of +His Majesty and Mother Mitchel, and the shyest young girls opened +their mouths like the beaks of little birds. As for the doctors, they +felt a joy beyond expression. They had reflected. They understood. +But--my friends!-- + +At last the signal was given. A detachment of the engineer corps +arrived, armed with pick and cutlass, and marched in good order to the +assault. A breach was soon opened, and the distribution began. The +King smiled at the opening in the tart; though vast, it hardly showed +more than a mouse hole in the monstrous wall. + +The King stroked his beard grandly. "All goes well," said he, "for him +who knows how to wait." + +Who can tell how long the feast would have lasted if the King had not +given his command that it should cease? Once more they expressed their +gratitude with cries so stifled that they resembled grunts, and then +rushed to the river. Never had a nation been so besmeared. Some were +daubed to the eyes, others had their ears and hair all sticky. As for +the little ones, they were marmalade from head to foot. When they had +finished their toilets, the river ran all red and yellow and was +sweetened for several hours, to the great surprise of all the fishes. + +Before returning home, the people presented themselves before the King +to receive his commands. + +"Children!" said he, "the feast will begin again exactly at six +o'clock. Give time to wash the dishes and change the tablecloths, and +you may once more give yourselves over to pleasure. You shall feast +twice a day as long as the tart lasts. Do not forget. Yes! if there is +not enough in this one, I will even order ANOTHER from Mother Mitchel; +for you know that great woman is indefatigable. Your happiness is my +only aim." (Marks of universal joy and emotion.) "You understand? +Noon, and six o'clock! There is no need for me to say be punctual! Go, +then, my children--be happy!" + +The second feast was as gay as the first, and as long. A pleasant walk +in the suburbs--first exercise--then a nap, had refreshed their +appetites and unlimbered their jaws. But the King fancied that the +breach made in the tart was a little smaller than that of the morning. + +"'Tis well!" said he, "'tis well! Wait till to-morrow, my friends; +yes, till day after to-morrow, and _next week_!" + +The next day the feast still went on gayly; yet at the evening meal +the King noticed some empty seats. + +"Why is this?" said he, with pretended indifference, to the court +physician. + +"Your Majesty," said the great Olibriers, "a few weak stomachs; that +is all." + +On the next day there were larger empty spaces. The enthusiasm visibly +abated. The eighth day the crowd had diminished one half; the ninth, +three quarters; the tenth day, of the thousand who came at first, only +two hundred remained; on the eleventh day only one hundred; and on the +twelfth--alas! who would have thought it?--a single one answered to +the call. Truly he was big enough. His body resembled a hogshead, his +mouth an oven, and his lips--we dare not say what. He was known in the +town by the name of Patapouf. They dug out a fresh lump for him from +the middle of the tart. It quickly vanished in his vast interior, and +he retired with great dignity, proud to maintain the honour of his +name and the glory of the Greedy Kingdom. + +But the next day, even he, the very last, appeared no more. The +unfortunate Patapouf had succumbed, and, like all the other +inhabitants of the country, was in a very bad way. In short, it was +soon known that the whole town had suffered agonies that night from +too much tart. Let us draw a veil over those hours of torture. Mother +Mitchel was in despair. Those ministers who had not guessed the secret +dared not open their lips. All the city was one vast hospital. No one +was seen in the streets but doctors and apothecaries' boys, running +from house to house in frantic haste. It was dreadful! Doctor +Olibriers was nearly knocked out. As for the King, he held his tongue +and shut himself up in his palace, but a secret joy shone in his eyes, +to the wonder of every one. He waited three days without a word. + +The third day, the King said to his ministers: + +"Let us go now and see how my poor people are doing, and feel their +pulse a little." + +The good King went to every house, without forgetting a single one. He +visited small and great, rich and poor. + +"Oh, oh! Your Majesty," said all, "the tart was good, but may we never +see it again! Plague on that tart! Better were dry bread. Your +Majesty, for mercy's sake, a little dry bread! Oh, a morsel of dry +bread, how good it would be!" + +"No, indeed," replied the King. "_There is more of that tart!_" + +"What! Your Majesty, _must_ we eat it all?" + +"You _must_!" sternly replied the King; "you _MUST_! By the immortal +beefsteaks! not one of you shall have a slice of bread, and not a loaf +shall be baked in the kingdom while there remains a crumb of that +excellent tart!" + +"What misery!" thought these poor people. "That tart forever!" + +The sufferers were in despair. There was only one cry through all the +town: "Ow! ow! ow!" For even the strongest and most courageous were in +horrible agonies. They twisted, they writhed, they lay down, they got +up. Always the inexorable colic. The dogs were not happier than their +masters; even they had too much tart. + +The spiteful tart looked in at all the windows. Built upon a height, +it commanded the town. The mere sight of it made everybody ill, and +its former admirers had nothing but curses for it now. Unhappily, +nothing they could say or do made it any smaller; still formidable, it +was a frightful joke for those miserable mortals. Most of them buried +their heads in their pillows, drew their nightcaps over their eyes, +and lay in bed all day to shut out the sight of it. But this would not +do; they knew, they felt it was there. It was a nightmare, a horrible +burden, a torturing anxiety. + +In the midst of this terrible consternation the King remained +inexorable during eight days. His heart bled for his people, but the +lesson must sink deep if it were to bear fruit in future. When their +pains were cured, little by little, through fasting alone, and his +subjects pronounced these trembling words, "We are hungry!" the King +sent them trays laden with--the inevitable tart. + +"Ah!" cried they, with anguish, "the tart again! Always the tart, and +nothing but the tart! Better were death!" + +A few, who were almost famished, shut their eyes, and tried to eat a +bit of the detested food; but it was all in vain--they could not +swallow a mouthful. + +At length came the happy day when the King, thinking their punishment +had been severe enough and could never be forgotten, believed them at +length cured of their greediness. That day he ordered Mother Mitchel +to make in one of her colossal pots a super-excellent soup of which a +bowl was sent to every family. They received it with as much rapture +as the Hebrews did the manna in the desert. They would gladly have had +twice as much, but after their long fast it would not have been +prudent. It was a proof that they had learned something already, that +they understood this. + +The next day, more soup. This time the King allowed slices of bread in +it. How this good soup comforted all the town! The next day there was +a little more bread in it and a little soup meat. Then for a few days +the kind Prince gave them roast beef and vegetables. The cure was +complete. + +The joy over this new diet was as great as ever had been felt for the +tart. It promised to last longer. They were sure to sleep soundly, and +to wake refreshed. It was pleasant to see in every house tables +surrounded with happy, rosy faces, and laden with good nourishing +food. + +The Greedy people never fell back into their old ways. Their once +puffed-out, sallow faces shone with health; they became, not fat, but +muscular, ruddy, and solid. The butchers and bakers reopened their +shops; the pastry cooks and confectioners shut theirs. The country of +the Greedy was turned upside down, and if it kept its name, it was +only from habit. As for the tart, it was forgotten. To-day, in that +marvellous country, there cannot be found a paper of sugarplums or a +basket of cakes. It is charming to see the red lips and the beautiful +teeth of the people. If they have still a king, he may well be proud +to be their ruler. + +Does this story teach that tarts and pies should never be eaten? No; +but there is reason in all things. + +The doctors alone did not profit by this great revolution. They could +not afford to drink wine any longer in a land where indigestion had +become unknown. The apothecaries were no less unhappy, spiders spun +webs over their windows, and their horrible remedies were no longer of +use. + +Ask no more about Mother Mitchel. She was ridiculed without measure by +those who had adored her. To complete her misfortune, she lost her +cat. Alas for Mother Mitchel! + +The King received the reward of his wisdom. His grateful people called +him neither Charles the Bold, nor Peter the Terrible, nor Louis the +Great, but always by the noble name of Prosper I, the Reasonable. + + + + +THANKFUL[1] + +BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN. + + This tale is evidence that Mrs. Freeman understands the + children of New England as well as she knows their parents. + There is a doll in the story, but boys will not mind this as + there are also two turkey-gobblers and a pewter dish full of + Revolutionary bullets. + + +Submit Thompson sat on the stone wall; Sarah Adams, an erect, prim +little figure, ankle-deep in dry grass, stood beside it, holding +Thankful. Thankful was about ten inches long, made of the finest +linen, with little rosy cheeks, and a fine little wig of flax. She +wore a blue wool frock and a red cloak. Sarah held her close. She even +drew a fold of her own blue homespun blanket around her to shield her +from the November wind. The sky was low and gray; the wind blew from +the northeast, and had the breath of snow in it. Submit on the wall +drew her quilted petticoats close down over her feet, and huddled +herself into a small space, but her face gleamed keen and resolute out +of the depths of a great red hood that belonged to her mother. Her +eyes were fixed upon a turkey-gobbler ruffling and bobbing around the +back door of the Adams house. The two gambrel-roofed Thompson and +Adams houses were built as close together as if the little village of +Bridgewater were a city. Acres of land stretched behind them and at +the other sides, but they stood close to the road, and close to each +other. The narrow space between them was divided by a stone wall which +was Submit's and Sarah's trysting-place. They met there every day and +exchanged confidences. They loved each other like sisters--neither of +them had an own sister--but to-day a spirit of rivalry had arisen. + +[Footnote 1: From _Harper's Young People_, November 25, 1890.] + +The tough dry blackberry vines on the wall twisted around Submit; she +looked, with her circle of red petticoat, like some strange late +flower blooming out on the wall. "I know he don't, Sarah Adams," said +she. + +"Father said he'd weigh twenty pounds," returned Sarah, in a small, +weak voice, which still had persistency in it. + +"I don't believe he will. Our Thanksgiving turkey is twice as big. You +know he is, Sarah Adams." + +"No, I don't, Submit Thompson." + +"Yes, you do." + +Sarah lowered her chin, and shook her head with a decision that was +beyond words. She was a thin, delicate-looking little girl, her small +blue-clad figure bent before the wind, but there was resolution in her +high forehead and her sharp chin. + +Submit nodded violently. + +Sarah shook her head again. She hugged Thankful, and shook her head, +with her eyes still staring defiantly into Submit's hood. + +Submit's black eyes in the depths of it were like two sparks. She +nodded vehemently; the gesture was not enough for her; she nodded and +spoke together. "Sarah Adams," said she, "what will you give me if our +turkey is bigger than your turkey?" + +"It ain't." + +"What will you give me if it is?" + +Sarah stared at Submit. "I don't know what you mean, Submit Thompson," +said she, with a stately and puzzled air. + +"Well, I'll tell you. If your turkey weighs more than ours I'll give +you--I'll give you my little work-box with the picture on the top, and +if our turkey weighs more than yours you give me--What will you give +me, Sarah Adams?" + +Sarah hung her flaxen head with a troubled air. "I don't know," said +she. "I don't believe I've got anything mother would be willing to +have me give away." + +"There's Thankful. Your mother wouldn't care if you gave her away." + +Sarah started, and hugged Thankful closer. "Yes, my mother would care, +too," said she. "Don't you know my Aunt Rose from Boston made her and +gave her to me?" + +Sarah's beautiful young Aunt Rose from Boston was the special +admiration of both the little girls. Submit was ordinarily impressed +by her name, but now she took it coolly. + +"What if she did?" she returned. "She can make another. It's just +made out of a piece of old linen, anyhow. My work-box is real +handsome; but you can do just as you are a mind to." + +"Do you mean I can have the work-box to keep?" inquired Sarah. + +"Course I do, if your turkey's bigger." + +Sarah hesitated. "Our turkey is bigger anyhow," she murmured. "Don't +you think I ought to ask mother, Submit?" she inquired suddenly. + +"No! What for? I don't see anything to ask your mother for. She won't +care anything about that rag doll." + +"Ain't you going to ask your mother about the work-box?" + +"No," replied Submit stoutly. "It's mine; my grandmother gave it to +me." + +Sarah reflected. "I _know_ our turkey is the biggest," she said, +looking lovingly at Thankful, as if to justify herself to her. "Well, +I don't care," she added, finally. + +"Will you?" + +"Yes." + +"When's yours going to be killed?" + +"This afternoon." + +"So's ours. Then we'll find out." + +Sarah tucked Thankful closer under her shawl. "I know our turkey is +biggest," said she. She looked very sober, although her voice was +defiant. Just then the great turkey came swinging through the yard. He +held up his head proudly and gobbled. His every feather stood out in +the wind. He seemed enormous--a perfect giant among turkeys. "_Look_ +at him!" said Sarah, edging a little closer to the wall; she was +rather afraid of him. + +"He ain't half so big as ours," returned Submit, stoutly; but her +heart sank. The Thompson turkey did look very large. + +"Submit! Submit!" called a voice from the Thompson house. + +Submit slowly got down from the wall. "His feathers are a good deal +thicker than ours," she said, defiantly, to Sarah. + +"Submit," called the voice, "come right home! I want you to pare +apples for the pies. Be quick!" + +"Yes, marm," Submit answered back, in a shrill voice; "I'm coming!" +Then she went across the yard and into the kitchen door of the +Thompson house, like a red robin into a nest. Submit had been taught +to obey her mother promptly. Mrs. Thompson was a decided woman. + +Sarah looked after Submit, then she gathered Thankful closer, and also +went into the house. Her mother, as well as Mrs. Thompson, was +preparing for Thanksgiving. The great kitchen was all of a pleasant +litter with pie plates and cake pans and mixing bowls, and full of +warm, spicy odours. The oven in the chimney was all heated and ready +for a batch of apple and pumpkin pies. Mrs. Adams was busy sliding +them in, but she stopped to look at Sarah and Thankful. Sarah was her +only child. + +"Why, what makes you look so sober?" said she. + +"Nothing," replied Sarah. She had taken off her blanket, and sat in +one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs, holding Thankful. + +"You look dreadful sober," said her mother. "Are you tired?" + +"No, marm." + +"I'm afraid you've got cold standing out there in the wind. Do you +feel chilly?" + +"No, marm. Mother, how much do you suppose our turkey weighs?" + +"I believe father said he'd weigh about twenty pounds. You are sure +you don't feel chilly?" + +"No, marm. Mother, do you suppose our turkey weighs more than +Submit's?" + +"How do you suppose I can tell? I ain't set eyes on their turkey +lately. If you feel well, you'd better sit up to the table and stone +that bowl of raisins. Put your dolly away, and get your apron." + +But Sarah stoned raisins with Thankful in her lap, hidden under her +apron. She was so full of anxiety that she could not bear to put her +away. Suppose the Thompson turkey should be larger, and she should +lose Thankful--Thankful that her beautiful Aunt Rose had made for her? + +Submit, over in the Thompson house, had sat down at once to her apple +paring. She had not gone into the best room to look at the work-box +whose possession she had hazarded. It stood in there on the table, +made of yellow satiny wood, with a sliding lid ornamented with a +beautiful little picture. Submit had a certain pride in it, but her +fear of losing it was not equal to her hope of possessing Thankful. +Submit had never had a doll, except a few plebeian ones, manufactured +secretly out of corncobs, whom it took more imagination than she +possessed to admire. + +Gradually all emulation over the turkeys was lost in the naughty +covetousness of her little friend and neighbour's doll. Submit felt +shocked and guilty, but she sat there paring the Baldwin apples, and +thinking to herself: "If our turkey is only bigger, if it only is, +then--I shall have Thankful." Her mouth was pursed up and her eyes +snapped. She did not talk at all, but pared very fast. + +Her mother looked at her. "If you don't take care, you'll cut your +fingers," said she. "You are in too much of a hurry. I suppose you +want to get out and gossip with Sarah again at the wall, but I can't +let you waste any more time to-day. There, I told you you would!" + +Submit had cut her thumb quite severely. She choked a little when her +mother tied it up, and put on some balm of Gilead, which made it smart +worse. + +"Don't cry!" said her mother. "You'll have to bear more than a cut +thumb if you live." + +[Illustration: "How much do you suppose our turkey weighs?"] + +And Submit did not let the tears fall. She came from a brave race. Her +great-grandfather had fought in the Revolution; his sword and +regimentals were packed in the fine carved chest in the best room. +Over the kitchen shelf hung an old musket with which her +great-grandmother, guarding her home and children, had shot an Indian. +In a little closet beside the chimney was an old pewter dish full of +homemade Revolutionary bullets, which Submit and her brothers had for +playthings. A little girl who played with Revolutionary bullets ought +not to cry over a cut thumb. + +Submit finished paring the apples after her thumb was tied up, +although she was rather awkward about it. Then she pounded spices in +the mortar, and picked over cranberries. Her mother kept her busy +every minute until dinnertime. When Submit's father and her two +brothers, Thomas and Jonas, had come in, she began on the subject +nearest her heart. + +"Father," said she, "how much do you think our Thanksgiving turkey +will weigh?" + +Mr. Thompson was a deliberate man. He looked at her a minute before +replying. "Seventeen or eighteen pounds," replied he. + +"Oh, Father! don't you think he will weigh twenty?" Mr. Thompson shook +his head. + +"He don't begin to weigh so much as the Adams' turkey," said Jonas. +"Their turkey weighs twenty pounds." + +"Oh, Thomas! do you think their turkey weighs more than ours?" cried +Submit. + +Thomas was her elder brother; he had a sober, judicial air like his +father. "Their turkey weighs considerable more than ours," said he. + +Submit's face fell. + +"You are not showing a right spirit," said her mother, severely. "Why +should you care if the Adams' turkey does weigh more? I am ashamed of +you!" + +Submit said no more. She ate her dinner soberly. Afterward she wiped +dishes while her mother washed. All the time she was listening. Her +father and brothers had gone out; presently she started. "Oh, Mother, +they're killing the turkey!" said she. + +"Well, don't stop while the dishes are hot, if they are," returned her +mother. + +Submit wiped obediently, but as soon as the dishes were set away, she +stole out in the barn where her father and brothers were picking the +turkey. + +"Father, when are you going to weigh him?" she asked timidly. + +"Not till to-night," said her father. + +"Submit!" called her mother. + +Submit went in and swept the kitchen floor. It was an hour after that, +when her mother was in the south room, getting it ready for her +grandparents, who were coming home to Thanksgiving--they had been on a +visit to their youngest son--that Submit crept slyly into the pantry. +The turkey lay there on the broad shelf before the window. Submit +looked at him. She thought he was small. "He was 'most all feathers," +she whispered, ruefully. She stood looking disconsolately at the +turkey. Suddenly her eyes flashed and a red flush came over her face. +It was as if Satan, coming into that godly new England home three +days before Thanksgiving, had whispered in her ear. + +Presently Submit stole softly back into the kitchen, set a chair +before the chimney cupboard, climbed up, and got the pewter dish full +of Revolutionary bullets. Then she stole back to the pantry and +emptied the bullets into the turkey's crop. Then she got a needle and +thread from her mother's basket, sewed up the crop carefully, and set +the empty dish back in the cupboard. She had just stepped down out of +the chair when her brother Jonas came in. + +"Submit," said he, "let's have one game of odd or even with the +bullets." + +"I am too busy," said Submit. "I've got to spin my stint." + +"Just one game. Mother won't care." + +"No; I can't." + +Submit flew to her spinning wheel in the corner. Jonas, still +remonstrating, strolled into the pantry. + +"I don't believe mother wants you in there," Submit said anxiously. + +"See here, Submit," Jonas called out in an eager voice, "I'll get the +steelyards, and we'll weigh the turkey. We can do it as well as +anybody." + +Submit left her spinning wheel. She was quite pale with trepidation +when Jonas and she adjusted the turkey in the steelyards. What if +those bullets should rattle out? But they did not. + +"He weighs twenty pounds and a quarter," announced Jonas, with a +gasp, after peering anxiously at the figures. "He's the biggest turkey +that was ever raised in these parts." + +Jonas exulted a great deal, but Submit did not say much. As soon as +Jonas had laid the turkey back on the shelf and gone out, she watched +her chance and removed the bullets, replacing them in the pewter dish. + +When Mr. Thompson and Thomas came home at twilight there was a deal of +talk over the turkey. + +"The Adams' turkey doesn't weigh but nineteen pounds," Jonas +announced. "Sarah was out there when they weighed him, and she 'most +cried." + +"I think Sarah and Submit and all of you are very foolish about it," +said Mrs. Thompson severely. "What difference does it make if one +weighs a pound or two more than the other, if there is enough to go +round?" + +"Submit looks as if she was sorry ours weighed the most now," said +Jonas. + +"My thumb aches," said Submit. + +"Go and get the balm of Gilead bottle, and put some more on," ordered +her mother. + +That night when she went to bed she could not say her prayers. When +she woke in the morning it was with a strange, terrified feeling, as +if she had climbed a wall into some unknown dreadful land. She +wondered if Sarah would bring Thankful over; she dreaded to see her +coming, but she did not come. Submit herself did not stir out of the +house all that day or the next, and Sarah did not bring Thankful until +next morning. + +They were all out in the kitchen about an hour before dinner. +Grandfather Thompson sat in his old armchair at one corner of the +fireplace, Grandmother Thompson was knitting, and Jonas and Submit +were cracking butternuts. Submit was a little happier this morning. +She thought Sarah would never bring Thankful, and so she had not done +so much harm by cheating in the weight of the turkey. + +There was a tug at the latch of the kitchen door; it was pushed open +slowly and painfully, and Sarah entered with Thankful in her arms. She +said not a word to anybody, but her little face was full of woe. She +went straight to Submit, and laid Thankful in her lap; then she turned +and fled with a great sob. The door slammed after her. All the +Thompsons stopped and looked at Submit. + +"Submit, what does this mean?" her father asked. + +Submit looked at him, trembling. + +"Speak," said he. + +"Submit, mind your father," said Mrs. Thompson. + +"What did she bring you the doll baby for?" asked Grandmother +Thompson. + +"Sarah--was going to give me Thankful if--our turkey weighed most, and +I was going to--give her my work-box if hers weighed most," said +Submit jerkily. Her lips felt stiff. + +Her father looked very sober and stern. He turned to his father. When +Grandfather Thompson was at home, every one deferred to him. Even at +eighty he was the recognized head of the house. He was a wonderful +old man, tall and soldierly, and full of a grave dignity. He looked at +Submit, and she shrank. + +"Do you know," said he, "that you have been conducting yourself like +unto the brawlers in the taverns and ale-houses?" + +"Yes, sir," murmured Submit, although she did not know what he meant. + +"No godly maid who heeds her elders will take part in any such foolish +and sinful wager," her grandfather continued. + +Submit arose, hugging Thankful convulsively. She glanced wildly at her +great-grandmother's musket over the shelf. The same spirit that had +aimed it at the Indian possessed her, and she spoke out quite clearly: +"Our turkey didn't weigh the most," said she. "I put the Revolutionary +bullets in his crop." + +There was silence. Submit's heart beat so hard that Thankful quivered. + +"Go upstairs to your chamber, Submit," said her mother, "and you need +not come down to dinner. Jonas, take that doll and carry it over to +the Adams' house." + +Submit crept miserably out of the room, and Jonas carried Thankful +across the yard to Sarah. + +Submit crouched beside her little square window set with tiny panes of +glass, and watched him. She did not cry. She was very miserable, but +confession had awakened a salutary smart in her soul, like the balm +of Gilead on her cut thumb. She was not so unhappy as she had been. +She wondered if her father would whip her, and she made up her mind +not to cry if he did. + +After Jonas came back she still crouched at the window. Exactly +opposite in the Adams' house was another little square window, and +that lighted Sarah's chamber. All of a sudden Sarah's face appeared +there. The two little girls stared pitifully at each other. Presently +Sarah raised her window, and put a stick under it; then Submit did the +same. They put their faces out, and looked at each other a minute +before speaking. Sarah's face was streaming with tears. + +"What you crying for?" called Submit softly. + +"Father sent me up here 'cause it is sinful to--make bets, and Aunt +Rose has come, and I can't have any--Thanksgiving dinner," wailed +Sarah. + +"I'm wickeder than you," said Submit. "I put the Revolutionary bullets +in the turkey to make it weigh more than yours. Yours weighed the +most. If mother thinks it's right, I'll give you the work-box." + +"I don't--want it," sobbed Sarah. "I'm dreadful sorry you've got to +stay up there, and can't have any dinner, Submit." + +Answering tears sprang to Submit's eyes. "I'm dreadful sorry you've +got to stay up there, and can't have any dinner," she sobbed back. + +There was a touch on her shoulder. She looked around and there stood +the grandmother. She was trying to look severe, but she was beaming +kindly on her. Her fat, fair old face was as gentle as the mercy that +tempers justice; her horn spectacles and her knitting needles and the +gold beads on her neck all shone in the sunlight. + +"You had better come downstairs, child," said she. "Dinner's 'most +ready, and mebbe you can help your mother. Your father isn't going to +whip you this time, because you told the truth about it, but you +mustn't ever do such a dreadful wicked thing again." + +"No, I won't," sobbed Submit. She looked across, and there beside +Sarah's face in the window was another beautiful smiling one. It had +pink cheeks and sweet black eyes and black curls, among which stood a +high tortoise-shell comb. + +"Oh, Submit!" Sarah called out, joyfully, "Aunt Rose says I can go +down to dinner!" + +"Grandmother says I can!" called back Submit. + +The beautiful smiling face opposite leaned close to Sarah's for a +minute. + +"Oh, Submit!" cried Sarah, "Aunt Rose says she will make you a doll +baby like Thankful, if your mother's willing!" + +"I guess she'll be willing if she's a good girl," called Grandmother +Thompson. + +Submit looked across a second in speechless radiance. Then the faces +vanished from the two little windows, and Submit and Sarah went down +to their Thanksgiving dinners. + + + + +BEETLE RING'S THANKSGIVING MASCOT[2] + +BY SHELDON C. STODDARD. + + Beetle Ring had the reputation of being the toughest lumber + camp on the river. The boys were certainly rough, and rather + hard drinkers, but their hearts were in the right place, + after all. + + +Six months of idleness following a long run of fever, a lost position, +and consequent discouragement had brought poverty and wretchedness to +Joe Bennett. + +The lumber camp on the Featherstone, where he had been at work, had +broken up and gone, and an old shack, deserted by some hunter, and now +standing alone in the great woods, was the only home he could provide +for his little family. It had answered its purpose as a makeshift in +the warm weather, but now, in late November, and with the terrible +northern winter coming swiftly on, it was small wonder the young +lumberman had been discouraged as he tried to forecast the future. + +His strength had returned, however, and lately something of his old +courage, for he had found work. It was fifteen miles away, to be sure, +and in "Beetle Ring" lumber camp, the camp that bore the reputation of +being the roughest on the Featherstone, but it was work. + +[Footnote 2: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 30, 1905.] + +He was earning something, and might hope soon to move his family into +a habitable house and civilization. + +But his position at Beetle Ring was not an enviable one. The men took +scant pains to conceal their dislike for the young fellow who +steadfastly refused to "chip in" when the camp jug was sent to the +Skylark, the nearest saloon, some miles down the river, and who +invariably declined to join in the camp's numerous sprees. But Bennett +worked on quietly. + +And in the meantime to the old shack in the woods the baby had +come--in the bleak November weather. + +Night was settling down over the woods. An old half-breed woman was +tending the fire in the one room of the shack, and on the wretched bed +lay a fair-faced woman, the young wife and mother, who looked +wistfully out at the bleak woods, white with the first snow, then +turned her wan, pale face toward the tiny bundle at her side. + +"Your pappy will come to-night, baby," she said, softly. "It's +Saturday, and your pappy will come to-night, sure." She drew the +covers more closely, and tucked them carefully about the small figure. + +"Mend the fire, Lisette, please. It's cold. And, Lisette, please watch +out down the road. Sometimes Joe comes early Saturdays." + +The old woman shook her head and muttered over the little pile of +wood, but she fed the fire, and then turned and looked down the long +white trail. + +"No Joe yet," she said, with a sympathetic glance toward the bed. She +looked at the thick gray clouds, and added, "Heap snow soon." + +But the night came down and the evening passed, while the women waited +anxiously. It was near midnight when the wife's face lighted up +suddenly at a sound outside, and directly there was a pounding, +uncertain step on the threshold. The door opened and Bennett came in +clumsily. + +The woman's little glad cry of welcome was changed to one of +apprehension at her husband's appearance. The resolute swing and +bearing of the lumberman--that had returned as he regained his +strength--were gone. He clumped across the room unsteadily on a pair +of rude crutches, his left foot swathed in bandages--a big, ungainly +bundle. + +"What is it, Joe?" the wife asked anxiously. + +"Just more of my precious luck, that's all, Nannie." He threw off the +old box coat and heavy cap, brushed the melting snow from his hair and +beard, and without waiting to warm his chilled hands at the fire, +hobbled to the bed and bent over the woman and the tiny bundle. + +"Are you all right, Nan?" he asked anxiously. + +"All right, Joe; but I've been so worried!" + +"And the baby, Nan?" + +The wife gently pushed back the covers and proudly brought to view a +tiny pink and puckered face. "Fine, Joe. She's just as fine, isn't +she?" + +A proud, happy light flickered for a moment in the man's eyes as he +stooped to kiss the tiny face; then he shut his teeth hard and +swallowed suddenly. + +"What is it, Joe?" his wife asked, looking at the rudely bandaged +foot. + +"Cut it--nigh half off, and hurt the bone. It'll be weeks before I can +do a stroke of work again. It means--I don't know what, and I daren't +think what, Nannie. The cook sewed it up." He glowered at the injured +member savagely. + +His wife's face grew paler still, but she only asked tenderly, "How +did you ever get here, Joe?" + +"Rode one of Pose Breem's hosses--his red roan." + +"Fifteen miles on horseback with that foot? I should have thought it +would have killed you, Joe." + +"I had to come, Nan," said the lumberman. "I didn't know how you were +getting on, and I had to come." + +"I didn't suppose they'd let you have a horse, any of 'em, now +sleighing's come." + +"They wouldn't--if I'd asked 'em. They don't seem to like me very +well, and I didn't ask." + +His wife's big, wistful eyes were turned upon him in quick alarm. "I'm +scared, Joe, if you took a horse without asking. What'll they think? +Where is it, Joe?" + +"Don't ye worry, Nan. I've sent the horse back by Pikepole Pete. He'll +have him back before morning--Pose won't miss him till then--and I +wrote a note explaining. Pose will be mad some, but he'll get over +it." + +The young lumberman listened uneasily to the storm, which was +increasing, looked at his wife's pale face a moment, and added: + +"I had to come, Nan. I just had to." + +But the woman was only half reassured. "If anything should happen," +she said, "if he shouldn't get it back, they'd think you--you stole +it, and--" + +"There, there, Nan!" broke in her husband, "don't be crossing bridges. +Pete'll take the horse back. I've done the fellow lots of favours, and +he won't go back on me. Don't worry, girl!" + +He moved the bandaged foot and winced, but not from the pain of the +wound. The hard look grew deeper on his face. "I'm down on my luck, +Nan," he said, hopelessly. "There's no use trying. Everything's +against me, everything--following me like grim death. And grim death," +he jerked the words out harshly, "is like to be the end of it, here in +this old shack that's not fit to winter hogs in, let alone humans. +There's not wood enough cut to last a week. You'll freeze, Nan, you +and the baby, and I'm--just nothing." + +He took two silver dollars from his pocket, and said, almost savagely, +"There's what we've got to winter on, and me crippled." + +But his wife put her hand on his softly. "Don't you give up so, Joe," +she said. And presently she added: "Next Thursday's Thanksgiving. +We've seen hard times, and we may see harder, but I never knew +Thanksgiving to come yet without something to be thankful +for--never." + +Outside the storm continued, fine snow sifting down rapidly. "Pikepole +Pete" found stiff work facing it, and bent low over the red roan's +neck. + +"Blue blazes!" he muttered. "Bennett's a good fellow all right, and +he's hurt; but if he hadn't nigh saved my life twice he could get this +critter back himself fer all of me!" He glanced at the dark woods and +drew up suddenly. "The road forks here, and Turner's is yonder--less +than a mile. I'll hitch in his barn a spell and go on later," and he +took the Turner fork. + +But at Turner's Pete found two or three congenial spirits--and a jug; +and a few hours later the easy-going fellow was deep in a tipsy sleep +that would last for hours. + +The following Sunday morning came bright and clear upon freshly fallen +snow that softened all the ruder outlines of town and field and woods. +Beetle Ring camp lay wrapped in fleecy whiteness. + +The camp was late astir, for Sunday was Beetle Ring's day--not of +rest, but of carousal. Two men had started out rather early--the +camp's jug delegation to the Skylark. Presently the men began to +straggle out to the snug row of sheds where the horses were kept. +Posey Breem yawned lazily as he threw open the door of his particular +stall, then suddenly brought himself together with a jerk and stared +fixedly. + +"What ails you now, Pose? Seen a ghost?" + +"Skid" Thomson stopped with the big measure of feed which he was +carrying. + +"No, I've seen no ghost," said Breem slowly, still staring. "Look +here, Skid!" Thomson looked into the stall, and nearly dropped the +measure. + +"By George, Pose!" he said. "By--George!" + +The news flew over the camp like wildfire. Posey Breem's red roan, the +best horse in the camp, had been stolen! The burly lumbermen came +hurrying from all directions. There was no doubt about it--the horse +was gone, and the snow had covered every trace. There was absolutely +no clue to follow. Silently and sullenly the men filed in to +breakfast. In a lumberman's eyes hardly a crime could exceed that of +horse stealing. + +"What I want to know is," said Breem, as he glanced sharply round the +long room of the camp, "what's become of that yellow-haired +jay--Bennett?" + +"By George!" said Skid Thomson, "that's right! Where is the critter?" + +"Skipped!" said Bill Bates, sententiously, after a quick search had +been made. "It's all plain enough now. I never liked the close-fisted +critter." + +"Nor I, either!" growled Skid. "Never chipped in with the boys, but +was laying low just the same." + +"You won't catch him, either," said Bates. "They're sharp--that kind. +The critter knew 'twould snow and hide his tracks." + +"And I'd just sewed up his blamed foot!" muttered the cook in disgust. + +"Maybe we'll catch him. Up to Fat Pine two years ago," began Breem, +reminiscently, "Big Donovan had a horse stole. They caught the +fellow." + +"Yes, I remember," said Skid Thomson. "I was there. We caught him up +north." The men nodded understandingly and approvingly. + +"Wuth a hundred and fifty dollars, the roan was," said Breem. + +Beetle Ring camp passed an uneasy day, the "jug" for once receiving +scant attention. Late in the afternoon "Trapper John," an old +half-breed who hunted and trapped about the woods, stopped at the camp +to get warm. + +"Didn't see anybody with a horse last night or this morning, eh, +John?" asked Posey Breem. + +"Um, yes," responded the old trapper, quickly. "Saw um horse las' +night--man ride--big foot--so." Old John held out his arms in +exaggerated illustration. + +Beetle Ring rose to its feet as one man. "What colour was the horse, +John?" asked Breem softly. + +"Huh! Can't see good after dark, but think um roan." Breem looked +slowly round the silent camp, and Beetle Ring grimly made ready for +business. + +It was evening when the men stopped a few rods below the shack. A +light shone out from a window, lighting up a little space in the +sombre woods. + +"The fellow's got pals prob'bly," said Posey Breem. "You wait here +while I do a little scouting." + +Breem crept cautiously into the circle of light, and glancing through +the uncurtained window, saw his man--with his "pals." He saw upon the +miserable bed a woman with a thin, pale face and sad, wistful eyes, +eyes that yet lighted up with a beautiful pride as they rested upon +the man, who sat close by, holding a tiny bundle in his arms. + +The man shifted his position a little, so that the light fell upon the +bundle, and then the watcher outside saw the sleeping face of a baby. + +There was a rumour in the camp that Posey Breem had not always been +the man that he was--that a woman had once blessed his life. But since +they had carried the young mother away, with her dead baby on her +breast, to place the two in one deep grave together, he had gone +steadily downward. + +With hungry eyes Breem gazed at the scene in the poor little house, +his thoughts flying backward over the years. A sudden sharp, impatient +whistle roused him, and he strode hastily back to the waiting men. + +"Well, Pose?" interrogated Skid impatiently. + +"He's there, all right," said Breem, in a peculiar tone. "I ain't +overmuch given to advising prowling round folks' houses, but you +fellows just look in yonder." He jerked his head toward the shack. And +a line of big, rough-looking men filed into the little illumined +space, to come back presently silent and subdued. + +"Now let's go home," said Breem, turning his horse toward camp. + +"And your horse, Pose?" questioned Bates. + +"Burn the horse!" said Breem quickly. "D'ye think the like of yonder's +a horse thief? I ain't worrying 'bout the horse." And the men rode +back to camp silently. + +The next morning, when Breem swung open the door of the stall, he was +not surprised to find the red roan standing quietly by the side of his +mate. A bit of crumpled paper was pinned to the blanket. Breem read: + + I rode your horse. I had to. I'll surely make it right. + + BENNETT. + +"Course he had to!" growled the lumberman, and he passed the paper +round. + +"Oncommon peart baby," said Skid, at last. + +"Dreadful cold shack, though!" muttered Bates, conveying a quarter of +a griddlecake to his mouth. + +"That's just it," said Pose, scowling. "Just let a stiff nip of winter +come, and the woman yonder and the little critter, they'd freeze, +that's what they'd do, in that old rattletrap." + +The men looked at one another in solemn assent. "And I've been +thinking," continued Breem, "since Bennett there belonged to the camp, +and since we kind of misused the fellow for being stingy--for which we +ought to have been smashed with logs--that we have a kind of a claim +on 'em, as 'twere, and they on us. And we must get 'em out of that +yonder before they freeze plumb solid." He stopped inquiringly. + +"Right as right," assented several. + +"And I've been thinking," said Bates suddenly, "about that storeroom +of ours. It's snug and warm, and there's a lot of room in it, and we +can put a stove into it and--" But the rest of Bates's suggestion was +drowned in a round of applause. + +"And _I've_ been thinking, just a little," put in Skid Thomson, "and +if I've figured correct, next Thursday's Thanksgiving--don't know as +I've thought of it in ten years--and if we stir round sharp we can get +things ready by then, and--well, 'twouldn't hurt Beetle Ring to +celebrate for once--" But Skid was also interrupted by a cheer. + +"And it's my firm belief," reflected Bates with an air of profound +conviction, "that that baby of Bennett's was designed special and, as +you might say, providential, for to be Beetle Ring's mascot. Fat Pine +and Horseshoe have 'em--mascots--to bring luck, and I've noticed +Beetle Ring ain't had the luck lately it should have." + +Bates paused, and the camp meditated in silent delight. + +Thanksgiving morning was a cold one, but clear. More snow had fallen, +and the deep, feathery whiteness stretched away until lost in the dark +background of the pines and spruces. A wavering line of smoke rose +over the roof of the little old shack in the woods. + +Bennett was winding rags round the armpieces of the rough crutches. He +had dragged in some short limbs the day before for fuel, but in so +doing had broken open the wound, which gave him excruciating pain. + +"Joe," said his wife, suddenly, "where are you going?" + +"I'm going to try for help, Nan. We're out of nigh everything, and my +foot no better." + +"You can't do it, Joe. You--you'll die, if you try, Joe, alone in the +woods. Oh, Joe!" + +The look of hope that had never wholly left the woman's eyes was +slowly fading out. + +"We'll all die if I don't try, Nannie. I'm--" + +"Huh!" suddenly exclaimed the old woman, peering out of the little +window. "Heap men, heap horses! Look, see 'em come!" + +Bennett turned hastily, and saw a long line of stalwart men and sturdy +horses threshing resolutely through the deep snow and heading directly +for the shack. He looked keenly at the men, and his face paled a +little, but he said steadily, "It's the Beetle Ring men, Nan." + +His wife gave a sharp cry. "It's the horse, Joe! It's the horse! +They're after you, Joe, sure!" She caught her husband's arm. + +The men were now filling up the little space before the shack. +Directly there came a sounding knock. Bennett opened the door to admit +the burly frame of Posey Breem. He said quietly: + +"I'm here all right, Pose, and I took your horse, but--" + +"Burn the hoss!" said Breem explosively. "That's all right. Shake, +pard!" He held out a brawny hand. Bennett "shook" wonderingly. + +"Wife, pard?" asked Breem, gently, nodding toward the bed. Bennett +hastily introduced him. + +"Kid, pard?" Breem pointed a stubby finger at the little bundle. + +Bennett nodded. + +The lumberman grinned delightedly, then coughed a little, and began +awkwardly: + +"Pard, th' boys over at Beetle Ring heard--as you might say, +accidental"--Breem coughed into his big hand--"about your folks over +here, your wife _and_--the baby. They were powerful interested, +specially about the baby. Why, pard, some of the boys hain't seen a +baby in ten years, and we thought as you belonged to the camp, maybe +you and your wife would allow that the camp had a sort of claim on the +little critter yonder." He eyed the tiny bundle wistfully. + +"And another thing that hit the boys, pard," he went on. "Up at Fat +Pine they got what they call a mascot, bein' a tame b'ar; an' up at +Horseshoe they got a mascot, bein' a goat. Lots of camps have +'em--fetches luck. And the boys are sure that this baby of yours was +designed special to be Beetle Ring's mascot. Now, pard, Beetle Ring, +as you know, ain't what you'd call a Sunday-school, but the boys +they'll behave. They fixed up that storeroom to beat all, nice bed, +big stove, and lots of wood, and so on, and we've got a cow for the +woman and baby. Say, we want you powerful. Got a sleigh fixed, hemlock +boughs and a cover of robes and blankets, and Skid'll drive careful. +He's a master at drivin', Skid is. You'll come, won't you? The boys +are waitin'." + +Big tears were in the woman's eyes as she turned toward her husband. +"Oh, Joe," she said, and choked suddenly; but she pressed the baby +tightly to her breast. "I knew 'twould come Thanksgiving." + +"There, pard," said Breem, after blowing his nose explosively, "you +just see to wrappin' up the woman and the kid, and me and Skid, being +as you're hurt, you know, 'll tote 'em out to the sleigh." + +The young mother was soon placed carefully in the sleigh, the old +woman following. But when Skid Thomson appeared in the door of the old +shack, bearing a tiny form muffled up with wondrous care, the whole of +Beetle Ring shouted. + +Breem led up a spare horse for Bennett's use. The latter stopped +short, with a curious expression on his face. The horse was the red +roan. + +But Breem only said, his keen eyes twinkling: + +"Under such circumstances as these, pard, you're welcome to all the +hosses in Beetle Ring." + +With steady, practiced hand Skid Thomson guided his powerful team +through the deep snow, over the rough forest road; and sometimes +brawny arms carried the sleigh bodily over the roughest places. + + * * * * * + +At the close of the day an anxious consultation took place in the big +main room of Beetle Ring, and presently two men appeared outside. + +They walked slowly toward what had been the camp's storeroom, but +halted before the door hesitatingly. + +"You go in ahead, Skid, and ask 'em," said Breem, earnestly, to his +companion. + +"No, go ahead yourself, Pose. I'd be sure to calk a hoss or split a +runner, or somethin'. Go on!" + +Breem knocked, and both went in. + +"All right, pard?" + +"Right as right, Pose," said Joe Bennett. + +"Wife all right?" Breem turned toward the bed, and Mrs. Bennett smiled +up at him with happy eyes, and with a bit of colour already showing in +her pale face. Breem smiled back broadly. Then he asked, "_And_, pard, +the baby?" + +"Peart as peart, Pose." + +Breem waited a little, twirling his cap, but receiving a sharp thump +from Thomson, went on: + +"The boys, pard, are anxious about the little critter. They're kind of +hankering, pard, and, mum, if you are willin', and ain't 'fraid to +trust her with us, why, we'd be mighty glad to tote her--just for a +few minutes--over to camp. The boys are stiddy, all of 'em, stiddy as +churches. They hain't soaked a mite to-day, mum, and they ain't goin' +to; they've hove the jug into a snowdrift, and they'd take it kind, +mum--if you are willin'." + +The woman, still smiling happily, was already wrapping up the baby. + +Breem held up a warning finger when he returned a little later, and +again smiled delightedly. + +"Went to sleep a-totin'--if you'll believe it, the burned little +critter!" he said, softly. "And," he added, "the boys, pard, are +mighty pleased; and, mum, they thank you kindly. They say, the boys +do, there ain't such a mascot as theirs in five hundred miles; they +see luck comin', chunks of it, pard, already." And the big fellow went +out and closed the door gently. + + + + +MISTRESS ESTEEM ELLIOTT'S MOLASSES CAKE[3] + +The Story of a Postponed Thanksgiving[4] + +By Kate Upson Clark. + + Older boys and girls who are familiar with "The Courtship of + Miles Standish" will enjoy the colonial flavour of this tale + of 1705. + + +"Obed!" called Mistress Achsah Ely from her front porch, "step thee +over to Squire Belding's, quick! Here's a teacup! Ask Mistress Belding +for the loan of some molasses. Nothing but molasses and hot water +helps the baby when he is having such a turn of colic. Beseems me he +will have a fit! Make haste, Obed!" + +[Footnote 3: From _Wideawake_, November, 1891, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.] + +[Footnote 4: The main facts in this story are strictly historical.] + +At that very moment Squire Belding's little daughter Hitty was +travelling toward Mistress Ely's for the purpose of borrowing molasses +wherewith to sweeten a ginger cake. Hitty and Obed, who were of an +age, met, compared notes, and then returned to their respective homes. +Shortly afterward both of them darted forth again, bound on the same +errands as before, only in different directions. + +Mr. Chapin, the storekeeper, hadn't "set eyes on any molasses for a +week. The river's frozen over so mean and solid," he said, "there's no +knowing when there'll be any molasses in town." + +There had been very peculiar weather in Colchester during this month +of October, 1705. First, on the 13th (Old Style), an unprecedently +early date, had come a "terrible cold snap," lasting three days. This +was followed by two days of phenomenal mildness. The river had frozen +over during the "cold snap," and the ice had melted during the warm +days, until, on the 19th, it was breaking up and preparing to go out +to sea. In the night of the 19th had descended a frigid blast, colder +than the original one. This had arrested the broken ice, piled it up +in all sorts of fantastic forms, and congealed it till it looked like +a rough Alaskan glacier. After the cold wind had come a heavy +snowstorm. All Colchester lay under three feet of snow. Footpaths and +roads were broken out somewhat in the immediate village, but no +farther. It was most unusual to have the river closed so early in the +season, and consequently the winter supplies, which were secured from +New London and Norwich, had not been laid in. Even Mr. Chapin, the +storekeeper, was but poorly supplied with staples of which he +ordinarily kept an abundance on hand. + +Therefore when Obed and Hitty had made the tour of the neighbourhood +they found but one family, that of Deacon Esteem Elliott, the richest +man in the place, which had any molasses. Mistress Elliott, in spite +of her wealth, was said to be "none too free with her stuff," and she +was not minded to lend any molasses under the circumstances, for "a +trifling foolish" cake. Obed's representation of the distress of the +Ely baby, however, appealed even to her, and she lent him a large +spoonful of the precious liquid. + +That afternoon there was as much visiting about among the Colchester +housewives as the drifts permitted. Such a state of things had never +been known since the town was settled. No molasses! And Thanksgiving +appointed for the first Thursday in November! Pray what would +Thanksgiving amount to, they inquired, with no pumpkin pies, no baked +beans, no molasses cake, no proper sweetening for the rum so freely +used in those days? + +Mistress Esteem Elliott was even more troubled than the rest of +Colchester, for was not her buxom daughter, and only child, Prudence +Ann, to be married on Thanksgiving Day to the son of a great magnate +in the neighbouring town of Hebron? And was it not the intention to +invite all of the aristocracy of both towns to be present at the +marriage feast? + +Mistress Elliott accordingly pursued her way upon this Tuesday +afternoon, October 19, 1705, over to Mistress Achsah Ely's. There she +found Mistress Belding, who, remembering Mistress Elliott's refusal to +lend her molasses, was naturally somewhat chill in her manner. + +Mistress Elliott had scarcely pulled off her homespun leggings (made +with stout and ample feet) and pulled out her knitting work, when +Mistress Camberly, the parson's wife, a lady of robust habit and +voluble tongue, came in. + +"And what are we going to do, Mistress Ely?" she burst out, as soon as +the door was opened at her knock. "Not a drop of molasses to be had +for love nor money, and Thanksgiving Day set for the 4th of November!" + +"Mistress Elliott has a-plenty of molasses," affirmed Mistress +Belding, with a haughty look at her unaccommodating neighbour. + +"I'd have you to know, Mistress Betty Belding," retorted Mistress +Elliott, "that I have a bare quart or so in my jug, and, so far as I +can learn, that is all that the whole town of Colchester has got to +depend upon till the roads or the river can be broken to Norwich." + +Mistress Ely well understood this little passage-at-arms, for Obed had +told her the whole story; but as her baby had been cured by Mistress +Elliott's molasses, she did not think it proper to interfere in the +matter. Neither did the good parson's wife, although she could not +comprehend the rights of the case. She simply repeated her first +question: "What are we going to do about it, I should like to know?" + +"I wonder if Thanksgiving Day could not be put off a week," suggested +Mistress Belding, who had a good head, and was even reported to give +such advice to her husband that he always thought best to heed it. + +"Such a thing was never heard of!" cried Mistress Elliott. + +"But there's no law against it," insisted Mistress Belding boldly. "By +a week from the set day there will surely be some means of getting +about the country, and then we can have a Thanksgiving that's worth +the setting down to." + +After a long talk the good women separated in some doubt, but as +Squire Belding and Mr. Ely were two of the three selectmen, they were +soon acquainted with the drift of the afternoon's discussion. The +result of it all is thus chronicled in the town records of Colchester: + + "At a legal town-meeting held in Colchester, October 29, + 1705, it was voted that WHEREAS there was a Thanksgiving + appointed to be held on the first Thursday in November, and + our present circumstances being such that it cannot with + convenience be attended on that day, it is therefore voted + and agreed by the inhabitants as aforesaid (concluding the + thing will not be otherwise than well resented) that the + second Thursday of November aforesaid shall be set aside for + that service." + +This proceeding was, on the whole, as the selectmen had hoped that it +would be, "well resented" among the Colchester people, but there was +one household in which there was rebellion at the mandate. In the +great sanded kitchen of Deacon Esteem Elliott pretty, spoilt Prudence +Ann was fairly raging over it. + +"I had set my heart on being married on Thanksgiving Day," she sobbed, +"And here it won't be Thanksgiving Day at all! And as for putting off +a wedding, everybody knows there is no surer way of bringing ill luck +down than that! I say I won't have it put off! But we can't have any +party with no molasses in town! Oh, dear! I might as well be married +in the back kitchen with a linsey gown on, as if I were the daughter +of old Betty, the pie woman! There!" + +Then the proud girl would break into fresh sobs, and vow vengeance +upon the selectmen of Colchester. She even sent her father to +expostulate with them, but it was of no use. They had known all along +that the Elliotts did not want the festival day put off, but nobody in +Colchester minded very much if the Elliotts were a little crossed. + +Prudence Ann would not face the reality till after the Sabbath was +past. On that day the expectant bridegroom managed to break his way +through the drifts from Hebron, and he was truly grieved, as he should +have been, at the very unhappy state of mind of his betrothed. He +avowed himself, however, in a way which augured well for the young +people's future, ready to do just what Prudence Ann and her family +decided was best. + +On Monday morning Mistress Elliott sat down with her unreasonable +daughter and had a serious talk with her. + +"Now, Prudence Ann," she began, "you must give up crying and fretting. +If you are going to be married on Thursday, we have got a great deal +of work to do between now and then. If you are going to wait till +next week, I want to know it. Of course you can't have a large party, +if you choose to be married on the 4th, but we will ask John's folks +and Aunt Susanna and Uncle Martin and Parson Camberley and his wife. +We can bake enough for them with what's in the house. If you wait +another week, you can probably have a better party--and now you have +it all in a nutshell." + +Prudence Ann was hysterical even yet, but at last her terror of a +postponed wedding overcame every other consideration. The day was set +for the 4th, and the few guests were bidden accordingly. + +On the morning of the wedding, on a neat shelf in the back kitchen of +the Elliott residence, various delicacies were resting, which had been +baked for the banquet. Mistress Elliott's molasses had sufficed to +make a vast cake and several pumpkin pies. These, hot from the oven, +had been placed in the coolness of the back kitchen until they should +be ready for eating. + +It so happened that Miss Hitty Belding's sharp eyes, as she passed +Mistress Elliott's back door, bound on an errand to the house of the +neighbour living just beyond, fell upon the rich golden brown of this +wonderful cake. As such toothsome dainties were rare in Colchester at +just this time, it is not strange that her childish soul coveted it, +for Hitty was but ten years old. As she walked on she met Obed Ely. + +"I tell you what, Obed," said Miss Hitty, "you ought to see the great +molasses cake which Mistress Elliott has made for Prudence Ann's +wedding. It is in her back kitchen. I saw it right by the door. Mean +old thing! She wouldn't lend my mother any molasses to make _us_ a +cake. I wish I had hers!" + +"So do I!" rejoined Obed, with watering lips. "I'm going to peek in +and see it." + +Obed went and "peeked," while Hitty sauntered slowly on. The +contemplation of the cake under the circumstances was too much for +even so well-brought-up a boy as Obed. Without stopping to really +think what he was doing, he unwound from his neck his great woollen +"comforter," wrapped it hastily around the cake, and was walking with +it beside Hitty in the lonely, drifted country road five minutes +later. The hearts of the two little conspirators--for they felt guilty +enough--beat very hard, but they could not help thinking how good that +cake would taste. A certain Goodsir Canty's cornhouse stood near them +in a clump of trees beside the road, and as the door was open they +crept in, gulped down great "chunks" of cake, distributed vast slices +of what was left about their persons, Obed taking by far the lion's +share, and then they parted, vowing eternal secrecy. Nobody had seen +them, and something which happened just after they had left Mistress +Elliott's back kitchen directed suspicion to an entirely different +quarter. + +Not two minutes after Obed's "comforter" had been thrown around the +great cake a beautiful calf, the pride of Mistress Elliott's heart, +and which was usually kept tied in the barn just beyond the back +kitchen, somehow unfastened her rope and came strolling along past the +open back door. The odour of the pumpkin pies naturally interested +her, and she proceeded to lick up the delicious creamy filling of one +after another with great zest. + +Just as she was finishing the very last one of the four or five which +had stood there, Mistress Elliott appeared upon the scene, to find her +precious dainties faded like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving +behind them only a few broken bits of pie crust. A series of "short, +sharp shocks" (as described in "The Mikado") then rent the air, +summoning Prudence Ann and Delcy, the maid, to the scene of the +calamity. Let us draw a veil over the succeeding ten minutes. + +At the end of that time Prudence Ann lay upon the sitting-room lounge +(or "settle," as they called it then) passing from one fainting fit +into another, and Delcy was out in search of the doctor and such +family friends as were likely to be of service in this unexpected +dilemma. It was, of course, supposed that the calf had devoured the +whole of the mighty cake as well as the pies. It was lucky for Obed +and Hitty that the poor beast could not speak. As it was, nobody so +much as thought of accusing them of the theft, though there were +plenty of crumbs in their pockets, while the death of the innocent +heifer was loudly demanded by the angry Prudence Ann. It was only by +artifice and diplomacy that Mistress Elliott was able to preserve the +life of her favourite, which, if it had really eaten the cake, must +surely have perished. + +The wedding finally came off on the 4th, though there was a pouting +bride, and nuts, apples, and cider were said to be the chief +refreshments. Prudence Ann, however, probably secured the "good luck" +for which she was so anxious, for there is no record nor tradition to +the contrary in all Colchester. + +Nothing would probably ever have been known of the real fate of the +famous cake if the tale had not been told by Mistress Hitty in her old +age to her grandchildren, with appropriate warnings to them never to +commit similar misdemeanours themselves. + +Little Obed Ely, the active agent in the theft, died not long after +it. His tombstone, very black and crumbled, stands in one of the old +burying grounds of the town, but nothing is carved upon it as to the +cause of his early death. + +The story of the Colchester molasses famine, and the consequent +postponement of their Thanksgiving, naturally spread throughout all +the surrounding towns. It was said that in one of these a party of +roguish boys loaded an old cannon with molasses and fired it in the +direction of Colchester. How they did this has not been stated, and +some irreverent disbelievers in the more uncommon of our grandfathers' +stories have profanely declared it a myth. + + + + +THE FIRST THANKSGIVING[5] + +By Albert F. Blaisdell and Francis K. Ball. + + A story of the time long ago when the Pilgrims of Plymouth + invited the Indian chief Massasoit and his followers to + share their feast. + + +All through the first summer and the early part of autumn the Pilgrims +were busy and happy. They had planted and cared for their first fields +of corn. They had found wild strawberries in the meadows, raspberries +on the hillsides, and wild grapes in the woods. + +[Footnote 5: From "Short Stories from American History," Ginn & Co.] + +In the forest just back of the village wild turkeys and deer were +easily shot. In the shallow waters of the bay there was plenty of +fish, clams, and lobsters. + +The summer had been warm, with a good deal of rain and much sunshine; +and so when the autumn came there was a fine crop of corn. + +"Let us gather the fruits of our first labours and rejoice together," +said Governor Bradford. + +"Yes," said Elder Brewster, "let us take a day upon which we may thank +God for all our blessings, and invite to it our Indian friends who +have been so kind to us." + +The Pilgrims said that one day was not enough; so they planned to +have a celebration for a whole week. This took place most likely in +October. + +The great Indian chief, Massasoit, came with ninety of his bravest +warriors, all gayly dressed in deerskins, feathers, and foxtails, with +their faces smeared with red, white, and yellow paint. + +As a sign of rank, Massasoit wore round his neck a string of bones and +a bag of tobacco. In his belt he carried a long knife. His face was +painted red, and his hair was so daubed with oil that Governor +Bradford said he "looked greasily." + +Now there were only eleven buildings in the whole of Plymouth village, +four log storehouses and seven little log dwelling-houses; so the +Indian guests ate and slept out of doors. This was no matter, for it +was one of those warm weeks in the season we call Indian summer. + +To supply meat for the occasion four men had already been sent out to +hunt wild turkeys. They killed enough in one day to last the whole +company almost a week. + +Massasoit helped the feast along by sending some of his best hunters +into the woods. They killed five deer, which they gave to their +paleface friends, that all might have enough to eat. + +Under the trees were built long, rude tables on which were piled baked +clams, broiled fish, roast turkey, and deer meat. + +The young Pilgrim women helped serve the food to the hungry redskins. + +Let us remember two of the fair girls who waited on the tables. One +was Mary Chilton, who leaped from the boat at Plymouth Rock; the other +was Mary Allerton. She lived for seventy-eight years after this first +Thanksgiving, and of those who came over in the _Mayflower_ she was +the last to die. + +What a merry time everybody had during that week! It may be they joked +Governor Bradford about stepping into a deer trap set by the Indians +and being jerked up by the leg. + +How the women must have laughed as they told about the first Monday +morning at Cape Cod, when they all went ashore to wash their clothes! + +It must have been a big washing, for there had been no chance to do it +at sea, so stormy had been the long voyage of sixty-three days. They +little thought that Monday would afterward be kept as washday. + +Then there was young John Howland, who in mid-ocean fell overboard but +was quick enough to catch hold of a trailing rope. Perhaps after +dinner he invited Elizabeth Tilley, whom he afterward married, to sail +over to Clarke's Island and return by moonlight. + +With them, it may be, went John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, whose +love story is so sweetly told by Longfellow. + +One proud mother, we may be sure, showed her bright-eyed boy, +Peregrine White. + +And so the fun went on. In the daytime the young men ran races, played +games, and had a shooting match. Every night the Indians sang and +danced for their friends; and to make things still more lively they +gave every now and then a shrill war whoop that made the woods echo in +the still night air. + +The Indians had already learned to love and fear Captain Miles +Standish. Some of them called him "Boiling Water" because he was +easily made angry. Others called him "Captain Shrimp," on account of +his small size. + +Every morning the shrewd captain put on his armour and paraded his +little company of a dozen or more soldiers; and when he fired off the +cannon on Burial Hill the Indians must have felt that the English were +men of might thus to harness up thunder and lightning. + +During this week of fun and frolic it was a wonder if young Jack +Billington did not play some prank on the Indians. He was the boy who +fired off his father's gun one day, close to a keg of gunpowder, in +the crowded cabin of the _Mayflower_. + +The third day came. Massasoit had been well treated, and no doubt +would have liked to stay longer, but he had said he could stay only +three days. So the pipe of peace was silently passed around. + +Then, taking their presents of glass beads and trinkets, the Indian +king and his warriors said farewell to their English friends and began +their long tramp through the woods to their wigwams on Mount Hope Bay. + +On the last day of this Thanksgiving party the Pilgrims had a service +of prayer and praise. Elder Brewster preached the first Thanksgiving +sermon. After thanking God for all his goodness, he did not forget the +many loved ones sleeping on the hillside. + +He spoke of noble John Carver, the first governor, who had died of +worry and overwork. + +Nor was Rose Standish forgotten, the lovely young wife of Captain +Miles Standish, whose death was caused by cold and lack of good food. + +And then there was gentle Dorothy, wife of Governor Bradford, who had +fallen overboard from the _Mayflower_ in Provincetown harbour while +her husband was coasting along the bleak shore in search of a place +for a home. + +The first Thanksgiving took place nearly three hundred years ago. +Since that time, almost without interruption, Thanksgiving has been +kept by the people of New England as the great family festival of the +year. At this time children and grandchildren return to the old home, +the long table is spread, and brothers and sisters, separated often by +many miles, again sit side by side. + +To-day Thanksgiving is observed in nearly all the states of the Union, +a season of sweet and blessed memories. + + + + +THANKSGIVING AT TODD'S ASYLUM[6] + +By Winthrop Packard. + + Many a chuckle lies in wait for the reader in the pages of + this story. And the humour is of the sweet, mellow sort that + sometimes brings moisture to the eyes as well as laughter to + the lips. + + +People said that if it had not been for that annuity Eph Todd would +have been at the poor farm himself instead of setting up a rival to +it; but there _was_ the annuity, and that was the beginning of Todd's +asylum. + +[Footnote 6: From the _Outlook_, November 19, 1898.] + +No matter who or what you were, if you were in hard luck, Todd's +asylum was open to you. The No. 4 district schoolhouse clock was a +sample. For thirty years it had smiled from the wall upon successive +generations of scholars, until, one day, bowed with years and +infirmities, it had ceased to tick. It had been taken gently down, +laid out on a desk in state for a day or two, and finally was in +funeral procession to the rubbish heap when Eph Todd appeared. + +"You're not going to throw that good old clock away?" Eph had asked of +the committeeman who acted as bearer. + +"Guess I'll have to," replied the other. "I've wound it up tight, put +'most a pint of kerosene in it, and shook it till I'm dizzy, and it +won't tick a bit. Guess the old clock's done for." + +"Now see here," said Eph; "you just let me have a try at it. Let me +take it home a spell." + +"Oh, for that matter I'll give it to you," the committeeman replied. +"We've bought another for the schoolhouse." + +A day or two after the old clock ticked away as soberly as ever on the +wall of the Todd kitchen. + +"Took it home and boiled it in potash," Eph used to say; "and there it +is, just as good as it was thirty years ago." + +This was true, with restrictions, for enough enamel was gone from the +face to make the exact location of the hour an uncertain thing; and +there were days, when the wind was in the east, when the hour hand +needed periodical assistance. + +"It wasn't much of a job," as Eph said, "to reach up once an hour and +send the hand along one space, and Aunt Tildy had to have something to +look forward to." + +Aunt Tildy was the first inmate at Todd's, and if Eph had possessed no +other recommendation to eternal beatitude, surely Aunt Tildy's prayers +had been sufficient. She passed his house on her way to the poor farm +on the very day that news of the legacy arrived, and Eph had stopped +the carriage and begged the overseer to leave her with him. + +"Are you sure you can take care of her?" asked the overseer, +doubtfully. + +"Sure?" echoed Eph with delight. "Of course I'm sure. Ain't I got four +hundred dollars a year for the rest of my natural born days?" + +"He's a good fellow, Eph Todd," mused the overseer as he drove away, +"but I never heard of his having any money." + +Next day the news of the legacy was common property, and Aunt Tildy +had been an inmate at Todd's ever since. Her gratitude knew no bounds, +and she really managed to keep the house after a fashion, her chief +care being the clock. + +Then there was the heaven-born inventor. He had dissipated his +substance in inventing an incubator that worked with wonderful success +till the day the chickens were to come out, when it took fire and +burned up, taking with it chickens, barn, house, and furniture, +leaving the heaven-born inventor standing in the field, thinly clad, +and with nothing left in the world but another incubator. + +With this he had shown up promptly at Todd's, and there he had dwelt +thenceforth, using a pretty fair portion of the annuity in further +incubator experiments. + +With excellent sagacity, for him, Eph had obliged the heaven-born +inventor to keep his machine in a little shed behind the barn, so that +when this one burned up there was time to get the horse and cow out +before the barn burned, and the village fire department managed to +save the house. Repairing this loss made quite a hole in the annuity, +and all the heaven-born inventor had to show for it was Miltiades. He +had put a single turkey's egg in with a previous hatch, and though he +had raised nary chicken, and it was contrary to all rhyme and reason, +the turkey's egg had hatched and the chick had grown up to be +Miltiades. + +Miltiades was a big gobbler now, and had a right to be named Ishmael, +for his hand was against all men. He took care of himself, was never +shut up nor handled, and led a wild, nomadic life. + +Last of all came Fisherman Jones. He was old now and couldn't see very +well, unable to go to the brook or pond to fish, but he still started +out daily with the fine new rod and reel which the annuity had bought +for him, and would sit out in the sun, joint his rod together, and +fish in the dry pasture with perfect contentment. + +You would not think Fisherman Jones of much use, but it was he who +caught Miltiades and made the Thanksgiving dinner possible. + +The new barn had exhausted the revenues completely, and there would be +no more income until January 1st; but one must have a turkey for +Thanksgiving, and there was Miltiades. To catch Miltiades became the +household problem, and the heaven-born inventor set wonderful traps +for him, which caught almost everything but Miltiades, who easily +avoided them. Eph used to go out daily before breakfast and chase +Miltiades, but he might as well have chased a government position. +The turkey scorned him, and grew only wilder and tougher, till he had +a lean and hungry look that would have shamed Cassius. + +The day before Thanksgiving it looked as if there would be no turkey +dinner at Todd's, but here Fisherman Jones stepped into the breach. It +was a beautiful Indian-summer day, and he hobbled out into the field +for an afternoon's fishing. Here he sat on a log, and began to make +casts in the open. Nearby, under a savin bush, lurked Miltiades, and +viewed these actions with the scorn of long familiarity. By and by +Fisherman Jones kicked up a loose bit of bark, and disclosed beneath +it a fine fat white grub, of the sort which blossoms into June beetles +with the coming of spring. He was not so blind but that he saw this, +and with a chuckle at the thoughts it called up, he baited his hook +with it. + +A moment after, Eph Todd, coming out of the new barn, heard the click +of a reel, and was astonished to see Fisherman Jones standing almost +erect, his eyes blazing with the old-time fire, his rod bent, his reel +buzzing, while at the end of a good forty feet of line was Miltiades +rushing in frantic strides for the woods. + +"Good land!" said Eph; "it's the turkey! Snub him," he yelled. "Don't +let him get all the line on you! He's hooked! Snub him! snub him!" + +The whir of the reel deadened now, and the stride of Miltiades was +perceptibly lessened and then became but a vigorous up-and-down hop, +while the tense line sang in the gentle autumn breeze. + +"Eph Todd!" gasped Fisherman Jones, "this is the whoppingest old bass +I ever hooked onto yet. Beeswax, how he does pull!" And with the words +Fisherman Jones went backward over the log, waving the pole and a pair +of stiff legs in air. The turkey had suddenly slackened the line. + +"Give him the butt! Give him the butt!" roared Eph, rushing up. Even +where he lay the fisherman blood in Fisherman Jones responded to this +stirring appeal, and as the rod bent in a tense half circle a race +began such as no elderly fisherman was ever the centre of before. + +Round and round went Miltiades, with the white grub in his crop, and +the line above it gripped tightly in his strong beak; and round and +round went Eph Todd, his outstretched arms waving like the turkey's +wings, and his big boots denting the soft pasture turf with the vigour +of his gallop. In the centre Fisherman Jones, too nearsighted to see +what he had hooked, had risen on one knee, and revolved with the +coursing bird, his soul wrapped in one idea: to keep the butt of his +rod aimed at the whirling game. + +"Hang to him! Reel him in! We'll get him!" shouted Eph; and, with the +word, he caught his toe and vanished into the prickly depths of the +savin bush, just as the heaven-born inventor came over the hill. It +would be interesting to know just what scheme the heaven-born inventor +would have put in motion for the capture of Miltiades, but just then +he stepped into one of his own extraordinary traps, set for the +turkey of course, and, with one foot held fast, began to flounder +about with cries of rage and dismay. + +This brought Eph's head above the fringe of savin bush again, and now +he beheld a wonderful sight. Fisherman Jones was again on his feet, +staring in wild surprise at Miltiades, whom he sighted for the first +time, within ten feet of him. There was no pressure on the reel, and +Miltiades was swallowing the line in big gulps, evidently determined +to have not only the white grub, but all that went with it. + +Fisherman Jones's cry of dismay was almost as bitter as that of the +heaven-born inventor, who still writhed in his own trap. + +"Oh, Eph! Eph!" he whimpered, "he's eating up my tackle! He's eating +up my tackle!" + +"Never mind!" shouted Eph. "Don't be afraid! I reckon he'll stop when +he gets to the pole!" + +Those of us who knew Miltiades at his best have doubts as to this, +but, fortunately, it was not put to the test. Eph scrambled out of his +bush, and, taking up the chase once more, soon brought it to an end, +for Fisherman Jones, his nerve completely gone, could only stand and +mumble sadly to himself, "He's eating up my tackle! He's eating up my +tackle!" and the line, wrapping about his motionless form, led Eph and +the turkey in a brief spiral which ended in the conjunction of the +three. + +It was not until the turkey was decapitated that Eph remembered the +heaven-born inventor and hastened to his rescue. He was still in the +trap, but he was quite content, for he was figuring out a plan for an +automatic release from the same, something which should hold the +captive so long and then let him go in the interests of humanity. He +found the trap from the captive's point of view very interesting and +instructive. + +The tenacity of Miltiades's make-up was further shown by the +difficulty Eph and Fisherman Jones had in separating him from his +feathers that evening; and Aunt Tildy was so interested in the project +of the heaven-born inventor to raise featherless turkeys that she +forgot the yeast cake she had put to soak until it had been boiling +merrily for some time. Everything seemed to go wrong-end-to, and they +all sat up so late that Mrs. Simpkins, across the way, was led to +observe that "Either some one was dead over at Todd's or else they +were having a family party"; and in a certain sense she was right both +ways. + +The crowning misadventure came next morning. Eph started for the +village with his mind full of commissions from Aunt Tildy, some of +which he was sure to forget, and in a great hurry lest he forget them +all. He threw the harness hastily upon Dobbin, hitched him into the +wagon which had stood out on the soft ground overnight, and with an +eager "Get up, there!" gave him a slap with the reins. + +Next moment there was a ripping sound, and the heaven-born inventor +came to the door just in time to see the horse going out of the yard +on a run, with Eph following, still clinging to the reins, and taking +strides much like those of Baron Munchausen's courier. + +"Here, here!" called the inventor, "you've forgot the wagon. Come +back, Eph! You've forgot the wagon!" + +"Jeddediah Jodkins!" said Eph, as he swung an eccentric curve about +the gatepost; "do you--whoa!--suppose I'm such a--whoa! whoa!--fool +that I don't know that I'm not riding--whoa! in a--whoa! +whoa!--wagon?" And with this Eph vanished up street in the wake of the +galloping horse, still clinging valiantly to the reins. + +"I believe he did forget that wagon," said the heaven-born inventor; +"he's perfectly capable of it." But when he reached the barn he saw +the trouble. The ground had frozen hard overnight, and the wagon +wheels sunken in it were held as in a vise. Eph had started the horse +suddenly, and the obedient animal had walked right out of the shafts, +harness and all. + +A half hour later Eph was back with Dobbin, unharmed but a trifle +weary. It took an hour more and all Aunt Tildy's hot water to thaw out +the wheels, and when it was done Eph was so confused that he drove to +the village and back and forgot every one of his commissions. And in +the midst of all this the clock stopped. That settled the matter for +Aunt Tildy. She neglected the pudding, she forgot the pies, and she +let the turkey bake and bake in the overheated oven while she fretted +about that clock; and when it was finally set going, after long and +careful investigation by Eph, and frantic but successful attempts on +the part of Aunt Tildy to keep the heaven-born inventor from ruining +it forever, it was the dinner hour. + +Poor Aunt Tildy! That dinner was the crowning sorrow of her life. The +vegetables were cooked to rags, the pies were charcoal shells, and the +pudding had not been made. As for Miltiades, he was ten times tougher +than in life, and Eph's carving knife slipped from his form without +making a dent. Aunt Tildy wept at this, and Fisherman Jones and the +inventor looked blank enough, but there was no sorrow in the +countenance of Eph. He cheered Aunt Tildy, and he cracked jokes that +made even Fisherman Jones laugh. + +"Why, bless you!" he said, "ever since I was a boy I've been looking +for a chance to make a Thanksgiving dinner out of bread and milk. And +now I've got it. Why, I wouldn't have missed this for anything!" And +there came a knock at the door. + +Even Eph looked a trifle blank at this. If it should be company! "Come +in!" he called. + +The door was pushed aside and a big, steaming platter entered. It was +upheld by a small boy, who stammered diffidently, "My moth-moth-mother +thaid she wanted you to try thum of her nith turkey." + +"Well, well!" said Eph; "Aunt Tildy has cooked a turkey for us to-day, +and she's a main good cook"--Eph did not appear to see the signs the +heaven-born inventor was making to him--"but I've heard that your +mother does things pretty well, too. We're greatly obliged." And Eph +put the steaming platter on the table. + +"She thays you c-c-can thend the platter home to-morrow," stammered +the boy, and stammering himself out, he ran into another. The other +held high a big dish of plum pudding, from which a spicy aroma filled +the room. Again the heaven-born inventor made signs to Eph. + +"Our folks told me to ask if you wouldn't try this plum pudding," said +the newcomer. "They made an extra one, and the cousins we expected +didn't come, so we can spare it just as well as not." + +It seemed as if Eph hesitated a moment, and the inventor's face became +a panorama. Then he took the boy by the hand, and there was an odd +shake in his voice as he said: + +"I'm greatly obliged to you. We all are. Something happened to our +plum pudding, and we didn't have any. Tell your ma we send our +thanks." + +There was a sound of voices greeting in the hallway, and two young +girls entered, each laden with a basket. + +"Oh, Mr. Todd," they both said at once, "we couldn't wait to knock. We +want you to try some of our Thanksgiving. It was mother's birthday, +and we cooked extra for that, and we've got so much. We can't get all +ours onto the table. She'll feel real hurt if you don't." + +Somehow Eph couldn't say a word, but there was nothing the matter with +the heaven-born inventor. His speech of delighted acceptance was such +a good one that before he was half done the girls had loaded the table +with good things, and, with smiles and nods and "good-byes," slipped +out as rapidly and as gayly as they had come in. It was like a gust of +wind from a summer garden. + +The table, but now so bare, fairly sagged and steamed with offerings +of Thanksgiving. Somehow the steam got into Eph's eyes and made them +wet, till all he could do was to say whimsically: + +"There goes my last chance at a bread-and-milk Thanksgiving." + +But now Aunt Tildy had the floor, with her faded face all alight. + +"Eph Todd," she said, "you needn't look so flustrated. It's nothing +more than you deserve and not half so much either. Ain't you the +kindest man yourself that ever lived? Ain't you always doing something +for everybody, and helping every one of these neighbours in all sorts +of ways? I'd like to know what the whole place would do without you! +And now, just because they remember you on Thanksgiving Day, you look +like--" + +The steam had got into Aunt Tildy's eyes now, and she sat down again +just as there came another knock at the door, a timid sort of knock +this time. + +The heaven-born inventor's face widened in beatified smiles of +expectation at this, but Eph looked him sternly in the eye. + +"Jeddediah Jodkins!" he said; "if that is any more people bringing +things to eat to this house, they'll have to go away. We can't have +it. We've got enough here now to feed a--a boarding school." + +The heaven-born inventor sprang eagerly to his feet. "Don't you do it, +Eph," he said, "don't you do it. I've just thought of a way to can +it." + +A thinly clad man and woman stood at the door which Eph opened. Both +looked pale and tired, and the woman shivered. + +"Can you tell me where I can get work," asked the man, doggedly, "so +that I can earn a little something to eat? We are not beggars"--he +flushed a little through his pallor--"but I have had no work lately, +and we have eaten nothing since yesterday. We are looking--" + +The man stopped, and well he might, for Eph was dancing wildly about +the two, and hustling them into the house. + +"Come in!" he shouted. "Come in! Come in! You're the folks we are +waiting for! Eat? Why, goodness gra-cious! We've got so much to eat we +don't know what to do with it." + +He had them in chairs in a moment and was piling steaming roast turkey +on their plates. "There!" he said, "don't you say another word till +you have filled up on that. Folks"--and he returned to the +others--"here's two friends that have come to stay a week with us and +help eat turkey. Fall to! This is going to be the pleasantest +Thanksgiving we've had yet." + +And thus two new inmates were added to Todd's asylum. + + + + +HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN[7] + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. + + The old-time New England Thanksgiving has been described + many times, but never better then by the author of "Uncle + Tom's Cabin" in her less successful but more artistic novel, + "Oldtown Folks," from which book the following narrative has + been adapted. + + +When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the +yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, +and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and +the warm, late days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and +still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but +with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over +the community a sort of genial repose of spirit--a sense of something +accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar +of life--and the deacon began to say to the minister, of a Sunday, "I +suppose it's about time for the Thanksgiving proclamation." + +[Footnote 7: Adapted from "Oldtown Folks," Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +Conversation at this time began to turn on high and solemn culinary +mysteries and receipts of wondrous power and virtue. New modes of +elaborating squash pies and quince tarts were now ofttimes carefully +discussed at the evening firesides by Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and +notes seriously compared with the experiences of certain other aunties +of high repute in such matters. I noticed that on these occasions +their voices often fell into mysterious whispers, and that receipts of +especial power and sanctity were communicated in tones so low as +entirely to escape the vulgar ear. I still remember the solemn shake +of the head with which my Aunt Lois conveyed to Miss Mehitable +Rossiter the critical properties of _mace_, in relation to its powers +of producing in corn fritters a suggestive resemblance to oysters. As +ours was an oyster-getting district, and as that charming bivalve was +perfectly easy to come at, the interest of such an imitation can be +accounted for only by the fondness of the human mind for works of art. + +For as much as a week beforehand, "we children" were employed in +chopping mince for pies to a most wearisome fineness, and in pounding +cinnamon, all-spice, and cloves in a great lignum-vitæ mortar; and the +sound of this pounding and chopping reëchoed through all the rafters +of the old house with a hearty and vigorous cheer most refreshing to +our spirits. + +In those days there were none of the thousand ameliorations of the +labours of housekeeping which have since arisen--no ground and +prepared spices and sweet herbs; everything came into our hands in the +rough, and in bulk, and the reducing of it into a state for use was +deemed one of the appropriate labours of childhood. Even the very salt +that we used in cooking was rock salt, which we were required to wash +and dry and pound and sift before it became fit for use. + +At other times of the year we sometimes murmured at these labours, but +those that were supposed to usher in the great Thanksgiving festival +were always entered into with enthusiasm. There were signs of richness +all around us--stoning of raisins, cutting of citron, slicing of +candied orange peel. Yet all these were only dawnings and intimations +of what was coming during the week of real preparation, after the +Governor's proclamation had been read. + +The glories of that proclamation! We knew beforehand the Sunday it was +to be read, and walked to church with alacrity, filled with gorgeous +and vague expectations. + +The cheering anticipation sustained us through what seemed to us the +long waste of the sermon and prayers; and when at last the auspicious +moment approached--when the last quaver of the last hymn had died +out--the whole house rippled with a general movement of complacency, +and a satisfied smile of pleased expectation might be seen gleaming on +the faces of all the young people, like a ray of sunshine through a +garden of flowers. + +Thanksgiving now was dawning! We children poked one another, and +fairly giggled with unreproved delight as we listened to the crackle +of the slowly unfolding document. That great sheet of paper impressed +us as something supernatural, by reason of its mighty size and by the +broad seal of the State affixed thereto; and when the minister read +therefrom, "By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty +repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders. Then, +after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the Commonwealth had +that year received at the hands of Divine Providence, came at last the +naming of the eventful day, and, at the end of all, the imposing +heraldic words, "God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." And +then, as the congregation broke up and dispersed, all went their +several ways with schemes of mirth and feasting in their heads. + +And now came on the week in earnest. In the very watches of the night +preceding Monday morning a preternatural stir below stairs and the +thunder of the pounding barrel announced that the washing was to be +got out of the way before daylight, so as to give "ample scope and +room enough" for the more pleasing duties of the season. + +The making of _pies_ at this period assumed vast proportions that +verged upon the sublime. Pies were made by forties and fifties and +hundreds, and made of everything on the earth and under the earth. + +The pie is an English institution, which, planted on American soil, +forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of genera +and species. Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand +strictly American seedlings from that main stock, evinced the power of +American housewives to adapt old institutions to new uses. Pumpkin +pies, cranberry pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant +pies, peach, pear, and plum pies, custard pies, apple pies, +Marlborough-pudding pies--pies with top crusts and pies without--pies +adorned with all sorts of fanciful flutings and architectural strips +laid across and around, and otherwise varied, attested the boundless +fertility of the feminine mind when once let loose in a given +direction. + +Fancy the heat and vigour of the great pan formation, when Aunt Lois +and Aunt Keziah, and my mother and grandmother, all in ecstasies of +creative inspiration, ran, bustled, and hurried--mixing, rolling, +tasting, consulting--alternately setting us children to work when +anything could be made of us, and then chasing us all out of the +kitchen when our misinformed childhood ventured to take too many +liberties with sacred mysteries. Then out we would all fly at the +kitchen door, like sparks from a blacksmith's window. + +On these occasions, as there was a great looseness in the police +department over us children, we usually found a ready refuge at Miss +Mehitable's with Tina,[8] who, confident of the strength of her +position with Polly, invited us into the kitchen, and with the air of +a mistress led us around to view the proceedings there. + +[Footnote 8: Tina was Miss Mehitable's adopted child; Polly her +faithful old maid-servant.] + +A genius for entertaining was one of Tina's principal characteristics; +and she did not fail to make free with raisins, or citrons, or +whatever came to hand, in a spirit of hospitality at which Polly +seriously demurred. That worthy woman occasionally felt the +inconvenience of the state of subjugation to which the little elf had +somehow or other reduced her, and sometimes rattled her chains +fiercely, scolding with a vigour which rather alarmed us, but which +Tina minded not a whit. Confident of her own powers, she would, in the +very midst of her wrath, mimic her to her face with such irresistible +drollery as to cause the torrent of reproof to end in a dissonant +laugh, accompanied by a submissive cry for quarter. + +"I declare, Tina Percival," she said to her one day, "you're saucy +enough to physic a horn bug! I never did see the beater of you! If +Miss Mehitable don't keep you in better order, I don't see what's to +become of any of us!" + +"Why, what did 'come of you before I came?" was the undismayed reply. +"You know, Polly, you and Aunty both were just as lonesome as you +could be till I came here, and you never had such pleasant times in +your life as you've had since I've been here. You're a couple of old +beauties, both of you, and know just how to get along with me. But +come, boys, let's take our raisins and go up into the garret and play +Thanksgiving." + +In the corner of the great kitchen, during all these days, the jolly +old oven roared and crackled in great volcanic billows of flame, +snapping and gurgling as if the old fellow entered with joyful +sympathy into the frolic of the hour; and then, his great heart being +once warmed up, he brooded over successive generations of pies and +cakes, which went in raw and came out cooked, till butteries and +dressers and shelves and pantries were literally crowded with a +jostling abundance. + +A great cold northern chamber, where the sun never shone, and where in +winter the snow sifted in at the window cracks, and ice and frost +reigned with undisputed sway, was fitted up to be the storehouse of +these surplus treasures. There, frozen solid, and thus well preserved +in their icy fetters, they formed a great repository for all the +winter months; and the pies baked at Thanksgiving often came out fresh +and good with the violets of April. + +During this eventful preparation week all the female part of my +grandmother's household, as I have before remarked, were at a height +above any ordinary state of mind; they moved about the house rapt in a +species of prophetic frenzy. It seemed to be considered a necessary +feature of such festivals that everybody should be in a hurry, and +everything in the house should be turned bottom upwards with +enthusiasm--so at least we children understood it, and we certainly +did our part to keep the ball rolling. + +At this period the constitutional activity of Uncle Fliakim increased +to a degree that might fairly be called preternatural. Thanksgiving +time was the time for errands of mercy and beneficence through the +country; and Uncle Fliakim's immortal old rubber horse and rattling +wagon were on the full jump in tours of investigation into everybody's +affairs in the region around. On returning, he would fly through our +kitchen like the wind, leaving open the doors, upsetting whatever came +in his way--now a pan of milk, and now a basin of mince--talking +rapidly, and forgetting only the point in every case that gave it +significance, or enabled any one to put it to any sort of use. When +Aunt Lois checked his benevolent effusions by putting the test +questions of practical efficiency, Uncle Fliakim always remembered +that he'd "forgotten to inquire about that," and skipping through the +kitchen, and springing into his old wagon, would rattle off again on a +full tilt to correct and amend his investigations. + +Moreover, my grandmother's kitchen at this time began to be haunted by +those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of uncertain fortunes, whom +a full experience of her bountiful habits led to expect something at +her hand at this time of the year. All the poor, loafing tribes, +Indian and half-Indian, who at other times wandered, selling baskets +and other light wares, were sure to come back to Oldtown a little +before Thanksgiving time, and report themselves in my grandmother's +kitchen. + +The great hogshead of cider in the cellar, which my grandfather called +the Indian hogshead, was on tap at all hours of the day; and many a +mugful did I draw and dispense to the tribes that basked in the +sunshine at our door. + +Aunt Lois never had a hearty conviction of the propriety of these +arrangements; but my grandmother, who had a prodigious verbal memory, +bore down upon her with such strings of quotations from the Old +Testament that she was utterly routed. + +"Now," says my Aunt Lois, "I s'pose we've got to have Betty Poganut +and Sally Wonsamug, and old Obscue and his wife, and the whole tribe +down, roosting around our doors till we give 'em something. That's +just mother's way; she always keeps a whole generation at her heels." + +"How many times must I tell you, Lois, to read your Bible?" was my +grandmother's rejoinder; and loud over the sound of pounding and +chopping in the kitchen could be heard the voice of her quotations: +"If there be among you a poor man in any of the gates of the land +which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, +nor shut thy hand, from thy poor brother. Thou shalt surely give him; +and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him, because +that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy +works; for the poor shall never cease from out of the land." + +These words seemed to resound like a sort of heraldic proclamation to +call around us all that softly shiftless class, who, for some reason +or other, are never to be found with anything in hand at the moment +that it is wanted. + +"There, to be sure," said Aunt Lois, one day when our preparations +were in full blast; "there comes Sam Lawson down the hill, limpsy as +ever; now he'll have his doleful story to tell, and mother'll give him +one of the turkeys." + +And so, of course, it fell out. + +Sam came in with his usual air of plaintive assurance, and seated +himself a contemplative spectator in the chimney corner, regardless of +the looks and signs of unwelcome on the part of Aunt Lois. + +"Lordy massy, how prosperous everything does seem here!" he said in +musing tones, over his inevitable mug of cider; "so different from +what 'tis t' our house. There's Hepsey, she's all in a stew, an' I've +just been an' got her thirty-seven cents' wuth o' nutmegs, yet she +says she's sure she don't see how she's to keep Thanksgiving, an' +she's down on me about it, just as ef 'twas my fault. Yeh see, last +winter our old gobbler got froze. You know, Mis' Badger, that 'ere +cold night we hed last winter. Wal, I was off with Jake Marshall that +night; ye see, Jake, he had to take old General Dearborn's corpse into +Boston, to the family vault, and Jake, he kind o' hated to go alone; +'twas a drefful cold time, and he ses to me,' Sam, you jes' go 'long +with me'; so I was sort o' sorry for him, and I kind o' thought I'd +go 'long. Wal, come 'long to Josh Bissel's tahvern, there at the +Halfway House, you know, 'twas so swingeing cold we stopped to take a +little suthin' warmin', an' we sort o' sot an' sot over the fire, +till, fust we knew, we kind o' got asleep; an' when we woke up we +found we'd left the old General hitched up t' th' post pretty much all +night. Wal, didn't hurt him none, poor man; 'twas allers a favourite +spot o' his'n. But, takin' one thing with another, I didn't get home +till about noon next day, an' I tell you, Hepsey she was right down on +me. She said the baby was sick, and there hadn't been no wood split, +nor the barn fastened up, nor nuthin'. Lordy massy, I didn't mean no +harm; I thought there was wood enough, and I thought likely Hepsey'd +git out an' fasten up the barn. But Hepsey, she was in one o' her +contrary streaks, an' she wouldn't do a thing; an' when I went out to +look, why, sure 'nuff, there was our old tom-turkey froze as stiff as +a stake--his claws jist a stickin' right straight up like this." Here +Sam struck an expressive attitude, and looked so much like a frozen +turkey as to give a pathetic reality to the picture. + +"Well, now, Sam, why need you be off on things that's none of your +business?" said my grandmother. "I've talked to you plainly about that +a great many times, Sam," she continued, in tones of severe +admonition. "Hepsey is a hard-working woman, but she can't be expected +to see to everything, and you oughter 'ave been at home that night to +fasten up your own barn and look after your own creeturs." + +Sam took the rebuke all the more meekly as he perceived the stiff +black legs of a turkey poking out from under my grandmother's apron +while she was delivering it. To be exhorted and told of his +shortcomings, and then furnished with a turkey at Thanksgiving, was a +yearly part of his family program. In time he departed, not only with +the turkey, but with us boys in procession after him, bearing a mince +and a pumpkin pie for Hepsey's children. + +"Poor things!" my grandmother remarked; "they ought to have something +good to eat Thanksgiving Day; 'tain't their fault that they've got a +shiftless father." + +Sam, in his turn, moralized to us children, as we walked beside him: +"A body'd think that Hepsey'd learn to trust in Providence," he said, +"but she don't. She allers has a Thanksgiving dinner pervided; but +that 'ere woman ain't grateful for it, by no manner o' means. Now +she'll be jest as cross as she can be, 'cause this 'ere ain't _our_ +turkey, and these 'ere ain't our pies. Folks doos lose so much that +hes sech dispositions." + +A multitude of similar dispensations during the course of the week +materially reduced the great pile of chickens and turkeys which black +Cæsar's efforts in slaughtering, picking, and dressing kept daily +supplied.... + + * * * * * + +Great as the preparations were for the dinner, everything was so +contrived that not a soul in the house should be kept from the +morning service of Thanksgiving in the church, and from listening to +the Thanksgiving sermon, in which the minister was expected to express +his views freely concerning the politics of the country and the state +of things in society generally, in a somewhat more secular vein of +thought than was deemed exactly appropriate to the Lord's day. But it +is to be confessed that, when the good man got carried away by the +enthusiasm of his subject to extend these exercises beyond a certain +length, anxious glances, exchanged between good wives, sometimes +indicated a weakness of the flesh, having a tender reference to the +turkeys and chickens and chicken pies which might possibly be +overdoing in the ovens at home. But your old brick oven was a true +Puritan institution, and backed up the devotional habits of good +housewives by the capital care which he took of whatever was committed +to his capacious bosom. A truly well-bred oven would have been ashamed +of himself all his days and blushed redder than his own fires, if a +God-fearing house matron, away at the temple of the Lord, should come +home and find her pie crust either burned or underdone by his over or +under zeal; so the old fellow generally managed to bring things out +exactly right. + +When sermons and prayers were all over, we children rushed home to see +the great feast of the year spread. + +What chitterings and chatterings there were all over the house, as all +the aunties and uncles and cousins came pouring in, taking off their +things, looking at one another's bonnets and dresses, and mingling +their comments on the morning sermon with various opinions on the new +millinery outfits, and with bits of home news and kindly neighbourhood +gossip. + +Uncle Bill, whom the Cambridge college authorities released, as they +did all the other youngsters of the land, for Thanksgiving Day, made a +breezy stir among them all, especially with the young cousins of the +feminine gender. + +The best room on this occasion was thrown wide open, and its habitual +coldness had been warmed by the burning down of a great stack of +hickory logs, which had been heaped up unsparingly since morning. It +takes some hours to get a room warm where a family never sits, and +which therefore has not in its walls one particle of the genial +vitality which comes from the indwelling of human beings. But on +Thanksgiving Day, at least, every year this marvel was effected in our +best room. + +Although all servile labour and vain recreation on this day were by +law forbidden, according to the terms of the proclamation, it was not +held to be a violation of the precept that all the nice old aunties +should bring their knitting work and sit gently trotting their needles +around the fire; nor that Uncle Bill should start a full-fledged romp +among the girls and children, while the dinner was being set on the +long table in the neighbouring kitchen. Certain of the good elderly +female relatives, of serious and discreet demeanour, assisted at this +operation. + +But who shall do justice to the dinner, and describe the turkey, and +chickens, and chicken pies, with all that endless variety of +vegetables which the American soil and climate have contributed to the +table, and which, without regard to the French doctrine of courses, +were all piled together in jovial abundance upon the smoking board? +There was much carving and laughing and talking and eating, and all +showed that cheerful ability to despatch the provisions which was the +ruling spirit of the hour. After the meat came the plum puddings, and +then the endless array of pies, till human nature was actually +bewildered and overpowered by the tempting variety; and even we +children turned from the profusion offered to us, and wondered what +was the matter that we could eat no more. + +When all was over, my grandfather rose at the head of the table, and a +fine venerable picture he made as he stood there, his silver hair +flowing in curls down each side of his clear, calm face, while, in +conformity to the old Puritan custom, he called their attention to a +recital of the mercies of God in His dealings with their family. + +It was a sort of family history, going over and touching upon the +various events which had happened. He spoke of my father's death, and +gave a tribute to his memory; and closed all with the application of a +time-honoured text, expressing the hope that as years passed by we +might "so number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom"; and +then he gave out that psalm which in those days might be called the +national hymn of the Puritans. + + "Let children hear the mighty deeds + Which God performed of old, + Which in our younger years we saw, + And which our fathers told. + + "He bids us make his glories known, + His works of power and grace. + And we'll convey his wonders down + Through every rising race. + + "Our lips shall tell them to our sons, + And they again to theirs; + That generations yet unborn + May teach them to their heirs. + + "Thus shall they learn in God alone + Their hope securely stands; + That they may ne'er forget his works, + But practise his commands." + +This we all united in singing to the venerable tune of St. Martin's, +an air which, the reader will perceive, by its multiplicity of quavers +and inflections gave the greatest possible scope to the cracked and +trembling voices of the ancients, who united in it with even more zeal +than the younger part of the community. + +Uncle Fliakim Sheril, furbished up in a new crisp black suit, and with +his spindleshanks trimly incased in the smoothest of black silk +stockings, looking for all the world just like an alert and spirited +black cricket, outdid himself on this occasion in singing _counter_, +in that high, weird voice that he must have learned from the wintry +winds that usually piped around the corners of the old house. But any +one who looked at him, as he sat with his eyes closed, beating time +with head and hand, and, in short, with every limb of his body, must +have perceived the exquisite satisfaction which he derived from this +mode of expressing himself. I much regret to be obliged to state that +my graceless Uncle Bill, taking advantage of the fact that the eyes of +all his elders were devotionally closed, stationing himself a little +in the rear of my Uncle Fliakim, performed an exact imitation of his +_counter_ with such a killing facility that all the younger part of +the audience were nearly dead with suppressed laughter. Aunt Lois, who +never shut her eyes a moment on any occasion, discerned this from a +distant part of the room, and in vain endeavoured to stop it by +vigorously shaking her head at the offender. She might as well have +shaken it at a bobolink tilting on a clover top. In fact, Uncle Bill +was Aunt Lois's weak point, and the corners of her own mouth were +observed to twitch in such a suspicious manner that the whole moral +force of her admonition was destroyed. + +And now, the dinner being cleared away, we youngsters, already excited +to a tumult of laughter, tumbled into the best room, under the +supervision of Uncle Bill, to relieve ourselves with a game of +"blindman's bluff," while the elderly women washed up the dishes and +got the house in order, and the men folks went out to the barn to look +at the cattle, and walked over the farm and talked of the crops. + +In the evening the house was all open and lighted with the best of +tallow candles, which Aunt Lois herself had made with especial care +for this illumination. It was understood that we were to have a dance, +and black Cæsar, full of turkey and pumpkin pie, and giggling in the +very jollity of his heart, had that afternoon rosined his bow, and +tuned his fiddle, and practised jigs and Virginia reels, in a way that +made us children think him a perfect Orpheus.... + +You may imagine the astounding wassail among the young people.... My +Uncle Bill related the story of "the Wry-mouth Family," with such +twists and contortions and killing extremes of the ludicrous as +perfectly overcame even the minister; and he was to be seen, at one +period of the evening, with a face purple with laughter and the tears +actually rolling down over his well-formed cheeks, while some of the +more excitable young people almost fell in trances and rolled on the +floor in the extreme of their merriment. In fact, the assemblage was +becoming so tumultuous, that the scrape of Cæsar's violin and the +forming of sets for a dance seemed necessary to restore the peace.... + +Uncle Bill would insist on leading out Aunt Lois, and the bright +colour rising to her thin cheeks brought back a fluttering image of +what might have been beauty in some fresh, early day. Ellery Davenport +insisted upon leading forth Miss Deborah Kittery, notwithstanding her +oft-repeated refusals and earnest protestations to the contrary. As to +Uncle Fliakim, he jumped and frisked and gyrated among the single +sisters and maiden aunts, whirling them into the dance as if he had +been the little black gentleman himself. With that true spirit of +Christian charity which marked all his actions, he invariably chose +out the homeliest and most neglected, and thus worthy Aunt Keziah, +dear old soul, was for a time made quite prominent by his +attentions.... + +Grandmother's face was radiant with satisfaction, as the wave of +joyousness crept up higher and higher round her, till the elders, who +stood keeping time with their heads and feet, began to tell one +another how they had danced with their sweethearts in good old days +gone by, and the elder women began to blush and bridle, and boast of +steps that they could take in their youth, till the music finally +subdued them, and into the dance they went. + +"Well, well!" quoth my grandmother; "they're all at it so hearty I +don't see why I shouldn't try it myself." And into the Virginia reel +she went, amid screams of laughter from all the younger members of the +company. + +But I assure you my grandmother was not a woman to be laughed at; for +whatever she once set on foot she "put through" with a sturdy energy +befitting a daughter of the Puritans. + +"Why shouldn't I dance?" she said, when she arrived red and +resplendent at the bottom of the set. "Didn't Mr. Despondency and Miss +Muchafraid and Mr. Readytohalt all dance together in the 'Pilgrim's +Progress?'" And the minister in his ample flowing wig, and my lady in +her stiff brocade, gave to my grandmother a solemn twinkle of +approbation. + +As nine o'clock struck, the whole scene dissolved and melted; for what +well-regulated village would think of carrying festivities beyond that +hour? + +And so ended our Thanksgiving at Oldtown. + + + + +WISHBONE VALLEY[9] + +BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK. + + A Thanksgiving ghost story about a boy who dined not wisely + but too well. + + +The Thanksgiving feast had just ended, and only Donald and his little +sister Grace remained at the table, looking drowsily at the +plum-pudding that they couldn't finish, but which they disliked to +leave on their plates. + +[Footnote 9: From _Harper's Young People_, November 21, 1893.] + +When the plates had been removed, and the plum-pudding taken to the +kitchen and placed beside the well-carved gobbler, Donald and Grace +were too tired to rise from their chairs to have their faces washed. +They seemed lost in a roseate repose, until Grace finally thought of +the wishbone that they intended to break after dinner. + +"Come, now, Donald," she said, "let's break the old gobbler's +wishbone." + +"All right," replied Donald, opening his eyes slowly, and unwrapping +the draperies of his sweet plum-pudding dreams from about him, "let's +do it now." So he held up the wishbone, and Grace took hold of the +other end of it with a merry laugh. + +"Here, you must not take hold so far from the end, because I have a +fine wish to make, and want to get the big half if possible." + +"So have I a nice wish to make," replied Grace, with a sigh, "and I +also want the big end." + +And so they argued for a few minutes, until their mother entered the +room and told them that if they could not stop quarrelling over the +wishbone she would take it from them and throw it into the fire. So +they lost no time in taking it by the ends and snapping it asunder. + +"Hurrah!" exclaimed Donald, observing Grace's expression of +disappointment. "I've got it!" + +"Well, I've made a wish, too," said Grace. + +"But it won't come true," replied Donald, "because you have the little +end." + +And then Donald thought he would go out in the air and play, because +his great dinner made him feel very uncomfortable. When he was out in +the barnyard it was just growing dusk, and Donald, through his +half-closed eyes, observed a gobbler strutting about. To his great +surprise the gobbler approached him instead of running away. + +"I thought we had you for dinner to-day," said Donald. + +"You did," replied the gobbler coldly, "and you had a fine old time, +didn't you?" + +"Yes," said Donald, "you made a splendid dinner, and you ought to be +pleased to think you made us all so happy. Your second joints were +very sweet and juicy, and your drumsticks were like sticks of candy." + +"And you broke my poor old wishbone with your little sister, didn't +you?" + +"I did." + +"And what did you wish?" asked the gobbler. + +"You mustn't ask me that," replied Donald, "because, you know, if I +tell you the wish I made it would not come true." + +"But it was my wishbone," persisted the gobbler, "and I think I ought +to know something about it." + +"You have rights, I suppose, and your argument is not without force," +replied Donald, with calm dignity. + +The gobbler was puzzled at so lofty a reply, and not understanding it, +said: + +"I am only the ghost, or spirit, of the gobbler you ate to-day, but +still I remember how one day last summer you threw a pan of water on +me, and alluded to my wattles as a red necktie, and called me 'Old +Harvard,' Now, come along!" + +"Where?" asked Donald. + +"To Wishbone Valley, where you will see the spirits of my ancestors +eaten by your family." + +It was now dusk, and Donald didn't like the idea of going to such a +place. He was a brave, courageous boy, on most occasions, but the idea +of going to Wishbone Valley when the stars were appearing filled him +with a dread that he didn't like to acknowledge even to the ghost of a +gobbler. + +"I can't go with you now, Mr. Gobbler," he said, "because I have a lot +of lessons to study for next Monday; wait until to-morrow, and I will +gladly go with you." + +"Come along," replied the gobbler, with a provoked air, "and let your +lessons go until to-morrow, when you will have plenty of light." + +Thereupon the gobbler extended his wing and took Donald by the hand, +and started on a trot. + +"Not so fast," protested Donald. + +"Why not?" demanded the gobbler in surprise. + +"Because," replied Donald, with a groan, "I have just had my dinner, +and I'm too full of you to run." + +So the gobbler kindly and considerately slackened his pace to a walk, +and the two proceeded out of the barnyard and across a wide meadow to +a little valley surrounded by a dense thicket. The moon was just +rising and the thicket was silvered by its light, while the dry leaves +rustled weirdly in the cold crisp air. + +"This," said the gobbler, "is Wishbone Valley. Look and see." + +Donald strained his eyes, and, sure enough, there were wishbones +sticking out of the ground in every direction. He thought they looked +like little croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of +offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to +make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in +an offhand way: + +"Let's break one and make a wish." + +The ghost of the old gobbler frowned, drew himself up, and uttered a +ghostly whistle that seemed to cut the air. As he did so, the ghosts +of the other turkeys long since eaten popped out of the thickets with +a great flapping of wings, and each one perched upon a wishbone and +gazed upon poor Donald, who was so frightened that his collar flew +into a standing position, while he stood upon his toes, with his knees +knocking together at a great rate. + +Every turkey fixed its eyes upon the trembling boy, who was beside +himself with fear. + +"What shall we do with him, grandpapa?" asked the gobbler of an +ancient bird that could scarcely contain itself and remain on its +wishbone. + +"I cannot think of anything terrible enough, Willie," replied the +grandparent. "It almost makes my ghost-ship boil when I think of the +way in which he used to amuse himself by making me a target for his +bean shooter. Often when I was asleep in the button-ball he would +fetch me one on the side of the head that would give me an earache for +a week. But now it is our turn." + +Here the other turkeys broke into a wild chorus of approval. + +"Take his bean shooter from his pocket," suggested another bird, "and +let's have a shot at him." + +Donald was compelled to hand out his bean shooter, and the grandparent +took it, lay on his back, and with the handle of the bean shooter in +one claw and the missile end in the other began to send pebbles at +Donald at a great rate. He could hear them whistling past his ears, +but could not see them to dodge. Fortunately none struck him, and when +the turkeys felt that they had had fun enough of that kind at his +expense the bean shooter was returned to him. + +"Now, then," said the gobbler's Aunt Fanny, "he once gave me a string +of yellow beads for corn." + +"What shall we do to him for that?" asked the gobbler. + +"Make him eat a lot of yellow beads," said the chorus. + +"But we have no beads," said the gobbler sadly. + +"Then let's poke him with a stick," suggested the gobbler's Granduncle +Sylvester; "he used to do that to us." + +So they all took up their wishbones and poked Donald until he was +sore. Sometimes they would hit him in a ticklish spot, and throw him +into such a fit of laughter that they thought he was enjoying it all +and chaffing them. So they stuck their wishbones into the ground, and +took their positions on them once more, to take a needed rest, for the +poor ghosts were greatly exhausted. + +There was one quiet turkey who had taken no part in the proceedings. + +"Why don't you suggest something?" demanded Uncle Sylvester. + +"Because," replied the quiet turkey, "Donald never did anything to me, +and I must treat him accordingly. I was raised and killed a long way +from here, and canned. Donald's father bought me at a store. To be a +ghost in good standing I should be on the farm where I was killed, +and really I don't know why I should be here." + +"Then you should be an impartial judge," said Aunt Fanny. "Now what +shall we do with him?" + +"Tell them to let me go home," protested Donald, "and I'll agree never +to molest or eat turkey again; I will give them all the angleworms I +can dig every day, and on Thanksgiving Day I'll ask my father to have +roast beef." + +"I think," replied the impartial canned ghost, "that as all boys +delight in chasing turkeys with sticks, it would be eminently just and +proper for us, with the exception of myself, to chase this boy and +beat him with our' wishbones, to let him learn by experience that +which he could scarcely learn by observation." + +"What could I do but eat turkey when it was put on the table?" +protested Donald. + +"But you could help chasing us around with sticks," sang the chorus. + +They thereupon descended from the wishbones upon which they had been +perching, and flying after him, they darted the wishbones, which they +held in their beaks, into his back and neck as hard as they could. +Donald ran up and down Wishbone Valley, calling upon them to stop, and +declaring that if turkey should ever be put upon the table again he +would eat nothing but the stuffing. When Donald found that the +wishbones were sticking into his neck like so many hornet stings, he +made up his mind that he would run for the house. Finally the +wishbone tattoo stopped, and when he looked around, the gobbler, who +was twenty feet away, said: "When a Thanksgiving turkey dies, his +ghost comes down here to Wishbone Valley to join his ancestors, and it +never after leaves the valley. You will now know why every spring the +turkeys steal down here to hatch their little ones. As you are now +over the boundary line you are safe." + +"Thank you," said Donald gratefully. + +"Good-bye," sang all the ghosts in chorus. + +There was then a great ghostly flapping and whistling, and the turkeys +and wishbones all vanished from sight. + +Donald ran home as fast as his trembling legs could carry him, and he +fancied that the surviving turkeys on the place made fun of him as he +passed on his way. + +When he reached the house he was very happy, but made no allusion to +his experience in Wishbone Valley, for fear of being laughed at. + +"Come, Donald," said his mother, shortly after his arrival, "it is +almost bedtime; you had better eat that drumstick and retire." + +"I think I have had turkey enough for to-day," replied Donald, with a +shudder, "and if it is just the same, I would rather have a nice thick +piece of pumpkin pie." + +So the girl placed a large piece of pie before him; and while he was +eating with the keen appetite given him by the crisp air of Wishbone +Valley, he heard a great clattering of hoofs coming down the road. +These sounds did not stop until the express wagon drew up in front of +the house, and the driver brought in a large package for Donald. + +"Hurrah!" shouted Donald, in boundless glee. "Uncle Arthur has sent me +a nice bicycle! Wasn't it good of him?" + +"Didn't you wish for a bicycle to-day, when you got the big end of the +wishbone?" asked his little sister Grace. + +"What makes you think so?" asked Donald, with a laugh. + +"Oh, I knew it all the time; and my wish came true, too." + +"How could your wish come true?" asked Donald, with a puzzled look, +"when you got the little half of the wishbone?" + +"I don't know," replied Grace, "but my wish did come true." + +"And what did you wish?" + +"Why," said Grace, running up and kissing her little brother +affectionately, "I wished your wish would come true, of course." + + + + +PATEM'S SALMAGUNDI[10] + +BY E. S. BROOKS. + + New York boys, especially, will enjoy this tale of the + doings of a group of Dutch schoolboys in old New Amsterdam. + + +Little Patem Onderdonk meant mischief. There was a snap in his eyes +and a look on his face that were certain proof of this. I am bound to +say, however, that there was nothing new or strange in this, for +little Patem Onderdonk generally did mean mischief. Whenever any one's +cow was found astray beyond the limits, or any one's bark gutter laid +askew so that the roof-water dripped on the passer's head, or whenever +the dominie's dog ran howling down the Heeren Graaft with a battered +pypken cover tied to his suffering tail, the goode vrouws in the +neighbourhood did not stop to wonder who could have done it; they +simply raised both hands in a sort of injured resignation and +exclaimed: + +"_Ach so_; what's gone of Patem's Elishamet's Patem?" + +So you see little Patem Onderdonk was generally at the bottom of +whatever mischief was afoot in those last Dutch days of New Amsterdam +on the island of Manhattan. + +[Footnote 10: From "Storied Holidays," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.] + +But this time he was conjuring a more serious bit of mischief than +even he usually attempted. This was plain from the appearance of the +startled but deeply interested faces of the half-dozen boys gathered +around him on the bridge. + +"But I say, Patem," queried young Teuny Vanderbreets, who was always +ready to second any of Patem's plans, "how can we come it over the +dominie as you would have us?" + +"So then, Teuny," cried Patem, in his highest key of contempt, "did +your wits blow away with your hat out of Heer Snediker's nut tree +yesterday? Do not you know that the Heer Governor is at royal odds +with Dominie Curtius because the skinflint old dominie will not pay +the taxes due the town? Why, lad, the Heer Governor will back us up!" + +"And why will he not pay the taxes, Patem?" asked Jan Hooglant, the +tanner's son. + +"Because he's a skinflint, I tell you," asserted Patem, "though I do +believe he says that he was brought here from Holland as one of the +Company's men, and ought not therefore pay taxes to the Company. +That's what I did hear them say at the Stadt Huys this morning, and +Heer Vanderveer, the schepen, said there, too, that Dominie Curtius +was not worth one of the five hundred guilders which he doth receive +for our teaching. And sure, if the burgomaster and schepens will have +none of the old dominie, why then no more will we who know how stupid +are his lessons, and how his switch doth sting. So, hoy, lads, let's +turn him out." + +And with that little Patem Onderdonk gave Teuny Vanderbreets' broad +back a sounding slap with his battered horn book and crying, "Come on, +lads," headed his mutinous companions on a race for the rickety little +schoolhouse near the fort. + +It was hard lines for Dominie Curtius all that day at school. The boys +had never been so unruly; the girls never so inattentive. Rebellion +seemed in the air, and the dominie, never a patient or gentle-mannered +man, grew harsher and more exacting as the session advanced. His reign +as master of the Latin School of New Amsterdam had not been a +successful one, and his dispute with the town officers as to his +payment of taxes had so angered him that, as Patem declared, "he +seemed moved to avenge himself upon the town's children." + +This being the state of affairs, Dominie Curtius's mood this day was +not a pleasant one, and the school exercises had more to do with the +whipping horse and the birch twigs than with the horn book and the +Latin conjugations. + +The boys, I regret to say, were hardened to this, because of much +practice, but when the dominie, enraged at some fresh breach of rigid +discipline, glared savagely over his big spectacles and then swooped +down upon pretty little Antje Adrianse who had done nothing whatever, +the whole school broke into open rebellion. Horn books, and every +possible missile that the boys had at hand, went flying at the +master's head, and the young rebels, led on by Patem and Teuny, +charged down upon the unprepared dominie, rescued trembling little +Antje from his clutch, and then one and all rushed pell-mell from the +school with shouts of triumph and derision. + +But when the first flush of their victory was over, the boys realized +that they had done a very daring and risky thing. It was no small +matter in those days of stern authority and strict home government for +girls and boys to resist the commands of their elders; and to run away +from school was one of the greatest of crimes. So they all looked at +Patem in much anxiety. + +"Well," cried several of the boys almost in a breath, "and now what +shall we do, Patem? You have us in a pretty fix." + +Patem waved his hand like a young Napoleon. + +"_Ach_! ye are all cowards," he cried shrilly. "What will we _do_? +Why, then we will but do as if we were burgomasters and schepens--as +we will be some day. We will to the Heer Governor straight, and lay +our demands before him." + +Well, well; this _was_ bold talk! The Heer Governor! Not a boy in all +New Amsterdam but would sooner face a gray wolf in the Sapokanican +woods than the Heer Governor Stuyvesant. + +"So then, Patem Onderdonk," they cried, "you may do it yourself, for, +good faith, we will not." + +"Why," said Jan Hooglant, "why, Patem, the Heer Governor will have us +rated soundly over the ears for daring such a thing; and we will all +catch more of it when we get home. Demand of the Heer Governor indeed! +Why, boy, you must be crazy!" + +But Patem was not crazy. He was simply determined; and at last, by +threats and arguments and coaxing words, he gradually won over a +half-dozen of the boldest spirits to his side and, without more ado, +started with them to interview the Heer Governor. + +But, quickly as they acted, the schoolmaster was still more prompt in +action. Defeated and deserted by his scholars, Dominie Curtius had +raged about the schoolroom for a while, spluttering angrily in mingled +Dutch and Polish, and then, clapping his broad black hat upon his +head, marched straight to the fort to lay his grievance before the +Heer Governor. + +The Heer Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General for the Dutch West India +Company in their colony of New Netherlands, walked up and down the +Governor's chamber in the fort at New Amsterdam woefully perplexed. +The Heer Governor was not a patient man, and a combination of +annoyances was hedging him about and making his government of his +island province anything but pleasant work. + +The "malignant English" of the Massachusetts and Hartford colonies +were pressing their claim to the ownership of the New Netherlands, +just as, to the south, the settlers on Lord De La Ware's patent were +also doing; the "people called Quakers," whom the Heer Governor had +publicly whipped for heresy and sent a-packing, were spreading their +"pernicious doctrine" through Long Island and other outer edges of the +colony, and the Indians around Esopus, the little settlement which the +province had planted midway on the Hudson between New Amsterdam and +Beaverwyck (now Albany), were growing restless and defiant. Thump, +thump, thump, across the floor went the wooden leg with its silver +bands, and with every thump the Heer Governor grew still more puzzled +and angered. For the Heer Governor could not bear to have things go +wrong. + +Suddenly, with scant ceremony and but the apology of a request for +admittance, there came into the Heer Governor's presence the Dominie +Doctor Alexander Carolus Curtius, master of the Latin School. + +"Here is a pretty pass, Heer Governor!" he cried excitedly. "My pupils +of the Latin School have turned upon me in revolt and have deserted me +in a body." + +"_Ach_; then you are rightly served for a craven and a miser, sir!" +burst out the angry Governor, turning savagely upon the surprised +schoolmaster. + +This was a most unexpected reception for Doctor and Dominie Curtius. +But, as it happened, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant was just now +particularly vexed with the objectionable Dominie. At much trouble and +after much solicitation on his part the Heer Governor had prevailed +upon his superiors and the proprietors of the province, the Dutch West +India Company, to send from Holland a schoolmaster or "rector" for +the children of their town of New Amsterdam, and the Company had sent +over Dominie Curtius. + +The Heer Governor had entertained great hopes of what the new +schoolmaster was to do, and now to find him a subject of complaint +from both the parents of the scholars and the officials of the town +made the hasty Governor doubly dissatisfied. The Dominie's intrusion, +therefore, at just this stage of all his perplexities gave the Heer +Governor a most convenient person on whom to vent his bad feelings. + +"Yes, sirrah, a craven and a miser!" continued the angry Governor, +stamping upon the floor with both wooden leg and massive cane. "You, +who can neither govern our children nor pay your just dues to the +town, can be no fit master for our youth. No words, sirrah, no words," +he added, as the poor dominie tried to put in a word in his defence, +"no words, sir; you are discharged from further labour in this +province. I will see that one who can ride wisely and pay his just +dues shall be placed here in your stead." + +Protests and appeals, explanations and arguments, were of no avail. +When the Heer Governor Stuyvesant said a thing, he meant it, and it +was useless for any one to hope for a change. The unpopular Dominie +Curtius must go--and go he did. + +But, as he left, the delegation of boys, headed by young Patem +Onderdonk, came into the fort and sought to interview the Heer +Governor. + +The sentry at the door would have sent them off without further ado, +but, hearing their noise, the Heer Governor came to the door. + +"So, so, young rapscallions," he cried, "you, too, must needs disturb +the peace and push yourself forward into public quarrels! Get you +gone! I will have none of your words. Is it not enough that I must +needs send the schoolmaster a-packing, without being worried by +graceless young varlets as you?" + +"And hath the Dominie Curtius gone indeed, Heer Governor?" Patem dared +to ask. + +"Hath he, hath he, boy?" echoed the Governor, turning upon his +audacious young questioner with uplifted cane. "Said I not so, and +will you dare doubt my word, rascal? Begone from the fort, all of you, +ere I do put you all in limbo, or send word to your good folk to give +you the floggings you do no doubt all so richly deserve." + +Discretion is the better part of valour, and the boyish delegation +hastily withdrew. But when once they were safely out of hearing of the +Heer Governor, beyond the Land Gate at the Broad Way, they took breath +and indulged in a succession of boyish shouts. + +"And that doth mean no school, too!" cried young Patem Onderdonk, +flinging his cap in air. "Huzzoy for that, lads; huzzoy for that!" + +And the "huzzoys" came with right good-will from every boy of the +group. + +Within less than a week the whole complexion of affairs in that little +island city was entirely changed. Both the Massachusetts and the +Maryland claimants ceased, for a time at least, their unfounded +demands. A treaty at Hartford settled the disputed question of +boundary-lines, and the Maryland governor declared "that he had not +intended to meddle with the government of Manhattan." Added to this, +Sewackenamo, chief of the Esopus Indians, came to the fort at New +Amsterdam and "gave the right hand of friendship" to the Heer +Governor, and by the interchange of presents a treaty of peace was +ratified. So, one by one, the troubles of the Heer Governor melted +away, his brow became clear and, "partaking of the universal +satisfaction," so says the historian, "he proclaimed a day of general +thanksgiving." + +Thanksgiving in the colonies was a matter of almost yearly occurrence. +Since the first Thanksgiving Day on American shores, when, in 1621, +the Massachusetts colony, at the request of Governor Bradford, +rejoiced, "after a special manner after we had gathered the fruit of +our labours," the observance of days of thanksgiving for mercies and +benefits had been frequent. But the day itself dates still further +back. The States of Holland after establishing their freedom from +Spain had, in the year 1609, celebrated their deliverance from tyranny +"by thanksgiving and hearty prayers," and had thus really first +instituted the custom of an official thanksgiving. And the Dutch +colonists in America followed the customs of the Fatherland quite as +piously and fervently as did the English colonists. + +So, when the proclamation of the Heer Governor Stuyvesant for a day of +thanksgiving was made known, in this year of mercies, 1659, all the +townfolk of New Amsterdam made ready to keep it. + +But young people are often apt to think that the world moves for them +alone. The boys of this little Dutch town at the mouth of the Hudson +were no different from other boys, and cared less for treaties and +Indians and boundary questions than for their own matters. They, +therefore, concluded that the Heer Governor had proclaimed a +thanksgiving because, as young Patem Onderdonk declared, "he had +gotten well rid of Dominie Curtius and would have no more +schoolmasters in the colony." + +"And so, lads," cried the exuberant young Knickerbocker, "let us +wisely celebrate the Thanksgiving. I will even ask the mother to make +for me a rare salmagundi which we lads, who were so rated by the Heer +Governor, will ourselves give to him as our Thanksgiving offering, for +the Heer Governor, so folk do say, doth rarely like the salmagundi." + +Now the salmagundi was (to some palates) a most appetizing mixture, +compounded of salted mackerel, or sometimes of chopped meat, seasoned +with oil and vinegar, pepper and raw onions--not an altogether +attractive dish to read of, but welcome to and dearly loved by many an +old Knickerbocker even up to a recent date. Its name, too, as most of +you bright boys and girls doubtless know, furnished the title for one +of the works of Washington Irving, best loved of all the +Knickerbockers. + +Thanksgiving Day came around, and so did Patem's salmagundi, as highly +seasoned and appetizing a one as the Goode Vrouw Onderdonk could make. + +The lengthy prayers and lengthier sermon of good Dominie Megapolensis +in the Fort Church were over and the Thanksgiving dinners were very +nearly ready when up to the Heer Governor's house came a half-dozen +boys, with Patem Onderdonk at their head bearing a neatly covered +dish. + +Patem had well considered and formed in his mind what he deemed just +the speech of presentation to please the Heer Governor, but when the +time came to face that awful personage his valour and his eloquence +alike began to ooze away. + +And, it must be confessed, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant did not +understand boys, nor did he particularly favour them. He was hasty and +overbearing though high-minded, loyal, and brave, but he never could +"get on" with the ways and pranks of boys. + +And as for the boys themselves, when once they stood in the presence +of the greatest dignitary in the province, Patem's ready tongue seemed +to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and he hummed and hawed and +hesitated until the worthy Heer Governor lost patience and broke in: + +"Well, well, boys; what is the stir? Speak quick if at all, for when a +man's dinner waiteth he hath scant time for stammering boys." + +Then Patem spoke up. + +"Heer Governor," he said, "the boys hereabout, remembering your +goodness in sending away our most pestilential master, the Dominie +Curtius, and in proclaiming a Thanksgiving for his departure and for +the ending of our schooling--" + +"What, what, boy!" cried the Heer Governor, "art crazy then, or would +you seek to make sport of me, your governor? Thanksgiving for the +breaking up of school! Out on you for a set of malapert young knaves! +Do you think the world goeth but for your pleasures alone? Why, this +is ribald talk! I made no Thanksgiving for your convenience, rascals, +but because that the Lord in His grace hath relieved the town from +danger--" + +"Of which, Heer Governor," broke in the most impolitic Patem, "we did +think the Dominie Curtius and his school were part. And so we have +brought to you this salmagundi as our Thanksgiving offering to you for +thus freeing us of a pest and a sorrow--" + +"How now, how now, sirrah!" again came the interruption from the +scandalized Heer Governor when he could recover from his surprise, "do +you then dare to call your schooling a pest and a sorrow? Why, you +graceless young varlets, I do not seek to free you from schooling. I +do even now seek to bring you speedily the teaching you do so much +stand in need of. Even now, within the week forthcoming, the good +Dominie Luyck, the tutor of mine own household, will see to the +training and teaching of this town, and so I will warrant to the +flogging, too, of all you sad young rapscallions who even now by this +your wicked talk do show your need both of teaching and of flogging." + +And then, forgetful of the boys' Thanksgiving offering and in high +displeasure at what he deemed their wilful and deliberate ignorance, +the Heer Governor turned the delegation into the street and hastened +back to his waiting dinner. + +"_Ach, so_," cried young Teuny Vanderbreets, as the disgusted and +disconsolate six gathered in the roadway and looked at one another +ruefully. "Here is a fine mix-up--a regular salmagundi, Patem +Onderdonk, and no question. And you did say that this Thanksgiving was +all our work. Out upon you, say I! Here are we to be saddled with a +worse master than before. Hermanus Smeeman did tell me that Nick +Stuyvesant did tell him that Dominie Luyck is a most hard and +worry-ful master." + +There was a universal groan of disappointment and disgust, and then +Patem said philosophically: + +"Well, lads, what's done is done and what is to be will be. Let us eat +the salmagundi anyhow and cry, 'Confusion to Dominie Luyck.'" + +And they did eat it, then and there, for indigestion had no terror to +those lads of hardy stomachs. + +But as for the toast of "Confusion to Dominie Luyck," that came to +naught. For Dominie Aegidius Luyck proved a most efficient and skilful +teacher. Under his rule the Latin School of New Amsterdam became +famous throughout the colonies, so that scholars came to it for +instruction from Beaverwyck and South River and even from distant +Virginia. + +So the Thanksgiving of the boys of New Amsterdam became a day of +mourning, and Patem's influence as a leader and an oracle suffered +sadly for a while. + +Five years after, on a sad Monday morning in September, 1664, the +little city was lost to the Dutch West India Company and, spite of the +efforts and protests of its sturdy Governor, the red, white, and blue +banner of the Netherlands gave place to the flag of England. And when +that day came the young fellows who then saw the defeat and +disappointment of the Heer Governor Stuyvesant were not so certain +that Patem Onderdonk was wrong when he claimed that it was all a just +and righteous judgment on the Heer Governor for his refusal of the +boys' request for no school, and for his treatment of them on that sad +Thanksgiving Day when he so harshly rebuked their display of gratitude +and lost forever his chance to partake of Patem's Salmagundi. + + + + +MRS. NOVEMBER'S DINNER PARTY[11] + +BY AGNES CARR. + + An amusing allegorical fantasy. All the most interesting + Days, grandchildren of Mother Year, came to Mrs. November's + dinner party, to honour the birthday of her daughter, + Thanksgiving. + + +The widow November was very busy indeed this year. What with elections +and harvest homes, her hands were full to overflowing; for she takes +great interest in politics, besides being a social body, without whom +no apple bee or corn husking is complete. + +[Footnote 11: From _Harper's Young People_, November 23, 1880.] + +Still, worn out as she was, when her thirty sons and daughters +clustered round, and begged that they might have their usual family +dinner on Thanksgiving Day, she could not find it in her hospitable +heart to refuse, and immediately invitations were sent to her eleven +brothers and sisters, old Father Time, and Mother Year, to come with +all their families and celebrate the great American holiday. + +Then what a busy time ensued! What a slaughter of unhappy barnyard +families--turkeys, ducks, and chickens! What a chopping of apples and +boiling of doughnuts! What a picking of raisins and rolling of pie +crust, until every nook and corner of the immense storeroom was +stocked with "savoury mince and toothsome pumpkin pies," while so +great was the confusion that even the stolid red-hued servant, Indian +Summer, lost his head, and smoked so continually he always appeared +surrounded by a blue mist, as he piled logs upon the great bonfires in +the yard, until they lighted up the whole country for miles around. + +But at length all was ready; the happy day had come, and all the +little Novembers, in their best "bib and tucker," were seated in a +row, awaiting the arrival of their uncles, aunts, and cousins, while +their mother, in russet-brown silk trimmed with misty lace, looked +them over, straightening Guy Fawkes's collar, tying Thanksgiving's +neck ribbon, and settling a dispute between two little presidential +candidates as to which should sit at the head of the table. + +Soon a merry clashing of bells, blowing of horns, and mingling of +voices were heard outside, sleighs and carriages dashed up to the +door, and in came, "just in season," Grandpa Time, with Grandma Year +leaning on his arm, followed by all their children and grandchildren, +and were warmly welcomed by the hostess and her family. + +"Oh, how glad I am we could all come to-day!" said Mr. January, in his +crisp, clear tones, throwing off his great fur coat, and rushing to +the blazing fire. "There is nothing like the happy returns of these +days." + +"Nothing, indeed," simpered Mrs. February, the poetess. "If I had had +time I should have composed some verses for the occasion; but my son +Valentine has brought a sugar heart, with a sweet sentiment on it, to +his cousin Thanksgiving. I, too, have taken the liberty of bringing a +sort of adopted child of mine, young Leap Year, who makes us a visit +every four years." + +"He is very welcome, I am sure," said Mrs. November, patting Leap Year +kindly on the head. "And, Sister March, how have you been since we +last met?" + +"Oh! we have had the North, South, East, and West Winds all at our +house, and they have kept things breezy, I assure you. But I really +feared we should not get here to-day; for when we came to dress I +found nearly everything we had was lent; so that must account for our +shabby appearance." + +"He! he! he!" tittered little April Fool. "What a sell!" And he shook +until the bells on his cap rang; at which his father ceased for a +moment showering kisses on his nieces and nephews, and boxed his ears +for his rudeness. + +"Oh, Aunt May! do tell us a story," clamoured the younger children, +and dragging her into a corner she was soon deep in such a moving tale +that they were all melted to tears, especially the little Aprils, who +cry very easily. + +Meanwhile, Mrs. June, assisted by her youngest daughter, a "sweet girl +graduate," just from school, was engaged in decking the apartment with +roses and lilies and other fragrant flowers that she had brought from +her extensive gardens and conservatories, until the room was a +perfect bower of sweetness and beauty; while Mr. July draped the walls +with flags and banners, lighted the candles, and showed off the tricks +of his pet eagle, Yankee Doodle, to the great delight of the little +ones. + +Madam August, who suffers a great deal with the heat, found a seat on +a comfortable sofa, as far from the fire as possible, and waved a huge +feather fan back and forth, while her thirty-one boys and girls, led +by the two oldest, Holiday and Vacation, ran riot through the long +rooms, picking at their Aunt June's flowers, and playing all sorts of +pranks, regardless of tumbled hair and torn clothes, while they +shouted, "Hurrah for fun!" and behaved like a pack of wild colts let +loose in a green pasture, until their Uncle September called them, +together with his own children, into the library, and persuaded them +to read some of the books with which the shelves were filled, or play +quietly with the game of Authors and the Dissected Maps. + +"For," said Mr. September to Mrs. October, "I think Sister August lets +her children romp too much. I always like improving games for mine, +although I have great trouble to make Equinox toe the line as he +should." + +"That is because you are a schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. October, +shaking her head, adorned with a wreath of gayly tinted leaves; "but +where is my baby?" + +At that moment a cry was heard without, and Indian Summer came running +in to say that little All Hallows had fallen into a tub of water while +trying to catch an apple that was floating on top, and Mrs. October, +rushing off to the kitchen, returned with her youngest in a very wet +and dripping condition, and screaming at the top of his lusty little +lungs, and could only be consoled by a handful of chestnuts, which his +nurse, Miss Frost, cracked open for him. + +The little Novembers, meanwhile, were having a charming time with +their favourite cousins, the Decembers, who were always so gay and +jolly, and had such a delightful papa. He came with his pockets +stuffed full of toys and sugarplums, which he drew out from time to +time, and gave to his best-loved child, Merry Christmas, to distribute +amongst the children, who gathered eagerly around their little cousin, +saying: + + "Christmas comes but once a year, + But when she comes she brings good cheer." + +At which Merry laughed gayly, and tossed her golden curls, in which +were twined sprays of holly and clusters of brilliant scarlet berries. + +At last the great folding-doors were thrown open. Indian Summer +announced that dinner was served, and a long procession of old and +young being quickly formed, led by Mrs. November and her daughter +Thanksgiving, whose birthday it was, they filed into the spacious +dining-room, where stood the long table groaning beneath its weight of +good things, while four servants ran continually in and out bringing +more substantials and delicacies to grace the board and please the +appetite. Winter staggered beneath great trenchers of meat and +poultry, pies and puddings; Spring brought the earliest and freshest +vegetables; Summer, the richest creams and ices; while Autumn served +the guests with fruit, and poured the sparkling wine. + +All were gay and jolly, and many a joke was cracked as the contents of +each plate and dish melted away like snow before the sun; and the +great fires roared in the wide chimneys as though singing a glad +Thanksgiving song. + +New Year drank everybody's health, and wished them "many happy returns +of the day," while Twelfth Night ate so much cake he made himself +quite ill, and had to be put to bed. + +Valentine sent mottoes to all the little girls, and praised their +bright eyes and glossy curls. "For," said his mother, "he is a sad +flatterer, and not nearly so truthful, I am sorry to say, as his +brother, George Washington, who never told a lie." + +At which Grandfather Time gave George a quarter, and said he should +always remember what a good boy he was. + +After dinner the fun increased, all trying to do something for the +general amusement. Mrs. March persuaded her son, St. Patrick, to dance +an Irish Jig, which he did to the tune of the "Wearing of the Green," +which his brothers, Windy and Gusty, blew and whistled on their +fingers. + +Easter sang a beautiful song, the little Mays "tripped the light +fantastic toe" in a pretty fancy dance, while the Junes sat by so +smiling and sweet it was a pleasure to look at them. + +Independence, the fourth child of Mr. July, who is a bold little +fellow, and a fine speaker, gave them an oration he had learned at +school; and the Augusts suggested games of tag and blindman's buff, +which they all enjoyed heartily. + +Mr. September tried to read an instructive story aloud, but was +interrupted by Equinox, April Fool, and little All Hallows, who pinned +streamers to his coat tails, covered him with flour, and would not let +him get through a line; at which Mrs. October hugged her tricksy baby, +and laughed until she cried, and Mr. September retired in disgust. + +"That is almost too bad," said Mrs. November, as she shook the popper +vigorously in which the corn was popping and snapping merrily; "but, +Thanksgiving, you must not forget to thank your cousins for all they +have done to honour your birthday." + +At which the demure little maiden went round to each one, and returned +her thanks in such a charming way it was quite captivating. + +Grandmother Year at last began to nod over her teacup in the chimney +corner. + +"It is growing late," said Grandpa Time. + +"But we must have a Virginia Reel before we go," said Mr. December. + +"Oh, yes, yes!" cried all the children. + +Merry Christmas played a lively air on the piano, and old and young +took their positions on the polished floor with grandpa and grandma at +the head. + +Midsummer danced with Happy New Year, June's Commencement with +August's Holiday, Leap Year with May Day, and all "went merry as a +marriage bell." + +The fun was at its height when suddenly the clock in the corner struck +twelve. Grandma Year motioned all to stop, and Grandfather Time, +bowing his head, said softly, "Hark! my children, Thanksgiving Day is +ended." + + + + +THE VISIT[12] + +A STORY OF THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWER + +BY MAUD LINDSAY. + + The children went back to spend Thanksgiving at + grandfather's farm. They got into some trouble and were + afraid that they would miss their dinner. + + +Early one morning Grandmother Grey got up, opened the windows and +doors of the farmhouse, and soon everybody on the place was stirring. +The cook hurried breakfast, and no sooner was it over than Grandfather +Grey went out to the barn and hitched the two horses to the wagon. + +[Footnote 12: From "More Mother Stories," Milton Bradley Company.] + +"Get up, Robin and Dobbin!" he said, as he drove through the big gate. +"If you knew who were coming back in this wagon you would not be +stepping so slowly." + +The old horses pricked up their ears when they heard this, and trotted +away as fast as they could down the country road until they came to +town. Just as they got to the railway station the train came whizzing +in. + +"All off!" cried the conductor, as the train stopped; and out came a +group of children who were, every one of them, Grandfather and +Grandmother Grey's grandchildren. They had come to spend Thanksgiving +Day on the farm. + +There was John, who was named for grandfather and looked just like +him, and the twins, Teddie and Pat, who looked like nobody but each +other; their papa was grandfather's oldest son. Then there was Louisa, +who had a baby sister at home, and then Mary Virginia Martin, who was +her mamma's only child. + +"I tell you," said grandfather, as he helped them into the wagon, +"your grandmother will be glad to see you!" + +And so she was. She was watching at the window for them when they +drove up, and when the children spied her they could scarcely wait for +grandfather to stop the wagon before they scrambled out. + +"Dear me, dear me!" said grandmother, as they all tried to kiss her at +the same time, "how you have grown." + +"I am in the first grade," said John, hugging her with all his might. + +"So am I," cried Louisa. + +"We are going to be," chimed in the twins; and then they all talked at +once, till grandmother could not hear herself speak. + +Then, after they had told her all about their mammas and papas, and +homes, and cats and dogs, they wanted to go and say "how do you do" to +everything on the place. + +"Take care of yourselves," called grandmother, "for I don't want to +send any broken bones home to your mothers." + +"I can take care of myself," said John. + +"So can we," said the rest; and off they ran. + +First they went to the kitchen where Mammy 'Ria was getting ready to +cook the Thanksgiving dinner; then out to the barnyard, where there +were two new red calves, and five little puppies belonging to Juno, +the dog, for them to see. Then they climbed the barnyard fence and +made haste to the pasture where grandfather kept his woolly sheep. +"Baa-a!" said the sheep when they saw the children; but then, they +always said that, no matter what happened. + +There were cows in this pasture, too, and Mary Virginia was afraid of +them, even though she knew that they were the mothers of the calves +she had seen in the barnyard. + +"Silly Mary Virginia!" said John, and Mary Virginia began to cry. + +"Don't cry," said Louisa. "Let's go to the hickory-nut tree." + +This pleased them all, and they hurried off; but on the way they came +to the big shed where grandfather kept his plows and reaper and +threshing machine and all his garden tools. + +The shed had a long, wide roof, and there was a ladder leaning against +it. When John saw that, he thought he must go up on the roof; and +then, of course, the twins went, too. Then Louisa and Mary Virginia +wanted to go, and although John insisted that girls could not climb, +they managed to scramble up the ladder to where the boys were. And +there they all sat in a row on the roof. + +"Grandmother doesn't know how well we can take care of ourselves," +said John. "But I am such a big boy that I can do anything. I can ride +a bicycle and go on errands--" + +"So can I," said Louisa. + +"We can ride on the trolley!" cried the twins. + +"Mamma and I go anywhere by ourselves," said Mary Virginia. + +"Moo!" said something down below; and when they looked, there was one +of the cows rubbing her head against the ladder. + +"Don't be afraid, Mary Virginia," said Louisa. "Cows can't climb +ladders." + +"Don't be afraid, Mary Virginia," said John. "I'll drive her away." + +So he kicked his feet against the shed roof and called, "Go away! go +away!" The twins kicked their feet, too, and called, "Go away! go +away!" and somebody, I don't know who, kicked the ladder and it fell +down and lay in the dry grass. And the cow walked peacefully on, +thinking about her little calf. + +"There, now!" exclaimed Louisa, "how shall we ever get down?" + +"Oh, that's nothing," said John. "All I'll have to do is to stand up +on the roof and call grandfather. Just watch me do it." + +So he stood up and called, "Grandfather! Grandfather! Grandfather!" +till he was tired; but no grandfather answered. + +Then the twins called, "Grandfather! Grandmother!" + +"Baa," said the sheep, as if beginning to think that somebody ought to +answer all that calling. + +Then they all called together: "Grandfather! Grandfather! +Grandfather!" and when nobody heard that, they began to feel +frightened and lonely. + +"I want to go home to my mother! I wish I hadn't come!" wailed Mary +Virginia. + +"It's Thanksgiving dinner time, too," said John, "and there's turkey +for dinner, for I saw it in the oven." + +"Pie, too," said Louisa. + +"Dear, dear!" cried the twins. + +And then they all called together once more, but this time with such a +weak little cry that not even the sheep heard it. + +The sun grew warmer and the shadows straighter as they sat there, and +grandmother's house seemed miles away when John stood up to look at +it. + +"They've eaten dinner by this time, I know," he said as he sat down +again; "and grandfather and grandmother have forgotten all about us." + +But grandfather and grandmother had not forgotten them, for just about +then grandmother was saying to grandfather: "You had better see where +the children are, for Thanksgiving dinner will soon be ready and I +know that they are hungry." + +So grandfather went out to look for them. He did not find them in the +kitchen nor the barnyard, so he called, "Johnnie! Johnnie!" and when +nobody answered he made haste to the pasture. + +The children saw him coming, and long before he had reached the gate +they began to call with all their might. This time grandfather +answered, "I'm coming!" and I cannot tell you how glad they were. + +In another minute he had set the ladder up again and they all came +down. Mary Virginia came first because she was the youngest girl, and +John came last because he was the biggest boy. Grandfather put his +arms around each one as he helped them down, and carried Mary Virginia +home on his back. When they got to the house dinner was just ready. + + The turkey was brown, the potatoes were sweet, + The sauce was so spicy, the biscuits were beat, + The great pumpkin pie was as yellow as gold, + And the apples were red as the roses, I'm told. + +It was such a good dinner that I had to tell you about it in rhyme! + + And I'm sure you'll agree, + With the children and me, + That there's never a visit so pleasant to pay + As a visit to grandma on Thanksgiving Day. + + + + +THE STORY OF RUTH AND NAOMI[13] + +ADAPTED FROM THE BIBLE, BY C. S. BAILEY AND C. M. LEWIS. + + Ruth's story is one of the most beautiful ones to be found + in the Old Book. As a tale of the harvest, it deserves to be + included in this collection. + + +Now it came to pass, many hundreds of years ago, that there was a good +woman named Naomi who lived in the land of the Moabites. She had once +been very rich and happy, but now her husband was dead and her two +sons also, and she had left only Orpah and Ruth, the wives of her +sons. There was a famine in the land. Naomi could find no grain in the +fields to beat into flour. She and Orpah and Ruth were lonely and sad +and very hungry. + +[Footnote 13: From "For the Children's Hour," Milton Bradley Company.] + +But Naomi heard there was a land where the Lord had visited His people +and given them bread; so she went forth from the place where she was, +and her two daughters with her, to the land called Judah. It was a +long, hard way to go. There were rough roads to travel and steep hills +to climb. Their feet grew so weary they could scarcely walk, and at +last Naomi said: + +"Go, return each to your father's house. The Lord deal kindly with +you as you have dealt with me. The Lord grant you that you may find +rest." + +Then she kissed them, and Orpah kissed her and left her, but Ruth +would not leave Naomi. And Naomi said to Ruth: + +"Behold, thy sister is gone back unto her own people; return thou!" + +But Ruth clung to Naomi more closely, as she said: + +"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: +for whither thou goest, there will I go; and where thou lodgest, there +will I lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." + +When Naomi saw that Ruth loved her so much, she forgot how tired and +hungry she was, and the two journeyed on together until they came to +Bethlehem in Judah in the beginning of the barley harvest. There was +no famine in Bethlehem. The fields were full of waving grain, and busy +servants were reaping it and gathering it up to bind into sheaves. +Above all were the fields of the rich man, Boaz, shining with barley +and corn. + +Naomi and Ruth came to the edge of the fields and watched the busy +reapers. They saw that after each sheaf was bound, and each pile of +corn was stacked, a little grain fell, unnoticed, to the ground. Ruth +said to Naomi: "Let me go to the field and glean the ears of corn +after them." And Naomi said to her, "Go, my daughter." And she went, +and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers. + +And Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to his reapers: "Whose damsel +is this?" for he saw how very beautiful Ruth was, and how busily she +was gleaning. The reapers said: "It is the damsel that came back with +Naomi out of the land of the Moabites." + +And Ruth ran up to Boaz, crying: "I pray you, let me glean and gather +after the reapers among the sheaves." + +And Boaz, who was good and kind, said to Ruth: + +"Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in any other field, +but abide here." + +Then Ruth bowed herself to the ground, and said: "Why have I found +such favour in thine eyes, seeing I am a stranger?" + +And Boaz answered her: "It hath been showed me all that thou hast done +to thy mother." + +So, all day, Ruth gleaned in Boaz's fields. At noon she ate bread and +parched corn with the others. Boaz commanded his reapers to let fall +large handfuls of grain, as they worked, for Ruth to gather, and at +night she took it all home to Naomi. + +"Where hast thou gleaned to-day?" asked Naomi, when she saw the food +that Ruth had brought to her. + +"The man's name with whom I wrought to-day is Boaz," said Ruth. And +Naomi said: "Blessed be he of the Lord--the man is near of kin unto +us." + +So Ruth gleaned daily, and at the end of the barley harvest the good +man Boaz took Ruth and Naomi to live with him in his own house +forever. + + + + +BERT'S THANKSGIVING[14] + +BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE. + + Bert is a manly, generous, warm-hearted fellow. Other boys + will like to read how good luck began to come his way on a + certain memorable Thanksgiving Day. + + +At noon, on a dreary November day, a lonesome little fellow, looking +very red about the ears and very blue about the mouth, stood kicking +his heels at the door of a cheap eating house in Boston, and offering +a solitary copy of a morning paper for sale to the people passing. + +[Footnote 14: From "Young Joe," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.] + +But there were really not many people passing, for it was Thanksgiving +Day, and the shops were shut, and everybody who had a home to go to +and a dinner to eat seemed to have gone home to eat that dinner, while +Bert Hampton, the newsboy, stood trying in vain to sell the last +"extry" left on his hands by the dull business of the morning. + +An old man, with a face that looked pinched, and who was dressed in a +seedy black coat and a much-battered stovepipe hat, stopped at the +same doorway, and, with one hand on the latch, appeared to hesitate +between hunger and a sense of poverty before going in. + +It was possible, however, that he was considering whether he could +afford himself the indulgence of a morning paper (seeing it was +Thanksgiving Day); so, at least, Bert thought, and accosted him +accordingly. + +"Buy a paper, sir? All about the fire in East Boston, and arrest of +safe-burglars in Springfield. Only two cents!" + +The little old man looked at the boy with keen gray eyes, which seemed +to light up the pinched and skinny face, and answered in a shrill +voice that whistled through white front teeth: + +"You ought to come down in your price this time of day. You can't +expect to sell a morning paper at twelve o'clock for full price." + +"Well, give me a cent then," said Bert. "That's less'n cost; but never +mind; I'm bound to sell out anyhow." + +"You look cold," said the old man. + +"Cold?" replied Bert; "I'm froze. And I want my dinner. And I'm going +to have a big dinner, too, seeing it's Thanksgiving Day." + +"Ah! lucky for you, my boy!" said the old man. "You've a home to go +to, and friends, too, I hope?" + +"No, _sir_; nary home, and nary friend; only my mother"--Bert +hesitated, and grew serious; then suddenly changed his tone--"and Hop +Houghton. I told him to meet me here, and we'd have a first-rate +Thanksgiving dinner together; for it's no fun to be eatin' alone +Thanksgiving Day! It sets a feller thinking of everything, if he ever +had a home and then hain't got a home any more." + +"It's more lonesome not to eat at all," said the old man, his gray +eyes twinkling. "And what can a boy like you have to think of? Here, I +guess I can find one cent for you, though there's nothing in the +paper, I know." + +The old man spoke with some feeling, his fingers trembled, and somehow +he dropped two cents instead of one into Bert's hand. + +"Here! You've made a mistake!" cried Bert. "A bargain's a bargain. +You've given me a cent too much." + +"No, I didn't. I never give anybody a cent too much." + +"But, see here!" And Bert showed the two cents, offering to return +one. + +"No matter," said the old man, "it will be so much less for _my_ +dinner, that's all." + +Bert had instinctively pocketed the pennies when, on a moment's +reflection, his sympathies were excited. + +"Poor old man!" he thought; "he's seen better days I guess. Perhaps +he's no home. A boy like me can stand it, but I guess it must be hard +for _him_. He _meant_ to give me the odd cent all the while; and I +don't believe he has had a decent dinner for many a day." + +All this, which I have been obliged to write out slowly in words, went +through Bert's mind like a flash. He was a generous little fellow, and +any kindness shown him, no matter how trifling, made his heart +overflow. + +"Look here!" he cried, "where are _you_ going to get your dinner +to-day?" + +"I can get a bite here as well as anywhere. It don't matter much to +me," replied the old man. + +"Dine with _me_," said Bert, laughing. "I'd like to have you." + +"I'm afraid I couldn't afford to dine as you are going to," said the +man, with a smile, his eyes twinkling again and his white front teeth +shining. + +"I'll pay for your dinner!" Bert exclaimed. "Come! We don't have a +Thanksgiving but once a year, and a feller wants a good time then." + +"But you are waiting for another boy." + +"Oh, Hop Houghton! He won't come now, it's so late. He's gone to a +place down in North Street, I guess--a place I don't like: there's so +much tobacco smoked and so much beer drank there." Bert cast a final +glance up the street. "No, he won't come now. So much the worse for +him! He likes the men down there; I don't." + +"Ah!" said the man, taking off his hat, and giving it a brush with his +elbow, as they entered the restaurant, as if trying to appear as +respectable as he could in the eyes of a newsboy of such fastidious +tastes. + +To make him feel quite comfortable in his mind on that point, Bert +hastened to say: + +"I mean rowdies, and such. Poor people, if they behave themselves, are +just as respectable to me as rich folks. I ain't the least mite +aristocratic." + +"Ah, indeed!" And the old man smiled again, and seemed to look +relieved. "I'm very glad to hear it." + +He placed his hat on the floor and took a seat opposite Bert at a +little table, which they had all to themselves. + +Bert offered him the bill of fare. + +"No, I must ask you to choose for me; but nothing very extravagant, +you know. I'm used to plain fare." + +"So am I. But I'm going to have a good dinner for once in my life, and +so shall you!" cried Bert, generously. "What do you say to chicken +soup, and then wind up with a thumping big piece of squash pie? How's +that for a Thanksgiving dinner?" + +"Sumptuous!" said the old man, appearing to glow with the warmth of +the room and the prospect of a good dinner. "But won't it cost you too +much?" + +"Too much? No, _sir_!" laughed Bert. "Chicken soup, fifteen cents; +pie--they give tremendous pieces here; thick, I tell you--ten cents. +That's twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do +this way every day in the year. But mother's glad to have me, once in +a while. Here, waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were +no very great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all. + +"Where is your mother? Why don't you dine with her?" the little man +asked. + +Bert's face grew sober in a moment. + +"That's the question: why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got +the best mother in the world. What I'm trying to do is to make a home +for her, so we can live together and eat our Thanksgiving dinners +together some time. Some boys want one thing, some another. There's +one goes in for good times; another's in such a hurry to get rich he +don't care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to +be with my mother and my two sisters again, and I ain't ashamed to say +so." + +Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on, while his companion +across the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look. + +"I haven't been with her now for two years, hardly at all since father +died. When his business was settled up--he kept a little grocery store +on Hanover Street--it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had +lived pretty well up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been +to school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got +her places to go out nursing, and she's a nurse now. Everybody likes +her, and she has enough to do. We couldn't be with her, of course. She +got us boarded at a good place, but I saw how hard it was going to be +for her to support us, so I said, 'I'm a boy; _I_ can do something for +_myself_. You just pay their board, and keep 'em to school, and I'll +go to work, and maybe help you a little, besides taking care of +myself.'" + +"What could _you_ do?" said the little old man. + +"That's it. I was only 'leven years old, and what could I? What I +should have liked would have been some nice place where I could do +light work, and stand a chance of learning a good business. But +beggars mustn't be choosers. I couldn't find such a place; and I +wasn't going to be loafing about the streets, so I went to selling +newspapers. I've sold newspapers ever since, and I shall be twelve +years old next month." + +"You like it?" said the old man. + +"I like to get my own living," replied Bert, proudly, "but what I want +is to learn some trade, or regular business, and settle down, and make +a home for--But there's no use talking about that. Make the best of +things, that's my motto. Don't this soup smell good? And don't it +taste good, too? They haven't put so much chicken in yours as they +have in mine. If you don't mind my having tasted it, we'll change." + +The old man declined this liberal offer, took Bert's advice to help +himself freely to bread, which "didn't cost anything," and ate his +soup with prodigious relish, as it seemed to Bert, who grew more and +more hospitable and patronizing as the repast proceeded. + +"Come, now, won't you have something between the soup and the pie? +Don't be afraid: I'll pay for it. Thanksgiving don't come but once a +year. You won't? A cup of tea, then, to go with your pie?" + +"I think I _will_ have a cup of tea; you are _so_ kind," said the old +man. + +"All right! Here, waiter! Two pieces of your fattest and biggest +squash pie; and a cup of tea, strong, for this gentleman." + +"I've told you about myself," added Bert; "suppose, now, _you_ tell +_me_ something." + +"About myself?" + +"Yes. I think that would go pretty well with the pie." + +But the man shook his head. "I could go back and tell about my plans +and hopes when I was a lad of your age, but it would be too much like +your own story over again. Life isn't what we think it will be when we +are young. You'll find that out soon enough. I am all alone in the +world now, and I am sixty-seven years old." + +"Have some cheese with your pie, won't you? It must be so lonely at +your age! What do you do for a living?" + +"I have a little place in Devonshire Street. My name is Crooker. +You'll find me up two flights of stairs, back room, at the right. Come +and see me, and I'll tell you all about my business, and perhaps help +you to such a place as you want, for I know several business men. Now +don't fail." + +And Mr. Crooker wrote his address with a little stub of a pencil on a +corner of the newspaper which had led to their acquaintance, tore it +off carefully, and gave it to Bert. + +Thereupon the latter took a card from his pocket, not a very clean +one, I must say (I am speaking of the card, though the remark will +apply equally well to the pocket) and handed it across the table to +his new friend. + +"_Herbert Hampton, Dealer in Newspapers_," the old man read, with his +sharp gray eyes, which glanced up funnily at Bert, seeming to say, +"Isn't this rather aristocratic for a twelve-year-old newsboy?" + +Bert blushed, and explained: "Got up for me by a printer's boy I know. +I'd done some favours for him, so he made me a few cards. Handy to +have sometimes, you know." + +"Well, Herbert," said the little old man, "I'm glad to have made your +acquaintance. The pie was excellent--not any more, thank you--and I +hope you'll come and see me. You'll find me in very humble quarters; +but you are not aristocratic, you say. Now won't you let me pay for my +dinner? I believe I have money enough. Let me see." + +Bert would not hear of such a thing, but walked up to the desk and +settled the bill with the air of a person who did not regard a +trifling expense. + +When he looked around again the little old man was gone. + +"Never mind, I'll go and see him the first chance I have," said Bert, +as he looked at the pencilled strip of newspaper margin again before +putting it into his pocket. + +He then went round to his miserable quarters, in the top of a cheap +lodging-house, where he made himself ready, by means of soap and water +and a broken comb, to walk five miles into the suburbs and get a +sight, if only for five minutes, of his mother. + +On the following Monday Bert, having a leisure hour, went to call on +his new acquaintance in Devonshire Street. + +Having climbed the two flights, he found the door of the back room at +the right ajar, and looking in, saw Mr. Crooker at a desk, in the act +of receiving a roll of money from a well-dressed visitor. + +Bert entered unnoticed and waited till the money was counted and a +receipt signed. Then, as the visitor departed, old Mr. Crooker looked +round and saw Bert. He offered him a chair, then turned to lock up the +money in a safe. + +"So this is your place of business?" said Bert, glancing about the +plain office room. "What do you do here?" + +"I buy real estate sometimes--sell--rent--and so forth." + +"Who for?" asked Bert. + +"For myself," said little old Mr. Crooker, with a smile. + +Bert stared, perfectly aghast at the situation. This, then, was the +man whom he had invited to dinner, and treated so patronizingly the +preceding Thursday! + +"I--I thought--you was a poor man." + +"I _am_ a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money +doesn't make a man rich. I've money enough. I own houses in the city. +They give me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer +riches once, but I lost them long ago." + +From the way the old man's voice trembled and eyes glistened, Bert +thought he must have meant by these riches friends he had lost--wife +and children, perhaps. + +"To think of _me_ inviting _you_ to dinner!" the boy cried, abashed +and ashamed. + +"It _was_ odd." And Mr. Crooker showed his white front teeth with a +smile. "But it may turn out to have been a lucky circumstance for both +of us. I like you; I believe in you; and I've an offer to make to you: +I want a trusty, bright boy in this office, somebody I can bring up to +my business, and leave it with, as I get too old to attend to it +myself. What do you say?" + +What _could_ Bert say? + +Again that afternoon he walked--or rather, ran--to his mother, and +after consulting with her, joyfully accepted Mr. Crooker's offer. + +Interviews between his mother and his employer soon followed, +resulting in something for which at first the boy had not dared to +hope. The lonely, childless old man, who owned so many houses, wanted +a home; and one of these houses he offered to Mrs. Hampton, with ample +support for herself and her children, if she would also make it a home +for him. + +Of course this proposition was accepted; and Bert soon had the +satisfaction of seeing the great ambition of his youth accomplished. +He had employment which promised to become a profitable business (as +indeed it did in a few years, he and the old man proved so useful to +each other); and, more than that, he was united once more with his +mother and sisters in a happy home where he has since had a good many +Thanksgiving dinners. + + + + +A THANKSGIVING STORY[15] + +BY MISS L. B. PINGREE. + + A three-minute story for the littlest boys and girls. + + +It was nearly time for Thanksgiving Day. The rosy apples and golden +pumpkins were ripe, and the farmers were bringing them into the +markets. + +[Footnote 15: From "Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories," J. L. +Hammett Company.] + +One day when two little children, named John and Minnie, were going to +school, they saw the turkeys and chickens and pumpkins in the window +of a market, and they exclaimed, "Oh, Thanksgiving Day! Oh, +Thanksgiving Day!" After school was over, they ran home to their +mother, and asked her when Thanksgiving Day would be. She told them in +about two weeks; then they began to talk about what they wanted for +dinner, and asked their mother a great many questions. She told them +she hoped they would have turkey and even the pumpkin pie they wanted +so much, but that Thanksgiving Day was not given us so that we might +have a good dinner, but that God had been a great many days and weeks +preparing for Thanksgiving. He had sent the sunshine and the rain and +caused the grains and fruits and vegetables to grow. And Thanksgiving +Day was for glad and happy thoughts about God, as well as for good +things to eat. + +Not long after, when John and Minnie were playing, John said to +Minnie, "I wish I could do something to tell God how glad I am about +Thanksgiving." "I wish so, too," said Minnie. Just then some little +birds came flying down to the ground, and Minnie said: "Oh, I know." +Then she told John, but they agreed to keep it a secret till the day +came. Now what do you think they did? Well, I will tell you. + +They saved their pennies, and bought some corn, and early Thanksgiving +Day, before they had their dinner, they went out into the street near +their home, and scattered corn in a great many places. What for? Why, +for the birds. While they were doing it, John said, "I know, Minnie, +why you thought of the birds: because they do not have any papas and +mammas after they are grown up to get a dinner for them on +Thanksgiving Day." "Yes, that is why," said Minnie. + +By and by the birds came and found such a feast, and perhaps they knew +something about Thanksgiving Day and must have sung and chirped +happily all day. + + + + +JOHN INGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. + + A sad Thanksgiving story is a rarity indeed. But the one + which follows reminds us that the Puritans, although they + originated our Thanksgiving festival, were after all a + sombre people, seldom free from a realizing sense of the + imminence of sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a genuine product of + Puritanism, inherited a full share of his forefathers' + constitutional melancholy and preoccupation with the darker + aspects of life--as this story bears witness. + + +On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith, +sat in his elbow-chair among those who had been keeping festival at +his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire +threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening +his rough visage so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, +all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned +on his own anvil. At John Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair. +The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the +family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic +merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of the +group was John Inglefield's son, who had been bred at college, and was +now a student of theology at Andover. There was also a daughter of +sixteen, whom nobody could look at without thinking of a rosebud +almost blossomed. The only other person at the fireside was Robert +Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his +journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of John Inglefield +than did the pale and slender student. + +Only these four had kept New England's festival beneath that roof. The +vacant chair at John Inglefield's right hand was in memory of his +wife, whom death had snatched from him since the previous +Thanksgiving. With a feeling that few would have looked for in his +rough nature, the bereaved husband had himself set the chair in its +place next his own; and often did his eye glance hitherward, as if he +deemed it possible that the cold grave might send back its tenant to +the cheerful fireside, at least for that one evening. Thus did he +cherish the grief that was dear to him. But there was another grief +which he would fain have torn from his heart; or, since that could +never be, have buried it too deep for others to behold, or for his own +remembrance. Within the past year another member of his household had +gone from him, but not to the grave. Yet they kept no vacant chair for +her. + +While John Inglefield and his family were sitting round the hearth +with the shadows dancing behind them on the wall, the outer door was +opened, and a light footstep came along the passage. The latch of the +inner door was lifted by some familiar hand, and a young girl came in, +wearing a cloak and hood, which she took off and laid on the table +beneath the looking-glass. Then, after gazing a moment at the fireside +circle, she approached, and took the seat at John Inglefield's right +hand, as if it had been reserved on purpose for her. + +"Here I am, at last, father," said she. "You ate your Thanksgiving +dinner without me, but I have come back to spend the evening with +you." + +Yes, it was Prudence Inglefield. She wore the same neat and maidenly +attire which she had been accustomed to put on when the household work +was over for the day, and her hair was parted from her brow in the +simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. If her cheek +might otherwise have been pale, yet the glow of the fire suffused it +with a healthful bloom. If she had spent the many months of her +absence in guilt and infamy, yet they seemed to have left no traces on +her gentle aspect. She could not have looked less altered had she +merely stepped away from her father's fireside for half an hour, and +returned while the blaze was quivering upward from the same brands +that were burning at her departure. And to John Inglefield she was the +very image of his buried wife, such as he remembered on the first +Thanksgiving which they had passed under their own roof. Therefore, +though naturally a stern and rugged man, he could not speak unkindly +to his sinful child, nor yet could he take her to his bosom. + +"You are welcome home, Prudence," said he, glancing sideways at her, +and his voice faltered. "Your mother would have rejoiced to see you, +but she has been gone from us these four months." + +"I know, father, I know it," replied Prudence quickly. "And yet, when +I first came in, my eyes were so dazzled by the firelight that she +seemed to be sitting in this very chair!" + +By this time, the other members of the family had begun to recover +from their surprise, and became sensible that it was no ghost from the +grave, nor vision of their vivid recollections, but Prudence, her own +self. Her brother was the next that greeted her. He advanced and held +out his hand affectionately, as a brother should; yet not entirely +like a brother, for, with all his kindness, he was still a clergyman +and speaking to a child of sin. + +"Sister Prudence," said he, earnestly, "I rejoice that a merciful +Providence hath turned your steps homeward in time for me to bid you a +last farewell. In a few weeks, sister, I am to sail as a missionary to +the far islands of the Pacific. There is not one of these beloved +faces that I shall ever hope to behold again on this earth. Oh, may I +see all of them--yours and all--beyond the grave!" + +A shadow flitted across the girl's countenance. + +"The grave is very dark, brother," answered she, withdrawing her hand +somewhat hastily from his grasp. "You must look your last at me by the +light of this fire." + +While this was passing, the twin girl--the rosebud that had grown on +the same stem with the castaway--stood gazing at her sister, longing +to fling herself upon her bosom, so that the tendrils of their hearts +might intertwine again. At first she was restrained by mingled grief +and shame, and by a dread that Prudence was too much changed to +respond to her affection, or that her own purity would be felt as a +reproach by the lost one. But, as she listened to the familiar voice, +while the face grew more and more familiar, she forgot everything save +that Prudence had come back. Springing forward she would have clasped +her in a close embrace. At that very instant, however, Prudence +started from her chair and held out both her hands with a warning +gesture. + +"No, Mary, no, my sister," cried she, "do not you touch me! Your bosom +must not be pressed to mine!" + +Mary shuddered and stood still, for she felt that something darker +than the grave was between Prudence and herself, though they seemed so +near each other in the light of their father's hearth, where they had +grown up together. Meanwhile Prudence threw her eyes around the room +in search of one who had not yet bidden her welcome. He had withdrawn +from his seat by the fireside and was standing near the door, with his +face averted so that his features could be discerned only by the +flickering shadow of the profile upon the wall. But Prudence called to +him in a cheerful and kindly tone: + +"Come, Robert," said she, "won't you shake hands with your old +friend?" + +Robert Moore held back for a moment, but affection struggled +powerfully and overcame his pride and resentment; he rushed toward +Prudence, seized her hand, and pressed it to his bosom. + +"There, there, Robert," said she, smiling sadly, as she withdrew her +hand, "you must not give me too warm a welcome." + +And now, having exchanged greetings with each member of the family, +Prudence again seated herself in the chair at John Inglefield's right +hand. She was naturally a girl of quick and tender sensibilities, +gladsome in her general mood, but with a bewitching pathos interfused +among her merriest words and deeds. It was remarked of her, too, that +she had a faculty, even from childhood, of throwing her own feelings +like a spell over her companions. Such as she had been in her days of +innocence, so did she appear this evening. Her friends, in the +surprise and bewilderment of her return, almost forgot that she had +ever left them, or that she had forfeited any of her claims to their +affection. In the morning, perhaps, they might have looked at her with +altered eyes, but by the Thanksgiving fireside they felt only that +their own Prudence had come back to them, and were thankful. John +Inglefield's rough visage brightened with the glow of his heart, as it +grew warm and merry within him; once or twice, even, he laughed till +the room rang again, yet seemed startled by the echo of his own mirth. +The brave young minister became as frolicsome as a schoolboy. Mary, +too, the rosebud, forgot that her twin-blossom had ever been torn from +the stem and trampled in the dust. And as for Robert Moore, he gazed +at Prudence with the bashful earnestness of love new-born, while she, +with sweet maiden coquetry, half smiled upon and half discouraged him. + +In short, it was one of those intervals when sorrow vanishes in its +own depth of shadow, and joy starts forth in transitory brightness. +When the clock struck eight, Prudence poured out her father's +customary draught of herb tea, which had been steeping by the fireside +ever since twilight. + +"God bless you, child," said John Inglefield, as he took the cup from +her hand; "you have made your old father happy again. But we miss your +mother sadly, Prudence, sadly. It seems as if she ought to be here +now." + +"Now, father, or never," replied Prudence. + +It was now the hour for domestic worship. But while the family were +making preparations for this duty, they suddenly perceived that +Prudence had put on her cloak and hood, and was lifting the latch of +the door. + +"Prudence, Prudence! where are you going?" cried they all with one +voice. + +As Prudence passed out of the door, she turned toward them and flung +back her hand with a gesture of farewell. But her face was so changed +that they hardly recognized it. Sin and evil passions glowed through +its comeliness, and wrought a horrible deformity; a smile gleamed in +her eyes, as of triumphant mockery, at their surprise and grief. + +"Daughter," cried John Inglefield, between wrath and sorrow, "stay and +be your father's blessing, or take his curse with you!" + +For an instant Prudence lingered and looked back into the fire-lighted +room, while her countenance wore almost the expression as if she were +struggling with a fiend who had power to seize his victim even within +the hallowed precincts of her father's hearth. The fiend prevailed, +and Prudence vanished into the outer darkness. When the family rushed +to the door, they could see nothing, but heard the sound of wheels +rattling over the frozen ground. + +That same night, among the painted beauties at the theatre of a +neighbouring city, there was one whose dissolute mirth seemed +inconsistent with any sympathy for pure affections, and for the joys +and griefs which are hallowed by them. Yet this was Prudence +Inglefield. Her visit to the Thanksgiving fireside was the realization +of one of those waking dreams in which the guilty soul will sometimes +stray back to its innocence. But Sin, alas! is careful of her +bondslaves; they hear her voice, perhaps, at the holiest moment, and +are constrained to go whither she summons them. The same dark power +that drew Prudence Inglefield from her father's hearth--the same in +its nature, though heightened then to a dread necessity--would snatch +a guilty soul from the gate of heaven, and make its sin and its +punishment alike eternal. + + + + +HOW OBADIAH BROUGHT ABOUT A THANKSGIVING[16] + +BY EMILY HEWITT LELAND. + + The Waddle family had very bad luck on their farm in the + West. And they certainly were homesick! But Obadiah and his + uncle, between them, found means to mend matters. + + +That an innocent and helpless baby should be named Obadiah Waddle was +an outrage which the infant unceasingly resented from the time he got +old enough to realize the awful gulf that lay between his name and +those of his more fortunate mates. The experiences of his first day at +school were branded into his soul; and although he made friends by his +bright face and kind and honest nature, scarcely a day passed during +his six years of village schooling without his absurd name flying out +at him from some unsuspected ambush and making him wince. + +[Footnote 16: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1903.] + +It was bad enough when the guying came from a boy, but when a girl +took to punning, jeering, or giggling at him it seemed as if his +burden was greater than he could bear. Then he would go home through +the woods and fields to avoid human beings, so hurt and unhappy that +nothing but his mother's greeting and the smell of a good supper could +cheer him. + +At home he had no trouble. His mother and his baby sister called him +Obie, and sweet was his name on their lips. His father, who had +objected to "Obadiah" from the first, called him Bub or Bubby; but one +can bear almost any name when it comes with a loving smile or a pat on +the shoulder, which was Mr. Waddle's way of addressing his only son. + +Very early in life it had been explained to Obadiah that he was named +for his mother's favourite brother, who went to California to live, +after hanging a silver dollar on a black silk cord round the neck of +his little namesake. + +Obadiah often looked at this dollar, which was kept in a little box +with a broken earring, a hair chain, a glass breastpin, and an ancient +"copper"; and sometimes on circus days or on the Fourth of July he +wished there was no hole in it that he might expend it on side-shows +and lemonade or on monstrous firecrackers. + +But he knew that his mother valued it highly because Uncle Obie gave +it to him and because there were little dents in it made by his +vigorous first teeth; so he always returned it to the box with a sigh +of resignation, and made the most of the twenty-five cents given him +by his father on the great days of the year. + +When he was eleven years old the Waddle family moved West, and the +last thing Obadiah heard as the train pulled away from the little +station of his native town was this verse, lustily shouted from a +group of schoolmates assembled to bid him good-bye: + + "Oh, Obadiah, you're going West, + Where the prairie winds don't have no rest, + You'll have to waddle your level best. + Good-bye, my lover, good-bye!" + +Ill-fortune attended the Waddles in their western home. To be sure, +they had their rich, broad acres, with never a stone or a stump to +hinder the smooth cutting plow, but a frightful midsummer storm in the +second year literally wiped out crops and cattle, and left them with +their bare lives in their lowly sod house. + +"Drought first year, tornado second. If next year's a failure, we'll +go back--if we can raise money enough to go with. Three times and then +out!" said Mr. Waddle. + +Mrs. Waddle broke down and wept. It scared the children to learn that +their mother could cry--their mother, who was always so bright and +cheerful and who always laughed away their griefs! + +Mr. Waddle was scared, too. He bent down and patted her shoulder--his +favourite way of soothing beast or human being. + +"Now, Mary, Mary! Don't you go back on us. We can stand everything as +long as you are all right. Don't feel bad! We'll pick up again. +There's time enough yet to grow turnips and fodder corn." + +"But what will we fodder it to?" wailed Mrs. Waddle. + +Mr. Waddle could not answer, thinking of his splendid horses, and of +his pure Jersey cows that would never answer to his call again. + +"Well, I am ashamed of myself!" said Mrs. Waddle, after a few moments, +bravely drying her eyes. "And I'm wicked, too! I've just wished that +something would happen so we'd have to go back East, and it's +happened; and we might have all been killed. And I'm going to stop +just where I am. I don't care where we live--or how we live--so long +as we are all together--and well--and there's a crust in the house and +water to drink." + +Rising, she seized the broom and began vigorously to sweep together +the leaves and grass which the cyclone had cast in through the open +door. + +"I declare, Mary!" said Mr. Waddle. "Do you mean to say you've been +homesick all this time?" + +"I'd give more for the north side of one of those old Vermont hills +than I would for the whole prairie!" was the emphatic reply. "But I'm +not going to say another single word." + +Mr. Waddle felt a thrill of comfort in knowing he was not alone in his +yearning for the old home. It was singular that these two, who loved +each other so truly, could so hide their inmost feelings. Each had +feared to appear weak to the other. + +Mr. Waddle looked at his wife with almost a radiant smile. "Well, +Mary, we'll go back in the fall--if we can sell. I guess we can hire +the Deacon Elbridge place I see by last week's paper it's still for +sale or rent, and carpenter work in old Hartbridge is about as +profitable for me as farming out West." + +"I'm glad you wouldn't mind going back, Homer," said Mrs. Waddle, and +they looked at each other as in the days of their courtship. + +But selling the farm was not easy, and October found the Waddles in +painful straits. + +"What will we have for Thanksgiving, Ma?" asked Obadiah. + +"Oh, a pair of nice prairie chickens, mashed turnips, hot biscuits, +and melted sugar," cheerfully replied Mrs. Waddle. + +"That sounds pretty good," said Obadiah; but when he got out of doors +he said to himself that you could not shoot prairie chickens without +ammunition, and that he had no bait even if he tried to use his quail +traps. He also reflected that his mother looked thin and pale, that +sister Ellie needed shoes, and that plum pudding and mince pie used to +be on Thanksgiving tables. But this was the day for his story +paper--post-office day--which seemed to cheer things up somehow. + +When he went to town for the mail he would see if his father, who was +at work carpentering on a barn, could not spare a dime for a little +powder and shot. So the boy trudged away on his long walk, with his +empty gun on his shoulder and the hope of youth in his heart. + +His father, busy at work, greeted him cheerily, but had no dime for +powder and shot. Pay for the work was not to be had until the first of +December, and meanwhile every penny must be saved--for coal and for +Ellie's shoes. + +"It leaves Thanksgiving out in the cold, doesn't it, Bub? But we'll +make it up at Christmas, maybe," said Mr. Waddle, as Obadiah turned to +go. "Here's three cents for a bite of candy for Sis, and take good +care of mother. I'll be home day after to-morrow, likely." + +Obadiah jingled the three pennies in his pocket as he walked to the +combined store and post-office. Three cents! They would buy a charge +or two of powder and shot, and he still had a few caps. And candy was +not good for people anyhow! He wished he had asked his father if he +might buy ammunition instead. + +"But I'll not bother him again," he decided, "and Sis will be glad +enough of the candy." + +He would not buy rashly. He looked over the jars of striped sticks, +peppermint drops, chocolate mice, and mixed varieties. Then he sat +down on a nail keg to await the distribution of the mail. He watched +the people standing by for the opening of the delivery window. It was +a rare thing for his family to get a letter, but then they seldom sent +one. + +Once in a while a newspaper came from Uncle Obadiah, but only one +letter in two years. Perhaps if he knew what hard luck they were +having he would write oftener. The boy had heard his mother say only +the week before that she wanted to write to Brother Obie, but was no +hand at letters, especially when there was no good news to write. + +A thought now came to young Obadiah. He would write to his Uncle +to-morrow, and his brain began fairly to hum with what he would say. +When his time came he invested one cent in a clean white stick of +candy and the remaining two in a postage stamp. "I'll pay two cents +back to pa as soon as I get the answer," he said confidently to his +questioning conscience. + +His walk home abounded in exasperations. Never had game appeared so +plentiful. Three separate flocks of prairie chickens flew directly +over his head, a rabbit scurried across his path, and in the stubble +of the ruined grainfields rose and fell little clouds of quail. + +"They just know it ain't loaded!" grumbled Obadiah, trudging with his +empty gun. + +That night, after Sis had gone to sleep, and his mother had lain down +beside her, cheerfully remarking that bed was cheaper than fire, and +that she was glad there was a good wood lot on the Elbridge place, +Obadiah, behind the sheltering canvas partition that separated the +kitchen from the bedrooms, wrote the following letter: + + DEAR UNCLE:--Last year our crops were burned up by the + drought and this year they were swept away by a cyclone and + all the stock was killed, and father will not get his pay + for carpenter work until December. If there was no hole in + the dollar you gave me when I was a baby I would take it and + buy something for Thanksgiving. I wish you would send me a + dollar without a hole in it as soon as you can and I will + send you the one with a hole in it. I would send it now but + I have not got stamps enough. I hope you are well. We are + all well, only ma is homesick. Your sincere nephew, + +OBADIAH WADDLE. + + P. S.--Please send your answer right to me, because I want + to surprise ma with some things for Thanksgiving. + +The next morning he set off to look at his most distant quail traps, +found them empty, and circled round to the village, where he posted +his letter. + +The days crept slowly by, and times grew more and more uncomfortable +in the little sod house. Often when Obadiah was doing his "sums" his +pencil would shy off to a corner of his slate and scribble a list of +items something like this: + +2 cents to Pa $.02 +Stamps and paper (to send the D) .06 +Powder and shot .10 +Tea and sugar for Ma .30 +1 lb. raisens .15 +6 eggs .08 +1 lb. butter .20 + ------ + .91 +More powder .09 + ------ + $1.00 + +Sometimes he would set down half a pound of "raisens" and add "candy +for Sis, .05," but this was in his reckless moments. Sober second +thought always convinced him that "raisens" would bring the greatest +good to the greatest number about Thanksgiving time. + +He casually asked his mother how long it took people to go to +California. + +"Well, Uncle Obie's newspapers always get here about four or five days +after they are printed. Dear me! I must write to your Uncle Obie just +as soon as we can spare the money for paper and stamps. He'll be glad +to know we are all alive and well, and that's about all I can tell +him." + +Obadiah smiled broadly behind his geography and began reckoning the +days. The answer might arrive about the 18th, but he heroically waited +until the 21st before going to ask for it. He reached the village long +before mail time, but saw so many things to consider in the grocery +and provision line that he was almost surprised when the rattle of the +"mail rig" and an in-gathering of people told that the important time +had arrived. + +The Waddles had given up their box, so he could not expect to see his +letter until it should be handed out to him from the general "W" pile. +He waited patiently. The fortunate owners of lock boxes took out their +letters with a proud air while the distributing was still going on. +Others, who had mere open boxes, drew close and tried to read inverted +superscriptions with poor success. Others who never had either letters +or papers, but who came in at this hour from force of habit, stood +near the stove or leaned on the counters and spoke of the weather and +swapped feeble jokes. Finally the small wooden window was flung open. +The little group got its papers and letters and gradually retired. + +"Any letter for me?" cried Obadiah, his heart jumping. + +"Nope; your pa got your papers last Saturday." + +"But--ain't there a letter--for me?" + +The man hastily ran over the half-dozen "W" missives. "Nope." + +Obadiah's heart was heavy as lead now. He went out into the sleety +weather and faced the long walk home. His eyes were so blurred with +tears he could hardly see and his feet came near slipping. + +A derisive shout came from across the street: "Hallo! Pretty bad +'waddling' this weather!" + +Obadiah pulled his hat over his eyes and tramped on in scornful +silence. + +And now another voice called out to him, a voice from the rear: "Oh, +say! Waddle! Come back here--package for ye!" Obadiah hastily went +back, his heart leaping. + +"Registered package," explained the postmaster. "'Most forgot it. Sign +your name on that line. Odd name you've got. No danger your mail going +to some other fellow." + +Obadiah laughed and said he guessed not, and hardly believing his +senses, again started for home, and soon struck out upon the +far-stretching road. In the privacy of the great prairie he looked at +the package again. How heavy it was for such a small one, and how +important looked the long row of stamps; and there was Uncle Obadiah's +name in one corner, proving that it was truly the answer! + +There must be a jackknife in it, or something besides the dollar. He +cut the stout twine, removed the wrapper, and lifted the cover of a +strong paper box. There was something wrapped in neat white paper and +feeling very solid. + +Obadiah removed the paper, and a heavy, handsome and very fat leather +purse slipped into his hand. He opened it. It had several +compartments, and in each one were three or more hard, flat, round +objects wrapped in more white paper to keep them from jingling, very +likely. + +Obadiah unwrapped one of these round, flat objects, and even in the +dull light of the drizzling and fading November day he could see that +it was a bright, clean, shining silver dollar--and had no hole in it. + +With hands fairly shaking with joy, he returned the purse to the box +and sped homeward. He ran all the way, only slowing up for breath now +and then, but it was dark, and the poor little supper was waiting when +he reached the house. The small lamp did not shed a very brilliant +light, but a mother does not need an electric glare in order to read +her child's face. + +"Well, Obie, what's happened?" asked his mother as soon as he was +inside the door. "Have you caught a whole flock of quails?" + +"Something better'n quails! Guess again, Ma!" + +"Three nice fat prairie hens then." + +"Something better'n prairie hens." And then Obie could wait no longer. +He pulled the package from under his coat and tossed it down beside +the poor old teapot, which had known little but hot water these many +weeks. + +"Why, it's from Brother Obie--to _you_!" exclaimed his mother, while +his father drew near and said, "Well, well!" + +"And look inside! I haven't half looked yet," said Obie, "but _you_ +look, Ma! I just want you to look!" + +Ma opened the box, and then the purse, and then the fourteen round +objects wrapped in white paper. And they made a fine glitter on the +red tablecloth. + +"Well, _well_!" repeated Mr. Waddle. + +"And here's something written," said Mrs. Waddle, taking a paper from +a pocket at the back of the purse. + +"Read it, Ma--out loud! _I_ don't care," said Obie generously. + +So Ma read it in a voice that trembled a little: + + MY DEAR NEPHEW:--If I count rightly, it is thirteen years + since your good mother labelled you Obadiah. I'm not near + enough to give you thirteen slaps--I wish I were--so I send + you thirteen dollars, and one to grow on. Never mind + returning the dollar with the hole in it--keep it for your + grandchildren to cut their teeth on. Give my love to your + parents and little sister; and if you look the purse through + closely, I think you will find something of interest to your + mother. It is about time she paid our old Vermont a visit. + Be a good boy. + +Your affectionate uncle, + +OBADIAH BROWN. + +"Oh, that blessed brother!" cried Mrs. Waddle, wiping her eyes with +her apron. + +Obie seized the purse and examined it on all sides. It was a very +wizard of a purse, for another little flat pocket was found in its +inmost centre, and from it Obie drew out another bit of folded paper +and opened it. + +"Why, it's a check!" shouted Mr. Waddle. "A check for you, Mary, +for--two--hundred--dollars! My! There's a brother for you!" + +"Oh, not two _hundred_--it must be twenty--it can't be--" faltered +Mrs. Waddle, wiping her eyes to look at the paper. + +Then she gave a little cry and fell to hugging all her family. "We can +all go back--we can go next week!" and she almost danced up and down +on the unresponsive clay floor. + +"I owe you two cents, Pa, and I'll pay it back to you just as soon as +I can get a dollar changed," said Obadiah proudly, fingering the +shining coins. + +"How's that, Bubby?" + +Then Obadiah explained. + +"I hope you didn't complain, Obie," said his mother, her happy face +clouding. + +"Well, I told him about the drought and the cyclone. I guess if I was +a near relation I wouldn't call that complaining. And then I asked him +if he wouldn't swap dollars with me, so I could have one without a +hole in it to get something for Thanks--" + +Mr. Waddle broke in with a shout of laughter, and Mrs. Waddle kissed +her son once more, and laughed, too, although her eyes were full of +tears. And then Obadiah knew everything was all right. + +"We can have Thanksgiving now, can't we, Ma?" he asked. "It's so near; +and I'm going to get all the things. We'll have chicken pie--_tame_ +chicken pie--and plum pudding--and butter--and cream for the +coffee--and cranberries--and lump sugar--and pumpkin pie--and--" + +"Oh, me wants supper!" exclaimed Sis. And then they laughed again, and +fell upon the cooling corn-bread and molasses and melancholy bits of +fried pork and the thin ghost of tea as if they were already engaged +in a feast of Thanksgiving. And so they were. + + + + +THE WHITE TURKEY'S WING[17] + +BY SOPHIE SWETT. + + Priscilla, the big white hen turkey, deserved a better fate + than to be eaten on Thanksgiving Day, and Minty and Jason + contrived to save her. + + +Mary Ellen was coming home from her school teaching at the Falls, and +Nahum from 'tending in Blodgett's store at Edom Four Corners, and +Uncle and Aunt Piper with Mirandy and Augustus and the twins were +coming from Juniper Hill, and there was every prospect of as merry a +Thanksgiving as one could wish to see. And Thanksgivings were always +merry at the Kittredge farm on Red Hill. Uncle Kittredge might be a +trifle over thrifty--a leetle nigh, his neighbours called him--but +there was no stinting at Thanksgiving, and when a boy is accustomed to +perpetual corn-bread and sausages, he knows how to appreciate +unlimited turkey and plum pudding; and when he is used to gloomy +evenings, in which Uncle Kittredge holds the one feeble kerosene lamp +between himself and a newspaper, Aunt Kittredge knits in silent +meditation on blue yarn stockings, he knows how good it is to have the +house filled with lights and people, jolly games going on in the +parlour, and candy-pulling in the kitchen. All these delights were +directly before Jason Kittredge as he dangled his legs from the stone +wall and whittled away at the skewers which Clorinda, the "hired +girl," had demanded of him, and yet his heart was as heavy as lead. + +[Footnote 17: From _Harper's Young People_, November 22, 1892.] + +He did not even look up when his sister Minty came up the hill toward +him. He knew it was Minty, because she was hop-skipping and humming, +and he knew that Aunt Kittredge had sent her to Mrs. Deacon Preble's +to get a recipe for snow pudding; she had said she "must have +something real stylish, because she had invited the new minister and +his daughter to dinner." + +"Oh, Jason, don't you wish it was always going to be Thanksgiving Day +after to-morrow?" Minty continued her hop-skipping; she went to and +fro before the dejected figure on the wall. Minty was tall for twelve, +and she had a very high forehead, which made Aunt Kittredge think that +she was going to be "smart." Aunt Kittredge made her comb her hair +straight back from the high forehead, and fasten it with a round comb; +not a vestige of hair showed under Minty's blue hood, and her forehead +looked bleak and cold, and her pale blue eyes were watery, and her new +teeth were large and overlapped each other; but Aunt Kittredge said it +was no matter, if she was only good and "smart." + +"Why, Jason, is anything the matter?" Minty stopped, breathless, and +the joy faded out of her face. Jason continued to whittle in gloomy +silence. His hands were almost purple with cold, and the wind flapped +his large pantaloons--they were Uncle Kittredge's old ones, and Aunt +Kittredge never thought it worth the while to consider the fit if they +were turned up so that he could walk in them. + +"You don't care because the new minister and his daughter are coming?" +pursued Minty. Jason's tastes, as she well knew, did not incline to +ministers and schoolmasters as companions in merrymaking. "She's a big +girl, almost sixteen, and she will go with Mary Ellen, and we shall +have Mirandy and Augustus and the twins, and the Sedgell girls and +Nehemiah Ham are coming in the evening, and we shall have such fun, +and such lots to eat!" + +"That's just like you. You're friv'lous. You don't know what an awful +hard world it is. You haven't got a realizing sense," said Jason +crushingly. + +This last accusation was one with which Aunt Kittredge was accustomed +to overwhelm Clorinda when she burned the pies or wore her best bonnet +to evening meeting. Minty's face grew so long that it looked like the +reflection of a face in a spoon, and the tears came into her eyes. It +must be a hard world, since Jason found it so. He was much +stouter-hearted than she; his round, snub-nosed, freckled face was +generally as cheerful as the sunshine. Jason had his troubles--Minty +well knew what they were--but he bore them manfully. He didn't like to +have Clorinda use his hens' eggs when he was saving them to sell, and +perhaps it was even more trying to be at school when the eggs man +came around, and have Aunt Kittredge sell his eggs and put the money +into her pocket. Jason wished to go into business for himself, and he +had a high opinion of the poultry business for a beginning. Cyrus, +their "hired man," had once lived with a man at North Edom who made +fabulous sums by raising poultry. But Aunt Kittredge's peculiar views +of the rights of boys interfered with his accumulation of the +necessary capital. All these troubles Jason bore bravely. It must be +some great misfortune that caused him to look so utterly despairing, +and to accuse her of such dreadful things, thought poor Minty. + +Jason took pity on her woful face. "P'raps you're not so much to +blame, Mint. You don't know," he said, in a somewhat softened tone. +"It's Aunt Kittredge." + +Minty heaved a long, long sigh. It generally _was_ Aunt Kittredge. + +"She's told Cyrus to kill the--the white turkey!" continued Jason, +with almost a break in his voice. + +"To kill Priscilla!" gasped Minty. "She couldn't--she wouldn't! Oh, +Jason, Cyrus won't do it, will he?" + +"Hasn't he got to if she says so?" demanded Jason grimly. + +"But Priscilla is yours," said Minty stoutly. + +"She says she only let me call her mine. Just as if I didn't save her +out of that weak brood when all the rest were killed by the +thunderstorm! And brought her up in cotton behind the kitchen stove, +no matter how much Clorinda scolded! And found her nest with +thirty-one eggs in it in the old pine stump! And she knows me and +follows me round." + +"I shouldn't think Aunt Kittredge would want to," said Minty +reflectively. + +"She wants a big turkey, because the minister and his daughter are +coming to dinner, and she doesn't want to have one of the young ones +killed, because she is too stin--" + +"I wouldn't care if I were you. After all, Priscilla is only a +turkey," said Minty, attempting to be cheerful. + +But this well-meant effort at consolation aroused Jason's wrath. +"That's just like a girl!" he cried. "What do you care if you only +have blue beads and lots of candy?" + +Poor Minty's face lengthened again, and her jaw fell. "There's my two +dollars and thirty cents, Jason," she said anxiously. + +Jason started; a ray of hope flushed his freckled face. + +"We can buy a big turkey over at Jonas Hicks's for all that money," +continued Minty. And then she drew nearer to Jason, and added a +thrilling whisper, "And we can hide Priscilla!" + +Jason stared at her in amazement. He had never expected Minty to come +to the front in an emergency. Perhaps the high forehead meant +something after all. "_She_'ll be after you about the money, you +know," he said, with a significant nod toward the house. + +"It's my own. I earned it picking berries and weeding old Mrs. +Jackman's garden. It's in my bank, and the bank won't open till +there's five dollars in it." + +Jason's face darkened. + +"But we can smash it," said Minty calmly. + +_Certainly_ the high forehead meant something. + +Priscilla was hidden. The "smashing" was done in extreme privacy +behind the stone wall of the pasture. Cyrus was bound over to secrecy, +as was also Jonas Hicks, who, after some haggling, sold them his +finest turkey for two dollars and thirty cents. + +"Cyrus is gettin' real handy and accommodatin'," said Clorinda the +next morning, when they were all in the kitchen, and Jason, ignobly +arrayed in Clorinda's kitchen-belle apron, was chopping, and Minty was +seeding raisins. "I expected nothin' but what I'd got to pick the +white turkey, and he's fetched her in all picked and drawed." + +"She don't weigh quite so much as I expected," said Uncle Kittredge, +as he suspended the turkey on the hook of the old steelyards. + +Jason and Minty slyly exchanged anxious glances. Neither of them had +looked at the turkey, and Minty's face was suffused with red even to +the roots of her tow-coloured hair. + +Mary Ellen and Nahum came that night, and bright and early on the +morning of Thanksgiving Day came Uncle and Aunt Piper with Mirandy and +Augustus and the twins, and the house was full of noise and jollity. +Jason was obliged to go to church in the morning with the grown +people, but Minty stayed at home to help Clorinda, and after much +manoeuvring she found an opportunity to run down to the shanty in +the logging road and feed the white turkey. The new minister and his +daughter came to dinner, and Jason and Minty were glad that the +children had seats at the far end of the table. The minister's +daughter was sixteen, and looked very stylish, and Aunt Kittredge said +she was glad enough that they had the snow pudding, and that she had +asked Aunt Piper to bring her sauce dishes. + +It had begun to be very merry at the far end of the table, in a quiet +way, for Aunt Kittredge's stern eye wandered constantly in that +direction, and Jason and Minty had almost forgotten that there were +trials and difficulties in life, when suddenly Aunt Piper's loud voice +sounded across the table, striking terror to their souls: + +"You don't say that this is the white turkey? Seems kind of a pity to +kill her, she was so handsome. But she eats real well. Now, you +mustn't forget to let me take a wing home to Sabriny. You know you +always promised her a wing for her hat when the white turkey was +killed." + +Sabriny was Aunt Piper's niece, who had been left at home to keep +house. + +"Sure enough I did," said Aunt Kittredge. "Jason, you go out to the +barn and get Cyrus to give you one of the white turkey's wings; and +Minty, you wrap it up nice, so it will be handy for your aunt to +carry. Go as soon as you've ate your dinner, so's to have it ready, +for Uncle Piper has got to get home before sundown." + +"Yes'm," answered Jason hoarsely, without lifting his eyes from his +plate. He could scarcely eat another mouthful, and Minty found it +unexpectedly easy to obey Aunt Kittredge's injunction to decline snow +pudding lest there should not be "enough to go round." + +"What are you going to do?" asked Minty, overtaking Jason, as he +walked dejectedly through the woodshed as soon as dinner was over. + +"I don't know; run away and be a cowboy like Hiram Trickey, I guess." + +Minty's heart gave a great throb. Hiram Trickey had sent home a +photograph, which showed him to have become very like the picture of a +pirate in Cyrus's old book, with pistols and a dirk at his belt. + +"Jason, the new minister's daughter has got a white gull's wing on her +hat, and--it's up in the spare chamber on the bed, and I don't think +Sabriny would ever know the difference." + +Jason stared in mild-eyed speechless wonder. Minty had never shown +herself a leading spirit before. + +"It will be dark before the minister's daughter goes, and there's a +veil over the hat, and if we put a little something white on it I'm +sure she won't notice. And when she does notice she won't know what +became of it. And we can save up and buy her another gull's wing." + +"Sabriny'll know," said Jason, but there was an accent of hope in his +voice. + +"They don't have turkeys, and they know that Priscilla wasn't a common +turkey; perhaps they won't know the difference," said Minty. "Anyway, +it will give us time to get Priscilla out of the way. If Aunt +Kittredge finds out, she will have her killed right away." + +"You go and get the wing off the minister's daughter's hat, Mint," +directed Jason firmly. + +Minty worked with trembling fingers in the chilly seclusion of the +spare chamber, but she made a neat package. And she stuck on to the +hat in place of the wing some feathers from the white rooster. + +There was an awful moment as Uncle and Aunt Piper were leaving. + +"Just let me see whether he's got a real handsome wing," said Aunt +Kittredge, taking the package which Minty had put into Aunt Piper's +hand. + +"Malachi is in considerable of a hurry, and they've done it up so +nice," said Aunt Piper. "There! I 'most forgot my sauce dishes, and +Sabriny's going to have company to-morrow!" + +Minty drew a long breath of relief as the carriage disappeared down +the lane, and Jason privately confided to her his opinion that she was +"an orfle smart girl." + +There was another dreadful moment when the minister's daughter went +home. They had played games until a very late hour, for Corinna, and +she dressed so hurriedly that she did not observe that anything had +happened to her hat, but as she went down the garden walk Jason and +Minty saw in the moonlight the rooster's feathers blowing from it. + +The next morning, in the privacy afforded by the great woodpile, to +which Jason had gone to chop his daily stint, the children debated the +advisability of committing the white turkey to the care of Lot Rankin, +who lived with his widowed mother on the edge of the woods. + +"It's hard to get a chance to feed her," said Jason, "and she may +squawk." + +"Lot Rankin may tell," suggested Minty. And she heaved a great sigh. +Conspiracy came hard to Minty. + +Just then the voice of the new minister's daughter came to their ears. +She was talking with Aunt Kittredge on the other side of the woodpile. + +"There was a high wind last night when I went home, and I suppose it +blew away. I am very sorry to lose it, because it was so pretty, and +it was a present, too," she said. + +"Maybe the children have found it; they're round everywhere," said +Aunt Kittredge. And then she called shrilly to Jason. + +Minty shrank down in a little heap behind a huge log as Jason stepped +bravely out from behind the woodpile, and answered promptly that he +had not seen the gull's wing. That was literally true; but how _she_ +was going to answer, Minty did not know. + +It was so great a relief that tears sprang to Minty's eyes when, after +a little more conversation, the minister's daughter went away. Aunt +Kittredge had taken it for granted that, as she remarked, "if one of +them young ones didn't know anything about it the other didn't." + +Minty felt her burden of guilt to be greater than she could bear. And +there was no way in which she could earn money enough to buy the +minister's daughter a new feather until berries were ripe and the +weeds grew in old Mrs. Jackman's garden. Minty racked her brains to +think of something she could give the minister's daughter to ease her +troubled conscience. There was her Bunker Hill monument, made of +shells, her most precious treasure; she would gladly have parted with +even that, but it stood upon the table in the parlour, and Aunt +Kittredge would discover so soon that it had gone. And Aunt Kittredge +was quite capable of asking the minister's daughter to return it. +Minty felt, despairingly, that this atonement was impossible. + +But suddenly a bright idea struck her. The feather on her summer +Sunday hat! It was blue--it had been white originally, but Aunt +Kittredge had thriftily had it dyed when it became soiled. Blue would +be very becoming to the minister's daughter, and perhaps she would +like it as well as her gull's wing. There was another sly visit to the +chilly spare chamber. Minty took the summer Sunday hat from its +bandbox in the closet, and carefully abstracted the blue feather. It +was slightly faded, and there were some traces of the wetting it had +received in a thunderstorm in spite of the handkerchief which Aunt +Kittredge carefully pinned over it; but Minty thought it still a very +beautiful feather. She put it into a little pasteboard box, wrote the +minister's daughter's name on it, placed it on her doorstep at dusk, +rang the bell, and ran away. + +It was nearly a week before she could find this opportunity to present +the feather, for Aunt Kittredge didn't allow her to go out after dark; +and in all that time they had not been able to negotiate with Lot +Rankin, for Lot had the mumps on both sides at once, and could not be +seen. But the very next day after the minister's daughter received her +feather--as if things were all coming right, thought Minty +hopefully--Uncle Kittredge sent her down to Lot Rankin's to find out +when he would be strong enough to help Cyrus in the logging camp; and +Jason gave her many charges concerning the contract she was to make +with Lot. But as she was going out of the house, there stood the +minister's daughter in the doorway, talking with Aunt Kittredge. + +"I shouldn't have known where it came from if Miss Plympton, the +milliner, hadn't happened to come in," the young girl was saying. "She +said at once, 'It's Minty Kittredge's feather. I had it dyed for her +last summer, and there's the little tag from the dye-house on it now.' +I can't think why she sent it to me." + +Aunt Kittredge turned to the shrinking figure behind her, holding the +blue feather accusingly in her hand. + +"Araminta Kittredge, what does this mean?" she demanded sternly. + +"I--I--she felt so bad about her gull's wing, and--and--" A rising sob +fairly choked Minty. + +"Please don't scold her. I'm sure she can explain," pleaded the +minister's daughter. + +"It's my duty to find out just what this means," said Aunt Kittredge +severely. "I never heard of a child doing such a high-handed thing! +You can do your errand now, because your uncle wants you to, but when +you come back I shall have a settlement with you." + +Poor Minty! She ran fast, never looking back, although the minister's +daughter called to her in kindliest tones. + +There was no hope of keeping a secret from Aunt Kittredge when once +she had discovered that there was one. The only chance of saving +Priscilla's life lay in persuading Lot Rankin to care for and conceal +her. + +But, alas! she found that Lot was not to be persuaded. He was going +into the woods to work, and his mother was "set against turkeys." +Moreover, she was "so lonesome most of the time that when folks _did_ +come along she told 'em all she knew." + +Jason, who had been very anxious, met her at the corner. Perhaps it +was not to be wondered at that Jason was somewhat cross and +unreasonable. He said only a girl would be so foolish as to send that +feather to the minister's daughter. Girls were all silly, even those +who had high foreheads, and he would never trust one again. He hoped +she was going to have sense enough not to tell, no matter what Aunt +Kittredge did. + +Poor Minty felt herself to be quite unequal to resisting Aunt +Kittredge, but she swallowed a lump in her throat and said firmly that +she would try to have sense enough. + +As they passed the blacksmith's shop, Liphlet, Uncle Piper's man, +called out to them: "Mebbe I shan't have time to go up to your house. +The blacksmith is sick, so I had to come over here to get the mare +shod, and I wish you'd tell your aunt that Sabriny says 'twan't no +turkey's wing that she sent her: 'twas some kind of a sea-bird's wing, +and it come off of somebody's bunnit, and she's a-goin' to fetch it +back!" + +Minty and Jason answered not a word, but as they went on they looked +at each other despairingly. + +"We should have been found out anyway," said Minty. + +Her pitifully white face seemed to touch Jason and arouse a spark of +manly courage in his bosom. + +"I'll stand by you, Mint, feather and all. You can't help being a +girl," he said magnanimously. "And I won't run away to be a cowboy +like Hiram Trickey." + +Minty gave him a little grateful glance, but she could not speak. It +did not seem so dreadful now about Hiram Trickey. She wished that a +girl could run away to be a cowboy. + +As they slowly and dejectedly drew near the house, they saw a horse +and a farm wagon at the door, and through the window they discovered +that Uncle and Aunt Kittredge, Clorinda, and Cyrus were all in the +kitchen. There was a visitor. Here was at least a slight reprieve. +They went around through the woodshed; it seemed advisable to approach +Aunt Kittredge with caution, even in the presence of a visitor. + +"Well, I must say I'm consid'able disappointed," the visitor was +saying, as they softly opened the door. He was a bluff, burly man, who +sat with his tall whip between his knees. "I ought to 'a' stopped when +I see her out there top of the stone wall the last time I come by--the +handsomest turkey cretur I ever did see, and I've been in the poultry +business this twenty years. I knew in a minute she belonged to that +breed that old Mis' Joskins had; she fetched 'em from York State. She +moved away before I knew it, and carried 'em all with her." + +"I bought some eggs of her, and 'most all of 'em hatched, but that +white turkey was the only one that lived," said Aunt Kittredge. "I +declare if I'd known she was anything more'n common, and worthy of +havin' her picture in a book--" + +"You'd ought to have known it, Maria!" said Uncle Kittredge testily. +"I wa'n't for havin' her killed, and you'd ought to have heard to me!" + +"I was calc'latin' to hev her picter right in the front of my new +poultry book," continued the visitor, whom the children now recognized +as the distinguished poultry dealer of North Edom for whom Cyrus had +once worked. "And I was going to have printed under it, 'From the farm +of Abner Kittredge, Esq., Corinna.' Be kind of a boom for you 'n' +Corinna, too--see? And if you didn't want to sell her right out, I +was calc'latin' to make you a handsome offer for all the eggs she +laid." + +"There! Now you see what you've done, Maria! I declare I wouldn't +gredge givin' a twenty dollar bill to fetch that white turkey back!" +exclaimed Uncle Kittredge. + +"Oh, oh! Uncle Kittredge!" Minty broke away from Jason, who would have +held her back, not feeling sure that it was quite time to speak, and +rushed into the room. "You needn't give twenty dollars! Priscilla is +down in the little shanty in the logging wood! We saved her--Jason and +I--and we bought a turkey of Jonas Hicks instead. I paid with my own +money, Aunt Kittredge! And then I--I took the gull's wing off the +minister's daughter's hat to send to Sabriny, and--and so that's why I +sent her the blue feather, and--and Sabriny's going to send the gull's +wing back--" + +"Jason, you go and fetch that turkey home!" said Uncle Kittredge. +"And, Maria, don't you blame them children one mite!" + +"I never heard of such high-handed doin's!" gasped Aunt Kittredge. + +"I expect I shall have to send you children each a copy of my book +with the picter of that turkey in it," said the poultry dealer. "And +maybe the boy and I can make kind of a contract about eggs and +chickens." + +The minister's daughter wore her gull's wing to church the next +Sunday, and she privately confided to Minty that she "didn't blame her +one bit." Aunt Kittredge looked at Minty somewhat severely for +several days but only as she looked at her when she turned around in +church or fidgeted in the long prayer. And after the poultry book came +out with Priscilla's photograph as a frontispiece, and people began to +make pilgrimages to the Red Hill farm to see the poultry, she was +heard to say several times that "it was wonderful to see how a smart +boy like Jason could make turkey raising pay," and that "as for Minty, +she always knew that high forehead of hers wasn't for nothing." + + + + +THE THANKSGIVING GOOSE[18] + +BY FANNIE WILDER BROWN. + + How a little boy learned to be thankful. A charming story + even though it _has_ a moral. + + +"But I don't like roast goose," said Guy, pouting. "I'd rather have +turkey. Turkey is best for Thanksgiving, anyway. Goose is for +Christmas." + +[Footnote 18: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1908.] + +Guy's mother did not answer. He watched her while she carefully wrote +G. T. W. on the corner of a pretty new red-bordered handkerchief. Five +others, all alike, and all marked alike, lay beside it. The initials +were his own. + +"Why didn't you buy some blue ones? I'd rather have them different," +he said. + +Mrs. Wright smiled a queer little smile, but did not answer. She +lighted a large lamp and held the marked corner of one of the +handkerchiefs against the hot chimney. The heat made the indelible ink +turn dark, although the writing had been so faint Guy hardly could see +it before. + +"Oh, dear," he cried, "there's a little blot at the top of that T! I +don't want to carry a handkerchief that has a blot on it." + +"Very well," said his mother. "I'll put them away, and you may carry +your old ones until you ask me to let you carry this one. I don't care +to furnish new things for a boy who doesn't appreciate them." + +"I don't like old--" + +"That'll do, Guy. Never mind the rest of the things that you don't +like. I want you to take this dollar down to Mrs. Burns. Tell her that +I shall have a day's work for her on Friday, and I thought she might +like to have part of the pay in advance to help make Thanksgiving +with. Please go now." + +"But a dollar won't help much. She won't like that. She always acts +just as if she was as happy as anybody. I don't want to go there on +such an errand as that." + +Mrs. Wright smiled again, but her tone was very grave. + +"Mrs. Burns is 'as happy as anybody,' Guy, and she has the +best-behaved children in the neighbourhood. The little ones almost +never cry, and I never have seen the older ones quarrel. But there are +eight children, and Mr. Burns has only one arm, so he can't earn much +money. Mrs. Burns has to turn her hands to all sorts of things to keep +the children clothed and fed. She'll be thankful to get the +dollar--you see if she isn't! And tell her if she is making mince pies +to sell this year, I'll take three." + +Guy walked very slowly down the street until he came to the little +house where the Burns family lived. + +"I'd hate to live here," he thought. "I don't see where they all +sleep. My room isn't big enough, but I don't believe there's a room in +this house as big as mine. I shouldn't have a bit of fun, ever, if I +lived here. And I'd hate to have my mother make pies and send me about +to sell them." + +Then he knocked on the front door, for there was no bell. No one came. +He could hear people talking in the distance, so he knew some of the +family were at home. Some one always was at home here to look after +the little children. He walked around to the kitchen door: it stood +open. The children were talking so fast they did not hear his knock. + +They were very busy. Katie, the eleven-year-old, and Malcolm, ten, +Guy's age, were cutting citron into long, thin strips, piling it on a +big blue plate. Mary and James, the eight-year-old twins, were paring +apples with a paring machine. The long, curling skins fell in a large +stone jar standing on a clean paper, spread on the floor. Charlie, who +was only four years old, was watching to see that none of the parings +fell over the edge of the jar. Susan, who was seven, was putting +raisins, a few at a time, into a meat chopper screwed down on the +kitchen table. George, three years old, was turning the handle of the +chopper to grind the raisins. Baby Joe was creeping about the kitchen +floor after a kitten. Mrs. Burns was taking a great piece of meat from +a steaming kettle on the back of the stove. Every one was working, +except the baby and the kitten, but all seemed to be having a glorious +time. What they were saying seemed so funny it was some time before +Guy could understand it. At last he was sure it was some kind of a +game. + +"Mice?" asked Susan. Mary squealed, and they all laughed. + +"Because they're small," said Mary. "Snakes?" + +"They can't climb trees," Mrs. Burns called out from the pantry. The +children fairly roared at that. "A pantry with no window in it?" + +"Oh, we've had that before," Katie answered. "I know what you say. +It's a good place to ripen pears in when Mrs. Wright gives us some." + +Guy knocked very loudly at that. He had not thought that he was +listening. + +The children started, but did not leave their work. They looked at +their mother. "Jamie," she said. Then Jamie came to meet Guy, and +invited him to walk in. + +"What game is it?" asked Guy, forgetting his errand. + +"Making mince pies," said Jamie. "It's lots of fun. Don't you want to +play? I'll let you turn the paring machine if you'd like that best." + +Guy said "Thank you" and began to turn the parer eagerly. + +"But I don't mean what you are doin'," said Guy. "I knew that was +mince pies. I thought that was work. I meant what you were saying. It +sounds so funny! I never heard it before." + +"Mamma made it up," explained Malcolm. "It's great fun. We always +play it at Thanksgiving time. You think of something that people don't +like, and the one who can think first tells what he is thankful for +about it. We call it 'Thanksgiving.'" + +Guy stayed for an hour, and played both games. Then, quite to his +surprise, the twelve o'clock whistles blew, and he had to go home. But +he remembered his errands and did them, to the great pleasure of the +whole Burns family. + +In the afternoon Guy spent some time writing a note to his mother. It +was badly written, but it made his mother happy. It read: + + DEAR MOTHER:--I am Thankful the blot isent any bigger. I am + Thankful the hankershefs isent black on the borders. I would + like that one with the Blot on to put in my pocket when you + read this. But my old ones are nice. The Burnses dont have + things to be Thankful for but they are Thankful just the + same. + + I am Thankful for the Goose we are going to have. The best + is I am Thankful I am not a Goose myself, for if I was I + wouldent know enough to be Thankful. + +Respectfully yours, + +GUY THEODORE WRIGHT. + + + + +AN ENGLISH DINNER OF THANKSGIVING[19] + +BY GEORGE ELIOT. + + Americans are not the only people who hold a feast each year + after the crops are gathered into barns. + + The older boys and girls who wish to know more of the jolly + English farmer, Martin Poyser, and his household, will enjoy + reading about them in George Eliot's great novel, "Adam + Bede." + + +It was a goodly sight--that table, with Martin Poyser's round +good-humoured face and large person at the head of it, helping his +servants to the fragrant roast beef, and pleased when the empty plates +came again. Martin, though usually blest with a good appetite, really +forgot to finish his own beef to-night--it was so pleasant to him to +look on in the intervals of carving, and see how the others enjoyed +their supper; for were they not men who, on all the days of the year +except Christmas Day and Sundays, ate their cold dinner, in a +makeshift manner, under the hedgerows, and drank their beer out of +wooden bottles--with relish certainly, but with their mouths toward +the zenith, after a fashion more endurable to ducks than to human +bipeds. Martin Poyser had some faint conception of the flavour such +men must find in hot roast beef and fresh-drawn ale. He held his head +on one side, and screwed up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and +watched half-witted Tom Tholer, otherwise known as "Tom Saft," +receiving his second plateful of beef. A grin of delight broke over +Tom's face as the plate was set down before him, between his knife and +fork, which he held erect, as if they had been sacred tapers; but the +delight was too strong to continue smouldering in a grin--it burst out +the next moment in a long-drawn "haw, haw!" followed by a sudden +collapse into utter gravity, as the knife and fork darted down on the +prey. Martin Poyser's large person shook with his silent unctuous +laugh; he turned toward Mrs. Poyser to see if she, too, had been +observant of Tom, and the eyes of husband and wife met in a glance of +good-natured amusement. + +[Footnote 19: From Chapter LIII of "Adam Bede."] + +But _now_ the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn, leaving +a fair large deal table for the bright drinking cans, and the foaming +brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks, pleasant to behold. +_Now_ the great ceremony of the evening was to begin--the harvest +song, in which every man must join; he might be in tune, if he liked +to be singular, but he must not sit with closed lips. The movement was +obliged to be in triple time; the rest was _ad libitum_. + +As to the origin of this song--whether it came in its actual state +from the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a +school or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant. There is a stamp +of unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the +former hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that +this unity may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds +which was a condition of primitive thought foreign to our modern +consciousness. Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first +quatrain an indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, +failing in imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of +iteration; others, however, may rather maintain that this very +iteration is an original felicity to which none but the most prosaic +minds can be insensible. + +The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony. (That is +perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our +forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly +_forte_, no can was filled: + + "Here's a health unto our master, + The founder of the feast; + Here's a health unto our master + And to our mistress! + + "And may his doings prosper, + Whate'er he takes in hand, + For we are all his servants, + And are at his command." + +But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung +_fortissimo_, with emphatic raps on the table, which gave the effect +of cymbals and drum together. Alick's can was filled, and he was +bound to empty it before the chorus ceased. + + "Then drink, boys, drink! + And see ye do not spill, + For if ye do, ye shall drink two, + For 'tis our master's will." + +When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed +manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand--and so +on, till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of +the chorus. Tom Saft--the rogue--took care to spill a little by +accident; but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to +prevent the exaction of the penalty. + +To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of +obvious why the "Drink, boys, drink!" should have such an immediate +and often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that +all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious; it was the +regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to +do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over +their wine glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, +had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in +the ceremony; and had not finished his contemplation, until a silence +of five minutes declared that "Drink, boys, drink!" was not likely to +begin again for the next twelve-month. Much to the regret of the boys +and Totty; on them the stillness fell rather flat, after that +glorious thumping of the table, toward which Totty, seated on her +father's knee, contributed with her small might and small fist. + +When Bartle reëntered, however, there appeared to be a general desire +for solo music after the choral. Nancy declared that Tim the wagoner +knew a song and was "allays singing like a lark i' the stable"; +whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, "Come, Tim, lad, let's hear +it." Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn't +sing; but this encouraging invitation of the master's was echoed all +round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could +say, "Come, Tim"--except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity +of unnecessary speech. At last Tim's next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, +began to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing +rather savage, said, "Let me alooan, will ye? else I'll ma' ye sing a +toon ye wonna like." A good-tempered wagoner's patience has limits, +and Tim was not to be urged further. + +"Well, then, David, ye're the lad to sing," said Ben, willing to show +that he was not discomfited by this check. "Sing 'My loove's a roos +wi'out a thorn.'" + +The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted +expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity +rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent +to Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve +over his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. +And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the +desire to hear David's song. But in vain. The lyrism of the evening +was in the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that +retreat just yet.... + + + + +A NOVEL POSTMAN[20] + +BY ALICE W. WHEILDON. + + A little country girl made known her wants in a decidedly + original way. A small boy in the city did his best to + satisfy them. This is at once a story of Thanksgiving and of + Christmas. + + +"Oh, mother! what do you suppose Ellen found in the turkey? You never +could guess. It's a letter--yes, a real letter just stuffed +inside--see!" And Freddie held before his mother's wondering eyes a +soiled and crumpled envelope which seemed to contain a letter. + +[Footnote 20: From _Wideawake_, November, 1889. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.] + +Freddie had been in the kitchen all the morning watching the various +operations for the Thanksgiving dinner which was "to come off" the +next day, when all the "sisters, cousins, and aunts" of the family +were to assemble, as was their custom each year, and great was the +commotion in the kitchen and much there was for Master Fred to +inspect. When Ellen put her hand into the turkey to arrange him for +the stuffing, great was her astonishment at finding a piece of paper. +Drawing it quickly out she called, "Freddie, Freddie, see here! See +what I've found in the turkey! I declare if he isn't a new kind of a +postman, for sure as you're born this is a letter, come from +somewhere, in the turkey. My! who ever heard of such a thing?" + +Freddie, standing with eyes and mouth wide open, finally said, "Why, +Ellen, do you believe it is a letter?" + +"Why, of course it is! Don't you see it's in a' envelope and all +sealed and everything?" + +"Yes, but it hasn't any stamp and how could a turkey bring it--how did +it get in him?" + +"Oh," laughed Ellen, "that's the question! You'd better take it right +up to your mother and get her to read it to you and perhaps it will +tell." + +So Freddie, all excitement, rushed upstairs and into his mother's +room, shouting as we have read. + +His mother took the letter from him. "Where did you get this, +Freddie--what do you mean by finding it in the turkey?" + +"Why, Ellen found it in the turkey when she was fixing him, and I +don't see how it got there." + +Mrs. Page turned the envelope and slowly read, "To the lady who buys +this turkey," written with a pencil and in rather crooked letters on +the outside; then opening the envelope she found, surely enough, a +letter within, also written in pencil, in rather uncertain letters, +some large, some quite small, some on the line, others above or below, +but all bearing sufficient relation to one another for her finally to +decipher the following: + +_Nov. 20_, + +_Mad River Village, N. H._ + + dere lady I doo want a dol for Christmas orful and mother + says that Sante Claws is so busy in the city that she gueses + he forgits the cuntry and for me to rite to the city lady + who buys our turkey and ask her if she will pleas to ask + Sante Claws if he could send a dol way up here in the cuntry + to me. I will hang my stockin in the chimly and he cannot + mistake the house becaus it is the only house that is black + in the hole place. I have prayed to him lots of times to + give me a dol but I gues he does not mind prayers much from + a little girl so far away so will you pleas to ask him for + me and oblige + +LUCY TILLAGE. + + P. S.--I hope the turkey will be good to eat, he is our very + best one and I was sorry to have him killed, but I never had + a dol. + +Freddie listened, very much interested, sometimes helping to make out +the letters while his mother read this remarkable letter. At its +conclusion he dropped upon a chair in deep thought while in his +imagination he saw a small black house surrounded by turkeys running +wildly about while a little girl tried to catch the largest. + +"Oh, mother," at length he sighed, "only think of a girl who never had +a doll, and Beth has so many she don't know what to do with them +all--shall you ask Santa Claus to send her one?" + +"Well," said Mrs. Page, who also had been in deep thought, "do you +think we better ask Santa Claus to send her one, or send her one +ourselves? You and Beth might send her one for a Christmas present." + +At once Freddie became fired with the desire to rush to a store, +purchase a doll, and send it off to the little "black house." He +seemed to think the house was little because the girl was little. + +"No, no, Freddie, not so fast," said Mrs. Page. "I think we better +wait till papa comes home and then we will ask his advice about it: +first, if he knows of a town in New Hampshire of this name, and then +if he thinks there may really be a little girl there who has such an +odd name--I shouldn't be surprised if Papa could find out all about +her." + +Freddie thought it was hard to wait until his father came home before +something was done about securing a doll; still he knew his mother was +right and tried to be patient, wishing Beth would come home, wondering +how the little girl looked, and if she had any brothers who wanted +something, and fifty other things, till he heard his father's key in +the front door; then down he rushed, flourishing the open sheet in his +hand, and gave him a most bewildering and rapid account of the letter +and the finding it in the turkey, ending with, "Now, Papa, do you know +of any such town, and did you ever hear of Lucy Tillage before, or of +anybody's turkey having a letter sent in him, and don't you think we +might send her the doll right away so's she might have it for +Christmas sure--don't you, Papa? And if we can't get a new one won't +you tell Beth to send one of hers? I know she won't want so many +and--" + +"Oh! stop, my boy," said Mr. Page, laughing heartily; "wait a moment, +Fred, I don't half understand what this is all about--a letter and a +turkey and a little girl with a doll and a turkey in a black house--" + +"Now, Papa, you're getting it all mixed up; you read the letter +yourself, please." + +So Mr. Page read the letter and heard about finding it in the turkey, +and then talked it over with his wife and Freddie and Beth, who had +come in from her play, and it was decided that he should write to the +postmaster and minister in Mad River Village asking them if they knew +of any family in the place of the name of Tillage, and if they did, +whether they were a poor family, and how many children they had, and +anything else they might know of them. + +There was no time to lose if the doll was to be sent for Christmas, so +both letters were written that very evening and Freddie begged to put +them in the post box himself that there might be no mistake in that. + +Then came a long time of waiting for Master Fred. At first he thought +one day would be enough for the letter to find its way to Mad River +Village; but upon a solemn consultation with the cousins and aunts who +came to the Thanksgiving party, it was decided that three days, at +least, ought to be allowed for a letter to reach a place that none of +them had ever heard of, and perhaps there was not such a village +anywhere after all but Freddie had made up his mind that there was +somewhere, and so each morning found him watching for the postman and +each night he went to bed disappointed, saying, "Oh! I hope there is a +truly Mad Village." + +Beth was almost as much excited as Fred about Lucy's letter, but still +she laughed at him as older sisters sometimes seem to take pleasure +in doing, saying, "I guess it's a delicious wonderland kind of a +letter, and that the people up there are mad people to be sending +letters in turkeys!" + +"Well, you just wait, Beth, and see if they are," answered Fred; and +sure enough, after ten days of waiting Freddie was rewarded by +receiving from the postman a yellow envelope with "Mad River Village" +printed in large, clear letters "right side of the stamp." He ran as +fast as he could with it to his father, shouting to Beth by the way to +"come and see if there isn't a Mad Village and a Lucy Tillage." + +Mr. Page was never given so short a time before to open a letter and +adjust his glasses, but then a letter had never before been received +under such circumstances. It proved to be from the postmaster at Mad +River Village, and ran as follows: + +Mad River Village, N. H. + + MR. PAGE of Boston: I rec. your letter a Day or two since + and hasten to ans. it right away, as you wish, by this + morning's mail which I must put up pretty soon so this + letter must be short. Yes sir I do know a family in this + town by the name of Tillage and they're a good respectable + family too. They live a mile or two out of the village on a + farm his father left him and I guess they have pretty hard + times making both ends meet--there ain't much sale up here + for farm things, you know, and it costs a heap to send them + to Boston but they do say that of late he's raised lots of + chickens and turkeys to send to Boston for Thanksgiving. + Last year he and his wife started in on taking summer + boarders and I guess they done first rate. They're young + folks, got three children, a little girl a small boy and a + baby and I guess they'll do as well as any one can on that + farm, it's a likely place but his father ain't been dead + long and Geo. didn't have no show while the old man was + alive. He buys his flour and groceries of me and I call him + a honest fellow and I guess you'd like to board with them if + you want to try them next summer. I don't think of anything + more to say so will close. + +Yours respt. + +JOSIAH SAFFORD. + + P. S.--His name and address are George Tillage, Intervale + Farm, Mad River Village, N. H. + +This was a highly satisfactory letter, especially to Master Fred who +had shouted gleefully to Beth, "I told you so!" "I do know a family of +the name of Tillage," and when his father read "three children, a +little girl, etc.," he nearly turned a somersault in his excitement, +dancing about and saying, "that's Lucy! that's Lucy!" + +Mr. Page turned smilingly to his wife, saying, "Well, my dear, this +does not sound so much like a fairy tale after all, and I really think +you and the children must play Santa Claus and send Lucy a doll." + +"Oh, yes, Papa, of course we must! Yes, do, Mamma!" shouted both +children at once. "It'll be such fun and she won't know where it comes +from." + +Mrs. Page was only too willing, so she promised, only adding that she +hoped the minister would give an equally good account. + +The children, however, were quite satisfied with the postmaster's +letter and began preparations the very next morning to secure the doll +and her "fit out" as Beth called it. First, Beth's dolls were looked +at to see if one of them would do to take a trip into the country, but +although there were quite a number of them none seemed to just suit +their ideas of what Lucy's doll should be. So Mamma was appealed to +and in consequence a visit was paid to Partridge's store by Mrs. Page, +accompanied by Beth and Master Fred. Here such a bewildering array of +dolls was presented to the children that it was with difficulty they +finally decided upon one with blue eyes and short golden hair, and +real hair that curled bewitchingly. Then came the selection of the +"fit out." Freddie thought she should have skates and a watch and +bracelets and one of the cunning waterproof cloaks and a trunk--in +fact, everything that could be bought for a doll (and in these days +that means all articles of apparel, whether for use or ornament, that +could be bought for a real person); but Mrs. Page explained that she +would not need so many things in Mad River Village, so he was +contented with a trunk which he selected himself, while his mother and +Beth bought a little hat and cloak, shoes, stockings, and a pretty +sunshade--the dresses and underclothing Beth thought she could make +with the aid of her mother's seamstress, and she was very ambitious to +try. + +Freddie thought the "small boy" and the "baby" ought to have presents +sent to them also; so he was allowed to select a drum, which he was +sure the boy "would like best of anything," and a pretty rattle and a +rubber cow for the baby. + +It was a very busy season of the year for the Pages as well as for +other people, and Beth had many presents to think about, but she kept +the little dresses and clothes for Lucy's doll in mind and worked and +planned with a will all the time she could spare for them, and Mary, +the seamstress, sewed and sewed, and as she knew how to cut dresses as +well as make them, in about two weeks they had, as Beth said, "a +lovely fit out," even to a tiny muff and collar made from some bits of +fur mamma had and a sweet little hood made just like Beth's own. + +Then Miss Doll was dressed in her travelling suit, muff and all, her +other dresses and clothing packed in the little trunk, and she herself +carefully tucked in on top, then Beth shut the cover and locked it, +tying the key to one of the buckles of the side strap--a box had been +procured and into it was packed the trunk, the drum, and the presents +for the baby, supplemented by Freddie with a ball which he had found +among his own playthings and two cornucopias of candy which he had +purchased himself, saying that "Christmas won't be Christmas if they +don't have some candy." Mrs. Page "filled in the nooks and corners +just to steady the whole," as she modestly said, with a pair of strong +warm mittens for Mr. Tillage, some magazines and books, several pairs +of long thick stockings which Freddie had outgrown but not worn out, +and over the whole a beautiful warm shawl. + +Then Beth and Fred composed a letter together which Beth wrote and +they both signed: + + DEAR LUCY TILLAGE:--The turkey brought the letter safely to + us and we wanted to be Santa Claus ourselves and so send the + doll and the other things for a Christmas present to you and + your brother and the baby. + + We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. + +BETH PAGE, + +FRED PAGE. + +This they neatly folded, put in an envelope addressed to Miss Lucy +Tillage, Mad River Village, and placed on the shawl where it might be +seen the moment the box was opened. They felt very proud and happy +when the box was finally nailed up and directed in clear printed +letters to + +GEORGE TILLAGE, + Intervale Farm, + Mad River Village, + New Hampshire. + +Freddie insisted that Lucy's name ought to be put on, too, as she was +the one who had written the letter and to whom the box was really +sent; so "For Lucy" was printed across one corner and underlined that +her father might see it was sent particularly to her. It all seemed so +mysterious, sending presents to people they did not know, and so +delightful, that they thought this the best Christmas they had ever +known and only wished that they could be in the little "black house" +when the box was opened, to see Lucy's face as she caught sight of the +cunning trunk and then the doll which she had so longed for. + +The very day the box was sent on its way there came a letter from a +minister in the town in which Mad River Village was located, saying +that he "did not know any family of the name of Tillage, but upon +inquiry he had found that there was a family of that name living on +the other side of the river, but as they did not go to his church he +was not acquainted with them; he was sorry, etc., etc." + +But the children cared little for this letter; their faith in Lucy was +not shaken, and they were very happy that they had answered her +letter. + + + + +EZRA'S THANKSGIVIN' OUT WEST[21] + +BY EUGENE FIELD. + + A Kansas settler's recollections of an old-time Thanksgiving + in western Massachusetts. Older boys and girls will best + appreciate the tender sentiment of the picture which Eugene + Field has painted so vividly by his masterly use of homely + dialect. + + +Ezra had written a letter to the home folks, and in it he had +complained that never before had he spent such a weary, lonesome day +as this Thanksgiving Day had been. Having finished this letter, he sat +for a long time gazing idly into the open fire that snapped cinders +all over the hearthstone and sent its red forks dancing up the chimney +to join the winds that frolicked and gambolled across the Kansas +prairies that raw November night. It had rained hard all day, and was +cold; and although the open fire made every honest effort to be +cheerful, Ezra, as he sat in front of it in the wooden rocker and +looked down into the glowing embers, experienced a dreadful feeling of +loneliness and homesickness. + +[Footnote 21: From "A Little Book of Profitable Tales," copyright, +1889, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.] + +"I'm sick o' Kansas," said Ezra to himself. "Here I've been in this +plaguey country for goin' on a year, and--yes, I'm sick of it, +powerful sick of it. What a miser'ble Thanksgivin' this has been! +They don't know what Thanksgivin' is out this way. I wish I was back +in ol' Mass'chusetts--that's the country for _me_, and they hev the +kind o' Thanksgivin' I like!" + +Musing in this strain, while the rain went patter-patter on the +windowpanes, Ezra saw a strange sight in the fireplace--yes, right +among the embers and the crackling flames Ezra saw a strange, +beautiful picture unfold and spread itself out like a panorama. + +"How very wonderful!" murmured the young man. Yet he did not take his +eyes away, for the picture soothed him and he loved to look upon it. + +"It is a pictur' of long ago," said Ezra softly. "I had like to forgot +it, but now it comes back to me as nat'ral-like as an ol' friend. An' +I seem to be a part of it, an' the feelin' of that time comes back +with the pictur', too." + +Ezra did not stir. His head rested upon his hand, and his eyes were +fixed upon the shadows in the firelight. + +"It is a pictur' of the ol' home," said Ezra to himself. "I am back +there in Belchertown, with the Holyoke hills up north an' the +Berkshire Mountains a-loomin' up gray an' misty-like in the western +horizon. Seems as if it wuz early mornin'; everything is still, and it +is so cold when we boys crawl out o' bed that, if it wuzn't +Thanksgivin' mornin', we'd crawl back again an' wait for Mother to +call us. But it _is_ Thanksgivin' mornin', and we're goin' skatin' +down on the pond. The squealin' o' the pigs has told us it is five +o'clock, and we must hurry; we're goin' to call by for the Dickerson +boys an' Hiram Peabody, an' we've got to hyper! Brother Amos gets on +about half o' my clothes, and I get on 'bout half o' his, but it's all +the same; they are stout, warm clo'es, and they're big enough to fit +any of us boys--Mother looked out for that when she made 'em. When we +go downstairs, we find the girls there, all bundled up nice an' +warm--Mary an' Helen an' Cousin Irene. They're going with us, an' we +all start out tiptoe and quiet-like so's not to wake up the ol' folks. +The ground is frozen hard; we stub our toes on the frozen ruts in the +road. When we come to the minister's house, Laura is standin' on the +front stoop a-waitin' for us. Laura is the minister's daughter. She's +a friend o' Sister Helen's--pretty as a dagerr'otype, an' gentle-like +and tender. Laura lets me carry her skates, an' I'm glad of it, +although I have my hands full already with the lantern, the hockies, +and the rest. Hiram Peabody keeps us waitin', for he has overslept +himself, an' when he comes trottin' out at last the girls make fun of +him--all except Sister Mary, an' she sort o' sticks up for Hiram, an' +we're all so 'cute we kind o' calc'late we know the reason why. + +"And now," said Ezra softly, "the pictur' changes: seems as if I could +see the pond. The ice is like a black lookin'-glass, and Hiram Peabody +slips up the first thing, an' down he comes, lickety-split, an' we all +laugh--except Sister Mary, an' _she_ says it is very imp'lite to +laugh at other folks' misfortunes. Ough! how cold it is, and how my +fingers ache with the frost when I take off my mittens to strap on +Laura's skates! But, oh, how my cheeks burn! And how careful I am not +to hurt Laura, an' how I ask her if that's 'tight enough,' an' how she +tells me 'jist a little tighter' and how we two keep foolin' along +till the others hev gone an' we are left alone! An' how quick I get my +_own_ skates strapped on--none o' your new-fangled skates with springs +an' plates an' clamps an' such, but honest, ol'-fashioned wooden ones +with steel runners that curl up over my toes an' have a bright brass +button on the end! How I strap 'em and lash 'em and buckle 'em on! An' +Laura waits for me an' tells me to be sure to get 'em on tight +enough--why, bless me! after I once got 'em strapped on, if them +skates hed come off, the feet wud ha' come with 'em! An' now away we +go--Laura and me. Around the bend--near the medder where Si Barker's +dog killed a woodchuck last summer--we meet the rest. We forget all +about the cold. We run races an' play snap the whip, an' cut all sorts +o' didoes, an' we never mind the pick'rel weed that is froze in on the +ice an' trips us up every time we cut the outside edge; an' then we +boys jump over the air holes, an' the girls stan' by an' scream an' +tell us they know we're agoin' to drownd ourselves. So the hours go, +an' it is sun-up at last, an' Sister Helen says we must be gettin' +home. When we take our skates off, our feet feel as if they were wood. +Laura has lost her tippet; I lend her mine, and she kind o' blushes. +The old pond seems glad to have us go, and the fire-hangbird's nest +in the willer tree waves us good-bye. Laura promises to come over to +our house in the evenin', and so we break up. + +"Seems now," continued Ezra musingly, "seems now as if I could see us +all at breakfast. The race on the pond has made us hungry, and Mother +says she never knew anybody else's boys that had such capac'ties as +hers. It is the Yankee Thanksgivin' breakfast--sausages an' fried +potatoes, an' buckwheat cakes, an' syrup--maple syrup, mind ye, for +Father has his own sugar bush, and there was a big run o' sap last +season. Mother says, 'Ezry an' Amos, won't you never get through +eatin'? We want to clear off the table, fer there's pies to make, and +nuts to crack, and laws sakes alive! The turkey's got to be stuffed +yet!' Then how we all fly around! Mother sends Helen up into the attic +to get a squash while Mary's makin' the pie crust. Amos an' I crack +the walnuts--they call 'em hickory nuts out in this pesky country of +sagebrush and pasture land. The walnuts are hard, and it's all we can +do to crack 'em. Ev'ry once'n a while one on 'em slips outer our +fingers and goes dancin' over the floor or flies into the pan Helen is +squeezin' pumpkin into through the col'nder. Helen says we're +shif'less an' good for nothin' but frivolin'; but Mother tells us how +to crack the walnuts so's not to let 'em fly all over the room, an' +so's not to be all jammed to pieces like the walnuts was down at the +party at the Peasleys' last winter. An' now here comes Tryphena +Foster, with her gingham gown an' muslin apron on; her folks have gone +up to Amherst for Thanksgivin', an' Tryphena has come over to help our +folks get dinner. She thinks a great deal o' Mother, 'cause Mother +teaches her Sunday-school class an' says Tryphena oughter marry a +missionary. There is bustle everywhere, the rattle uv pans an' the +clatter of dishes; an' the new kitchen stove begins to warm up an' git +red, till Helen loses her wits and is flustered, an' sez she never +could git the hang o' that stove's dampers. + +"An' now," murmured Ezra gently, as a tone of deeper reverence crept +into his voice, "I can see Father sittin' all by himself in the +parlour. Father's hair is very gray, and there are wrinkles on his +honest old face. He is lookin' through the winder at the Holyoke hills +over yonder, and I can guess he's thinkin' of the time when he wuz a +boy like me an' Amos, an' uster climb over them hills an' kill +rattlesnakes an' hunt partridges. Or doesn't his eyes quite reach the +Holyoke hills? Do they fall kind o' lovingly but sadly on the little +buryin' ground jest beyond the village? Ah, Father knows that spot, +an' he loves it, too, for there are treasures there whose memory he +wouldn't swap for all the world could give. So, while there is a kind +o' mist in Father's eyes, I can see he is dreamin'-like of sweet an' +tender things, and a-communin' with memory--hearin' voices I never +heard, an' feelin' the tech of hands I never pressed; an' seein' +Father's peaceful face I find it hard to think of a Thanksgivin' +sweeter than Father's is. + +"The pictur' in the firelight changes now," said Ezra, "an' seems as +if I wuz in the old frame meetin'-house. The meetin'-house is on the +hill, and meetin' begins at half-pas' ten. Our pew is well up in +front--seems as if I could see it now. It has a long red cushion on +the seat, and in the hymn-book rack there is a Bible an' a couple of +Psalmodies. We walk up the aisle slow, and Mother goes in first; then +comes Mary, then me, then Helen, then Amos, and then Father. Father +thinks it is jest as well to have one o' the girls set in between me +an' Amos. The meetin'-house is full, for everybody goes to meetin' +Thanksgivin' Day. The minister reads the proclamation an' makes a +prayer, an' then he gives out a psalm, an' we all stan' up an' turn +'round an' join the choir. Sam Merritt has come up from Palmer to +spend Thanksgivin' with the ol' folks, an' he is singin' tenor to-day +in his ol' place in the choir. Some folks say he sings wonderful well, +but _I_ don't like Sam's voice. Laura sings soprano in the choir, and +Sam stands next to her an' holds the book. + +"Seems as if I could hear the minister's voice, full of earnestness +an' melody, comin' from way up in his little round pulpit. He is +tellin' us why we should be thankful, an', as he quotes Scriptur' an' +Dr. Watts, we boys wonder how anybody can remember so much of the +Bible. Then I get nervous and worried. Seems to me the minister was +never comin' to lastly, and I find myself wonderin' whether Laura is +listenin' to what the preachin' is about, or is writin' notes to Sam +Merritt in the back of the tune book. I get thirsty, too, and I +fidget about till Father looks at me, and Mother nudges Helen, and +Helen passes it along to me with interest. + +"An' then," continues Ezra in his revery, "when the last hymn is given +out an' we stan' up agin an' join the choir, I am glad to see that +Laura is singin' outer the book with Miss Hubbard, the alto. An' goin' +out o' meetin' I kind of edge up to Laura and ask her if I kin have +the pleasure of seein' her home. + +"An' now we boys all go out on the Common to play ball. The Enfield +boys have come over, and, as all the Hampshire county folks know, they +are tough fellers to beat. Gorham Polly keeps tally, because he has +got the newest jackknife--oh, how slick it whittles the old broom +handle Gorham picked up in Packard's store an' brought along jest to +keep tally on! It is a great game of ball; the bats are broad and +light, and the ball is small and soft. But the Enfield boys beat us at +last; leastwise they make 70 tallies to our 58, when Heman Fitts +knocks the ball over into Aunt Dorcas Eastman's yard, and Aunt Dorcas +comes out an' picks up the ball an' takes it into the house, an' we +have to stop playin'. Then Phineas Owen allows he can flop any boy in +Belchertown, an' Moses Baker takes him up, an' they wrassle like two +tartars, till at last Moses tuckers Phineas out an' downs him as slick +as a whistle. + +"Then we all go home, for Thanksgivin' dinner is ready. Two long +tables have been made into one, and one of the big tablecloths Gran'ma +had when she set up housekeepin' is spread over 'em both. We all set +round--Father, Mother, Aunt Lydia Holbrook, Uncle Jason, Mary, Helen, +Tryphena Foster, Amos, and me. How big an' brown the turkey is, and +how good it smells! There are bounteous dishes of mashed potato, +turnip, an' squash, and the celery is very white and cold, the +biscuits are light and hot, and the stewed cranberries are red as +Laura's cheeks. Amos and I get the drumsticks; Mary wants the wishbone +to put over the door for Hiram, but Helen gets it. Poor Mary, she +always _did_ have to give up to 'rushin' Helen,' as we call her. The +pies--oh, what pies Mother makes; no dyspepsia in 'em, but good nature +an' good health an' hospitality! Pumpkin pies, mince, an' apple, too, +and then a big dish of pippins an' russets an' bellflowers, an', last +of all, walnuts with cider from the Zebrina Dickerson farm! I tell ye, +there's a Thanksgivin' dinner for ye! that's what we get in old +Belchertown; an' that's the kind of livin' that makes the Yankees so +all-fired good an' smart. + +"But the best of all," said Ezra very softly to himself, "oh, yes, the +best scene in all the pictur' is when evenin' comes, when all the +lamps are lit in the parlour, when the neighbours come in, and when +there is music and singing an' games. An' it's this part o' the +pictur' that makes me homesick now and fills my heart with a longin' I +never had before; an' yet it sort o' mellows and comforts me, too. +Miss Serena Cadwell, whose beau was killed in the war, plays on the +melodeon, and we all sing--all on us: men, womenfolks, an' children. +Sam Merritt is there, and he sings a tenor song about love. The women +sort of whisper round that he's goin' to be married to a Palmer lady +nex' spring, an' I think to myself I never heard better singin' than +Sam's. Then we play games--proverbs, buzz, clap-in-clap-out, +copenhagen, fox-an'-geese, button-button-who's-got-the-button, +spin-the-platter, go-to-Jerusalem, my-ship's-come-in; and all the +rest. The ol' folks play with the young folks just as nat'ral as can +be; and we all laugh when Deacon Hosea Cowles hez to measure six yards +of love ribbon with Miss Hepsey Newton, and cut each yard with a kiss; +for the deacon hez been sort o' purrin' round Miss Hepsey for goin' on +two years. Then, aft'r a while, when Mary and Helen bring in the +cookies, nutcakes, cider, an' apples, Mother says: 'I don't believe +we're goin' to hev enough apples to go round; Ezry, I guess I'll have +to get you to go down cellar for some more.' Then I says: 'All right, +Mother, I'll go, providin' some one 'll go along an' hold the candle.' +An' when I say this I look right at Laura, an' she blushes. Then +Helen, jest for meanness, says: 'Ezry, I s'pose you ain't willin' to +have your fav'rite sister go down cellar with you and catch her death +o' cold?' But Mary, who hez been showin' Hiram Peabody the phot'graph +album for more'n an hour, comes to the rescue an' makes Laura take the +candle, and she shows Laura how to hold it so it won't go out. + +"The cellar is warm an' dark. There are cobwebs all between the +rafters an' everywhere else except on the shelves where Mother keeps +the butter an' eggs an' other things that would freeze in the butt'ry +upstairs. The apples are in bar'ls up against the wall, near the +potater bin. How fresh an' sweet they smell! Laura thinks she sees a +mouse, an' she trembles an' wants to jump up on the pork bar'l, but I +tell her that there shan't no mouse hurt her while I'm around; and I +mean it, too, for the sight of Laura a-tremblin' makes me as strong as +one of Father's steers. 'What kind of apples do you like best, Ezry?' +asks Laura, 'russets or greenin's or crow-eggs or bellflowers or +Baldwins or pippins?' 'I like the Baldwins best,' says I, ''coz they +got red cheeks just like yours.' 'Why, Ezry Thompson! how you talk!' +says Laura. 'You oughter be ashamed of yourself!' But when I get the +dish filled up with apples there ain't a Baldwin in all the lot that +can compare with the bright red of Laura's cheeks. An' Laura knows it, +too, an' she sees the mouse again, an' screams, and then the candle +goes out, and we are in a dreadful stew. But I, bein' almost a man, +contrive to bear up under it, and knowin' she is an orph'n, I comfort +an' encourage Laura the best I know how, and we are almost upstairs +when Mother comes to the door and wants to know what has kep' us so +long. Jest as if Mother doesn't know! Of course she does; an' when +Mother kisses Laura good-bye that night there is in the act a +tenderness that speaks more sweetly than even Mother's words. + +"It is so like Mother," mused Ezra; "so like her with her gentleness +an' clingin' love. Hers is the sweetest picture of all, and hers the +best love." + +Dream on, Ezra; dream of the old home with its dear ones, its holy +influences, and its precious inspiration!--Mother. Dream on in the +faraway firelight; and as the angel hand of memory unfolds these +sacred visions, with thee and them shall abide, like a Divine +Comforter, the spirit of Thanksgiving. + + + + +CHIP'S THANKSGIVING[22] + +BY ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL. + + Chip had plenty of nuts on Thanksgiving Day. The little lady + called Heart's Delight saw to that. Can you guess who Chip + was? + + +They had got "way through," as Terry said, to the nuts. It had been a +beautiful Thanksgiving dinner "so far." Grandmother's sweet face +beamed down the length of the great table, over all the little crinkly +grandheads, at grandfather's face. Everybody felt very thankful. + +[Footnote 22: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1903.] + +"I wish all the children this side o' the north pole had had some +turkey, too, and squash and cram'bry--and things," said Silence +quietly. Silence was always wishing beautiful things like that. + +"An' some nuts," added Terry, setting his small white teeth into the +meat of a big fat walnut. "It wouldn't seem Thanksgivingy 'thout +nuts." + +"I know somebody who would be thankful with just nuts," smiled +grandfather. "Indeed, I think he'd rather have them for all the +courses of his Thanksgiving dinner!" + +"Just nuts! No turkey, nor puddin', nor anything?" + +The crinkly grandheads all bobbed up from their plates and +nut-pickers in amazement. Just nuts! + +"Yes. Guess who he is?" Grandfather's laughing eyes twinkled up the +long table at grandmother. + +"I'll give you three guesses apiece, beginning with Heart's Delight. +Guess number one, Heart's Delight." + +"Chip," gravely. Heart's Delight had guessed it the very first guess. + +"Chip!" laughed all the little grand girls and boys. Why, of course! +Chip! He would rather have just nuts for Thanksgiving dinner! + +"I wish he had some o' mine!" cried Silence. + +"An' mine!" cried Terry; and all the others wished he had some of +theirs. What a Thanksgiving dinner little Chip would have had! + +"He's got plenty, thank you." It was the shy little voice of Heart's +Delight. A soft pink colour had come into her round cheeks. Everybody +looked at her inquiringly, for how did Heart's Delight know Chip had +plenty of nuts? Then Terry remembered something. + +"Oh, that's where her nuts went to!" he cried. "Heart's Delight gave +'em to Chip! We couldn't think what she'd done with 'em all." + +The pink colour was growing pinker--very pink indeed. + +"Yes, that's where," said Silence, leaning over to squeeze one of +Heart's Delight's little hands. And sure enough, it was. In the +beautiful nut month of October, when the children went after their +winter's supply of nuts, little Heart's Delight had left all her +little rounded heap just where bright-eyed, nut-loving squirrel Chip +would be sure to find them and hurry them away to his winter hole. And +Chip had found them, she was sure, for not one was left when she went +back to see, the next day. + +"Why, maybe this very minute--right now--Chip's cracking his +Thanksgiving dinner!" Terry laughed. + +"Same as we are! Maybe he's got to the nut cour--oh, they're all nut +courses! But maybe he's sittin' up to his table with the rest of the +folks, thanksgiving to Heart's Delight," Silence said. + +Heart's Delight's little shy face nearly hid itself over her plate. +This was dreadful! It was necessary to change the subject at once, and +a dear little thought came to her aid. + +"But I'm afraid he hasn't got any gran'father and gran'mother to his +Thanksgiving," she said softly. "I shouldn't think anybody could +thanksgive 'thout a gran'mother and gran'father." + + + + +THE MASTER OF THE HARVEST[23] + +BY MRS. ALFRED GATTY. + + A good old-fashioned story for the older boys and girls to + read on the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day. + + +The Master of the Harvest walked by the side of his cornfields in the +early year, and a cloud was over his face, for there had been no rain +for several weeks, and the earth was hard from the parching of the +cold east winds, and the young wheat had not been able to spring up. + +[Footnote 23: From "Parables from Nature."] + +So, as he looked over the long ridges that lay stretched in rows +before him, he was vexed, and began to grumble, and say, "The harvest +would be backward, and all things would go wrong." At the mere thought +of which he frowned more and more, and uttered words of complaint +against the heavens, because there was no rain; against the earth, +because it was so dry and unyielding; against the corn, because it had +not sprung up. + +And the man's discontent was whispered all over the field, and all +along the long ridges where the corn seeds lay; and when it reached +them they murmured out, "How cruel to complain! Are we not doing our +best? Have we let one drop of moisture pass by unused, one moment of +warmth come to us in vain? Have we not seized on every chance, and +striven every day to be ready for the hour of breaking forth? Are we +idle? Are we obstinate? Are we indifferent? Shall we not be found +waiting and watching? How cruel to complain!" + +Of all this, however, the Master of the Harvest heard nothing, so the +gloom did not pass away from his face. On the contrary, he took it +with him into his comfortable home, and repeated to his wife the dark +words that all things were going wrong; that the drought would ruin +the harvest, for the corn was not yet sprung. + +And still thinking thus, he laid his head on his pillow, and presently +fell asleep. + +But his wife sat up for a while by the bedside, and opened her Bible, +and read, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are +the angels." + +Then she wrote this text in pencil on the flyleaf at the end of the +book, and after it the date of the day, and after the date the words, +"Lord, the husbandman, Thou waitest for the precious fruit Thou hast +sown, and hast long patience for it! Amen, O Lord, Amen!" + +After which the good woman knelt down to pray, and as she prayed she +wept, for she knew that she was very ill. + +But what she prayed that night was heard only in heaven. + +And so a few days passed on as before, and the house was gloomy with +the discontent of its master; but at last one evening the wind +changed, the sky became heavy with clouds, and before midnight there +was rain all over the land; and when the Master of the Harvest came in +next morning, wet from his early walk by the cornfields, he said it +was well it had come at last, and that, at last, the corn had sprung +up. + +On which his wife looked at him with a smile, and said, "How often +things came right, about which one had been anxious and disturbed." To +which her husband made no answer, but turned away and spoke of +something else. + +Meantime, the corn seeds had been found ready and waiting when the +hour came, and the young sprouts burst out at once; and very soon all +along the long ridges were to be seen rows of tender blades, tinting +the whole field with a delicate green. And day by day the Master of +the Harvest saw them and was satisfied; but because he was satisfied, +and his anxiety was gone, he spoke of other things, and forgot to +rejoice. + +And a murmur arose among them: "Should not the Master have welcomed us +to life? He was angry but lately, because the seed he had sown had not +yet brought forth; now that it has brought forth, why is he not glad? +What more does he want? Have we not done our best? Are we not doing it +minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day? From the morning and +evening dews, from the glow of the midday sun, from the juices of the +earth, from the breezes which freshen the air, even from clouds and +rain, are we not taking in food and strength, warmth and life, +refreshment and joy; so that one day the valleys may laugh and sing, +because the good seed hath brought forth abundantly? Why does he not +rejoice?" + +As before, however, of all they said the Master of the Harvest heard +nothing; and it never struck him to think of the young corn blades' +struggling life. Nay, once, when his wife asked him if the wheat was +doing well, he answered, "Very fairly," and nothing more. But she +then, because the evening was fine and the fairer weather had revived +her failing powers, said she would walk out by the cornfields herself. + +And so it came to pass that they went out together. And together they +looked all along the long green ridges of wheat, and watched the +blades as they quivered and glistened in the breeze which sprang up +with the setting sun. Together they walked, together they looked; +looking at the same things and with the same human eyes; even as they +had walked, and looked, and lived together for years, but with a world +dividing their hearts; and what was ever to unite them? + +Even then, as they moved along, she murmured half aloud, half to +herself, thinking of the anxiety that had passed away: "Thou visitest +the earth, and blessest it; thou makest it very plenteous." + +To which he answered, if answer it may be called, "Why are you always +so gloomy? Why should Scripture be quoted about such common things?" + +And she looked in his face and smiled, but did not speak; and he +could not read the smile, for the life of her heart was as hidden to +him as the life of the corn blades in the field. + +And so they went home together, no more being said by either; for, as +she turned round, the sight of the setting sun and of the young +freshly growing wheat blades brought tears into her eyes. + +_She_ might never see the harvest upon earth again; for her that other +was at hand, whereof the reapers were to be angels. + +And when she opened her Bible that night she wrote on the flyleaf the +text she had quoted to her husband, and after the text the date of the +day, and after the date the words, "Bless me, even me also, oh, my +Father, that I may bring forth fruit with patience!" + +Very peaceful were the next few weeks that followed, for all nature +seemed to rejoice in the weather, and the corn blades shot up till +they were nearly two feet high, and about them the Master of the +Harvest had no complaints to make. + +But at the end of that time, behold, the earth began to be hard and +dry again, for once more rain was wanted; and by degrees the growing +plants failed for want of moisture and nourishment, and lost power and +colour, and became weak and yellow in hue. And once more the +husbandmen began to fear and tremble, and once more the brow of the +Master of the Harvest was over-clouded with angry apprehension. + +And as the man got more and more anxious about the fate of his crops, +he grew more and more irritable and distrustful, and railed as before, +only louder now, against the heavens because there was no rain; +against the earth because it lacked moisture; against the corn plants +because they had waxed feeble. + +Nay, once, when his sick wife reproved him gently, praying him to +remember how his fears had been turned to joy before, he reproached +her in his turn for sitting in the house and pretending to judge of +what she could know nothing about, and bade her come out and see for +herself how all things were working together for ill. + +And although he spoke it in bitter jest, and she was very ill, she +said she would go, and went. + +So once more they walked out together, and once more looked over the +cornfields; but when he stretched out his arm and pointed to the long +ridges of blades, and she saw them shrunken and faded in hue, her +heart was grieved within her, and she turned aside and wept over them. + +Nevertheless, she said she durst not cease from hope, since an hour +might renew the face of the earth, if God so willed; neither should +she dare to complain, _even the harvest were to fail_. At which words +the Master of the Harvest stopped short, amazed, to look at his wife, +for her soul was growing stronger as her body grew weaker, and she +dared to say things now which she would have had no courage to utter +before. + +But of all this he knew nothing, and what he thought, as he listened, +was that she was as weak in mind as in body; and what he said was that +a man must be an idiot who would not complain when he saw the bread +taken from under his very eyes! + +And his murmurings and her tears sent a shudder all along the long +ridges of sickly corn blades, and they asked one of another, "Why does +he murmur? and, Why does she weep? Are we not doing all we can? Do we +slumber or sleep, and let opportunities pass by unused? Are we not +watching and waiting against the times of refreshing? Shall we not be +found ready at last? Why does he murmur? and, Why does she weep? Is +she, too, fading and waiting? Has she, too, a master who has lost +patience?" + +Meantime, when she opened her Bible that night, she wrote on the +flyleaf the text, "Wherefore should a man complain, a man for the +punishment of his sins?" and after the text the date of the day, and +after the date the words, "Thou dost turn Thy face from us, and we are +troubled; but, Lord, how long, how long?" + +And by and by came on the long-delayed times of refreshing, but so +slowly and imperfectly that the change in the corn could scarcely be +detected for a while. Nevertheless, it told at last, and stems +struggled up among the blades, and burst forth into flowers, which +gradually ripened into ears of grain. But a struggle it had been, and +continued to be, for the measure of moisture was scant, and the due +amount of warmth in the air was wanting. Nevertheless, by struggling +and effort the young wheat advanced, little by little, in growth; +preparing itself, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, as best +it could, for the great day of the harvest. As best it could! Would +the Master of the Harvest ask more? Alas! he had still something to +find fault with, for when he looked at the ears and saw that they were +small and poor, he grumbled, and said the yield would be less than it +ought to be, and the harvest would be bad. + +And as more weeks went on, and the same weather continued, and the +progress was very, very slow, he spoke out of his vexation to his wife +at home, to his friends at the market, and to the husbandmen who +passed by and talked with him about the crops. + +And the voice of his discontent was breathed over the cornfield, all +along the long ridges where the plants were labouring, and waiting, +and watching. And they shuddered and murmured: "How cruel to complain! +Had we been idle, had we been negligent, had we been indifferent, we +might have passed away without bearing fruit at all. How cruel to +complain!" + +But of all this the Master of the Harvest heard nothing, so he did not +cease to complain. + +Meantime, another week or two went on, and people as they glanced over +the land wished that a few good rainy days would come and do their +work decidedly, so that the corn ears might fill. And behold, while +the wish was yet on their lips, the sky became charged with clouds, +darkness spread over the country, a wild wind rose, and the growling +of thunder announced a storm. And such a storm! People hid from it in +cellars and closets and dark corners, as if now, for the first time, +they believed in a God, and were trembling at the new-found fact; as +if they could never discover Him in His sunshine and blessings, but +only thus in His tempests and wrath. + +And all along the long ridges of wheat plants drove the rain-laden +blast, and they bent down before it and rose up again, like the waves +of a labouring sea. Ears over ears they bowed down; ears above ears +they rose up. They bowed down as if they knew that to resist was +destruction; they rose up as if they had a hope beyond the storm. Only +here and there, where the whirlwinds were the strongest, they fell +down and could not lift themselves again. So the damage done was but +little, and the general good was great. But when the Master of the +Harvest saw here and there patches of overweighted corn yet dripping +from the thunder showers, he grew angry for them, and forgot to think +of the long ridges that stretched over his fields, where the corn ears +were swelling and rejoicing. + +And he came in gloomy to his home, when his wife was hoping that now, +at last, all would be well; and when she looked at him the tumult of +her soul grew beyond control, and she knelt down before him as he sat +moody in his chair, and threw her arms round him, and cried out: "It +is of the Lord's mercies that we are not utterly consumed. Oh, +husband! pray for the corn and for me, that it may go well with us at +the last! Carry me upstairs!" And his anger was checked by fear, and +he carried her upstairs and laid her on the bed, and said it must be +the storm which had shaken her nerves. But whether he prayed for +either the corn or her that night she never knew. + +And presently came a new distress: for when the days of rain had +accomplished their gracious work, and every one was satisfied, behold, +they did not cease. And as hitherto the cry had gone up for water on +the furrows, so now men's hearts failed them for fear lest it should +continue to overflowing, and lest mildew should set in upon the full, +rich ears, and the glorious crops should be lost. + +And the Master of the Harvest walked out by his cornfields, his face +darker than ever. And he railed against the rain because it would not +cease; against the sun because it would not shine; against the wheat +because it might perish before the harvest. + +"But why does he always and only complain?" moaned the corn plants, as +the new terror was breathed over the field. "Have we not done our best +from the first? And has not mercy been with us, sooner or later, all +along? When moisture was scant, and we throve but little, why did he +not rejoice over that little, and wait, as we did, for more? Now that +abundance has come, and we swell triumphant in strength and in hope, +why does he not share our joy in the present, and wait in trust, as we +do, for the future ripening change? Why does he always complain? Has +he himself some hard master, who would fain reap where he has not +sown, and gather where he has not strewed, and who has no pity for his +servants who strive?" + +But of all this the Master of the Harvest heard nothing. And when the +days of rain had rolled into weeks and the weeks into months, and the +autumn set in, and the corn still stood up green in the ridges, as if +it never meant to ripen at all, the boldest and most hopeful became +uneasy, and the Master of the Harvest despaired. + +But his wife had risen no more from her bed, where she lay in sickness +and suffering, yet in patient trust, watching the sky through the +window that faced her pillow, looking for the relief that came at +last. For even at the eleventh hour, when hope seemed almost over, and +men had half learned to submit to their expected trial, the dark days +began to be varied by a few hours of sunshine; and though these passed +away, and the gloom and rain returned again, yet they also passed away +in their turn, and the sun shone out once more. + +And the poor sick wife, as she watched, said to those around her that +the weather was gradually changing, and that all would come right at +last; and sighing a prayer that it might be so with herself also, she +had her Bible brought to the bed, and wrote in the flyleaf the text, +"Some thirty, some sixty, some an hundredfold"; and after the text the +date of the day, for on that day the sun had been shining steadily for +many hours. And after the date the words, "Unto whom much is given, +of him shall much be required; yet if Thou, Lord, be extreme to mark +iniquity, O Lord, who may stand?" + +And day by day, the hours of sunshine were more in number, and the +hours of rain and darkness fewer, and by degrees the green corn ears +ripened into yellow, and the yellow turned into gold, and the harvest +was ready, and the labourers not wanting. And the bursting corn broke +out into songs of rejoicing, and cried, "At least we have not waited +and watched in vain! Surely goodness and mercy have followed us all +the days of our life, and we are crowned with glory and honour. Where +is the Master of the Harvest, that he may claim his own with joy?" + +But the Master of the Harvest was bending over the bed of his dying +wife. + +And she whispered that her Bible should be brought, and he brought it, +and she said, "Open it at the flyleaf at the end, and write, 'It is +sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in +dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised +in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body!'" +And she bade him add the date of the day, and after the date of the +day, the words, "O Lord, in Thy mercy say of me--She hath done what +she could!" And then she laid her hand in his, and so fell asleep in +hope. + +And the harvest of the earth was gathered into barns, and the +gathering-day of rejoicing was over, and the Master of it all sat +alone by his fireside, with his wife's Bible on his knee. And he read +the texts and the dates and the prayers, from the first day when the +corn seeds were held back by drought; and as he read a new heart +seemed to burst out within him from the old one--a heart which the +Lord of the other Harvest was making soft, and the springing whereof +He would bless. + +And henceforth, in his going out and coming in from watching the +fruits of the earth, the texts and the dates and the prayers were ever +present in his mind, often rising to his lips; and he murmured and +complained no more, let the seasons be what they would and his fears +however great; for the thought of the late-sprung seed in his own dry +cold heart, and of the long suffering of Him who was Lord and Master +of all, was with him night and day. And more and more as he prayed for +help, that the weary struggle might be blessed, and the new-born +watching and waiting not be in vain, so more and more there came over +his spirit a yearning for that other harvest, where he and she who had +gone before might be gathered in together. + +And thus--in one hope of their calling--the long-divided hearts were +united at last. + + + + +A THANKSGIVING DINNER[24] + +BY EDNA PAYSON BRETT. + + Ministers' sons, somehow, have a bad reputation. Little + Johnnie was one and he thought it pretty hard to have to go + to church on Thanksgiving Day. But the pink-frosted cakes-- + + +"Oh, dear!" puffed a certain little boy one bright Thanksgiving +morning, as he jerked his chubby neck into the stiffest of white +collars. "Great fun, isn't it, having to sit up in meeting for a +couple of hours straight as a telegraph pole when I might be playing +football and beating the Haddam team all to hollow! This is what comes +of your pa's being the minister, I s'pose." + +[Footnote 24: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 29, 1900.] + +But Johnnie, for that was his name, continued his dressing, the ten +years of his young life having taught him how useless it is to make a +fuss over what has to be done. + +In a few minutes he had finished, and was quite satisfied with his +appearance, but for his shoes. These he eyed for a moment, and +concluding that they would not pass inspection, started for the +woodshed to give them a shine. + +On his way he passed the open dining-room door, and suddenly halted. +"Oh! Why can't I have a nice little lunch during sermon time?" + +He took a step back and peeped slyly into the room; then stole across +to the old-fashioned cupboard, stealthily opening the doors, and such +an array of good things you never beheld! Sally was the best cook in +Brockton any day, but on Thanksgiving she could work wonders. + +He looked with longing eyes from one dish to another. Now the big pies +were out of the question, and the cranberry tarts--he felt of them +lovingly--but no, they were altogether too sticky. He stood on tiptoe +to see what was on the second shelf. To his delight he found a platter +filled with just the daintiest little pink-frosted cakes you ever saw. + +"O-oo, thimble cakes!" he exclaimed. "You are just the fellows I want! +I'll take you along to church with me." He cast one quick glance +around, then grabbed a handful of the tiny cakes and crammed them into +his trousers' pocket. + +"Lucky for me ma isn't going to meeting to-day," chuckled the naughty +boy, "and I don't believe grandma'd ever tell on me if I carried along +the turkey!" + +The early bell had now begun to ring, and Johnnie started for the +village church. + +"Come, my son," said Doctor Goodwin, as they entered the +meeting-house, "you are to sit in the front seat with grandma this +morning: she is particularly anxious to hear every word of the sermon +to-day. And where's your contribution, boy? You haven't forgotten +that?" + +"No, sir," meekly answered Johnnie, "it's tied up in my handkerchief." +But his heart sank--the front seat! How ever was his lunch to come in +now? + +The opening hymn had been sung, the prayer of thanksgiving offered, +and now, as the collection was about to be taken, the pastor begged +his people to be especially generous to the poor on this day. + +Up in the front pew sat Johnnie, but never a word of the notice did he +hear, so busy was he planning out his own little affair. It wasn't +such easy planning either, just supposing he got caught! + +But what was that? Johnnie jumped as if he had been struck. However, +it was nothing but the money plate under his nose, and the good Deacon +Simms standing calmly by. + +To the guilty boy it seemed as if the deacon must have been waiting +for ten minutes at the least, and in a great flurry he began to fumble +for his handkerchief. What _had_ he done with it? Oh, there it was at +last, way down in the depths of his right trousers' pocket. + +He caught hold of the knotted corner, and out came the handkerchief +with a whisk and a flourish, and scatter, rattle, helter-skelter, out +flew a half-dozen pink thimble cakes, down upon the floor, back into +Mrs. Smiley's pew, and to Johnnie's horror one pat into the deacon's +plate! + +The good man's eyes tried not to twinkle as he removed the unusual +offering, and passed on more quickly than was his wont. + +Miserable Johnnie, with his face as red as a rooster's comb and eyes +cast down in shame, saw nothing but the green squares on the carpet +and the dreadful pink-frosted cakes. He was sure that every one in the +church was glaring at him; probably even grandma had forsaken him, and +each moment he dreaded--he knew not what. + +To his surprise, the service seemed to go right on as usual. Another +hymn was sung, and then there was a general settling down for the +sermon. Very soon he began to grow tired of just gazing at the floor, +yet he dared not look up, and by and by the heavy eyes drooped and +Johnny was fast asleep. + +All was now quiet in the meeting-house save the calm, steady voice of +the preacher. Pretty soon a wee creature dressed all in soft brown +stole across the floor of a certain pew. She was a courageous little +body indeed, but what mother would not venture a good deal for her +hungry babies? Such a repast as this was certainly the opportunity of +a lifetime. Looking cautiously around, then concluding that all was +safe, she disappeared down a hole in a corner way under the seat. In a +twinkling she was back again; this time, however, she was not alone. +Four little ones pattered after Mamma Mouse, and eight bright eyes +spied a dinner worth running for. + +Never mind what they did; but when Johnnie awoke at the strains of +the closing hymn and tried to remember what had gone wrong, he saw +nothing of the pink-frosted cakes save some scattered crumbs. + +What could have become of them, he thought, in bewilderment. + +He hardly knew how he got out of the church that day, but he found +himself rushing down the road a sadder and a wiser boy. Grandma and +papa had remained to chat. Johnnie did not feel like chatting to-day. + +When he reached the house he did not go in, but out to the hayloft, +his favourite resort in time of trouble. When the dinner bell sounded, +notwithstanding the delicious Thanksgiving odours which had been +wafted even to the barn, it was an unwelcome summons; yet go he must, +and walking sheepishly into the dining-room, he slunk into his chair. + +"Well, John," said his father, as he helped him to turkey, "I +understand that you did not forget the poor to-day. Eh, my son?" + +"The poor?" What could he mean? Johnnie was too puzzled to speak. + +Then his father went on to tell how little Mrs. Mouse and her babies +had nibbled a wondrous dinner of pink thimble cakes on the floor of +pew number one while Johnnie slept. Grandma and Mrs. Smiley had told +him all about it on the way home; besides, he had seen enough himself +from the pulpit. + +Johnny bravely bore the laugh at his expense, and as the merriment +died away heaved a deep sigh of relief, and exclaimed, "Well, I'm +glad somebody had a feast, even if it wasn't the fellow 'twas meant +for! Humph, _'twas_ quite a setup for poor church mice, wasn't it? But +they needn't be looking for another next year. You don't catch me +trying that again--no-sir-ee!" + + + + +TWO OLD BOYS[25] + +BY PAULINE SHACKLEFORD COLYAR. + + Walter's two grandfathers were a pair of jolly chums, _as + boys_. There is plenty of humour in this tale of a turkey + hunt. + + +"Day after to-morrow will be Thanksgiving," said Walter, taking his +seat beside Grandpa Davis on the top step of the front gallery. + +[Footnote 25: _From Lippincott's Monthly Magazine_, December, 1896.] + +"And no turkey for dinner, neither," retorted Grandma Davis, while her +bright steel needles clicked in and out of the sock she was knitting. + +The old man was smoking his evening pipe, and sat for a moment with +his eyes fixed meditatively upon the blue hills massed in the +distance. + +"Have we got so pore as all that, Mother?" he asked, after a while, +glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who was rocking to and fro +just back of him. + +"I'm obleeged to own to the truth," answered the old lady dejectedly. +"What with the wild varmints in the woods and one thing an' another, +I'm about cleaned out of all the poultry I ever had. It's downright +disheartenin'." + +"Well, then," asserted Grandpa Davis, with an unmirthful chuckle, "it +don't appear to me as we've got so powerful much to be thankful about +this year." + +"Why, Grandpa!" cried Walter, in shocked surprise, "I never did hear +you talk like that before." + +"Never had so much call to do it, mebbe," interposed the old man +cynically. + +The last rays of the setting sun touched the two silvered heads, and +rested there like a benediction, before disappearing below the +horizon. + +Silence had fallen upon the little group, and a bullfrog down in the +fishpond was croaking dismally. + +"Why don't you go hunting, and try to kill you a turkey for +Thanksgiving?" ventured Walter, slipping his arm insinuatingly through +his grandfather's. "I saw a great big flock of wild ones down on the +branch last week, and I got right close up to them before they flew." + +"I reckon there ought to be a smart sight of game round and about them +cane brakes along that branch," said the old man slowly, as though +thinking aloud. "It used to be ahead of any strip of woods in all +these parts, when me and Dick was boys. But nobody ain't hunted there, +to my knowledge, not sence me and him fell out." + +"I wish you and Grandpa Dun were friends," sighed Walter. "It does +seem too bad to have two grandpas living right side by side, and not +speaking." + +"I ain't got no ill-will in my heart for Dick," replied Grandpa Davis, +"but he is too everlastin' hard-headed to knock under, and I'll be +blamed if I go more'n halfway toward makin' up." + +"That's just exactly what Grandpa Dun says about you," Walter assured +him very earnestly. + +"Wouldn't wonder if he did," said the old man pointedly. "Dick is +always ben a mighty hand to talk, and he'd drap dead in his tracks if +he couldn't get in the last word." + +Be this as it might, the breach had begun when the Davis cattle broke +down the worn fence and demolished the Dun crop of corn, and it +widened when the Dun hogs found their way through an old water gap and +rooted up a field of the Davis sweet potatoes. Several times similar +depredations were repeated, and then shotguns were used on both sides +with telling effect. The climax was reached when John Dun eloped with +Rebecca, the only child of the Davises. + +The young couple were forbidden their respective homes, though the +farm they rented was scarce half a mile away, and the weeks rolled +into months without sign of their parents relenting. + +When Walter was born, however, the two grandmothers stole over, +without their husbands' knowledge, and mingled their tears in happy +communion over the tiny blue-eyed mite. + +It was a memorable day at each of the houses when the sturdy little +fellow made his way, unbidden and unattended, to pay his first call, +and ever afterward (though they would not admit it, even to +themselves) the grandfathers watched for his coming, and vied with +each other in trying to win the highest place in his young affections. + +He had inherited characteristics of each of his grandsires, and +possessed the bold, masterful manner which was common to them both. +"Say, Grandpa," he urged, "go hunting to-morrow and try to kill a +turkey for Thanksgiving, won't you? I know grandma would feel better +to have one, and if you make a cane caller, like papa does, I'll bet +you can get a shot at one sure." + +The old man did not commit himself about going, but when Walter saw +him surreptitiously take down his gun from the pegs on the wall across +which it had lain for so many years, and began to rub the barrels and +oil the hammers, he went home satisfied that he had scored another +victory. + +Perhaps nothing less than his grandson's pleading could have induced +Grandpa Davis to visit again the old hunting-ground which had been so +dear to him in bygone days, which was so rich in hallowed memories. It +seemed almost a desecration of the happy past to hunt there now alone. + +The first cold streaks of dawn were just stealing into the sky the +next morning when, accoutred with shot-pouch, powder-flask, and his +old double-barrelled gun, Grandpa Davis made his way toward the +branch. A medley of bird notes filled the air, long streamers of gray +moss floated out from the swaying trees, and showers of autumn leaves +fluttered down to earth. Some of the cows were grazing outside the +pen, up to their hocks in lush, fresh grass, while others lay on the +ground contentedly chewing their cuds. All of them raised their heads +and looked at him as he passed them by. + +How like old times it was to be up at daybreak for a hunt! The long +years seemed suddenly to have rolled away, leaving him once more a +boy. He almost wondered why Dick had not whistled to him as he used to +do. Dick was an early riser, and somehow always got ready before he +did. + +There was an alertness in the old man's face and a spring in his step +as he lived over in thought the joyous days of his childhood. The +clouds were flushed with pink when he came in sight of the big water +oak on the margin of the stream, and recollected how he and Dick had +loved to go swimming in the deep, clear water beneath its shade. + +"We used to run every step of the way," he soliloquized, laughing, +"unbuttonin' as we went, chuck our clothes on the bank, and 'most +break our necks tryin' to git in the water fust. I've got half a +notion to take a dip this mornin', if it wasn't quite so cool," he +went on, but a timely twinge of rheumatism brought him to his senses, +and he seated himself on the roots of a convenient tree. + +Cocking his gun, he laid it across his knees, and waited there +motionless, imitating the yelp of a turkey the while. Three or four +small canes, graduated in size, and fitted firmly one into the other, +enabled him to make the note, and so expert had he become by long +practice that the deception was perfect. + +After a pause he repeated the call; then came another pause, another +call, and over in the distance there sounded an answer. How the blood +coursed through the old man's veins as he listened! There it was +again. It was coming nearer, but very slowly. He wondered how many +were in the flock, and called once more. This time, to his surprise, +an answer came from a different direction--a long, rasping sound, a +sort of cross between a cock's crow and a turkey's yelp. + +He started involuntarily, and very cautiously peeped around. Hardly +twenty steps from him another gray head protruded itself from the hole +of another tree, and Grandpa Davis and Grandpa Dun looked into each +other's eyes. + +"I'll be double-jumped-up if that ain't Dick!" cried Grandpa Davis, +under his breath. "And there ain't a turkey as ever wore a feather +that he could fool. A minute more, and he'll spile the fun. Dick," he +commanded, "stop that racket, and sneak over here by me," beckoning +mysteriously. "Sh-h-h! they are answerin' ag'in. Down on your +marrow-bones whilst I call." + +Flattening himself upon the ground as nearly as he could, and creeping +behind the undergrowth, Grandpa Dun made his way laboriously to the +desired spot. He had never excelled in calling turkeys, but he was a +far better shot than Grandpa Davis. + +Without demur the two old boys fell naturally into the _rôle_ of +former days. Breathless and excited, they crouched there, waiting for +the fateful moment. Their nerves were tense, their eyes dilated, and +their hearts beating like trip-hammers. + +Grandpa Davis had continued to call, and now the answer was very near. + +"Gimme the first shot, Billy," whispered Grandpa Dun. "I let you do +the callin'; and, besides, you know you never could hit nothin' that +wasn't as big as the side of a meetin'-house." + +Before Grandpa Davis had time to reply, there came the "put-put-put" +which signals possible danger. A stately gobbler raised his head to +reconnoitre; two guns were fired almost simultaneously, and, with a +whir and a flutter, the flock disappeared in the cane brake. + +The two old boys bounded over the intervening sticks and stumps with +an agility that Walter himself might have envied, and bending over the +prostrate gobbler exclaimed in concert: "Ain't he a dandy, though!" + +They examined him critically, cutting out his beard as a trophy, and +measured the spread of his wings. + +"But he's yourn, after all, Dick," said Grandpa Davis ruefully. "These +here ain't none of my shot, so I reckon I must have missed him." + +"I knowed you would, Billy, afore your fired," Grandpa Dun replied, +with mock gravity, "but that don't cut no figger. He's big enough for +us to go halvers and both have plenty. More'n that, you done the +callin' anyhow." + +Then they laughed, and as they looked into one another's faces, each +seemed to realize for the first time that his quondam chum was an old +man. + +A moment before they had been two rollicking boys off on a lark +together--playing hooky, perhaps--and in the twinkling of an eye some +wicked fairy had waved her wand and metamorphosed them into Walter's +two grandfathers, who had not spoken to each other since years before +the lad was born. + +Yet the humour of the situation was irresistible after all, and, +without knowing just how it happened, or which made the first advance, +Dick and Billy found themselves still laughing until the tears coursed +down their furrowed cheeks, and shaking hands with as much vigour as +though each one had been working a pump handle. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Billy," said Dick at last; "you all come +over to my house, and we'll eat him together on Thanksgivin'." + +"See here, Dick," suggested Billy, abstracting a nickel from his +trousers' pocket; "heads at your house, and tails at mine." + +"All right," came the hearty response. + +Billy tossed the coin into the air: it struck a twig and hid itself +among the fallen leaves, where they sought it in vain. + +"'Tain't settled yet," announced Dick; "but lemme tell you what let's +do. S'posin' we all go over to-morrow--it'll be Thanksgivin', you +know--and eat him at John's house." + +"Good!" cried Billy, with beaming face. "You always did have a head +for thinkin' up things, Dick, and this here'll sorter split the +difference, and ease matters so as--" + +"Yes, and our two old women can draw straws, if they've got a mind to, +and see which of them is obligated to make the fust call," interrupted +Dick. + +"Jist heft him, old feller," urged one of them. + +"Ain't he a whopper, though!" exclaimed the other. + +"Have a chaw, Dick?" asked Billy, offering his plug of tobacco. + +"Don't keer if I do," acquiesced Dick, biting off a goodly mouthful. + +Seating themselves upon a fallen hickory log, they chewed and +expectorated, recalling old times, and enjoying their laugh with the +careless freedom of their childhood days. + +"Dick, do your ricolleck the fight you and a coon had out on the limb +of that tree over yonder, one night?" queried Billy, nudging his +companion in the ribs. "He come mighty nigh gittin' the best of you." + +"He tore one sleeve out of my jacket, and mammy gimme a beatin' +besides," giggled Dick. "And say, Billy, wasn't it fun the day we +killed old man Lee's puddle ducks for wild ones? I don't believe I +ever run as fast in my life." + +"And, Dick, do you remember the night your pappy hung the saddle up on +the head of the bed to keep you from ridin' the old gray mare to +singin' school, and you rid her, bareback, anyway? You ricolleck you +was stoopin' over, blowin' the fire, next mornin', when he seen the +hairs on your britches, an' come down on you with the leather strop +afore you knowed it." + +Thus one adventure recalled another, and the two old boys laughed +uproariously, clapping their hands and holding their sides, while the +sun climbed up among the treetops. + +"Ain't we ben two old fools to stay mad all this time?" asked one of +them, and the other readily agreed that they had, as they once more +grasped hands before parting. + +Walter had arranged the Thanksgiving surprise for his parents, but +when he brought home the big gobbler he was unable longer to keep the +secret, and divulged his share in what had happened. + +"I didn't really believe either one of them could hit a turkey," he +confided to his father, "but I wanted to have them meet once more, for +I knew if they did they would make friends." + +The parlour was odorous with late fall roses next morning, the table +set, and Walter and his parents in gala attire, when two couples, +walking arm in arm, appeared upon the stretch of white road leading up +to the front gate. + +One couple was slightly in advance of the other, and Grandpa Davis, +who was behind, whispered to his wife: + +"Listen, Mary, Dick is actually tryin' to sing, and he never could +turn a tune, but somehow it does warm up my heart to hear him: seems +like old times ag'in." + +After dinner was over--and such a grand dinner it was--Grandpa Davis +voiced the sentiment of the rest of the happy family party when he +announced, quite without warning: + +"Well, this here has ben the thankfulles' Thanksgivin' I ever seen, +and I hope the good Lord will spar' us all for yet a few more." + + + + +A THANKSGIVING DINNER THAT FLEW AWAY[26] + +BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. + + A Cape Cod story about a wise old gander whose adventure on + the sea insured him against the perils of the Thanksgiving + hatchet. For boys or girls. + + +There is one sound that I shall always remember. It is "Honk!" + +[Footnote 26: From "Zigzag Journeys in Acadia and New France," +Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.] + +I spun around like a top, one summer day when I heard it, looking +nervously in every direction. + +I had just come down from the city to the Cape with my sister Hester +for my third summer vacation. I had left the cars with my arms full of +bundles, and hurried toward Aunt Targood's. + +The cottage stood in from the road. There was a long meadow in front +of it. In the meadow were two great oaks and some clusters of lilacs. +An old, mossy stone wall protected the grounds from the road, and a +long walk ran from the old wooden gate to the door. + +It was a sunny day, and my heart was light. The orioles were flaming +in the old orchards; the bobolinks were tossing themselves about in +the long meadows of timothy, daisies, and patches of clover. There +was a scent of new-mown hay in the air. + +In the distance lay the bay, calm and resplendent, with white sails +and specks of boats. Beyond it rose Martha's Vineyard, green and cool +and bowery, and at its wharf lay a steamer. + +I was, as I said, light-hearted. I was thinking of rides over the +sandy roads at the close of the long, bright days; of excursions on +the bay; of clambakes and picnics. + +I was hungry, and before me rose visions of Aunt Targood's fish +dinners, roast chickens, and berry pies. I was thirsty, but ahead was +the old well sweep, and behind the cool lattice of the dairy window +were pans of milk in abundance. + +I tripped on toward the door with light feet, lugging my bundles, and +beaded with perspiration, but unmindful of all discomforts in the +thought of the bright days and good things in store for me. + +"Honk! honk!" + +My heart gave a bound! + +_Where_ did that sound come from? + +Out of a cool cluster of innocent-looking lilac bushes I saw a dark +object cautiously moving. It seemed to have no head. I knew, however, +that it had a head. I had seen it; it had seized me once in the +previous summer, and I had been in terror of it during all the rest of +the season. + +I looked down into the irregular grass, and saw the head and a very +long neck running along on the ground, propelled by the dark body, +like a snake running away from a ball. It was coming toward me, and +faster and faster as it approached. + +I dropped my bundles. + +In a few flying leaps I returned to the road again, and armed myself +with a stick from a pile of cordwood. + +"Honk! honk! honk!" + +It was a call of triumph. The head was high in the air now. My enemy +moved grandly forward, as became the monarch of the great meadow +farmyard. + +I stood with beating heart, after my retreat. + +It was Aunt Targood's gander. + +How he enjoyed his triumph, and how small and cowardly he made me +feel! + +"Honk! honk! honk!" + +The geese came out of the lilac bushes, bowing their heads to him in +admiration. Then came the goslings--a long procession of awkward, +half-feathered things; they appeared equally delighted. + +The gander seemed to be telling his admiring audience all about it: +how a strange lad with many bundles had attempted to cross the yard; +how he had driven him back, and had captured his bundles, and now was +monarch of the field. He clapped his wings when he had finished his +heroic story, and sent forth such a "Honk!" as might have startled a +major-general. + +Then he, with an air of great dignity and coolness, began to examine +my baggage. + +Among my effects were several pounds of chocolate caramels done up in +brown paper. Aunt Targood liked caramels, and I brought her a large +supply. + +He tore off the wrappers quickly. He bit one. It was good. He began to +distribute the bonbons among the geese, and they, with much liberality +and good-will, among the goslings. + +This was too much. I ventured through the gate, swinging my cordwood +stick. + +"Shoo!" + +He dropped his head on the ground, and drove it down the walk in a +lively waddle toward me. + +"Shoo!" + +It was Aunt Targood's voice at the door. + +He stopped immediately. + +His head was in the air again. + +"Shoo!" + +Out came Aunt Targood with her broom. + +She always corrected the gander with her broom. If I were to be +whipped I should choose a broom--not the stick. + +As soon as he beheld the broom he retired, although with much offended +pride and dignity, to the lilac bushes; and the geese and goslings +followed him. + +"Hester, you dear child," she said to my sister, "come here. I was +expecting you, and had been looking out for you, but missed sight of +you. I had forgotten all about the gander." + +We gathered up the bundles and the caramels. I was light-hearted +again. + +How cool was the sitting-room, with the woodbine falling about the +open window! + +Aunt brought me a pitcher of milk, and some strawberries, some bread +and honey, and a fan. + +While I was resting and taking my lunch, I could hear the gander +discussing the affairs of the farmyard with the geese. I did not +greatly enjoy the discussion. His tone of voice was very proud, and he +did not seem to be speaking well of me. + +I was suspicious that he did not think me a very brave lad. A young +person likes to be spoken well of, even by the gander. + +Aunt Targood's gander had been the terror of many well-meaning people, +and of some evildoers, for many years. I have seen tramps and pack +peddlers enter the gate, and start on toward the door, when there +would sound that ringing warning like a war blast, "Honk, honk!" and +in a few minutes these unwelcome people would be gone. Farmhouse +boarders from the city would sometimes enter the yard, thinking to +draw water by the old well sweep; in a few minutes it was customary to +hear shrieks, and to see women and children flying over the walls, +followed by air-rending "Honks!" and jubilant cackles from the +victorious gander and his admiring family. + +Aunt Targood sometimes took summer boarders. Among those that I +remember was the Rev. Mr. Bonney, a fervent-souled Methodist preacher. +He put the gander to flight with the cart whip, on the second day +after his arrival, and seemingly to aunt's great grief; but he never +was troubled by the feathered tyrant again. + +Young couples sometimes came to Father Bonney to be married; and one +summer afternoon there rode up to the gate a very young couple, whom +we afterward learned had "run away," or rather, had attempted to get +married without their parents' approval. The young bridegroom hitched +the horse, and helped from the carriage the gayly dressed miss he +expected to make his wife. They started up the walk upon the run, as +though they expected to be followed and haste was necessary to prevent +the failure of their plans. + +"Honk!" + +They stopped. It was a voice of authority. + +"Just look at him!" said the bride. "Oh, oh!" + +The bridegroom cried "Shoo!" but he might as well have said "Shoo" to +a steam engine. On came the gander, with his head and neck upon the +ground. He seized the lad by the calf of his leg, and made an +immediate application of his wings. The latter seemed to think he had +been attacked by dragons. As soon as he could shake him off he ran. So +did the bride, but in another direction; and while the two were thus +perplexed and discomfited, the bride's father appeared in a carriage, +and gave her a most forcible invitation to ride home with him. She +accepted it without discussion. What became of the bridegroom, or how +the matter ended, we never knew. + +"Aunt, what makes you keep that gander year after year?" said I one +evening, as we were sitting on the lawn before the door. "Is it +because he is a kind of watchdog, and keeps troublesome people away?" + +"No, child, no; I do not wish to keep most people away--not +well-behaved people--nor to distress nor annoy any one. The fact is, +there is a story about that gander that I do not like to speak of to +every one--something that makes me feel tender toward him; so that if +he needs a whipping I would rather do it. He knows something that no +one else knows. I could not have him killed or sent away. You have +heard me speak of Nathaniel, my oldest boy?" + +"Yes." + +"That is his picture in my room, you know. He was a good boy to me. He +loved his mother. I loved Nathaniel--you cannot think how much I loved +Nathaniel. It was on my account that he went away. + +"The farm did not produce enough for us all--Nathaniel, John, and me. +We worked hard, and had a hard time. One year--that was ten years +ago--we were sued for our taxes. + +"'Nathaniel,' said I, 'I will go to taking boarders.' + +"Then he looked up to me and said--oh, how noble and handsome he +appeared to me: + +"'Mother, I will go to sea.' + +"'Where?' asked I, in surprise. + +"'In a coaster.' + +"I turned white. How I felt! + +"'You and John can manage the place,' he continued. 'One of the +vessels sails next week--Uncle Aaron's; he offers to take me.' + +"It seemed best, and he made preparations to go. + +"The spring before Skipper Ben--you have met Skipper Ben--had given me +some goose eggs; he had brought them from Canada, and said that they +were wild goose eggs. + +"I set them under hens. In four weeks I had three goslings. I took +them into the house at first, but afterward made a pen for them out in +the yard. I brought them up myself, and one of those goslings is that +gander. + +"Skipper Ben came over to see me the day before Nathaniel was to sail. +Aaron came with him. + +"I said to Aaron: + +"'What can I give Nathaniel to carry to sea with him to make him think +of home? Cake, preserves, apples? I haven't got much; I have done all +I can for him, poor boy.' + +"Brother looked at me curiously, and said: + +"'Give him one of those wild geese, and we will fatten it on shipboard +and will have it for our Thanksgiving dinner.' + +"What Brother Aaron said pleased me. The young gander was a noble +bird, the handsomest of the lot; and I resolved to keep the geese to +kill for my own use, and to give _him_ to Nathaniel. + +"The next morning--it was late in September--I took leave of +Nathaniel. I tried to be calm and cheerful and hopeful. I watched him +as he went down the walk with the gander struggling under his arms. A +stranger would have laughed, but I did not feel like laughing; it was +true that the boys who went coasting were usually gone but a few +months, and came home hardy and happy. But when poverty compels a +mother and son to part, after they have been true to each other, and +shared their feelings in common, it seems hard, it seems hard--though +I do not like to murmur or complain at anything allotted to me. + +"I saw him go over the hill. On the top he stopped and held up the +gander. He disappeared; yes, my own Nathaniel disappeared. I think of +him now as one who disappeared. + +"November came. It was a terrible month on the coast that year. Storm +followed storm; the sea-faring people talked constantly of wrecks and +losses. I could not sleep on the nights of those high winds. I used to +lie awake thinking over all the happy hours that I had lived with +Nathaniel. + +"Thanksgiving week came. + +"It was full of an Indian-summer brightness after the long storms. The +nights were frosty, bright, and calm. + +"I could sleep on those calm nights. + +"One morning I thought I heard a strange sound in the woodland +pasture. It was like a wild goose. I listened; it was repeated. I was +lying in bed. I started up--I thought I had been dreaming. + +"On the night before Thanksgiving I went to bed early, being very +tired. The moon was full; the air was calm and still. I was thinking +of Nathaniel, and I wondered if he would indeed have the gander for +his Thanksgiving dinner, if it would be cooked as well as I would have +cooked it, and if he would think of me that day. + +"I was just going to sleep when suddenly I heard a sound that made me +start up and hold my breath. + +"'_Honk_!' + +"I thought it was a dream followed by a nervous shock. + +"'_Honk! honk!_' + +"There it was again, in the yard, I was surely awake and in my senses. + +"I heard the geese cackle. + +"'_Honk! honk! honk!_' + +"I got out of bed and lifted the curtain. It was almost as light as +day. + +"Instead of two geese there were three. Had one of the neighbours' +geese stolen away? + +"I should have thought so, and should not have felt disturbed, but for +the reason that none of the neighbours' geese had that peculiar +call--that hornlike tone that I had noticed in mine. + +"I went out of the door. + +"The _third_ goose looked like the very gander I had given Nathaniel. +Could it be? + +"I did not sleep. I rose early and went to the crib for some corn. + +"It _was_ a gander--a 'wild gander'--that had come in the night. He +seemed to know me. + +"I trembled all over as though I had seen a ghost. I was so faint that +I sat down on the meal chest. + +"As I was in that place, a bill pecked against the door. The door +opened. The strange gander came hobbling over the crib stone and went +to the corn bin. He stopped there, looked at me, and gave a sort of +glad 'Honk' as though he knew me and was glad to see me. + +"I was certain that he was the gander I had raised and that Nathaniel +had lifted into the air when he gave me his last recognition from the +top of the hill. + +"It overcame me. It was Thanksgiving. The church bell would soon be +ringing as on Sunday. And here was Nathaniel's Thanksgiving dinner and +Brother Aaron's--had it flown away? Where was the vessel? + +"Years have passed--ten. You know I waited and waited for my boy to +come back. December grew dark with its rainy seas; the snows fell; May +lighted up the hills, but the vessel never came back. Nathaniel--my +Nathaniel--never returned. + +"That gander knows something he could tell me if he could talk. Birds +have memories. _He_ remembered the corncrib--he remembered something +else. I wish he _could_ talk, poor bird! I wish he could talk. I will +never sell him, nor kill him, nor have him abused. He _knows_!" + + + + +MON-DAW-MIN, OR THE ORIGIN OF INDIAN CORN[27] + +BY H. R. SCHOOLCRAFT. + + This is the real Indian fairy tale of the birth of + Mon-daw-min. Readers of Longfellow will remember his + treatment of the same subject in "Hiawatha." + + +In Times past, a poor Indian was living with his wife and children in +a beautiful part of the country. He was not only poor, but inexpert in +procuring food for his family, and his children were all too young to +give him assistance. Although poor, he was a man of a kind and +contented disposition. He was always thankful to the Great Spirit for +everything he received. The same disposition was inherited by his +eldest son, who had now arrived at the proper age to undertake the +ceremony of the Ke-ig-uish-im-o-win, or fast, to see what kind of a +spirit would be his guide and guardian through life. Wunzh, for this +was his name, had been an obedient boy from his infancy, and was of a +pensive, thoughtful, and mild disposition, so that he was beloved by +the whole family. As soon as the first indications of spring appeared, +they built him the customary little lodge at a retired spot, some +distance from their own, where he would not be disturbed during this +solemn rite. In the meantime he prepared himself, and immediately went +into it, and commenced his fast. The first few days he amused himself, +in the mornings, by walking in the woods and over the mountains, +examining the early plants and flowers, and in this way prepared +himself to enjoy his sleep, and at the same time stored his mind with +pleasant ideas for his dreams. While he rambled through the woods, he +felt a strong desire to know how the plants, herbs, and berries grew +without any aid from man, and why it was that some species were good +to eat and others possessed medicinal or poisonous juices. He recalled +these thoughts to mind after he became too languid to walk about, and +had confined himself strictly to the lodge; he wished he could dream +of something that would prove a benefit to his father and family, and +to all others. "True!" he thought, "the Great Spirit made all things, +and it is to him that we owe our lives. But could he not make it +easier for us to get our food than by hunting animals and taking fish? +I must try to find out this in my visions." + +[Footnote 27: From "The Myth of Hiawatha."] + +On the third day he became weak and faint, and kept his bed. He +fancied, while thus lying, that he saw a handsome young man coming +down from the sky and advancing toward him. He was richly and gayly +dressed, having on a great many garments of green and yellow colours, +but differing in their deeper or lighter shades. He had a plume of +waving feathers on his head, and all his motions were graceful. + +"I am sent to you, my friend," said the celestial visitor, "by that +Great Spirit who made all things in the sky and on the earth. He has +seen and knows your motives in fasting. He sees that it is from a kind +and benevolent wish to do good to your people, and to procure a +benefit for them, and that you do not seek for strength in war or the +praise of warriors. I am sent to instruct you, and show you how you +can do your kindred good." He then told the young man to arise, and +prepare to wrestle with him, as it was only by this means that he +could hope to succeed in his wishes. Wunzh knew he was weak from +fasting, but he felt his courage rising in his heart, and immediately +got up, determined to die rather than fail. He commenced the trial, +and after a protracted effort was almost exhausted when the beautiful +stranger said, "My friend, it is enough for once; I will come again to +try you"; and, smiling on him, he ascended in the air in the same +direction from which he came. The next day the celestial visitor +reappeared at the same hour and renewed the trial. Wunzh felt that his +strength was even less than the day before, but the courage of his +mind seemed to increase in proportion as his body became weaker. +Seeing this, the stranger again spoke to him in the same words he used +before, adding, "To-morrow will be your last trial. Be strong, my +friend, for this is the only way you can overcome me, and obtain the +boon you seek." On the third day he again appeared at the same time +and renewed the struggle. The poor youth was very faint in body, but +grew stronger in mind at every contest, and was determined to prevail +or perish in the attempt. He exerted his utmost powers, and after the +contest had been continued the usual time, the stranger ceased his +efforts and declared himself conquered. For the first time he entered +the lodge, and sitting down beside the youth, he began to deliver his +instructions to him, telling him in what manner he should proceed to +take advantage of his victory. + +"You have won your desires of the Great Spirit," said the stranger. +"You have wrestled manfully. To-morrow will be the seventh day of your +fasting, your father will give you food to strengthen you, and as it +is the last day of trial, you will prevail. I know this, and now tell +you what you must do to benefit your family and your tribe. +To-morrow," he repeated, "I shall meet you and wrestle with you for +the last time; and, as soon as you have prevailed against me, you will +strip off my garments and throw me down, clean the earth of roots and +weeds, make it soft, and bury me in the spot. When you have done this, +leave my body in the earth, and do not disturb it, but come +occasionally to visit the place, to see whether I have come to life, +and be careful never to let the grass or weeds grow on my grave. Once +a month cover me with fresh earth. If you follow my instructions, you +will accomplish your object of doing good to your fellow-creatures by +teaching them the knowledge I now teach you." He then shook him by the +hand and disappeared. + +In the morning the youth's father came with some slight refreshments, +saying, "My son, you have fasted long enough. If the Great Spirit will +favour you, he will do it now. It is seven days since you have tasted +food, and you must not sacrifice your life. The Master of Life does +not require that." "My father," replied the youth, "wait till the sun +goes down. I have a particular reason for extending my fast to that +hour." "Very well," said the old man. "I shall wait till the hour +arrives, and you feel inclined to eat." + +At the usual hour of the day the sky visitor returned, and the trial +of strength was renewed. Although the youth had not availed himself of +his father's offer of food, he felt that new strength had been given +to him, and that exertion had renewed his strength and fortified his +courage. He grasped his angelic antagonist with supernatural strength, +threw him down, took from him his beautiful garments and plume, and +finding him dead, immediately buried him on the spot, taking all the +precautions he had been told of, and being very confident, at the same +time, that his friend would again come to life. He then returned to +his father's lodge, and partook sparingly of the meal that had been +prepared for him. But he never for a moment forgot the grave of his +friend. He carefully visited it throughout the spring, and weeded out +the grass, and kept the ground in a soft and pliant state. Very soon +he saw the tops of the green plumes coming through the ground; and the +more careful he was to obey his instructions in keeping the ground in +order, the faster they grew. He was, however, careful to conceal the +exploit from his father. Days and weeks had passed in this way. The +summer was now drawing toward a close, when one day, after a long +absence in hunting, Wunzh invited his father to follow him to the +quiet and lonesome spot of his former fast. The lodge had been +removed, and the weeds kept from growing on the circle where it stood, +but in its place stood a tall and graceful plant, with bright coloured +silken hair, surmounted with nodding plumes and stately leaves, and +golden clusters on each side. "It is my friend," shouted the lad; "it +is the friend of all mankind. It is _Mondawmin_. We need no longer +rely on hunting alone; for, as long as this gift is cherished and +taken care of, the ground itself will give us a living." He then +pulled an ear. "See, my father," said he, "this is what I fasted for. +The Great Spirit has listened to my voice, and sent us something new, +and henceforth our people will not alone depend upon the chase or upon +the waters." + +He then communicated to his father the instructions given him by the +stranger. He told him that the broad husks must be torn away, as he +had pulled off the garments in his wrestling; and having done this, +directed him how the ear must be held before the fire till the outer +skin became brown, while all the milk was retained in the grain. The +whole family then united in feast on the newly grown ears, expressing +gratitude to the Merciful Spirit who gave it. So corn came into the +world. + + + + +A MYSTERY IN THE KITCHEN[28] + +BY OLIVE THORNE MILLER. + + The boy who has a sister and the girl who has a brother are + the ones who will best like this story of the spirited + twins, Jessie and Jack. Jessie wanted to take music lessons + and Jack tried mining in Colorado. + + +Something very mysterious was going on in the Jarvis kitchen. The +table was covered with all sorts of good things--eggs and butter and +raisins and citron and spices; and Jessie, with her sleeves rolled up +and a white apron on, was bustling about, measuring and weighing and +chopping and beating and mixing those various ingredients in a most +bewildering way. + +[Footnote 28: From "Kristy's Surprise Party," Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +Moreover, though she was evidently working for dear life, her face was +full of smiles; in fact, she seemed to have trouble to keep from +laughing outright, while Betty, the cook, who was washing potatoes at +the sink, fairly giggled with glee every few minutes, as if the sight +of Miss Jessie working in the kitchen was the drollest thing in the +world. + +It was one of the pleasantest sights that big, sunny kitchen had seen +for many a day, and the only thing that appeared mysterious about it +was that the two workers acted strangely like conspirators. If they +laughed--as they did on the slightest provocation--it was very soft +and at once smothered. Jessie went often to the door leading into the +hall, and listened; and if there came a knock on the floor, she +snatched off her apron, hastily wiped her hands, rolled down her +sleeves, asked Betty if there was any flour on her, and then hurried +away into another part of the house, trying to look cool and quiet, as +if she had not been doing anything. + +On returning from one of these excursions, as she rolled up her +sleeves again, she said: + +"Betty, we must open the other window if it is cold. Mamma thought she +smelled roast turkey!" + +Betty burst into a laugh which she smothered in her apron. Jessie +covered her mouth and laughed, too, but the window was opened to make +a draught and carry out the delicious odours, which, it must be +confessed, did fill that kitchen so full that no wonder they crept +through the cracks, and the keyholes, and hung about Jessie's dress as +she went through the hall, in a way to make one's mouth water. + +"What did ye tell her?" asked Betty, as soon as she could speak. + +"Oh, I told her I thought potpie smelled a good deal like turkey," +said Jessie, and again both laughed. "Wasn't it lucky we had potpie +to-day? I don't know what I should have said if we hadn't." + +Well, it was not long after that when Jessie lined a baking-dish with +nice-looking crust, filled it with tempting looking chicken legs and +wings and breasts and backs and a bowlful of broth, laid a white +blanket of crust over all, tucked it in snugly around the edge, cut +some holes in the top, and shoved it into the oven just after Betty +drew out a dripping pan in which reposed, in all the glory of rich +brown skin, a beautiful turkey. Mrs. Jarvis couldn't have had any nose +at all if she didn't smell that. It filled the kitchen full of nice +smells, and Betty hurried it into the pantry, where the window was +open to cool. + +Then Jessie returned to the spices and fruits she had been working +over so long, and a few minutes later she poured a rich, dark mass +into a tin pudding-dish, tied the cover on tight, and slipped it into +a large kettle of boiling water on the stove. + +"There!" she said, "I hope that'll be good." + +"I know it will," said Betty confidently. "That's y'r ma's best +receipt." + +"Yes, but I never made it before," said Jessie doubtfully. + +"Oh, I know it'll be all right, 'n' I'll watch it close," said Betty; +"'n' now you go'n sit with y'r ma. I want that table to git dinner." + +"But I'm going to wash all these things," said Jessie. + +"You go long! I'd ruther do that myself. 'Twon't take me no time," +said Betty. + +Jessie hesitated. "But you have enough to do, Betty." + +"I tell you I want to do it," the girl insisted. + +"Oh, I know!" said Jessie; "you like to help about it. Well, you may; +and I'm much obliged to you, besides." And after a last look at the +fine turkey cooling his heels (if he had any) in the pantry, Jessie +went into the other part of the house. + +When dinner time arrived and papa came from town, there duly appeared +on the table the potpie before mentioned, and various other things +pleasant to eat, but nothing was seen of the turkey so carefully +roasted nor of the chicken pie, nor of the pudding that caused the +young cook so much anxiety. Nothing was said about them, either, and +it was not Thanksgiving nor Christmas, though it was only a few days +before the former. + +It was certainly odd, and stranger things happened that night. In the +first place, Jessie sat up in her room and wrote a letter; and then, +after her mother was in bed and everything still, she stole down the +back stairs with a candle, quietly, as though she was doing some +mischief. Betty, who came down to help her, brought a box in from the +woodshed; and the two plotters, very silently, with many listenings at +the door to see if any one was stirring, packed that box full of good +things. + +In it the turkey, wrapped in a snowy napkin, found a bed, the chicken +pie and the plum pudding--beautiful looking as Betty said it would +be--bore him company; and numerous small things, jam jars, fruits, +etc., etc., filled the box to its very top. Then the cover, provided +with screws so that no hammering need be done, was fastened on. + +"Now you go to bed, Miss Jessie," whispered Betty. "I'll wait." + +"No, you must be tired," said Jessie. "I'd just as lief." + +"But I'd ruther," said Betty shortly--"'n' I'm going to; it won't be +long now." + +So Jessie crept quietly upstairs, and before long there was a low rap +on the kitchen door. Betty opened it, and there stood a man. + +"Ready?" said he. + +"Yes," answered Betty; "but don't speak loud; Miss Jarvis has sharp +ears, 'n' we don't want her disturbed. Here's the card to mark it by," +and she produced a card from the table. + +The man put it in his pocket, shouldered the box, and Betty shut the +door. + +Not one of those good things ever went into the Jarvis dining-room! + +The next morning things went on just as usual in the house. The +kitchen door was left open and Mrs. Jarvis was welcome to smell any of +the appetizing odours that wafted out into her room. Jessie resumed +her study, and especially her practice, for she hoped some day to be a +great musician. She waited on her mother and took charge of the +housekeeping, so much as was necessary with the well-tried servant at +the head of the kitchen. And though she had but sixteen years over her +bright brown head, she proved herself to be what in that little New +England town was called "capable." + +But that box of goodies! Let us see where it went. + +It was Thanksgiving morning in a rough-looking little mining +settlement in Colorado. In a shanty rougher and more comfortless than +the rest were two persons: one, a man of thirty, was deeply engaged in +cleaning and oiling a gun which lay in pieces about him on the rough +bench where he sat; the other, a youth of sixteen, was trying to make +a fire burn in the primitive-looking affair that did duty as a stove. +Both wore coarse miner's suits, and picks and other things about the +room told that their business was to dig for the yellow dust we are +all so greedy to have. + +Evidently luck had not been good, for the whole place appeared run +down, and the two looked absolutely hungry. + +It was Thanksgiving morning, as I said, but no thankfulness shone in +the two pale, thin faces. Both were sad, and the younger one almost +hopeless. + +"Jack," said the elder, pausing in his operations, "mind you give that +old hen a good boil, or we won't be able to eat it." + +"It'll be better'n nothing, anyway, I suppose," said Jack gloomily. + +"Not much. 'Specially if you don't get the taste of sage brush out of +it. Lucky I happened to get that shot at her, anyway," he went on, +"I've seen worse dinners--even Thanksgiving dinners--than a sage hen." + +"I haven't," said Jack shortly; for the mention of Thanksgiving had +brought up before him with startling vividness the picture of a bright +dining-room in a certain town far away, a table loaded with good +things, and surrounded by smiling faces, and the contrast was almost +more than he could bear. + +"Well, don't be down on your luck, boy, so long as you can get a good +fat hen to eat, if she does happen to be too fond of seasoning before +she's dead!" replied the other cheerfully; "we haven't struck it yet, +but it's always darkest just before dawn, you know. We may be +millionaires before this time to-morrow." + +"We may," answered Jack; but he didn't look as if he had much hope of +it. + +A few hours later the occupants of the cabin sat down to their +Thanksgiving dinner. It consisted of the hen aforesaid, cut in pieces +and boiled--looking very queer, too--served in the kettle in which the +operation had been performed. The table was at one end of the bench, +the table service two jackknives and two iron spoons--absolutely +nothing else. + +The elder sat on the bench, the younger drew up a keg that had held +powder, and the dinner was about to begin. + +But that hen was destined never to be eaten, for just at that moment +the door was pushed open in the rude way of the country, a box set +down on the floor, and a rough voice announced: + +"A box for Mr. Jack Jones." + +Jack started up. + +"For me, there must be a mistake! Nobody knows--" He stopped, for he +had not mentioned that his name was assumed. + +"Likely not!" said the man, with a knowing look, "but folks has a +mighty queer way of findin' out," and he shut the door and left. + +Jack stood staring at the box as if he had lost his wits. It could not +be from home, for no one knew where he went when he stole out of the +house one night six months ago, and ran away to seek his fortune. Not +a line had he ever written--not even when very ill, as he had been; +not even when without a roof to cover his head, as he had been more +than once; not even when he had not eaten for two days, as also, alas, +had been his experience. + +He had deliberately run away, because--how trivial it looked to him +now, and how childish seemed his conduct--because he thought his +father too hard on him; would not allow him enough liberty; wanted to +dictate to this man of sixteen; he intended to show him that he could +get on alone. + +Poor Jack, the only comfort he had been able to extract from his hard +lot these many months of wandering, of work, of suffering such as he +had never dreamed of--his only comfort was that his tender mother +didn't know, his only sister would no more be worried by his grumbling +and complaints, and his father would be convinced now that he wasn't a +baby. Small comfort, too, to balance the hardships that had fallen to +his lot since the money he had drawn from the savings bank--his little +all--was used up. + +"Why don't you open it?" The gruff but not unkind voice of his +roommate, whom he called Tom, aroused him. "Maybe there's something in +it better'n sage hen," trying to raise a smile. + +But no smile followed. Mechanically Jack sought the tools to open it, +and in a few moments the cover was off. + +It _was_ from home! On the very top was a letter addressed to Jack +Jarvis in a hand that he well knew. + +He hastily stuffed it into his pocket unopened. The layers of paper +were removed, and as each one was thrown off, something new appeared. +Not a word was spoken, but the kettle of sage hen was silently put on +the floor by Tom as the bench began to fill up. A jar of cranberry +sauce, another of orange marmalade, oranges and apples, a plum +pudding, a chicken pie, and lastly, in its white linen wrapper, the +turkey we saw browning in that far-off New England kitchen. + +As one by one these things were lifted out and placed on the bench a +deep silence reigned in the cabin. Jack had choked at sight of the +letter, and memories of days far different from these checked even +Tom's usually lively tongue. A strange unpacking it was; how different +from the joyful packing at dead of night with those two laughing girl +faces bending over it! + +When all was done, and the silence grew painful, Jack blurted out: +"Help yourself," and bustled about, busily gathering up the papers and +folding them, and stuffing them back in the box, as though he were the +most particular housekeeper in the world. But if Jack couldn't eat, +something, too, ailed Tom. He said simply: + +"Don't feel hungry. Believe I'll go out and see what I can find," and +shouldering his gun, now cleaned and put together, he quickly went out +and shut the door. + +Jack sat down on the keg and looked at the things which so vividly +brought home, and his happy life there, before him. He did not feel +hungry, either. He sat and stared for some time. Then he remembered +his letter. He drew it from his pocket and opened it. It was very +thick; and when he pulled it out of the envelope the first thing he +saw was the smiling face of his sister Jessie, his twin sister, his +playmate and comrade, his confidante from the cradle. The loss of her +ever-willing sympathy had been almost more to him than all the rest of +his troubles. + +This was another shock that brought something to his eyes that made +him see the others through a mist. There were the pictures of his +mother, whose gentle voice he could almost hear, and of his father, +whose gray hairs and sad face he suddenly remembered were partly his +work. + +At last he read the letter. It began: + + DEAR JACK:--I've just found out where you are, and I'm so + glad. I send you this Thanksgiving dinner. It was too bad + for you to go off so. You don't know how dreadful it was for + mamma; she was sick a long time, and we were scared to death + about her, but she's better now; she can sit up most all + day. + + Oh, Jack! Father _cried_! I'm sure he did, and he almost ran + out of the room, and didn't say anything to anybody all day. + But I was determined I'd find you. I shan't tell you how I + did it, but Uncle John helped me, and now, Jack, he says he + wants just such a fellow as you to learn his business, and + he'll make you a very good offer. And, Jack, that's my + turkey--my Winnie--and nobody but Betty knows anything about + this box and this letter. I send you all my money out of the + savings bank (I didn't tell _anybody_ that), and I _want_ + you to come home. You'll find the money under the + cranberries. I thought it would be safe there, and I knew + you'd eat them all, you're so fond of cranberries. I didn't + tell anybody because I want to surprise them, and besides, + let them think you came home because you got ready. It's + nobody's business where you got the money anyway. + + Now do come right home, Jack. You can get here in a week's + time, I know. + +Your affectionate sister, + +JESSIE. + +Jack laid the letter down with a rush of new feelings and thoughts +that overwhelmed him. He sat there for hours; he knew nothing of time. +He had mechanically turned the cranberry jar upside down and taken +from the bottom, carefully wrapped in white paper, fifty dollars. + +A pang went through him. Well did he know what that money represented +to his sister; by how many sacrifices she had been saving it for a +year or two, with the single purpose of taking the lessons from a +great master that were to fit her to teach, to take an independent +position in the world, to relieve her father, who had lost a large +slice of his comfortable income, and who was growing old and sad under +his burden. She had often talked it over with Jack. + +Now she had generously given up the whole to him, all her hopes and +dreams of independence; and he--he who should have been the support of +his sister, the right arm of his father--he had basely deserted. + +These thoughts and many more surged through his mind that long +afternoon, and when Tom returned as the shadows were growing long, he +sat exactly as he had been left. + +On Tom's entrance he roused himself. There was a new light in his eye. + +"Come, Tom," he said, "dinner's waiting. You must be hungry by this +time." + +"I am that," said Tom, who had been through his own mental struggles +meanwhile. + +The two sat down once more to their Thanksgiving dinner, and this time +they managed to eat, though Jack choked whenever he thought of tasting +a bit of Jessie's pet turkey, Winnie; and much as he liked turkey, and +a home turkey at that, he could not touch it. + +After the meal, when the provisions were stored away in the cupboard +(a soap box) much too small for such a supply, it had grown quite +dark, and the two, still disinclined to talk, went to their beds--if +the rough bunks they occupied may be dignified by that name. + +But not to sleep--at least not Jack, who tumbled and tossed all night +and got up in the morning with an energy and life he had not shown for +weeks. + +After breakfast Tom shouldered his pick and said: + +"I'll go on, Jack, while you clear up." Yet he felt in his heart he +should never see Jack again; for there was a homestruck look in his +face that the man of experience in the ways of runaway boys knew well. + +He was not surprised that Jack did not join him, nor that when he +returned at night to the cabin he found him gone and a note pinned up +on the door: + + I can't stand it--I'm off for home. You may have my share of + everything. + + JACK. + +It was a cold evening in early December, and there seemed to be an +undercurrent of excitement in the Jarvis household. The table was +spread in the dining-room with the best silver and linen. Mrs. Jarvis +was better, and had even been able to go into the kitchen to +superintend the preparations for dinner. + +Jessie went around with a shining face that no one understood and she +could not explain. + +Betty was strangely nervous, and had made several blunders that +morning which mortified the faithful servant very much. An air of +expectancy pervaded the whole house, though the two heads of it had +not a hint of the cause. + +Jessie heard the train she had decided to be the important one. She +could hardly contain herself for expectation. She tried hard to sober +herself now and then by the thought, "Perhaps he won't come," but she +couldn't stay sobered, for she felt as certain that he would as that +she lived. + +You all know how it happened. The door opened and Jack walked in. One +instant of blank silence, and then a grand convulsion. + +Jack fell on his knees with his face in his mother's lap, though he +had not thought a moment before of doing any such thing. Jessie hung +over him, frantically hugging him. Mr. Jarvis, vainly trying to join +this group, could only lay his hands on Jack's head and say in a +broken voice: "My son! My son!" while Betty performed a war dance +around the party, wildly brandishing a basting spoon in one hand and +wiping her streaming eyes on the dishcloth which she held in the +other. + +It was long before a word could be spoken, and the dinner was totally +ruined, as Betty declared with tears (though they were not for +sorrow), before any one could calm down enough to eat. + +Then the reaction set in, and justice was done to the dinner, while +talk went on in a stream. Jack did not tell his adventures; he only +said that he had come from the city, where he had made arrangements +for a situation with Uncle John--at which Jessie's eyes sparkled. His +looks, even after a week of comfort and hope, spoke for his +sufferings. + +There is little more to tell. Jack Jarvis at seventeen was a different +boy from the Jack who at sixteen started out to seek his fortune. You +may be sure that Jessie had her music lessons after all, and that a +new Winnie with a fine young brood at her heels stalked about the +Jarvis grounds the next spring. + + + + +WHO ATE THE DOLLY'S DINNER?[29] + +BY ISABEL GORDON CURTIS. + + A good story for the Big Sister to read to the little boys + and girls. + + +"Why can't dollies have a Thanksgiving dinner as well as real folks?" +asked Polly Pine. + +[Footnote 29: From "For the Children's Hour," Milton Bradley Company.] + +"I don't know why," said mamma, laughing; "go and dress them in their +best clothes, get the dolls' house swept and dusted and the table +ready. Then I'll fix their dinner before we go downstairs." + +"Oh, how nice!" said Polly Pine. + +The doll house stood in the nursery. It was very big and very +beautiful. It was painted red; it had tall chimneys, and a fine front +door with R. Bliss on a brass plate. There were lace curtains at the +windows, and two steps led up to the cunning little piazza. Polly Pine +swept the rooms with her tiny broom and dusted them. Then she set the +table in the dining-room with the very best dishes and the finest +silver. She set a teeny vase in the middle of the table, with two +violets in it, and she put dolly table napkins at each place. + +When the house was all nice and clean she dressed Lavinia in her pink +muslin, and Dora Jane in her gray velvet, and Hannah Welch in her +yellow silk; then she seated them around the table, each one in her +own chair. Polly was just telling them about company manners, how they +must not eat with their knives, or leave their teaspoons in their cups +when they drank their tea, when the door opened and in came mamma with +a real dolls' Thanksgiving dinner. + +There was a chicken bone to put on the platter before Hannah Welch, +for Hannah always did the carving. There were cunning little dishes of +mashed potato and cranberry sauce, and some celery in a tiny tumbler, +and the smallest squash pie baked in a patty pan. Polly Pine just +hopped up and down with delight when she saw it. She set everything on +the table; then she ran away to put on her nicest muslin frock with +the pink ribbons, and she went downstairs to her own dinner. + +There were gentlemen there for dinner--gentlemen Polly was very fond +of--and she had a nice time visiting with one of them. He could change +his table napkin into a white rabbit, and she forgot all about the +dolls' Thanksgiving dinner until it was dessert-time, and the nuts and +raisins came in. + +Then Polly remembered, and she jumped down from her chair and asked +mamma if she might go upstairs and see if the dolls had eaten their +dinner. When mamma told about the doll house Thanksgiving, all the +family wanted to go, too, to find out if the dolls had enjoyed their +dinner. + +The front door of the doll house was open, and there sat the dolls +just as their little mistress had left them--only they had eaten +nearly all the dinner! Everything was gone except the potato and the +cranberry sauce. The chicken leg was picked bare, the bread was +nibbled, and the little pie was eaten all around. + +"Well, this is funny," said papa. + +Just then they heard a funny, scratching noise in the doll house, and +a little gray mouse jumped out from under the table. He ran out the +front door of the doll house, and over the piazza, and down the steps +before you could say "Jack Robinson." In a minute he was gone--nobody +knew where. There was another tiny mouse in the doll house under the +parlour sofa, and a third one under Lavinia's bed, with a poor, +frightened gray tail sticking out. They all got away safe. Papa would +not allow mamma to go for the cat. He said: + +"Why can't a poor little mouse have a Thanksgiving dinner as well as +we?" + + + + +AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING[30] + +BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. + + A long story about a family of hardy New England pioneers in + Revolutionary days. It will be most enjoyed by the older + children. + + +"Pile in, Hannah. Get right down 'long o' the clock, so's to kinder +shore it up. I'll fix in them pillers t'other side on't, and you can +set back ag'inst the bed. Good-bye, folks! Gee up! Bright. Gee! I tell +ye, Buck." + +[Footnote 30: Adapted from "Huckleberries," Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +"Good-bye!" nodded Hannah, from the depths of the old calash which +granny had given her for a riding-hood, and her rosy face sparkled +under the green shadow like a blossom under a burdock leaf. + +This was their wedding journey. Thirty long miles to be travelled, at +the slow pace of an oxcart, where to-day a railroad spins by, and a +log hut in the dim distance. + +But Hannah did not cry about it. There was a momentary choking, +perhaps, in her throat, as she caught a last view of granny's mob cap +and her father's rough face, with the red head of her small +stepbrother between them, grouped in the doorway. Her mother had died +long ago, and there was another in her place now, and a swarm of +children. Hannah was going to her own home, to a much easier life, +and going with John. Why should she cry? + +Besides, Hannah was the merriest little woman in the country. She had +a laugh always lying ready in a convenient dimple. + +She never knew what "blues" meant, except to dye stocking yarn. She +was sunny as a dandelion and gay as a bobolink. Her sweet good nature +never failed through the long day's journey, and when night came she +made a pot of tea at the campfire, roasted a row of apples, and +broiled a partridge John shot by the wayside, with as much enjoyment +as if this was the merriest picnic excursion, and not a solitary camp +in the forest, long miles away from any human dwelling, and by no +means sure of safety from some lingering savage, some beast of harmful +nature, or at least a visit from a shambling black bear, for bears +were plentiful enough in that region. + +But none of these things worried Hannah. She ate her supper with +hearty appetite, said her prayers with John, and curled down on the +featherbed in the cart, while John heaped on more wood, and, +shouldering his musket, went to lengthen the ropes that tethered his +oxen, and then mounted guard over the camp. Hannah watched his fine, +grave face, as the flickering light illuminated it, for a few minutes, +and then slept tranquilly till dawn. And by sunset next day the little +party drew up at the door of the log hut they called home. + +It looked very pretty to Hannah. She had the fairy gift, that is so +rare among mortals, of seeing beauty in its faintest expression; and +the young grass about the rough stone doorstep, the crimson cones on +the great larch tree behind it, the sunlit panes of the west window, +the laugh and sparkle of the brook that ran through the clearing, the +blue eyes of the squirrel caps that blossomed shyly and daintily +beside the stumps of new-felled trees--all these she saw and delighted +in. And when the door was open, the old clock set up, the bed laid on +the standing bedplace, and the three chairs and table ranged against +the wall, she began her house-wifery directly, singing as she went. +Before John had put his oxen in the small barn, sheltered the cart and +the tools in it, and shaken down hay into the manger, Hannah had made +a fire, hung on the kettle, spread up her bed with homespun sheets and +blankets and a wonderful cover of white-and-red chintz, set the table +with a loaf of bread, a square of yellow butter, a bowl of maple +sugar, and a plate of cheese; and even released the cock and the hen +from their uneasy prison in a splint basket, and was feeding them in +the little woodshed when John came in. + +His face lit up, as he entered, with that joyful sense of home so +instinctive in every true man and woman. He rubbed his hard hands +together, and catching Hannah as she came in at the shed door, +bestowed upon her a resounding kiss. + +"You're the most of a little woman I ever see, Hannah, I swan to +man." + +Hannah laughed like a swarm of spring blackbirds. + +"I declare, John, you do beat all! Ain't it real pleasant here? Seems +to me I never saw things so handy." + +Oh, Hannah, what if your prophetic soul could have foreseen the +conveniences of this hundred years after! Yet the shelves, the pegs, +the cupboard in the corner, the broad shelf above the fire, the great +pine chest under the window, and the clumsy settle, all wrought out of +pine board by John's patient and skilful fingers, filled all her +needs; and what can modern conveniences do more? + +So they ate their supper at home for the first time, happy as +new-nested birds, and far more grateful. + +John had built a sawmill on the brook a little way from the house, and +already owned a flourishing trade, for the settlement about the lake +from which Nepasset Brook sprung was quite large, and till John +Perkins went there the lumber had been all drawn fifteen miles off, to +Litchfield, and his mill was only three miles from Nepash village. +Hard work and hard fare lay before them both, but they were not +daunted by the prospect.... + +By and by a cradle entered the door, and a baby was laid in it.... + +One baby is well enough in a log cabin, with one room for all the +purposes of life; but when next year brought two more, a pair of stout +boys, then John began to saw lumber for his own use. A bedroom was +built on the east side of the house, and a rough stairway into the +loft--more room perhaps than was needed; but John was called in Nepash +"a dre'dful forecastin' man," and he took warning from the twins. And +timely warning it proved, for as the years slipped by, one after +another, they left their arrows in his quiver till ten children +bloomed about the hearth. The old cabin had disappeared entirely. A +good-sized frame house of one story, with a high-pitched roof, stood +in its stead, and a slab fence kept roving animals out of the yard and +saved the apple trees from the teeth of stray cows and horses. + +Poor enough they were still. The loom in the garret always had its web +ready, the great wheel by the other window sung its busy song year in +and year out. Dolly was her mother's right hand now; and the twins, +Ralph and Reuben, could fire the musket and chop wood. Sylvy, the +fourth child, was the odd one. All the rest were sturdy, rosy, +laughing girls and boys; but Sylvy had been a pining baby, and grew up +into a slender, elegant creature, with clear gray eyes, limpid as +water, but bright as stars, and fringed with long golden lashes the +colour of her beautiful hair--locks that were coiled in fold on fold +at the back of her fine head, like wreaths of undyed silk, so pale was +their yellow lustre. She bloomed among the crowd of red-cheeked, +dark-haired lads and lasses, stately and incongruous as a June lily in +a bed of tulips. But Sylvy did not stay at home. The parson's lady at +Litchfield came to Nepash one Sunday, with her husband, and seeing +Sylvy in the square corner pew with the rest, was mightily struck by +her lovely face, and offered to take her home with her the next week, +for the better advantages of schooling. Hannah could not have spared +Dolly; but Sylvia was a dreamy, unpractical child, and though all the +dearer for being the solitary lamb of the flock by virtue of her +essential difference from the rest, still, for that very reason, it +became easier to let her go. Parson Everett was childless, and in two +years' time both he and his wife adored the gentle, graceful girl; and +she loved them dearly. They could not part with her, and at last +adopted her formally as their daughter, with the unwilling consent of +John and Hannah. Yet they knew it was greatly "for Sylvy's +betterment," as they phrased it; so at last they let her go. + +But when Dolly was a sturdy young woman of twenty-five the war-trumpet +blew, and John and the twins heard it effectually. There was a sudden +leaving of the plow in the furrow. The planting was set aside for the +children to finish, the old musket rubbed up, and with set lips and +resolute eyes the three men walked away one May morning to join the +Nepash company. Hannah kept up her smiling courage through it all. If +her heart gave way, nobody knew it but God and John. The boys she +encouraged and inspired, and the children were shamed out of their +childish tears by mother's bright face and cheery talk. + +Then she set them all to work. There was corn to plant, wheat to sow, +potatoes to set; flax and wool to spin and weave, for clothes would be +needed for all, both absent and stay-at-homes. There was no father to +superintend the outdoor work; so Hannah took the field, and marshalled +her forces on Nepasset Brook much as the commander-in-chief was doing +on a larger scale elsewhere. Eben, the biggest boy, and Joey, who came +next him, were to do all the planting; Diana and Sam took on +themselves the care of the potato patch, the fowls, and the cow; Dolly +must spin and weave when mother left either the wheel or loom to +attend to the general ordering of the forces; while Obed and Betty, +the younglings of the flock, were detailed to weed, pick vegetables +(such few as were raised in the small garden), gather berries, herbs, +nuts, hunt the straying turkeys' nests, and make themselves generally +useful. At evening all the girls sewed; the boys mended their shoes, +having learned so much from a travelling cobbler; and the mother +taught them all her small stock of schooling would allow. At least, +they each knew how to read, and most of them to write, after a very +uncertain fashion. As to spelling, nobody knew how to spell in those +days.... But they did know the four simple rules of arithmetic, and +could say the epigrammatic rhymes of the old New England Primer and +the sibyllic formulas of the Assembly's Catechism as glibly as the +child of to-day repeats "The House That Jack Built." + +So the summer went on. The corn tasselled, the wheat ears filled well, +the potatoes hung out rich clusters of their delicate and graceful +blossoms, beans straggled half over the garden, the hens did their +duty bravely, and the cow produced a heifer calf. + +Father and the boys were fighting now, and mother's merry words were +more rare, though her bright face still wore its smiling courage. They +heard rarely from the army. Now and then a post rider stopped at the +Nepash tavern and brought a few letters or a little news; but this was +at long intervals, and women who watched and waited at home without +constant mail service and telegraphic flashes, aware that news of +disaster, of wounds, of illness, could only reach them too late to +serve or save, and that to reach the ill or the dying involved a +larger and more disastrous journey than the survey of half the world +demands now--these women endured pangs beyond our comprehension, and +endured them with a courage and patience that might have furnished +forth an army of heroes, that did go far to make heroes of that +improvised, ill-conditioned, eager multitude who conquered the trained +bands of their oppressors and set their sons "free and equal," to use +their own dubious phraseology, before the face of humanity at large. + +By and by winter came on with all its terrors. By night wolves howled +about the lonely house, and sprung back over the palings when Eben +went to the door with his musket. Joe hauled wood from the forest on a +hand-sled, and Dolly and Diana took it in through the kitchen window +when the drifts were so high that the woodshed door could not be +opened. Besides, all the hens were gathered in there, as well for +greater warmth as for convenience in feeding, and the barn was only to +be reached with snowshoes and entered by the window above the manger. + +Hard times these were. The loom in the garret could not be used, for +even fingers would freeze in that atmosphere; so the thread was wound +off, twisted on the great wheel, and knit into stockings, the boys +learning to fashion their own, while Hannah knit her anxiety and her +hidden heartaches into socks for her soldier boys and their father. + +By another spring the aching and anxiousness were a little dulled, for +habit blunts even the keen edge of mortal pain. They had news that +summer that Ralph had been severely wounded, but had recovered; that +John had gone through a sharp attack of camp-fever; that Reuben was +taken prisoner, but escaped by his own wit. Hannah was thankful and +grateful beyond expression. Perhaps another woman would have wept and +wailed, to think all this had come to pass without her knowledge or +her aid; but it was Hannah's way to look at the bright side of things. +Sylvia would always remember how once, when she was looking at Mount +Tahconic, darkened by a brooding tempest, its crags frowning blackly +above the dark forest at its foot and the lurid cloud above its head +torn by fierce lances of light, she hid her head in her mother's +checked apron, in the helpless terror of an imaginative child; but, +instead of being soothed and pitied, mother had only laughed a little +gay laugh, and said gently, but merrily: + +"Why, Sylvy, the sun's right on the other side, only you don't see +it." + +After that she always thought her mother saw the sun when nobody else +could. And in a spiritual sense it was true. + +Parson Everett rode over once or twice from Litchfield that next +summer to fetch Sylvia and to administer comfort to Hannah. He was a +quaint, prim little gentleman, neat as any wren, but mild-mannered as +wrens never are, and in a moderate way kindly and sympathetic. When +the children had haled their lovely sister away to see their rustic +possessions, Parson Everett would sit down in a high chair, lay aside +his cocked hat, spread his silk pocket handkerchief over his knees, +and prepare to console Hannah. + +"Mistress Perkins, these are trying times, trying times. There is a +sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees--h-m! Sea and waves +roaring of a truth--h-m! h-m! I trust, Mistress Perkins, you submit to +the Divine Will with meekness." + +"Well, I don't know," replied Hannah, with a queer little twinkle in +her eye. "I don't believe I be as meek as Moses, parson. I should like +things fixed different, to speak truth." + +"Dear me! Dear me--h-m! h-m! My good woman, the Lord reigneth. You +must submit; you must submit. You know it is the duty of a vessel of +wrath to be broken to pieces if it glorifieth the Maker." + +"Well, mebbe 'tis. I don't know much about that kind o' vessel. I've +got to submit because there ain't anything else to do, as I see. I +can't say it goes easy--not'n' be honest; but I try to look on the +bright side, and to believe the Lord'll take care of my folks better'n +I could, even if they was here." + +"H-m! h-m! Well," stammered the embarrassed parson, completely at his +wit's end with this cheerful theology, "well, I hope it is grace that +sustains you, Mistress Perkins, and not the vain elation of the +natural man. The Lord is in His holy temple; the earth is His +footstool--h-m!" The parson struggled helplessly with a tangle of +texts here; but the right one seemed to fail him, till Hannah +audaciously put it in: + +"Well, you know what it says about takin' care of sparrers, in the +Bible, and how we was more valerable than they be, a lot. That kind o' +text comes home these times, I tell ye. You fetch a person down to the +bedrock, as Grandsir Penlyn used to say, and then they know where they +be. And ef the Lord is really the Lord of all, I expect He'll take +care of all; 'nd I don't doubt but what He is and does. So I can fetch +up on that." + +Parson Everett heaved a deep sigh, put on his cocked hat, and blew his +nose ceremonially with the silk handkerchief. Not that he needed to: +but as a sort of shaking off of the dust of responsibility and ending +the conversation, which, if it was not heterodox on Hannah's part, +certainly did not seem orthodox to him.... He did not try to console +her any more, but contented himself with the stiller spirits in his +own parish, who had grown up in and after his own fashion. + +Another dreadful winter settled down on Nepasset township. There was +food enough in the house and firewood in the shed; but neither food +nor fire seemed to assuage the terrible cold, and with decreased +vitality decreased courage came to all. Hygienics were an unforeseen +mystery to people of that day. They did not know that nourishing food +is as good for the brain as for the muscles. They lived on potatoes, +beets, beans, with now and then a bit of salt pork or beef boiled in +the pot with the rest; and their hearts failed, as their flesh did, +with this sodden and monotonous diet. One ghastly night Hannah almost +despaired. She held secret council with Dolly and Eben, while they +inspected the potato bin and the pork barrel, as to whether it would +not be best for them to break up and find homes elsewhere for the +winter. Her father was old and feeble. He would be glad to have her +with him and Betty. The rest were old enough to "do chores" for their +board, and there were many families where help was needed, both in +Nepash and Litchfield, since every available man had gone to the war +by this time. But while they talked a great scuffling and squawking in +the woodhouse attracted the boys upstairs. Joe seized the tongs and +Diana the broomstick. An intruding weasel was pursued and slaughtered; +but not till two fowls, fat and fine, had been sacrificed by the +invader and the tongs together. The children were all hungry, with +the exhaustion of the cold weather, and clamoured to have these +victims cooked for supper. Nor was Hannah unmoved by the appeal. Her +own appetite seconded. The savoury stew came just in time. It aroused +them to new life and spirits. Hannah regained courage, wondering how +she could have lost heart so far, and said to Dolly, as they washed up +the supper dishes: + +"I guess we'll keep together, Dolly. It'll be spring after a while, +and we'll stick it out together." + +"I guess I would," answered Dolly. "And don't you believe we should +all feel better to kill off them fowls--all but two or three? They're +master hands to eat corn, and it does seem as though that biled hen +done us all a sight o' good to-night. Just hear them children." + +And it certainly was, as Hannah said, "musical to hear 'em." Joe had a +cornstalk fiddle, and Eben an old singing book, which Diana read over +his shoulder while she kept on knitting her blue sock; and the three +youngsters--Sam, Obed, and Betty--with wide mouths and intent eyes, +followed Diana's "lining out" of that quaint hymn "The Old +Israelites," dwelling with special gusto and power on two of the +verses: + + "We are little, 'tis true, + And our numbers are few, + And the sons of old Anak are tall; + But while I see a track + I will never go back, + But go on at the risk of my all. + + "The way is all new, + As it opens to view, + And behind is the foaming Red Sea; + So none need to speak + Of the onions and leeks + Or to talk about garlics to me!" + +Hannah's face grew brighter still. "We'll stay right here!" she said, +adding her voice to the singular old ditty with all her power: + + "What though some in the rear + Preach up terror and fear, + And complain of the trials they meet, + Tho' the giants before + With great fury do roar, + I'm resolved I can never retreat." + +And in this spirit, sustained, no doubt, by the occasional chickens, +they lived the winter out, till blessed, beneficent spring came again, +and brought news, great news, with it. Not from the army, though. +There had been a post rider in Nepash during the January thaw, and he +brought short letters only. There was about to be a battle, and there +was no time to write more than assurances of health and good hopes for +the future. Only once since had news reached them from that quarter. A +disabled man from the Nepash company was brought home dying with +consumption. Hannah felt almost ashamed to rejoice in the tidings he +brought of John's welfare, when she heard his husky voice, saw his +worn and ghastly countenance, and watched the suppressed agony in his +wife's eyes. The words of thankfulness she wanted to speak would have +been so many stabs in that woman's breast. It was only when her eight +children rejoiced in the hearing that she dared to be happy. But the +other news was from Sylvia. She was promised to the schoolmaster in +Litchfield. Only to think of it! Our Sylvy! + +Master Loomis had been eager to go to the war; but his mother was a +poor bedrid woman, dependent on him for support, and all the +dignitaries of the town combined in advising and urging him to stay at +home for the sake of their children, as well as his mother. So at home +he stayed, and fell into peril of heart, instead of life and limb, +under the soft fire of Sylvia's eyes, instead of the enemy's +artillery. Parson Everett could not refuse his consent, though he and +madam were both loth to give up their sweet daughter. But since she +and the youth seemed to be both of one mind about the matter, and he +being a godly young man, of decent parentage, and in a good way of +earning his living, there was no more to be said. They would wait a +year before thinking of marriage, both for better acquaintance and on +account of the troubled times. + +"Mayhap the times will mend, sir," anxiously suggested the +schoolmaster to Parson Everett. + +"I think not, I think not, Master Loomis. There is a great blackness +of darkness in hand, the Philistines be upon us, and there is moving +to and fro. Yea, Behemoth lifteth himself and shaketh his mane--h-m! +ah! h-m! It is not a time for marrying and giving in marriage, for +playing on sackbuts and dulcimers--h-m!" + +A quiet smile flickered around Master Loomis's mouth as he turned +away, solaced by a shy, sweet look from Sylvia's limpid eyes, as he +peeped into the keeping-room, where she sat with madam, on his way +out. He could afford to wait a year for such a spring blossom as that, +surely. And wait he did, with commendable patience, comforting his +godly soul with the fact that Sylvia was spared meantime the daily +tendance and care of a fretful old woman like his mother; for, though +Master Loomis was the best of sons, that did not blind him to the fact +that the irritability of age and illness were fully developed in his +mother, and he alone seemed to have the power of calming her. She +liked Sylvia at first, but became frantically jealous of her as soon +as she suspected her son's attachment. So the summer rolled away. +Hannah and her little flock tilled their small farm and gathered +plenteous harvest. Mindful of last year's experience, they raised +brood after brood of chickens, and planted extra acres of corn for +their feeding, so that when autumn came, with its vivid, splendid +days, its keen winds and turbulent skies, the new chicken yard, which +the boys had worked at through the summer, with its wattled fence, its +own tiny spring, and lofty covered roofs, swarmed with chickens, +ducks, and turkeys. Many a dollar was brought home about Thanksgiving +time for the fat fowls sold in Litchfield and Nepash; but dollars +soon vanished in buying winter clothes for so many children, or +rather, in buying wool to spin and weave for them. Mahala Green, the +village tailoress, came to fashion the garments, and the girls sewed +them. Uncouth enough was their aspect; but fashion did not yet reign +in Nepash, and if they were warm, who cared for elegance? Not Hannah's +rosy, hearty, happy brood. They sang and whistled and laughed with a +force and freedom that was kin to the birds and squirrels among whom +they lived; and Hannah's kindly, cheery face lit up as she heard them, +while a half sigh told that her husband and her soldier boys were +still wanting to her perfect contentment. + +At last they were all housed snugly for winter. The woodpile was +larger than ever before, and all laid up in the shed, beyond which a +rough shelter of chinked logs had been put up for the chickens, to +which their roosts and nest boxes, of coarse wicker, boards nailed +together, hollow bark from the hemlock logs, even worn-out tin pails, +had all been transferred. The cellar had been well banked from the +outside, and its darksome cavern held good store of apples, pork, and +potatoes. There was dried beef in the stairway, squashes in the +cupboard, flour in the pantry, and the great gentle black cow in the +barn was a wonderful milker. In three weeks Thanksgiving would come, +and even Hannah's brave heart sank as she thought of her absent +husband and boys; and their weary faces rose up before her as she +numbered over to herself her own causes for thankfulness, as if to +say: "Can you keep Thanksgiving without us?" Poor Hannah! She did her +best to set these thankless thoughts aside, but almost dreaded the +coming festival. One night, as she sat knitting by the fire, a special +messenger from Litchfield rode up to the door and brought stirring +news. Master Loomis's mother was dead, and the master himself, seeing +there was a new levy of troops, was now going to the war. But before +he went there was to be a wedding, and, in the good old fashion, it +should be on Thanksgiving Day, and Madam Everett had bidden as many of +Sylvy's people to the feast as would come. + +There was great excitement as Hannah read aloud the madam's note. The +tribe of Perkins shouted for joy, but a sudden chill fell on them when +mother spoke: + +"Now, children, hush up! I want to speak myself, ef it's a possible +thing to git in a word edgeways. We can't all go, fust and foremost. +'Tain't noways possible." + +"Oh, Mother! Why? Oh, do! Not go to Sylvy's wedding?" burst in the +"infinite deep chorus" of youngsters. + +"No, you can't. There ain't no team in the county big enough to hold +ye all, if ye squeeze ever so much. I've got to go, for Sylvy'd be +beat out if mother didn't come. And Dolly's the oldest. She's got a +right to go." + +Loud protest was made against the right of primogeniture, but mother +was firm. + +"Says so in the Bible. Leastways, Bible folks always acted so. The +first-born, ye know. Dolly's goin', sure. Eben's got to drive, and I +must take Obed. He'd be the death of somebody, with his everlastin' +mischief, if I left him to home. Mebbe I can squeeze in Betty, to keep +him company. Joe and Sam and Dianner won't be more'n enough to take +care o' the cows and chickens and fires, and all. Likewise of each +other." + +Sam set up a sudden howl at his sentence, and kicked the mongrel +yellow puppy, who leaped on him to console him, till that +long-suffering beast yelped in concert. + +Diana sniffed and snuffled, scrubbed her eyes with her checked apron, +and rocked back and forth. + +"Now, stop it!" bawled Joe. "For the land's sake, quit all this noise. +We can't all on us go; 'n' for my part, I don't want to. We'll hev a +weddin' of our own some day!" and here he gave a sly look at Dolly, +who seemed to understand it and blushed like an apple-blossom, while +Joe went on: "Then we'll all stay to 't, I tell ye, and have a right +down old country time." + +Mother had to laugh. + +"So you shall, Joe, and dance 'Money Musk' all night, if you want +to--same as you did to the corn huskin'. Now, let's see. Betty, she's +got that chintz gown that was your Sunday best, Dolly--the flowered +one, you know, that Dianner outgrowed. We must fix them lawn ruffles +into 't; and there's a blue ribbin laid away in my chest o' drawers +that'll tie her hair. It's dreadful lucky we've got new shoes all +round; and Obed's coat and breeches is as good as new, if they be made +out of his pa's weddin' suit. That's the good o' good cloth. It'll +last most forever. Joe hed 'em first, then Sam wore 'em quite a spell, +and they cut over jest right for Obey. My black paduasoy can be fixed +up, I guess. But, my stars! Dolly, what hev' you got?" + +"Well, Mother, you know I ain't got a real good gown. There's the +black lutestring petticoat Sylvy fetched me two years ago; but there +ain't any gown to it. We calculated I could wear that linsey jacket to +meeting, under my coat; but 'twouldn't do rightly for a weddin'." + +"That's gospel truth. You can't wear that, anyhow. You've got to hev +somethin'. 'Twon't do to go to Sylvy's weddin' in linsey woolsy; but I +don't believe there's more'n two hard dollars in the house. There's a +few Continentals; but I don't count on them. Joe, you go over to the +mill fust thing in the morning and ask Sylvester to lend me his old +mare a spell to-morrer, to ride over to Nepash, to the store." + +"Why don't ye send Doll?" asked Joe, with a wicked glance at the girl +that set her blushing again. + +"Hold your tongue, Joseph, 'n' mind me. It's bedtime now, but I'll +wake ye up airly," energetically remarked Hannah. And next day, +equipped in cloak and hood, she climbed the old mare's fat sides and +jogged off on her errand; and by noon-mark was safe and sound home +again, looking a little perplexed, but by no means cast down. + +"Well, Dolly," said she, as soon as cloak and hood were laid aside, +"there's the beautifulest piece of chintz over to the store you ever +see--jest enough for a gown. It's kind of buff-coloured ground, +flowered all over with roses, deep-red roses, as nateral as life. +Squire Dart wouldn't take no money for 't. He's awful sharp about them +new bills. Sez they ain't no more'n corn husks. Well, we ain't got a +great lot of 'em, so there's less to lose, and some folks will take +'em; but he'll let me have the chintz for 'leven yards o' soldier's +cloth--blue, ye know, like what we sent pa and the boys. And I spent +them two silver dollars on a white gauze neck-kercher and a piece of +red satin ribbin for ye, for I'm set on that chintz. Now hurry up 'nd +fix the loom right off. The web's ready, then we'll card the wool. +I'll lay ye a penny we'll have them 'leven yards wove by Friday. +To-day's Tuesday, Thanksgiving comes a Thursday week, an' ef we have +the chintz by sundown a Saturday there'll be good store of time for +Mahaly Green and you to make it afore Wednesday night. We'll hev a +kind of a Thanksgiving, after all. But I wisht your pa----" The +sentence ended in Hannah's apron at her eyes, and Dolly looked sober; +but in a minute she dimpled and brightened, for the pretty chintz gown +was more to her than half a dozen costly French dresses to a girl of +to-day. But a little cloud suddenly put out the dimples. + +"But, Mother, if somebody else should buy it?" + +"Oh, they won't. I've fixed that. I promised to fetch the cloth inside +of a week, and Squire Dart laid away the chintz for me till that time. +Fetch the wool, Dolly, before you set up the web, so's I can start." + +The wool was carded, spun, washed, and put into the dye tub, one "run" +of yarn that night; and another spun and washed by next day's +noon--for the stuff was to be checked, and black wool needed no +dyeing. Swiftly hummed the wheel, merrily flew the shuttle, and the +house steamed with inodorous dye; but nobody cared for that, if the +cloth could only be finished. And finished it was--the full measure +and a yard over; and on Saturday morning Sylvester's horse was +borrowed again, and Hannah came back from the village beaming with +pleasure, and bringing besides the chintz a yard of real cushion lace, +to trim the ruffles for Dolly's sleeves, for which she had bartered +the over yard of cloth and two dozen fresh eggs. Then even busier +times set in. Mahala Green had already arrived, for she was dressmaker +as well as tailoress, and was sponging and pressing over the black +paduasoy that had once been dove-coloured and was Hannah's sole piece +of wedding finery, handed down from her grandmother's wardrobe at +that. A dark green grosgrain petticoat and white lawn ruffles made a +sufficiently picturesque attire for Hannah, whose well-silvered hair +set off her still sparkling eyes and clear healthy skin. She appeared +in this unwonted finery on Thanksgiving morning to her admiring +family, having added a last touch of adornment by a quaint old jet +necklace, that glittered on the pure lawn neckkerchief with as good +effect as a chain of diamonds and much more fitness. Betty, in her +striped blue-and-white chintz, a clean dimity petticoat, and a blue +ribbon round her short brown curls, looked like a cabbage rosebud--so +sturdy and wholesome and rosy that no more delicate symbol suits her. + +Obed was dreadful in the old-fashioned costume of coat and breeches, +ill-fitting and shiny with wear, and his freckled face and round shock head +of tan-coloured hair thrown into full relief by a big, square collar of +coarse tatten lace laid out on his shoulders like a barber's towel, and +illustrating the great red ears that stood out at right angles above it. +But Obed was only a boy. He was not expected to be more than clean and +speechless; and, to tell the truth, Eben, being in the hobbledehoy stage of +boyhood--gaunt, awkward, and self-sufficient--rather surpassed his small +brother in unpleasant aspect and manner. But who would look at the boys +when Dolly stood beside them, as she did now, tall and slender, with the +free grace of an untrammelled figure, her small head erect, her eyes dark +and soft as a deer's, neatly clothed feet (not too small for her height) +peeping from under the black lutestring petticoat, and her glowing brunette +complexion set off by the picturesque buff-and-garnet chintz gown, while +her round throat and arms were shaded by delicate gauze and snowy lace, +and about her neck lay her mother's gold beads, now and then tangling in +the heavy black curls that, tied high on her head with a garnet ribbon, +still dropped in rich luxuriance to her trim waist. + +The family approved of Dolly, no doubt, though their phrases of +flattery were as homely as heartfelt. + +"Orful slick-lookin', ain't she?" confided Joe to Eben; while sinful +Sam shrieked out: "Land o' Goshen! ain't our Dolly smart? Shan't I +fetch Sylvester over?" + +For which I regret to state Dolly smartly boxed his ears. + +But the pung was ready, and Sam's howls had to die out uncomforted. +With many parting charges from Hannah about the fires and fowls, the +cow, the hasty pudding, already put on for its long boil, and the +turkey that hung from a string in front of the fire and must be +watched well, since it was the Thanksgiving dinner, the "weddingers," +as Joe called them, were well packed in with blankets and hot stones +and set off on their long drive. + +The day was fair and bright, the fields of snow purely dazzling; but +the cold was fearful, and in spite of all their wraps, the keen winds +that whistled over those broad hilltops where the road lay seemed to +pierce their very bones, and they were heartily glad to draw up, by +twelve o'clock, at the door of the parsonage and be set before a +blazing fire, and revived with sundry mugs of foaming and steaming +flip, made potent with a touch of old peach brandy; for in those +ancient days, even in parsonages, the hot poker knew its office and +sideboards were not in vain. + +There was food, also, for the exhausted guests, though the refection +was slight and served informally in the kitchen corner, for the +ceremonial Thanksgiving dinner was to be deferred till after the +wedding. And as soon as all were warmed and refreshed they were +ushered into the great parlour, where a Turkey carpet, amber satin +curtains, spider-legged chairs and tables, and a vast carved sofa, +cushioned also with amber, made a regal and luxurious show in the eyes +of our rustic observers. + +But when Sylvy came in with the parson, who could look at furniture? +Madam Everett had lavished her taste and her money on the lovely +creature as if she were her own daughter, for she was almost as dear +to that tender, childless soul. The girl's lustrous gold-brown hair +was dressed high upon her head in soft puffs and glittering curls, and +a filmy thread-lace scarf pinned across it with pearl-headed pins. Her +white satin petticoat showed its rich lustre under a lutestring gown +of palest rose brocaded with silver sprigs and looped with silver +ribbon and pink satin roses. Costly lace clung about her neck and +arms, long kid gloves covered her little hands and wrists and met the +delicate sleeve ruffles, and about her white throat a great pink topaz +clasped a single string of pearls. Hannah could scarce believe her +eyes. Was this her Sylvy?--she who even threw Madam Everett, with her +velvet dress, powdered hair, and Mechlin laces, quite into the +background! + +"I did not like it, Mammy dear," whispered Sylvy, as she clung round +her astonished mother's neck. "I wanted a muslin gown; but madam had +laid this by long ago, and I could not thwart or grieve her, she is so +very good to me." + +"No more you could, Sylvy. The gown is amazing fine, to be sure; but +as long as my Sylvy's inside of it I won't gainsay the gown. It ain't +a speck too pretty for the wearer, dear." And Hannah gave her another +hug. The rest scarce dared to touch that fair face, except Dolly, who +threw her arms about her beautiful sister, with little thought of her +garments, but a sudden passion of love and regret sending the quick +blood to her dark brows and wavy hair in a scarlet glow. + +Master Loomis looked on with tender eyes. He felt the usual masculine +conviction that nobody loved Sylvy anywhere near as much as he did; +but it pleased him to see that she was dear to her family. The parson, +however, abruptly put an end to the scene. + +"H-m! my dear friends, let us recollect ourselves. There is a time for +all things. Yea, earth yieldeth her increase--h-m! The Lord ariseth to +shake visibly the earth--ahem! Sylvia, will you stand before the +sophy? Master Lummis on the right side. Let us pray." + +But even as he spoke the words a great knocking pealed through the +house: the brass lion's head on the front door beat a reveille loud +and long. The parson paused, and Sylvia grew whiter than before; +while Decius, the parson's factotum, a highly respectable old negro +(who, with his wife and daughter, sole servants of the house, had +stolen in to see the ceremony), ambled out to the vestibule in most +undignified haste. There came sounds of dispute, much tramping of +boots, rough voices, and quick words; then a chuckle from Decius, the +parlour door burst open, and three bearded, ragged, eager men rushed +in upon the little ceremony. + +There was a moment's pause of wonder and doubt, then a low cry from +Hannah, as she flew into her husband's arms; and in another second the +whole family had closed around the father and brothers, and for once +the hardy, stern, reticent New England nature, broken up from its +foundations, disclosed its depths of tenderness and fidelity. There +were tears, choking sobs, cries of joy. The madam held her lace +handkerchief to her eyes with real need of it; Master Loomis choked +for sympathy; and the parson blew his nose on the ceremonial bandanna +like the trumpet of a cavalry charge. + +"Let us pray!" said he, in a loud but broken voice; and holding fast +to the back of the chair, he poured out his soul and theirs before the +Lord with all the fervour and the fluency of real feeling. There was +no stumbling over misapplied texts now, no awkward objections in his +throat, but only glowing Bible words of thankfulness and praise and +joy. And every heart was uplifted and calm as they joined in the +"Amen." + +John's story was quickly told. Their decimated regiment was +disbanded, to be reformed of fresh recruits, and a long furlough given +to the faithful but exhausted remnant. They had left at once for home, +and their shortest route lay through Litchfield. Night was near when +they reached the town, but they must needs stop to get one glimpse of +Sylvy and tidings from home, for fear lay upon them lest there might +be trouble there which they knew not of. So they burst in upon the +wedding. But Master Loomis began to look uneasy. Old Dorcas had +slipped out, to save the imperilled dinner, and Pokey, the maid (_née_ +Pocahontas!) could be heard clinking glass and silver and pushing +about chairs; but the happy family were still absorbed in each other. + +"Mister Everett!" said the madam, with dignity, and the little +minister trotted rapturously over to her chair to receive certain low +orders. + +"Yes, verily, yes--h-m! A--my friends, we are assembled in this place +this evening--" + +A sharp look from madam recalled him to the fact that this was not a +prayer-meeting. + +"A--that is--yes, of a truth our purpose this afternoon was to--" + +"That's so!" energetically put in Captain John. "Right about face! +Form!" and the three Continentals sprung to their feet and assumed +their position, while Sylvy and Master Loomis resumed theirs, a +flitting smile in Sylvia's tearful eyes making a very rainbow. + +So the ceremony proceeded to the end, and was wound up with a short +prayer, concerning which Captain Perkins irreverently remarked to his +wife some days after: + +"Parson smelt the turkey, sure as shootin', Hannah. He shortened up so +'mazin' quick on that prayer. I tell you I was glad on't. I knew how +he felt. I could ha' ate a wolf myself." + +Then they all moved in to the dinner table--a strange group, from +Sylvia's satin and pearls to the ragged fatigue-dress of her father +and brothers; but there was no help for that now, and really it +troubled nobody. The shade of anxiety in madam's eye was caused only +by a doubt as to the sufficiency of her supplies for three unexpected +and ravenous guests; but a look at the mighty turkey, the crisp roast +pig, the cold ham, the chicken pie, and the piles of smoking +vegetables, with a long vista of various pastries, apples, nuts, and +pitchers of cider on the buffet, and an inner consciousness of a big +Indian pudding, for twenty-four hours simmering in the pot over the +fire, reassured her, and perhaps heartened up the parson, for after a +long grace he still kept his feet and added, with a kindly smile: + +"Brethren and friends, you are heartily welcome. Eat and be glad, for +seldom hath there been such cause and need to keep a Thanksgiving!" + +And they all said Amen! + + + + +1800 AND FROZE TO DEATH[31] + +BY C. A. STEPHENS. + + An exciting story of a battle with a crazy moose. It has a + Thanksgiving flavour, too. + + +"What shall we have for Thanksgiving dinner?" was a question which +distressed more than one household that year. Indeed, it was often a +question what to have for dinner, supper, or breakfast on any day. For +that was the strangely unpropitious, unproductive season of 1816, +quaintly known in local annals as "1800 and Froze to Death." + +[Footnote 31: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1908.] + +It was shortly after the close of the War of 1812 with England. Our +country was then poor and but little cultivated. There was no golden +West to send carloads of wheat and corn; no Florida or California to +send fruit; there were no cars, no railroads. What the people of the +Eastern States had they must raise for themselves, and that year there +were no crops. + +Nothing grew, nothing ripened properly. Winter lingered even in the +lap of May. As late as the middle of June there was a heavy snowstorm +in New England. Frosts occurred every fortnight of the season. The +seed potatoes, corn, and beans, when planted, either rotted in the +ground or came up to be killed by the frosts. The cold continued +through July and August. A little barley, still less wheat and rye, a +few oats, in favourable situations, were the only cereals harvested, +and these were much pinched in the kernel. + +Actual starvation threatened hundreds of farmers' families as this +singular summer and autumn advanced. The corn crop, then the main +staple in the East, was wholly cut off. Two and three dollars a +bushel--equal to ten dollars to-day--were paid for corn that year--by +those who had the money to purchase it. Many of the poorer families +subsisted in part on the boiled sprouts of raspberry and other shrubs. +Starving children stole forth into the fields of the less indigent +farmers by night, and dug up the seed potatoes and sprouted corn to +eat raw. + +Moreover, there appeared to be little or no game in the forest; many +roving bears were seen, and wolves were bold. All wild animals, +indeed, behaved abnormally, as if they, too, felt that nature was out +of joint. The eggs of the grouse or partridge failed to hatch; even +woodchucks were lean and scarce. So of the brooding hens at the +settler's barn: the eggs would not hatch, and the hens, too, it is +said, gave up laying eggs, perhaps from lack of food. Even the song +birds fell into the "dumps" and neglected to rear young. + +The dreary, fruitless autumn drew on; and Thanksgiving Day bade fair +to be such a hollow mockery that in several states the governors did +not issue proclamations. + +Maine at that time was a part of the state of Massachusetts. My +impression is that the governor appointed November 28th as +Thanksgiving Day, but I am not sure. It is likely that not much +unction attended the announcement. The notices of it did not reach +many localities in Maine. In the neighbourhood where my grandparents +lived, in Oxford County, nothing was heard of it; but at a schoolhouse +meeting, on November 21st, our nearest neighbour, Jonas Edwards, made +a motion "that the people of the place keep the 28th of the month as +Thanksgiving Day--the best they could." + +The motion prevailed; and then the poor housewives began to ask the +question, "What shall we have for Thanksgiving dinner?" At our house +it is still remembered that one of my young great-uncles cried in +reply, "Oh, if we could only have a good big johnnycake!" + +And it was either that very night, or the night after, that the +exciting news came of the arrival of a shipload of corn at Bath and +Brunswick. + +At Brunswick, seat of the then infant Bowdoin College, Freeport, +Topsham, and other towns near the coast of Maine, where the people +were interested in maritime ventures, it had become known that a +surplus of corn was raised in Cuba, and could be purchased at a fair +price. An old schooner, commanded by one Capt. John Simmons, was +fitted out to sail for a cargo of the precious cereal. For three +months not a word was heard from schooner or skipper. + +Captain Simmons had purchased corn, however, and loaded his crazy old +craft full to the deck with it. Heavy weather and head winds held him +back on his voyage home. Water got to the corn, and some of it swelled +to such an extent that the old schooner was like to burst. But it got +in at last, early in November, with three thousand bushels of this +West India corn. + +How the news of this argosy flew even to towns a day's journey up from +the coast! + +A great hunger for corncake swept through that part of the state; and +in our own little neighbourhood a searching canvass of the resources +of the five log farm-houses followed. As a result of it, young +Jonathan Edwards and my then equally youthful Great-uncle Nathaniel +set off the next day to drive to Brunswick with a span of old white +horses hitched in a farm wagon without springs, carrying four rather +poor sheep, four bushels of barley, and fifteen pounds of wool, which +they hoped to exchange for five bushels of that precious corn. On top +of it all there were three large bagfuls of hay for the horses. The +boys also took an axe and an old flintlock gun, for much of the way +was then through forest. + +It was a long day's drive for horses in poor condition, but they +reached Brunswick that night. There, however, they found the cargo of +corn so nearly sold out, or bartered away, that they were able to get +but three bushels to bring home. + +The corn was reckoned at nine dollars, the four sheep at only six +dollars, and it had been difficult "dickering" the fifteen pounds of +wool and the two bushels of barley as worth three dollars more. The +extra two bushels of barley went for their keep overnight. Such was +produce exchange in 1816. + +The next morning they started for home, lightly loaded with their +dearly bought corn. Their route lay along the Androscoggin River, and +they had got as far on their way as the present factory town of +Auburn, where the Little Androscoggin flows into the larger river of +the same name, when they had an adventure which resulted in very +materially increasing the weight of their load. + +It was a raw, cloudy day, and had begun to "spit snow"; and as it drew +toward noon, they stopped beside the road at a place where a large +pine and several birches leaned out from the brink of the deep gorge +through which the Little Androscoggin flows to join the larger stream. +Here they fed their horses on the last of the three bagfuls of hay, +but had nothing to cook or eat in the way of food themselves. The +weather was chilly, and my young Great-uncle Nathaniel said to +Jonathan: + +"If you will get some dry birchbark, I will flash the pan. We will +kindle a fire and warm up." + +Jonathan brought the bark, and meanwhile Nathaniel drew the charge +from the old "Queen's arm," then ignited some powder in the pan with +the flintlock, and started a blaze going. + +The blaze, however, had soon to be fed with dry fuel, and noticing a +dead firtop lying on the ground a few steps away, Jonathan took the +axe and ran to break it up; and the axe strokes among the dry stuff +made a considerable crackling. + +Throwing down the axe at last, Jonathan gathered up a large armful of +the dry branches, and had turned to the fire, when they both heard a +strange sound, like a deep grunt, not far away, followed by sharp +crashes of the brush down in the basin. + +"What's that?" Nathaniel exclaimed. "It's a bear I guess," and he +snatched up the empty gun to reload it. Jonathan, too, threw down his +armful of boughs and turned back to get the axe. + +Before they could do either, however, the strange grunts and crashes +came nearer, and a moment later a pair of broad antlers and a huge +black head appeared, coming up from the gorge. + +At sight of the snorting beast, Jonathan turned suddenly. "It's a +moose, Nat!" he cried. "A big bull moose! Shoot him! Shoot him!" + +Nat was making frantic efforts, but the gun was not reloaded. +Recharging an old "Queen's arm" was a work of time. + +Fortunately for the boys, the attention of the moose was full fixed on +the horses. With another furious snort, it gained the top of the bank +and bounded toward where they stood hitched, chewing their hay. + +The tired white horses looked up suddenly from their hay, and +perceiving this black apparition of the forest, snorted and tugged at +their halters. + +With a frightful bellow, half squeal, half roar, the moose rose twelve +feet tall on his hind legs, and rushed at the one hitched nearest. The +horse broke its halter, ran headlong against its mate, recoiled, +bumped into a tree trunk, and then--the trees standing thick in front +of it--backed over the bank and went out of sight down the bluff, the +moose bounding after it, still bellowing hoarsely. + +The other horse had also broken its halter and ran off, while the two +boys stood amazed and alarmed at this tremendous exhibition of animal +ferocity. + +"Nat! Nat! He will kill that horse!" Jonathan exclaimed, and they both +ran to look over the bank. Horse and moose were now down near the +water, where the river ran deep and swift under the steep bank, the +horse trying vainly to escape through the tangled alder brush, the +moose savagely pursuing. + +The sight roused the boys to save their horse. Axe in hand, Jonathan +ran and slid down the bluff side, catching hold of trees and bushes as +he did so, to keep from going quite into the river. Nat followed him, +with the gun which he had hastily primed. Both horse and moose were +now thrashing amidst the alder clumps. + +"Shoot him, shoot him!" Jonathan shouted. "Why don't you fire? Oh, let +me have that gun!" + +It is not as easy as an onlooker often thinks to shoot an animal, even +a large one, in rapid motion, particularly among trees and brush; +something constantly gets in the way. Both animals were now tearing +along the brink of the deep stream, stumbling headlong one second, up +the next, plunging on. As often as Nat tried to steady himself on the +steep side of the bluff for a shot, either the horse was in the way or +both animals were wholly concealed by the bushes. Moreover, the boys +had to run fast through the brush to keep them in sight. Nat could not +shoot with certainty, and Jonathan grew wild over the delay. + +"Shoot him yourself, then!" Nat retorted, panting. + +Jonathan snatched the gun and dashed forward, Nat picking up the axe +and following after. On they ran for several hundred yards, barely +keeping pace with the animals. Jonathan experienced quite as much +difficulty in getting a shot as Nat had done. + +At last he aimed and snapped--and the gun did not go off. + +"You never primed it!" he exclaimed indignantly. Nat thought that he +had done so, but was not wholly certain; and feeling that he must do +his part somehow, he now dashed past Jonathan, and running on, +attempted to head the horse off at a little gully down the bank to +which they had now come. It was a brushy place; he fell headlong into +it himself, and rolled down, still grasping hard at the axe. He was +close upon the horse now, within a few yards of the water, and looking +up, he saw the moose's head among the alder brush. The creature +appeared to be staring at him, and regaining his feet, much excited, +Nat threw the axe with all his strength at the moose's head. + +By chance rather than skill, the poll of the axe struck the animal +just above the eyes at the root of the antlers. It staggered, holding +its head to one side a moment, as if half-stunned or in pain. Then, +recovering, it snorted, and with a bound through the brush, jumped +into the stream, and either swam or waded across to the low sandy bank +on the other side. There it stood, still shaking its head. + +Jonathan had caught up with Nat by this time, and they both stood +watching the moose for some moments, hoping that the mad animal had +now had enough of the fracas and would go his way. The horse was in +the brush of the little gully, sticking fast there, or tired out by +its exertions; and they now began considering how they could best +extricate it and get it back up the bluff. + +Just then, however, their other horse neighed long and shrill from the +top of the bank, calling to its mate. The frightened horse beside them +neighed back in reply. + +These equine salutations produced an unexpected result. Another hoarse +snort and a splash of the water was the response from across the +stream. + +"He's coming again!" exclaimed Jonathan. "Have you got the +powder-horn, Nat? Give it to me quick, if you've got it!" Nathaniel +had had the powder-horn up on the bank, but had dropped it there, or +lost it out of his pocket in his scramble down the bluff. + +There was no time to search for it. The moose was plunging through +the narrow stream, and a moment later sprang ashore and came bounding +up the gully toward the horse. + +The boys shouted to frighten him off. The crazy creature appeared +neither to hear nor heed. Jonathan hastily took refuge behind a rock; +Nat jumped to cover of a tree trunk. + +In his rush at the horse, the moose passed close to them. Again Nat +hurled the axe at the animal's side. Jonathan, snatching up a heavy +stone, threw it with all his might. The horse, too, wheeling in the +narrow bed of the gully, kicked spitefully, lashing out its iron-shod +hoofs again and again, planting them hard on the moose's front. + +For some moments this singular combat raged there. Recovering the axe +and coming up behind the animal, Nat now attempted to deal a blow. The +moose wheeled, however, as if struck by sudden panic, and went clear +over Nat, who was thrown headlong and slid down into the water. + +The moose bounded clear over him, and again went splashing through the +Little Androscoggin to the other side, where it turned as before, +shaking its antlers and rending the brush with them. + +Nathaniel had caught hold of a bush, and thus saved himself from going +fully into the swift current. Jonathan helped him get out, and the two +young fellows stared at each other. The encounter had given them proof +of the mad strength and energy of the moose. + +"Oh, if we could only find that powder-horn somewhere!" Jonathan +exclaimed. + +The horse up on the bluff sent forth again its shrill neigh, to which +the one beside them responded. + +And just as before, the moose, with an awful bellow, came plunging +through the little river and bounding up the gully. + +"My soul! Here he comes again!" Jonathan fairly yelled. "Get out o' +the way!" + +And Nat got out of the way as quickly as possible, taking refuge +behind the same rock in the side of the gully. + +Again the place resounded to a frightful medley of squeals, +bellowings, and crashes in the brush. This time Jonathan had caught up +the axe, and approaching the furious mêlée of whirling hoofs and +gnashing teeth from one side, attempted to get in a blow. In their +wild movements the enraged animals nearly ran over him, but he struck +and stumbled. + +The blow missed the moose's head, but fell on the animal's foreleg, +just below the knee, and broke the bone. The moose reared, and +wheeling on its hind legs, plunged down the gully, falling partly into +the river, much as Nat had done. + +A dozen times it now struggled to get up, almost succeeding, but fell +back each time. With the ardour of battle still glowing in him, +Jonathan rushed forward with the axe, and finally managed to deal the +moose a deathblow; with a knife they then bled it, and stood by, +triumphant. + +"We've muttoned him! We've muttoned him!" Nat shouted. "But I never +had such a fight as that before." + +The horse, as it proved, was not seriously injured, but they were +obliged to cut away the alder brush in the gully to get the animal +back up the bluff, and were occupied for fully an hour doing so. + +The body of the moose was a huge one; it must have weighed fully +fourteen hundred pounds. The boys could no more have moved it than +they could move a mountain. Moreover, it was now beginning to snow +fine and fast. + +Jonathan had a fairly good knife, however, and by using the axe they +succeeded in rudely butchering the carcass and dismembering it. Even +then the quarters were so heavy that their full strength was required +to drag them up the bluff and load them into the wagon. The head, with +its broad, branching antlers, was all that they could lift to the top +of their now bulky load. + +The task had taken till past four o'clock of that stormy November +afternoon. Twilight was upon them, the wintry twilight of a snowstorm, +before they made start; and it was long past midnight when they +finally plodded home. + +There were corncake and moose venison for Thanksgiving dinner. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD +SHOULD KNOW*** + + +******* This file should be named 19909-8.txt or 19909-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19909 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know</p> +<p>Author: Various</p> +<p>Editor: Asa Don Dickinson</p> +<p>Release Date: November 23, 2006 [eBook #19909]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + + +<p class="center"><a href="images/image_02.jpg"> +<img src="images/image_02.jpg" +alt=""When we rounded the last patch of scrub pines and came upon the long gray house fairly blazing with light ... the effect was stunning."" height="500" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">"When we rounded the last patch of scrub pines and came upon the<br />long gray house fairly blazing with light ... the effect was stunning."</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><img class="img1" src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Title_Page" width="450" height="707" /></p> + +<p> </p> + +<h3> +What Every Child Should Know Library</h3> + +<h1>GOOD<br /> +CHEER STORIES</h1> + +<h2>EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h4>Edited by</h4> +<h2>ASA DON DICKINSON</h2> +<h4>(<i>Editor of</i><br /> +"<span class="smcap">The Children's Book of Christmas Stories</span>," <i>etc.</i>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="Seal" width="150" height="134" /></p> +<p> </p> +<h4><i>Published by</i> <span class="smcap">Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc.</span>, <i>for</i></h4> +<h3>THE PARENTS' INSTITUTE, INC.</h3> +<h3><i>Publishers of</i> "<span class="smcap">The Parents' Magazine</span>"</h3> +<h3><i>52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York</i></h3> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center f1">COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h2> + + +<p>The Publishers desire to acknowledge the kindness of the Century +Company, Ginn & Co., the J. L. Hammett Company, Harper & Brothers, the +Houghton, Mifflin Company, the J. B. Lippincott Company, the Lothrop, +Lee & Shepard Company, the Outlook Company, the Perry Mason Company, +Charles Scribner's Sons, and others, who have granted permission to +reproduce herein selections from works bearing their copyright.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + + + + + + + + +<p>(Note.—The stories marked with a star (*) will be most enjoyed by +younger children; those marked with a (†) are better suited to +older children.)</p> + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg f1">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#THE_KINGDOM_OF_THE_GREEDY">The Kingdom of the Greedy.</a> <i>By P. J. Stahl</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THANKFUL">Thankful.</a> <i>By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#BEETLE_RINGS_THANKSGIVING_MASCOT">Beetle Ring's Thanksgiving Mascot.</a> <i>By Sheldon C. +Stoddard</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#MISTRESS_ESTEEM_ELLIOTTS_MOLASSES_CAKE">Mistress Esteem Elliott's Molasses Cake.</a> <i>By Kate Upson +Clark</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_FIRST_THANKSGIVING">The First Thanksgiving.</a> <i>By Albert F. Blaisdell and +Francis K. Ball</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#THANKSGIVING_AT_TODDS_ASYLUM">Thanksgiving at Todd's Asylum.</a> <i>By Winthrop Packard</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HOW_WE_KEPT_THANKSGIVING_AT_OLDTOWN">How We Kept Thanksgiving at Oldtown.</a> <i>By Harriet +Beecher Stowe</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#WISHBONE_VALLEY">Wishbone Valley.</a> <i>By R. K. Munkittrick</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PATEMS_SALMAGUNDI">Patem's Salmagundi.</a> <i>By E. S. Brooks</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#MRS_NOVEMBERS_DINNER_PARTY">Miss November's Dinner Party.</a> <i>By Agnes Carr</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#THE_VISIT">The Visit.</a> <i>By Maud Lindsay</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_RUTH_AND_NAOMI">The Story of Ruth and Naomi.</a> <i>Adapted from the Bible</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#BERTS_THANKSGIVING">Bert's Thanksgiving.</a> <i>By J. T. Trowbridge</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#A_THANKSGIVING_STORY">A Thanksgiving Story.</a> <i>By Miss L. B. Pingree</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#JOHN_INGLEFIELDS_THANKSGIVING">John Inglefield's Thanksgiving.</a> <i>By Nathaniel Hawthorne</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HOW_OBADIAH_BROUGHT_ABOUT_A_THANKSGIVING">How Obadiah Brought About a Thanksgiving.</a> <i>By Emily +Hewitt Leland</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_WHITE_TURKEYS_WING">The White Turkey's Wing.</a> <i>By Sophie Swet</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#THE_THANKSGIVING_GOOSE">The Thanksgiving Goose.</a> <i>By Fannie Wilder Brown</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#AN_ENGLISH_DINNER_OF_THANKSGIVING">An English Dinner of Thanksgiving.</a> <i>By George Eliot</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#A_NOVEL_POSTMAN">A Novel Postman.</a> <i>By Alice Wheildon</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#EZRAS_THANKSGIVIN_OUT_WEST">Ezra's Thanksgivin' Out West.</a> <i>By Eugene Field</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#CHIPS_THANKSGIVING">Chip's Thanksgiving.</a> <i>By Annie Hamilton Donnell</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#THE_MASTER_OF_THE_HARVEST">The Master of the Harvest.</a> <i>By Mrs. Alfred Gatty</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#A_THANKSGIVING_DINNER">A Thanksgiving Dinner.</a> <i>By Edna Payson Brett</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TWO_OLD_BOYS">Two Old Boys.</a> <i>By Pauline Shackleford Colyar</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#A_THANKSGIVING_DINNER_THAT_FLEW_AWAY">A Thanksgiving Dinner That Flew Away.</a> <i>By Hezekiah +Butterworth</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#MON-DAW-MIN_OR_THE_ORIGIN_OF_INDIAN_CORN">Mon-daw-min.</a> <i>By H. R. Schoolcraft</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#A_MYSTERY_IN_THE_KITCHEN">A Mystery in the Kitchen.</a> <i>By Olive Thorne Miller</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_282">282</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>*<a href="#WHO_ATE_THE_DOLLYS_DINNER">Who Ate the Dolly's Dinner? </a><i>By Isabel Gordon Curtis</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>†<a href="#AN_OLD-FASHIONED_THANKSGIVING">An Old-fashioned Thanksgiving.</a> <i>By Rose Terry Cooke</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AND_FROZE_TO_DEATH">1800 and Froze to Death.</a> By <i>C. A. Stephens</i></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_328">328</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p> </p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THANKSGIVING STORIES</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_KINGDOM_OF_THE_GREEDY" id="THE_KINGDOM_OF_THE_GREEDY"></a>THE KINGDOM OF THE GREEDY</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By P. J. Stahl.</span></h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Translated by Laura W. Johnson.</span></h3> +<div class="blockquot"><p>This fairy tale of a gormandizing people contains no mention +of Thanksgiving Day. Yet its connection with our American +festival is obvious. Every one who likes fairy tales will +enjoy reading it.</p></div> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="50" /></div> + +<p>he country of the Greedy, well known in history, was ruled by a king +who had much trouble. His subjects were well behaved, but they had one +sad fault: they were too fond of pies and tarts. It was as +disagreeable to them to swallow a spoonful of soup as if it were so +much sea water, and it would take a policeman to make them open their +mouths for a bit of meat, either boiled or roasted. This deplorable +taste made the fortunes of the pastry cooks, but also of the +apothecaries. Families ruined themselves in pills and powders; +camomile, rhubarb, and peppermint trebled in price, as well as other +disagreeable remedies, such as castor —— which I will not name.</p> + +<p>The King of the Greedy sought long for the means of correcting this +fatal passion for sweets, but even the faculty were puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty," said the great court doctor, Olibriers, at his last +audience, "your people look like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> putty! They are incurable; their +senseless love for good eating will bring them all to the grave."</p> + +<p>This view of things did not suit the King. He was wise, and saw very +plainly that a monarch without subjects would be but a sorry king.</p> + +<p>Happily, after this utter failure of the doctors, there came into the +mind of His Majesty a first-class idea: he telegraphed for Mother +Mitchel, the most celebrated of all pastry cooks. Mother Mitchel soon +arrived, with her black cat, Fanfreluche, who accompanied her +everywhere. He was an incomparable cat. He had not his equal as an +adviser and a taster of tarts.</p> + +<p>Mother Mitchel having respectfully inquired what she and her cat could +do for His Majesty, the King demanded of the astonished pastry cook a +tart as big as the capitol—bigger even, if possible, but no smaller! +When the King uttered this astounding order, deep emotion was shown by +the chamberlains, the pages, and lackeys. Nothing but the respect due +to his presence prevented them from crying "Long live Your Majesty!" +in his very ears. But the King had seen enough of the enthusiasm of +the populace, and did not allow such sounds in the recesses of his +palace.</p> + +<p>The King gave Mother Mitchel one month to carry out his gigantic +project. "It is enough," she proudly replied, brandishing her crutch. +Then, taking leave of the King, she and her cat set out for their +home.</p> + +<p>On the way Mother Mitchel arranged in her head the plan of the +monument which was to immortalize her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> and considered the means of +executing it. As to its form and size, it was to be as exact a copy of +the capitol as possible, since the King had willed it; but its outside +crust should have a beauty all its own. The dome must be adorned with +sugarplums of all colours, and surmounted by a splendid crown of +macaroons, spun sugar, chocolate, and candied fruits. It was no small +affair.</p> + +<p>Mother Mitchel did not like to lose her time. Her plan of battle once +formed, she recruited on her way all the little pastry cooks of the +country, as well as all the tiny six-year-olds who had a sincere love +for the noble callings of scullion and apprentice. There were plenty +of these, as you may suppose, in the country of the Greedy; Mother +Mitchel had her pick of them.</p> + +<p>Mother Mitchel, with the help of her crutch and of Fanfreluche, who +miaowed loud enough to be heard twenty miles off, called upon all the +millers of the land, and commanded them to bring together at a certain +time as many sacks of fine flour as they could grind in a week. There +were only windmills in that country; you may easily believe how they +all began to go. B-r-r-r-r-r! What a noise they made! The clatter was +so great that all the birds flew away to other climes, and even the +clouds fled from the sky.</p> + +<p>At the call of Mother Mitchel all the farmers' wives were set to work; +they rushed to the hencoops to collect the seven thousand fresh eggs +that Mother Mitchel wanted for her great edifice. Deep was the emotion +of the fowls. The hens were inconsolable, and the un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>happy creatures +mourned upon the palings for the loss of all their hopes.</p> + +<p>The milkmaids were busy from morning till night in milking the cows. +Mother Mitchel must have twenty thousand pails of milk. All the little +calves were put on half rations. This great work was nothing to them, +and they complained pitifully to their mothers. Many of the cows +protested with energy against this unreasonable tax, which made their +young families so uncomfortable. There were pails upset, and even some +milkmaids went head over heels. But these little accidents did not +chill the enthusiasm of the labourers.</p> + +<p>And now Mother Mitchel called for a thousand pounds of the best +butter. All the churns for twenty miles around began to work in the +most lively manner. Their dashers dashed without ceasing, keeping +perfect time. The butter was tasted, rolled into pats, wrapped up, and +put into baskets. Such energy had never been known before.</p> + +<p>Mother Mitchel passed for a sorceress. It was all because of her cat, +Fanfreluche, with whom she had mysterious doings and pantomimes, and +with whom she talked in her inspired moments, as if he were a real +person. Certainly, since the famous "Puss in Boots," there had never +been an animal so extraordinary; and credulous folks suspected him of +being a magician. Some curious people had the courage to ask +Fanfreluche if this were true; but he had replied by bristling, and +showing his teeth and claws so fiercely, that the conver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>sation had +ended there. Sorceress or not, Mother Mitchel was always obeyed. No +one else was ever served so punctually.</p> + +<p>On the appointed day all the millers arrived with their asses trotting +in single file, each laden with a great sack of flour. Mother Mitchel, +after having examined the quality of the flour, had every sack +accurately weighed. This was head work and hard work, and took time; +but Mother Mitchel was untiring, and her cat, also, for while the +operation lasted he sat on the roof watching. It is only just to say +that the millers of the Greedy Kingdom brought flour not only +faultless but of full weight. They knew that Mother Mitchel was not +joking when she said that others must be as exact with her as she was +with them. Perhaps also they were a little afraid of the cat, whose +great green eyes were always shining upon them like two round lamps, +and never lost sight of them for one moment.</p> + +<p>All the farmers' wives arrived in turn, with baskets of eggs upon +their heads. They did not load their donkeys with them, for fear that +in jogging along they would become omelettes on the way. Mother +Mitchel received them with her usual gravity. She had the patience to +look through every egg to see if it were fresh.</p> + +<p>She did not wish to run the risk of having young chickens in a tart +that was destined for those who could not bear the taste of any meat +however tender and delicate. The number of eggs was complete, and +again Mother Mitchel and her cat had nothing to complain of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> This +Greedy nation, though carried away by love of good eating, was +strictly honest. It must be said that where nations are patriotic, +desire for the common good makes them unselfish. Mother Mitchel's tart +was to be the glory of the country, and each one was proud to +contribute to such a great work.</p> + +<p>And now the milkmaids with their pots and pails of milk, and the +buttermakers with their baskets filled with the rich yellow pats of +butter, filed in long procession to the right and left of the cabin of +Mother Mitchel. There was no need for her to examine so carefully the +butter and the milk. She had such a delicate nose that if there had +been a single pat of ancient butter or a pail of sour milk she would +have pounced upon it instantly. But all was perfectly fresh. In that +golden age they did not understand the art, now so well known, of +making milk out of flour and water. Real milk was necessary to make +cheesecakes and ice cream and other delicious confections much adored +in the Greedy Kingdom. If any one had made such a despicable +discovery, he would have been chased from the country as a public +nuisance.</p> + +<p>Then came the grocers, with their aprons of coffee bags, and with the +jolly, mischievous faces the rogues always have. Each one clasped to +his heart a sugar loaf nearly as large as himself, whose summit, +without its paper cap, looked like new-fallen snow upon a pyramid. +Mother Mitchel, with her crutch for a baton, saw them all placed in +her storerooms upon shelves put up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> for the purpose. She had to be +very strict, for some of the little fellows could hardly part from +their merchandise, and many were indiscreet, with their tongues behind +their great mountains of sugar. If they had been let alone, they would +never have stopped till the sugar was all gone. But they had not +thought of the implacable eye of old Fanfreluche, who, posted upon a +water spout, took note of all their misdeeds. From another quarter +came a whole army of country people, rolling wheelbarrows and carrying +huge baskets, all filled with cherries, plums, peaches, apples, and +pears. All these fruits were so fresh, in such perfect condition, with +their fair shining skins, that they looked like wax or painted marble, +but their delicious perfume proved that they were real. Some little +people, hidden in the corners, took pains to find this out. Between +ourselves, Mother Mitchel made believe not to see them, and took the +precaution of holding Fanfreluche in her arms so that he could not +spring upon them. The fruits were all put into bins, each kind by +itself. And now the preparations were finished. There was no time to +lose before setting to work.</p> + +<p>The spot which Mother Mitchel had chosen for her great edifice was a +pretty hill on which a plateau formed a splendid site. This hill +commanded the capital city, built upon the slope of another hill close +by. After having beaten down the earth till it was as smooth as a +floor, they spread over it loads of bread crumbs, brought from the +baker's, and levelled it with rake and spade,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> as we do gravel in our +garden walks. Little birds, as greedy as themselves, came in flocks to +the feast, but they might eat as they liked, it would never be missed, +so thick was the carpet. It was a great chance for the bold little +things.</p> + +<p>All the ingredients for the tart were now ready. Upon order of Mother +Mitchel they began to peel the apples and pears and to take out the +pips. The weather was so pleasant that the girls sat out of doors, +upon the ground, in long rows. The sun looked down upon them with a +merry face. Each of the little workers had a big earthen pan, and +peeled incessantly the apples which the boys brought them. When the +pans were full, they were carried away and others were brought. They +had also to carry away the peels, or the girls would have been buried +in them. Never was there such a peeling before.</p> + +<p>Not far away, the children were stoning the plums, cherries, and +peaches. This work, being the easiest, was given to the youngest and +most inexperienced hands, which were all first carefully washed, for +Mother Mitchel, though not very particular about her own toilet, was +very neat in her cooking. The schoolhouse, long unused (for in the +country of the Greedy they had forgotten everything), was arranged for +this second class of workers, and the cat was their inspector. He +walked round and round, growling if he saw the fruit popping into any +of the little mouths. If they had dared, how they would have pelted +him with plum stones! But no one risked it. Fanfreluche was not to be +trifled with.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> + +<p>In those days powdered sugar had not been invented, and to grate it +all was no small affair. It was the work that the grocers used to +dislike the most; both lungs and arms were soon tired. But Mother +Mitchel was there to sustain them with her unequalled energy. She +chose the labourers from the most robust of the boys. With mallet and +knife she broke the cones into round pieces, and they grated them till +they were too small to hold. The bits were put into baskets to be +pounded. One would never have expected to find all the thousand pounds +of sugar again. But a new miracle was wrought by Mother Mitchel. It +was all there!</p> + +<p>It was then the turn of the ambitious scullions to enter the lists and +break the seven thousand eggs for Mother Mitchel. It was not hard to +break them—any fool could do that; but to separate adroitly the yolks +and the whites demands some talent, and, above all, great care. We +dare not say that there were no accidents here, no eggs too well +scrambled, no baskets upset. But the experience of Mother Mitchel had +counted upon such things, and it may truly be said that there were +never so many eggs broken at once, or ever could be again. To make an +omelette of them would have taken a saucepan as large as a skating +pond, and the fattest cook that ever lived could not hold the handle +of such a saucepan.</p> + +<p>But this was not all. Now that the yolks and whites were once divided, +they must each be beaten separately in wooden bowls, to give them the +necessary lightness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> The egg beaters were marshalled into two +brigades, the yellow and the white. Every one preferred the white, for +it was much more amusing to make those snowy masses that rose up so +high than to beat the yolks, which knew no better than to mix together +like so much sauce. Mother Mitchel, with her usual wisdom, had avoided +this difficulty by casting lots. Thus, those who were not on the white +side had no reason to complain of oppression. And truly, when all was +done, the whites and the yellows were equally tired. All had cramps in +their hands.</p> + +<p>Now began the real labour of Mother Mitchel. Till now she had been the +commander-in-chief—the head only; now she put her own finger in the +pie. First, she had to make sweetmeats and jam out of all the immense +quantity of fruit she had stored. For this, as she could only do one +kind at a time, she had ten kettles, each as big as a dinner table. +During forty-eight hours the cooking went on; a dozen scullions blew +the fire and put on the fuel. Mother Mitchel, with a spoon that four +modern cooks could hardly lift, never ceased stirring and trying the +boiling fruit. Three expert tasters, chosen from the most dainty, had +orders to report progress every half hour.</p> + +<p>It is unnecessary to state that all the sweetmeats were perfectly +successful, or that they were of exquisite consistency, colour, and +perfume. With Mother Mitchel there was no such word as <i>fail</i>. When +each kind of sweetmeat was finished, she skimmed it, and put it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> away +to cool in enormous bowls before potting. She did not use for this the +usual little glass or earthen jars, but great stone ones, like those +in the "Forty Thieves." Not only did these take less time to fill, but +they were safe from the children. The scum and the scrapings were +something, to be sure. But there was little Toto, who thought this was +not enough. He would have jumped into one of the bowls if they had not +held him.</p> + +<p>Mother Mitchel, who thought of everything, had ordered two hundred +great kneading troughs, wishing that all the utensils of this great +work should be perfectly new. These two hundred troughs, like her +other materials, were all delivered punctually and in good order. The +pastry cooks rolled up their sleeves and began to knead the dough with +cries of "Hi! Hi!" that could be heard for miles. It was odd to see +this army of bakers in serried ranks, all making the same gestures at +once, like well-disciplined soldiers, stooping and rising together in +time, so that a foreign ambassador wrote to his court that he wished +his people could load and fire as well as these could knead. Such +praise a people never forgets.</p> + +<p>When each troughful of paste was approved it was moulded with care +into the form of bricks, and with the aid of the engineer-in-chief, a +young genius who had gained the first prize in the school of +architecture, the majestic edifice was begun. Mother Mitchel herself +drew the plan; in following her directions, the young engineer showed +himself modest beyond all praise. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> had the good sense to understand +that the architecture of tarts and pies had rules of its own, and that +therefore the experience of Mother Mitchel was worth all the +scientific theories in the world.</p> + +<p>The inside of the monument was divided into as many compartments as +there were kinds of fruits. The walls were no less than four feet +thick. When they were finished, twenty-four ladders were set up, and +twenty-four experienced cooks ascended them. These first-class artists +were each of them armed with an enormous cooking spoon. Behind them, +on the lower rounds of the ladders, followed the kitchen boys, +carrying on their heads pots and pans filled to the brim with jam and +sweetmeats, each sort ready to be poured into its destined +compartment. This colossal labour was accomplished in one day, and +with wonderful exactness.</p> + +<p>When the sweetmeats were used to the last drop, when the great spoons +had done all their work, the twenty-four cooks descended to earth +again. The intrepid Mother Mitchel, who had never quitted the spot, +now ascended, followed by the noble Fanfreluche, and dipped her finger +into each of the compartments, to assure herself that everything was +right. This part of her duty was not disagreeable, and many of the +scullions would have liked to perform it. But they might have lingered +too long over the enchanting task. As for Mother Mitchel, she had been +too well used to sweets to be excited now. She only wished to do her +duty and to insure success.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<p>All went on well. Mother Mitchel had given her approbation. Nothing +was needed now but to crown the sublime and delicious edifice by +placing upon it the crust—that is, the roof, or dome. This delicate +operation was confided to the engineer-in-chief who now showed his +superior genius. The dome, made beforehand of a single piece, was +raised in the air by means of twelve balloons, whose force of +ascension had been carefully calculated. First it was directed, by +ropes, exactly over the top of the tart; then at the word of command +it gently descended upon the right spot. It was not a quarter of an +inch out of place. This was a great triumph for Mother Mitchel and her +able assistant.</p> + +<p>But all was not over. How should this colossal tart be cooked? That +was the question that agitated all the people of the Greedy country, +who came in crowds—lords and commons—to gaze at the wonderful +spectacle.</p> + +<p>Some of the envious or ill-tempered declared it would be impossible to +cook the edifice which Mother Mitchel had built; and the doctors were, +no one knows why, the saddest of all. Mother Mitchel, smiling at the +general bewilderment, mounted the summit of the tart; she waved her +crutch in the air, and while her cat miaowed in his sweetest voice, +suddenly there issued from the woods a vast number of masons, drawing +wagons of well-baked bricks, which they had prepared in secret. This +sight silenced the ill-wishers and filled the hearts of the Greedy +with hope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>In two days an enormous furnace was built around and above the +colossal tart, which found itself shut up in an immense earthen pot. +Thirty huge mouths, which were connected with thousands of winding +pipes for conducting heat all over the building, were soon choked with +fuel, by the help of two hundred charcoal burners, who, obeying a +private signal, came forth in long array from the forest, each +carrying his sack of coal. Behind them stood Mother Mitchel with a box +of matches, ready to fire each oven as it was filled. Of course the +kindlings had not been forgotten, and was all soon in a blaze.</p> + +<p>When the fire was lighted in the thirty ovens, when they saw the +clouds of smoke rolling above the dome, that announced that the +cooking had begun, the joy of the people was boundless. Poets +improvised odes, and musicians sung verses without end, in honour of +the superb prince who had been inspired to feed his people in so +dainty a manner, when other rulers could not give them enough even of +dry bread. The names of Mother Mitchel and of the illustrious engineer +were not forgotten in this great glorification. Next to His Majesty, +they were certainly the first of mankind, and their names were worthy +of going down with his to the remotest posterity.</p> + +<p>All the envious ones were thunderstruck. They tried to console +themselves by saying that the work was not yet finished, and that an +accident might happen at the last moment. But they did not really +believe a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> word of this. Notwithstanding all their efforts to look +cheerful, it had to be acknowledged that the cooking was possible. +Their last resource was to declare the tart a bad one, but that would +be biting off their own noses. As for declining to eat it, envy could +never go so far as that in the country of the Greedy.</p> + +<p>After two days, the unerring nose of Mother Mitchel discovered that +the tart was cooked to perfection. The whole country was perfumed with +its delicious aroma. Nothing more remained but to take down the +furnaces. Mother Mitchel made her official announcement to His +Majesty, who was delighted, and complimented her upon her punctuality. +One day was still wanting to complete the month. During this time the +people gave their eager help to the engineer in the demolition, +wishing to have a hand in the great national work and to hasten the +blessed moment. In the twinkling of an eye the thing was done. The +bricks were taken down one by one, counted carefully, and carried into +the forest again, to serve for another occasion.</p> + +<p>The TART, unveiled, appeared at last in all its majesty and splendour. +The dome was gilded, and reflected the rays of the sun in the most +dazzling manner. The wildest excitement and rapture ran through the +land of the Greedy. Each one sniffed with open nostrils the appetizing +perfume. Their mouths watered, their eyes filled with tears, they +embraced, pressed each other's hands, and indulged in touching +pantomimes. Then the people of town and country, united by one +rapturous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> feeling, joined hands, and danced in a ring around the +grand confection.</p> + +<p>No one dared to touch the tart before the arrival of His Majesty. +Meanwhile, something must be done to allay the universal impatience, +and they resolved to show Mother Mitchel the gratitude with which all +hearts were filled. She was crowned with the laurel of <i>conquerors</i>, +which is also the laurel of <i>sauce</i>, thus serving a double purpose. +Then they placed her, with her crutch and her cat, upon a sort of +throne, and carried her all round her vast work. Before her marched +all the musicians of the town, dancing, drumming, fifing, and tooting +upon all instruments, while behind her pressed an enthusiastic crowd, +who rent the air with their plaudits and filled it with a shower of +caps. Her fame was complete, and a noble pride shone on her +countenance.</p> + +<p>The royal procession arrived. A grand stairway had been built, so that +the King and his ministers could mount to the summit of this +monumental tart. Thence the King, amid a deep silence, thus addressed +his people:</p> + +<p>"My children," said he, "you adore tarts. You despise all other food. +If you could, you would even eat tarts in your sleep. Very well. Eat +as much as you like. Here is one big enough to satisfy you. But know +this, that while there remains a single crumb of this august tart, +from the height of which I am proud to look down on you, all other +food is forbidden you on pain of death. While you are here, I have +ordered all the pan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>tries to be emptied, and all the butchers, bakers, +pork and milk dealers, and fishmongers to shut up their shops. Why +leave them open? Why indeed? Have you not here at discretion what you +love best, and enough to last you ever, <i>ever</i> so long? Devote +yourselves to it with all your hearts. I do not wish you to be bored +with the sight of any other food.</p> + +<p>"Greedy ones! behold your TART!"</p> + +<p>What enthusiastic applause, what frantic hurrahs rent the air, in +answer to this eloquent speech from the throne!</p> + +<p>"Long live the King, Mother Mitchel, and her cat! Long live the tart! +Down with soup! Down with bread! To the bottom of the sea with all +beefsteaks, mutton chops, and roasts!"</p> + +<p>Such cries came from every lip. Old men gently stroked their chops, +children patted their little stomachs, the crowd licked its thousand +lips with eager joy. Even the babies danced in their nurses' arms, so +precocious was the passion for tarts in this singular country. Grave +professors, skipping like kids, declaimed Latin verses in honour of +His Majesty and Mother Mitchel, and the shyest young girls opened +their mouths like the beaks of little birds. As for the doctors, they +felt a joy beyond expression. They had reflected. They understood. +But—my friends!—</p> + +<p>At last the signal was given. A detachment of the engineer corps +arrived, armed with pick and cutlass, and marched in good order to the +assault. A breach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> was soon opened, and the distribution began. The +King smiled at the opening in the tart; though vast, it hardly showed +more than a mouse hole in the monstrous wall.</p> + +<p>The King stroked his beard grandly. "All goes well," said he, "for him +who knows how to wait."</p> + +<p>Who can tell how long the feast would have lasted if the King had not +given his command that it should cease? Once more they expressed their +gratitude with cries so stifled that they resembled grunts, and then +rushed to the river. Never had a nation been so besmeared. Some were +daubed to the eyes, others had their ears and hair all sticky. As for +the little ones, they were marmalade from head to foot. When they had +finished their toilets, the river ran all red and yellow and was +sweetened for several hours, to the great surprise of all the fishes.</p> + +<p>Before returning home, the people presented themselves before the King +to receive his commands.</p> + +<p>"Children!" said he, "the feast will begin again exactly at six +o'clock. Give time to wash the dishes and change the tablecloths, and +you may once more give yourselves over to pleasure. You shall feast +twice a day as long as the tart lasts. Do not forget. Yes! if there is +not enough in this one, I will even order ANOTHER from Mother Mitchel; +for you know that great woman is indefatigable. Your happiness is my +only aim." (Marks of universal joy and emotion.) "You understand? +Noon, and six o'clock! There is no need for me to say be punctual! Go, +then, my children—be happy!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> + +<p>The second feast was as gay as the first, and as long. A pleasant walk +in the suburbs—first exercise—then a nap, had refreshed their +appetites and unlimbered their jaws. But the King fancied that the +breach made in the tart was a little smaller than that of the morning.</p> + +<p>"'Tis well!" said he, "'tis well! Wait till to-morrow, my friends; +yes, till day after to-morrow, and <i>next week</i>!"</p> + +<p>The next day the feast still went on gayly; yet at the evening meal +the King noticed some empty seats.</p> + +<p>"Why is this?" said he, with pretended indifference, to the court +physician.</p> + +<p>"Your Majesty," said the great Olibriers, "a few weak stomachs; that +is all."</p> + +<p>On the next day there were larger empty spaces. The enthusiasm visibly +abated. The eighth day the crowd had diminished one half; the ninth, +three quarters; the tenth day, of the thousand who came at first, only +two hundred remained; on the eleventh day only one hundred; and on the +twelfth—alas! who would have thought it?—a single one answered to +the call. Truly he was big enough. His body resembled a hogshead, his +mouth an oven, and his lips—we dare not say what. He was known in the +town by the name of Patapouf. They dug out a fresh lump for him from +the middle of the tart. It quickly vanished in his vast interior, and +he retired with great dignity, proud to maintain the honour of his +name and the glory of the Greedy Kingdom.</p> + +<p>But the next day, even he, the very last, appeared no more. The +unfortunate Patapouf had succumbed, and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> like all the other +inhabitants of the country, was in a very bad way. In short, it was +soon known that the whole town had suffered agonies that night from +too much tart. Let us draw a veil over those hours of torture. Mother +Mitchel was in despair. Those ministers who had not guessed the secret +dared not open their lips. All the city was one vast hospital. No one +was seen in the streets but doctors and apothecaries' boys, running +from house to house in frantic haste. It was dreadful! Doctor +Olibriers was nearly knocked out. As for the King, he held his tongue +and shut himself up in his palace, but a secret joy shone in his eyes, +to the wonder of every one. He waited three days without a word.</p> + +<p>The third day, the King said to his ministers:</p> + +<p>"Let us go now and see how my poor people are doing, and feel their +pulse a little."</p> + +<p>The good King went to every house, without forgetting a single one. He +visited small and great, rich and poor.</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh! Your Majesty," said all, "the tart was good, but may we never +see it again! Plague on that tart! Better were dry bread. Your +Majesty, for mercy's sake, a little dry bread! Oh, a morsel of dry +bread, how good it would be!"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed," replied the King. "<i>There is more of that tart!</i>"</p> + +<p>"What! Your Majesty, <i>must</i> we eat it all?"</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i>!" sternly replied the King; "you <i>MUST</i>!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> By the immortal +beefsteaks! not one of you shall have a slice of bread, and not a loaf +shall be baked in the kingdom while there remains a crumb of that +excellent tart!"</p> + +<p>"What misery!" thought these poor people. "That tart forever!"</p> + +<p>The sufferers were in despair. There was only one cry through all the +town: "Ow! ow! ow!" For even the strongest and most courageous were in +horrible agonies. They twisted, they writhed, they lay down, they got +up. Always the inexorable colic. The dogs were not happier than their +masters; even they had too much tart.</p> + +<p>The spiteful tart looked in at all the windows. Built upon a height, +it commanded the town. The mere sight of it made everybody ill, and +its former admirers had nothing but curses for it now. Unhappily, +nothing they could say or do made it any smaller; still formidable, it +was a frightful joke for those miserable mortals. Most of them buried +their heads in their pillows, drew their nightcaps over their eyes, +and lay in bed all day to shut out the sight of it. But this would not +do; they knew, they felt it was there. It was a nightmare, a horrible +burden, a torturing anxiety.</p> + +<p>In the midst of this terrible consternation the King remained +inexorable during eight days. His heart bled for his people, but the +lesson must sink deep if it were to bear fruit in future. When their +pains were cured, little by little, through fasting alone, and his +subjects pronounced these trembling words, "We are hungry!" the King +sent them trays laden with—the inevitable tart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried they, with anguish, "the tart again! Always the tart, and +nothing but the tart! Better were death!"</p> + +<p>A few, who were almost famished, shut their eyes, and tried to eat a +bit of the detested food; but it was all in vain—they could not +swallow a mouthful.</p> + +<p>At length came the happy day when the King, thinking their punishment +had been severe enough and could never be forgotten, believed them at +length cured of their greediness. That day he ordered Mother Mitchel +to make in one of her colossal pots a super-excellent soup of which a +bowl was sent to every family. They received it with as much rapture +as the Hebrews did the manna in the desert. They would gladly have had +twice as much, but after their long fast it would not have been +prudent. It was a proof that they had learned something already, that +they understood this.</p> + +<p>The next day, more soup. This time the King allowed slices of bread in +it. How this good soup comforted all the town! The next day there was +a little more bread in it and a little soup meat. Then for a few days +the kind Prince gave them roast beef and vegetables. The cure was +complete.</p> + +<p>The joy over this new diet was as great as ever had been felt for the +tart. It promised to last longer. They were sure to sleep soundly, and +to wake refreshed. It was pleasant to see in every house tables +surrounded with happy, rosy faces, and laden with good nourishing +food.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Greedy people never fell back into their old ways. Their once +puffed-out, sallow faces shone with health; they became, not fat, but +muscular, ruddy, and solid. The butchers and bakers reopened their +shops; the pastry cooks and confectioners shut theirs. The country of +the Greedy was turned upside down, and if it kept its name, it was +only from habit. As for the tart, it was forgotten. To-day, in that +marvellous country, there cannot be found a paper of sugarplums or a +basket of cakes. It is charming to see the red lips and the beautiful +teeth of the people. If they have still a king, he may well be proud +to be their ruler.</p> + +<p>Does this story teach that tarts and pies should never be eaten? No; +but there is reason in all things.</p> + +<p>The doctors alone did not profit by this great revolution. They could +not afford to drink wine any longer in a land where indigestion had +become unknown. The apothecaries were no less unhappy, spiders spun +webs over their windows, and their horrible remedies were no longer of +use.</p> + +<p>Ask no more about Mother Mitchel. She was ridiculed without measure by +those who had adored her. To complete her misfortune, she lost her +cat. Alas for Mother Mitchel!</p> + +<p>The King received the reward of his wisdom. His grateful people called +him neither Charles the Bold, nor Peter the Terrible, nor Louis the +Great, but always by the noble name of Prosper I, the Reasonable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THANKFUL" id="THANKFUL"></a>THANKFUL<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This tale is evidence that Mrs. Freeman understands the +children of New England as well as she knows their parents. +There is a doll in the story, but boys will not mind this as +there are also two turkey-gobblers and a pewter dish full of +Revolutionary bullets.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_06.jpg" alt="S" width="32" height="50" /></div> +<p>ubmit Thompson sat on the stone wall; Sarah Adams, an erect, prim +little figure, ankle-deep in dry grass, stood beside it, holding +Thankful. Thankful was about ten inches long, made of the finest +linen, with little rosy cheeks, and a fine little wig of flax. She +wore a blue wool frock and a red cloak. Sarah held her close. She even +drew a fold of her own blue homespun blanket around her to shield her +from the November wind. The sky was low and gray; the wind blew from +the northeast, and had the breath of snow in it. Submit on the wall +drew her quilted petticoats close down over her feet, and huddled +herself into a small space, but her face gleamed keen and resolute out +of the depths of a great red hood that belonged to her mother. Her +eyes were fixed upon a turkey-gobbler ruffling and bobbing around the +back door of the Adams house. The two gambrel-roofed Thompson <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>and +Adams houses were built as close together as if the little village of +Bridgewater were a city. Acres of land stretched behind them and at +the other sides, but they stood close to the road, and close to each +other. The narrow space between them was divided by a stone wall which +was Submit's and Sarah's trysting-place. They met there every day and +exchanged confidences. They loved each other like sisters—neither of +them had an own sister—but to-day a spirit of rivalry had arisen.</p> + + + +<p>The tough dry blackberry vines on the wall twisted around Submit; she +looked, with her circle of red petticoat, like some strange late +flower blooming out on the wall. "I know he don't, Sarah Adams," said +she.</p> + +<p>"Father said he'd weigh twenty pounds," returned Sarah, in a small, +weak voice, which still had persistency in it.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he will. Our Thanksgiving turkey is twice as big. You +know he is, Sarah Adams."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't, Submit Thompson."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do."</p> + +<p>Sarah lowered her chin, and shook her head with a decision that was +beyond words. She was a thin, delicate-looking little girl, her small +blue-clad figure bent before the wind, but there was resolution in her +high forehead and her sharp chin.</p> + +<p>Submit nodded violently.</p> + +<p>Sarah shook her head again. She hugged Thankful, and shook her head, +with her eyes still staring defiantly into Submit's hood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> + +<p>Submit's black eyes in the depths of it were like two sparks. She +nodded vehemently; the gesture was not enough for her; she nodded and +spoke together. "Sarah Adams," said she, "what will you give me if our +turkey is bigger than your turkey?"</p> + +<p>"It ain't."</p> + +<p>"What will you give me if it is?"</p> + +<p>Sarah stared at Submit. "I don't know what you mean, Submit Thompson," +said she, with a stately and puzzled air.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you. If your turkey weighs more than ours I'll give +you—I'll give you my little work-box with the picture on the top, and +if our turkey weighs more than yours you give me—What will you give +me, Sarah Adams?"</p> + +<p>Sarah hung her flaxen head with a troubled air. "I don't know," said +she. "I don't believe I've got anything mother would be willing to +have me give away."</p> + +<p>"There's Thankful. Your mother wouldn't care if you gave her away."</p> + +<p>Sarah started, and hugged Thankful closer. "Yes, my mother would care, +too," said she. "Don't you know my Aunt Rose from Boston made her and +gave her to me?"</p> + +<p>Sarah's beautiful young Aunt Rose from Boston was the special +admiration of both the little girls. Submit was ordinarily impressed +by her name, but now she took it coolly.</p> + +<p>"What if she did?" she returned. "She can make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> another. It's just +made out of a piece of old linen, anyhow. My work-box is real +handsome; but you can do just as you are a mind to."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean I can have the work-box to keep?" inquired Sarah.</p> + +<p>"Course I do, if your turkey's bigger."</p> + +<p>Sarah hesitated. "Our turkey is bigger anyhow," she murmured. "Don't +you think I ought to ask mother, Submit?" she inquired suddenly.</p> + +<p>"No! What for? I don't see anything to ask your mother for. She won't +care anything about that rag doll."</p> + +<p>"Ain't you going to ask your mother about the work-box?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Submit stoutly. "It's mine; my grandmother gave it to +me."</p> + +<p>Sarah reflected. "I <i>know</i> our turkey is the biggest," she said, +looking lovingly at Thankful, as if to justify herself to her. "Well, +I don't care," she added, finally.</p> + +<p>"Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When's yours going to be killed?"</p> + +<p>"This afternoon."</p> + +<p>"So's ours. Then we'll find out."</p> + +<p>Sarah tucked Thankful closer under her shawl. "I know our turkey is +biggest," said she. She looked very sober, although her voice was +defiant. Just then the great turkey came swinging through the yard. He +held up his head proudly and gobbled. His every feather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> stood out in +the wind. He seemed enormous—a perfect giant among turkeys. "<i>Look</i> +at him!" said Sarah, edging a little closer to the wall; she was +rather afraid of him.</p> + +<p>"He ain't half so big as ours," returned Submit, stoutly; but her +heart sank. The Thompson turkey did look very large.</p> + +<p>"Submit! Submit!" called a voice from the Thompson house.</p> + +<p>Submit slowly got down from the wall. "His feathers are a good deal +thicker than ours," she said, defiantly, to Sarah.</p> + +<p>"Submit," called the voice, "come right home! I want you to pare +apples for the pies. Be quick!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, marm," Submit answered back, in a shrill voice; "I'm coming!" +Then she went across the yard and into the kitchen door of the +Thompson house, like a red robin into a nest. Submit had been taught +to obey her mother promptly. Mrs. Thompson was a decided woman.</p> + +<p>Sarah looked after Submit, then she gathered Thankful closer, and also +went into the house. Her mother, as well as Mrs. Thompson, was +preparing for Thanksgiving. The great kitchen was all of a pleasant +litter with pie plates and cake pans and mixing bowls, and full of +warm, spicy odours. The oven in the chimney was all heated and ready +for a batch of apple and pumpkin pies. Mrs. Adams was busy sliding +them in, but she stopped to look at Sarah and Thankful. Sarah was her +only child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, what makes you look so sober?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," replied Sarah. She had taken off her blanket, and sat in +one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs, holding Thankful.</p> + +<p>"You look dreadful sober," said her mother. "Are you tired?"</p> + +<p>"No, marm."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you've got cold standing out there in the wind. Do you +feel chilly?"</p> + +<p>"No, marm. Mother, how much do you suppose our turkey weighs?"</p> + +<p>"I believe father said he'd weigh about twenty pounds. You are sure +you don't feel chilly?"</p> + +<p>"No, marm. Mother, do you suppose our turkey weighs more than +Submit's?"</p> + +<p>"How do you suppose I can tell? I ain't set eyes on their turkey +lately. If you feel well, you'd better sit up to the table and stone +that bowl of raisins. Put your dolly away, and get your apron."</p> + +<p>But Sarah stoned raisins with Thankful in her lap, hidden under her +apron. She was so full of anxiety that she could not bear to put her +away. Suppose the Thompson turkey should be larger, and she should +lose Thankful—Thankful that her beautiful Aunt Rose had made for her?</p> + +<p>Submit, over in the Thompson house, had sat down at once to her apple +paring. She had not gone into the best room to look at the work-box +whose possession she had hazarded. It stood in there on the table, +made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> of yellow satiny wood, with a sliding lid ornamented with a +beautiful little picture. Submit had a certain pride in it, but her +fear of losing it was not equal to her hope of possessing Thankful. +Submit had never had a doll, except a few plebeian ones, manufactured +secretly out of corncobs, whom it took more imagination than she +possessed to admire.</p> + +<p>Gradually all emulation over the turkeys was lost in the naughty +covetousness of her little friend and neighbour's doll. Submit felt +shocked and guilty, but she sat there paring the Baldwin apples, and +thinking to herself: "If our turkey is only bigger, if it only is, +then—I shall have Thankful." Her mouth was pursed up and her eyes +snapped. She did not talk at all, but pared very fast.</p> + +<p>Her mother looked at her. "If you don't take care, you'll cut your +fingers," said she. "You are in too much of a hurry. I suppose you +want to get out and gossip with Sarah again at the wall, but I can't +let you waste any more time to-day. There, I told you you would!"</p> + +<p>Submit had cut her thumb quite severely. She choked a little when her +mother tied it up, and put on some balm of Gilead, which made it smart +worse.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry!" said her mother. "You'll have to bear more than a cut +thumb if you live."</p> + +<p class="center"><a href="images/image_03.jpg"> +<img src="images/image_03.jpg" +alt=""How much do you suppose our turkey weighs?"" width="600" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">"How much do you suppose our turkey weighs?"</span></p> + +<p>And Submit did not let the tears fall. She came from a brave race. Her +great-grandfather had fought in the Revolution; his sword and +regimentals were packed in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>the fine carved chest in the best room. +Over the kitchen shelf hung an old musket with which her +great-grandmother, guarding her home and children, had shot an Indian. +In a little closet beside the chimney was an old pewter dish full of +homemade Revolutionary bullets, which Submit and her brothers had for +playthings. A little girl who played with Revolutionary bullets ought +not to cry over a cut thumb.</p> + +<p>Submit finished paring the apples after her thumb was tied up, +although she was rather awkward about it. Then she pounded spices in +the mortar, and picked over cranberries. Her mother kept her busy +every minute until dinnertime. When Submit's father and her two +brothers, Thomas and Jonas, had come in, she began on the subject +nearest her heart.</p> + +<p>"Father," said she, "how much do you think our Thanksgiving turkey +will weigh?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson was a deliberate man. He looked at her a minute before +replying. "Seventeen or eighteen pounds," replied he.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Father! don't you think he will weigh twenty?" Mr. Thompson shook +his head.</p> + +<p>"He don't begin to weigh so much as the Adams' turkey," said Jonas. +"Their turkey weighs twenty pounds."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Thomas! do you think their turkey weighs more than ours?" cried +Submit.</p> + +<p>Thomas was her elder brother; he had a sober, judicial air like his +father. "Their turkey weighs considerable more than ours," said he.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> + +<p>Submit's face fell.</p> + +<p>"You are not showing a right spirit," said her mother, severely. "Why +should you care if the Adams' turkey does weigh more? I am ashamed of +you!"</p> + +<p>Submit said no more. She ate her dinner soberly. Afterward she wiped +dishes while her mother washed. All the time she was listening. Her +father and brothers had gone out; presently she started. "Oh, Mother, +they're killing the turkey!" said she.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't stop while the dishes are hot, if they are," returned her +mother.</p> + +<p>Submit wiped obediently, but as soon as the dishes were set away, she +stole out in the barn where her father and brothers were picking the +turkey.</p> + +<p>"Father, when are you going to weigh him?" she asked timidly.</p> + +<p>"Not till to-night," said her father.</p> + +<p>"Submit!" called her mother.</p> + +<p>Submit went in and swept the kitchen floor. It was an hour after that, +when her mother was in the south room, getting it ready for her +grandparents, who were coming home to Thanksgiving—they had been on a +visit to their youngest son—that Submit crept slyly into the pantry. +The turkey lay there on the broad shelf before the window. Submit +looked at him. She thought he was small. "He was 'most all feathers," +she whispered, ruefully. She stood looking disconsolately at the +turkey. Suddenly her eyes flashed and a red flush came over her face. +It was as if Satan, com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>ing into that godly new England home three +days before Thanksgiving, had whispered in her ear.</p> + +<p>Presently Submit stole softly back into the kitchen, set a chair +before the chimney cupboard, climbed up, and got the pewter dish full +of Revolutionary bullets. Then she stole back to the pantry and +emptied the bullets into the turkey's crop. Then she got a needle and +thread from her mother's basket, sewed up the crop carefully, and set +the empty dish back in the cupboard. She had just stepped down out of +the chair when her brother Jonas came in.</p> + +<p>"Submit," said he, "let's have one game of odd or even with the +bullets."</p> + +<p>"I am too busy," said Submit. "I've got to spin my stint."</p> + +<p>"Just one game. Mother won't care."</p> + +<p>"No; I can't."</p> + +<p>Submit flew to her spinning wheel in the corner. Jonas, still +remonstrating, strolled into the pantry.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe mother wants you in there," Submit said anxiously.</p> + +<p>"See here, Submit," Jonas called out in an eager voice, "I'll get the +steelyards, and we'll weigh the turkey. We can do it as well as +anybody."</p> + +<p>Submit left her spinning wheel. She was quite pale with trepidation +when Jonas and she adjusted the turkey in the steelyards. What if +those bullets should rattle out? But they did not.</p> + +<p>"He weighs twenty pounds and a quarter," announced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> Jonas, with a +gasp, after peering anxiously at the figures. "He's the biggest turkey +that was ever raised in these parts."</p> + +<p>Jonas exulted a great deal, but Submit did not say much. As soon as +Jonas had laid the turkey back on the shelf and gone out, she watched +her chance and removed the bullets, replacing them in the pewter dish.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Thompson and Thomas came home at twilight there was a deal of +talk over the turkey.</p> + +<p>"The Adams' turkey doesn't weigh but nineteen pounds," Jonas +announced. "Sarah was out there when they weighed him, and she 'most +cried."</p> + +<p>"I think Sarah and Submit and all of you are very foolish about it," +said Mrs. Thompson severely. "What difference does it make if one +weighs a pound or two more than the other, if there is enough to go +round?"</p> + +<p>"Submit looks as if she was sorry ours weighed the most now," said +Jonas.</p> + +<p>"My thumb aches," said Submit.</p> + +<p>"Go and get the balm of Gilead bottle, and put some more on," ordered +her mother.</p> + +<p>That night when she went to bed she could not say her prayers. When +she woke in the morning it was with a strange, terrified feeling, as +if she had climbed a wall into some unknown dreadful land. She +wondered if Sarah would bring Thankful over; she dreaded to see her +coming, but she did not come. Submit herself did not stir out of the +house all that day or the next, and Sarah did not bring Thankful until +next morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were all out in the kitchen about an hour before dinner. +Grandfather Thompson sat in his old armchair at one corner of the +fireplace, Grandmother Thompson was knitting, and Jonas and Submit +were cracking butternuts. Submit was a little happier this morning. +She thought Sarah would never bring Thankful, and so she had not done +so much harm by cheating in the weight of the turkey.</p> + +<p>There was a tug at the latch of the kitchen door; it was pushed open +slowly and painfully, and Sarah entered with Thankful in her arms. She +said not a word to anybody, but her little face was full of woe. She +went straight to Submit, and laid Thankful in her lap; then she turned +and fled with a great sob. The door slammed after her. All the +Thompsons stopped and looked at Submit.</p> + +<p>"Submit, what does this mean?" her father asked.</p> + +<p>Submit looked at him, trembling.</p> + +<p>"Speak," said he.</p> + +<p>"Submit, mind your father," said Mrs. Thompson.</p> + +<p>"What did she bring you the doll baby for?" asked Grandmother +Thompson.</p> + +<p>"Sarah—was going to give me Thankful if—our turkey weighed most, and +I was going to—give her my work-box if hers weighed most," said +Submit jerkily. Her lips felt stiff.</p> + +<p>Her father looked very sober and stern. He turned to his father. When +Grandfather Thompson was at home, every one deferred to him. Even at +eighty he was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> recognized head of the house. He was a wonderful +old man, tall and soldierly, and full of a grave dignity. He looked at +Submit, and she shrank.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said he, "that you have been conducting yourself like +unto the brawlers in the taverns and ale-houses?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," murmured Submit, although she did not know what he meant.</p> + +<p>"No godly maid who heeds her elders will take part in any such foolish +and sinful wager," her grandfather continued.</p> + +<p>Submit arose, hugging Thankful convulsively. She glanced wildly at her +great-grandmother's musket over the shelf. The same spirit that had +aimed it at the Indian possessed her, and she spoke out quite clearly: +"Our turkey didn't weigh the most," said she. "I put the Revolutionary +bullets in his crop."</p> + +<p>There was silence. Submit's heart beat so hard that Thankful quivered.</p> + +<p>"Go upstairs to your chamber, Submit," said her mother, "and you need +not come down to dinner. Jonas, take that doll and carry it over to +the Adams' house."</p> + +<p>Submit crept miserably out of the room, and Jonas carried Thankful +across the yard to Sarah.</p> + +<p>Submit crouched beside her little square window set with tiny panes of +glass, and watched him. She did not cry. She was very miserable, but +confession had awakened a salutary smart in her soul, like the balm +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> Gilead on her cut thumb. She was not so unhappy as she had been. +She wondered if her father would whip her, and she made up her mind +not to cry if he did.</p> + +<p>After Jonas came back she still crouched at the window. Exactly +opposite in the Adams' house was another little square window, and +that lighted Sarah's chamber. All of a sudden Sarah's face appeared +there. The two little girls stared pitifully at each other. Presently +Sarah raised her window, and put a stick under it; then Submit did the +same. They put their faces out, and looked at each other a minute +before speaking. Sarah's face was streaming with tears.</p> + +<p>"What you crying for?" called Submit softly.</p> + +<p>"Father sent me up here 'cause it is sinful to—make bets, and Aunt +Rose has come, and I can't have any—Thanksgiving dinner," wailed +Sarah.</p> + +<p>"I'm wickeder than you," said Submit. "I put the Revolutionary bullets +in the turkey to make it weigh more than yours. Yours weighed the +most. If mother thinks it's right, I'll give you the work-box."</p> + +<p>"I don't—want it," sobbed Sarah. "I'm dreadful sorry you've got to +stay up there, and can't have any dinner, Submit."</p> + +<p>Answering tears sprang to Submit's eyes. "I'm dreadful sorry you've +got to stay up there, and can't have any dinner," she sobbed back.</p> + +<p>There was a touch on her shoulder. She looked around and there stood +the grandmother. She was trying to look severe, but she was beaming +kindly on her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> Her fat, fair old face was as gentle as the mercy that +tempers justice; her horn spectacles and her knitting needles and the +gold beads on her neck all shone in the sunlight.</p> + +<p>"You had better come downstairs, child," said she. "Dinner's 'most +ready, and mebbe you can help your mother. Your father isn't going to +whip you this time, because you told the truth about it, but you +mustn't ever do such a dreadful wicked thing again."</p> + +<p>"No, I won't," sobbed Submit. She looked across, and there beside +Sarah's face in the window was another beautiful smiling one. It had +pink cheeks and sweet black eyes and black curls, among which stood a +high tortoise-shell comb.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Submit!" Sarah called out, joyfully, "Aunt Rose says I can go +down to dinner!"</p> + +<p>"Grandmother says I can!" called back Submit.</p> + +<p>The beautiful smiling face opposite leaned close to Sarah's for a +minute.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Submit!" cried Sarah, "Aunt Rose says she will make you a doll +baby like Thankful, if your mother's willing!"</p> + +<p>"I guess she'll be willing if she's a good girl," called Grandmother +Thompson.</p> + +<p>Submit looked across a second in speechless radiance. Then the faces +vanished from the two little windows, and Submit and Sarah went down +to their Thanksgiving dinners.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> From <i>Harper's Young People</i>, November 25, 1890.</p></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BEETLE_RINGS_THANKSGIVING_MASCOT" id="BEETLE_RINGS_THANKSGIVING_MASCOT"></a>BEETLE RING'S THANKSGIVING MASCOT<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Sheldon C. Stoddard</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Beetle Ring had the reputation of being the toughest lumber +camp on the river. The boys were certainly rough, and rather +hard drinkers, but their hearts were in the right place, +after all.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_06.jpg" alt="S" width="32" height="50" /></div> +<p>ix months of idleness following a long run of fever, a lost position, +and consequent discouragement had brought poverty and wretchedness to +Joe Bennett.</p> + +<p>The lumber camp on the Featherstone, where he had been at work, had +broken up and gone, and an old shack, deserted by some hunter, and now +standing alone in the great woods, was the only home he could provide +for his little family. It had answered its purpose as a makeshift in +the warm weather, but now, in late November, and with the terrible +northern winter coming swiftly on, it was small wonder the young +lumberman had been discouraged as he tried to forecast the future.</p> + +<p>His strength had returned, however, and lately something of his old +courage, for he had found work. It was fifteen miles away, to be sure, +and in "Beetle Ring" lumber camp, the camp that bore the reputation of +being the roughest on the Featherstone, but it was work.</p> + + + +<p>He was earning something, and might hope soon to move his family into +a habitable house and civilization.</p> + +<p>But his position at Beetle Ring was not an enviable one. The men took +scant pains to conceal their dislike for the young fellow who +steadfastly refused to "chip in" when the camp jug was sent to the +Skylark, the nearest saloon, some miles down the river, and who +invariably declined to join in the camp's numerous sprees. But Bennett +worked on quietly.</p> + +<p>And in the meantime to the old shack in the woods the baby had +come—in the bleak November weather.</p> + +<p>Night was settling down over the woods. An old half-breed woman was +tending the fire in the one room of the shack, and on the wretched bed +lay a fair-faced woman, the young wife and mother, who looked +wistfully out at the bleak woods, white with the first snow, then +turned her wan, pale face toward the tiny bundle at her side.</p> + +<p>"Your pappy will come to-night, baby," she said, softly. "It's +Saturday, and your pappy will come to-night, sure." She drew the +covers more closely, and tucked them carefully about the small figure.</p> + +<p>"Mend the fire, Lisette, please. It's cold. And, Lisette, please watch +out down the road. Sometimes Joe comes early Saturdays."</p> + +<p>The old woman shook her head and muttered over the little pile of +wood, but she fed the fire, and then turned and looked down the long +white trail.</p> + +<p>"No Joe yet," she said, with a sympathetic glance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> toward the bed. She +looked at the thick gray clouds, and added, "Heap snow soon."</p> + +<p>But the night came down and the evening passed, while the women waited +anxiously. It was near midnight when the wife's face lighted up +suddenly at a sound outside, and directly there was a pounding, +uncertain step on the threshold. The door opened and Bennett came in +clumsily.</p> + +<p>The woman's little glad cry of welcome was changed to one of +apprehension at her husband's appearance. The resolute swing and +bearing of the lumberman—that had returned as he regained his +strength—were gone. He clumped across the room unsteadily on a pair +of rude crutches, his left foot swathed in bandages—a big, ungainly +bundle.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Joe?" the wife asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Just more of my precious luck, that's all, Nannie." He threw off the +old box coat and heavy cap, brushed the melting snow from his hair and +beard, and without waiting to warm his chilled hands at the fire, +hobbled to the bed and bent over the woman and the tiny bundle.</p> + +<p>"Are you all right, Nan?" he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"All right, Joe; but I've been so worried!"</p> + +<p>"And the baby, Nan?"</p> + +<p>The wife gently pushed back the covers and proudly brought to view a +tiny pink and puckered face. "Fine, Joe. She's just as fine, isn't +she?"</p> + +<p>A proud, happy light flickered for a moment in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> man's eyes as he +stooped to kiss the tiny face; then he shut his teeth hard and +swallowed suddenly.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Joe?" his wife asked, looking at the rudely bandaged +foot.</p> + +<p>"Cut it—nigh half off, and hurt the bone. It'll be weeks before I can +do a stroke of work again. It means—I don't know what, and I daren't +think what, Nannie. The cook sewed it up." He glowered at the injured +member savagely.</p> + +<p>His wife's face grew paler still, but she only asked tenderly, "How +did you ever get here, Joe?"</p> + +<p>"Rode one of Pose Breem's hosses—his red roan."</p> + +<p>"Fifteen miles on horseback with that foot? I should have thought it +would have killed you, Joe."</p> + +<p>"I had to come, Nan," said the lumberman. "I didn't know how you were +getting on, and I had to come."</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose they'd let you have a horse, any of 'em, now +sleighing's come."</p> + +<p>"They wouldn't—if I'd asked 'em. They don't seem to like me very +well, and I didn't ask."</p> + +<p>His wife's big, wistful eyes were turned upon him in quick alarm. "I'm +scared, Joe, if you took a horse without asking. What'll they think? +Where is it, Joe?"</p> + +<p>"Don't ye worry, Nan. I've sent the horse back by Pikepole Pete. He'll +have him back before morning—Pose won't miss him till then—and I +wrote a note explaining. Pose will be mad some, but he'll get over +it."</p> + +<p>The young lumberman listened uneasily to the storm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> which was +increasing, looked at his wife's pale face a moment, and added:</p> + +<p>"I had to come, Nan. I just had to."</p> + +<p>But the woman was only half reassured. "If anything should happen," +she said, "if he shouldn't get it back, they'd think you—you stole +it, and—"</p> + +<p>"There, there, Nan!" broke in her husband, "don't be crossing bridges. +Pete'll take the horse back. I've done the fellow lots of favours, and +he won't go back on me. Don't worry, girl!"</p> + +<p>He moved the bandaged foot and winced, but not from the pain of the +wound. The hard look grew deeper on his face. "I'm down on my luck, +Nan," he said, hopelessly. "There's no use trying. Everything's +against me, everything—following me like grim death. And grim death," +he jerked the words out harshly, "is like to be the end of it, here in +this old shack that's not fit to winter hogs in, let alone humans. +There's not wood enough cut to last a week. You'll freeze, Nan, you +and the baby, and I'm—just nothing."</p> + +<p>He took two silver dollars from his pocket, and said, almost savagely, +"There's what we've got to winter on, and me crippled."</p> + +<p>But his wife put her hand on his softly. "Don't you give up so, Joe," +she said. And presently she added: "Next Thursday's Thanksgiving. +We've seen hard times, and we may see harder, but I never knew +Thanksgiving to come yet without something to be thankful +for—never."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + +<p>Outside the storm continued, fine snow sifting down rapidly. "Pikepole +Pete" found stiff work facing it, and bent low over the red roan's +neck.</p> + +<p>"Blue blazes!" he muttered. "Bennett's a good fellow all right, and +he's hurt; but if he hadn't nigh saved my life twice he could get this +critter back himself fer all of me!" He glanced at the dark woods and +drew up suddenly. "The road forks here, and Turner's is yonder—less +than a mile. I'll hitch in his barn a spell and go on later," and he +took the Turner fork.</p> + +<p>But at Turner's Pete found two or three congenial spirits—and a jug; +and a few hours later the easy-going fellow was deep in a tipsy sleep +that would last for hours.</p> + +<p>The following Sunday morning came bright and clear upon freshly fallen +snow that softened all the ruder outlines of town and field and woods. +Beetle Ring camp lay wrapped in fleecy whiteness.</p> + +<p>The camp was late astir, for Sunday was Beetle Ring's day—not of +rest, but of carousal. Two men had started out rather early—the +camp's jug delegation to the Skylark. Presently the men began to +straggle out to the snug row of sheds where the horses were kept. +Posey Breem yawned lazily as he threw open the door of his particular +stall, then suddenly brought himself together with a jerk and stared +fixedly.</p> + +<p>"What ails you now, Pose? Seen a ghost?"</p> + +<p>"Skid" Thomson stopped with the big measure of feed which he was +carrying.</p> + +<p>"No, I've seen no ghost," said Breem slowly, still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> staring. "Look +here, Skid!" Thomson looked into the stall, and nearly dropped the +measure.</p> + +<p>"By George, Pose!" he said. "By—George!"</p> + +<p>The news flew over the camp like wildfire. Posey Breem's red roan, the +best horse in the camp, had been stolen! The burly lumbermen came +hurrying from all directions. There was no doubt about it—the horse +was gone, and the snow had covered every trace. There was absolutely +no clue to follow. Silently and sullenly the men filed in to +breakfast. In a lumberman's eyes hardly a crime could exceed that of +horse stealing.</p> + +<p>"What I want to know is," said Breem, as he glanced sharply round the +long room of the camp, "what's become of that yellow-haired +jay—Bennett?"</p> + +<p>"By George!" said Skid Thomson, "that's right! Where is the critter?"</p> + +<p>"Skipped!" said Bill Bates, sententiously, after a quick search had +been made. "It's all plain enough now. I never liked the close-fisted +critter."</p> + +<p>"Nor I, either!" growled Skid. "Never chipped in with the boys, but +was laying low just the same."</p> + +<p>"You won't catch him, either," said Bates. "They're sharp—that kind. +The critter knew 'twould snow and hide his tracks."</p> + +<p>"And I'd just sewed up his blamed foot!" muttered the cook in disgust.</p> + +<p>"Maybe we'll catch him. Up to Fat Pine two years ago," began Breem, +reminiscently, "Big Donovan had a horse stole. They caught the +fellow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember," said Skid Thomson. "I was there. We caught him up +north." The men nodded understandingly and approvingly.</p> + +<p>"Wuth a hundred and fifty dollars, the roan was," said Breem.</p> + +<p>Beetle Ring camp passed an uneasy day, the "jug" for once receiving +scant attention. Late in the afternoon "Trapper John," an old +half-breed who hunted and trapped about the woods, stopped at the camp +to get warm.</p> + +<p>"Didn't see anybody with a horse last night or this morning, eh, +John?" asked Posey Breem.</p> + +<p>"Um, yes," responded the old trapper, quickly. "Saw um horse las' +night—man ride—big foot—so." Old John held out his arms in +exaggerated illustration.</p> + +<p>Beetle Ring rose to its feet as one man. "What colour was the horse, +John?" asked Breem softly.</p> + +<p>"Huh! Can't see good after dark, but think um roan." Breem looked +slowly round the silent camp, and Beetle Ring grimly made ready for +business.</p> + +<p>It was evening when the men stopped a few rods below the shack. A +light shone out from a window, lighting up a little space in the +sombre woods.</p> + +<p>"The fellow's got pals prob'bly," said Posey Breem. "You wait here +while I do a little scouting."</p> + +<p>Breem crept cautiously into the circle of light, and glancing through +the uncurtained window, saw his man—with his "pals." He saw upon the +miserable bed a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> woman with a thin, pale face and sad, wistful eyes, +eyes that yet lighted up with a beautiful pride as they rested upon +the man, who sat close by, holding a tiny bundle in his arms.</p> + +<p>The man shifted his position a little, so that the light fell upon the +bundle, and then the watcher outside saw the sleeping face of a baby.</p> + +<p>There was a rumour in the camp that Posey Breem had not always been +the man that he was—that a woman had once blessed his life. But since +they had carried the young mother away, with her dead baby on her +breast, to place the two in one deep grave together, he had gone +steadily downward.</p> + +<p>With hungry eyes Breem gazed at the scene in the poor little house, +his thoughts flying backward over the years. A sudden sharp, impatient +whistle roused him, and he strode hastily back to the waiting men.</p> + +<p>"Well, Pose?" interrogated Skid impatiently.</p> + +<p>"He's there, all right," said Breem, in a peculiar tone. "I ain't +overmuch given to advising prowling round folks' houses, but you +fellows just look in yonder." He jerked his head toward the shack. And +a line of big, rough-looking men filed into the little illumined +space, to come back presently silent and subdued.</p> + +<p>"Now let's go home," said Breem, turning his horse toward camp.</p> + +<p>"And your horse, Pose?" questioned Bates.</p> + +<p>"Burn the horse!" said Breem quickly. "D'ye think the like of yonder's +a horse thief? I ain't worry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>ing 'bout the horse." And the men rode +back to camp silently.</p> + +<p>The next morning, when Breem swung open the door of the stall, he was +not surprised to find the red roan standing quietly by the side of his +mate. A bit of crumpled paper was pinned to the blanket. Breem read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I rode your horse. I had to. I'll surely make it right.</p></div> + +<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Bennett.</span></p> + +<p>"Course he had to!" growled the lumberman, and he passed the paper +round.</p> + +<p>"Oncommon peart baby," said Skid, at last.</p> + +<p>"Dreadful cold shack, though!" muttered Bates, conveying a quarter of +a griddlecake to his mouth.</p> + +<p>"That's just it," said Pose, scowling. "Just let a stiff nip of winter +come, and the woman yonder and the little critter, they'd freeze, +that's what they'd do, in that old rattletrap."</p> + +<p>The men looked at one another in solemn assent. "And I've been +thinking," continued Breem, "since Bennett there belonged to the camp, +and since we kind of misused the fellow for being stingy—for which we +ought to have been smashed with logs—that we have a kind of a claim +on 'em, as 'twere, and they on us. And we must get 'em out of that +yonder before they freeze plumb solid." He stopped inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"Right as right," assented several.</p> + +<p>"And I've been thinking," said Bates suddenly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> "about that storeroom +of ours. It's snug and warm, and there's a lot of room in it, and we +can put a stove into it and—" But the rest of Bates's suggestion was +drowned in a round of applause.</p> + +<p>"And <i>I've</i> been thinking, just a little," put in Skid Thomson, "and +if I've figured correct, next Thursday's Thanksgiving—don't know as +I've thought of it in ten years—and if we stir round sharp we can get +things ready by then, and—well, 'twouldn't hurt Beetle Ring to +celebrate for once—" But Skid was also interrupted by a cheer.</p> + +<p>"And it's my firm belief," reflected Bates with an air of profound +conviction, "that that baby of Bennett's was designed special and, as +you might say, providential, for to be Beetle Ring's mascot. Fat Pine +and Horseshoe have 'em—mascots—to bring luck, and I've noticed +Beetle Ring ain't had the luck lately it should have."</p> + +<p>Bates paused, and the camp meditated in silent delight.</p> + +<p>Thanksgiving morning was a cold one, but clear. More snow had fallen, +and the deep, feathery whiteness stretched away until lost in the dark +background of the pines and spruces. A wavering line of smoke rose +over the roof of the little old shack in the woods.</p> + +<p>Bennett was winding rags round the armpieces of the rough crutches. He +had dragged in some short limbs the day before for fuel, but in so +doing had broken open the wound, which gave him excruciating pain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Joe," said his wife, suddenly, "where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to try for help, Nan. We're out of nigh everything, and my +foot no better."</p> + +<p>"You can't do it, Joe. You—you'll die, if you try, Joe, alone in the +woods. Oh, Joe!"</p> + +<p>The look of hope that had never wholly left the woman's eyes was +slowly fading out.</p> + +<p>"We'll all die if I don't try, Nannie. I'm—"</p> + +<p>"Huh!" suddenly exclaimed the old woman, peering out of the little +window. "Heap men, heap horses! Look, see 'em come!"</p> + +<p>Bennett turned hastily, and saw a long line of stalwart men and sturdy +horses threshing resolutely through the deep snow and heading directly +for the shack. He looked keenly at the men, and his face paled a +little, but he said steadily, "It's the Beetle Ring men, Nan."</p> + +<p>His wife gave a sharp cry. "It's the horse, Joe! It's the horse! +They're after you, Joe, sure!" She caught her husband's arm.</p> + +<p>The men were now filling up the little space before the shack. +Directly there came a sounding knock. Bennett opened the door to admit +the burly frame of Posey Breem. He said quietly:</p> + +<p>"I'm here all right, Pose, and I took your horse, but—"</p> + +<p>"Burn the hoss!" said Breem explosively. "That's all right. Shake, +pard!" He held out a brawny hand. Bennett "shook" wonderingly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wife, pard?" asked Breem, gently, nodding toward the bed. Bennett +hastily introduced him.</p> + +<p>"Kid, pard?" Breem pointed a stubby finger at the little bundle.</p> + +<p>Bennett nodded.</p> + +<p>The lumberman grinned delightedly, then coughed a little, and began +awkwardly:</p> + +<p>"Pard, th' boys over at Beetle Ring heard—as you might say, +accidental"—Breem coughed into his big hand—"about your folks over +here, your wife <i>and</i>—the baby. They were powerful interested, +specially about the baby. Why, pard, some of the boys hain't seen a +baby in ten years, and we thought as you belonged to the camp, maybe +you and your wife would allow that the camp had a sort of claim on the +little critter yonder." He eyed the tiny bundle wistfully.</p> + +<p>"And another thing that hit the boys, pard," he went on. "Up at Fat +Pine they got what they call a mascot, bein' a tame b'ar; an' up at +Horseshoe they got a mascot, bein' a goat. Lots of camps have +'em—fetches luck. And the boys are sure that this baby of yours was +designed special to be Beetle Ring's mascot. Now, pard, Beetle Ring, +as you know, ain't what you'd call a Sunday-school, but the boys +they'll behave. They fixed up that storeroom to beat all, nice bed, +big stove, and lots of wood, and so on, and we've got a cow for the +woman and baby. Say, we want you powerful. Got a sleigh fixed, hemlock +boughs and a cover of robes and blankets, and Skid'll drive careful. +He's a master<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> at drivin', Skid is. You'll come, won't you? The boys +are waitin'."</p> + +<p>Big tears were in the woman's eyes as she turned toward her husband. +"Oh, Joe," she said, and choked suddenly; but she pressed the baby +tightly to her breast. "I knew 'twould come Thanksgiving."</p> + +<p>"There, pard," said Breem, after blowing his nose explosively, "you +just see to wrappin' up the woman and the kid, and me and Skid, being +as you're hurt, you know, 'll tote 'em out to the sleigh."</p> + +<p>The young mother was soon placed carefully in the sleigh, the old +woman following. But when Skid Thomson appeared in the door of the old +shack, bearing a tiny form muffled up with wondrous care, the whole of +Beetle Ring shouted.</p> + +<p>Breem led up a spare horse for Bennett's use. The latter stopped +short, with a curious expression on his face. The horse was the red +roan.</p> + +<p>But Breem only said, his keen eyes twinkling:</p> + +<p>"Under such circumstances as these, pard, you're welcome to all the +hosses in Beetle Ring."</p> + +<p>With steady, practiced hand Skid Thomson guided his powerful team +through the deep snow, over the rough forest road; and sometimes +brawny arms carried the sleigh bodily over the roughest places.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At the close of the day an anxious consultation took place in the big +main room of Beetle Ring, and presently two men appeared outside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> + +<p>They walked slowly toward what had been the camp's storeroom, but +halted before the door hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"You go in ahead, Skid, and ask 'em," said Breem, earnestly, to his +companion.</p> + +<p>"No, go ahead yourself, Pose. I'd be sure to calk a hoss or split a +runner, or somethin'. Go on!"</p> + +<p>Breem knocked, and both went in.</p> + +<p>"All right, pard?"</p> + +<p>"Right as right, Pose," said Joe Bennett.</p> + +<p>"Wife all right?" Breem turned toward the bed, and Mrs. Bennett smiled +up at him with happy eyes, and with a bit of colour already showing in +her pale face. Breem smiled back broadly. Then he asked, "<i>And</i>, pard, +the baby?"</p> + +<p>"Peart as peart, Pose."</p> + +<p>Breem waited a little, twirling his cap, but receiving a sharp thump +from Thomson, went on:</p> + +<p>"The boys, pard, are anxious about the little critter. They're kind of +hankering, pard, and, mum, if you are willin', and ain't 'fraid to +trust her with us, why, we'd be mighty glad to tote her—just for a +few minutes—over to camp. The boys are stiddy, all of 'em, stiddy as +churches. They hain't soaked a mite to-day, mum, and they ain't goin' +to; they've hove the jug into a snowdrift, and they'd take it kind, +mum—if you are willin'."</p> + +<p>The woman, still smiling happily, was already wrapping up the baby.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> + +<p>Breem held up a warning finger when he returned a little later, and +again smiled delightedly.</p> + +<p>"Went to sleep a-totin'—if you'll believe it, the burned little +critter!" he said, softly. "And," he added, "the boys, pard, are +mighty pleased; and, mum, they thank you kindly. They say, the boys +do, there ain't such a mascot as theirs in five hundred miles; they +see luck comin', chunks of it, pard, already." And the big fellow went +out and closed the door gently.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> From the <i>Youth's Companion</i>, November 30, 1905.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="MISTRESS_ESTEEM_ELLIOTTS_MOLASSES_CAKE" id="MISTRESS_ESTEEM_ELLIOTTS_MOLASSES_CAKE"></a>MISTRESS ESTEEM ELLIOTT'S MOLASSES CAKE<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Story of a Postponed Thanksgiving</span><a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Kate Upson Clark.</span></h3> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Older boys and girls who are familiar with "The Courtship of +Miles Standish" will enjoy the colonial flavour of this tale +of 1705.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="O" width="50" height="53" /></div> +<p>bed!" called Mistress Achsah Ely from her front porch, "step thee +over to Squire Belding's, quick! Here's a teacup! Ask Mistress Belding +for the loan of some molasses. Nothing but molasses and hot water +helps the baby when he is having such a turn of colic. Beseems me he +will have a fit! Make haste, Obed!"</p> + + + +<p>At that very moment Squire Belding's little daughter Hitty was +travelling toward Mistress Ely's for the purpose of borrowing molasses +wherewith to sweeten a ginger cake. Hitty and Obed, who were of an +age, met, compared notes, and then returned to their respective homes. +Shortly afterward both of them darted forth again, bound on the same +errands as before, only in different directions.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Chapin, the storekeeper, hadn't "set eyes on any molasses for a +week. The river's frozen over so mean and solid," he said, "there's no +knowing when there'll be any molasses in town."</p> + +<p>There had been very peculiar weather in Colchester during this month +of October, 1705. First, on the 13th (Old Style), an unprecedently +early date, had come a "terrible cold snap," lasting three days. This +was followed by two days of phenomenal mildness. The river had frozen +over during the "cold snap," and the ice had melted during the warm +days, until, on the 19th, it was breaking up and preparing to go out +to sea. In the night of the 19th had descended a frigid blast, colder +than the original one. This had arrested the broken ice, piled it up +in all sorts of fantastic forms, and congealed it till it looked like +a rough Alaskan glacier. After the cold wind had come a heavy +snowstorm. All Colchester lay under three feet of snow. Footpaths and +roads were broken out somewhat in the immediate village, but no +farther. It was most unusual to have the river closed so early in the +season, and consequently the winter supplies, which were secured from +New London and Norwich, had not been laid in. Even Mr. Chapin, the +storekeeper, was but poorly supplied with staples of which he +ordinarily kept an abundance on hand.</p> + +<p>Therefore when Obed and Hitty had made the tour of the neighbourhood +they found but one family, that of Deacon Esteem Elliott, the richest +man in the place, which had any molasses. Mistress Elliott, in spite +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> her wealth, was said to be "none too free with her stuff," and she +was not minded to lend any molasses under the circumstances, for "a +trifling foolish" cake. Obed's representation of the distress of the +Ely baby, however, appealed even to her, and she lent him a large +spoonful of the precious liquid.</p> + +<p>That afternoon there was as much visiting about among the Colchester +housewives as the drifts permitted. Such a state of things had never +been known since the town was settled. No molasses! And Thanksgiving +appointed for the first Thursday in November! Pray what would +Thanksgiving amount to, they inquired, with no pumpkin pies, no baked +beans, no molasses cake, no proper sweetening for the rum so freely +used in those days?</p> + +<p>Mistress Esteem Elliott was even more troubled than the rest of +Colchester, for was not her buxom daughter, and only child, Prudence +Ann, to be married on Thanksgiving Day to the son of a great magnate +in the neighbouring town of Hebron? And was it not the intention to +invite all of the aristocracy of both towns to be present at the +marriage feast?</p> + +<p>Mistress Elliott accordingly pursued her way upon this Tuesday +afternoon, October 19, 1705, over to Mistress Achsah Ely's. There she +found Mistress Belding, who, remembering Mistress Elliott's refusal to +lend her molasses, was naturally somewhat chill in her manner.</p> + +<p>Mistress Elliott had scarcely pulled off her homespun leggings (made +with stout and ample feet) and pulled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> out her knitting work, when +Mistress Camberly, the parson's wife, a lady of robust habit and +voluble tongue, came in.</p> + +<p>"And what are we going to do, Mistress Ely?" she burst out, as soon as +the door was opened at her knock. "Not a drop of molasses to be had +for love nor money, and Thanksgiving Day set for the 4th of November!"</p> + +<p>"Mistress Elliott has a-plenty of molasses," affirmed Mistress +Belding, with a haughty look at her unaccommodating neighbour.</p> + +<p>"I'd have you to know, Mistress Betty Belding," retorted Mistress +Elliott, "that I have a bare quart or so in my jug, and, so far as I +can learn, that is all that the whole town of Colchester has got to +depend upon till the roads or the river can be broken to Norwich."</p> + +<p>Mistress Ely well understood this little passage-at-arms, for Obed had +told her the whole story; but as her baby had been cured by Mistress +Elliott's molasses, she did not think it proper to interfere in the +matter. Neither did the good parson's wife, although she could not +comprehend the rights of the case. She simply repeated her first +question: "What are we going to do about it, I should like to know?"</p> + +<p>"I wonder if Thanksgiving Day could not be put off a week," suggested +Mistress Belding, who had a good head, and was even reported to give +such advice to her husband that he always thought best to heed it.</p> + +<p>"Such a thing was never heard of!" cried Mistress Elliott.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But there's no law against it," insisted Mistress Belding boldly. "By +a week from the set day there will surely be some means of getting +about the country, and then we can have a Thanksgiving that's worth +the setting down to."</p> + +<p>After a long talk the good women separated in some doubt, but as +Squire Belding and Mr. Ely were two of the three selectmen, they were +soon acquainted with the drift of the afternoon's discussion. The +result of it all is thus chronicled in the town records of Colchester:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"At a legal town-meeting held in Colchester, October 29, +1705, it was voted that WHEREAS there was a Thanksgiving +appointed to be held on the first Thursday in November, and +our present circumstances being such that it cannot with +convenience be attended on that day, it is therefore voted +and agreed by the inhabitants as aforesaid (concluding the +thing will not be otherwise than well resented) that the +second Thursday of November aforesaid shall be set aside for +that service."</p></div> + +<p>This proceeding was, on the whole, as the selectmen had hoped that it +would be, "well resented" among the Colchester people, but there was +one household in which there was rebellion at the mandate. In the +great sanded kitchen of Deacon Esteem Elliott pretty, spoilt Prudence +Ann was fairly raging over it.</p> + +<p>"I had set my heart on being married on Thanksgiving Day," she sobbed, +"And here it won't be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> Thanksgiving Day at all! And as for putting off +a wedding, everybody knows there is no surer way of bringing ill luck +down than that! I say I won't have it put off! But we can't have any +party with no molasses in town! Oh, dear! I might as well be married +in the back kitchen with a linsey gown on, as if I were the daughter +of old Betty, the pie woman! There!"</p> + +<p>Then the proud girl would break into fresh sobs, and vow vengeance +upon the selectmen of Colchester. She even sent her father to +expostulate with them, but it was of no use. They had known all along +that the Elliotts did not want the festival day put off, but nobody in +Colchester minded very much if the Elliotts were a little crossed.</p> + +<p>Prudence Ann would not face the reality till after the Sabbath was +past. On that day the expectant bridegroom managed to break his way +through the drifts from Hebron, and he was truly grieved, as he should +have been, at the very unhappy state of mind of his betrothed. He +avowed himself, however, in a way which augured well for the young +people's future, ready to do just what Prudence Ann and her family +decided was best.</p> + +<p>On Monday morning Mistress Elliott sat down with her unreasonable +daughter and had a serious talk with her.</p> + +<p>"Now, Prudence Ann," she began, "you must give up crying and fretting. +If you are going to be married on Thursday, we have got a great deal +of work to do be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>tween now and then. If you are going to wait till +next week, I want to know it. Of course you can't have a large party, +if you choose to be married on the 4th, but we will ask John's folks +and Aunt Susanna and Uncle Martin and Parson Camberley and his wife. +We can bake enough for them with what's in the house. If you wait +another week, you can probably have a better party—and now you have +it all in a nutshell."</p> + +<p>Prudence Ann was hysterical even yet, but at last her terror of a +postponed wedding overcame every other consideration. The day was set +for the 4th, and the few guests were bidden accordingly.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the wedding, on a neat shelf in the back kitchen of +the Elliott residence, various delicacies were resting, which had been +baked for the banquet. Mistress Elliott's molasses had sufficed to +make a vast cake and several pumpkin pies. These, hot from the oven, +had been placed in the coolness of the back kitchen until they should +be ready for eating.</p> + +<p>It so happened that Miss Hitty Belding's sharp eyes, as she passed +Mistress Elliott's back door, bound on an errand to the house of the +neighbour living just beyond, fell upon the rich golden brown of this +wonderful cake. As such toothsome dainties were rare in Colchester at +just this time, it is not strange that her childish soul coveted it, +for Hitty was but ten years old. As she walked on she met Obed Ely.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what, Obed," said Miss Hitty, "you ought to see the great +molasses cake which Mistress Elliott<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> has made for Prudence Ann's +wedding. It is in her back kitchen. I saw it right by the door. Mean +old thing! She wouldn't lend my mother any molasses to make <i>us</i> a +cake. I wish I had hers!"</p> + +<p>"So do I!" rejoined Obed, with watering lips. "I'm going to peek in +and see it."</p> + +<p>Obed went and "peeked," while Hitty sauntered slowly on. The +contemplation of the cake under the circumstances was too much for +even so well-brought-up a boy as Obed. Without stopping to really +think what he was doing, he unwound from his neck his great woollen +"comforter," wrapped it hastily around the cake, and was walking with +it beside Hitty in the lonely, drifted country road five minutes +later. The hearts of the two little conspirators—for they felt guilty +enough—beat very hard, but they could not help thinking how good that +cake would taste. A certain Goodsir Canty's cornhouse stood near them +in a clump of trees beside the road, and as the door was open they +crept in, gulped down great "chunks" of cake, distributed vast slices +of what was left about their persons, Obed taking by far the lion's +share, and then they parted, vowing eternal secrecy. Nobody had seen +them, and something which happened just after they had left Mistress +Elliott's back kitchen directed suspicion to an entirely different +quarter.</p> + +<p>Not two minutes after Obed's "comforter" had been thrown around the +great cake a beautiful calf, the pride of Mistress Elliott's heart, +and which was usually kept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> tied in the barn just beyond the back +kitchen, somehow unfastened her rope and came strolling along past the +open back door. The odour of the pumpkin pies naturally interested +her, and she proceeded to lick up the delicious creamy filling of one +after another with great zest.</p> + +<p>Just as she was finishing the very last one of the four or five which +had stood there, Mistress Elliott appeared upon the scene, to find her +precious dainties faded like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving +behind them only a few broken bits of pie crust. A series of "short, +sharp shocks" (as described in "The Mikado") then rent the air, +summoning Prudence Ann and Delcy, the maid, to the scene of the +calamity. Let us draw a veil over the succeeding ten minutes.</p> + +<p>At the end of that time Prudence Ann lay upon the sitting-room lounge +(or "settle," as they called it then) passing from one fainting fit +into another, and Delcy was out in search of the doctor and such +family friends as were likely to be of service in this unexpected +dilemma. It was, of course, supposed that the calf had devoured the +whole of the mighty cake as well as the pies. It was lucky for Obed +and Hitty that the poor beast could not speak. As it was, nobody so +much as thought of accusing them of the theft, though there were +plenty of crumbs in their pockets, while the death of the innocent +heifer was loudly demanded by the angry Prudence Ann. It was only by +artifice and diplomacy that Mistress Elliott was able to preserve the +life of her fa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>vourite, which, if it had really eaten the cake, must +surely have perished.</p> + +<p>The wedding finally came off on the 4th, though there was a pouting +bride, and nuts, apples, and cider were said to be the chief +refreshments. Prudence Ann, however, probably secured the "good luck" +for which she was so anxious, for there is no record nor tradition to +the contrary in all Colchester.</p> + +<p>Nothing would probably ever have been known of the real fate of the +famous cake if the tale had not been told by Mistress Hitty in her old +age to her grandchildren, with appropriate warnings to them never to +commit similar misdemeanours themselves.</p> + +<p>Little Obed Ely, the active agent in the theft, died not long after +it. His tombstone, very black and crumbled, stands in one of the old +burying grounds of the town, but nothing is carved upon it as to the +cause of his early death.</p> + +<p>The story of the Colchester molasses famine, and the consequent +postponement of their Thanksgiving, naturally spread throughout all +the surrounding towns. It was said that in one of these a party of +roguish boys loaded an old cannon with molasses and fired it in the +direction of Colchester. How they did this has not been stated, and +some irreverent disbelievers in the more uncommon of our grandfathers' +stories have profanely declared it a myth.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> From <i>Wideawake</i>, November, 1891, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The main facts in this story are strictly historical.</p></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_FIRST_THANKSGIVING" id="THE_FIRST_THANKSGIVING"></a>THE FIRST THANKSGIVING<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Albert F. Blaisdell and Francis K. Ball.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A story of the time long ago when the Pilgrims of Plymouth +invited the Indian chief Massasoit and his followers to +share their feast.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_08.jpg" alt="A" width="50" height="50" /></div> +<p>ll through the first summer and the early part of autumn the Pilgrims +were busy and happy. They had planted and cared for their first fields +of corn. They had found wild strawberries in the meadows, raspberries +on the hillsides, and wild grapes in the woods.</p> + + + +<p>In the forest just back of the village wild turkeys and deer were +easily shot. In the shallow waters of the bay there was plenty of +fish, clams, and lobsters.</p> + +<p>The summer had been warm, with a good deal of rain and much sunshine; +and so when the autumn came there was a fine crop of corn.</p> + +<p>"Let us gather the fruits of our first labours and rejoice together," +said Governor Bradford.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Elder Brewster, "let us take a day upon which we may thank +God for all our blessings, and invite to it our Indian friends who +have been so kind to us."</p> + +<p>The Pilgrims said that one day was not enough; so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>they planned to +have a celebration for a whole week. This took place most likely in +October.</p> + +<p>The great Indian chief, Massasoit, came with ninety of his bravest +warriors, all gayly dressed in deerskins, feathers, and foxtails, with +their faces smeared with red, white, and yellow paint.</p> + +<p>As a sign of rank, Massasoit wore round his neck a string of bones and +a bag of tobacco. In his belt he carried a long knife. His face was +painted red, and his hair was so daubed with oil that Governor +Bradford said he "looked greasily."</p> + +<p>Now there were only eleven buildings in the whole of Plymouth village, +four log storehouses and seven little log dwelling-houses; so the +Indian guests ate and slept out of doors. This was no matter, for it +was one of those warm weeks in the season we call Indian summer.</p> + +<p>To supply meat for the occasion four men had already been sent out to +hunt wild turkeys. They killed enough in one day to last the whole +company almost a week.</p> + +<p>Massasoit helped the feast along by sending some of his best hunters +into the woods. They killed five deer, which they gave to their +paleface friends, that all might have enough to eat.</p> + +<p>Under the trees were built long, rude tables on which were piled baked +clams, broiled fish, roast turkey, and deer meat.</p> + +<p>The young Pilgrim women helped serve the food to the hungry redskins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Let us remember two of the fair girls who waited on the tables. One +was Mary Chilton, who leaped from the boat at Plymouth Rock; the other +was Mary Allerton. She lived for seventy-eight years after this first +Thanksgiving, and of those who came over in the <i>Mayflower</i> she was +the last to die.</p> + +<p>What a merry time everybody had during that week! It may be they joked +Governor Bradford about stepping into a deer trap set by the Indians +and being jerked up by the leg.</p> + +<p>How the women must have laughed as they told about the first Monday +morning at Cape Cod, when they all went ashore to wash their clothes!</p> + +<p>It must have been a big washing, for there had been no chance to do it +at sea, so stormy had been the long voyage of sixty-three days. They +little thought that Monday would afterward be kept as washday.</p> + +<p>Then there was young John Howland, who in mid-ocean fell overboard but +was quick enough to catch hold of a trailing rope. Perhaps after +dinner he invited Elizabeth Tilley, whom he afterward married, to sail +over to Clarke's Island and return by moonlight.</p> + +<p>With them, it may be, went John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, whose +love story is so sweetly told by Longfellow.</p> + +<p>One proud mother, we may be sure, showed her bright-eyed boy, +Peregrine White.</p> + +<p>And so the fun went on. In the daytime the young men ran races, played +games, and had a shooting match.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> Every night the Indians sang and +danced for their friends; and to make things still more lively they +gave every now and then a shrill war whoop that made the woods echo in +the still night air.</p> + +<p>The Indians had already learned to love and fear Captain Miles +Standish. Some of them called him "Boiling Water" because he was +easily made angry. Others called him "Captain Shrimp," on account of +his small size.</p> + +<p>Every morning the shrewd captain put on his armour and paraded his +little company of a dozen or more soldiers; and when he fired off the +cannon on Burial Hill the Indians must have felt that the English were +men of might thus to harness up thunder and lightning.</p> + +<p>During this week of fun and frolic it was a wonder if young Jack +Billington did not play some prank on the Indians. He was the boy who +fired off his father's gun one day, close to a keg of gunpowder, in +the crowded cabin of the <i>Mayflower</i>.</p> + +<p>The third day came. Massasoit had been well treated, and no doubt +would have liked to stay longer, but he had said he could stay only +three days. So the pipe of peace was silently passed around.</p> + +<p>Then, taking their presents of glass beads and trinkets, the Indian +king and his warriors said farewell to their English friends and began +their long tramp through the woods to their wigwams on Mount Hope Bay.</p> + +<p>On the last day of this Thanksgiving party the Pilgrims had a service +of prayer and praise. Elder Brew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>ster preached the first Thanksgiving +sermon. After thanking God for all his goodness, he did not forget the +many loved ones sleeping on the hillside.</p> + +<p>He spoke of noble John Carver, the first governor, who had died of +worry and overwork.</p> + +<p>Nor was Rose Standish forgotten, the lovely young wife of Captain +Miles Standish, whose death was caused by cold and lack of good food.</p> + +<p>And then there was gentle Dorothy, wife of Governor Bradford, who had +fallen overboard from the <i>Mayflower</i> in Provincetown harbour while +her husband was coasting along the bleak shore in search of a place +for a home.</p> + +<p>The first Thanksgiving took place nearly three hundred years ago. +Since that time, almost without interruption, Thanksgiving has been +kept by the people of New England as the great family festival of the +year. At this time children and grandchildren return to the old home, +the long table is spread, and brothers and sisters, separated often by +many miles, again sit side by side.</p> + +<p>To-day Thanksgiving is observed in nearly all the states of the Union, +a season of sweet and blessed memories.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> From "Short Stories from American History," Ginn & Co.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THANKSGIVING_AT_TODDS_ASYLUM" id="THANKSGIVING_AT_TODDS_ASYLUM"></a>THANKSGIVING AT TODD'S ASYLUM<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Winthrop Packard.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Many a chuckle lies in wait for the reader in the pages of +this story. And the humour is of the sweet, mellow sort that +sometimes brings moisture to the eyes as well as laughter to +the lips.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_09.jpg" alt="P" width="40" height="50" /></div> +<p>eople said that if it had not been for that annuity Eph Todd would +have been at the poor farm himself instead of setting up a rival to +it; but there <i>was</i> the annuity, and that was the beginning of Todd's +asylum.</p> + + + +<p>No matter who or what you were, if you were in hard luck, Todd's +asylum was open to you. The No. 4 district schoolhouse clock was a +sample. For thirty years it had smiled from the wall upon successive +generations of scholars, until, one day, bowed with years and +infirmities, it had ceased to tick. It had been taken gently down, +laid out on a desk in state for a day or two, and finally was in +funeral procession to the rubbish heap when Eph Todd appeared.</p> + +<p>"You're not going to throw that good old clock away?" Eph had asked of +the committeeman who acted as bearer.</p> + +<p>"Guess I'll have to," replied the other. "I've wound <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>it up tight, put +'most a pint of kerosene in it, and shook it till I'm dizzy, and it +won't tick a bit. Guess the old clock's done for."</p> + +<p>"Now see here," said Eph; "you just let me have a try at it. Let me +take it home a spell."</p> + +<p>"Oh, for that matter I'll give it to you," the committeeman replied. +"We've bought another for the schoolhouse."</p> + +<p>A day or two after the old clock ticked away as soberly as ever on the +wall of the Todd kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Took it home and boiled it in potash," Eph used to say; "and there it +is, just as good as it was thirty years ago."</p> + +<p>This was true, with restrictions, for enough enamel was gone from the +face to make the exact location of the hour an uncertain thing; and +there were days, when the wind was in the east, when the hour hand +needed periodical assistance.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't much of a job," as Eph said, "to reach up once an hour and +send the hand along one space, and Aunt Tildy had to have something to +look forward to."</p> + +<p>Aunt Tildy was the first inmate at Todd's, and if Eph had possessed no +other recommendation to eternal beatitude, surely Aunt Tildy's prayers +had been sufficient. She passed his house on her way to the poor farm +on the very day that news of the legacy arrived, and Eph had stopped +the carriage and begged the overseer to leave her with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you sure you can take care of her?" asked the overseer, +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Sure?" echoed Eph with delight. "Of course I'm sure. Ain't I got four +hundred dollars a year for the rest of my natural born days?"</p> + +<p>"He's a good fellow, Eph Todd," mused the overseer as he drove away, +"but I never heard of his having any money."</p> + +<p>Next day the news of the legacy was common property, and Aunt Tildy +had been an inmate at Todd's ever since. Her gratitude knew no bounds, +and she really managed to keep the house after a fashion, her chief +care being the clock.</p> + +<p>Then there was the heaven-born inventor. He had dissipated his +substance in inventing an incubator that worked with wonderful success +till the day the chickens were to come out, when it took fire and +burned up, taking with it chickens, barn, house, and furniture, +leaving the heaven-born inventor standing in the field, thinly clad, +and with nothing left in the world but another incubator.</p> + +<p>With this he had shown up promptly at Todd's, and there he had dwelt +thenceforth, using a pretty fair portion of the annuity in further +incubator experiments.</p> + +<p>With excellent sagacity, for him, Eph had obliged the heaven-born +inventor to keep his machine in a little shed behind the barn, so that +when this one burned up there was time to get the horse and cow out +before the barn burned, and the village fire department managed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> to +save the house. Repairing this loss made quite a hole in the annuity, +and all the heaven-born inventor had to show for it was Miltiades. He +had put a single turkey's egg in with a previous hatch, and though he +had raised nary chicken, and it was contrary to all rhyme and reason, +the turkey's egg had hatched and the chick had grown up to be +Miltiades.</p> + +<p>Miltiades was a big gobbler now, and had a right to be named Ishmael, +for his hand was against all men. He took care of himself, was never +shut up nor handled, and led a wild, nomadic life.</p> + +<p>Last of all came Fisherman Jones. He was old now and couldn't see very +well, unable to go to the brook or pond to fish, but he still started +out daily with the fine new rod and reel which the annuity had bought +for him, and would sit out in the sun, joint his rod together, and +fish in the dry pasture with perfect contentment.</p> + +<p>You would not think Fisherman Jones of much use, but it was he who +caught Miltiades and made the Thanksgiving dinner possible.</p> + +<p>The new barn had exhausted the revenues completely, and there would be +no more income until January 1st; but one must have a turkey for +Thanksgiving, and there was Miltiades. To catch Miltiades became the +household problem, and the heaven-born inventor set wonderful traps +for him, which caught almost everything but Miltiades, who easily +avoided them. Eph used to go out daily before breakfast and chase +Miltiades, but he might as well have chased a government position.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +The turkey scorned him, and grew only wilder and tougher, till he had +a lean and hungry look that would have shamed Cassius.</p> + +<p>The day before Thanksgiving it looked as if there would be no turkey +dinner at Todd's, but here Fisherman Jones stepped into the breach. It +was a beautiful Indian-summer day, and he hobbled out into the field +for an afternoon's fishing. Here he sat on a log, and began to make +casts in the open. Nearby, under a savin bush, lurked Miltiades, and +viewed these actions with the scorn of long familiarity. By and by +Fisherman Jones kicked up a loose bit of bark, and disclosed beneath +it a fine fat white grub, of the sort which blossoms into June beetles +with the coming of spring. He was not so blind but that he saw this, +and with a chuckle at the thoughts it called up, he baited his hook +with it.</p> + +<p>A moment after, Eph Todd, coming out of the new barn, heard the click +of a reel, and was astonished to see Fisherman Jones standing almost +erect, his eyes blazing with the old-time fire, his rod bent, his reel +buzzing, while at the end of a good forty feet of line was Miltiades +rushing in frantic strides for the woods.</p> + +<p>"Good land!" said Eph; "it's the turkey! Snub him," he yelled. "Don't +let him get all the line on you! He's hooked! Snub him! snub him!"</p> + +<p>The whir of the reel deadened now, and the stride of Miltiades was +perceptibly lessened and then became but a vigorous up-and-down hop, +while the tense line sang in the gentle autumn breeze.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Eph Todd!" gasped Fisherman Jones, "this is the whoppingest old bass +I ever hooked onto yet. Beeswax, how he does pull!" And with the words +Fisherman Jones went backward over the log, waving the pole and a pair +of stiff legs in air. The turkey had suddenly slackened the line.</p> + +<p>"Give him the butt! Give him the butt!" roared Eph, rushing up. Even +where he lay the fisherman blood in Fisherman Jones responded to this +stirring appeal, and as the rod bent in a tense half circle a race +began such as no elderly fisherman was ever the centre of before.</p> + +<p>Round and round went Miltiades, with the white grub in his crop, and +the line above it gripped tightly in his strong beak; and round and +round went Eph Todd, his outstretched arms waving like the turkey's +wings, and his big boots denting the soft pasture turf with the vigour +of his gallop. In the centre Fisherman Jones, too nearsighted to see +what he had hooked, had risen on one knee, and revolved with the +coursing bird, his soul wrapped in one idea: to keep the butt of his +rod aimed at the whirling game.</p> + +<p>"Hang to him! Reel him in! We'll get him!" shouted Eph; and, with the +word, he caught his toe and vanished into the prickly depths of the +savin bush, just as the heaven-born inventor came over the hill. It +would be interesting to know just what scheme the heaven-born inventor +would have put in motion for the capture of Miltiades, but just then +he stepped into one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> of his own extraordinary traps, set for the +turkey of course, and, with one foot held fast, began to flounder +about with cries of rage and dismay.</p> + +<p>This brought Eph's head above the fringe of savin bush again, and now +he beheld a wonderful sight. Fisherman Jones was again on his feet, +staring in wild surprise at Miltiades, whom he sighted for the first +time, within ten feet of him. There was no pressure on the reel, and +Miltiades was swallowing the line in big gulps, evidently determined +to have not only the white grub, but all that went with it.</p> + +<p>Fisherman Jones's cry of dismay was almost as bitter as that of the +heaven-born inventor, who still writhed in his own trap.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Eph! Eph!" he whimpered, "he's eating up my tackle! He's eating +up my tackle!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind!" shouted Eph. "Don't be afraid! I reckon he'll stop when +he gets to the pole!"</p> + +<p>Those of us who knew Miltiades at his best have doubts as to this, +but, fortunately, it was not put to the test. Eph scrambled out of his +bush, and, taking up the chase once more, soon brought it to an end, +for Fisherman Jones, his nerve completely gone, could only stand and +mumble sadly to himself, "He's eating up my tackle! He's eating up my +tackle!" and the line, wrapping about his motionless form, led Eph and +the turkey in a brief spiral which ended in the conjunction of the +three.</p> + +<p>It was not until the turkey was decapitated that Eph<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> remembered the +heaven-born inventor and hastened to his rescue. He was still in the +trap, but he was quite content, for he was figuring out a plan for an +automatic release from the same, something which should hold the +captive so long and then let him go in the interests of humanity. He +found the trap from the captive's point of view very interesting and +instructive.</p> + +<p>The tenacity of Miltiades's make-up was further shown by the +difficulty Eph and Fisherman Jones had in separating him from his +feathers that evening; and Aunt Tildy was so interested in the project +of the heaven-born inventor to raise featherless turkeys that she +forgot the yeast cake she had put to soak until it had been boiling +merrily for some time. Everything seemed to go wrong-end-to, and they +all sat up so late that Mrs. Simpkins, across the way, was led to +observe that "Either some one was dead over at Todd's or else they +were having a family party"; and in a certain sense she was right both +ways.</p> + +<p>The crowning misadventure came next morning. Eph started for the +village with his mind full of commissions from Aunt Tildy, some of +which he was sure to forget, and in a great hurry lest he forget them +all. He threw the harness hastily upon Dobbin, hitched him into the +wagon which had stood out on the soft ground overnight, and with an +eager "Get up, there!" gave him a slap with the reins.</p> + +<p>Next moment there was a ripping sound, and the heaven-born inventor +came to the door just in time to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> see the horse going out of the yard +on a run, with Eph following, still clinging to the reins, and taking +strides much like those of Baron Munchausen's courier.</p> + +<p>"Here, here!" called the inventor, "you've forgot the wagon. Come +back, Eph! You've forgot the wagon!"</p> + +<p>"Jeddediah Jodkins!" said Eph, as he swung an eccentric curve about +the gatepost; "do you—whoa!—suppose I'm such a—whoa! whoa!—fool +that I don't know that I'm not riding—whoa! in a—whoa! +whoa!—wagon?" And with this Eph vanished up street in the wake of the +galloping horse, still clinging valiantly to the reins.</p> + +<p>"I believe he did forget that wagon," said the heaven-born inventor; +"he's perfectly capable of it." But when he reached the barn he saw +the trouble. The ground had frozen hard overnight, and the wagon +wheels sunken in it were held as in a vise. Eph had started the horse +suddenly, and the obedient animal had walked right out of the shafts, +harness and all.</p> + +<p>A half hour later Eph was back with Dobbin, unharmed but a trifle +weary. It took an hour more and all Aunt Tildy's hot water to thaw out +the wheels, and when it was done Eph was so confused that he drove to +the village and back and forgot every one of his commissions. And in +the midst of all this the clock stopped. That settled the matter for +Aunt Tildy. She neglected the pudding, she forgot the pies, and she +let the turkey bake and bake in the overheated oven while she fretted +about that clock; and when it was finally set going, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> long and +careful investigation by Eph, and frantic but successful attempts on +the part of Aunt Tildy to keep the heaven-born inventor from ruining +it forever, it was the dinner hour.</p> + +<p>Poor Aunt Tildy! That dinner was the crowning sorrow of her life. The +vegetables were cooked to rags, the pies were charcoal shells, and the +pudding had not been made. As for Miltiades, he was ten times tougher +than in life, and Eph's carving knife slipped from his form without +making a dent. Aunt Tildy wept at this, and Fisherman Jones and the +inventor looked blank enough, but there was no sorrow in the +countenance of Eph. He cheered Aunt Tildy, and he cracked jokes that +made even Fisherman Jones laugh.</p> + +<p>"Why, bless you!" he said, "ever since I was a boy I've been looking +for a chance to make a Thanksgiving dinner out of bread and milk. And +now I've got it. Why, I wouldn't have missed this for anything!" And +there came a knock at the door.</p> + +<p>Even Eph looked a trifle blank at this. If it should be company! "Come +in!" he called.</p> + +<p>The door was pushed aside and a big, steaming platter entered. It was +upheld by a small boy, who stammered diffidently, "My moth-moth-mother +thaid she wanted you to try thum of her nith turkey."</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" said Eph; "Aunt Tildy has cooked a turkey for us to-day, +and she's a main good cook"—Eph did not appear to see the signs the +heaven-born inventor was making to him—"but I've heard that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> your +mother does things pretty well, too. We're greatly obliged." And Eph +put the steaming platter on the table.</p> + +<p>"She thays you c-c-can thend the platter home to-morrow," stammered +the boy, and stammering himself out, he ran into another. The other +held high a big dish of plum pudding, from which a spicy aroma filled +the room. Again the heaven-born inventor made signs to Eph.</p> + +<p>"Our folks told me to ask if you wouldn't try this plum pudding," said +the newcomer. "They made an extra one, and the cousins we expected +didn't come, so we can spare it just as well as not."</p> + +<p>It seemed as if Eph hesitated a moment, and the inventor's face became +a panorama. Then he took the boy by the hand, and there was an odd +shake in his voice as he said:</p> + +<p>"I'm greatly obliged to you. We all are. Something happened to our +plum pudding, and we didn't have any. Tell your ma we send our +thanks."</p> + +<p>There was a sound of voices greeting in the hallway, and two young +girls entered, each laden with a basket.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Todd," they both said at once, "we couldn't wait to knock. We +want you to try some of our Thanksgiving. It was mother's birthday, +and we cooked extra for that, and we've got so much. We can't get all +ours onto the table. She'll feel real hurt if you don't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p>Somehow Eph couldn't say a word, but there was nothing the matter with +the heaven-born inventor. His speech of delighted acceptance was such +a good one that before he was half done the girls had loaded the table +with good things, and, with smiles and nods and "good-byes," slipped +out as rapidly and as gayly as they had come in. It was like a gust of +wind from a summer garden.</p> + +<p>The table, but now so bare, fairly sagged and steamed with offerings +of Thanksgiving. Somehow the steam got into Eph's eyes and made them +wet, till all he could do was to say whimsically:</p> + +<p>"There goes my last chance at a bread-and-milk Thanksgiving."</p> + +<p>But now Aunt Tildy had the floor, with her faded face all alight.</p> + +<p>"Eph Todd," she said, "you needn't look so flustrated. It's nothing +more than you deserve and not half so much either. Ain't you the +kindest man yourself that ever lived? Ain't you always doing something +for everybody, and helping every one of these neighbours in all sorts +of ways? I'd like to know what the whole place would do without you! +And now, just because they remember you on Thanksgiving Day, you look +like—"</p> + +<p>The steam had got into Aunt Tildy's eyes now, and she sat down again +just as there came another knock at the door, a timid sort of knock +this time.</p> + +<p>The heaven-born inventor's face widened in beati<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>fied smiles of +expectation at this, but Eph looked him sternly in the eye.</p> + +<p>"Jeddediah Jodkins!" he said; "if that is any more people bringing +things to eat to this house, they'll have to go away. We can't have +it. We've got enough here now to feed a—a boarding school."</p> + +<p>The heaven-born inventor sprang eagerly to his feet. "Don't you do it, +Eph," he said, "don't you do it. I've just thought of a way to can +it."</p> + +<p>A thinly clad man and woman stood at the door which Eph opened. Both +looked pale and tired, and the woman shivered.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me where I can get work," asked the man, doggedly, "so +that I can earn a little something to eat? We are not beggars"—he +flushed a little through his pallor—"but I have had no work lately, +and we have eaten nothing since yesterday. We are looking—"</p> + +<p>The man stopped, and well he might, for Eph was dancing wildly about +the two, and hustling them into the house.</p> + +<p>"Come in!" he shouted. "Come in! Come in! You're the folks we are +waiting for! Eat? Why, goodness gra-cious! We've got so much to eat we +don't know what to do with it."</p> + +<p>He had them in chairs in a moment and was piling steaming roast turkey +on their plates. "There!" he said, "don't you say another word till +you have filled up on that. Folks"—and he returned to the +others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>—"here's two friends that have come to stay a week with us and +help eat turkey. Fall to! This is going to be the pleasantest +Thanksgiving we've had yet."</p> + +<p>And thus two new inmates were added to Todd's asylum.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> From the <i>Outlook</i>, November 19, 1898.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="HOW_WE_KEPT_THANKSGIVING_AT_OLDTOWN" id="HOW_WE_KEPT_THANKSGIVING_AT_OLDTOWN"></a>HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Harriet Beecher Stowe.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The old-time New England Thanksgiving has been described +many times, but never better then by the author of "Uncle +Tom's Cabin" in her less successful but more artistic novel, +"Oldtown Folks," from which book the following narrative has +been adapted.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_10.jpg" alt="W" width="66" height="50" /></div> +<p>hen the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the +yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, +and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and +the warm, late days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and +still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but +with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over +the community a sort of genial repose of spirit—a sense of something +accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar +of life—and the deacon began to say to the minister, of a Sunday, "I +suppose it's about time for the Thanksgiving proclamation."</p> + + + +<p>Conversation at this time began to turn on high and solemn culinary +mysteries and receipts of wondrous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>power and virtue. New modes of +elaborating squash pies and quince tarts were now ofttimes carefully +discussed at the evening firesides by Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and +notes seriously compared with the experiences of certain other aunties +of high repute in such matters. I noticed that on these occasions +their voices often fell into mysterious whispers, and that receipts of +especial power and sanctity were communicated in tones so low as +entirely to escape the vulgar ear. I still remember the solemn shake +of the head with which my Aunt Lois conveyed to Miss Mehitable +Rossiter the critical properties of <i>mace</i>, in relation to its powers +of producing in corn fritters a suggestive resemblance to oysters. As +ours was an oyster-getting district, and as that charming bivalve was +perfectly easy to come at, the interest of such an imitation can be +accounted for only by the fondness of the human mind for works of art.</p> + +<p>For as much as a week beforehand, "we children" were employed in +chopping mince for pies to a most wearisome fineness, and in pounding +cinnamon, all-spice, and cloves in a great lignum-vitæ mortar; and the +sound of this pounding and chopping reëchoed through all the rafters +of the old house with a hearty and vigorous cheer most refreshing to +our spirits.</p> + +<p>In those days there were none of the thousand ameliorations of the +labours of housekeeping which have since arisen—no ground and +prepared spices and sweet herbs; everything came into our hands in the +rough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> and in bulk, and the reducing of it into a state for use was +deemed one of the appropriate labours of childhood. Even the very salt +that we used in cooking was rock salt, which we were required to wash +and dry and pound and sift before it became fit for use.</p> + +<p>At other times of the year we sometimes murmured at these labours, but +those that were supposed to usher in the great Thanksgiving festival +were always entered into with enthusiasm. There were signs of richness +all around us—stoning of raisins, cutting of citron, slicing of +candied orange peel. Yet all these were only dawnings and intimations +of what was coming during the week of real preparation, after the +Governor's proclamation had been read.</p> + +<p>The glories of that proclamation! We knew beforehand the Sunday it was +to be read, and walked to church with alacrity, filled with gorgeous +and vague expectations.</p> + +<p>The cheering anticipation sustained us through what seemed to us the +long waste of the sermon and prayers; and when at last the auspicious +moment approached—when the last quaver of the last hymn had died +out—the whole house rippled with a general movement of complacency, +and a satisfied smile of pleased expectation might be seen gleaming on +the faces of all the young people, like a ray of sunshine through a +garden of flowers.</p> + +<p>Thanksgiving now was dawning! We children poked one another, and +fairly giggled with unreproved de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>light as we listened to the crackle +of the slowly unfolding document. That great sheet of paper impressed +us as something supernatural, by reason of its mighty size and by the +broad seal of the State affixed thereto; and when the minister read +therefrom, "By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty +repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders. Then, +after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the Commonwealth had +that year received at the hands of Divine Providence, came at last the +naming of the eventful day, and, at the end of all, the imposing +heraldic words, "God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." And +then, as the congregation broke up and dispersed, all went their +several ways with schemes of mirth and feasting in their heads.</p> + +<p>And now came on the week in earnest. In the very watches of the night +preceding Monday morning a preternatural stir below stairs and the +thunder of the pounding barrel announced that the washing was to be +got out of the way before daylight, so as to give "ample scope and +room enough" for the more pleasing duties of the season.</p> + +<p>The making of <i>pies</i> at this period assumed vast proportions that +verged upon the sublime. Pies were made by forties and fifties and +hundreds, and made of everything on the earth and under the earth.</p> + +<p>The pie is an English institution, which, planted on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> American soil, +forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of genera +and species. Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand +strictly American seedlings from that main stock, evinced the power of +American housewives to adapt old institutions to new uses. Pumpkin +pies, cranberry pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant +pies, peach, pear, and plum pies, custard pies, apple pies, +Marlborough-pudding pies—pies with top crusts and pies without—pies +adorned with all sorts of fanciful flutings and architectural strips +laid across and around, and otherwise varied, attested the boundless +fertility of the feminine mind when once let loose in a given +direction.</p> + +<p>Fancy the heat and vigour of the great pan formation, when Aunt Lois +and Aunt Keziah, and my mother and grandmother, all in ecstasies of +creative inspiration, ran, bustled, and hurried—mixing, rolling, +tasting, consulting—alternately setting us children to work when +anything could be made of us, and then chasing us all out of the +kitchen when our misinformed childhood ventured to take too many +liberties with sacred mysteries. Then out we would all fly at the +kitchen door, like sparks from a blacksmith's window.</p> + +<p>On these occasions, as there was a great looseness in the police +department over us children, we usually found a ready refuge at Miss +Mehitable's with Tina,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>who, confident of the strength of her +position with Polly, invited us into the kitchen, and with the air of +a mistress led us around to view the proceedings there.</p> + + + +<p>A genius for entertaining was one of Tina's principal characteristics; +and she did not fail to make free with raisins, or citrons, or +whatever came to hand, in a spirit of hospitality at which Polly +seriously demurred. That worthy woman occasionally felt the +inconvenience of the state of subjugation to which the little elf had +somehow or other reduced her, and sometimes rattled her chains +fiercely, scolding with a vigour which rather alarmed us, but which +Tina minded not a whit. Confident of her own powers, she would, in the +very midst of her wrath, mimic her to her face with such irresistible +drollery as to cause the torrent of reproof to end in a dissonant +laugh, accompanied by a submissive cry for quarter.</p> + +<p>"I declare, Tina Percival," she said to her one day, "you're saucy +enough to physic a horn bug! I never did see the beater of you! If +Miss Mehitable don't keep you in better order, I don't see what's to +become of any of us!"</p> + +<p>"Why, what did 'come of you before I came?" was the undismayed reply. +"You know, Polly, you and Aunty both were just as lonesome as you +could be till I came here, and you never had such pleasant times in +your life as you've had since I've been here. You're a couple of old +beauties, both of you, and know just how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> to get along with me. But +come, boys, let's take our raisins and go up into the garret and play +Thanksgiving."</p> + +<p>In the corner of the great kitchen, during all these days, the jolly +old oven roared and crackled in great volcanic billows of flame, +snapping and gurgling as if the old fellow entered with joyful +sympathy into the frolic of the hour; and then, his great heart being +once warmed up, he brooded over successive generations of pies and +cakes, which went in raw and came out cooked, till butteries and +dressers and shelves and pantries were literally crowded with a +jostling abundance.</p> + +<p>A great cold northern chamber, where the sun never shone, and where in +winter the snow sifted in at the window cracks, and ice and frost +reigned with undisputed sway, was fitted up to be the storehouse of +these surplus treasures. There, frozen solid, and thus well preserved +in their icy fetters, they formed a great repository for all the +winter months; and the pies baked at Thanksgiving often came out fresh +and good with the violets of April.</p> + +<p>During this eventful preparation week all the female part of my +grandmother's household, as I have before remarked, were at a height +above any ordinary state of mind; they moved about the house rapt in a +species of prophetic frenzy. It seemed to be considered a necessary +feature of such festivals that everybody should be in a hurry, and +everything in the house should be turned bottom upwards with +enthusiasm—so at least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> we children understood it, and we certainly +did our part to keep the ball rolling.</p> + +<p>At this period the constitutional activity of Uncle Fliakim increased +to a degree that might fairly be called preternatural. Thanksgiving +time was the time for errands of mercy and beneficence through the +country; and Uncle Fliakim's immortal old rubber horse and rattling +wagon were on the full jump in tours of investigation into everybody's +affairs in the region around. On returning, he would fly through our +kitchen like the wind, leaving open the doors, upsetting whatever came +in his way—now a pan of milk, and now a basin of mince—talking +rapidly, and forgetting only the point in every case that gave it +significance, or enabled any one to put it to any sort of use. When +Aunt Lois checked his benevolent effusions by putting the test +questions of practical efficiency, Uncle Fliakim always remembered +that he'd "forgotten to inquire about that," and skipping through the +kitchen, and springing into his old wagon, would rattle off again on a +full tilt to correct and amend his investigations.</p> + +<p>Moreover, my grandmother's kitchen at this time began to be haunted by +those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of uncertain fortunes, whom +a full experience of her bountiful habits led to expect something at +her hand at this time of the year. All the poor, loafing tribes, +Indian and half-Indian, who at other times wandered, selling baskets +and other light wares, were sure to come back to Oldtown a little +before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> Thanksgiving time, and report themselves in my grandmother's +kitchen.</p> + +<p>The great hogshead of cider in the cellar, which my grandfather called +the Indian hogshead, was on tap at all hours of the day; and many a +mugful did I draw and dispense to the tribes that basked in the +sunshine at our door.</p> + +<p>Aunt Lois never had a hearty conviction of the propriety of these +arrangements; but my grandmother, who had a prodigious verbal memory, +bore down upon her with such strings of quotations from the Old +Testament that she was utterly routed.</p> + +<p>"Now," says my Aunt Lois, "I s'pose we've got to have Betty Poganut +and Sally Wonsamug, and old Obscue and his wife, and the whole tribe +down, roosting around our doors till we give 'em something. That's +just mother's way; she always keeps a whole generation at her heels."</p> + +<p>"How many times must I tell you, Lois, to read your Bible?" was my +grandmother's rejoinder; and loud over the sound of pounding and +chopping in the kitchen could be heard the voice of her quotations: +"If there be among you a poor man in any of the gates of the land +which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, +nor shut thy hand, from thy poor brother. Thou shalt surely give him; +and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him, because +that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy +works; for the poor shall never cease from out of the land."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>These words seemed to resound like a sort of heraldic proclamation to +call around us all that softly shiftless class, who, for some reason +or other, are never to be found with anything in hand at the moment +that it is wanted.</p> + +<p>"There, to be sure," said Aunt Lois, one day when our preparations +were in full blast; "there comes Sam Lawson down the hill, limpsy as +ever; now he'll have his doleful story to tell, and mother'll give him +one of the turkeys."</p> + +<p>And so, of course, it fell out.</p> + +<p>Sam came in with his usual air of plaintive assurance, and seated +himself a contemplative spectator in the chimney corner, regardless of +the looks and signs of unwelcome on the part of Aunt Lois.</p> + +<p>"Lordy massy, how prosperous everything does seem here!" he said in +musing tones, over his inevitable mug of cider; "so different from +what 'tis t' our house. There's Hepsey, she's all in a stew, an' I've +just been an' got her thirty-seven cents' wuth o' nutmegs, yet she +says she's sure she don't see how she's to keep Thanksgiving, an' +she's down on me about it, just as ef 'twas my fault. Yeh see, last +winter our old gobbler got froze. You know, Mis' Badger, that 'ere +cold night we hed last winter. Wal, I was off with Jake Marshall that +night; ye see, Jake, he had to take old General Dearborn's corpse into +Boston, to the family vault, and Jake, he kind o' hated to go alone; +'twas a drefful cold time, and he ses to me,' Sam, you jes' go 'long +with me';<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> so I was sort o' sorry for him, and I kind o' thought I'd +go 'long. Wal, come 'long to Josh Bissel's tahvern, there at the +Halfway House, you know, 'twas so swingeing cold we stopped to take a +little suthin' warmin', an' we sort o' sot an' sot over the fire, +till, fust we knew, we kind o' got asleep; an' when we woke up we +found we'd left the old General hitched up t' th' post pretty much all +night. Wal, didn't hurt him none, poor man; 'twas allers a favourite +spot o' his'n. But, takin' one thing with another, I didn't get home +till about noon next day, an' I tell you, Hepsey she was right down on +me. She said the baby was sick, and there hadn't been no wood split, +nor the barn fastened up, nor nuthin'. Lordy massy, I didn't mean no +harm; I thought there was wood enough, and I thought likely Hepsey'd +git out an' fasten up the barn. But Hepsey, she was in one o' her +contrary streaks, an' she wouldn't do a thing; an' when I went out to +look, why, sure 'nuff, there was our old tom-turkey froze as stiff as +a stake—his claws jist a stickin' right straight up like this." Here +Sam struck an expressive attitude, and looked so much like a frozen +turkey as to give a pathetic reality to the picture.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, Sam, why need you be off on things that's none of your +business?" said my grandmother. "I've talked to you plainly about that +a great many times, Sam," she continued, in tones of severe +admonition. "Hepsey is a hard-working woman, but she can't be expected +to see to everything, and you oughter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> 'ave been at home that night to +fasten up your own barn and look after your own creeturs."</p> + +<p>Sam took the rebuke all the more meekly as he perceived the stiff +black legs of a turkey poking out from under my grandmother's apron +while she was delivering it. To be exhorted and told of his +shortcomings, and then furnished with a turkey at Thanksgiving, was a +yearly part of his family program. In time he departed, not only with +the turkey, but with us boys in procession after him, bearing a mince +and a pumpkin pie for Hepsey's children.</p> + +<p>"Poor things!" my grandmother remarked; "they ought to have something +good to eat Thanksgiving Day; 'tain't their fault that they've got a +shiftless father."</p> + +<p>Sam, in his turn, moralized to us children, as we walked beside him: +"A body'd think that Hepsey'd learn to trust in Providence," he said, +"but she don't. She allers has a Thanksgiving dinner pervided; but +that 'ere woman ain't grateful for it, by no manner o' means. Now +she'll be jest as cross as she can be, 'cause this 'ere ain't <i>our</i> +turkey, and these 'ere ain't our pies. Folks doos lose so much that +hes sech dispositions."</p> + +<p>A multitude of similar dispensations during the course of the week +materially reduced the great pile of chickens and turkeys which black +Cæsar's efforts in slaughtering, picking, and dressing kept daily +supplied....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Great as the preparations were for the dinner, everything was so +contrived that not a soul in the house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> should be kept from the +morning service of Thanksgiving in the church, and from listening to +the Thanksgiving sermon, in which the minister was expected to express +his views freely concerning the politics of the country and the state +of things in society generally, in a somewhat more secular vein of +thought than was deemed exactly appropriate to the Lord's day. But it +is to be confessed that, when the good man got carried away by the +enthusiasm of his subject to extend these exercises beyond a certain +length, anxious glances, exchanged between good wives, sometimes +indicated a weakness of the flesh, having a tender reference to the +turkeys and chickens and chicken pies which might possibly be +overdoing in the ovens at home. But your old brick oven was a true +Puritan institution, and backed up the devotional habits of good +housewives by the capital care which he took of whatever was committed +to his capacious bosom. A truly well-bred oven would have been ashamed +of himself all his days and blushed redder than his own fires, if a +God-fearing house matron, away at the temple of the Lord, should come +home and find her pie crust either burned or underdone by his over or +under zeal; so the old fellow generally managed to bring things out +exactly right.</p> + +<p>When sermons and prayers were all over, we children rushed home to see +the great feast of the year spread.</p> + +<p>What chitterings and chatterings there were all over the house, as all +the aunties and uncles and cousins came pouring in, taking off their +things, looking at one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> another's bonnets and dresses, and mingling +their comments on the morning sermon with various opinions on the new +millinery outfits, and with bits of home news and kindly neighbourhood +gossip.</p> + +<p>Uncle Bill, whom the Cambridge college authorities released, as they +did all the other youngsters of the land, for Thanksgiving Day, made a +breezy stir among them all, especially with the young cousins of the +feminine gender.</p> + +<p>The best room on this occasion was thrown wide open, and its habitual +coldness had been warmed by the burning down of a great stack of +hickory logs, which had been heaped up unsparingly since morning. It +takes some hours to get a room warm where a family never sits, and +which therefore has not in its walls one particle of the genial +vitality which comes from the indwelling of human beings. But on +Thanksgiving Day, at least, every year this marvel was effected in our +best room.</p> + +<p>Although all servile labour and vain recreation on this day were by +law forbidden, according to the terms of the proclamation, it was not +held to be a violation of the precept that all the nice old aunties +should bring their knitting work and sit gently trotting their needles +around the fire; nor that Uncle Bill should start a full-fledged romp +among the girls and children, while the dinner was being set on the +long table in the neighbouring kitchen. Certain of the good elderly +female relatives, of serious and discreet demeanour, assisted at this +operation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> + +<p>But who shall do justice to the dinner, and describe the turkey, and +chickens, and chicken pies, with all that endless variety of +vegetables which the American soil and climate have contributed to the +table, and which, without regard to the French doctrine of courses, +were all piled together in jovial abundance upon the smoking board? +There was much carving and laughing and talking and eating, and all +showed that cheerful ability to despatch the provisions which was the +ruling spirit of the hour. After the meat came the plum puddings, and +then the endless array of pies, till human nature was actually +bewildered and overpowered by the tempting variety; and even we +children turned from the profusion offered to us, and wondered what +was the matter that we could eat no more.</p> + +<p>When all was over, my grandfather rose at the head of the table, and a +fine venerable picture he made as he stood there, his silver hair +flowing in curls down each side of his clear, calm face, while, in +conformity to the old Puritan custom, he called their attention to a +recital of the mercies of God in His dealings with their family.</p> + +<p>It was a sort of family history, going over and touching upon the +various events which had happened. He spoke of my father's death, and +gave a tribute to his memory; and closed all with the application of a +time-honoured text, expressing the hope that as years passed by we +might "so number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom"; and +then he gave out that psalm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> which in those days might be called the +national hymn of the Puritans.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Let children hear the mighty deeds<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which God performed of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which in our younger years we saw,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And which our fathers told.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He bids us make his glories known,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His works of power and grace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And we'll convey his wonders down<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through every rising race.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Our lips shall tell them to our sons,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And they again to theirs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That generations yet unborn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May teach them to their heirs.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Thus shall they learn in God alone<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their hope securely stands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That they may ne'er forget his works,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But practise his commands."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This we all united in singing to the venerable tune of St. Martin's, +an air which, the reader will perceive, by its multiplicity of quavers +and inflections gave the greatest possible scope to the cracked and +trembling voices of the ancients, who united in it with even more zeal +than the younger part of the community.</p> + +<p>Uncle Fliakim Sheril, furbished up in a new crisp black suit, and with +his spindleshanks trimly incased in the smoothest of black silk +stockings, looking for all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> the world just like an alert and spirited +black cricket, outdid himself on this occasion in singing <i>counter</i>, +in that high, weird voice that he must have learned from the wintry +winds that usually piped around the corners of the old house. But any +one who looked at him, as he sat with his eyes closed, beating time +with head and hand, and, in short, with every limb of his body, must +have perceived the exquisite satisfaction which he derived from this +mode of expressing himself. I much regret to be obliged to state that +my graceless Uncle Bill, taking advantage of the fact that the eyes of +all his elders were devotionally closed, stationing himself a little +in the rear of my Uncle Fliakim, performed an exact imitation of his +<i>counter</i> with such a killing facility that all the younger part of +the audience were nearly dead with suppressed laughter. Aunt Lois, who +never shut her eyes a moment on any occasion, discerned this from a +distant part of the room, and in vain endeavoured to stop it by +vigorously shaking her head at the offender. She might as well have +shaken it at a bobolink tilting on a clover top. In fact, Uncle Bill +was Aunt Lois's weak point, and the corners of her own mouth were +observed to twitch in such a suspicious manner that the whole moral +force of her admonition was destroyed.</p> + +<p>And now, the dinner being cleared away, we youngsters, already excited +to a tumult of laughter, tumbled into the best room, under the +supervision of Uncle Bill, to relieve ourselves with a game of +"blindman's bluff,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> while the elderly women washed up the dishes and +got the house in order, and the men folks went out to the barn to look +at the cattle, and walked over the farm and talked of the crops.</p> + +<p>In the evening the house was all open and lighted with the best of +tallow candles, which Aunt Lois herself had made with especial care +for this illumination. It was understood that we were to have a dance, +and black Cæsar, full of turkey and pumpkin pie, and giggling in the +very jollity of his heart, had that afternoon rosined his bow, and +tuned his fiddle, and practised jigs and Virginia reels, in a way that +made us children think him a perfect Orpheus....</p> + +<p>You may imagine the astounding wassail among the young people.... My +Uncle Bill related the story of "the Wry-mouth Family," with such +twists and contortions and killing extremes of the ludicrous as +perfectly overcame even the minister; and he was to be seen, at one +period of the evening, with a face purple with laughter and the tears +actually rolling down over his well-formed cheeks, while some of the +more excitable young people almost fell in trances and rolled on the +floor in the extreme of their merriment. In fact, the assemblage was +becoming so tumultuous, that the scrape of Cæsar's violin and the +forming of sets for a dance seemed necessary to restore the peace....</p> + +<p>Uncle Bill would insist on leading out Aunt Lois, and the bright +colour rising to her thin cheeks brought back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> a fluttering image of +what might have been beauty in some fresh, early day. Ellery Davenport +insisted upon leading forth Miss Deborah Kittery, notwithstanding her +oft-repeated refusals and earnest protestations to the contrary. As to +Uncle Fliakim, he jumped and frisked and gyrated among the single +sisters and maiden aunts, whirling them into the dance as if he had +been the little black gentleman himself. With that true spirit of +Christian charity which marked all his actions, he invariably chose +out the homeliest and most neglected, and thus worthy Aunt Keziah, +dear old soul, was for a time made quite prominent by his +attentions....</p> + +<p>Grandmother's face was radiant with satisfaction, as the wave of +joyousness crept up higher and higher round her, till the elders, who +stood keeping time with their heads and feet, began to tell one +another how they had danced with their sweethearts in good old days +gone by, and the elder women began to blush and bridle, and boast of +steps that they could take in their youth, till the music finally +subdued them, and into the dance they went.</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" quoth my grandmother; "they're all at it so hearty I +don't see why I shouldn't try it myself." And into the Virginia reel +she went, amid screams of laughter from all the younger members of the +company.</p> + +<p>But I assure you my grandmother was not a woman to be laughed at; for +whatever she once set on foot she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> "put through" with a sturdy energy +befitting a daughter of the Puritans.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I dance?" she said, when she arrived red and +resplendent at the bottom of the set. "Didn't Mr. Despondency and Miss +Muchafraid and Mr. Readytohalt all dance together in the 'Pilgrim's +Progress?'" And the minister in his ample flowing wig, and my lady in +her stiff brocade, gave to my grandmother a solemn twinkle of +approbation.</p> + +<p>As nine o'clock struck, the whole scene dissolved and melted; for what +well-regulated village would think of carrying festivities beyond that +hour?</p> + +<p>And so ended our Thanksgiving at Oldtown.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Adapted from "Oldtown Folks," Houghton, Mifflin Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Tina was Miss Mehitable's adopted child; Polly her +faithful old maid-servant.</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="WISHBONE_VALLEY" id="WISHBONE_VALLEY"></a>WISHBONE VALLEY<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By R. K. Munkittrick</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A Thanksgiving ghost story about a boy who dined not wisely +but too well.</p></div> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="50" /></div> + +<p>he Thanksgiving feast had just ended, and only Donald and his little +sister Grace remained at the table, looking drowsily at the +plum-pudding that they couldn't finish, but which they disliked to +leave on their plates.</p> + + + +<p>When the plates had been removed, and the plum-pudding taken to the +kitchen and placed beside the well-carved gobbler, Donald and Grace +were too tired to rise from their chairs to have their faces washed. +They seemed lost in a roseate repose, until Grace finally thought of +the wishbone that they intended to break after dinner.</p> + +<p>"Come, now, Donald," she said, "let's break the old gobbler's +wishbone."</p> + +<p>"All right," replied Donald, opening his eyes slowly, and unwrapping +the draperies of his sweet plum-pudding dreams from about him, "let's +do it now." So he held up the wishbone, and Grace took hold of the +other end of it with a merry laugh.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p><p>"Here, you must not take hold so far from the end, because I have a +fine wish to make, and want to get the big half if possible."</p> + +<p>"So have I a nice wish to make," replied Grace, with a sigh, "and I +also want the big end."</p> + +<p>And so they argued for a few minutes, until their mother entered the +room and told them that if they could not stop quarrelling over the +wishbone she would take it from them and throw it into the fire. So +they lost no time in taking it by the ends and snapping it asunder.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" exclaimed Donald, observing Grace's expression of +disappointment. "I've got it!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've made a wish, too," said Grace.</p> + +<p>"But it won't come true," replied Donald, "because you have the little +end."</p> + +<p>And then Donald thought he would go out in the air and play, because +his great dinner made him feel very uncomfortable. When he was out in +the barnyard it was just growing dusk, and Donald, through his +half-closed eyes, observed a gobbler strutting about. To his great +surprise the gobbler approached him instead of running away.</p> + +<p>"I thought we had you for dinner to-day," said Donald.</p> + +<p>"You did," replied the gobbler coldly, "and you had a fine old time, +didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Donald, "you made a splendid dinner, and you ought to be +pleased to think you made us all so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> happy. Your second joints were +very sweet and juicy, and your drumsticks were like sticks of candy."</p> + +<p>"And you broke my poor old wishbone with your little sister, didn't +you?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"And what did you wish?" asked the gobbler.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't ask me that," replied Donald, "because, you know, if I +tell you the wish I made it would not come true."</p> + +<p>"But it was my wishbone," persisted the gobbler, "and I think I ought +to know something about it."</p> + +<p>"You have rights, I suppose, and your argument is not without force," +replied Donald, with calm dignity.</p> + +<p>The gobbler was puzzled at so lofty a reply, and not understanding it, +said:</p> + +<p>"I am only the ghost, or spirit, of the gobbler you ate to-day, but +still I remember how one day last summer you threw a pan of water on +me, and alluded to my wattles as a red necktie, and called me 'Old +Harvard,' Now, come along!"</p> + +<p>"Where?" asked Donald.</p> + +<p>"To Wishbone Valley, where you will see the spirits of my ancestors +eaten by your family."</p> + +<p>It was now dusk, and Donald didn't like the idea of going to such a +place. He was a brave, courageous boy, on most occasions, but the idea +of going to Wishbone Valley when the stars were appearing filled him +with a dread that he didn't like to acknowledge even to the ghost of a +gobbler.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can't go with you now, Mr. Gobbler," he said, "because I have a lot +of lessons to study for next Monday; wait until to-morrow, and I will +gladly go with you."</p> + +<p>"Come along," replied the gobbler, with a provoked air, "and let your +lessons go until to-morrow, when you will have plenty of light."</p> + +<p>Thereupon the gobbler extended his wing and took Donald by the hand, +and started on a trot.</p> + +<p>"Not so fast," protested Donald.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" demanded the gobbler in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Because," replied Donald, with a groan, "I have just had my dinner, +and I'm too full of you to run."</p> + +<p>So the gobbler kindly and considerately slackened his pace to a walk, +and the two proceeded out of the barnyard and across a wide meadow to +a little valley surrounded by a dense thicket. The moon was just +rising and the thicket was silvered by its light, while the dry leaves +rustled weirdly in the cold crisp air.</p> + +<p>"This," said the gobbler, "is Wishbone Valley. Look and see."</p> + +<p>Donald strained his eyes, and, sure enough, there were wishbones +sticking out of the ground in every direction. He thought they looked +like little croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of +offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to +make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in +an offhand way:</p> + +<p>"Let's break one and make a wish."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> + +<p>The ghost of the old gobbler frowned, drew himself up, and uttered a +ghostly whistle that seemed to cut the air. As he did so, the ghosts +of the other turkeys long since eaten popped out of the thickets with +a great flapping of wings, and each one perched upon a wishbone and +gazed upon poor Donald, who was so frightened that his collar flew +into a standing position, while he stood upon his toes, with his knees +knocking together at a great rate.</p> + +<p>Every turkey fixed its eyes upon the trembling boy, who was beside +himself with fear.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do with him, grandpapa?" asked the gobbler of an +ancient bird that could scarcely contain itself and remain on its +wishbone.</p> + +<p>"I cannot think of anything terrible enough, Willie," replied the +grandparent. "It almost makes my ghost-ship boil when I think of the +way in which he used to amuse himself by making me a target for his +bean shooter. Often when I was asleep in the button-ball he would +fetch me one on the side of the head that would give me an earache for +a week. But now it is our turn."</p> + +<p>Here the other turkeys broke into a wild chorus of approval.</p> + +<p>"Take his bean shooter from his pocket," suggested another bird, "and +let's have a shot at him."</p> + +<p>Donald was compelled to hand out his bean shooter, and the grandparent +took it, lay on his back, and with the handle of the bean shooter in +one claw and the missile end in the other began to send pebbles at +Don<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>ald at a great rate. He could hear them whistling past his ears, +but could not see them to dodge. Fortunately none struck him, and when +the turkeys felt that they had had fun enough of that kind at his +expense the bean shooter was returned to him.</p> + +<p>"Now, then," said the gobbler's Aunt Fanny, "he once gave me a string +of yellow beads for corn."</p> + +<p>"What shall we do to him for that?" asked the gobbler.</p> + +<p>"Make him eat a lot of yellow beads," said the chorus.</p> + +<p>"But we have no beads," said the gobbler sadly.</p> + +<p>"Then let's poke him with a stick," suggested the gobbler's Granduncle +Sylvester; "he used to do that to us."</p> + +<p>So they all took up their wishbones and poked Donald until he was +sore. Sometimes they would hit him in a ticklish spot, and throw him +into such a fit of laughter that they thought he was enjoying it all +and chaffing them. So they stuck their wishbones into the ground, and +took their positions on them once more, to take a needed rest, for the +poor ghosts were greatly exhausted.</p> + +<p>There was one quiet turkey who had taken no part in the proceedings.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you suggest something?" demanded Uncle Sylvester.</p> + +<p>"Because," replied the quiet turkey, "Donald never did anything to me, +and I must treat him accordingly. I was raised and killed a long way +from here, and canned. Donald's father bought me at a store. To be a +ghost in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> good standing I should be on the farm where I was killed, +and really I don't know why I should be here."</p> + +<p>"Then you should be an impartial judge," said Aunt Fanny. "Now what +shall we do with him?"</p> + +<p>"Tell them to let me go home," protested Donald, "and I'll agree never +to molest or eat turkey again; I will give them all the angleworms I +can dig every day, and on Thanksgiving Day I'll ask my father to have +roast beef."</p> + +<p>"I think," replied the impartial canned ghost, "that as all boys +delight in chasing turkeys with sticks, it would be eminently just and +proper for us, with the exception of myself, to chase this boy and +beat him with our' wishbones, to let him learn by experience that +which he could scarcely learn by observation."</p> + +<p>"What could I do but eat turkey when it was put on the table?" +protested Donald.</p> + +<p>"But you could help chasing us around with sticks," sang the chorus.</p> + +<p>They thereupon descended from the wishbones upon which they had been +perching, and flying after him, they darted the wishbones, which they +held in their beaks, into his back and neck as hard as they could. +Donald ran up and down Wishbone Valley, calling upon them to stop, and +declaring that if turkey should ever be put upon the table again he +would eat nothing but the stuffing. When Donald found that the +wishbones were sticking into his neck like so many hornet stings, he +made up his mind that he would run for the house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> Finally the +wishbone tattoo stopped, and when he looked around, the gobbler, who +was twenty feet away, said: "When a Thanksgiving turkey dies, his +ghost comes down here to Wishbone Valley to join his ancestors, and it +never after leaves the valley. You will now know why every spring the +turkeys steal down here to hatch their little ones. As you are now +over the boundary line you are safe."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Donald gratefully.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," sang all the ghosts in chorus.</p> + +<p>There was then a great ghostly flapping and whistling, and the turkeys +and wishbones all vanished from sight.</p> + +<p>Donald ran home as fast as his trembling legs could carry him, and he +fancied that the surviving turkeys on the place made fun of him as he +passed on his way.</p> + +<p>When he reached the house he was very happy, but made no allusion to +his experience in Wishbone Valley, for fear of being laughed at.</p> + +<p>"Come, Donald," said his mother, shortly after his arrival, "it is +almost bedtime; you had better eat that drumstick and retire."</p> + +<p>"I think I have had turkey enough for to-day," replied Donald, with a +shudder, "and if it is just the same, I would rather have a nice thick +piece of pumpkin pie."</p> + +<p>So the girl placed a large piece of pie before him; and while he was +eating with the keen appetite given him by the crisp air of Wishbone +Valley, he heard a great clattering of hoofs coming down the road. +These<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> sounds did not stop until the express wagon drew up in front of +the house, and the driver brought in a large package for Donald.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" shouted Donald, in boundless glee. "Uncle Arthur has sent me +a nice bicycle! Wasn't it good of him?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you wish for a bicycle to-day, when you got the big end of the +wishbone?" asked his little sister Grace.</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so?" asked Donald, with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I knew it all the time; and my wish came true, too."</p> + +<p>"How could your wish come true?" asked Donald, with a puzzled look, +"when you got the little half of the wishbone?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Grace, "but my wish did come true."</p> + +<p>"And what did you wish?"</p> + +<p>"Why," said Grace, running up and kissing her little brother +affectionately, "I wished your wish would come true, of course."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> From <i>Harper's Young People</i>, November 21, 1893.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PATEMS_SALMAGUNDI" id="PATEMS_SALMAGUNDI"></a>PATEM'S SALMAGUNDI<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By E. S. Brooks</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>New York boys, especially, will enjoy this tale of the +doings of a group of Dutch schoolboys in old New Amsterdam.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_11.jpg" alt="L" width="42" height="50" /></div> +<p>ittle Patem Onderdonk meant mischief. There was a snap in his eyes +and a look on his face that were certain proof of this. I am bound to +say, however, that there was nothing new or strange in this, for +little Patem Onderdonk generally did mean mischief. Whenever any one's +cow was found astray beyond the limits, or any one's bark gutter laid +askew so that the roof-water dripped on the passer's head, or whenever +the dominie's dog ran howling down the Heeren Graaft with a battered +pypken cover tied to his suffering tail, the goode vrouws in the +neighbourhood did not stop to wonder who could have done it; they +simply raised both hands in a sort of injured resignation and +exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so</i>; what's gone of Patem's Elishamet's Patem?"</p> + +<p>So you see little Patem Onderdonk was generally at the bottom of +whatever mischief was afoot in those last Dutch days of New Amsterdam +on the island of Manhattan.</p> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p><p>But this time he was conjuring a more serious bit of mischief than +even he usually attempted. This was plain from the appearance of the +startled but deeply interested faces of the half-dozen boys gathered +around him on the bridge.</p> + +<p>"But I say, Patem," queried young Teuny Vanderbreets, who was always +ready to second any of Patem's plans, "how can we come it over the +dominie as you would have us?"</p> + +<p>"So then, Teuny," cried Patem, in his highest key of contempt, "did +your wits blow away with your hat out of Heer Snediker's nut tree +yesterday? Do not you know that the Heer Governor is at royal odds +with Dominie Curtius because the skinflint old dominie will not pay +the taxes due the town? Why, lad, the Heer Governor will back us up!"</p> + +<p>"And why will he not pay the taxes, Patem?" asked Jan Hooglant, the +tanner's son.</p> + +<p>"Because he's a skinflint, I tell you," asserted Patem, "though I do +believe he says that he was brought here from Holland as one of the +Company's men, and ought not therefore pay taxes to the Company. +That's what I did hear them say at the Stadt Huys this morning, and +Heer Vanderveer, the schepen, said there, too, that Dominie Curtius +was not worth one of the five hundred guilders which he doth receive +for our teaching. And sure, if the burgomaster and schepens will have +none of the old dominie, why then no more will we who know how stupid +are his lessons, and how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> his switch doth sting. So, hoy, lads, let's +turn him out."</p> + +<p>And with that little Patem Onderdonk gave Teuny Vanderbreets' broad +back a sounding slap with his battered horn book and crying, "Come on, +lads," headed his mutinous companions on a race for the rickety little +schoolhouse near the fort.</p> + +<p>It was hard lines for Dominie Curtius all that day at school. The boys +had never been so unruly; the girls never so inattentive. Rebellion +seemed in the air, and the dominie, never a patient or gentle-mannered +man, grew harsher and more exacting as the session advanced. His reign +as master of the Latin School of New Amsterdam had not been a +successful one, and his dispute with the town officers as to his +payment of taxes had so angered him that, as Patem declared, "he +seemed moved to avenge himself upon the town's children."</p> + +<p>This being the state of affairs, Dominie Curtius's mood this day was +not a pleasant one, and the school exercises had more to do with the +whipping horse and the birch twigs than with the horn book and the +Latin conjugations.</p> + +<p>The boys, I regret to say, were hardened to this, because of much +practice, but when the dominie, enraged at some fresh breach of rigid +discipline, glared savagely over his big spectacles and then swooped +down upon pretty little Antje Adrianse who had done nothing whatever, +the whole school broke into open rebellion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> Horn books, and every +possible missile that the boys had at hand, went flying at the +master's head, and the young rebels, led on by Patem and Teuny, +charged down upon the unprepared dominie, rescued trembling little +Antje from his clutch, and then one and all rushed pell-mell from the +school with shouts of triumph and derision.</p> + +<p>But when the first flush of their victory was over, the boys realized +that they had done a very daring and risky thing. It was no small +matter in those days of stern authority and strict home government for +girls and boys to resist the commands of their elders; and to run away +from school was one of the greatest of crimes. So they all looked at +Patem in much anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Well," cried several of the boys almost in a breath, "and now what +shall we do, Patem? You have us in a pretty fix."</p> + +<p>Patem waved his hand like a young Napoleon.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>! ye are all cowards," he cried shrilly. "What will we <i>do</i>? +Why, then we will but do as if we were burgomasters and schepens—as +we will be some day. We will to the Heer Governor straight, and lay +our demands before him."</p> + +<p>Well, well; this <i>was</i> bold talk! The Heer Governor! Not a boy in all +New Amsterdam but would sooner face a gray wolf in the Sapokanican +woods than the Heer Governor Stuyvesant.</p> + +<p>"So then, Patem Onderdonk," they cried, "you may do it yourself, for, +good faith, we will not."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Jan Hooglant, "why, Patem, the Heer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> Governor will have us +rated soundly over the ears for daring such a thing; and we will all +catch more of it when we get home. Demand of the Heer Governor indeed! +Why, boy, you must be crazy!"</p> + +<p>But Patem was not crazy. He was simply determined; and at last, by +threats and arguments and coaxing words, he gradually won over a +half-dozen of the boldest spirits to his side and, without more ado, +started with them to interview the Heer Governor.</p> + +<p>But, quickly as they acted, the schoolmaster was still more prompt in +action. Defeated and deserted by his scholars, Dominie Curtius had +raged about the schoolroom for a while, spluttering angrily in mingled +Dutch and Polish, and then, clapping his broad black hat upon his +head, marched straight to the fort to lay his grievance before the +Heer Governor.</p> + +<p>The Heer Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General for the Dutch West India +Company in their colony of New Netherlands, walked up and down the +Governor's chamber in the fort at New Amsterdam woefully perplexed. +The Heer Governor was not a patient man, and a combination of +annoyances was hedging him about and making his government of his +island province anything but pleasant work.</p> + +<p>The "malignant English" of the Massachusetts and Hartford colonies +were pressing their claim to the ownership of the New Netherlands, +just as, to the south, the settlers on Lord De La Ware's patent were +also doing; the "people called Quakers," whom the Heer Governor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> had +publicly whipped for heresy and sent a-packing, were spreading their +"pernicious doctrine" through Long Island and other outer edges of the +colony, and the Indians around Esopus, the little settlement which the +province had planted midway on the Hudson between New Amsterdam and +Beaverwyck (now Albany), were growing restless and defiant. Thump, +thump, thump, across the floor went the wooden leg with its silver +bands, and with every thump the Heer Governor grew still more puzzled +and angered. For the Heer Governor could not bear to have things go +wrong.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, with scant ceremony and but the apology of a request for +admittance, there came into the Heer Governor's presence the Dominie +Doctor Alexander Carolus Curtius, master of the Latin School.</p> + +<p>"Here is a pretty pass, Heer Governor!" he cried excitedly. "My pupils +of the Latin School have turned upon me in revolt and have deserted me +in a body."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>; then you are rightly served for a craven and a miser, sir!" +burst out the angry Governor, turning savagely upon the surprised +schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>This was a most unexpected reception for Doctor and Dominie Curtius. +But, as it happened, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant was just now +particularly vexed with the objectionable Dominie. At much trouble and +after much solicitation on his part the Heer Governor had prevailed +upon his superiors and the proprietors of the province, the Dutch West +India Company, to send from Holland a schoolmaster or "rector" for +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> children of their town of New Amsterdam, and the Company had sent +over Dominie Curtius.</p> + +<p>The Heer Governor had entertained great hopes of what the new +schoolmaster was to do, and now to find him a subject of complaint +from both the parents of the scholars and the officials of the town +made the hasty Governor doubly dissatisfied. The Dominie's intrusion, +therefore, at just this stage of all his perplexities gave the Heer +Governor a most convenient person on whom to vent his bad feelings.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sirrah, a craven and a miser!" continued the angry Governor, +stamping upon the floor with both wooden leg and massive cane. "You, +who can neither govern our children nor pay your just dues to the +town, can be no fit master for our youth. No words, sirrah, no words," +he added, as the poor dominie tried to put in a word in his defence, +"no words, sir; you are discharged from further labour in this +province. I will see that one who can ride wisely and pay his just +dues shall be placed here in your stead."</p> + +<p>Protests and appeals, explanations and arguments, were of no avail. +When the Heer Governor Stuyvesant said a thing, he meant it, and it +was useless for any one to hope for a change. The unpopular Dominie +Curtius must go—and go he did.</p> + +<p>But, as he left, the delegation of boys, headed by young Patem +Onderdonk, came into the fort and sought to interview the Heer +Governor.</p> + +<p>The sentry at the door would have sent them off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> without further ado, +but, hearing their noise, the Heer Governor came to the door.</p> + +<p>"So, so, young rapscallions," he cried, "you, too, must needs disturb +the peace and push yourself forward into public quarrels! Get you +gone! I will have none of your words. Is it not enough that I must +needs send the schoolmaster a-packing, without being worried by +graceless young varlets as you?"</p> + +<p>"And hath the Dominie Curtius gone indeed, Heer Governor?" Patem dared +to ask.</p> + +<p>"Hath he, hath he, boy?" echoed the Governor, turning upon his +audacious young questioner with uplifted cane. "Said I not so, and +will you dare doubt my word, rascal? Begone from the fort, all of you, +ere I do put you all in limbo, or send word to your good folk to give +you the floggings you do no doubt all so richly deserve."</p> + +<p>Discretion is the better part of valour, and the boyish delegation +hastily withdrew. But when once they were safely out of hearing of the +Heer Governor, beyond the Land Gate at the Broad Way, they took breath +and indulged in a succession of boyish shouts.</p> + +<p>"And that doth mean no school, too!" cried young Patem Onderdonk, +flinging his cap in air. "Huzzoy for that, lads; huzzoy for that!"</p> + +<p>And the "huzzoys" came with right good-will from every boy of the +group.</p> + +<p>Within less than a week the whole complexion of affairs in that little +island city was entirely changed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> Both the Massachusetts and the +Maryland claimants ceased, for a time at least, their unfounded +demands. A treaty at Hartford settled the disputed question of +boundary-lines, and the Maryland governor declared "that he had not +intended to meddle with the government of Manhattan." Added to this, +Sewackenamo, chief of the Esopus Indians, came to the fort at New +Amsterdam and "gave the right hand of friendship" to the Heer +Governor, and by the interchange of presents a treaty of peace was +ratified. So, one by one, the troubles of the Heer Governor melted +away, his brow became clear and, "partaking of the universal +satisfaction," so says the historian, "he proclaimed a day of general +thanksgiving."</p> + +<p>Thanksgiving in the colonies was a matter of almost yearly occurrence. +Since the first Thanksgiving Day on American shores, when, in 1621, +the Massachusetts colony, at the request of Governor Bradford, +rejoiced, "after a special manner after we had gathered the fruit of +our labours," the observance of days of thanksgiving for mercies and +benefits had been frequent. But the day itself dates still further +back. The States of Holland after establishing their freedom from +Spain had, in the year 1609, celebrated their deliverance from tyranny +"by thanksgiving and hearty prayers," and had thus really first +instituted the custom of an official thanksgiving. And the Dutch +colonists in America followed the customs of the Fatherland quite as +piously and fervently as did the English colonists.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> + +<p>So, when the proclamation of the Heer Governor Stuyvesant for a day of +thanksgiving was made known, in this year of mercies, 1659, all the +townfolk of New Amsterdam made ready to keep it.</p> + +<p>But young people are often apt to think that the world moves for them +alone. The boys of this little Dutch town at the mouth of the Hudson +were no different from other boys, and cared less for treaties and +Indians and boundary questions than for their own matters. They, +therefore, concluded that the Heer Governor had proclaimed a +thanksgiving because, as young Patem Onderdonk declared, "he had +gotten well rid of Dominie Curtius and would have no more +schoolmasters in the colony."</p> + +<p>"And so, lads," cried the exuberant young Knickerbocker, "let us +wisely celebrate the Thanksgiving. I will even ask the mother to make +for me a rare salmagundi which we lads, who were so rated by the Heer +Governor, will ourselves give to him as our Thanksgiving offering, for +the Heer Governor, so folk do say, doth rarely like the salmagundi."</p> + +<p>Now the salmagundi was (to some palates) a most appetizing mixture, +compounded of salted mackerel, or sometimes of chopped meat, seasoned +with oil and vinegar, pepper and raw onions—not an altogether +attractive dish to read of, but welcome to and dearly loved by many an +old Knickerbocker even up to a recent date. Its name, too, as most of +you bright boys and girls doubtless know, furnished the title for one +of the works of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> Washington Irving, best loved of all the +Knickerbockers.</p> + +<p>Thanksgiving Day came around, and so did Patem's salmagundi, as highly +seasoned and appetizing a one as the Goode Vrouw Onderdonk could make.</p> + +<p>The lengthy prayers and lengthier sermon of good Dominie Megapolensis +in the Fort Church were over and the Thanksgiving dinners were very +nearly ready when up to the Heer Governor's house came a half-dozen +boys, with Patem Onderdonk at their head bearing a neatly covered +dish.</p> + +<p>Patem had well considered and formed in his mind what he deemed just +the speech of presentation to please the Heer Governor, but when the +time came to face that awful personage his valour and his eloquence +alike began to ooze away.</p> + +<p>And, it must be confessed, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant did not +understand boys, nor did he particularly favour them. He was hasty and +overbearing though high-minded, loyal, and brave, but he never could +"get on" with the ways and pranks of boys.</p> + +<p>And as for the boys themselves, when once they stood in the presence +of the greatest dignitary in the province, Patem's ready tongue seemed +to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and he hummed and hawed and +hesitated until the worthy Heer Governor lost patience and broke in:</p> + +<p>"Well, well, boys; what is the stir? Speak quick if at all, for when a +man's dinner waiteth he hath scant time for stammering boys."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then Patem spoke up.</p> + +<p>"Heer Governor," he said, "the boys hereabout, remembering your +goodness in sending away our most pestilential master, the Dominie +Curtius, and in proclaiming a Thanksgiving for his departure and for +the ending of our schooling—"</p> + +<p>"What, what, boy!" cried the Heer Governor, "art crazy then, or would +you seek to make sport of me, your governor? Thanksgiving for the +breaking up of school! Out on you for a set of malapert young knaves! +Do you think the world goeth but for your pleasures alone? Why, this +is ribald talk! I made no Thanksgiving for your convenience, rascals, +but because that the Lord in His grace hath relieved the town from +danger—"</p> + +<p>"Of which, Heer Governor," broke in the most impolitic Patem, "we did +think the Dominie Curtius and his school were part. And so we have +brought to you this salmagundi as our Thanksgiving offering to you for +thus freeing us of a pest and a sorrow—"</p> + +<p>"How now, how now, sirrah!" again came the interruption from the +scandalized Heer Governor when he could recover from his surprise, "do +you then dare to call your schooling a pest and a sorrow? Why, you +graceless young varlets, I do not seek to free you from schooling. I +do even now seek to bring you speedily the teaching you do so much +stand in need of. Even now, within the week forthcoming, the good +Dominie Luyck, the tutor of mine own household, will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> see to the +training and teaching of this town, and so I will warrant to the +flogging, too, of all you sad young rapscallions who even now by this +your wicked talk do show your need both of teaching and of flogging."</p> + +<p>And then, forgetful of the boys' Thanksgiving offering and in high +displeasure at what he deemed their wilful and deliberate ignorance, +the Heer Governor turned the delegation into the street and hastened +back to his waiting dinner.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach, so</i>," cried young Teuny Vanderbreets, as the disgusted and +disconsolate six gathered in the roadway and looked at one another +ruefully. "Here is a fine mix-up—a regular salmagundi, Patem +Onderdonk, and no question. And you did say that this Thanksgiving was +all our work. Out upon you, say I! Here are we to be saddled with a +worse master than before. Hermanus Smeeman did tell me that Nick +Stuyvesant did tell him that Dominie Luyck is a most hard and +worry-ful master."</p> + +<p>There was a universal groan of disappointment and disgust, and then +Patem said philosophically:</p> + +<p>"Well, lads, what's done is done and what is to be will be. Let us eat +the salmagundi anyhow and cry, 'Confusion to Dominie Luyck.'"</p> + +<p>And they did eat it, then and there, for indigestion had no terror to +those lads of hardy stomachs.</p> + +<p>But as for the toast of "Confusion to Dominie Luyck," that came to +naught. For Dominie Aegidius Luyck proved a most efficient and skilful +teacher. Under his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> rule the Latin School of New Amsterdam became +famous throughout the colonies, so that scholars came to it for +instruction from Beaverwyck and South River and even from distant +Virginia.</p> + +<p>So the Thanksgiving of the boys of New Amsterdam became a day of +mourning, and Patem's influence as a leader and an oracle suffered +sadly for a while.</p> + +<p>Five years after, on a sad Monday morning in September, 1664, the +little city was lost to the Dutch West India Company and, spite of the +efforts and protests of its sturdy Governor, the red, white, and blue +banner of the Netherlands gave place to the flag of England. And when +that day came the young fellows who then saw the defeat and +disappointment of the Heer Governor Stuyvesant were not so certain +that Patem Onderdonk was wrong when he claimed that it was all a just +and righteous judgment on the Heer Governor for his refusal of the +boys' request for no school, and for his treatment of them on that sad +Thanksgiving Day when he so harshly rebuked their display of gratitude +and lost forever his chance to partake of Patem's Salmagundi.</p> +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> From "Storied Holidays," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="MRS_NOVEMBERS_DINNER_PARTY" id="MRS_NOVEMBERS_DINNER_PARTY"></a>MRS. NOVEMBER'S DINNER PARTY<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Agnes Carr.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An amusing allegorical fantasy. All the most interesting +Days, grandchildren of Mother Year, came to Mrs. November's +dinner party, to honour the birthday of her daughter, +Thanksgiving.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="50" /></div> +<p>he widow November was very busy indeed this year. What with elections +and harvest homes, her hands were full to overflowing; for she takes +great interest in politics, besides being a social body, without whom +no apple bee or corn husking is complete.</p> + + + +<p>Still, worn out as she was, when her thirty sons and daughters +clustered round, and begged that they might have their usual family +dinner on Thanksgiving Day, she could not find it in her hospitable +heart to refuse, and immediately invitations were sent to her eleven +brothers and sisters, old Father Time, and Mother Year, to come with +all their families and celebrate the great American holiday.</p> + +<p>Then what a busy time ensued! What a slaughter of unhappy barnyard +families—turkeys, ducks, and chickens! What a chopping of apples and +boiling of doughnuts! What a picking of raisins and rolling of pie +crust, until every nook and corner of the immense <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>storeroom was +stocked with "savoury mince and toothsome pumpkin pies," while so +great was the confusion that even the stolid red-hued servant, Indian +Summer, lost his head, and smoked so continually he always appeared +surrounded by a blue mist, as he piled logs upon the great bonfires in +the yard, until they lighted up the whole country for miles around.</p> + +<p>But at length all was ready; the happy day had come, and all the +little Novembers, in their best "bib and tucker," were seated in a +row, awaiting the arrival of their uncles, aunts, and cousins, while +their mother, in russet-brown silk trimmed with misty lace, looked +them over, straightening Guy Fawkes's collar, tying Thanksgiving's +neck ribbon, and settling a dispute between two little presidential +candidates as to which should sit at the head of the table.</p> + +<p>Soon a merry clashing of bells, blowing of horns, and mingling of +voices were heard outside, sleighs and carriages dashed up to the +door, and in came, "just in season," Grandpa Time, with Grandma Year +leaning on his arm, followed by all their children and grandchildren, +and were warmly welcomed by the hostess and her family.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how glad I am we could all come to-day!" said Mr. January, in his +crisp, clear tones, throwing off his great fur coat, and rushing to +the blazing fire. "There is nothing like the happy returns of these +days."</p> + +<p>"Nothing, indeed," simpered Mrs. February, the poetess. "If I had had +time I should have composed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> some verses for the occasion; but my son +Valentine has brought a sugar heart, with a sweet sentiment on it, to +his cousin Thanksgiving. I, too, have taken the liberty of bringing a +sort of adopted child of mine, young Leap Year, who makes us a visit +every four years."</p> + +<p>"He is very welcome, I am sure," said Mrs. November, patting Leap Year +kindly on the head. "And, Sister March, how have you been since we +last met?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! we have had the North, South, East, and West Winds all at our +house, and they have kept things breezy, I assure you. But I really +feared we should not get here to-day; for when we came to dress I +found nearly everything we had was lent; so that must account for our +shabby appearance."</p> + +<p>"He! he! he!" tittered little April Fool. "What a sell!" And he shook +until the bells on his cap rang; at which his father ceased for a +moment showering kisses on his nieces and nephews, and boxed his ears +for his rudeness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Aunt May! do tell us a story," clamoured the younger children, +and dragging her into a corner she was soon deep in such a moving tale +that they were all melted to tears, especially the little Aprils, who +cry very easily.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Mrs. June, assisted by her youngest daughter, a "sweet girl +graduate," just from school, was engaged in decking the apartment with +roses and lilies and other fragrant flowers that she had brought from +her extensive gardens and conservatories, until the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> room was a +perfect bower of sweetness and beauty; while Mr. July draped the walls +with flags and banners, lighted the candles, and showed off the tricks +of his pet eagle, Yankee Doodle, to the great delight of the little +ones.</p> + +<p>Madam August, who suffers a great deal with the heat, found a seat on +a comfortable sofa, as far from the fire as possible, and waved a huge +feather fan back and forth, while her thirty-one boys and girls, led +by the two oldest, Holiday and Vacation, ran riot through the long +rooms, picking at their Aunt June's flowers, and playing all sorts of +pranks, regardless of tumbled hair and torn clothes, while they +shouted, "Hurrah for fun!" and behaved like a pack of wild colts let +loose in a green pasture, until their Uncle September called them, +together with his own children, into the library, and persuaded them +to read some of the books with which the shelves were filled, or play +quietly with the game of Authors and the Dissected Maps.</p> + +<p>"For," said Mr. September to Mrs. October, "I think Sister August lets +her children romp too much. I always like improving games for mine, +although I have great trouble to make Equinox toe the line as he +should."</p> + +<p>"That is because you are a schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. October, +shaking her head, adorned with a wreath of gayly tinted leaves; "but +where is my baby?"</p> + +<p>At that moment a cry was heard without, and Indian Summer came running +in to say that little All Hallows had fallen into a tub of water while +trying to catch an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> apple that was floating on top, and Mrs. October, +rushing off to the kitchen, returned with her youngest in a very wet +and dripping condition, and screaming at the top of his lusty little +lungs, and could only be consoled by a handful of chestnuts, which his +nurse, Miss Frost, cracked open for him.</p> + +<p>The little Novembers, meanwhile, were having a charming time with +their favourite cousins, the Decembers, who were always so gay and +jolly, and had such a delightful papa. He came with his pockets +stuffed full of toys and sugarplums, which he drew out from time to +time, and gave to his best-loved child, Merry Christmas, to distribute +amongst the children, who gathered eagerly around their little cousin, +saying:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Christmas comes but once a year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when she comes she brings good cheer."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>At which Merry laughed gayly, and tossed her golden curls, in which +were twined sprays of holly and clusters of brilliant scarlet berries.</p> + +<p>At last the great folding-doors were thrown open. Indian Summer +announced that dinner was served, and a long procession of old and +young being quickly formed, led by Mrs. November and her daughter +Thanksgiving, whose birthday it was, they filed into the spacious +dining-room, where stood the long table groaning beneath its weight of +good things, while four servants ran continually in and out bringing +more substantials and delicacies to grace the board and please the +appetite.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> Winter staggered beneath great trenchers of meat and +poultry, pies and puddings; Spring brought the earliest and freshest +vegetables; Summer, the richest creams and ices; while Autumn served +the guests with fruit, and poured the sparkling wine.</p> + +<p>All were gay and jolly, and many a joke was cracked as the contents of +each plate and dish melted away like snow before the sun; and the +great fires roared in the wide chimneys as though singing a glad +Thanksgiving song.</p> + +<p>New Year drank everybody's health, and wished them "many happy returns +of the day," while Twelfth Night ate so much cake he made himself +quite ill, and had to be put to bed.</p> + +<p>Valentine sent mottoes to all the little girls, and praised their +bright eyes and glossy curls. "For," said his mother, "he is a sad +flatterer, and not nearly so truthful, I am sorry to say, as his +brother, George Washington, who never told a lie."</p> + +<p>At which Grandfather Time gave George a quarter, and said he should +always remember what a good boy he was.</p> + +<p>After dinner the fun increased, all trying to do something for the +general amusement. Mrs. March persuaded her son, St. Patrick, to dance +an Irish Jig, which he did to the tune of the "Wearing of the Green," +which his brothers, Windy and Gusty, blew and whistled on their +fingers.</p> + +<p>Easter sang a beautiful song, the little Mays "tripped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> the light +fantastic toe" in a pretty fancy dance, while the Junes sat by so +smiling and sweet it was a pleasure to look at them.</p> + +<p>Independence, the fourth child of Mr. July, who is a bold little +fellow, and a fine speaker, gave them an oration he had learned at +school; and the Augusts suggested games of tag and blindman's buff, +which they all enjoyed heartily.</p> + +<p>Mr. September tried to read an instructive story aloud, but was +interrupted by Equinox, April Fool, and little All Hallows, who pinned +streamers to his coat tails, covered him with flour, and would not let +him get through a line; at which Mrs. October hugged her tricksy baby, +and laughed until she cried, and Mr. September retired in disgust.</p> + +<p>"That is almost too bad," said Mrs. November, as she shook the popper +vigorously in which the corn was popping and snapping merrily; "but, +Thanksgiving, you must not forget to thank your cousins for all they +have done to honour your birthday."</p> + +<p>At which the demure little maiden went round to each one, and returned +her thanks in such a charming way it was quite captivating.</p> + +<p>Grandmother Year at last began to nod over her teacup in the chimney +corner.</p> + +<p>"It is growing late," said Grandpa Time.</p> + +<p>"But we must have a Virginia Reel before we go," said Mr. December.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes!" cried all the children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> + +<p>Merry Christmas played a lively air on the piano, and old and young +took their positions on the polished floor with grandpa and grandma at +the head.</p> + +<p>Midsummer danced with Happy New Year, June's Commencement with +August's Holiday, Leap Year with May Day, and all "went merry as a +marriage bell."</p> + +<p>The fun was at its height when suddenly the clock in the corner struck +twelve. Grandma Year motioned all to stop, and Grandfather Time, +bowing his head, said softly, "Hark! my children, Thanksgiving Day is +ended."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> From <i>Harper's Young People</i>, November 23, 1880.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_VISIT" id="THE_VISIT"></a>THE VISIT<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">A Story of The Children of The Tower</span></h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Maud Lindsay.</span></h3> +<div class="blockquot"><p>The children went back to spend Thanksgiving at +grandfather's farm. They got into some trouble and were +afraid that they would miss their dinner.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_12.jpg" alt="E" width="43" height="50" /></div> +<p>arly one morning Grandmother Grey got up, opened the windows and +doors of the farmhouse, and soon everybody on the place was stirring. +The cook hurried breakfast, and no sooner was it over than Grandfather +Grey went out to the barn and hitched the two horses to the wagon.</p> + + + +<p>"Get up, Robin and Dobbin!" he said, as he drove through the big gate. +"If you knew who were coming back in this wagon you would not be +stepping so slowly."</p> + +<p>The old horses pricked up their ears when they heard this, and trotted +away as fast as they could down the country road until they came to +town. Just as they got to the railway station the train came whizzing +in.</p> + +<p>"All off!" cried the conductor, as the train stopped; and out came a +group of children who were, every one of them, Grandfather and +Grandmother Grey's grandchildren. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>They had come to spend Thanksgiving +Day on the farm.</p> + +<p>There was John, who was named for grandfather and looked just like +him, and the twins, Teddie and Pat, who looked like nobody but each +other; their papa was grandfather's oldest son. Then there was Louisa, +who had a baby sister at home, and then Mary Virginia Martin, who was +her mamma's only child.</p> + +<p>"I tell you," said grandfather, as he helped them into the wagon, +"your grandmother will be glad to see you!"</p> + +<p>And so she was. She was watching at the window for them when they +drove up, and when the children spied her they could scarcely wait for +grandfather to stop the wagon before they scrambled out.</p> + +<p>"Dear me, dear me!" said grandmother, as they all tried to kiss her at +the same time, "how you have grown."</p> + +<p>"I am in the first grade," said John, hugging her with all his might.</p> + +<p>"So am I," cried Louisa.</p> + +<p>"We are going to be," chimed in the twins; and then they all talked at +once, till grandmother could not hear herself speak.</p> + +<p>Then, after they had told her all about their mammas and papas, and +homes, and cats and dogs, they wanted to go and say "how do you do" to +everything on the place.</p> + +<p>"Take care of yourselves," called grandmother, "for I don't want to +send any broken bones home to your mothers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can take care of myself," said John.</p> + +<p>"So can we," said the rest; and off they ran.</p> + +<p>First they went to the kitchen where Mammy 'Ria was getting ready to +cook the Thanksgiving dinner; then out to the barnyard, where there +were two new red calves, and five little puppies belonging to Juno, +the dog, for them to see. Then they climbed the barnyard fence and +made haste to the pasture where grandfather kept his woolly sheep. +"Baa-a!" said the sheep when they saw the children; but then, they +always said that, no matter what happened.</p> + +<p>There were cows in this pasture, too, and Mary Virginia was afraid of +them, even though she knew that they were the mothers of the calves +she had seen in the barnyard.</p> + +<p>"Silly Mary Virginia!" said John, and Mary Virginia began to cry.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry," said Louisa. "Let's go to the hickory-nut tree."</p> + +<p>This pleased them all, and they hurried off; but on the way they came +to the big shed where grandfather kept his plows and reaper and +threshing machine and all his garden tools.</p> + +<p>The shed had a long, wide roof, and there was a ladder leaning against +it. When John saw that, he thought he must go up on the roof; and +then, of course, the twins went, too. Then Louisa and Mary Virginia +wanted to go, and although John insisted that girls could not climb, +they managed to scramble up the ladder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> to where the boys were. And +there they all sat in a row on the roof.</p> + +<p>"Grandmother doesn't know how well we can take care of ourselves," +said John. "But I am such a big boy that I can do anything. I can ride +a bicycle and go on errands—"</p> + +<p>"So can I," said Louisa.</p> + +<p>"We can ride on the trolley!" cried the twins.</p> + +<p>"Mamma and I go anywhere by ourselves," said Mary Virginia.</p> + +<p>"Moo!" said something down below; and when they looked, there was one +of the cows rubbing her head against the ladder.</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, Mary Virginia," said Louisa. "Cows can't climb +ladders."</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, Mary Virginia," said John. "I'll drive her away."</p> + +<p>So he kicked his feet against the shed roof and called, "Go away! go +away!" The twins kicked their feet, too, and called, "Go away! go +away!" and somebody, I don't know who, kicked the ladder and it fell +down and lay in the dry grass. And the cow walked peacefully on, +thinking about her little calf.</p> + +<p>"There, now!" exclaimed Louisa, "how shall we ever get down?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's nothing," said John. "All I'll have to do is to stand up +on the roof and call grandfather. Just watch me do it."</p> + +<p>So he stood up and called, "Grandfather! Grand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>father! Grandfather!" +till he was tired; but no grandfather answered.</p> + +<p>Then the twins called, "Grandfather! Grandmother!"</p> + +<p>"Baa," said the sheep, as if beginning to think that somebody ought to +answer all that calling.</p> + +<p>Then they all called together: "Grandfather! Grandfather! +Grandfather!" and when nobody heard that, they began to feel +frightened and lonely.</p> + +<p>"I want to go home to my mother! I wish I hadn't come!" wailed Mary +Virginia.</p> + +<p>"It's Thanksgiving dinner time, too," said John, "and there's turkey +for dinner, for I saw it in the oven."</p> + +<p>"Pie, too," said Louisa.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear!" cried the twins.</p> + +<p>And then they all called together once more, but this time with such a +weak little cry that not even the sheep heard it.</p> + +<p>The sun grew warmer and the shadows straighter as they sat there, and +grandmother's house seemed miles away when John stood up to look at +it.</p> + +<p>"They've eaten dinner by this time, I know," he said as he sat down +again; "and grandfather and grandmother have forgotten all about us."</p> + +<p>But grandfather and grandmother had not forgotten them, for just about +then grandmother was saying to grandfather: "You had better see where +the children are, for Thanksgiving dinner will soon be ready and I +know that they are hungry."</p> + +<p>So grandfather went out to look for them. He did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> not find them in the +kitchen nor the barnyard, so he called, "Johnnie! Johnnie!" and when +nobody answered he made haste to the pasture.</p> + +<p>The children saw him coming, and long before he had reached the gate +they began to call with all their might. This time grandfather +answered, "I'm coming!" and I cannot tell you how glad they were.</p> + +<p>In another minute he had set the ladder up again and they all came +down. Mary Virginia came first because she was the youngest girl, and +John came last because he was the biggest boy. Grandfather put his +arms around each one as he helped them down, and carried Mary Virginia +home on his back. When they got to the house dinner was just ready.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The turkey was brown, the potatoes were sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sauce was so spicy, the biscuits were beat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The great pumpkin pie was as yellow as gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the apples were red as the roses, I'm told.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was such a good dinner that I had to tell you about it in rhyme!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And I'm sure you'll agree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the children and me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That there's never a visit so pleasant to pay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a visit to grandma on Thanksgiving Day.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> From "More Mother Stories," Milton Bradley Company.</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_STORY_OF_RUTH_AND_NAOMI" id="THE_STORY_OF_RUTH_AND_NAOMI"></a>THE STORY OF RUTH AND NAOMI<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Adapted from the Bible, By C. S. Bailey and C. M. Lewis.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Ruth's story is one of the most beautiful ones to be found +in the Old Book. As a tale of the harvest, it deserves to be +included in this collection.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_13.jpg" alt="N" width="56" height="50" /></div> +<p>ow it came to pass, many hundreds of years ago, that there was a good +woman named Naomi who lived in the land of the Moabites. She had once +been very rich and happy, but now her husband was dead and her two +sons also, and she had left only Orpah and Ruth, the wives of her +sons. There was a famine in the land. Naomi could find no grain in the +fields to beat into flour. She and Orpah and Ruth were lonely and sad +and very hungry.</p> + + + +<p>But Naomi heard there was a land where the Lord had visited His people +and given them bread; so she went forth from the place where she was, +and her two daughters with her, to the land called Judah. It was a +long, hard way to go. There were rough roads to travel and steep hills +to climb. Their feet grew so weary they could scarcely walk, and at +last Naomi said:</p> + +<p>"Go, return each to your father's house. The Lord <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>deal kindly with +you as you have dealt with me. The Lord grant you that you may find +rest."</p> + +<p>Then she kissed them, and Orpah kissed her and left her, but Ruth +would not leave Naomi. And Naomi said to Ruth:</p> + +<p>"Behold, thy sister is gone back unto her own people; return thou!"</p> + +<p>But Ruth clung to Naomi more closely, as she said:</p> + +<p>"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: +for whither thou goest, there will I go; and where thou lodgest, there +will I lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."</p> + +<p>When Naomi saw that Ruth loved her so much, she forgot how tired and +hungry she was, and the two journeyed on together until they came to +Bethlehem in Judah in the beginning of the barley harvest. There was +no famine in Bethlehem. The fields were full of waving grain, and busy +servants were reaping it and gathering it up to bind into sheaves. +Above all were the fields of the rich man, Boaz, shining with barley +and corn.</p> + +<p>Naomi and Ruth came to the edge of the fields and watched the busy +reapers. They saw that after each sheaf was bound, and each pile of +corn was stacked, a little grain fell, unnoticed, to the ground. Ruth +said to Naomi: "Let me go to the field and glean the ears of corn +after them." And Naomi said to her, "Go, my daughter." And she went, +and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<p>And Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to his reapers: "Whose damsel +is this?" for he saw how very beautiful Ruth was, and how busily she +was gleaning. The reapers said: "It is the damsel that came back with +Naomi out of the land of the Moabites."</p> + +<p>And Ruth ran up to Boaz, crying: "I pray you, let me glean and gather +after the reapers among the sheaves."</p> + +<p>And Boaz, who was good and kind, said to Ruth:</p> + +<p>"Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in any other field, +but abide here."</p> + +<p>Then Ruth bowed herself to the ground, and said: "Why have I found +such favour in thine eyes, seeing I am a stranger?"</p> + +<p>And Boaz answered her: "It hath been showed me all that thou hast done +to thy mother."</p> + +<p>So, all day, Ruth gleaned in Boaz's fields. At noon she ate bread and +parched corn with the others. Boaz commanded his reapers to let fall +large handfuls of grain, as they worked, for Ruth to gather, and at +night she took it all home to Naomi.</p> + +<p>"Where hast thou gleaned to-day?" asked Naomi, when she saw the food +that Ruth had brought to her.</p> + +<p>"The man's name with whom I wrought to-day is Boaz," said Ruth. And +Naomi said: "Blessed be he of the Lord—the man is near of kin unto +us."</p> + +<p>So Ruth gleaned daily, and at the end of the barley harvest the good +man Boaz took Ruth and Naomi to live with him in his own house +forever.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> From "For the Children's Hour," Milton Bradley Company.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BERTS_THANKSGIVING" id="BERTS_THANKSGIVING"></a>BERT'S THANKSGIVING<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By J. T. Trowbridge</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Bert is a manly, generous, warm-hearted fellow. Other boys +will like to read how good luck began to come his way on a +certain memorable Thanksgiving Day.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_08.jpg" alt="N" width="50" height="50" /></div> +<p>t noon, on a dreary November day, a lonesome little fellow, looking +very red about the ears and very blue about the mouth, stood kicking +his heels at the door of a cheap eating house in Boston, and offering +a solitary copy of a morning paper for sale to the people passing.</p> + + + +<p>But there were really not many people passing, for it was Thanksgiving +Day, and the shops were shut, and everybody who had a home to go to +and a dinner to eat seemed to have gone home to eat that dinner, while +Bert Hampton, the newsboy, stood trying in vain to sell the last +"extry" left on his hands by the dull business of the morning.</p> + +<p>An old man, with a face that looked pinched, and who was dressed in a +seedy black coat and a much-battered stovepipe hat, stopped at the +same doorway, and, with one hand on the latch, appeared to hesitate +between hunger and a sense of poverty before going in.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p><p>It was possible, however, that he was considering whether he could +afford himself the indulgence of a morning paper (seeing it was +Thanksgiving Day); so, at least, Bert thought, and accosted him +accordingly.</p> + +<p>"Buy a paper, sir? All about the fire in East Boston, and arrest of +safe-burglars in Springfield. Only two cents!"</p> + +<p>The little old man looked at the boy with keen gray eyes, which seemed +to light up the pinched and skinny face, and answered in a shrill +voice that whistled through white front teeth:</p> + +<p>"You ought to come down in your price this time of day. You can't +expect to sell a morning paper at twelve o'clock for full price."</p> + +<p>"Well, give me a cent then," said Bert. "That's less'n cost; but never +mind; I'm bound to sell out anyhow."</p> + +<p>"You look cold," said the old man.</p> + +<p>"Cold?" replied Bert; "I'm froze. And I want my dinner. And I'm going +to have a big dinner, too, seeing it's Thanksgiving Day."</p> + +<p>"Ah! lucky for you, my boy!" said the old man. "You've a home to go +to, and friends, too, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"No, <i>sir</i>; nary home, and nary friend; only my mother"—Bert +hesitated, and grew serious; then suddenly changed his tone—"and Hop +Houghton. I told him to meet me here, and we'd have a first-rate +Thanksgiving dinner together; for it's no fun to be eatin' alone +Thanksgiving Day! It sets a feller thinking of every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>thing, if he ever +had a home and then hain't got a home any more."</p> + +<p>"It's more lonesome not to eat at all," said the old man, his gray +eyes twinkling. "And what can a boy like you have to think of? Here, I +guess I can find one cent for you, though there's nothing in the +paper, I know."</p> + +<p>The old man spoke with some feeling, his fingers trembled, and somehow +he dropped two cents instead of one into Bert's hand.</p> + +<p>"Here! You've made a mistake!" cried Bert. "A bargain's a bargain. +You've given me a cent too much."</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't. I never give anybody a cent too much."</p> + +<p>"But, see here!" And Bert showed the two cents, offering to return +one.</p> + +<p>"No matter," said the old man, "it will be so much less for <i>my</i> +dinner, that's all."</p> + +<p>Bert had instinctively pocketed the pennies when, on a moment's +reflection, his sympathies were excited.</p> + +<p>"Poor old man!" he thought; "he's seen better days I guess. Perhaps +he's no home. A boy like me can stand it, but I guess it must be hard +for <i>him</i>. He <i>meant</i> to give me the odd cent all the while; and I +don't believe he has had a decent dinner for many a day."</p> + +<p>All this, which I have been obliged to write out slowly in words, went +through Bert's mind like a flash. He was a generous little fellow, and +any kindness shown him, no matter how trifling, made his heart +overflow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look here!" he cried, "where are <i>you</i> going to get your dinner +to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I can get a bite here as well as anywhere. It don't matter much to +me," replied the old man.</p> + +<p>"Dine with <i>me</i>," said Bert, laughing. "I'd like to have you."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I couldn't afford to dine as you are going to," said the +man, with a smile, his eyes twinkling again and his white front teeth +shining.</p> + +<p>"I'll pay for your dinner!" Bert exclaimed. "Come! We don't have a +Thanksgiving but once a year, and a feller wants a good time then."</p> + +<p>"But you are waiting for another boy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hop Houghton! He won't come now, it's so late. He's gone to a +place down in North Street, I guess—a place I don't like: there's so +much tobacco smoked and so much beer drank there." Bert cast a final +glance up the street. "No, he won't come now. So much the worse for +him! He likes the men down there; I don't."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the man, taking off his hat, and giving it a brush with his +elbow, as they entered the restaurant, as if trying to appear as +respectable as he could in the eyes of a newsboy of such fastidious +tastes.</p> + +<p>To make him feel quite comfortable in his mind on that point, Bert +hastened to say:</p> + +<p>"I mean rowdies, and such. Poor people, if they behave themselves, are +just as respectable to me as rich folks. I ain't the least mite +aristocratic."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, indeed!" And the old man smiled again, and seemed to look +relieved. "I'm very glad to hear it."</p> + +<p>He placed his hat on the floor and took a seat opposite Bert at a +little table, which they had all to themselves.</p> + +<p>Bert offered him the bill of fare.</p> + +<p>"No, I must ask you to choose for me; but nothing very extravagant, +you know. I'm used to plain fare."</p> + +<p>"So am I. But I'm going to have a good dinner for once in my life, and +so shall you!" cried Bert, generously. "What do you say to chicken +soup, and then wind up with a thumping big piece of squash pie? How's +that for a Thanksgiving dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Sumptuous!" said the old man, appearing to glow with the warmth of +the room and the prospect of a good dinner. "But won't it cost you too +much?"</p> + +<p>"Too much? No, <i>sir</i>!" laughed Bert. "Chicken soup, fifteen cents; +pie—they give tremendous pieces here; thick, I tell you—ten cents. +That's twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do +this way every day in the year. But mother's glad to have me, once in +a while. Here, waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were +no very great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all.</p> + +<p>"Where is your mother? Why don't you dine with her?" the little man +asked.</p> + +<p>Bert's face grew sober in a moment.</p> + +<p>"That's the question: why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got +the best mother in the world. What I'm trying to do is to make a home +for her, so we can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> live together and eat our Thanksgiving dinners +together some time. Some boys want one thing, some another. There's +one goes in for good times; another's in such a hurry to get rich he +don't care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to +be with my mother and my two sisters again, and I ain't ashamed to say +so."</p> + +<p>Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on, while his companion +across the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look.</p> + +<p>"I haven't been with her now for two years, hardly at all since father +died. When his business was settled up—he kept a little grocery store +on Hanover Street—it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had +lived pretty well up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been +to school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got +her places to go out nursing, and she's a nurse now. Everybody likes +her, and she has enough to do. We couldn't be with her, of course. She +got us boarded at a good place, but I saw how hard it was going to be +for her to support us, so I said, 'I'm a boy; <i>I</i> can do something for +<i>myself</i>. You just pay their board, and keep 'em to school, and I'll +go to work, and maybe help you a little, besides taking care of +myself.'"</p> + +<p>"What could <i>you</i> do?" said the little old man.</p> + +<p>"That's it. I was only 'leven years old, and what could I? What I +should have liked would have been some nice place where I could do +light work, and stand a chance of learning a good business. But +beggars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> mustn't be choosers. I couldn't find such a place; and I +wasn't going to be loafing about the streets, so I went to selling +newspapers. I've sold newspapers ever since, and I shall be twelve +years old next month."</p> + +<p>"You like it?" said the old man.</p> + +<p>"I like to get my own living," replied Bert, proudly, "but what I want +is to learn some trade, or regular business, and settle down, and make +a home for—But there's no use talking about that. Make the best of +things, that's my motto. Don't this soup smell good? And don't it +taste good, too? They haven't put so much chicken in yours as they +have in mine. If you don't mind my having tasted it, we'll change."</p> + +<p>The old man declined this liberal offer, took Bert's advice to help +himself freely to bread, which "didn't cost anything," and ate his +soup with prodigious relish, as it seemed to Bert, who grew more and +more hospitable and patronizing as the repast proceeded.</p> + +<p>"Come, now, won't you have something between the soup and the pie? +Don't be afraid: I'll pay for it. Thanksgiving don't come but once a +year. You won't? A cup of tea, then, to go with your pie?"</p> + +<p>"I think I <i>will</i> have a cup of tea; you are <i>so</i> kind," said the old +man.</p> + +<p>"All right! Here, waiter! Two pieces of your fattest and biggest +squash pie; and a cup of tea, strong, for this gentleman."</p> + +<p>"I've told you about myself," added Bert; "suppose, now, <i>you</i> tell +<i>me</i> something."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> + +<p>"About myself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I think that would go pretty well with the pie."</p> + +<p>But the man shook his head. "I could go back and tell about my plans +and hopes when I was a lad of your age, but it would be too much like +your own story over again. Life isn't what we think it will be when we +are young. You'll find that out soon enough. I am all alone in the +world now, and I am sixty-seven years old."</p> + +<p>"Have some cheese with your pie, won't you? It must be so lonely at +your age! What do you do for a living?"</p> + +<p>"I have a little place in Devonshire Street. My name is Crooker. +You'll find me up two flights of stairs, back room, at the right. Come +and see me, and I'll tell you all about my business, and perhaps help +you to such a place as you want, for I know several business men. Now +don't fail."</p> + +<p>And Mr. Crooker wrote his address with a little stub of a pencil on a +corner of the newspaper which had led to their acquaintance, tore it +off carefully, and gave it to Bert.</p> + +<p>Thereupon the latter took a card from his pocket, not a very clean +one, I must say (I am speaking of the card, though the remark will +apply equally well to the pocket) and handed it across the table to +his new friend.</p> + +<p>"<i>Herbert Hampton, Dealer in Newspapers</i>," the old man read, with his +sharp gray eyes, which glanced up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> funnily at Bert, seeming to say, +"Isn't this rather aristocratic for a twelve-year-old newsboy?"</p> + +<p>Bert blushed, and explained: "Got up for me by a printer's boy I know. +I'd done some favours for him, so he made me a few cards. Handy to +have sometimes, you know."</p> + +<p>"Well, Herbert," said the little old man, "I'm glad to have made your +acquaintance. The pie was excellent—not any more, thank you—and I +hope you'll come and see me. You'll find me in very humble quarters; +but you are not aristocratic, you say. Now won't you let me pay for my +dinner? I believe I have money enough. Let me see."</p> + +<p>Bert would not hear of such a thing, but walked up to the desk and +settled the bill with the air of a person who did not regard a +trifling expense.</p> + +<p>When he looked around again the little old man was gone.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, I'll go and see him the first chance I have," said Bert, +as he looked at the pencilled strip of newspaper margin again before +putting it into his pocket.</p> + +<p>He then went round to his miserable quarters, in the top of a cheap +lodging-house, where he made himself ready, by means of soap and water +and a broken comb, to walk five miles into the suburbs and get a +sight, if only for five minutes, of his mother.</p> + +<p>On the following Monday Bert, having a leisure hour, went to call on +his new acquaintance in Devonshire Street.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> + +<p>Having climbed the two flights, he found the door of the back room at +the right ajar, and looking in, saw Mr. Crooker at a desk, in the act +of receiving a roll of money from a well-dressed visitor.</p> + +<p>Bert entered unnoticed and waited till the money was counted and a +receipt signed. Then, as the visitor departed, old Mr. Crooker looked +round and saw Bert. He offered him a chair, then turned to lock up the +money in a safe.</p> + +<p>"So this is your place of business?" said Bert, glancing about the +plain office room. "What do you do here?"</p> + +<p>"I buy real estate sometimes—sell—rent—and so forth."</p> + +<p>"Who for?" asked Bert.</p> + +<p>"For myself," said little old Mr. Crooker, with a smile.</p> + +<p>Bert stared, perfectly aghast at the situation. This, then, was the +man whom he had invited to dinner, and treated so patronizingly the +preceding Thursday!</p> + +<p>"I—I thought—you was a poor man."</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money +doesn't make a man rich. I've money enough. I own houses in the city. +They give me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer +riches once, but I lost them long ago."</p> + +<p>From the way the old man's voice trembled and eyes glistened, Bert +thought he must have meant by these riches friends he had lost—wife +and children, perhaps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + +<p>"To think of <i>me</i> inviting <i>you</i> to dinner!" the boy cried, abashed +and ashamed.</p> + +<p>"It <i>was</i> odd." And Mr. Crooker showed his white front teeth with a +smile. "But it may turn out to have been a lucky circumstance for both +of us. I like you; I believe in you; and I've an offer to make to you: +I want a trusty, bright boy in this office, somebody I can bring up to +my business, and leave it with, as I get too old to attend to it +myself. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>What <i>could</i> Bert say?</p> + +<p>Again that afternoon he walked—or rather, ran—to his mother, and +after consulting with her, joyfully accepted Mr. Crooker's offer.</p> + +<p>Interviews between his mother and his employer soon followed, +resulting in something for which at first the boy had not dared to +hope. The lonely, childless old man, who owned so many houses, wanted +a home; and one of these houses he offered to Mrs. Hampton, with ample +support for herself and her children, if she would also make it a home +for him.</p> + +<p>Of course this proposition was accepted; and Bert soon had the +satisfaction of seeing the great ambition of his youth accomplished. +He had employment which promised to become a profitable business (as +indeed it did in a few years, he and the old man proved so useful to +each other); and, more than that, he was united once more with his +mother and sisters in a happy home where he has since had a good many +Thanksgiving dinners.</p> +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> From "Young Joe," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_THANKSGIVING_STORY" id="A_THANKSGIVING_STORY"></a>A THANKSGIVING STORY<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Miss L. B. Pingree.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A three-minute story for the littlest boys and girls.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_14.jpg" alt="I" width="24" height="50" /></div> +<p>t was nearly time for Thanksgiving Day. The rosy apples and golden +pumpkins were ripe, and the farmers were bringing them into the +markets.</p> + + + +<p>One day when two little children, named John and Minnie, were going to +school, they saw the turkeys and chickens and pumpkins in the window +of a market, and they exclaimed, "Oh, Thanksgiving Day! Oh, +Thanksgiving Day!" After school was over, they ran home to their +mother, and asked her when Thanksgiving Day would be. She told them in +about two weeks; then they began to talk about what they wanted for +dinner, and asked their mother a great many questions. She told them +she hoped they would have turkey and even the pumpkin pie they wanted +so much, but that Thanksgiving Day was not given us so that we might +have a good dinner, but that God had been a great many days and weeks +preparing for Thanksgiving. He had sent the sunshine and the rain and +caused the grains and fruits and vegetables to grow. And Thanksgiving +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>Day was for glad and happy thoughts about God, as well as for good +things to eat.</p> + +<p>Not long after, when John and Minnie were playing, John said to +Minnie, "I wish I could do something to tell God how glad I am about +Thanksgiving." "I wish so, too," said Minnie. Just then some little +birds came flying down to the ground, and Minnie said: "Oh, I know." +Then she told John, but they agreed to keep it a secret till the day +came. Now what do you think they did? Well, I will tell you.</p> + +<p>They saved their pennies, and bought some corn, and early Thanksgiving +Day, before they had their dinner, they went out into the street near +their home, and scattered corn in a great many places. What for? Why, +for the birds. While they were doing it, John said, "I know, Minnie, +why you thought of the birds: because they do not have any papas and +mammas after they are grown up to get a dinner for them on +Thanksgiving Day." "Yes, that is why," said Minnie.</p> + +<p>By and by the birds came and found such a feast, and perhaps they knew +something about Thanksgiving Day and must have sung and chirped +happily all day.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> From "Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories," J. L. +Hammett Company.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="JOHN_INGLEFIELDS_THANKSGIVING" id="JOHN_INGLEFIELDS_THANKSGIVING"></a>JOHN INGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Nathaniel Hawthorne.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A sad Thanksgiving story is a rarity indeed. But the one +which follows reminds us that the Puritans, although they +originated our Thanksgiving festival, were after all a +sombre people, seldom free from a realizing sense of the +imminence of sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a genuine product of +Puritanism, inherited a full share of his forefathers' +constitutional melancholy and preoccupation with the darker +aspects of life—as this story bears witness.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="O" width="50" height="53" /></div> +<p>n the evening of Thanksgiving Day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith, +sat in his elbow-chair among those who had been keeping festival at +his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire +threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening +his rough visage so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, +all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned +on his own anvil. At John Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair. +The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the +family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic +merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of the +group was John Inglefield's son, who had been bred at college, and was +now a student of theology at Andover. There was also a daughter of +sixteen, whom nobody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> could look at without thinking of a rosebud +almost blossomed. The only other person at the fireside was Robert +Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his +journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of John Inglefield +than did the pale and slender student.</p> + +<p>Only these four had kept New England's festival beneath that roof. The +vacant chair at John Inglefield's right hand was in memory of his +wife, whom death had snatched from him since the previous +Thanksgiving. With a feeling that few would have looked for in his +rough nature, the bereaved husband had himself set the chair in its +place next his own; and often did his eye glance hitherward, as if he +deemed it possible that the cold grave might send back its tenant to +the cheerful fireside, at least for that one evening. Thus did he +cherish the grief that was dear to him. But there was another grief +which he would fain have torn from his heart; or, since that could +never be, have buried it too deep for others to behold, or for his own +remembrance. Within the past year another member of his household had +gone from him, but not to the grave. Yet they kept no vacant chair for +her.</p> + +<p>While John Inglefield and his family were sitting round the hearth +with the shadows dancing behind them on the wall, the outer door was +opened, and a light footstep came along the passage. The latch of the +inner door was lifted by some familiar hand, and a young girl came in, +wearing a cloak and hood, which she took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> off and laid on the table +beneath the looking-glass. Then, after gazing a moment at the fireside +circle, she approached, and took the seat at John Inglefield's right +hand, as if it had been reserved on purpose for her.</p> + +<p>"Here I am, at last, father," said she. "You ate your Thanksgiving +dinner without me, but I have come back to spend the evening with +you."</p> + +<p>Yes, it was Prudence Inglefield. She wore the same neat and maidenly +attire which she had been accustomed to put on when the household work +was over for the day, and her hair was parted from her brow in the +simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. If her cheek +might otherwise have been pale, yet the glow of the fire suffused it +with a healthful bloom. If she had spent the many months of her +absence in guilt and infamy, yet they seemed to have left no traces on +her gentle aspect. She could not have looked less altered had she +merely stepped away from her father's fireside for half an hour, and +returned while the blaze was quivering upward from the same brands +that were burning at her departure. And to John Inglefield she was the +very image of his buried wife, such as he remembered on the first +Thanksgiving which they had passed under their own roof. Therefore, +though naturally a stern and rugged man, he could not speak unkindly +to his sinful child, nor yet could he take her to his bosom.</p> + +<p>"You are welcome home, Prudence," said he, glancing sideways at her, +and his voice faltered. "Your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> mother would have rejoiced to see you, +but she has been gone from us these four months."</p> + +<p>"I know, father, I know it," replied Prudence quickly. "And yet, when +I first came in, my eyes were so dazzled by the firelight that she +seemed to be sitting in this very chair!"</p> + +<p>By this time, the other members of the family had begun to recover +from their surprise, and became sensible that it was no ghost from the +grave, nor vision of their vivid recollections, but Prudence, her own +self. Her brother was the next that greeted her. He advanced and held +out his hand affectionately, as a brother should; yet not entirely +like a brother, for, with all his kindness, he was still a clergyman +and speaking to a child of sin.</p> + +<p>"Sister Prudence," said he, earnestly, "I rejoice that a merciful +Providence hath turned your steps homeward in time for me to bid you a +last farewell. In a few weeks, sister, I am to sail as a missionary to +the far islands of the Pacific. There is not one of these beloved +faces that I shall ever hope to behold again on this earth. Oh, may I +see all of them—yours and all—beyond the grave!"</p> + +<p>A shadow flitted across the girl's countenance.</p> + +<p>"The grave is very dark, brother," answered she, withdrawing her hand +somewhat hastily from his grasp. "You must look your last at me by the +light of this fire."</p> + +<p>While this was passing, the twin girl—the rosebud that had grown on +the same stem with the castaway—stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> gazing at her sister, longing +to fling herself upon her bosom, so that the tendrils of their hearts +might intertwine again. At first she was restrained by mingled grief +and shame, and by a dread that Prudence was too much changed to +respond to her affection, or that her own purity would be felt as a +reproach by the lost one. But, as she listened to the familiar voice, +while the face grew more and more familiar, she forgot everything save +that Prudence had come back. Springing forward she would have clasped +her in a close embrace. At that very instant, however, Prudence +started from her chair and held out both her hands with a warning +gesture.</p> + +<p>"No, Mary, no, my sister," cried she, "do not you touch me! Your bosom +must not be pressed to mine!"</p> + +<p>Mary shuddered and stood still, for she felt that something darker +than the grave was between Prudence and herself, though they seemed so +near each other in the light of their father's hearth, where they had +grown up together. Meanwhile Prudence threw her eyes around the room +in search of one who had not yet bidden her welcome. He had withdrawn +from his seat by the fireside and was standing near the door, with his +face averted so that his features could be discerned only by the +flickering shadow of the profile upon the wall. But Prudence called to +him in a cheerful and kindly tone:</p> + +<p>"Come, Robert," said she, "won't you shake hands with your old +friend?"</p> + +<p>Robert Moore held back for a moment, but affection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> struggled +powerfully and overcame his pride and resentment; he rushed toward +Prudence, seized her hand, and pressed it to his bosom.</p> + +<p>"There, there, Robert," said she, smiling sadly, as she withdrew her +hand, "you must not give me too warm a welcome."</p> + +<p>And now, having exchanged greetings with each member of the family, +Prudence again seated herself in the chair at John Inglefield's right +hand. She was naturally a girl of quick and tender sensibilities, +gladsome in her general mood, but with a bewitching pathos interfused +among her merriest words and deeds. It was remarked of her, too, that +she had a faculty, even from childhood, of throwing her own feelings +like a spell over her companions. Such as she had been in her days of +innocence, so did she appear this evening. Her friends, in the +surprise and bewilderment of her return, almost forgot that she had +ever left them, or that she had forfeited any of her claims to their +affection. In the morning, perhaps, they might have looked at her with +altered eyes, but by the Thanksgiving fireside they felt only that +their own Prudence had come back to them, and were thankful. John +Inglefield's rough visage brightened with the glow of his heart, as it +grew warm and merry within him; once or twice, even, he laughed till +the room rang again, yet seemed startled by the echo of his own mirth. +The brave young minister became as frolicsome as a schoolboy. Mary, +too, the rosebud, forgot that her twin-blossom had ever been torn from +the stem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> and trampled in the dust. And as for Robert Moore, he gazed +at Prudence with the bashful earnestness of love new-born, while she, +with sweet maiden coquetry, half smiled upon and half discouraged him.</p> + +<p>In short, it was one of those intervals when sorrow vanishes in its +own depth of shadow, and joy starts forth in transitory brightness. +When the clock struck eight, Prudence poured out her father's +customary draught of herb tea, which had been steeping by the fireside +ever since twilight.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, child," said John Inglefield, as he took the cup from +her hand; "you have made your old father happy again. But we miss your +mother sadly, Prudence, sadly. It seems as if she ought to be here +now."</p> + +<p>"Now, father, or never," replied Prudence.</p> + +<p>It was now the hour for domestic worship. But while the family were +making preparations for this duty, they suddenly perceived that +Prudence had put on her cloak and hood, and was lifting the latch of +the door.</p> + +<p>"Prudence, Prudence! where are you going?" cried they all with one +voice.</p> + +<p>As Prudence passed out of the door, she turned toward them and flung +back her hand with a gesture of farewell. But her face was so changed +that they hardly recognized it. Sin and evil passions glowed through +its comeliness, and wrought a horrible deformity; a smile gleamed in +her eyes, as of triumphant mockery, at their surprise and grief.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Daughter," cried John Inglefield, between wrath and sorrow, "stay and +be your father's blessing, or take his curse with you!"</p> + +<p>For an instant Prudence lingered and looked back into the fire-lighted +room, while her countenance wore almost the expression as if she were +struggling with a fiend who had power to seize his victim even within +the hallowed precincts of her father's hearth. The fiend prevailed, +and Prudence vanished into the outer darkness. When the family rushed +to the door, they could see nothing, but heard the sound of wheels +rattling over the frozen ground.</p> + +<p>That same night, among the painted beauties at the theatre of a +neighbouring city, there was one whose dissolute mirth seemed +inconsistent with any sympathy for pure affections, and for the joys +and griefs which are hallowed by them. Yet this was Prudence +Inglefield. Her visit to the Thanksgiving fireside was the realization +of one of those waking dreams in which the guilty soul will sometimes +stray back to its innocence. But Sin, alas! is careful of her +bondslaves; they hear her voice, perhaps, at the holiest moment, and +are constrained to go whither she summons them. The same dark power +that drew Prudence Inglefield from her father's hearth—the same in +its nature, though heightened then to a dread necessity—would snatch +a guilty soul from the gate of heaven, and make its sin and its +punishment alike eternal.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="HOW_OBADIAH_BROUGHT_ABOUT_A_THANKSGIVING" id="HOW_OBADIAH_BROUGHT_ABOUT_A_THANKSGIVING"></a>HOW OBADIAH BROUGHT ABOUT A THANKSGIVING<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Emily Hewitt Leland</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Waddle family had very bad luck on their farm in the +West. And they certainly were homesick! But Obadiah and his +uncle, between them, found means to mend matters.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="50" /></div> +<p>hat an innocent and helpless baby should be named Obadiah Waddle was +an outrage which the infant unceasingly resented from the time he got +old enough to realize the awful gulf that lay between his name and +those of his more fortunate mates. The experiences of his first day at +school were branded into his soul; and although he made friends by his +bright face and kind and honest nature, scarcely a day passed during +his six years of village schooling without his absurd name flying out +at him from some unsuspected ambush and making him wince.</p> + + + +<p>It was bad enough when the guying came from a boy, but when a girl +took to punning, jeering, or giggling at him it seemed as if his +burden was greater than he could bear. Then he would go home through +the woods and fields to avoid human beings, so hurt and unhappy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>that +nothing but his mother's greeting and the smell of a good supper could +cheer him.</p> + +<p>At home he had no trouble. His mother and his baby sister called him +Obie, and sweet was his name on their lips. His father, who had +objected to "Obadiah" from the first, called him Bub or Bubby; but one +can bear almost any name when it comes with a loving smile or a pat on +the shoulder, which was Mr. Waddle's way of addressing his only son.</p> + +<p>Very early in life it had been explained to Obadiah that he was named +for his mother's favourite brother, who went to California to live, +after hanging a silver dollar on a black silk cord round the neck of +his little namesake.</p> + +<p>Obadiah often looked at this dollar, which was kept in a little box +with a broken earring, a hair chain, a glass breastpin, and an ancient +"copper"; and sometimes on circus days or on the Fourth of July he +wished there was no hole in it that he might expend it on side-shows +and lemonade or on monstrous firecrackers.</p> + +<p>But he knew that his mother valued it highly because Uncle Obie gave +it to him and because there were little dents in it made by his +vigorous first teeth; so he always returned it to the box with a sigh +of resignation, and made the most of the twenty-five cents given him +by his father on the great days of the year.</p> + +<p>When he was eleven years old the Waddle family moved West, and the +last thing Obadiah heard as the train pulled away from the little +station of his native<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> town was this verse, lustily shouted from a +group of schoolmates assembled to bid him good-bye:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, Obadiah, you're going West,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the prairie winds don't have no rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You'll have to waddle your level best.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good-bye, my lover, good-bye!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Ill-fortune attended the Waddles in their western home. To be sure, +they had their rich, broad acres, with never a stone or a stump to +hinder the smooth cutting plow, but a frightful midsummer storm in the +second year literally wiped out crops and cattle, and left them with +their bare lives in their lowly sod house.</p> + +<p>"Drought first year, tornado second. If next year's a failure, we'll +go back—if we can raise money enough to go with. Three times and then +out!" said Mr. Waddle.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waddle broke down and wept. It scared the children to learn that +their mother could cry—their mother, who was always so bright and +cheerful and who always laughed away their griefs!</p> + +<p>Mr. Waddle was scared, too. He bent down and patted her shoulder—his +favourite way of soothing beast or human being.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mary, Mary! Don't you go back on us. We can stand everything as +long as you are all right. Don't feel bad! We'll pick up again. +There's time enough yet to grow turnips and fodder corn."</p> + +<p>"But what will we fodder it to?" wailed Mrs. Waddle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Waddle could not answer, thinking of his splendid horses, and of +his pure Jersey cows that would never answer to his call again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am ashamed of myself!" said Mrs. Waddle, after a few moments, +bravely drying her eyes. "And I'm wicked, too! I've just wished that +something would happen so we'd have to go back East, and it's +happened; and we might have all been killed. And I'm going to stop +just where I am. I don't care where we live—or how we live—so long +as we are all together—and well—and there's a crust in the house and +water to drink."</p> + +<p>Rising, she seized the broom and began vigorously to sweep together +the leaves and grass which the cyclone had cast in through the open +door.</p> + +<p>"I declare, Mary!" said Mr. Waddle. "Do you mean to say you've been +homesick all this time?"</p> + +<p>"I'd give more for the north side of one of those old Vermont hills +than I would for the whole prairie!" was the emphatic reply. "But I'm +not going to say another single word."</p> + +<p>Mr. Waddle felt a thrill of comfort in knowing he was not alone in his +yearning for the old home. It was singular that these two, who loved +each other so truly, could so hide their inmost feelings. Each had +feared to appear weak to the other.</p> + +<p>Mr. Waddle looked at his wife with almost a radiant smile. "Well, +Mary, we'll go back in the fall—if we can sell. I guess we can hire +the Deacon Elbridge place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> I see by last week's paper it's still for +sale or rent, and carpenter work in old Hartbridge is about as +profitable for me as farming out West."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you wouldn't mind going back, Homer," said Mrs. Waddle, and +they looked at each other as in the days of their courtship.</p> + +<p>But selling the farm was not easy, and October found the Waddles in +painful straits.</p> + +<p>"What will we have for Thanksgiving, Ma?" asked Obadiah.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a pair of nice prairie chickens, mashed turnips, hot biscuits, +and melted sugar," cheerfully replied Mrs. Waddle.</p> + +<p>"That sounds pretty good," said Obadiah; but when he got out of doors +he said to himself that you could not shoot prairie chickens without +ammunition, and that he had no bait even if he tried to use his quail +traps. He also reflected that his mother looked thin and pale, that +sister Ellie needed shoes, and that plum pudding and mince pie used to +be on Thanksgiving tables. But this was the day for his story +paper—post-office day—which seemed to cheer things up somehow.</p> + +<p>When he went to town for the mail he would see if his father, who was +at work carpentering on a barn, could not spare a dime for a little +powder and shot. So the boy trudged away on his long walk, with his +empty gun on his shoulder and the hope of youth in his heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> + +<p>His father, busy at work, greeted him cheerily, but had no dime for +powder and shot. Pay for the work was not to be had until the first of +December, and meanwhile every penny must be saved—for coal and for +Ellie's shoes.</p> + +<p>"It leaves Thanksgiving out in the cold, doesn't it, Bub? But we'll +make it up at Christmas, maybe," said Mr. Waddle, as Obadiah turned to +go. "Here's three cents for a bite of candy for Sis, and take good +care of mother. I'll be home day after to-morrow, likely."</p> + +<p>Obadiah jingled the three pennies in his pocket as he walked to the +combined store and post-office. Three cents! They would buy a charge +or two of powder and shot, and he still had a few caps. And candy was +not good for people anyhow! He wished he had asked his father if he +might buy ammunition instead.</p> + +<p>"But I'll not bother him again," he decided, "and Sis will be glad +enough of the candy."</p> + +<p>He would not buy rashly. He looked over the jars of striped sticks, +peppermint drops, chocolate mice, and mixed varieties. Then he sat +down on a nail keg to await the distribution of the mail. He watched +the people standing by for the opening of the delivery window. It was +a rare thing for his family to get a letter, but then they seldom sent +one.</p> + +<p>Once in a while a newspaper came from Uncle Obadiah, but only one +letter in two years. Perhaps if he knew what hard luck they were +having he would write<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> oftener. The boy had heard his mother say only +the week before that she wanted to write to Brother Obie, but was no +hand at letters, especially when there was no good news to write.</p> + +<p>A thought now came to young Obadiah. He would write to his Uncle +to-morrow, and his brain began fairly to hum with what he would say. +When his time came he invested one cent in a clean white stick of +candy and the remaining two in a postage stamp. "I'll pay two cents +back to pa as soon as I get the answer," he said confidently to his +questioning conscience.</p> + +<p>His walk home abounded in exasperations. Never had game appeared so +plentiful. Three separate flocks of prairie chickens flew directly +over his head, a rabbit scurried across his path, and in the stubble +of the ruined grainfields rose and fell little clouds of quail.</p> + +<p>"They just know it ain't loaded!" grumbled Obadiah, trudging with his +empty gun.</p> + +<p>That night, after Sis had gone to sleep, and his mother had lain down +beside her, cheerfully remarking that bed was cheaper than fire, and +that she was glad there was a good wood lot on the Elbridge place, +Obadiah, behind the sheltering canvas partition that separated the +kitchen from the bedrooms, wrote the following letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Dear Uncle</span>:—Last year our crops were burned up by the +drought and this year they were swept away by a cyclone and +all the stock was killed, and father will not get his pay +for carpenter work until December. If there was no hole in +the dollar you gave me when I was a baby I would take it and +buy something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> for Thanksgiving. I wish you would send me a +dollar without a hole in it as soon as you can and I will +send you the one with a hole in it. I would send it now but +I have not got stamps enough. I hope you are well. We are +all well, only ma is homesick. Your sincere nephew,</p></div> + +<p class="sig1"><span class="smcap">Obadiah Waddle.</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>P. S.—Please send your answer right to me, because I want +to surprise ma with some things for Thanksgiving.</p></div> + +<p>The next morning he set off to look at his most distant quail traps, +found them empty, and circled round to the village, where he posted +his letter.</p> + +<p>The days crept slowly by, and times grew more and more uncomfortable +in the little sod house. Often when Obadiah was doing his "sums" his +pencil would shy off to a corner of his slate and scribble a list of +items something like this:</p> + + +<table class="tb1" summary="List"> +<tr><td>2 cents to Pa</td><td class="tocpg">$.02</td></tr> +<tr><td>Stamps and paper (to send the D)</td><td class="tocpg">.06</td></tr> +<tr><td>Powder and shot</td><td class="tocpg">.10</td></tr> +<tr><td>Tea and sugar for Ma</td><td class="tocpg">.30</td></tr> +<tr><td>1 lb. raisens</td><td class="tocpg">.15</td></tr> +<tr><td>6 eggs</td><td class="tocpg">.08</td></tr> +<tr><td>1 lb. butter</td><td class="tocpg">.20</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg">———</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg">.91</td></tr> +<tr><td>More powder</td><td class="tocpg">.09</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg">———</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg">$1.00</td></tr> +</table> + + +<p>Sometimes he would set down half a pound of "raisens" and add "candy +for Sis, .05," but this was in his reckless moments. Sober second +thought always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> convinced him that "raisens" would bring the greatest +good to the greatest number about Thanksgiving time.</p> + +<p>He casually asked his mother how long it took people to go to +California.</p> + +<p>"Well, Uncle Obie's newspapers always get here about four or five days +after they are printed. Dear me! I must write to your Uncle Obie just +as soon as we can spare the money for paper and stamps. He'll be glad +to know we are all alive and well, and that's about all I can tell +him."</p> + +<p>Obadiah smiled broadly behind his geography and began reckoning the +days. The answer might arrive about the 18th, but he heroically waited +until the 21st before going to ask for it. He reached the village long +before mail time, but saw so many things to consider in the grocery +and provision line that he was almost surprised when the rattle of the +"mail rig" and an in-gathering of people told that the important time +had arrived.</p> + +<p>The Waddles had given up their box, so he could not expect to see his +letter until it should be handed out to him from the general "W" pile. +He waited patiently. The fortunate owners of lock boxes took out their +letters with a proud air while the distributing was still going on. +Others, who had mere open boxes, drew close and tried to read inverted +superscriptions with poor success. Others who never had either letters +or papers, but who came in at this hour from force of habit, stood +near the stove or leaned on the counters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> and spoke of the weather and +swapped feeble jokes. Finally the small wooden window was flung open. +The little group got its papers and letters and gradually retired.</p> + +<p>"Any letter for me?" cried Obadiah, his heart jumping.</p> + +<p>"Nope; your pa got your papers last Saturday."</p> + +<p>"But—ain't there a letter—for me?"</p> + +<p>The man hastily ran over the half-dozen "W" missives. "Nope."</p> + +<p>Obadiah's heart was heavy as lead now. He went out into the sleety +weather and faced the long walk home. His eyes were so blurred with +tears he could hardly see and his feet came near slipping.</p> + +<p>A derisive shout came from across the street: "Hallo! Pretty bad +'waddling' this weather!"</p> + +<p>Obadiah pulled his hat over his eyes and tramped on in scornful +silence.</p> + +<p>And now another voice called out to him, a voice from the rear: "Oh, +say! Waddle! Come back here—package for ye!" Obadiah hastily went +back, his heart leaping.</p> + +<p>"Registered package," explained the postmaster. "'Most forgot it. Sign +your name on that line. Odd name you've got. No danger your mail going +to some other fellow."</p> + +<p>Obadiah laughed and said he guessed not, and hardly believing his +senses, again started for home, and soon struck out upon the +far-stretching road. In the privacy of the great prairie he looked at +the package again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> How heavy it was for such a small one, and how +important looked the long row of stamps; and there was Uncle Obadiah's +name in one corner, proving that it was truly the answer!</p> + +<p>There must be a jackknife in it, or something besides the dollar. He +cut the stout twine, removed the wrapper, and lifted the cover of a +strong paper box. There was something wrapped in neat white paper and +feeling very solid.</p> + +<p>Obadiah removed the paper, and a heavy, handsome and very fat leather +purse slipped into his hand. He opened it. It had several +compartments, and in each one were three or more hard, flat, round +objects wrapped in more white paper to keep them from jingling, very +likely.</p> + +<p>Obadiah unwrapped one of these round, flat objects, and even in the +dull light of the drizzling and fading November day he could see that +it was a bright, clean, shining silver dollar—and had no hole in it.</p> + +<p>With hands fairly shaking with joy, he returned the purse to the box +and sped homeward. He ran all the way, only slowing up for breath now +and then, but it was dark, and the poor little supper was waiting when +he reached the house. The small lamp did not shed a very brilliant +light, but a mother does not need an electric glare in order to read +her child's face.</p> + +<p>"Well, Obie, what's happened?" asked his mother as soon as he was +inside the door. "Have you caught a whole flock of quails?"</p> + +<p>"Something better'n quails! Guess again, Ma!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Three nice fat prairie hens then."</p> + +<p>"Something better'n prairie hens." And then Obie could wait no longer. +He pulled the package from under his coat and tossed it down beside +the poor old teapot, which had known little but hot water these many +weeks.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's from Brother Obie—to <i>you</i>!" exclaimed his mother, while +his father drew near and said, "Well, well!"</p> + +<p>"And look inside! I haven't half looked yet," said Obie, "but <i>you</i> +look, Ma! I just want you to look!"</p> + +<p>Ma opened the box, and then the purse, and then the fourteen round +objects wrapped in white paper. And they made a fine glitter on the +red tablecloth.</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>well</i>!" repeated Mr. Waddle.</p> + +<p>"And here's something written," said Mrs. Waddle, taking a paper from +a pocket at the back of the purse.</p> + +<p>"Read it, Ma—out loud! <i>I</i> don't care," said Obie generously.</p> + +<p>So Ma read it in a voice that trembled a little:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Dear Nephew</span>:—If I count rightly, it is thirteen years +since your good mother labelled you Obadiah. I'm not near +enough to give you thirteen slaps—I wish I were—so I send +you thirteen dollars, and one to grow on. Never mind +returning the dollar with the hole in it—keep it for your +grandchildren to cut their teeth on. Give my love to your +parents and little sister; and if you look the purse through +closely, I think you will find something of interest to your +mother. It is about time she paid our old Vermont a visit. +Be a good boy.</p></div> + +<p class="sig2">Your affectionate uncle,</p> + +<p class="sig1"><span class="smcap">Obadiah Brown</span>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, that blessed brother!" cried Mrs. Waddle, wiping her eyes with +her apron.</p> + +<p>Obie seized the purse and examined it on all sides. It was a very +wizard of a purse, for another little flat pocket was found in its +inmost centre, and from it Obie drew out another bit of folded paper +and opened it.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's a check!" shouted Mr. Waddle. "A check for you, Mary, +for—two—hundred—dollars! My! There's a brother for you!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not two <i>hundred</i>—it must be twenty—it can't be—" faltered +Mrs. Waddle, wiping her eyes to look at the paper.</p> + +<p>Then she gave a little cry and fell to hugging all her family. "We can +all go back—we can go next week!" and she almost danced up and down +on the unresponsive clay floor.</p> + +<p>"I owe you two cents, Pa, and I'll pay it back to you just as soon as +I can get a dollar changed," said Obadiah proudly, fingering the +shining coins.</p> + +<p>"How's that, Bubby?"</p> + +<p>Then Obadiah explained.</p> + +<p>"I hope you didn't complain, Obie," said his mother, her happy face +clouding.</p> + +<p>"Well, I told him about the drought and the cyclone. I guess if I was +a near relation I wouldn't call that complaining. And then I asked him +if he wouldn't swap dollars with me, so I could have one without a +hole in it to get something for Thanks—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Waddle broke in with a shout of laughter, and Mrs. Waddle kissed +her son once more, and laughed, too, although her eyes were full of +tears. And then Obadiah knew everything was all right.</p> + +<p>"We can have Thanksgiving now, can't we, Ma?" he asked. "It's so near; +and I'm going to get all the things. We'll have chicken pie—<i>tame</i> +chicken pie—and plum pudding—and butter—and cream for the +coffee—and cranberries—and lump sugar—and pumpkin pie—and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, me wants supper!" exclaimed Sis. And then they laughed again, and +fell upon the cooling corn-bread and molasses and melancholy bits of +fried pork and the thin ghost of tea as if they were already engaged +in a feast of Thanksgiving. And so they were.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> From the <i>Youth's Companion</i>, November 26, 1903.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_WHITE_TURKEYS_WING" id="THE_WHITE_TURKEYS_WING"></a>THE WHITE TURKEY'S WING<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Sophie Swett.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Priscilla, the big white hen turkey, deserved a better fate +than to be eaten on Thanksgiving Day, and Minty and Jason +contrived to save her.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_15.jpg" alt="M" width="61" height="50" /></div> +<p>ary Ellen was coming home from her school teaching at the Falls, and +Nahum from 'tending in Blodgett's store at Edom Four Corners, and +Uncle and Aunt Piper with Mirandy and Augustus and the twins were +coming from Juniper Hill, and there was every prospect of as merry a +Thanksgiving as one could wish to see. And Thanksgivings were always +merry at the Kittredge farm on Red Hill. Uncle Kittredge might be a +trifle over thrifty—a leetle nigh, his neighbours called him—but +there was no stinting at Thanksgiving, and when a boy is accustomed to +perpetual corn-bread and sausages, he knows how to appreciate +unlimited turkey and plum pudding; and when he is used to gloomy +evenings, in which Uncle Kittredge holds the one feeble kerosene lamp +between himself and a newspaper, Aunt Kittredge knits in silent +meditation on blue yarn stockings, he knows how good it is to have the +house filled with lights and people, jolly games going on in the +parlour, and candy-pulling in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>kitchen. All these delights were +directly before Jason Kittredge as he dangled his legs from the stone +wall and whittled away at the skewers which Clorinda, the "hired +girl," had demanded of him, and yet his heart was as heavy as lead.</p> + + + +<p>He did not even look up when his sister Minty came up the hill toward +him. He knew it was Minty, because she was hop-skipping and humming, +and he knew that Aunt Kittredge had sent her to Mrs. Deacon Preble's +to get a recipe for snow pudding; she had said she "must have +something real stylish, because she had invited the new minister and +his daughter to dinner."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jason, don't you wish it was always going to be Thanksgiving Day +after to-morrow?" Minty continued her hop-skipping; she went to and +fro before the dejected figure on the wall. Minty was tall for twelve, +and she had a very high forehead, which made Aunt Kittredge think that +she was going to be "smart." Aunt Kittredge made her comb her hair +straight back from the high forehead, and fasten it with a round comb; +not a vestige of hair showed under Minty's blue hood, and her forehead +looked bleak and cold, and her pale blue eyes were watery, and her new +teeth were large and overlapped each other; but Aunt Kittredge said it +was no matter, if she was only good and "smart."</p> + +<p>"Why, Jason, is anything the matter?" Minty stopped, breathless, and +the joy faded out of her face. Jason continued to whittle in gloomy +silence. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> hands were almost purple with cold, and the wind flapped +his large pantaloons—they were Uncle Kittredge's old ones, and Aunt +Kittredge never thought it worth the while to consider the fit if they +were turned up so that he could walk in them.</p> + +<p>"You don't care because the new minister and his daughter are coming?" +pursued Minty. Jason's tastes, as she well knew, did not incline to +ministers and schoolmasters as companions in merrymaking. "She's a big +girl, almost sixteen, and she will go with Mary Ellen, and we shall +have Mirandy and Augustus and the twins, and the Sedgell girls and +Nehemiah Ham are coming in the evening, and we shall have such fun, +and such lots to eat!"</p> + +<p>"That's just like you. You're friv'lous. You don't know what an awful +hard world it is. You haven't got a realizing sense," said Jason +crushingly.</p> + +<p>This last accusation was one with which Aunt Kittredge was accustomed +to overwhelm Clorinda when she burned the pies or wore her best bonnet +to evening meeting. Minty's face grew so long that it looked like the +reflection of a face in a spoon, and the tears came into her eyes. It +must be a hard world, since Jason found it so. He was much +stouter-hearted than she; his round, snub-nosed, freckled face was +generally as cheerful as the sunshine. Jason had his troubles—Minty +well knew what they were—but he bore them manfully. He didn't like to +have Clorinda use his hens' eggs when he was saving them to sell, and +per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>haps it was even more trying to be at school when the eggs man +came around, and have Aunt Kittredge sell his eggs and put the money +into her pocket. Jason wished to go into business for himself, and he +had a high opinion of the poultry business for a beginning. Cyrus, +their "hired man," had once lived with a man at North Edom who made +fabulous sums by raising poultry. But Aunt Kittredge's peculiar views +of the rights of boys interfered with his accumulation of the +necessary capital. All these troubles Jason bore bravely. It must be +some great misfortune that caused him to look so utterly despairing, +and to accuse her of such dreadful things, thought poor Minty.</p> + +<p>Jason took pity on her woful face. "P'raps you're not so much to +blame, Mint. You don't know," he said, in a somewhat softened tone. +"It's Aunt Kittredge."</p> + +<p>Minty heaved a long, long sigh. It generally <i>was</i> Aunt Kittredge.</p> + +<p>"She's told Cyrus to kill the—the white turkey!" continued Jason, +with almost a break in his voice.</p> + +<p>"To kill Priscilla!" gasped Minty. "She couldn't—she wouldn't! Oh, +Jason, Cyrus won't do it, will he?"</p> + +<p>"Hasn't he got to if she says so?" demanded Jason grimly.</p> + +<p>"But Priscilla is yours," said Minty stoutly.</p> + +<p>"She says she only let me call her mine. Just as if I didn't save her +out of that weak brood when all the rest were killed by the +thunderstorm! And brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> her up in cotton behind the kitchen stove, +no matter how much Clorinda scolded! And found her nest with +thirty-one eggs in it in the old pine stump! And she knows me and +follows me round."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't think Aunt Kittredge would want to," said Minty +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"She wants a big turkey, because the minister and his daughter are +coming to dinner, and she doesn't want to have one of the young ones +killed, because she is too stin—"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't care if I were you. After all, Priscilla is only a +turkey," said Minty, attempting to be cheerful.</p> + +<p>But this well-meant effort at consolation aroused Jason's wrath. +"That's just like a girl!" he cried. "What do you care if you only +have blue beads and lots of candy?"</p> + +<p>Poor Minty's face lengthened again, and her jaw fell. "There's my two +dollars and thirty cents, Jason," she said anxiously.</p> + +<p>Jason started; a ray of hope flushed his freckled face.</p> + +<p>"We can buy a big turkey over at Jonas Hicks's for all that money," +continued Minty. And then she drew nearer to Jason, and added a +thrilling whisper, "And we can hide Priscilla!"</p> + +<p>Jason stared at her in amazement. He had never expected Minty to come +to the front in an emergency. Perhaps the high forehead meant +something after all. "<i>She</i>'ll be after you about the money, you +know," he said, with a significant nod toward the house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's my own. I earned it picking berries and weeding old Mrs. +Jackman's garden. It's in my bank, and the bank won't open till +there's five dollars in it."</p> + +<p>Jason's face darkened.</p> + +<p>"But we can smash it," said Minty calmly.</p> + +<p><i>Certainly</i> the high forehead meant something.</p> + +<p>Priscilla was hidden. The "smashing" was done in extreme privacy +behind the stone wall of the pasture. Cyrus was bound over to secrecy, +as was also Jonas Hicks, who, after some haggling, sold them his +finest turkey for two dollars and thirty cents.</p> + +<p>"Cyrus is gettin' real handy and accommodatin'," said Clorinda the +next morning, when they were all in the kitchen, and Jason, ignobly +arrayed in Clorinda's kitchen-belle apron, was chopping, and Minty was +seeding raisins. "I expected nothin' but what I'd got to pick the +white turkey, and he's fetched her in all picked and drawed."</p> + +<p>"She don't weigh quite so much as I expected," said Uncle Kittredge, +as he suspended the turkey on the hook of the old steelyards.</p> + +<p>Jason and Minty slyly exchanged anxious glances. Neither of them had +looked at the turkey, and Minty's face was suffused with red even to +the roots of her tow-coloured hair.</p> + +<p>Mary Ellen and Nahum came that night, and bright and early on the +morning of Thanksgiving Day came Uncle and Aunt Piper with Mirandy and +Augustus and the twins, and the house was full of noise and jollity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +Jason was obliged to go to church in the morning with the grown +people, but Minty stayed at home to help Clorinda, and after much +manœuvring she found an opportunity to run down to the shanty in +the logging road and feed the white turkey. The new minister and his +daughter came to dinner, and Jason and Minty were glad that the +children had seats at the far end of the table. The minister's +daughter was sixteen, and looked very stylish, and Aunt Kittredge said +she was glad enough that they had the snow pudding, and that she had +asked Aunt Piper to bring her sauce dishes.</p> + +<p>It had begun to be very merry at the far end of the table, in a quiet +way, for Aunt Kittredge's stern eye wandered constantly in that +direction, and Jason and Minty had almost forgotten that there were +trials and difficulties in life, when suddenly Aunt Piper's loud voice +sounded across the table, striking terror to their souls:</p> + +<p>"You don't say that this is the white turkey? Seems kind of a pity to +kill her, she was so handsome. But she eats real well. Now, you +mustn't forget to let me take a wing home to Sabriny. You know you +always promised her a wing for her hat when the white turkey was +killed."</p> + +<p>Sabriny was Aunt Piper's niece, who had been left at home to keep +house.</p> + +<p>"Sure enough I did," said Aunt Kittredge. "Jason, you go out to the +barn and get Cyrus to give you one of the white turkey's wings; and +Minty, you wrap it up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> nice, so it will be handy for your aunt to +carry. Go as soon as you've ate your dinner, so's to have it ready, +for Uncle Piper has got to get home before sundown."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm," answered Jason hoarsely, without lifting his eyes from his +plate. He could scarcely eat another mouthful, and Minty found it +unexpectedly easy to obey Aunt Kittredge's injunction to decline snow +pudding lest there should not be "enough to go round."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" asked Minty, overtaking Jason, as he +walked dejectedly through the woodshed as soon as dinner was over.</p> + +<p>"I don't know; run away and be a cowboy like Hiram Trickey, I guess."</p> + +<p>Minty's heart gave a great throb. Hiram Trickey had sent home a +photograph, which showed him to have become very like the picture of a +pirate in Cyrus's old book, with pistols and a dirk at his belt.</p> + +<p>"Jason, the new minister's daughter has got a white gull's wing on her +hat, and—it's up in the spare chamber on the bed, and I don't think +Sabriny would ever know the difference."</p> + +<p>Jason stared in mild-eyed speechless wonder. Minty had never shown +herself a leading spirit before.</p> + +<p>"It will be dark before the minister's daughter goes, and there's a +veil over the hat, and if we put a little something white on it I'm +sure she won't notice. And when she does notice she won't know what +became of it. And we can save up and buy her another gull's wing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sabriny'll know," said Jason, but there was an accent of hope in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"They don't have turkeys, and they know that Priscilla wasn't a common +turkey; perhaps they won't know the difference," said Minty. "Anyway, +it will give us time to get Priscilla out of the way. If Aunt +Kittredge finds out, she will have her killed right away."</p> + +<p>"You go and get the wing off the minister's daughter's hat, Mint," +directed Jason firmly.</p> + +<p>Minty worked with trembling fingers in the chilly seclusion of the +spare chamber, but she made a neat package. And she stuck on to the +hat in place of the wing some feathers from the white rooster.</p> + +<p>There was an awful moment as Uncle and Aunt Piper were leaving.</p> + +<p>"Just let me see whether he's got a real handsome wing," said Aunt +Kittredge, taking the package which Minty had put into Aunt Piper's +hand.</p> + +<p>"Malachi is in considerable of a hurry, and they've done it up so +nice," said Aunt Piper. "There! I 'most forgot my sauce dishes, and +Sabriny's going to have company to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>Minty drew a long breath of relief as the carriage disappeared down +the lane, and Jason privately confided to her his opinion that she was +"an orfle smart girl."</p> + +<p>There was another dreadful moment when the minister's daughter went +home. They had played games until a very late hour, for Corinna, and +she dressed so hurriedly that she did not observe that anything had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +happened to her hat, but as she went down the garden walk Jason and +Minty saw in the moonlight the rooster's feathers blowing from it.</p> + +<p>The next morning, in the privacy afforded by the great woodpile, to +which Jason had gone to chop his daily stint, the children debated the +advisability of committing the white turkey to the care of Lot Rankin, +who lived with his widowed mother on the edge of the woods.</p> + +<p>"It's hard to get a chance to feed her," said Jason, "and she may +squawk."</p> + +<p>"Lot Rankin may tell," suggested Minty. And she heaved a great sigh. +Conspiracy came hard to Minty.</p> + +<p>Just then the voice of the new minister's daughter came to their ears. +She was talking with Aunt Kittredge on the other side of the woodpile.</p> + +<p>"There was a high wind last night when I went home, and I suppose it +blew away. I am very sorry to lose it, because it was so pretty, and +it was a present, too," she said.</p> + +<p>"Maybe the children have found it; they're round everywhere," said +Aunt Kittredge. And then she called shrilly to Jason.</p> + +<p>Minty shrank down in a little heap behind a huge log as Jason stepped +bravely out from behind the woodpile, and answered promptly that he +had not seen the gull's wing. That was literally true; but how <i>she</i> +was going to answer, Minty did not know.</p> + +<p>It was so great a relief that tears sprang to Minty's eyes when, after +a little more conversation, the minis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>ter's daughter went away. Aunt +Kittredge had taken it for granted that, as she remarked, "if one of +them young ones didn't know anything about it the other didn't."</p> + +<p>Minty felt her burden of guilt to be greater than she could bear. And +there was no way in which she could earn money enough to buy the +minister's daughter a new feather until berries were ripe and the +weeds grew in old Mrs. Jackman's garden. Minty racked her brains to +think of something she could give the minister's daughter to ease her +troubled conscience. There was her Bunker Hill monument, made of +shells, her most precious treasure; she would gladly have parted with +even that, but it stood upon the table in the parlour, and Aunt +Kittredge would discover so soon that it had gone. And Aunt Kittredge +was quite capable of asking the minister's daughter to return it. +Minty felt, despairingly, that this atonement was impossible.</p> + +<p>But suddenly a bright idea struck her. The feather on her summer +Sunday hat! It was blue—it had been white originally, but Aunt +Kittredge had thriftily had it dyed when it became soiled. Blue would +be very becoming to the minister's daughter, and perhaps she would +like it as well as her gull's wing. There was another sly visit to the +chilly spare chamber. Minty took the summer Sunday hat from its +bandbox in the closet, and carefully abstracted the blue feather. It +was slightly faded, and there were some traces of the wetting it had +received in a thunderstorm in spite of the hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>kerchief which Aunt +Kittredge carefully pinned over it; but Minty thought it still a very +beautiful feather. She put it into a little pasteboard box, wrote the +minister's daughter's name on it, placed it on her doorstep at dusk, +rang the bell, and ran away.</p> + +<p>It was nearly a week before she could find this opportunity to present +the feather, for Aunt Kittredge didn't allow her to go out after dark; +and in all that time they had not been able to negotiate with Lot +Rankin, for Lot had the mumps on both sides at once, and could not be +seen. But the very next day after the minister's daughter received her +feather—as if things were all coming right, thought Minty +hopefully—Uncle Kittredge sent her down to Lot Rankin's to find out +when he would be strong enough to help Cyrus in the logging camp; and +Jason gave her many charges concerning the contract she was to make +with Lot. But as she was going out of the house, there stood the +minister's daughter in the doorway, talking with Aunt Kittredge.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have known where it came from if Miss Plympton, the +milliner, hadn't happened to come in," the young girl was saying. "She +said at once, 'It's Minty Kittredge's feather. I had it dyed for her +last summer, and there's the little tag from the dye-house on it now.' +I can't think why she sent it to me."</p> + +<p>Aunt Kittredge turned to the shrinking figure behind her, holding the +blue feather accusingly in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Araminta Kittredge, what does this mean?" she demanded sternly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I—I—she felt so bad about her gull's wing, and—and—" A rising sob +fairly choked Minty.</p> + +<p>"Please don't scold her. I'm sure she can explain," pleaded the +minister's daughter.</p> + +<p>"It's my duty to find out just what this means," said Aunt Kittredge +severely. "I never heard of a child doing such a high-handed thing! +You can do your errand now, because your uncle wants you to, but when +you come back I shall have a settlement with you."</p> + +<p>Poor Minty! She ran fast, never looking back, although the minister's +daughter called to her in kindliest tones.</p> + +<p>There was no hope of keeping a secret from Aunt Kittredge when once +she had discovered that there was one. The only chance of saving +Priscilla's life lay in persuading Lot Rankin to care for and conceal +her.</p> + +<p>But, alas! she found that Lot was not to be persuaded. He was going +into the woods to work, and his mother was "set against turkeys." +Moreover, she was "so lonesome most of the time that when folks <i>did</i> +come along she told 'em all she knew."</p> + +<p>Jason, who had been very anxious, met her at the corner. Perhaps it +was not to be wondered at that Jason was somewhat cross and +unreasonable. He said only a girl would be so foolish as to send that +feather to the minister's daughter. Girls were all silly, even those +who had high foreheads, and he would never trust one again. He hoped +she was going to have sense enough not to tell, no matter what Aunt +Kittredge did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p> + +<p>Poor Minty felt herself to be quite unequal to resisting Aunt +Kittredge, but she swallowed a lump in her throat and said firmly that +she would try to have sense enough.</p> + +<p>As they passed the blacksmith's shop, Liphlet, Uncle Piper's man, +called out to them: "Mebbe I shan't have time to go up to your house. +The blacksmith is sick, so I had to come over here to get the mare +shod, and I wish you'd tell your aunt that Sabriny says 'twan't no +turkey's wing that she sent her: 'twas some kind of a sea-bird's wing, +and it come off of somebody's bunnit, and she's a-goin' to fetch it +back!"</p> + +<p>Minty and Jason answered not a word, but as they went on they looked +at each other despairingly.</p> + +<p>"We should have been found out anyway," said Minty.</p> + +<p>Her pitifully white face seemed to touch Jason and arouse a spark of +manly courage in his bosom.</p> + +<p>"I'll stand by you, Mint, feather and all. You can't help being a +girl," he said magnanimously. "And I won't run away to be a cowboy +like Hiram Trickey."</p> + +<p>Minty gave him a little grateful glance, but she could not speak. It +did not seem so dreadful now about Hiram Trickey. She wished that a +girl could run away to be a cowboy.</p> + +<p>As they slowly and dejectedly drew near the house, they saw a horse +and a farm wagon at the door, and through the window they discovered +that Uncle and Aunt Kittredge, Clorinda, and Cyrus were all in the +kitchen. There was a visitor. Here was at least a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> slight reprieve. +They went around through the woodshed; it seemed advisable to approach +Aunt Kittredge with caution, even in the presence of a visitor.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must say I'm consid'able disappointed," the visitor was +saying, as they softly opened the door. He was a bluff, burly man, who +sat with his tall whip between his knees. "I ought to 'a' stopped when +I see her out there top of the stone wall the last time I come by—the +handsomest turkey cretur I ever did see, and I've been in the poultry +business this twenty years. I knew in a minute she belonged to that +breed that old Mis' Joskins had; she fetched 'em from York State. She +moved away before I knew it, and carried 'em all with her."</p> + +<p>"I bought some eggs of her, and 'most all of 'em hatched, but that +white turkey was the only one that lived," said Aunt Kittredge. "I +declare if I'd known she was anything more'n common, and worthy of +havin' her picture in a book—"</p> + +<p>"You'd ought to have known it, Maria!" said Uncle Kittredge testily. +"I wa'n't for havin' her killed, and you'd ought to have heard to me!"</p> + +<p>"I was calc'latin' to hev her picter right in the front of my new +poultry book," continued the visitor, whom the children now recognized +as the distinguished poultry dealer of North Edom for whom Cyrus had +once worked. "And I was going to have printed under it, 'From the farm +of Abner Kittredge, Esq., Corinna.' Be kind of a boom for you 'n' +Corinna, too—see? And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> if you didn't want to sell her right out, I +was calc'latin' to make you a handsome offer for all the eggs she +laid."</p> + +<p>"There! Now you see what you've done, Maria! I declare I wouldn't +gredge givin' a twenty dollar bill to fetch that white turkey back!" +exclaimed Uncle Kittredge.</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh! Uncle Kittredge!" Minty broke away from Jason, who would have +held her back, not feeling sure that it was quite time to speak, and +rushed into the room. "You needn't give twenty dollars! Priscilla is +down in the little shanty in the logging wood! We saved her—Jason and +I—and we bought a turkey of Jonas Hicks instead. I paid with my own +money, Aunt Kittredge! And then I—I took the gull's wing off the +minister's daughter's hat to send to Sabriny, and—and so that's why I +sent her the blue feather, and—and Sabriny's going to send the gull's +wing back—"</p> + +<p>"Jason, you go and fetch that turkey home!" said Uncle Kittredge. +"And, Maria, don't you blame them children one mite!"</p> + +<p>"I never heard of such high-handed doin's!" gasped Aunt Kittredge.</p> + +<p>"I expect I shall have to send you children each a copy of my book +with the picter of that turkey in it," said the poultry dealer. "And +maybe the boy and I can make kind of a contract about eggs and +chickens."</p> + +<p>The minister's daughter wore her gull's wing to church the next +Sunday, and she privately confided to Minty that she "didn't blame her +one bit." Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> Kittredge looked at Minty somewhat severely for +several days but only as she looked at her when she turned around in +church or fidgeted in the long prayer. And after the poultry book came +out with Priscilla's photograph as a frontispiece, and people began to +make pilgrimages to the Red Hill farm to see the poultry, she was +heard to say several times that "it was wonderful to see how a smart +boy like Jason could make turkey raising pay," and that "as for Minty, +she always knew that high forehead of hers wasn't for nothing."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> From <i>Harper's Young People</i>, November 22, 1892.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_THANKSGIVING_GOOSE" id="THE_THANKSGIVING_GOOSE"></a>THE THANKSGIVING GOOSE<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Fannie Wilder Brown.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>How a little boy learned to be thankful. A charming story +even though it <i>has</i> a moral.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_16.jpg" alt="B" width="42" height="50" /></div> +<p>ut I don't like roast goose," said Guy, pouting. "I'd rather have +turkey. Turkey is best for Thanksgiving, anyway. Goose is for +Christmas."</p> + + + +<p>Guy's mother did not answer. He watched her while she carefully wrote +G. T. W. on the corner of a pretty new red-bordered handkerchief. Five +others, all alike, and all marked alike, lay beside it. The initials +were his own.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you buy some blue ones? I'd rather have them different," +he said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wright smiled a queer little smile, but did not answer. She +lighted a large lamp and held the marked corner of one of the +handkerchiefs against the hot chimney. The heat made the indelible ink +turn dark, although the writing had been so faint Guy hardly could see +it before.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear," he cried, "there's a little blot at the top of that T! I +don't want to carry a handkerchief that has a blot on it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p><p>"Very well," said his mother. "I'll put them away, and you may carry +your old ones until you ask me to let you carry this one. I don't care +to furnish new things for a boy who doesn't appreciate them."</p> + +<p>"I don't like old—"</p> + +<p>"That'll do, Guy. Never mind the rest of the things that you don't +like. I want you to take this dollar down to Mrs. Burns. Tell her that +I shall have a day's work for her on Friday, and I thought she might +like to have part of the pay in advance to help make Thanksgiving +with. Please go now."</p> + +<p>"But a dollar won't help much. She won't like that. She always acts +just as if she was as happy as anybody. I don't want to go there on +such an errand as that."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wright smiled again, but her tone was very grave.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Burns is 'as happy as anybody,' Guy, and she has the +best-behaved children in the neighbourhood. The little ones almost +never cry, and I never have seen the older ones quarrel. But there are +eight children, and Mr. Burns has only one arm, so he can't earn much +money. Mrs. Burns has to turn her hands to all sorts of things to keep +the children clothed and fed. She'll be thankful to get the +dollar—you see if she isn't! And tell her if she is making mince pies +to sell this year, I'll take three."</p> + +<p>Guy walked very slowly down the street until he came to the little +house where the Burns family lived.</p> + +<p>"I'd hate to live here," he thought. "I don't see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> where they all +sleep. My room isn't big enough, but I don't believe there's a room in +this house as big as mine. I shouldn't have a bit of fun, ever, if I +lived here. And I'd hate to have my mother make pies and send me about +to sell them."</p> + +<p>Then he knocked on the front door, for there was no bell. No one came. +He could hear people talking in the distance, so he knew some of the +family were at home. Some one always was at home here to look after +the little children. He walked around to the kitchen door: it stood +open. The children were talking so fast they did not hear his knock.</p> + +<p>They were very busy. Katie, the eleven-year-old, and Malcolm, ten, +Guy's age, were cutting citron into long, thin strips, piling it on a +big blue plate. Mary and James, the eight-year-old twins, were paring +apples with a paring machine. The long, curling skins fell in a large +stone jar standing on a clean paper, spread on the floor. Charlie, who +was only four years old, was watching to see that none of the parings +fell over the edge of the jar. Susan, who was seven, was putting +raisins, a few at a time, into a meat chopper screwed down on the +kitchen table. George, three years old, was turning the handle of the +chopper to grind the raisins. Baby Joe was creeping about the kitchen +floor after a kitten. Mrs. Burns was taking a great piece of meat from +a steaming kettle on the back of the stove. Every one was working, +except the baby and the kitten, but all seemed to be having a glorious +time. What they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> saying seemed so funny it was some time before +Guy could understand it. At last he was sure it was some kind of a +game.</p> + +<p>"Mice?" asked Susan. Mary squealed, and they all laughed.</p> + +<p>"Because they're small," said Mary. "Snakes?"</p> + +<p>"They can't climb trees," Mrs. Burns called out from the pantry. The +children fairly roared at that. "A pantry with no window in it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we've had that before," Katie answered. "I know what you say. +It's a good place to ripen pears in when Mrs. Wright gives us some."</p> + +<p>Guy knocked very loudly at that. He had not thought that he was +listening.</p> + +<p>The children started, but did not leave their work. They looked at +their mother. "Jamie," she said. Then Jamie came to meet Guy, and +invited him to walk in.</p> + +<p>"What game is it?" asked Guy, forgetting his errand.</p> + +<p>"Making mince pies," said Jamie. "It's lots of fun. Don't you want to +play? I'll let you turn the paring machine if you'd like that best."</p> + +<p>Guy said "Thank you" and began to turn the parer eagerly.</p> + +<p>"But I don't mean what you are doin'," said Guy. "I knew that was +mince pies. I thought that was work. I meant what you were saying. It +sounds so funny! I never heard it before."</p> + +<p>"Mamma made it up," explained Malcolm. "It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> great fun. We always +play it at Thanksgiving time. You think of something that people don't +like, and the one who can think first tells what he is thankful for +about it. We call it 'Thanksgiving.'"</p> + +<p>Guy stayed for an hour, and played both games. Then, quite to his +surprise, the twelve o'clock whistles blew, and he had to go home. But +he remembered his errands and did them, to the great pleasure of the +whole Burns family.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon Guy spent some time writing a note to his mother. It +was badly written, but it made his mother happy. It read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>:—I am Thankful the blot isent any bigger. I am +Thankful the hankershefs isent black on the borders. I would +like that one with the Blot on to put in my pocket when you +read this. But my old ones are nice. The Burnses dont have +things to be Thankful for but they are Thankful just the +same.</p> + +<p>I am Thankful for the Goose we are going to have. The best +is I am Thankful I am not a Goose myself, for if I was I +wouldent know enough to be Thankful.</p></div> + +<p class="sig2">Respectfully yours,</p> + +<p class="sig1"><span class="smcap">Guy Theodore Wright.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> From the <i>Youth's Companion</i>, November 26, 1908.</p></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="AN_ENGLISH_DINNER_OF_THANKSGIVING" id="AN_ENGLISH_DINNER_OF_THANKSGIVING"></a>AN ENGLISH DINNER OF THANKSGIVING<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By George Eliot</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Americans are not the only people who hold a feast each year +after the crops are gathered into barns.</p> + +<p>The older boys and girls who wish to know more of the jolly +English farmer, Martin Poyser, and his household, will enjoy +reading about them in George Eliot's great novel, "Adam +Bede."</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_14.jpg" alt="I" width="24" height="50" /></div> +<p>t was a goodly sight—that table, with Martin Poyser's round +good-humoured face and large person at the head of it, helping his +servants to the fragrant roast beef, and pleased when the empty plates +came again. Martin, though usually blest with a good appetite, really +forgot to finish his own beef to-night—it was so pleasant to him to +look on in the intervals of carving, and see how the others enjoyed +their supper; for were they not men who, on all the days of the year +except Christmas Day and Sundays, ate their cold dinner, in a +makeshift manner, under the hedgerows, and drank their beer out of +wooden bottles—with relish certainly, but with their mouths toward +the zenith, after a fashion more endurable to ducks than to human +bipeds. Martin Poyser had some faint conception of the flavour such +men must find in hot roast beef and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>fresh-drawn ale. He held his head +on one side, and screwed up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and +watched half-witted Tom Tholer, otherwise known as "Tom Saft," +receiving his second plateful of beef. A grin of delight broke over +Tom's face as the plate was set down before him, between his knife and +fork, which he held erect, as if they had been sacred tapers; but the +delight was too strong to continue smouldering in a grin—it burst out +the next moment in a long-drawn "haw, haw!" followed by a sudden +collapse into utter gravity, as the knife and fork darted down on the +prey. Martin Poyser's large person shook with his silent unctuous +laugh; he turned toward Mrs. Poyser to see if she, too, had been +observant of Tom, and the eyes of husband and wife met in a glance of +good-natured amusement.</p> + + + +<p>But <i>now</i> the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn, leaving +a fair large deal table for the bright drinking cans, and the foaming +brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks, pleasant to behold. +<i>Now</i> the great ceremony of the evening was to begin—the harvest +song, in which every man must join; he might be in tune, if he liked +to be singular, but he must not sit with closed lips. The movement was +obliged to be in triple time; the rest was <i>ad libitum</i>.</p> + +<p>As to the origin of this song—whether it came in its actual state +from the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a +school or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant. There is a stamp +of unity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the +former hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that +this unity may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds +which was a condition of primitive thought foreign to our modern +consciousness. Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first +quatrain an indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, +failing in imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of +iteration; others, however, may rather maintain that this very +iteration is an original felicity to which none but the most prosaic +minds can be insensible.</p> + +<p>The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony. (That is +perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our +forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly +<i>forte</i>, no can was filled:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Here's a health unto our master,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The founder of the feast;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here's a health unto our master<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And to our mistress!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And may his doings prosper,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whate'er he takes in hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For we are all his servants,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And are at his command."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung +<i>fortissimo</i>, with emphatic raps on the table, which gave the effect +of cymbals and drum together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> Alick's can was filled, and he was +bound to empty it before the chorus ceased.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then drink, boys, drink!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And see ye do not spill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For if ye do, ye shall drink two,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For 'tis our master's will."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed +manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand—and so +on, till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of +the chorus. Tom Saft—the rogue—took care to spill a little by +accident; but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to +prevent the exaction of the penalty.</p> + +<p>To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of +obvious why the "Drink, boys, drink!" should have such an immediate +and often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that +all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious; it was the +regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to +do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over +their wine glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, +had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in +the ceremony; and had not finished his contemplation, until a silence +of five minutes declared that "Drink, boys, drink!" was not likely to +begin again for the next twelve-month. Much to the regret of the boys +and Totty; on them the stillness fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> rather flat, after that +glorious thumping of the table, toward which Totty, seated on her +father's knee, contributed with her small might and small fist.</p> + +<p>When Bartle reëntered, however, there appeared to be a general desire +for solo music after the choral. Nancy declared that Tim the wagoner +knew a song and was "allays singing like a lark i' the stable"; +whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, "Come, Tim, lad, let's hear +it." Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn't +sing; but this encouraging invitation of the master's was echoed all +round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could +say, "Come, Tim"—except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity +of unnecessary speech. At last Tim's next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, +began to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing +rather savage, said, "Let me alooan, will ye? else I'll ma' ye sing a +toon ye wonna like." A good-tempered wagoner's patience has limits, +and Tim was not to be urged further.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, David, ye're the lad to sing," said Ben, willing to show +that he was not discomfited by this check. "Sing 'My loove's a roos +wi'out a thorn.'"</p> + +<p>The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted +expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity +rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent +to Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve +over his mouth in a way that was regarded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> as a symptom of yielding. +And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the +desire to hear David's song. But in vain. The lyrism of the evening +was in the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that +retreat just yet....</p> +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> From Chapter LIII of "Adam Bede."</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_NOVEL_POSTMAN" id="A_NOVEL_POSTMAN"></a>A NOVEL POSTMAN<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Alice W. Wheildon</span>.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A little country girl made known her wants in a decidedly +original way. A small boy in the city did his best to +satisfy them. This is at once a story of Thanksgiving and of +Christmas.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="O" width="50" height="53" /></div> +<p>h, mother! what do you suppose Ellen found in the turkey? You never +could guess. It's a letter—yes, a real letter just stuffed +inside—see!" And Freddie held before his mother's wondering eyes a +soiled and crumpled envelope which seemed to contain a letter.</p> + + + +<p>Freddie had been in the kitchen all the morning watching the various +operations for the Thanksgiving dinner which was "to come off" the +next day, when all the "sisters, cousins, and aunts" of the family +were to assemble, as was their custom each year, and great was the +commotion in the kitchen and much there was for Master Fred to +inspect. When Ellen put her hand into the turkey to arrange him for +the stuffing, great was her astonishment at finding a piece of paper. +Drawing it quickly out she called, "Freddie, Freddie, see here! See +what I've found in the turkey! I declare if he isn't a new kind of a +postman, for sure as you're born <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>this is a letter, come from +somewhere, in the turkey. My! who ever heard of such a thing?"</p> + +<p>Freddie, standing with eyes and mouth wide open, finally said, "Why, +Ellen, do you believe it is a letter?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course it is! Don't you see it's in a' envelope and all +sealed and everything?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it hasn't any stamp and how could a turkey bring it—how did +it get in him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed Ellen, "that's the question! You'd better take it right +up to your mother and get her to read it to you and perhaps it will +tell."</p> + +<p>So Freddie, all excitement, rushed upstairs and into his mother's +room, shouting as we have read.</p> + +<p>His mother took the letter from him. "Where did you get this, +Freddie—what do you mean by finding it in the turkey?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Ellen found it in the turkey when she was fixing him, and I +don't see how it got there."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Page turned the envelope and slowly read, "To the lady who buys +this turkey," written with a pencil and in rather crooked letters on +the outside; then opening the envelope she found, surely enough, a +letter within, also written in pencil, in rather uncertain letters, +some large, some quite small, some on the line, others above or below, +but all bearing sufficient relation to one another for her finally to +decipher the following:</p> + +<p class="sig3"><i>Nov. 20</i>,</p> + +<p class="sig2"><i>Mad River Village, N. H.</i></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p><div class="blockquot"><p>dere lady I doo want a dol for Christmas orful and mother +says that Sante Claws is so busy in the city that she gueses +he forgits the cuntry and for me to rite to the city lady +who buys our turkey and ask her if she will pleas to ask +Sante Claws if he could send a dol way up here in the cuntry +to me. I will hang my stockin in the chimly and he cannot +mistake the house becaus it is the only house that is black +in the hole place. I have prayed to him lots of times to +give me a dol but I gues he does not mind prayers much from +a little girl so far away so will you pleas to ask him for +me and oblige</p></div> + +<p class="sig1"><span class="smcap">Lucy Tillage</span>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>P. S.—I hope the turkey will be good to eat, he is our very +best one and I was sorry to have him killed, but I never had +a dol.</p></div> + +<p>Freddie listened, very much interested, sometimes helping to make out +the letters while his mother read this remarkable letter. At its +conclusion he dropped upon a chair in deep thought while in his +imagination he saw a small black house surrounded by turkeys running +wildly about while a little girl tried to catch the largest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother," at length he sighed, "only think of a girl who never had +a doll, and Beth has so many she don't know what to do with them +all—shall you ask Santa Claus to send her one?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Page, who also had been in deep thought, "do you +think we better ask Santa Claus to send her one, or send her one +ourselves? You and Beth might send her one for a Christmas present."</p> + +<p>At once Freddie became fired with the desire to rush to a store, +purchase a doll, and send it off to the little "black house." He +seemed to think the house was little because the girl was little.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, no, Freddie, not so fast," said Mrs. Page. "I think we better +wait till papa comes home and then we will ask his advice about it: +first, if he knows of a town in New Hampshire of this name, and then +if he thinks there may really be a little girl there who has such an +odd name—I shouldn't be surprised if Papa could find out all about +her."</p> + +<p>Freddie thought it was hard to wait until his father came home before +something was done about securing a doll; still he knew his mother was +right and tried to be patient, wishing Beth would come home, wondering +how the little girl looked, and if she had any brothers who wanted +something, and fifty other things, till he heard his father's key in +the front door; then down he rushed, flourishing the open sheet in his +hand, and gave him a most bewildering and rapid account of the letter +and the finding it in the turkey, ending with, "Now, Papa, do you know +of any such town, and did you ever hear of Lucy Tillage before, or of +anybody's turkey having a letter sent in him, and don't you think we +might send her the doll right away so's she might have it for +Christmas sure—don't you, Papa? And if we can't get a new one won't +you tell Beth to send one of hers? I know she won't want so many +and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh! stop, my boy," said Mr. Page, laughing heartily; "wait a moment, +Fred, I don't half understand what this is all about—a letter and a +turkey and a little girl with a doll and a turkey in a black house—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, Papa, you're getting it all mixed up; you read the letter +yourself, please."</p> + +<p>So Mr. Page read the letter and heard about finding it in the turkey, +and then talked it over with his wife and Freddie and Beth, who had +come in from her play, and it was decided that he should write to the +postmaster and minister in Mad River Village asking them if they knew +of any family in the place of the name of Tillage, and if they did, +whether they were a poor family, and how many children they had, and +anything else they might know of them.</p> + +<p>There was no time to lose if the doll was to be sent for Christmas, so +both letters were written that very evening and Freddie begged to put +them in the post box himself that there might be no mistake in that.</p> + +<p>Then came a long time of waiting for Master Fred. At first he thought +one day would be enough for the letter to find its way to Mad River +Village; but upon a solemn consultation with the cousins and aunts who +came to the Thanksgiving party, it was decided that three days, at +least, ought to be allowed for a letter to reach a place that none of +them had ever heard of, and perhaps there was not such a village +anywhere after all but Freddie had made up his mind that there was +somewhere, and so each morning found him watching for the postman and +each night he went to bed disappointed, saying, "Oh! I hope there is a +truly Mad Village."</p> + +<p>Beth was almost as much excited as Fred about Lucy's letter, but still +she laughed at him as older sis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>ters sometimes seem to take pleasure +in doing, saying, "I guess it's a delicious wonderland kind of a +letter, and that the people up there are mad people to be sending +letters in turkeys!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you just wait, Beth, and see if they are," answered Fred; and +sure enough, after ten days of waiting Freddie was rewarded by +receiving from the postman a yellow envelope with "Mad River Village" +printed in large, clear letters "right side of the stamp." He ran as +fast as he could with it to his father, shouting to Beth by the way to +"come and see if there isn't a Mad Village and a Lucy Tillage."</p> + +<p>Mr. Page was never given so short a time before to open a letter and +adjust his glasses, but then a letter had never before been received +under such circumstances. It proved to be from the postmaster at Mad +River Village, and ran as follows:</p> + +<p class="sig2">Mad River Village, N. H.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Mr. Page</span> of Boston: I rec. your letter a Day or two since +and hasten to ans. it right away, as you wish, by this +morning's mail which I must put up pretty soon so this +letter must be short. Yes sir I do know a family in this +town by the name of Tillage and they're a good respectable +family too. They live a mile or two out of the village on a +farm his father left him and I guess they have pretty hard +times making both ends meet—there ain't much sale up here +for farm things, you know, and it costs a heap to send them +to Boston but they do say that of late he's raised lots of +chickens and turkeys to send to Boston for Thanksgiving. +Last year he and his wife started in on taking summer +boarders and I guess they done first rate. They're young +folks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> got three children, a little girl a small boy and a +baby and I guess they'll do as well as any one can on that +farm, it's a likely place but his father ain't been dead +long and Geo. didn't have no show while the old man was +alive. He buys his flour and groceries of me and I call him +a honest fellow and I guess you'd like to board with them if +you want to try them next summer. I don't think of anything +more to say so will close.</p></div> + +<p class="sig2">Yours respt.</p> + +<p class="sig3"><span class="smcap">Josiah Safford</span>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>P. S.—His name and address are George Tillage, Intervale +Farm, Mad River Village, N. H.</p></div> + +<p>This was a highly satisfactory letter, especially to Master Fred who +had shouted gleefully to Beth, "I told you so!" "I do know a family of +the name of Tillage," and when his father read "three children, a +little girl, etc.," he nearly turned a somersault in his excitement, +dancing about and saying, "that's Lucy! that's Lucy!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Page turned smilingly to his wife, saying, "Well, my dear, this +does not sound so much like a fairy tale after all, and I really think +you and the children must play Santa Claus and send Lucy a doll."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, Papa, of course we must! Yes, do, Mamma!" shouted both +children at once. "It'll be such fun and she won't know where it comes +from."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Page was only too willing, so she promised, only adding that she +hoped the minister would give an equally good account.</p> + +<p>The children, however, were quite satisfied with the postmaster's +letter and began preparations the very next morning to secure the doll +and her "fit out" as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> Beth called it. First, Beth's dolls were looked +at to see if one of them would do to take a trip into the country, but +although there were quite a number of them none seemed to just suit +their ideas of what Lucy's doll should be. So Mamma was appealed to +and in consequence a visit was paid to Partridge's store by Mrs. Page, +accompanied by Beth and Master Fred. Here such a bewildering array of +dolls was presented to the children that it was with difficulty they +finally decided upon one with blue eyes and short golden hair, and +real hair that curled bewitchingly. Then came the selection of the +"fit out." Freddie thought she should have skates and a watch and +bracelets and one of the cunning waterproof cloaks and a trunk—in +fact, everything that could be bought for a doll (and in these days +that means all articles of apparel, whether for use or ornament, that +could be bought for a real person); but Mrs. Page explained that she +would not need so many things in Mad River Village, so he was +contented with a trunk which he selected himself, while his mother and +Beth bought a little hat and cloak, shoes, stockings, and a pretty +sunshade—the dresses and underclothing Beth thought she could make +with the aid of her mother's seamstress, and she was very ambitious to +try.</p> + +<p>Freddie thought the "small boy" and the "baby" ought to have presents +sent to them also; so he was allowed to select a drum, which he was +sure the boy "would like best of anything," and a pretty rattle and a +rubber cow for the baby.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a very busy season of the year for the Pages as well as for +other people, and Beth had many presents to think about, but she kept +the little dresses and clothes for Lucy's doll in mind and worked and +planned with a will all the time she could spare for them, and Mary, +the seamstress, sewed and sewed, and as she knew how to cut dresses as +well as make them, in about two weeks they had, as Beth said, "a +lovely fit out," even to a tiny muff and collar made from some bits of +fur mamma had and a sweet little hood made just like Beth's own.</p> + +<p>Then Miss Doll was dressed in her travelling suit, muff and all, her +other dresses and clothing packed in the little trunk, and she herself +carefully tucked in on top, then Beth shut the cover and locked it, +tying the key to one of the buckles of the side strap—a box had been +procured and into it was packed the trunk, the drum, and the presents +for the baby, supplemented by Freddie with a ball which he had found +among his own playthings and two cornucopias of candy which he had +purchased himself, saying that "Christmas won't be Christmas if they +don't have some candy." Mrs. Page "filled in the nooks and corners +just to steady the whole," as she modestly said, with a pair of strong +warm mittens for Mr. Tillage, some magazines and books, several pairs +of long thick stockings which Freddie had outgrown but not worn out, +and over the whole a beautiful warm shawl.</p> + +<p>Then Beth and Fred composed a letter together which Beth wrote and +they both signed:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Dear Lucy Tillage</span>:—The turkey brought the letter safely to +us and we wanted to be Santa Claus ourselves and so send the +doll and the other things for a Christmas present to you and +your brother and the baby.</p> + +<p class="sig4">We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.</p></div> + +<p class="sig3"><span class="smcap">Beth Page</span>,</p> + +<p class="sig3"><span class="smcap">Fred Page</span>.</p> + +<p>This they neatly folded, put in an envelope addressed to Miss Lucy +Tillage, Mad River Village, and placed on the shawl where it might be +seen the moment the box was opened. They felt very proud and happy +when the box was finally nailed up and directed in clear printed +letters to</p> + +<p class="blockquot1"> +<span class="smcap">George Tillage</span>,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Intervale Farm,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mad River Village,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">New Hampshire.</span> +</p> + +<p>Freddie insisted that Lucy's name ought to be put on, too, as she was +the one who had written the letter and to whom the box was really +sent; so "For Lucy" was printed across one corner and underlined that +her father might see it was sent particularly to her. It all seemed so +mysterious, sending presents to people they did not know, and so +delightful, that they thought this the best Christmas they had ever +known and only wished that they could be in the little "black house" +when the box was opened, to see Lucy's face as she caught sight of the +cunning trunk and then the doll which she had so longed for.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> + +<p>The very day the box was sent on its way there came a letter from a +minister in the town in which Mad River Village was located, saying +that he "did not know any family of the name of Tillage, but upon +inquiry he had found that there was a family of that name living on +the other side of the river, but as they did not go to his church he +was not acquainted with them; he was sorry, etc., etc."</p> + +<p>But the children cared little for this letter; their faith in Lucy was +not shaken, and they were very happy that they had answered her +letter.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> From <i>Wideawake</i>, November, 1889. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="EZRAS_THANKSGIVIN_OUT_WEST" id="EZRAS_THANKSGIVIN_OUT_WEST"></a>EZRA'S THANKSGIVIN' OUT WEST<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Eugene Field.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A Kansas settler's recollections of an old-time Thanksgiving +in western Massachusetts. Older boys and girls will best +appreciate the tender sentiment of the picture which Eugene +Field has painted so vividly by his masterly use of homely +dialect.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_12.jpg" alt="E" width="43" height="50" /></div> +<p>zra had written a letter to the home folks, and in it he had +complained that never before had he spent such a weary, lonesome day +as this Thanksgiving Day had been. Having finished this letter, he sat +for a long time gazing idly into the open fire that snapped cinders +all over the hearthstone and sent its red forks dancing up the chimney +to join the winds that frolicked and gambolled across the Kansas +prairies that raw November night. It had rained hard all day, and was +cold; and although the open fire made every honest effort to be +cheerful, Ezra, as he sat in front of it in the wooden rocker and +looked down into the glowing embers, experienced a dreadful feeling of +loneliness and homesickness.</p> + + + +<p>"I'm sick o' Kansas," said Ezra to himself. "Here I've been in this +plaguey country for goin' on a year, and—yes, I'm sick of it, +powerful sick of it. What a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>miser'ble Thanksgivin' this has been! +They don't know what Thanksgivin' is out this way. I wish I was back +in ol' Mass'chusetts—that's the country for <i>me</i>, and they hev the +kind o' Thanksgivin' I like!"</p> + +<p>Musing in this strain, while the rain went patter-patter on the +windowpanes, Ezra saw a strange sight in the fireplace—yes, right +among the embers and the crackling flames Ezra saw a strange, +beautiful picture unfold and spread itself out like a panorama.</p> + +<p>"How very wonderful!" murmured the young man. Yet he did not take his +eyes away, for the picture soothed him and he loved to look upon it.</p> + +<p>"It is a pictur' of long ago," said Ezra softly. "I had like to forgot +it, but now it comes back to me as nat'ral-like as an ol' friend. An' +I seem to be a part of it, an' the feelin' of that time comes back +with the pictur', too."</p> + +<p>Ezra did not stir. His head rested upon his hand, and his eyes were +fixed upon the shadows in the firelight.</p> + +<p>"It is a pictur' of the ol' home," said Ezra to himself. "I am back +there in Belchertown, with the Holyoke hills up north an' the +Berkshire Mountains a-loomin' up gray an' misty-like in the western +horizon. Seems as if it wuz early mornin'; everything is still, and it +is so cold when we boys crawl out o' bed that, if it wuzn't +Thanksgivin' mornin', we'd crawl back again an' wait for Mother to +call us. But it <i>is</i> Thanksgivin' mornin', and we're goin' skatin' +down on the pond. The squealin' o'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> the pigs has told us it is five +o'clock, and we must hurry; we're goin' to call by for the Dickerson +boys an' Hiram Peabody, an' we've got to hyper! Brother Amos gets on +about half o' my clothes, and I get on 'bout half o' his, but it's all +the same; they are stout, warm clo'es, and they're big enough to fit +any of us boys—Mother looked out for that when she made 'em. When we +go downstairs, we find the girls there, all bundled up nice an' +warm—Mary an' Helen an' Cousin Irene. They're going with us, an' we +all start out tiptoe and quiet-like so's not to wake up the ol' folks. +The ground is frozen hard; we stub our toes on the frozen ruts in the +road. When we come to the minister's house, Laura is standin' on the +front stoop a-waitin' for us. Laura is the minister's daughter. She's +a friend o' Sister Helen's—pretty as a dagerr'otype, an' gentle-like +and tender. Laura lets me carry her skates, an' I'm glad of it, +although I have my hands full already with the lantern, the hockies, +and the rest. Hiram Peabody keeps us waitin', for he has overslept +himself, an' when he comes trottin' out at last the girls make fun of +him—all except Sister Mary, an' she sort o' sticks up for Hiram, an' +we're all so 'cute we kind o' calc'late we know the reason why.</p> + +<p>"And now," said Ezra softly, "the pictur' changes: seems as if I could +see the pond. The ice is like a black lookin'-glass, and Hiram Peabody +slips up the first thing, an' down he comes, lickety-split, an' we all +laugh—except Sister Mary, an' <i>she</i> says it is very imp'lite to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +laugh at other folks' misfortunes. Ough! how cold it is, and how my +fingers ache with the frost when I take off my mittens to strap on +Laura's skates! But, oh, how my cheeks burn! And how careful I am not +to hurt Laura, an' how I ask her if that's 'tight enough,' an' how she +tells me 'jist a little tighter' and how we two keep foolin' along +till the others hev gone an' we are left alone! An' how quick I get my +<i>own</i> skates strapped on—none o' your new-fangled skates with springs +an' plates an' clamps an' such, but honest, ol'-fashioned wooden ones +with steel runners that curl up over my toes an' have a bright brass +button on the end! How I strap 'em and lash 'em and buckle 'em on! An' +Laura waits for me an' tells me to be sure to get 'em on tight +enough—why, bless me! after I once got 'em strapped on, if them +skates hed come off, the feet wud ha' come with 'em! An' now away we +go—Laura and me. Around the bend—near the medder where Si Barker's +dog killed a woodchuck last summer—we meet the rest. We forget all +about the cold. We run races an' play snap the whip, an' cut all sorts +o' didoes, an' we never mind the pick'rel weed that is froze in on the +ice an' trips us up every time we cut the outside edge; an' then we +boys jump over the air holes, an' the girls stan' by an' scream an' +tell us they know we're agoin' to drownd ourselves. So the hours go, +an' it is sun-up at last, an' Sister Helen says we must be gettin' +home. When we take our skates off, our feet feel as if they were wood. +Laura has lost her tippet; I lend her mine, and she kind o' blushes. +The old pond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> seems glad to have us go, and the fire-hangbird's nest +in the willer tree waves us good-bye. Laura promises to come over to +our house in the evenin', and so we break up.</p> + +<p>"Seems now," continued Ezra musingly, "seems now as if I could see us +all at breakfast. The race on the pond has made us hungry, and Mother +says she never knew anybody else's boys that had such capac'ties as +hers. It is the Yankee Thanksgivin' breakfast—sausages an' fried +potatoes, an' buckwheat cakes, an' syrup—maple syrup, mind ye, for +Father has his own sugar bush, and there was a big run o' sap last +season. Mother says, 'Ezry an' Amos, won't you never get through +eatin'? We want to clear off the table, fer there's pies to make, and +nuts to crack, and laws sakes alive! The turkey's got to be stuffed +yet!' Then how we all fly around! Mother sends Helen up into the attic +to get a squash while Mary's makin' the pie crust. Amos an' I crack +the walnuts—they call 'em hickory nuts out in this pesky country of +sagebrush and pasture land. The walnuts are hard, and it's all we can +do to crack 'em. Ev'ry once'n a while one on 'em slips outer our +fingers and goes dancin' over the floor or flies into the pan Helen is +squeezin' pumpkin into through the col'nder. Helen says we're +shif'less an' good for nothin' but frivolin'; but Mother tells us how +to crack the walnuts so's not to let 'em fly all over the room, an' +so's not to be all jammed to pieces like the walnuts was down at the +party at the Peasleys' last winter. An' now here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> comes Tryphena +Foster, with her gingham gown an' muslin apron on; her folks have gone +up to Amherst for Thanksgivin', an' Tryphena has come over to help our +folks get dinner. She thinks a great deal o' Mother, 'cause Mother +teaches her Sunday-school class an' says Tryphena oughter marry a +missionary. There is bustle everywhere, the rattle uv pans an' the +clatter of dishes; an' the new kitchen stove begins to warm up an' git +red, till Helen loses her wits and is flustered, an' sez she never +could git the hang o' that stove's dampers.</p> + +<p>"An' now," murmured Ezra gently, as a tone of deeper reverence crept +into his voice, "I can see Father sittin' all by himself in the +parlour. Father's hair is very gray, and there are wrinkles on his +honest old face. He is lookin' through the winder at the Holyoke hills +over yonder, and I can guess he's thinkin' of the time when he wuz a +boy like me an' Amos, an' uster climb over them hills an' kill +rattlesnakes an' hunt partridges. Or doesn't his eyes quite reach the +Holyoke hills? Do they fall kind o' lovingly but sadly on the little +buryin' ground jest beyond the village? Ah, Father knows that spot, +an' he loves it, too, for there are treasures there whose memory he +wouldn't swap for all the world could give. So, while there is a kind +o' mist in Father's eyes, I can see he is dreamin'-like of sweet an' +tender things, and a-communin' with memory—hearin' voices I never +heard, an' feelin' the tech of hands I never pressed; an' seein' +Father's peaceful face I find it hard to think of a Thanksgivin' +sweeter than Father's is.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The pictur' in the firelight changes now," said Ezra, "an' seems as +if I wuz in the old frame meetin'-house. The meetin'-house is on the +hill, and meetin' begins at half-pas' ten. Our pew is well up in +front—seems as if I could see it now. It has a long red cushion on +the seat, and in the hymn-book rack there is a Bible an' a couple of +Psalmodies. We walk up the aisle slow, and Mother goes in first; then +comes Mary, then me, then Helen, then Amos, and then Father. Father +thinks it is jest as well to have one o' the girls set in between me +an' Amos. The meetin'-house is full, for everybody goes to meetin' +Thanksgivin' Day. The minister reads the proclamation an' makes a +prayer, an' then he gives out a psalm, an' we all stan' up an' turn +'round an' join the choir. Sam Merritt has come up from Palmer to +spend Thanksgivin' with the ol' folks, an' he is singin' tenor to-day +in his ol' place in the choir. Some folks say he sings wonderful well, +but <i>I</i> don't like Sam's voice. Laura sings soprano in the choir, and +Sam stands next to her an' holds the book.</p> + +<p>"Seems as if I could hear the minister's voice, full of earnestness +an' melody, comin' from way up in his little round pulpit. He is +tellin' us why we should be thankful, an', as he quotes Scriptur' an' +Dr. Watts, we boys wonder how anybody can remember so much of the +Bible. Then I get nervous and worried. Seems to me the minister was +never comin' to lastly, and I find myself wonderin' whether Laura is +listenin' to what the preachin' is about, or is writin' notes to Sam +Merritt in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> the back of the tune book. I get thirsty, too, and I +fidget about till Father looks at me, and Mother nudges Helen, and +Helen passes it along to me with interest.</p> + +<p>"An' then," continues Ezra in his revery, "when the last hymn is given +out an' we stan' up agin an' join the choir, I am glad to see that +Laura is singin' outer the book with Miss Hubbard, the alto. An' goin' +out o' meetin' I kind of edge up to Laura and ask her if I kin have +the pleasure of seein' her home.</p> + +<p>"An' now we boys all go out on the Common to play ball. The Enfield +boys have come over, and, as all the Hampshire county folks know, they +are tough fellers to beat. Gorham Polly keeps tally, because he has +got the newest jackknife—oh, how slick it whittles the old broom +handle Gorham picked up in Packard's store an' brought along jest to +keep tally on! It is a great game of ball; the bats are broad and +light, and the ball is small and soft. But the Enfield boys beat us at +last; leastwise they make 70 tallies to our 58, when Heman Fitts +knocks the ball over into Aunt Dorcas Eastman's yard, and Aunt Dorcas +comes out an' picks up the ball an' takes it into the house, an' we +have to stop playin'. Then Phineas Owen allows he can flop any boy in +Belchertown, an' Moses Baker takes him up, an' they wrassle like two +tartars, till at last Moses tuckers Phineas out an' downs him as slick +as a whistle.</p> + +<p>"Then we all go home, for Thanksgivin' dinner is ready. Two long +tables have been made into one, and one of the big tablecloths Gran'ma +had when she set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> up housekeepin' is spread over 'em both. We all set +round—Father, Mother, Aunt Lydia Holbrook, Uncle Jason, Mary, Helen, +Tryphena Foster, Amos, and me. How big an' brown the turkey is, and +how good it smells! There are bounteous dishes of mashed potato, +turnip, an' squash, and the celery is very white and cold, the +biscuits are light and hot, and the stewed cranberries are red as +Laura's cheeks. Amos and I get the drumsticks; Mary wants the wishbone +to put over the door for Hiram, but Helen gets it. Poor Mary, she +always <i>did</i> have to give up to 'rushin' Helen,' as we call her. The +pies—oh, what pies Mother makes; no dyspepsia in 'em, but good nature +an' good health an' hospitality! Pumpkin pies, mince, an' apple, too, +and then a big dish of pippins an' russets an' bellflowers, an', last +of all, walnuts with cider from the Zebrina Dickerson farm! I tell ye, +there's a Thanksgivin' dinner for ye! that's what we get in old +Belchertown; an' that's the kind of livin' that makes the Yankees so +all-fired good an' smart.</p> + +<p>"But the best of all," said Ezra very softly to himself, "oh, yes, the +best scene in all the pictur' is when evenin' comes, when all the +lamps are lit in the parlour, when the neighbours come in, and when +there is music and singing an' games. An' it's this part o' the +pictur' that makes me homesick now and fills my heart with a longin' I +never had before; an' yet it sort o' mellows and comforts me, too. +Miss Serena Cadwell, whose beau was killed in the war, plays on the +melodeon, and we all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> sing—all on us: men, womenfolks, an' children. +Sam Merritt is there, and he sings a tenor song about love. The women +sort of whisper round that he's goin' to be married to a Palmer lady +nex' spring, an' I think to myself I never heard better singin' than +Sam's. Then we play games—proverbs, buzz, clap-in-clap-out, +copenhagen, fox-an'-geese, button-button-who's-got-the-button, +spin-the-platter, go-to-Jerusalem, my-ship's-come-in; and all the +rest. The ol' folks play with the young folks just as nat'ral as can +be; and we all laugh when Deacon Hosea Cowles hez to measure six yards +of love ribbon with Miss Hepsey Newton, and cut each yard with a kiss; +for the deacon hez been sort o' purrin' round Miss Hepsey for goin' on +two years. Then, aft'r a while, when Mary and Helen bring in the +cookies, nutcakes, cider, an' apples, Mother says: 'I don't believe +we're goin' to hev enough apples to go round; Ezry, I guess I'll have +to get you to go down cellar for some more.' Then I says: 'All right, +Mother, I'll go, providin' some one 'll go along an' hold the candle.' +An' when I say this I look right at Laura, an' she blushes. Then +Helen, jest for meanness, says: 'Ezry, I s'pose you ain't willin' to +have your fav'rite sister go down cellar with you and catch her death +o' cold?' But Mary, who hez been showin' Hiram Peabody the phot'graph +album for more'n an hour, comes to the rescue an' makes Laura take the +candle, and she shows Laura how to hold it so it won't go out.</p> + +<p>"The cellar is warm an' dark. There are cobwebs all between the +rafters an' everywhere else except on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> shelves where Mother keeps +the butter an' eggs an' other things that would freeze in the butt'ry +upstairs. The apples are in bar'ls up against the wall, near the +potater bin. How fresh an' sweet they smell! Laura thinks she sees a +mouse, an' she trembles an' wants to jump up on the pork bar'l, but I +tell her that there shan't no mouse hurt her while I'm around; and I +mean it, too, for the sight of Laura a-tremblin' makes me as strong as +one of Father's steers. 'What kind of apples do you like best, Ezry?' +asks Laura, 'russets or greenin's or crow-eggs or bellflowers or +Baldwins or pippins?' 'I like the Baldwins best,' says I, ''coz they +got red cheeks just like yours.' 'Why, Ezry Thompson! how you talk!' +says Laura. 'You oughter be ashamed of yourself!' But when I get the +dish filled up with apples there ain't a Baldwin in all the lot that +can compare with the bright red of Laura's cheeks. An' Laura knows it, +too, an' she sees the mouse again, an' screams, and then the candle +goes out, and we are in a dreadful stew. But I, bein' almost a man, +contrive to bear up under it, and knowin' she is an orph'n, I comfort +an' encourage Laura the best I know how, and we are almost upstairs +when Mother comes to the door and wants to know what has kep' us so +long. Jest as if Mother doesn't know! Of course she does; an' when +Mother kisses Laura good-bye that night there is in the act a +tenderness that speaks more sweetly than even Mother's words.</p> + +<p>"It is so like Mother," mused Ezra; "so like her with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> her gentleness +an' clingin' love. Hers is the sweetest picture of all, and hers the +best love."</p> + +<p>Dream on, Ezra; dream of the old home with its dear ones, its holy +influences, and its precious inspiration!—Mother. Dream on in the +faraway firelight; and as the angel hand of memory unfolds these +sacred visions, with thee and them shall abide, like a Divine +Comforter, the spirit of Thanksgiving.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> From "A Little Book of Profitable Tales," copyright, +1889, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHIPS_THANKSGIVING" id="CHIPS_THANKSGIVING"></a>CHIP'S THANKSGIVING<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Annie Hamilton Donnell.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Chip had plenty of nuts on Thanksgiving Day. The little lady +called Heart's Delight saw to that. Can you guess who Chip +was?</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="50" /></div> +<p>hey had got "way through," as Terry said, to the nuts. It had been a +beautiful Thanksgiving dinner "so far." Grandmother's sweet face +beamed down the length of the great table, over all the little crinkly +grandheads, at grandfather's face. Everybody felt very thankful.</p> + + + +<p>"I wish all the children this side o' the north pole had had some +turkey, too, and squash and cram'bry—and things," said Silence +quietly. Silence was always wishing beautiful things like that.</p> + +<p>"An' some nuts," added Terry, setting his small white teeth into the +meat of a big fat walnut. "It wouldn't seem Thanksgivingy 'thout +nuts."</p> + +<p>"I know somebody who would be thankful with just nuts," smiled +grandfather. "Indeed, I think he'd rather have them for all the +courses of his Thanksgiving dinner!"</p> + +<p>"Just nuts! No turkey, nor puddin', nor anything?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p><p>The crinkly grandheads all bobbed up from their plates and +nut-pickers in amazement. Just nuts!</p> + +<p>"Yes. Guess who he is?" Grandfather's laughing eyes twinkled up the +long table at grandmother.</p> + +<p>"I'll give you three guesses apiece, beginning with Heart's Delight. +Guess number one, Heart's Delight."</p> + +<p>"Chip," gravely. Heart's Delight had guessed it the very first guess.</p> + +<p>"Chip!" laughed all the little grand girls and boys. Why, of course! +Chip! He would rather have just nuts for Thanksgiving dinner!</p> + +<p>"I wish he had some o' mine!" cried Silence.</p> + +<p>"An' mine!" cried Terry; and all the others wished he had some of +theirs. What a Thanksgiving dinner little Chip would have had!</p> + +<p>"He's got plenty, thank you." It was the shy little voice of Heart's +Delight. A soft pink colour had come into her round cheeks. Everybody +looked at her inquiringly, for how did Heart's Delight know Chip had +plenty of nuts? Then Terry remembered something.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's where her nuts went to!" he cried. "Heart's Delight gave +'em to Chip! We couldn't think what she'd done with 'em all."</p> + +<p>The pink colour was growing pinker—very pink indeed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's where," said Silence, leaning over to squeeze one of +Heart's Delight's little hands. And sure enough, it was. In the +beautiful nut month of October, when the children went after their +winter's supply of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> nuts, little Heart's Delight had left all her +little rounded heap just where bright-eyed, nut-loving squirrel Chip +would be sure to find them and hurry them away to his winter hole. And +Chip had found them, she was sure, for not one was left when she went +back to see, the next day.</p> + +<p>"Why, maybe this very minute—right now—Chip's cracking his +Thanksgiving dinner!" Terry laughed.</p> + +<p>"Same as we are! Maybe he's got to the nut cour—oh, they're all nut +courses! But maybe he's sittin' up to his table with the rest of the +folks, thanksgiving to Heart's Delight," Silence said.</p> + +<p>Heart's Delight's little shy face nearly hid itself over her plate. +This was dreadful! It was necessary to change the subject at once, and +a dear little thought came to her aid.</p> + +<p>"But I'm afraid he hasn't got any gran'father and gran'mother to his +Thanksgiving," she said softly. "I shouldn't think anybody could +thanksgive 'thout a gran'mother and gran'father."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> From the <i>Youth's Companion</i>, November 26, 1903.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_MASTER_OF_THE_HARVEST" id="THE_MASTER_OF_THE_HARVEST"></a>THE MASTER OF THE HARVEST<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Mrs. Alfred Gatty.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A good old-fashioned story for the older boys and girls to +read on the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="50" /></div> +<p>he Master of the Harvest walked by the side of his cornfields in the +early year, and a cloud was over his face, for there had been no rain +for several weeks, and the earth was hard from the parching of the +cold east winds, and the young wheat had not been able to spring up.</p> + + + +<p>So, as he looked over the long ridges that lay stretched in rows +before him, he was vexed, and began to grumble, and say, "The harvest +would be backward, and all things would go wrong." At the mere thought +of which he frowned more and more, and uttered words of complaint +against the heavens, because there was no rain; against the earth, +because it was so dry and unyielding; against the corn, because it had +not sprung up.</p> + +<p>And the man's discontent was whispered all over the field, and all +along the long ridges where the corn seeds lay; and when it reached +them they murmured out, "How cruel to complain! Are we not doing our +best? Have we let one drop of moisture pass by unused, one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>moment of +warmth come to us in vain? Have we not seized on every chance, and +striven every day to be ready for the hour of breaking forth? Are we +idle? Are we obstinate? Are we indifferent? Shall we not be found +waiting and watching? How cruel to complain!"</p> + +<p>Of all this, however, the Master of the Harvest heard nothing, so the +gloom did not pass away from his face. On the contrary, he took it +with him into his comfortable home, and repeated to his wife the dark +words that all things were going wrong; that the drought would ruin +the harvest, for the corn was not yet sprung.</p> + +<p>And still thinking thus, he laid his head on his pillow, and presently +fell asleep.</p> + +<p>But his wife sat up for a while by the bedside, and opened her Bible, +and read, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are +the angels."</p> + +<p>Then she wrote this text in pencil on the flyleaf at the end of the +book, and after it the date of the day, and after the date the words, +"Lord, the husbandman, Thou waitest for the precious fruit Thou hast +sown, and hast long patience for it! Amen, O Lord, Amen!"</p> + +<p>After which the good woman knelt down to pray, and as she prayed she +wept, for she knew that she was very ill.</p> + +<p>But what she prayed that night was heard only in heaven.</p> + +<p>And so a few days passed on as before, and the house was gloomy with +the discontent of its master; but at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> one evening the wind +changed, the sky became heavy with clouds, and before midnight there +was rain all over the land; and when the Master of the Harvest came in +next morning, wet from his early walk by the cornfields, he said it +was well it had come at last, and that, at last, the corn had sprung +up.</p> + +<p>On which his wife looked at him with a smile, and said, "How often +things came right, about which one had been anxious and disturbed." To +which her husband made no answer, but turned away and spoke of +something else.</p> + +<p>Meantime, the corn seeds had been found ready and waiting when the +hour came, and the young sprouts burst out at once; and very soon all +along the long ridges were to be seen rows of tender blades, tinting +the whole field with a delicate green. And day by day the Master of +the Harvest saw them and was satisfied; but because he was satisfied, +and his anxiety was gone, he spoke of other things, and forgot to +rejoice.</p> + +<p>And a murmur arose among them: "Should not the Master have welcomed us +to life? He was angry but lately, because the seed he had sown had not +yet brought forth; now that it has brought forth, why is he not glad? +What more does he want? Have we not done our best? Are we not doing it +minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day? From the morning and +evening dews, from the glow of the midday sun, from the juices of the +earth, from the breezes which freshen the air, even from clouds and +rain, are we not taking in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> food and strength, warmth and life, +refreshment and joy; so that one day the valleys may laugh and sing, +because the good seed hath brought forth abundantly? Why does he not +rejoice?"</p> + +<p>As before, however, of all they said the Master of the Harvest heard +nothing; and it never struck him to think of the young corn blades' +struggling life. Nay, once, when his wife asked him if the wheat was +doing well, he answered, "Very fairly," and nothing more. But she +then, because the evening was fine and the fairer weather had revived +her failing powers, said she would walk out by the cornfields herself.</p> + +<p>And so it came to pass that they went out together. And together they +looked all along the long green ridges of wheat, and watched the +blades as they quivered and glistened in the breeze which sprang up +with the setting sun. Together they walked, together they looked; +looking at the same things and with the same human eyes; even as they +had walked, and looked, and lived together for years, but with a world +dividing their hearts; and what was ever to unite them?</p> + +<p>Even then, as they moved along, she murmured half aloud, half to +herself, thinking of the anxiety that had passed away: "Thou visitest +the earth, and blessest it; thou makest it very plenteous."</p> + +<p>To which he answered, if answer it may be called, "Why are you always +so gloomy? Why should Scripture be quoted about such common things?"</p> + +<p>And she looked in his face and smiled, but did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> speak; and he +could not read the smile, for the life of her heart was as hidden to +him as the life of the corn blades in the field.</p> + +<p>And so they went home together, no more being said by either; for, as +she turned round, the sight of the setting sun and of the young +freshly growing wheat blades brought tears into her eyes.</p> + +<p><i>She</i> might never see the harvest upon earth again; for her that other +was at hand, whereof the reapers were to be angels.</p> + +<p>And when she opened her Bible that night she wrote on the flyleaf the +text she had quoted to her husband, and after the text the date of the +day, and after the date the words, "Bless me, even me also, oh, my +Father, that I may bring forth fruit with patience!"</p> + +<p>Very peaceful were the next few weeks that followed, for all nature +seemed to rejoice in the weather, and the corn blades shot up till +they were nearly two feet high, and about them the Master of the +Harvest had no complaints to make.</p> + +<p>But at the end of that time, behold, the earth began to be hard and +dry again, for once more rain was wanted; and by degrees the growing +plants failed for want of moisture and nourishment, and lost power and +colour, and became weak and yellow in hue. And once more the +husbandmen began to fear and tremble, and once more the brow of the +Master of the Harvest was over-clouded with angry apprehension.</p> + +<p>And as the man got more and more anxious about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> the fate of his crops, +he grew more and more irritable and distrustful, and railed as before, +only louder now, against the heavens because there was no rain; +against the earth because it lacked moisture; against the corn plants +because they had waxed feeble.</p> + +<p>Nay, once, when his sick wife reproved him gently, praying him to +remember how his fears had been turned to joy before, he reproached +her in his turn for sitting in the house and pretending to judge of +what she could know nothing about, and bade her come out and see for +herself how all things were working together for ill.</p> + +<p>And although he spoke it in bitter jest, and she was very ill, she +said she would go, and went.</p> + +<p>So once more they walked out together, and once more looked over the +cornfields; but when he stretched out his arm and pointed to the long +ridges of blades, and she saw them shrunken and faded in hue, her +heart was grieved within her, and she turned aside and wept over them.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she said she durst not cease from hope, since an hour +might renew the face of the earth, if God so willed; neither should +she dare to complain, <i>even the harvest were to fail</i>. At which words +the Master of the Harvest stopped short, amazed, to look at his wife, +for her soul was growing stronger as her body grew weaker, and she +dared to say things now which she would have had no courage to utter +before.</p> + +<p>But of all this he knew nothing, and what he thought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> as he listened, +was that she was as weak in mind as in body; and what he said was that +a man must be an idiot who would not complain when he saw the bread +taken from under his very eyes!</p> + +<p>And his murmurings and her tears sent a shudder all along the long +ridges of sickly corn blades, and they asked one of another, "Why does +he murmur? and, Why does she weep? Are we not doing all we can? Do we +slumber or sleep, and let opportunities pass by unused? Are we not +watching and waiting against the times of refreshing? Shall we not be +found ready at last? Why does he murmur? and, Why does she weep? Is +she, too, fading and waiting? Has she, too, a master who has lost +patience?"</p> + +<p>Meantime, when she opened her Bible that night, she wrote on the +flyleaf the text, "Wherefore should a man complain, a man for the +punishment of his sins?" and after the text the date of the day, and +after the date the words, "Thou dost turn Thy face from us, and we are +troubled; but, Lord, how long, how long?"</p> + +<p>And by and by came on the long-delayed times of refreshing, but so +slowly and imperfectly that the change in the corn could scarcely be +detected for a while. Nevertheless, it told at last, and stems +struggled up among the blades, and burst forth into flowers, which +gradually ripened into ears of grain. But a struggle it had been, and +continued to be, for the measure of moisture was scant, and the due +amount of warmth in the air was wanting. Nevertheless, by struggling +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> effort the young wheat advanced, little by little, in growth; +preparing itself, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, as best +it could, for the great day of the harvest. As best it could! Would +the Master of the Harvest ask more? Alas! he had still something to +find fault with, for when he looked at the ears and saw that they were +small and poor, he grumbled, and said the yield would be less than it +ought to be, and the harvest would be bad.</p> + +<p>And as more weeks went on, and the same weather continued, and the +progress was very, very slow, he spoke out of his vexation to his wife +at home, to his friends at the market, and to the husbandmen who +passed by and talked with him about the crops.</p> + +<p>And the voice of his discontent was breathed over the cornfield, all +along the long ridges where the plants were labouring, and waiting, +and watching. And they shuddered and murmured: "How cruel to complain! +Had we been idle, had we been negligent, had we been indifferent, we +might have passed away without bearing fruit at all. How cruel to +complain!"</p> + +<p>But of all this the Master of the Harvest heard nothing, so he did not +cease to complain.</p> + +<p>Meantime, another week or two went on, and people as they glanced over +the land wished that a few good rainy days would come and do their +work decidedly, so that the corn ears might fill. And behold, while +the wish was yet on their lips, the sky became charged with clouds, +darkness spread over the country,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> a wild wind rose, and the growling +of thunder announced a storm. And such a storm! People hid from it in +cellars and closets and dark corners, as if now, for the first time, +they believed in a God, and were trembling at the new-found fact; as +if they could never discover Him in His sunshine and blessings, but +only thus in His tempests and wrath.</p> + +<p>And all along the long ridges of wheat plants drove the rain-laden +blast, and they bent down before it and rose up again, like the waves +of a labouring sea. Ears over ears they bowed down; ears above ears +they rose up. They bowed down as if they knew that to resist was +destruction; they rose up as if they had a hope beyond the storm. Only +here and there, where the whirlwinds were the strongest, they fell +down and could not lift themselves again. So the damage done was but +little, and the general good was great. But when the Master of the +Harvest saw here and there patches of overweighted corn yet dripping +from the thunder showers, he grew angry for them, and forgot to think +of the long ridges that stretched over his fields, where the corn ears +were swelling and rejoicing.</p> + +<p>And he came in gloomy to his home, when his wife was hoping that now, +at last, all would be well; and when she looked at him the tumult of +her soul grew beyond control, and she knelt down before him as he sat +moody in his chair, and threw her arms round him, and cried out: "It +is of the Lord's mercies that we are not utterly consumed. Oh, +husband! pray for the corn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> and for me, that it may go well with us at +the last! Carry me upstairs!" And his anger was checked by fear, and +he carried her upstairs and laid her on the bed, and said it must be +the storm which had shaken her nerves. But whether he prayed for +either the corn or her that night she never knew.</p> + +<p>And presently came a new distress: for when the days of rain had +accomplished their gracious work, and every one was satisfied, behold, +they did not cease. And as hitherto the cry had gone up for water on +the furrows, so now men's hearts failed them for fear lest it should +continue to overflowing, and lest mildew should set in upon the full, +rich ears, and the glorious crops should be lost.</p> + +<p>And the Master of the Harvest walked out by his cornfields, his face +darker than ever. And he railed against the rain because it would not +cease; against the sun because it would not shine; against the wheat +because it might perish before the harvest.</p> + +<p>"But why does he always and only complain?" moaned the corn plants, as +the new terror was breathed over the field. "Have we not done our best +from the first? And has not mercy been with us, sooner or later, all +along? When moisture was scant, and we throve but little, why did he +not rejoice over that little, and wait, as we did, for more? Now that +abundance has come, and we swell triumphant in strength and in hope, +why does he not share our joy in the present, and wait in trust, as we +do, for the future ripening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> change? Why does he always complain? Has +he himself some hard master, who would fain reap where he has not +sown, and gather where he has not strewed, and who has no pity for his +servants who strive?"</p> + +<p>But of all this the Master of the Harvest heard nothing. And when the +days of rain had rolled into weeks and the weeks into months, and the +autumn set in, and the corn still stood up green in the ridges, as if +it never meant to ripen at all, the boldest and most hopeful became +uneasy, and the Master of the Harvest despaired.</p> + +<p>But his wife had risen no more from her bed, where she lay in sickness +and suffering, yet in patient trust, watching the sky through the +window that faced her pillow, looking for the relief that came at +last. For even at the eleventh hour, when hope seemed almost over, and +men had half learned to submit to their expected trial, the dark days +began to be varied by a few hours of sunshine; and though these passed +away, and the gloom and rain returned again, yet they also passed away +in their turn, and the sun shone out once more.</p> + +<p>And the poor sick wife, as she watched, said to those around her that +the weather was gradually changing, and that all would come right at +last; and sighing a prayer that it might be so with herself also, she +had her Bible brought to the bed, and wrote in the flyleaf the text, +"Some thirty, some sixty, some an hundredfold"; and after the text the +date of the day, for on that day the sun had been shining steadily for +many hours. And after the date the words, "Unto whom much is given,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +of him shall much be required; yet if Thou, Lord, be extreme to mark +iniquity, O Lord, who may stand?"</p> + +<p>And day by day, the hours of sunshine were more in number, and the +hours of rain and darkness fewer, and by degrees the green corn ears +ripened into yellow, and the yellow turned into gold, and the harvest +was ready, and the labourers not wanting. And the bursting corn broke +out into songs of rejoicing, and cried, "At least we have not waited +and watched in vain! Surely goodness and mercy have followed us all +the days of our life, and we are crowned with glory and honour. Where +is the Master of the Harvest, that he may claim his own with joy?"</p> + +<p>But the Master of the Harvest was bending over the bed of his dying +wife.</p> + +<p>And she whispered that her Bible should be brought, and he brought it, +and she said, "Open it at the flyleaf at the end, and write, 'It is +sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in +dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised +in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body!'" +And she bade him add the date of the day, and after the date of the +day, the words, "O Lord, in Thy mercy say of me—She hath done what +she could!" And then she laid her hand in his, and so fell asleep in +hope.</p> + +<p>And the harvest of the earth was gathered into barns, and the +gathering-day of rejoicing was over, and the Master of it all sat +alone by his fireside, with his wife's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> Bible on his knee. And he read +the texts and the dates and the prayers, from the first day when the +corn seeds were held back by drought; and as he read a new heart +seemed to burst out within him from the old one—a heart which the +Lord of the other Harvest was making soft, and the springing whereof +He would bless.</p> + +<p>And henceforth, in his going out and coming in from watching the +fruits of the earth, the texts and the dates and the prayers were ever +present in his mind, often rising to his lips; and he murmured and +complained no more, let the seasons be what they would and his fears +however great; for the thought of the late-sprung seed in his own dry +cold heart, and of the long suffering of Him who was Lord and Master +of all, was with him night and day. And more and more as he prayed for +help, that the weary struggle might be blessed, and the new-born +watching and waiting not be in vain, so more and more there came over +his spirit a yearning for that other harvest, where he and she who had +gone before might be gathered in together.</p> + +<p>And thus—in one hope of their calling—the long-divided hearts were +united at last.</p> +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> From "Parables from Nature."</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_THANKSGIVING_DINNER" id="A_THANKSGIVING_DINNER"></a>A THANKSGIVING DINNER<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Edna Payson Brett.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Ministers' sons, somehow, have a bad reputation. Little +Johnnie was one and he thought it pretty hard to have to go +to church on Thanksgiving Day. But the pink-frosted cakes—</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="O" width="50" height="53" /></div> +<p>h, dear!" puffed a certain little boy one bright Thanksgiving +morning, as he jerked his chubby neck into the stiffest of white +collars. "Great fun, isn't it, having to sit up in meeting for a +couple of hours straight as a telegraph pole when I might be playing +football and beating the Haddam team all to hollow! This is what comes +of your pa's being the minister, I s'pose."</p> + + + +<p>But Johnnie, for that was his name, continued his dressing, the ten +years of his young life having taught him how useless it is to make a +fuss over what has to be done.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes he had finished, and was quite satisfied with his +appearance, but for his shoes. These he eyed for a moment, and +concluding that they would not pass inspection, started for the +woodshed to give them a shine.</p> + +<p>On his way he passed the open dining-room door, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>suddenly halted. +"Oh! Why can't I have a nice little lunch during sermon time?"</p> + +<p>He took a step back and peeped slyly into the room; then stole across +to the old-fashioned cupboard, stealthily opening the doors, and such +an array of good things you never beheld! Sally was the best cook in +Brockton any day, but on Thanksgiving she could work wonders.</p> + +<p>He looked with longing eyes from one dish to another. Now the big pies +were out of the question, and the cranberry tarts—he felt of them +lovingly—but no, they were altogether too sticky. He stood on tiptoe +to see what was on the second shelf. To his delight he found a platter +filled with just the daintiest little pink-frosted cakes you ever saw.</p> + +<p>"O-oo, thimble cakes!" he exclaimed. "You are just the fellows I want! +I'll take you along to church with me." He cast one quick glance +around, then grabbed a handful of the tiny cakes and crammed them into +his trousers' pocket.</p> + +<p>"Lucky for me ma isn't going to meeting to-day," chuckled the naughty +boy, "and I don't believe grandma'd ever tell on me if I carried along +the turkey!"</p> + +<p>The early bell had now begun to ring, and Johnnie started for the +village church.</p> + +<p>"Come, my son," said Doctor Goodwin, as they entered the +meeting-house, "you are to sit in the front seat with grandma this +morning: she is particularly anxious to hear every word of the sermon +to-day. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> where's your contribution, boy? You haven't forgotten +that?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir," meekly answered Johnnie, "it's tied up in my handkerchief." +But his heart sank—the front seat! How ever was his lunch to come in +now?</p> + +<p>The opening hymn had been sung, the prayer of thanksgiving offered, +and now, as the collection was about to be taken, the pastor begged +his people to be especially generous to the poor on this day.</p> + +<p>Up in the front pew sat Johnnie, but never a word of the notice did he +hear, so busy was he planning out his own little affair. It wasn't +such easy planning either, just supposing he got caught!</p> + +<p>But what was that? Johnnie jumped as if he had been struck. However, +it was nothing but the money plate under his nose, and the good Deacon +Simms standing calmly by.</p> + +<p>To the guilty boy it seemed as if the deacon must have been waiting +for ten minutes at the least, and in a great flurry he began to fumble +for his handkerchief. What <i>had</i> he done with it? Oh, there it was at +last, way down in the depths of his right trousers' pocket.</p> + +<p>He caught hold of the knotted corner, and out came the handkerchief +with a whisk and a flourish, and scatter, rattle, helter-skelter, out +flew a half-dozen pink thimble cakes, down upon the floor, back into +Mrs. Smiley's pew, and to Johnnie's horror one pat into the deacon's +plate!</p> + +<p>The good man's eyes tried not to twinkle as he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>removed the unusual +offering, and passed on more quickly than was his wont.</p> + +<p>Miserable Johnnie, with his face as red as a rooster's comb and eyes +cast down in shame, saw nothing but the green squares on the carpet +and the dreadful pink-frosted cakes. He was sure that every one in the +church was glaring at him; probably even grandma had forsaken him, and +each moment he dreaded—he knew not what.</p> + +<p>To his surprise, the service seemed to go right on as usual. Another +hymn was sung, and then there was a general settling down for the +sermon. Very soon he began to grow tired of just gazing at the floor, +yet he dared not look up, and by and by the heavy eyes drooped and +Johnny was fast asleep.</p> + +<p>All was now quiet in the meeting-house save the calm, steady voice of +the preacher. Pretty soon a wee creature dressed all in soft brown +stole across the floor of a certain pew. She was a courageous little +body indeed, but what mother would not venture a good deal for her +hungry babies? Such a repast as this was certainly the opportunity of +a lifetime. Looking cautiously around, then concluding that all was +safe, she disappeared down a hole in a corner way under the seat. In a +twinkling she was back again; this time, however, she was not alone. +Four little ones pattered after Mamma Mouse, and eight bright eyes +spied a dinner worth running for.</p> + +<p>Never mind what they did; but when Johnnie awoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> at the strains of +the closing hymn and tried to remember what had gone wrong, he saw +nothing of the pink-frosted cakes save some scattered crumbs.</p> + +<p>What could have become of them, he thought, in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>He hardly knew how he got out of the church that day, but he found +himself rushing down the road a sadder and a wiser boy. Grandma and +papa had remained to chat. Johnnie did not feel like chatting to-day.</p> + +<p>When he reached the house he did not go in, but out to the hayloft, +his favourite resort in time of trouble. When the dinner bell sounded, +notwithstanding the delicious Thanksgiving odours which had been +wafted even to the barn, it was an unwelcome summons; yet go he must, +and walking sheepishly into the dining-room, he slunk into his chair.</p> + +<p>"Well, John," said his father, as he helped him to turkey, "I +understand that you did not forget the poor to-day. Eh, my son?"</p> + +<p>"The poor?" What could he mean? Johnnie was too puzzled to speak.</p> + +<p>Then his father went on to tell how little Mrs. Mouse and her babies +had nibbled a wondrous dinner of pink thimble cakes on the floor of +pew number one while Johnnie slept. Grandma and Mrs. Smiley had told +him all about it on the way home; besides, he had seen enough himself +from the pulpit.</p> + +<p>Johnny bravely bore the laugh at his expense, and as the merriment +died away heaved a deep sigh of relief,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> and exclaimed, "Well, I'm +glad somebody had a feast, even if it wasn't the fellow 'twas meant +for! Humph, <i>'twas</i> quite a setup for poor church mice, wasn't it? But +they needn't be looking for another next year. You don't catch me +trying that again—no-sir-ee!"</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> From the <i>Youth's Companion</i>, November 29, 1900.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="TWO_OLD_BOYS" id="TWO_OLD_BOYS"></a>TWO OLD BOYS<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Pauline Shackleford Colyar.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Walter's two grandfathers were a pair of jolly chums, <i>as +boys</i>. There is plenty of humour in this tale of a turkey +hunt.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_17.jpg" alt="D" width="49" height="50" /></div> +<p>ay after to-morrow will be Thanksgiving," said Walter, taking his +seat beside Grandpa Davis on the top step of the front gallery.</p> + + + +<p>"And no turkey for dinner, neither," retorted Grandma Davis, while her +bright steel needles clicked in and out of the sock she was knitting.</p> + +<p>The old man was smoking his evening pipe, and sat for a moment with +his eyes fixed meditatively upon the blue hills massed in the +distance.</p> + +<p>"Have we got so pore as all that, Mother?" he asked, after a while, +glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who was rocking to and fro +just back of him.</p> + +<p>"I'm obleeged to own to the truth," answered the old lady dejectedly. +"What with the wild varmints in the woods and one thing an' another, +I'm about cleaned out of all the poultry I ever had. It's downright +disheartenin'."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," asserted Grandpa Davis, with an unmirthful chuckle, "it +don't appear to me as we've got so powerful much to be thankful about +this year."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p><p>"Why, Grandpa!" cried Walter, in shocked surprise, "I never did hear +you talk like that before."</p> + +<p>"Never had so much call to do it, mebbe," interposed the old man +cynically.</p> + +<p>The last rays of the setting sun touched the two silvered heads, and +rested there like a benediction, before disappearing below the +horizon.</p> + +<p>Silence had fallen upon the little group, and a bullfrog down in the +fishpond was croaking dismally.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go hunting, and try to kill you a turkey for +Thanksgiving?" ventured Walter, slipping his arm insinuatingly through +his grandfather's. "I saw a great big flock of wild ones down on the +branch last week, and I got right close up to them before they flew."</p> + +<p>"I reckon there ought to be a smart sight of game round and about them +cane brakes along that branch," said the old man slowly, as though +thinking aloud. "It used to be ahead of any strip of woods in all +these parts, when me and Dick was boys. But nobody ain't hunted there, +to my knowledge, not sence me and him fell out."</p> + +<p>"I wish you and Grandpa Dun were friends," sighed Walter. "It does +seem too bad to have two grandpas living right side by side, and not +speaking."</p> + +<p>"I ain't got no ill-will in my heart for Dick," replied Grandpa Davis, +"but he is too everlastin' hard-headed to knock under, and I'll be +blamed if I go more'n halfway toward makin' up."</p> + +<p>"That's just exactly what Grandpa Dun says about you," Walter assured +him very earnestly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wouldn't wonder if he did," said the old man pointedly. "Dick is +always ben a mighty hand to talk, and he'd drap dead in his tracks if +he couldn't get in the last word."</p> + +<p>Be this as it might, the breach had begun when the Davis cattle broke +down the worn fence and demolished the Dun crop of corn, and it +widened when the Dun hogs found their way through an old water gap and +rooted up a field of the Davis sweet potatoes. Several times similar +depredations were repeated, and then shotguns were used on both sides +with telling effect. The climax was reached when John Dun eloped with +Rebecca, the only child of the Davises.</p> + +<p>The young couple were forbidden their respective homes, though the +farm they rented was scarce half a mile away, and the weeks rolled +into months without sign of their parents relenting.</p> + +<p>When Walter was born, however, the two grandmothers stole over, +without their husbands' knowledge, and mingled their tears in happy +communion over the tiny blue-eyed mite.</p> + +<p>It was a memorable day at each of the houses when the sturdy little +fellow made his way, unbidden and unattended, to pay his first call, +and ever afterward (though they would not admit it, even to +themselves) the grandfathers watched for his coming, and vied with +each other in trying to win the highest place in his young affections.</p> + +<p>He had inherited characteristics of each of his grand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>sires, and +possessed the bold, masterful manner which was common to them both. +"Say, Grandpa," he urged, "go hunting to-morrow and try to kill a +turkey for Thanksgiving, won't you? I know grandma would feel better +to have one, and if you make a cane caller, like papa does, I'll bet +you can get a shot at one sure."</p> + +<p>The old man did not commit himself about going, but when Walter saw +him surreptitiously take down his gun from the pegs on the wall across +which it had lain for so many years, and began to rub the barrels and +oil the hammers, he went home satisfied that he had scored another +victory.</p> + +<p>Perhaps nothing less than his grandson's pleading could have induced +Grandpa Davis to visit again the old hunting-ground which had been so +dear to him in bygone days, which was so rich in hallowed memories. It +seemed almost a desecration of the happy past to hunt there now alone.</p> + +<p>The first cold streaks of dawn were just stealing into the sky the +next morning when, accoutred with shot-pouch, powder-flask, and his +old double-barrelled gun, Grandpa Davis made his way toward the +branch. A medley of bird notes filled the air, long streamers of gray +moss floated out from the swaying trees, and showers of autumn leaves +fluttered down to earth. Some of the cows were grazing outside the +pen, up to their hocks in lush, fresh grass, while others lay on the +ground contentedly chewing their cuds. All of them raised their heads +and looked at him as he passed them by.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> + +<p>How like old times it was to be up at daybreak for a hunt! The long +years seemed suddenly to have rolled away, leaving him once more a +boy. He almost wondered why Dick had not whistled to him as he used to +do. Dick was an early riser, and somehow always got ready before he +did.</p> + +<p>There was an alertness in the old man's face and a spring in his step +as he lived over in thought the joyous days of his childhood. The +clouds were flushed with pink when he came in sight of the big water +oak on the margin of the stream, and recollected how he and Dick had +loved to go swimming in the deep, clear water beneath its shade.</p> + +<p>"We used to run every step of the way," he soliloquized, laughing, +"unbuttonin' as we went, chuck our clothes on the bank, and 'most +break our necks tryin' to git in the water fust. I've got half a +notion to take a dip this mornin', if it wasn't quite so cool," he +went on, but a timely twinge of rheumatism brought him to his senses, +and he seated himself on the roots of a convenient tree.</p> + +<p>Cocking his gun, he laid it across his knees, and waited there +motionless, imitating the yelp of a turkey the while. Three or four +small canes, graduated in size, and fitted firmly one into the other, +enabled him to make the note, and so expert had he become by long +practice that the deception was perfect.</p> + +<p>After a pause he repeated the call; then came another pause, another +call, and over in the distance there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> sounded an answer. How the blood +coursed through the old man's veins as he listened! There it was +again. It was coming nearer, but very slowly. He wondered how many +were in the flock, and called once more. This time, to his surprise, +an answer came from a different direction—a long, rasping sound, a +sort of cross between a cock's crow and a turkey's yelp.</p> + +<p>He started involuntarily, and very cautiously peeped around. Hardly +twenty steps from him another gray head protruded itself from the hole +of another tree, and Grandpa Davis and Grandpa Dun looked into each +other's eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'll be double-jumped-up if that ain't Dick!" cried Grandpa Davis, +under his breath. "And there ain't a turkey as ever wore a feather +that he could fool. A minute more, and he'll spile the fun. Dick," he +commanded, "stop that racket, and sneak over here by me," beckoning +mysteriously. "Sh-h-h! they are answerin' ag'in. Down on your +marrow-bones whilst I call."</p> + +<p>Flattening himself upon the ground as nearly as he could, and creeping +behind the undergrowth, Grandpa Dun made his way laboriously to the +desired spot. He had never excelled in calling turkeys, but he was a +far better shot than Grandpa Davis.</p> + +<p>Without demur the two old boys fell naturally into the <i>rôle</i> of +former days. Breathless and excited, they crouched there, waiting for +the fateful moment. Their nerves were tense, their eyes dilated, and +their hearts beating like trip-hammers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> + +<p>Grandpa Davis had continued to call, and now the answer was very near.</p> + +<p>"Gimme the first shot, Billy," whispered Grandpa Dun. "I let you do +the callin'; and, besides, you know you never could hit nothin' that +wasn't as big as the side of a meetin'-house."</p> + +<p>Before Grandpa Davis had time to reply, there came the "put-put-put" +which signals possible danger. A stately gobbler raised his head to +reconnoitre; two guns were fired almost simultaneously, and, with a +whir and a flutter, the flock disappeared in the cane brake.</p> + +<p>The two old boys bounded over the intervening sticks and stumps with +an agility that Walter himself might have envied, and bending over the +prostrate gobbler exclaimed in concert: "Ain't he a dandy, though!"</p> + +<p>They examined him critically, cutting out his beard as a trophy, and +measured the spread of his wings.</p> + +<p>"But he's yourn, after all, Dick," said Grandpa Davis ruefully. "These +here ain't none of my shot, so I reckon I must have missed him."</p> + +<p>"I knowed you would, Billy, afore your fired," Grandpa Dun replied, +with mock gravity, "but that don't cut no figger. He's big enough for +us to go halvers and both have plenty. More'n that, you done the +callin' anyhow."</p> + +<p>Then they laughed, and as they looked into one another's faces, each +seemed to realize for the first time that his quondam chum was an old +man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p> + +<p>A moment before they had been two rollicking boys off on a lark +together—playing hooky, perhaps—and in the twinkling of an eye some +wicked fairy had waved her wand and metamorphosed them into Walter's +two grandfathers, who had not spoken to each other since years before +the lad was born.</p> + +<p>Yet the humour of the situation was irresistible after all, and, +without knowing just how it happened, or which made the first advance, +Dick and Billy found themselves still laughing until the tears coursed +down their furrowed cheeks, and shaking hands with as much vigour as +though each one had been working a pump handle.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what it is, Billy," said Dick at last; "you all come +over to my house, and we'll eat him together on Thanksgivin'."</p> + +<p>"See here, Dick," suggested Billy, abstracting a nickel from his +trousers' pocket; "heads at your house, and tails at mine."</p> + +<p>"All right," came the hearty response.</p> + +<p>Billy tossed the coin into the air: it struck a twig and hid itself +among the fallen leaves, where they sought it in vain.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't settled yet," announced Dick; "but lemme tell you what let's +do. S'posin' we all go over to-morrow—it'll be Thanksgivin', you +know—and eat him at John's house."</p> + +<p>"Good!" cried Billy, with beaming face. "You always did have a head +for thinkin' up things, Dick, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> this here'll sorter split the +difference, and ease matters so as—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and our two old women can draw straws, if they've got a mind to, +and see which of them is obligated to make the fust call," interrupted +Dick.</p> + +<p>"Jist heft him, old feller," urged one of them.</p> + +<p>"Ain't he a whopper, though!" exclaimed the other.</p> + +<p>"Have a chaw, Dick?" asked Billy, offering his plug of tobacco.</p> + +<p>"Don't keer if I do," acquiesced Dick, biting off a goodly mouthful.</p> + +<p>Seating themselves upon a fallen hickory log, they chewed and +expectorated, recalling old times, and enjoying their laugh with the +careless freedom of their childhood days.</p> + +<p>"Dick, do your ricolleck the fight you and a coon had out on the limb +of that tree over yonder, one night?" queried Billy, nudging his +companion in the ribs. "He come mighty nigh gittin' the best of you."</p> + +<p>"He tore one sleeve out of my jacket, and mammy gimme a beatin' +besides," giggled Dick. "And say, Billy, wasn't it fun the day we +killed old man Lee's puddle ducks for wild ones? I don't believe I +ever run as fast in my life."</p> + +<p>"And, Dick, do you remember the night your pappy hung the saddle up on +the head of the bed to keep you from ridin' the old gray mare to +singin' school, and you rid her, bareback, anyway? You ricolleck you +was stoopin' over, blowin' the fire, next mornin', when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> seen the +hairs on your britches, an' come down on you with the leather strop +afore you knowed it."</p> + +<p>Thus one adventure recalled another, and the two old boys laughed +uproariously, clapping their hands and holding their sides, while the +sun climbed up among the treetops.</p> + +<p>"Ain't we ben two old fools to stay mad all this time?" asked one of +them, and the other readily agreed that they had, as they once more +grasped hands before parting.</p> + +<p>Walter had arranged the Thanksgiving surprise for his parents, but +when he brought home the big gobbler he was unable longer to keep the +secret, and divulged his share in what had happened.</p> + +<p>"I didn't really believe either one of them could hit a turkey," he +confided to his father, "but I wanted to have them meet once more, for +I knew if they did they would make friends."</p> + +<p>The parlour was odorous with late fall roses next morning, the table +set, and Walter and his parents in gala attire, when two couples, +walking arm in arm, appeared upon the stretch of white road leading up +to the front gate.</p> + +<p>One couple was slightly in advance of the other, and Grandpa Davis, +who was behind, whispered to his wife:</p> + +<p>"Listen, Mary, Dick is actually tryin' to sing, and he never could +turn a tune, but somehow it does warm up my heart to hear him: seems +like old times ag'in."</p> + +<p>After dinner was over—and such a grand dinner it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> was—Grandpa Davis +voiced the sentiment of the rest of the happy family party when he +announced, quite without warning:</p> + +<p>"Well, this here has ben the thankfulles' Thanksgivin' I ever seen, +and I hope the good Lord will spar' us all for yet a few more."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>From Lippincott's Monthly Magazine</i>, December, 1896.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_THANKSGIVING_DINNER_THAT_FLEW_AWAY" id="A_THANKSGIVING_DINNER_THAT_FLEW_AWAY"></a>A THANKSGIVING DINNER THAT FLEW AWAY<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Hezekiah Butterworth.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A Cape Cod story about a wise old gander whose adventure on +the sea insured him against the perils of the Thanksgiving +hatchet. For boys or girls.</p></div> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="50" /></div> + +<p>here is one sound that I shall always remember. It is "Honk!"</p> + + + +<p>I spun around like a top, one summer day when I heard it, looking +nervously in every direction.</p> + +<p>I had just come down from the city to the Cape with my sister Hester +for my third summer vacation. I had left the cars with my arms full of +bundles, and hurried toward Aunt Targood's.</p> + +<p>The cottage stood in from the road. There was a long meadow in front +of it. In the meadow were two great oaks and some clusters of lilacs. +An old, mossy stone wall protected the grounds from the road, and a +long walk ran from the old wooden gate to the door.</p> + +<p>It was a sunny day, and my heart was light. The orioles were flaming +in the old orchards; the bobolinks were tossing themselves about in +the long meadows of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>timothy, daisies, and patches of clover. There +was a scent of new-mown hay in the air.</p> + +<p>In the distance lay the bay, calm and resplendent, with white sails +and specks of boats. Beyond it rose Martha's Vineyard, green and cool +and bowery, and at its wharf lay a steamer.</p> + +<p>I was, as I said, light-hearted. I was thinking of rides over the +sandy roads at the close of the long, bright days; of excursions on +the bay; of clambakes and picnics.</p> + +<p>I was hungry, and before me rose visions of Aunt Targood's fish +dinners, roast chickens, and berry pies. I was thirsty, but ahead was +the old well sweep, and behind the cool lattice of the dairy window +were pans of milk in abundance.</p> + +<p>I tripped on toward the door with light feet, lugging my bundles, and +beaded with perspiration, but unmindful of all discomforts in the +thought of the bright days and good things in store for me.</p> + +<p>"Honk! honk!"</p> + +<p>My heart gave a bound!</p> + +<p><i>Where</i> did that sound come from?</p> + +<p>Out of a cool cluster of innocent-looking lilac bushes I saw a dark +object cautiously moving. It seemed to have no head. I knew, however, +that it had a head. I had seen it; it had seized me once in the +previous summer, and I had been in terror of it during all the rest of +the season.</p> + +<p>I looked down into the irregular grass, and saw the head and a very +long neck running along on the ground,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> propelled by the dark body, +like a snake running away from a ball. It was coming toward me, and +faster and faster as it approached.</p> + +<p>I dropped my bundles.</p> + +<p>In a few flying leaps I returned to the road again, and armed myself +with a stick from a pile of cordwood.</p> + +<p>"Honk! honk! honk!"</p> + +<p>It was a call of triumph. The head was high in the air now. My enemy +moved grandly forward, as became the monarch of the great meadow +farmyard.</p> + +<p>I stood with beating heart, after my retreat.</p> + +<p>It was Aunt Targood's gander.</p> + +<p>How he enjoyed his triumph, and how small and cowardly he made me +feel!</p> + +<p>"Honk! honk! honk!"</p> + +<p>The geese came out of the lilac bushes, bowing their heads to him in +admiration. Then came the goslings—a long procession of awkward, +half-feathered things; they appeared equally delighted.</p> + +<p>The gander seemed to be telling his admiring audience all about it: +how a strange lad with many bundles had attempted to cross the yard; +how he had driven him back, and had captured his bundles, and now was +monarch of the field. He clapped his wings when he had finished his +heroic story, and sent forth such a "Honk!" as might have startled a +major-general.</p> + +<p>Then he, with an air of great dignity and coolness, began to examine +my baggage.</p> + +<p>Among my effects were several pounds of chocolate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> caramels done up in +brown paper. Aunt Targood liked caramels, and I brought her a large +supply.</p> + +<p>He tore off the wrappers quickly. He bit one. It was good. He began to +distribute the bonbons among the geese, and they, with much liberality +and good-will, among the goslings.</p> + +<p>This was too much. I ventured through the gate, swinging my cordwood +stick.</p> + +<p>"Shoo!"</p> + +<p>He dropped his head on the ground, and drove it down the walk in a +lively waddle toward me.</p> + +<p>"Shoo!"</p> + +<p>It was Aunt Targood's voice at the door.</p> + +<p>He stopped immediately.</p> + +<p>His head was in the air again.</p> + +<p>"Shoo!"</p> + +<p>Out came Aunt Targood with her broom.</p> + +<p>She always corrected the gander with her broom. If I were to be +whipped I should choose a broom—not the stick.</p> + +<p>As soon as he beheld the broom he retired, although with much offended +pride and dignity, to the lilac bushes; and the geese and goslings +followed him.</p> + +<p>"Hester, you dear child," she said to my sister, "come here. I was +expecting you, and had been looking out for you, but missed sight of +you. I had forgotten all about the gander."</p> + +<p>We gathered up the bundles and the caramels. I was light-hearted +again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> + +<p>How cool was the sitting-room, with the woodbine falling about the +open window!</p> + +<p>Aunt brought me a pitcher of milk, and some strawberries, some bread +and honey, and a fan.</p> + +<p>While I was resting and taking my lunch, I could hear the gander +discussing the affairs of the farmyard with the geese. I did not +greatly enjoy the discussion. His tone of voice was very proud, and he +did not seem to be speaking well of me.</p> + +<p>I was suspicious that he did not think me a very brave lad. A young +person likes to be spoken well of, even by the gander.</p> + +<p>Aunt Targood's gander had been the terror of many well-meaning people, +and of some evildoers, for many years. I have seen tramps and pack +peddlers enter the gate, and start on toward the door, when there +would sound that ringing warning like a war blast, "Honk, honk!" and +in a few minutes these unwelcome people would be gone. Farmhouse +boarders from the city would sometimes enter the yard, thinking to +draw water by the old well sweep; in a few minutes it was customary to +hear shrieks, and to see women and children flying over the walls, +followed by air-rending "Honks!" and jubilant cackles from the +victorious gander and his admiring family.</p> + +<p>Aunt Targood sometimes took summer boarders. Among those that I +remember was the Rev. Mr. Bonney, a fervent-souled Methodist preacher. +He put the gander to flight with the cart whip, on the second day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> +after his arrival, and seemingly to aunt's great grief; but he never +was troubled by the feathered tyrant again.</p> + +<p>Young couples sometimes came to Father Bonney to be married; and one +summer afternoon there rode up to the gate a very young couple, whom +we afterward learned had "run away," or rather, had attempted to get +married without their parents' approval. The young bridegroom hitched +the horse, and helped from the carriage the gayly dressed miss he +expected to make his wife. They started up the walk upon the run, as +though they expected to be followed and haste was necessary to prevent +the failure of their plans.</p> + +<p>"Honk!"</p> + +<p>They stopped. It was a voice of authority.</p> + +<p>"Just look at him!" said the bride. "Oh, oh!"</p> + +<p>The bridegroom cried "Shoo!" but he might as well have said "Shoo" to +a steam engine. On came the gander, with his head and neck upon the +ground. He seized the lad by the calf of his leg, and made an +immediate application of his wings. The latter seemed to think he had +been attacked by dragons. As soon as he could shake him off he ran. So +did the bride, but in another direction; and while the two were thus +perplexed and discomfited, the bride's father appeared in a carriage, +and gave her a most forcible invitation to ride home with him. She +accepted it without discussion. What became of the bridegroom, or how +the matter ended, we never knew.</p> + +<p>"Aunt, what makes you keep that gander year after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> year?" said I one +evening, as we were sitting on the lawn before the door. "Is it +because he is a kind of watchdog, and keeps troublesome people away?"</p> + +<p>"No, child, no; I do not wish to keep most people away—not +well-behaved people—nor to distress nor annoy any one. The fact is, +there is a story about that gander that I do not like to speak of to +every one—something that makes me feel tender toward him; so that if +he needs a whipping I would rather do it. He knows something that no +one else knows. I could not have him killed or sent away. You have +heard me speak of Nathaniel, my oldest boy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"That is his picture in my room, you know. He was a good boy to me. He +loved his mother. I loved Nathaniel—you cannot think how much I loved +Nathaniel. It was on my account that he went away.</p> + +<p>"The farm did not produce enough for us all—Nathaniel, John, and me. +We worked hard, and had a hard time. One year—that was ten years +ago—we were sued for our taxes.</p> + +<p>"'Nathaniel,' said I, 'I will go to taking boarders.'</p> + +<p>"Then he looked up to me and said—oh, how noble and handsome he +appeared to me:</p> + +<p>"'Mother, I will go to sea.'</p> + +<p>"'Where?' asked I, in surprise.</p> + +<p>"'In a coaster.'</p> + +<p>"I turned white. How I felt!</p> + +<p>"'You and John can manage the place,' he continued.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> 'One of the +vessels sails next week—Uncle Aaron's; he offers to take me.'</p> + +<p>"It seemed best, and he made preparations to go.</p> + +<p>"The spring before Skipper Ben—you have met Skipper Ben—had given me +some goose eggs; he had brought them from Canada, and said that they +were wild goose eggs.</p> + +<p>"I set them under hens. In four weeks I had three goslings. I took +them into the house at first, but afterward made a pen for them out in +the yard. I brought them up myself, and one of those goslings is that +gander.</p> + +<p>"Skipper Ben came over to see me the day before Nathaniel was to sail. +Aaron came with him.</p> + +<p>"I said to Aaron:</p> + +<p>"'What can I give Nathaniel to carry to sea with him to make him think +of home? Cake, preserves, apples? I haven't got much; I have done all +I can for him, poor boy.'</p> + +<p>"Brother looked at me curiously, and said:</p> + +<p>"'Give him one of those wild geese, and we will fatten it on shipboard +and will have it for our Thanksgiving dinner.'</p> + +<p>"What Brother Aaron said pleased me. The young gander was a noble +bird, the handsomest of the lot; and I resolved to keep the geese to +kill for my own use, and to give <i>him</i> to Nathaniel.</p> + +<p>"The next morning—it was late in September—I took leave of +Nathaniel. I tried to be calm and cheerful and hopeful. I watched him +as he went down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> walk with the gander struggling under his arms. A +stranger would have laughed, but I did not feel like laughing; it was +true that the boys who went coasting were usually gone but a few +months, and came home hardy and happy. But when poverty compels a +mother and son to part, after they have been true to each other, and +shared their feelings in common, it seems hard, it seems hard—though +I do not like to murmur or complain at anything allotted to me.</p> + +<p>"I saw him go over the hill. On the top he stopped and held up the +gander. He disappeared; yes, my own Nathaniel disappeared. I think of +him now as one who disappeared.</p> + +<p>"November came. It was a terrible month on the coast that year. Storm +followed storm; the sea-faring people talked constantly of wrecks and +losses. I could not sleep on the nights of those high winds. I used to +lie awake thinking over all the happy hours that I had lived with +Nathaniel.</p> + +<p>"Thanksgiving week came.</p> + +<p>"It was full of an Indian-summer brightness after the long storms. The +nights were frosty, bright, and calm.</p> + +<p>"I could sleep on those calm nights.</p> + +<p>"One morning I thought I heard a strange sound in the woodland +pasture. It was like a wild goose. I listened; it was repeated. I was +lying in bed. I started up—I thought I had been dreaming.</p> + +<p>"On the night before Thanksgiving I went to bed early, being very +tired. The moon was full; the air was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> calm and still. I was thinking +of Nathaniel, and I wondered if he would indeed have the gander for +his Thanksgiving dinner, if it would be cooked as well as I would have +cooked it, and if he would think of me that day.</p> + +<p>"I was just going to sleep when suddenly I heard a sound that made me +start up and hold my breath.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Honk</i>!'</p> + +<p>"I thought it was a dream followed by a nervous shock.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Honk! honk!</i>'</p> + +<p>"There it was again, in the yard, I was surely awake and in my senses.</p> + +<p>"I heard the geese cackle.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Honk! honk! honk!</i>'</p> + +<p>"I got out of bed and lifted the curtain. It was almost as light as +day.</p> + +<p>"Instead of two geese there were three. Had one of the neighbours' +geese stolen away?</p> + +<p>"I should have thought so, and should not have felt disturbed, but for +the reason that none of the neighbours' geese had that peculiar +call—that hornlike tone that I had noticed in mine.</p> + +<p>"I went out of the door.</p> + +<p>"The <i>third</i> goose looked like the very gander I had given Nathaniel. +Could it be?</p> + +<p>"I did not sleep. I rose early and went to the crib for some corn.</p> + +<p>"It <i>was</i> a gander—a 'wild gander'—that had come in the night. He +seemed to know me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I trembled all over as though I had seen a ghost. I was so faint that +I sat down on the meal chest.</p> + +<p>"As I was in that place, a bill pecked against the door. The door +opened. The strange gander came hobbling over the crib stone and went +to the corn bin. He stopped there, looked at me, and gave a sort of +glad 'Honk' as though he knew me and was glad to see me.</p> + +<p>"I was certain that he was the gander I had raised and that Nathaniel +had lifted into the air when he gave me his last recognition from the +top of the hill.</p> + +<p>"It overcame me. It was Thanksgiving. The church bell would soon be +ringing as on Sunday. And here was Nathaniel's Thanksgiving dinner and +Brother Aaron's—had it flown away? Where was the vessel?</p> + +<p>"Years have passed—ten. You know I waited and waited for my boy to +come back. December grew dark with its rainy seas; the snows fell; May +lighted up the hills, but the vessel never came back. Nathaniel—my +Nathaniel—never returned.</p> + +<p>"That gander knows something he could tell me if he could talk. Birds +have memories. <i>He</i> remembered the corncrib—he remembered something +else. I wish he <i>could</i> talk, poor bird! I wish he could talk. I will +never sell him, nor kill him, nor have him abused. He <i>knows</i>!"</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> From "Zigzag Journeys in Acadia and New France," +Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="MON-DAW-MIN_OR_THE_ORIGIN_OF_INDIAN_CORN" id="MON-DAW-MIN_OR_THE_ORIGIN_OF_INDIAN_CORN"></a>MON-DAW-MIN, OR THE ORIGIN OF INDIAN CORN<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By H. R. Schoolcraft.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is the real Indian fairy tale of the birth of +Mon-daw-min. Readers of Longfellow will remember his +treatment of the same subject in "Hiawatha."</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_14.jpg" alt="I" width="24" height="50" /></div> +<p>n Times past, a poor Indian was living with his wife and children in +a beautiful part of the country. He was not only poor, but inexpert in +procuring food for his family, and his children were all too young to +give him assistance. Although poor, he was a man of a kind and +contented disposition. He was always thankful to the Great Spirit for +everything he received. The same disposition was inherited by his +eldest son, who had now arrived at the proper age to undertake the +ceremony of the Ke-ig-uish-im-o-win, or fast, to see what kind of a +spirit would be his guide and guardian through life. Wunzh, for this +was his name, had been an obedient boy from his infancy, and was of a +pensive, thoughtful, and mild disposition, so that he was beloved by +the whole family. As soon as the first indications of spring appeared, +they built him the customary little lodge at a retired spot, some +distance from their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>own, where he would not be disturbed during this +solemn rite. In the meantime he prepared himself, and immediately went +into it, and commenced his fast. The first few days he amused himself, +in the mornings, by walking in the woods and over the mountains, +examining the early plants and flowers, and in this way prepared +himself to enjoy his sleep, and at the same time stored his mind with +pleasant ideas for his dreams. While he rambled through the woods, he +felt a strong desire to know how the plants, herbs, and berries grew +without any aid from man, and why it was that some species were good +to eat and others possessed medicinal or poisonous juices. He recalled +these thoughts to mind after he became too languid to walk about, and +had confined himself strictly to the lodge; he wished he could dream +of something that would prove a benefit to his father and family, and +to all others. "True!" he thought, "the Great Spirit made all things, +and it is to him that we owe our lives. But could he not make it +easier for us to get our food than by hunting animals and taking fish? +I must try to find out this in my visions."</p> + + + +<p>On the third day he became weak and faint, and kept his bed. He +fancied, while thus lying, that he saw a handsome young man coming +down from the sky and advancing toward him. He was richly and gayly +dressed, having on a great many garments of green and yellow colours, +but differing in their deeper or lighter shades. He had a plume of +waving feathers on his head, and all his motions were graceful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am sent to you, my friend," said the celestial visitor, "by that +Great Spirit who made all things in the sky and on the earth. He has +seen and knows your motives in fasting. He sees that it is from a kind +and benevolent wish to do good to your people, and to procure a +benefit for them, and that you do not seek for strength in war or the +praise of warriors. I am sent to instruct you, and show you how you +can do your kindred good." He then told the young man to arise, and +prepare to wrestle with him, as it was only by this means that he +could hope to succeed in his wishes. Wunzh knew he was weak from +fasting, but he felt his courage rising in his heart, and immediately +got up, determined to die rather than fail. He commenced the trial, +and after a protracted effort was almost exhausted when the beautiful +stranger said, "My friend, it is enough for once; I will come again to +try you"; and, smiling on him, he ascended in the air in the same +direction from which he came. The next day the celestial visitor +reappeared at the same hour and renewed the trial. Wunzh felt that his +strength was even less than the day before, but the courage of his +mind seemed to increase in proportion as his body became weaker. +Seeing this, the stranger again spoke to him in the same words he used +before, adding, "To-morrow will be your last trial. Be strong, my +friend, for this is the only way you can overcome me, and obtain the +boon you seek." On the third day he again appeared at the same time +and renewed the struggle. The poor youth was very faint in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> body, but +grew stronger in mind at every contest, and was determined to prevail +or perish in the attempt. He exerted his utmost powers, and after the +contest had been continued the usual time, the stranger ceased his +efforts and declared himself conquered. For the first time he entered +the lodge, and sitting down beside the youth, he began to deliver his +instructions to him, telling him in what manner he should proceed to +take advantage of his victory.</p> + +<p>"You have won your desires of the Great Spirit," said the stranger. +"You have wrestled manfully. To-morrow will be the seventh day of your +fasting, your father will give you food to strengthen you, and as it +is the last day of trial, you will prevail. I know this, and now tell +you what you must do to benefit your family and your tribe. +To-morrow," he repeated, "I shall meet you and wrestle with you for +the last time; and, as soon as you have prevailed against me, you will +strip off my garments and throw me down, clean the earth of roots and +weeds, make it soft, and bury me in the spot. When you have done this, +leave my body in the earth, and do not disturb it, but come +occasionally to visit the place, to see whether I have come to life, +and be careful never to let the grass or weeds grow on my grave. Once +a month cover me with fresh earth. If you follow my instructions, you +will accomplish your object of doing good to your fellow-creatures by +teaching them the knowledge I now teach you." He then shook him by the +hand and disappeared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>.</p> + +<p>In the morning the youth's father came with some slight refreshments, +saying, "My son, you have fasted long enough. If the Great Spirit will +favour you, he will do it now. It is seven days since you have tasted +food, and you must not sacrifice your life. The Master of Life does +not require that." "My father," replied the youth, "wait till the sun +goes down. I have a particular reason for extending my fast to that +hour." "Very well," said the old man. "I shall wait till the hour +arrives, and you feel inclined to eat."</p> + +<p>At the usual hour of the day the sky visitor returned, and the trial +of strength was renewed. Although the youth had not availed himself of +his father's offer of food, he felt that new strength had been given +to him, and that exertion had renewed his strength and fortified his +courage. He grasped his angelic antagonist with supernatural strength, +threw him down, took from him his beautiful garments and plume, and +finding him dead, immediately buried him on the spot, taking all the +precautions he had been told of, and being very confident, at the same +time, that his friend would again come to life. He then returned to +his father's lodge, and partook sparingly of the meal that had been +prepared for him. But he never for a moment forgot the grave of his +friend. He carefully visited it throughout the spring, and weeded out +the grass, and kept the ground in a soft and pliant state. Very soon +he saw the tops of the green plumes coming through the ground; and the +more careful he was to obey his instructions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> in keeping the ground in +order, the faster they grew. He was, however, careful to conceal the +exploit from his father. Days and weeks had passed in this way. The +summer was now drawing toward a close, when one day, after a long +absence in hunting, Wunzh invited his father to follow him to the +quiet and lonesome spot of his former fast. The lodge had been +removed, and the weeds kept from growing on the circle where it stood, +but in its place stood a tall and graceful plant, with bright coloured +silken hair, surmounted with nodding plumes and stately leaves, and +golden clusters on each side. "It is my friend," shouted the lad; "it +is the friend of all mankind. It is <i>Mondawmin</i>. We need no longer +rely on hunting alone; for, as long as this gift is cherished and +taken care of, the ground itself will give us a living." He then +pulled an ear. "See, my father," said he, "this is what I fasted for. +The Great Spirit has listened to my voice, and sent us something new, +and henceforth our people will not alone depend upon the chase or upon +the waters."</p> + +<p>He then communicated to his father the instructions given him by the +stranger. He told him that the broad husks must be torn away, as he +had pulled off the garments in his wrestling; and having done this, +directed him how the ear must be held before the fire till the outer +skin became brown, while all the milk was retained in the grain. The +whole family then united in feast on the newly grown ears, expressing +gratitude to the Merciful Spirit who gave it. So corn came into the +world.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> From "The Myth of Hiawatha."</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_MYSTERY_IN_THE_KITCHEN" id="A_MYSTERY_IN_THE_KITCHEN"></a>A MYSTERY IN THE KITCHEN<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Olive Thorne Miller.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The boy who has a sister and the girl who has a brother are +the ones who will best like this story of the spirited +twins, Jessie and Jack. Jessie wanted to take music lessons +and Jack tried mining in Colorado.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_06.jpg" alt="S" width="32" height="50" /></div> +<p>omething very mysterious was going on in the Jarvis kitchen. The +table was covered with all sorts of good things—eggs and butter and +raisins and citron and spices; and Jessie, with her sleeves rolled up +and a white apron on, was bustling about, measuring and weighing and +chopping and beating and mixing those various ingredients in a most +bewildering way.</p> + + + +<p>Moreover, though she was evidently working for dear life, her face was +full of smiles; in fact, she seemed to have trouble to keep from +laughing outright, while Betty, the cook, who was washing potatoes at +the sink, fairly giggled with glee every few minutes, as if the sight +of Miss Jessie working in the kitchen was the drollest thing in the +world.</p> + +<p>It was one of the pleasantest sights that big, sunny kitchen had seen +for many a day, and the only thing that appeared mysterious about it +was that the two workers acted strangely like conspirators. If they +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>laughed—as they did on the slightest provocation—it was very soft +and at once smothered. Jessie went often to the door leading into the +hall, and listened; and if there came a knock on the floor, she +snatched off her apron, hastily wiped her hands, rolled down her +sleeves, asked Betty if there was any flour on her, and then hurried +away into another part of the house, trying to look cool and quiet, as +if she had not been doing anything.</p> + +<p>On returning from one of these excursions, as she rolled up her +sleeves again, she said:</p> + +<p>"Betty, we must open the other window if it is cold. Mamma thought she +smelled roast turkey!"</p> + +<p>Betty burst into a laugh which she smothered in her apron. Jessie +covered her mouth and laughed, too, but the window was opened to make +a draught and carry out the delicious odours, which, it must be +confessed, did fill that kitchen so full that no wonder they crept +through the cracks, and the keyholes, and hung about Jessie's dress as +she went through the hall, in a way to make one's mouth water.</p> + +<p>"What did ye tell her?" asked Betty, as soon as she could speak.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I told her I thought potpie smelled a good deal like turkey," +said Jessie, and again both laughed. "Wasn't it lucky we had potpie +to-day? I don't know what I should have said if we hadn't."</p> + +<p>Well, it was not long after that when Jessie lined a baking-dish with +nice-looking crust, filled it with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> tempting looking chicken legs and +wings and breasts and backs and a bowlful of broth, laid a white +blanket of crust over all, tucked it in snugly around the edge, cut +some holes in the top, and shoved it into the oven just after Betty +drew out a dripping pan in which reposed, in all the glory of rich +brown skin, a beautiful turkey. Mrs. Jarvis couldn't have had any nose +at all if she didn't smell that. It filled the kitchen full of nice +smells, and Betty hurried it into the pantry, where the window was +open to cool.</p> + +<p>Then Jessie returned to the spices and fruits she had been working +over so long, and a few minutes later she poured a rich, dark mass +into a tin pudding-dish, tied the cover on tight, and slipped it into +a large kettle of boiling water on the stove.</p> + +<p>"There!" she said, "I hope that'll be good."</p> + +<p>"I know it will," said Betty confidently. "That's y'r ma's best +receipt."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I never made it before," said Jessie doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know it'll be all right, 'n' I'll watch it close," said Betty; +"'n' now you go'n sit with y'r ma. I want that table to git dinner."</p> + +<p>"But I'm going to wash all these things," said Jessie.</p> + +<p>"You go long! I'd ruther do that myself. 'Twon't take me no time," +said Betty.</p> + +<p>Jessie hesitated. "But you have enough to do, Betty."</p> + +<p>"I tell you I want to do it," the girl insisted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I know!" said Jessie; "you like to help about it. Well, you may; +and I'm much obliged to you, besides." And after a last look at the +fine turkey cooling his heels (if he had any) in the pantry, Jessie +went into the other part of the house.</p> + +<p>When dinner time arrived and papa came from town, there duly appeared +on the table the potpie before mentioned, and various other things +pleasant to eat, but nothing was seen of the turkey so carefully +roasted nor of the chicken pie, nor of the pudding that caused the +young cook so much anxiety. Nothing was said about them, either, and +it was not Thanksgiving nor Christmas, though it was only a few days +before the former.</p> + +<p>It was certainly odd, and stranger things happened that night. In the +first place, Jessie sat up in her room and wrote a letter; and then, +after her mother was in bed and everything still, she stole down the +back stairs with a candle, quietly, as though she was doing some +mischief. Betty, who came down to help her, brought a box in from the +woodshed; and the two plotters, very silently, with many listenings at +the door to see if any one was stirring, packed that box full of good +things.</p> + +<p>In it the turkey, wrapped in a snowy napkin, found a bed, the chicken +pie and the plum pudding—beautiful looking as Betty said it would +be—bore him company; and numerous small things, jam jars, fruits, +etc., etc., filled the box to its very top. Then the cover, provided +with screws so that no hammering need be done, was fastened on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now you go to bed, Miss Jessie," whispered Betty. "I'll wait."</p> + +<p>"No, you must be tired," said Jessie. "I'd just as lief."</p> + +<p>"But I'd ruther," said Betty shortly—"'n' I'm going to; it won't be +long now."</p> + +<p>So Jessie crept quietly upstairs, and before long there was a low rap +on the kitchen door. Betty opened it, and there stood a man.</p> + +<p>"Ready?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Betty; "but don't speak loud; Miss Jarvis has sharp +ears, 'n' we don't want her disturbed. Here's the card to mark it by," +and she produced a card from the table.</p> + +<p>The man put it in his pocket, shouldered the box, and Betty shut the +door.</p> + +<p>Not one of those good things ever went into the Jarvis dining-room!</p> + +<p>The next morning things went on just as usual in the house. The +kitchen door was left open and Mrs. Jarvis was welcome to smell any of +the appetizing odours that wafted out into her room. Jessie resumed +her study, and especially her practice, for she hoped some day to be a +great musician. She waited on her mother and took charge of the +housekeeping, so much as was necessary with the well-tried servant at +the head of the kitchen. And though she had but sixteen years over her +bright brown head, she proved herself to be what in that little New +England town was called "capable."</p> + +<p>But that box of goodies! Let us see where it went.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was Thanksgiving morning in a rough-looking little mining +settlement in Colorado. In a shanty rougher and more comfortless than +the rest were two persons: one, a man of thirty, was deeply engaged in +cleaning and oiling a gun which lay in pieces about him on the rough +bench where he sat; the other, a youth of sixteen, was trying to make +a fire burn in the primitive-looking affair that did duty as a stove. +Both wore coarse miner's suits, and picks and other things about the +room told that their business was to dig for the yellow dust we are +all so greedy to have.</p> + +<p>Evidently luck had not been good, for the whole place appeared run +down, and the two looked absolutely hungry.</p> + +<p>It was Thanksgiving morning, as I said, but no thankfulness shone in +the two pale, thin faces. Both were sad, and the younger one almost +hopeless.</p> + +<p>"Jack," said the elder, pausing in his operations, "mind you give that +old hen a good boil, or we won't be able to eat it."</p> + +<p>"It'll be better'n nothing, anyway, I suppose," said Jack gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Not much. 'Specially if you don't get the taste of sage brush out of +it. Lucky I happened to get that shot at her, anyway," he went on, +"I've seen worse dinners—even Thanksgiving dinners—than a sage hen."</p> + +<p>"I haven't," said Jack shortly; for the mention of Thanksgiving had +brought up before him with startling vividness the picture of a bright +dining-room in a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> town far away, a table loaded with good +things, and surrounded by smiling faces, and the contrast was almost +more than he could bear.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't be down on your luck, boy, so long as you can get a good +fat hen to eat, if she does happen to be too fond of seasoning before +she's dead!" replied the other cheerfully; "we haven't struck it yet, +but it's always darkest just before dawn, you know. We may be +millionaires before this time to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"We may," answered Jack; but he didn't look as if he had much hope of +it.</p> + +<p>A few hours later the occupants of the cabin sat down to their +Thanksgiving dinner. It consisted of the hen aforesaid, cut in pieces +and boiled—looking very queer, too—served in the kettle in which the +operation had been performed. The table was at one end of the bench, +the table service two jackknives and two iron spoons—absolutely +nothing else.</p> + +<p>The elder sat on the bench, the younger drew up a keg that had held +powder, and the dinner was about to begin.</p> + +<p>But that hen was destined never to be eaten, for just at that moment +the door was pushed open in the rude way of the country, a box set +down on the floor, and a rough voice announced:</p> + +<p>"A box for Mr. Jack Jones."</p> + +<p>Jack started up.</p> + +<p>"For me, there must be a mistake! Nobody knows—" He stopped, for he +had not mentioned that his name was assumed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Likely not!" said the man, with a knowing look, "but folks has a +mighty queer way of findin' out," and he shut the door and left.</p> + +<p>Jack stood staring at the box as if he had lost his wits. It could not +be from home, for no one knew where he went when he stole out of the +house one night six months ago, and ran away to seek his fortune. Not +a line had he ever written—not even when very ill, as he had been; +not even when without a roof to cover his head, as he had been more +than once; not even when he had not eaten for two days, as also, alas, +had been his experience.</p> + +<p>He had deliberately run away, because—how trivial it looked to him +now, and how childish seemed his conduct—because he thought his +father too hard on him; would not allow him enough liberty; wanted to +dictate to this man of sixteen; he intended to show him that he could +get on alone.</p> + +<p>Poor Jack, the only comfort he had been able to extract from his hard +lot these many months of wandering, of work, of suffering such as he +had never dreamed of—his only comfort was that his tender mother +didn't know, his only sister would no more be worried by his grumbling +and complaints, and his father would be convinced now that he wasn't a +baby. Small comfort, too, to balance the hardships that had fallen to +his lot since the money he had drawn from the savings bank—his little +all—was used up.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you open it?" The gruff but not unkind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> voice of his +roommate, whom he called Tom, aroused him. "Maybe there's something in +it better'n sage hen," trying to raise a smile.</p> + +<p>But no smile followed. Mechanically Jack sought the tools to open it, +and in a few moments the cover was off.</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> from home! On the very top was a letter addressed to Jack +Jarvis in a hand that he well knew.</p> + +<p>He hastily stuffed it into his pocket unopened. The layers of paper +were removed, and as each one was thrown off, something new appeared. +Not a word was spoken, but the kettle of sage hen was silently put on +the floor by Tom as the bench began to fill up. A jar of cranberry +sauce, another of orange marmalade, oranges and apples, a plum +pudding, a chicken pie, and lastly, in its white linen wrapper, the +turkey we saw browning in that far-off New England kitchen.</p> + +<p>As one by one these things were lifted out and placed on the bench a +deep silence reigned in the cabin. Jack had choked at sight of the +letter, and memories of days far different from these checked even +Tom's usually lively tongue. A strange unpacking it was; how different +from the joyful packing at dead of night with those two laughing girl +faces bending over it!</p> + +<p>When all was done, and the silence grew painful, Jack blurted out: +"Help yourself," and bustled about, busily gathering up the papers and +folding them, and stuffing them back in the box, as though he were the +most particular housekeeper in the world. But if Jack couldn't eat, +something, too, ailed Tom. He said simply:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't feel hungry. Believe I'll go out and see what I can find," and +shouldering his gun, now cleaned and put together, he quickly went out +and shut the door.</p> + +<p>Jack sat down on the keg and looked at the things which so vividly +brought home, and his happy life there, before him. He did not feel +hungry, either. He sat and stared for some time. Then he remembered +his letter. He drew it from his pocket and opened it. It was very +thick; and when he pulled it out of the envelope the first thing he +saw was the smiling face of his sister Jessie, his twin sister, his +playmate and comrade, his confidante from the cradle. The loss of her +ever-willing sympathy had been almost more to him than all the rest of +his troubles.</p> + +<p>This was another shock that brought something to his eyes that made +him see the others through a mist. There were the pictures of his +mother, whose gentle voice he could almost hear, and of his father, +whose gray hairs and sad face he suddenly remembered were partly his +work.</p> + +<p>At last he read the letter. It began:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Dear Jack</span>:—I've just found out where you are, and I'm so +glad. I send you this Thanksgiving dinner. It was too bad +for you to go off so. You don't know how dreadful it was for +mamma; she was sick a long time, and we were scared to death +about her, but she's better now; she can sit up most all +day.</p> + +<p>Oh, Jack! Father <i>cried</i>! I'm sure he did, and he almost ran +out of the room, and didn't say anything to anybody all day. +But I was determined I'd find you. I shan't tell you how I +did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> it, but Uncle John helped me, and now, Jack, he says he +wants just such a fellow as you to learn his business, and +he'll make you a very good offer. And, Jack, that's my +turkey—my Winnie—and nobody but Betty knows anything about +this box and this letter. I send you all my money out of the +savings bank (I didn't tell <i>anybody</i> that), and I <i>want</i> +you to come home. You'll find the money under the +cranberries. I thought it would be safe there, and I knew +you'd eat them all, you're so fond of cranberries. I didn't +tell anybody because I want to surprise them, and besides, +let them think you came home because you got ready. It's +nobody's business where you got the money anyway.</p> + +<p>Now do come right home, Jack. You can get here in a week's +time, I know.</p></div> + +<p class="sig2">Your affectionate sister,</p> + +<p class="sig1"><span class="smcap">Jessie</span>.</p> + +<p>Jack laid the letter down with a rush of new feelings and thoughts +that overwhelmed him. He sat there for hours; he knew nothing of time. +He had mechanically turned the cranberry jar upside down and taken +from the bottom, carefully wrapped in white paper, fifty dollars.</p> + +<p>A pang went through him. Well did he know what that money represented +to his sister; by how many sacrifices she had been saving it for a +year or two, with the single purpose of taking the lessons from a +great master that were to fit her to teach, to take an independent +position in the world, to relieve her father, who had lost a large +slice of his comfortable income, and who was growing old and sad under +his burden. She had often talked it over with Jack.</p> + +<p>Now she had generously given up the whole to him, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> her hopes and +dreams of independence; and he—he who should have been the support of +his sister, the right arm of his father—he had basely deserted.</p> + +<p>These thoughts and many more surged through his mind that long +afternoon, and when Tom returned as the shadows were growing long, he +sat exactly as he had been left.</p> + +<p>On Tom's entrance he roused himself. There was a new light in his eye.</p> + +<p>"Come, Tom," he said, "dinner's waiting. You must be hungry by this +time."</p> + +<p>"I am that," said Tom, who had been through his own mental struggles +meanwhile.</p> + +<p>The two sat down once more to their Thanksgiving dinner, and this time +they managed to eat, though Jack choked whenever he thought of tasting +a bit of Jessie's pet turkey, Winnie; and much as he liked turkey, and +a home turkey at that, he could not touch it.</p> + +<p>After the meal, when the provisions were stored away in the cupboard +(a soap box) much too small for such a supply, it had grown quite +dark, and the two, still disinclined to talk, went to their beds—if +the rough bunks they occupied may be dignified by that name.</p> + +<p>But not to sleep—at least not Jack, who tumbled and tossed all night +and got up in the morning with an energy and life he had not shown for +weeks.</p> + +<p>After breakfast Tom shouldered his pick and said:</p> + +<p>"I'll go on, Jack, while you clear up." Yet he felt in his heart he +should never see Jack again; for there was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> homestruck look in his +face that the man of experience in the ways of runaway boys knew well.</p> + +<p>He was not surprised that Jack did not join him, nor that when he +returned at night to the cabin he found him gone and a note pinned up +on the door:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I can't stand it—I'm off for home. You may have my share of +everything.</p></div> + +<p class="sig2"><span class="smcap">Jack</span>.</p> + +<p>It was a cold evening in early December, and there seemed to be an +undercurrent of excitement in the Jarvis household. The table was +spread in the dining-room with the best silver and linen. Mrs. Jarvis +was better, and had even been able to go into the kitchen to +superintend the preparations for dinner.</p> + +<p>Jessie went around with a shining face that no one understood and she +could not explain.</p> + +<p>Betty was strangely nervous, and had made several blunders that +morning which mortified the faithful servant very much. An air of +expectancy pervaded the whole house, though the two heads of it had +not a hint of the cause.</p> + +<p>Jessie heard the train she had decided to be the important one. She +could hardly contain herself for expectation. She tried hard to sober +herself now and then by the thought, "Perhaps he won't come," but she +couldn't stay sobered, for she felt as certain that he would as that +she lived.</p> + +<p>You all know how it happened. The door opened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> and Jack walked in. One +instant of blank silence, and then a grand convulsion.</p> + +<p>Jack fell on his knees with his face in his mother's lap, though he +had not thought a moment before of doing any such thing. Jessie hung +over him, frantically hugging him. Mr. Jarvis, vainly trying to join +this group, could only lay his hands on Jack's head and say in a +broken voice: "My son! My son!" while Betty performed a war dance +around the party, wildly brandishing a basting spoon in one hand and +wiping her streaming eyes on the dishcloth which she held in the +other.</p> + +<p>It was long before a word could be spoken, and the dinner was totally +ruined, as Betty declared with tears (though they were not for +sorrow), before any one could calm down enough to eat.</p> + +<p>Then the reaction set in, and justice was done to the dinner, while +talk went on in a stream. Jack did not tell his adventures; he only +said that he had come from the city, where he had made arrangements +for a situation with Uncle John—at which Jessie's eyes sparkled. His +looks, even after a week of comfort and hope, spoke for his +sufferings.</p> + +<p>There is little more to tell. Jack Jarvis at seventeen was a different +boy from the Jack who at sixteen started out to seek his fortune. You +may be sure that Jessie had her music lessons after all, and that a +new Winnie with a fine young brood at her heels stalked about the +Jarvis grounds the next spring.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> From "Kristy's Surprise Party," Houghton, Mifflin Co.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="WHO_ATE_THE_DOLLYS_DINNER" id="WHO_ATE_THE_DOLLYS_DINNER"></a>WHO ATE THE DOLLY'S DINNER?<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Isabel Gordon Curtis.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A good story for the Big Sister to read to the little boys +and girls.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_10.jpg" alt="W" width="66" height="50" /></div> +<p>hy can't dollies have a Thanksgiving dinner as well as real folks?" +asked Polly Pine.</p> + + + +<p>"I don't know why," said mamma, laughing; "go and dress them in their +best clothes, get the dolls' house swept and dusted and the table +ready. Then I'll fix their dinner before we go downstairs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how nice!" said Polly Pine.</p> + +<p>The doll house stood in the nursery. It was very big and very +beautiful. It was painted red; it had tall chimneys, and a fine front +door with R. Bliss on a brass plate. There were lace curtains at the +windows, and two steps led up to the cunning little piazza. Polly Pine +swept the rooms with her tiny broom and dusted them. Then she set the +table in the dining-room with the very best dishes and the finest +silver. She set a teeny vase in the middle of the table, with two +violets in it, and she put dolly table napkins at each place.</p> + +<p>When the house was all nice and clean she dressed Lavinia in her pink +muslin, and Dora Jane in her gray velvet, and Hannah Welch in her +yellow silk; then she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>seated them around the table, each one in her +own chair. Polly was just telling them about company manners, how they +must not eat with their knives, or leave their teaspoons in their cups +when they drank their tea, when the door opened and in came mamma with +a real dolls' Thanksgiving dinner.</p> + +<p>There was a chicken bone to put on the platter before Hannah Welch, +for Hannah always did the carving. There were cunning little dishes of +mashed potato and cranberry sauce, and some celery in a tiny tumbler, +and the smallest squash pie baked in a patty pan. Polly Pine just +hopped up and down with delight when she saw it. She set everything on +the table; then she ran away to put on her nicest muslin frock with +the pink ribbons, and she went downstairs to her own dinner.</p> + +<p>There were gentlemen there for dinner—gentlemen Polly was very fond +of—and she had a nice time visiting with one of them. He could change +his table napkin into a white rabbit, and she forgot all about the +dolls' Thanksgiving dinner until it was dessert-time, and the nuts and +raisins came in.</p> + +<p>Then Polly remembered, and she jumped down from her chair and asked +mamma if she might go upstairs and see if the dolls had eaten their +dinner. When mamma told about the doll house Thanksgiving, all the +family wanted to go, too, to find out if the dolls had enjoyed their +dinner.</p> + +<p>The front door of the doll house was open, and there sat the dolls +just as their little mistress had left them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>—only they had eaten +nearly all the dinner! Everything was gone except the potato and the +cranberry sauce. The chicken leg was picked bare, the bread was +nibbled, and the little pie was eaten all around.</p> + +<p>"Well, this is funny," said papa.</p> + +<p>Just then they heard a funny, scratching noise in the doll house, and +a little gray mouse jumped out from under the table. He ran out the +front door of the doll house, and over the piazza, and down the steps +before you could say "Jack Robinson." In a minute he was gone—nobody +knew where. There was another tiny mouse in the doll house under the +parlour sofa, and a third one under Lavinia's bed, with a poor, +frightened gray tail sticking out. They all got away safe. Papa would +not allow mamma to go for the cat. He said:</p> + +<p>"Why can't a poor little mouse have a Thanksgiving dinner as well as +we?"</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> From "For the Children's Hour," Milton Bradley Company.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="AN_OLD-FASHIONED_THANKSGIVING" id="AN_OLD-FASHIONED_THANKSGIVING"></a>AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By Rose Terry Cooke.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A long story about a family of hardy New England pioneers in +Revolutionary days. It will be most enjoyed by the older +children.</p></div> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_09.jpg" alt="P" width="40" height="50" /></div> + +<p>ile in, Hannah. Get right down 'long o' the clock, so's to kinder +shore it up. I'll fix in them pillers t'other side on't, and you can +set back ag'inst the bed. Good-bye, folks! Gee up! Bright. Gee! I tell +ye, Buck."</p> + + + +<p>"Good-bye!" nodded Hannah, from the depths of the old calash which +granny had given her for a riding-hood, and her rosy face sparkled +under the green shadow like a blossom under a burdock leaf.</p> + +<p>This was their wedding journey. Thirty long miles to be travelled, at +the slow pace of an oxcart, where to-day a railroad spins by, and a +log hut in the dim distance.</p> + +<p>But Hannah did not cry about it. There was a momentary choking, +perhaps, in her throat, as she caught a last view of granny's mob cap +and her father's rough face, with the red head of her small +stepbrother between them, grouped in the doorway. Her mother had died +long ago, and there was another in her place now, and a swarm of +children. Hannah was going to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>her own home, to a much easier life, +and going with John. Why should she cry?</p> + +<p>Besides, Hannah was the merriest little woman in the country. She had +a laugh always lying ready in a convenient dimple.</p> + +<p>She never knew what "blues" meant, except to dye stocking yarn. She +was sunny as a dandelion and gay as a bobolink. Her sweet good nature +never failed through the long day's journey, and when night came she +made a pot of tea at the campfire, roasted a row of apples, and +broiled a partridge John shot by the wayside, with as much enjoyment +as if this was the merriest picnic excursion, and not a solitary camp +in the forest, long miles away from any human dwelling, and by no +means sure of safety from some lingering savage, some beast of harmful +nature, or at least a visit from a shambling black bear, for bears +were plentiful enough in that region.</p> + +<p>But none of these things worried Hannah. She ate her supper with +hearty appetite, said her prayers with John, and curled down on the +featherbed in the cart, while John heaped on more wood, and, +shouldering his musket, went to lengthen the ropes that tethered his +oxen, and then mounted guard over the camp. Hannah watched his fine, +grave face, as the flickering light illuminated it, for a few minutes, +and then slept tranquilly till dawn. And by sunset next day the little +party drew up at the door of the log hut they called home.</p> + +<p>It looked very pretty to Hannah. She had the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> fairy gift, that is so +rare among mortals, of seeing beauty in its faintest expression; and +the young grass about the rough stone doorstep, the crimson cones on +the great larch tree behind it, the sunlit panes of the west window, +the laugh and sparkle of the brook that ran through the clearing, the +blue eyes of the squirrel caps that blossomed shyly and daintily +beside the stumps of new-felled trees—all these she saw and delighted +in. And when the door was open, the old clock set up, the bed laid on +the standing bedplace, and the three chairs and table ranged against +the wall, she began her house-wifery directly, singing as she went. +Before John had put his oxen in the small barn, sheltered the cart and +the tools in it, and shaken down hay into the manger, Hannah had made +a fire, hung on the kettle, spread up her bed with homespun sheets and +blankets and a wonderful cover of white-and-red chintz, set the table +with a loaf of bread, a square of yellow butter, a bowl of maple +sugar, and a plate of cheese; and even released the cock and the hen +from their uneasy prison in a splint basket, and was feeding them in +the little woodshed when John came in.</p> + +<p>His face lit up, as he entered, with that joyful sense of home so +instinctive in every true man and woman. He rubbed his hard hands +together, and catching Hannah as she came in at the shed door, +bestowed upon her a resounding kiss.</p> + +<p>"You're the most of a little woman I ever see, Hannah, I swan to +man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hannah laughed like a swarm of spring blackbirds.</p> + +<p>"I declare, John, you do beat all! Ain't it real pleasant here? Seems +to me I never saw things so handy."</p> + +<p>Oh, Hannah, what if your prophetic soul could have foreseen the +conveniences of this hundred years after! Yet the shelves, the pegs, +the cupboard in the corner, the broad shelf above the fire, the great +pine chest under the window, and the clumsy settle, all wrought out of +pine board by John's patient and skilful fingers, filled all her +needs; and what can modern conveniences do more?</p> + +<p>So they ate their supper at home for the first time, happy as +new-nested birds, and far more grateful.</p> + +<p>John had built a sawmill on the brook a little way from the house, and +already owned a flourishing trade, for the settlement about the lake +from which Nepasset Brook sprung was quite large, and till John +Perkins went there the lumber had been all drawn fifteen miles off, to +Litchfield, and his mill was only three miles from Nepash village. +Hard work and hard fare lay before them both, but they were not +daunted by the prospect....</p> + +<p>By and by a cradle entered the door, and a baby was laid in it....</p> + +<p>One baby is well enough in a log cabin, with one room for all the +purposes of life; but when next year brought two more, a pair of stout +boys, then John began to saw lumber for his own use. A bedroom was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> +built on the east side of the house, and a rough stairway into the +loft—more room perhaps than was needed; but John was called in Nepash +"a dre'dful forecastin' man," and he took warning from the twins. And +timely warning it proved, for as the years slipped by, one after +another, they left their arrows in his quiver till ten children +bloomed about the hearth. The old cabin had disappeared entirely. A +good-sized frame house of one story, with a high-pitched roof, stood +in its stead, and a slab fence kept roving animals out of the yard and +saved the apple trees from the teeth of stray cows and horses.</p> + +<p>Poor enough they were still. The loom in the garret always had its web +ready, the great wheel by the other window sung its busy song year in +and year out. Dolly was her mother's right hand now; and the twins, +Ralph and Reuben, could fire the musket and chop wood. Sylvy, the +fourth child, was the odd one. All the rest were sturdy, rosy, +laughing girls and boys; but Sylvy had been a pining baby, and grew up +into a slender, elegant creature, with clear gray eyes, limpid as +water, but bright as stars, and fringed with long golden lashes the +colour of her beautiful hair—locks that were coiled in fold on fold +at the back of her fine head, like wreaths of undyed silk, so pale was +their yellow lustre. She bloomed among the crowd of red-cheeked, +dark-haired lads and lasses, stately and incongruous as a June lily in +a bed of tulips. But Sylvy did not stay at home. The parson's lady at +Litchfield came to Nepash one Sunday,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> with her husband, and seeing +Sylvy in the square corner pew with the rest, was mightily struck by +her lovely face, and offered to take her home with her the next week, +for the better advantages of schooling. Hannah could not have spared +Dolly; but Sylvia was a dreamy, unpractical child, and though all the +dearer for being the solitary lamb of the flock by virtue of her +essential difference from the rest, still, for that very reason, it +became easier to let her go. Parson Everett was childless, and in two +years' time both he and his wife adored the gentle, graceful girl; and +she loved them dearly. They could not part with her, and at last +adopted her formally as their daughter, with the unwilling consent of +John and Hannah. Yet they knew it was greatly "for Sylvy's +betterment," as they phrased it; so at last they let her go.</p> + +<p>But when Dolly was a sturdy young woman of twenty-five the war-trumpet +blew, and John and the twins heard it effectually. There was a sudden +leaving of the plow in the furrow. The planting was set aside for the +children to finish, the old musket rubbed up, and with set lips and +resolute eyes the three men walked away one May morning to join the +Nepash company. Hannah kept up her smiling courage through it all. If +her heart gave way, nobody knew it but God and John. The boys she +encouraged and inspired, and the children were shamed out of their +childish tears by mother's bright face and cheery talk.</p> + +<p>Then she set them all to work. There was corn to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> plant, wheat to sow, +potatoes to set; flax and wool to spin and weave, for clothes would be +needed for all, both absent and stay-at-homes. There was no father to +superintend the outdoor work; so Hannah took the field, and marshalled +her forces on Nepasset Brook much as the commander-in-chief was doing +on a larger scale elsewhere. Eben, the biggest boy, and Joey, who came +next him, were to do all the planting; Diana and Sam took on +themselves the care of the potato patch, the fowls, and the cow; Dolly +must spin and weave when mother left either the wheel or loom to +attend to the general ordering of the forces; while Obed and Betty, +the younglings of the flock, were detailed to weed, pick vegetables +(such few as were raised in the small garden), gather berries, herbs, +nuts, hunt the straying turkeys' nests, and make themselves generally +useful. At evening all the girls sewed; the boys mended their shoes, +having learned so much from a travelling cobbler; and the mother +taught them all her small stock of schooling would allow. At least, +they each knew how to read, and most of them to write, after a very +uncertain fashion. As to spelling, nobody knew how to spell in those +days.... But they did know the four simple rules of arithmetic, and +could say the epigrammatic rhymes of the old New England Primer and +the sibyllic formulas of the Assembly's Catechism as glibly as the +child of to-day repeats "The House That Jack Built."</p> + +<p>So the summer went on. The corn tasselled, the wheat ears filled well, +the potatoes hung out rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> clusters of their delicate and graceful +blossoms, beans straggled half over the garden, the hens did their +duty bravely, and the cow produced a heifer calf.</p> + +<p>Father and the boys were fighting now, and mother's merry words were +more rare, though her bright face still wore its smiling courage. They +heard rarely from the army. Now and then a post rider stopped at the +Nepash tavern and brought a few letters or a little news; but this was +at long intervals, and women who watched and waited at home without +constant mail service and telegraphic flashes, aware that news of +disaster, of wounds, of illness, could only reach them too late to +serve or save, and that to reach the ill or the dying involved a +larger and more disastrous journey than the survey of half the world +demands now—these women endured pangs beyond our comprehension, and +endured them with a courage and patience that might have furnished +forth an army of heroes, that did go far to make heroes of that +improvised, ill-conditioned, eager multitude who conquered the trained +bands of their oppressors and set their sons "free and equal," to use +their own dubious phraseology, before the face of humanity at large.</p> + +<p>By and by winter came on with all its terrors. By night wolves howled +about the lonely house, and sprung back over the palings when Eben +went to the door with his musket. Joe hauled wood from the forest on a +hand-sled, and Dolly and Diana took it in through the kitchen window +when the drifts were so high that the woodshed door could not be +opened. Besides, all the hens were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> gathered in there, as well for +greater warmth as for convenience in feeding, and the barn was only to +be reached with snowshoes and entered by the window above the manger.</p> + +<p>Hard times these were. The loom in the garret could not be used, for +even fingers would freeze in that atmosphere; so the thread was wound +off, twisted on the great wheel, and knit into stockings, the boys +learning to fashion their own, while Hannah knit her anxiety and her +hidden heartaches into socks for her soldier boys and their father.</p> + +<p>By another spring the aching and anxiousness were a little dulled, for +habit blunts even the keen edge of mortal pain. They had news that +summer that Ralph had been severely wounded, but had recovered; that +John had gone through a sharp attack of camp-fever; that Reuben was +taken prisoner, but escaped by his own wit. Hannah was thankful and +grateful beyond expression. Perhaps another woman would have wept and +wailed, to think all this had come to pass without her knowledge or +her aid; but it was Hannah's way to look at the bright side of things. +Sylvia would always remember how once, when she was looking at Mount +Tahconic, darkened by a brooding tempest, its crags frowning blackly +above the dark forest at its foot and the lurid cloud above its head +torn by fierce lances of light, she hid her head in her mother's +checked apron, in the helpless terror of an imaginative child; but, +instead of being soothed and pitied, mother had only laughed a little +gay laugh, and said gently, but merrily:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, Sylvy, the sun's right on the other side, only you don't see +it."</p> + +<p>After that she always thought her mother saw the sun when nobody else +could. And in a spiritual sense it was true.</p> + +<p>Parson Everett rode over once or twice from Litchfield that next +summer to fetch Sylvia and to administer comfort to Hannah. He was a +quaint, prim little gentleman, neat as any wren, but mild-mannered as +wrens never are, and in a moderate way kindly and sympathetic. When +the children had haled their lovely sister away to see their rustic +possessions, Parson Everett would sit down in a high chair, lay aside +his cocked hat, spread his silk pocket handkerchief over his knees, +and prepare to console Hannah.</p> + +<p>"Mistress Perkins, these are trying times, trying times. There is a +sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees—h-m! Sea and waves +roaring of a truth—h-m! h-m! I trust, Mistress Perkins, you submit to +the Divine Will with meekness."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," replied Hannah, with a queer little twinkle in +her eye. "I don't believe I be as meek as Moses, parson. I should like +things fixed different, to speak truth."</p> + +<p>"Dear me! Dear me—h-m! h-m! My good woman, the Lord reigneth. You +must submit; you must submit. You know it is the duty of a vessel of +wrath to be broken to pieces if it glorifieth the Maker."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p><p>"Well, mebbe 'tis. I don't know much about that kind o' vessel. I've +got to submit because there ain't anything else to do, as I see. I +can't say it goes easy—not'n' be honest; but I try to look on the +bright side, and to believe the Lord'll take care of my folks better'n +I could, even if they was here."</p> + +<p>"H-m! h-m! Well," stammered the embarrassed parson, completely at his +wit's end with this cheerful theology, "well, I hope it is grace that +sustains you, Mistress Perkins, and not the vain elation of the +natural man. The Lord is in His holy temple; the earth is His +footstool—h-m!" The parson struggled helplessly with a tangle of +texts here; but the right one seemed to fail him, till Hannah +audaciously put it in:</p> + +<p>"Well, you know what it says about takin' care of sparrers, in the +Bible, and how we was more valerable than they be, a lot. That kind o' +text comes home these times, I tell ye. You fetch a person down to the +bedrock, as Grandsir Penlyn used to say, and then they know where they +be. And ef the Lord is really the Lord of all, I expect He'll take +care of all; 'nd I don't doubt but what He is and does. So I can fetch +up on that."</p> + +<p>Parson Everett heaved a deep sigh, put on his cocked hat, and blew his +nose ceremonially with the silk handkerchief. Not that he needed to: +but as a sort of shaking off of the dust of responsibility and ending +the conversation, which, if it was not heterodox on Hannah's part, +certainly did not seem orthodox to him.... He did not try to console +her any more, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> contented himself with the stiller spirits in his +own parish, who had grown up in and after his own fashion.</p> + +<p>Another dreadful winter settled down on Nepasset township. There was +food enough in the house and firewood in the shed; but neither food +nor fire seemed to assuage the terrible cold, and with decreased +vitality decreased courage came to all. Hygienics were an unforeseen +mystery to people of that day. They did not know that nourishing food +is as good for the brain as for the muscles. They lived on potatoes, +beets, beans, with now and then a bit of salt pork or beef boiled in +the pot with the rest; and their hearts failed, as their flesh did, +with this sodden and monotonous diet. One ghastly night Hannah almost +despaired. She held secret council with Dolly and Eben, while they +inspected the potato bin and the pork barrel, as to whether it would +not be best for them to break up and find homes elsewhere for the +winter. Her father was old and feeble. He would be glad to have her +with him and Betty. The rest were old enough to "do chores" for their +board, and there were many families where help was needed, both in +Nepash and Litchfield, since every available man had gone to the war +by this time. But while they talked a great scuffling and squawking in +the woodhouse attracted the boys upstairs. Joe seized the tongs and +Diana the broomstick. An intruding weasel was pursued and slaughtered; +but not till two fowls, fat and fine, had been sacrificed by the +invader and the tongs together. The children were all hungry, with +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> exhaustion of the cold weather, and clamoured to have these +victims cooked for supper. Nor was Hannah unmoved by the appeal. Her +own appetite seconded. The savoury stew came just in time. It aroused +them to new life and spirits. Hannah regained courage, wondering how +she could have lost heart so far, and said to Dolly, as they washed up +the supper dishes:</p> + +<p>"I guess we'll keep together, Dolly. It'll be spring after a while, +and we'll stick it out together."</p> + +<p>"I guess I would," answered Dolly. "And don't you believe we should +all feel better to kill off them fowls—all but two or three? They're +master hands to eat corn, and it does seem as though that biled hen +done us all a sight o' good to-night. Just hear them children."</p> + +<p>And it certainly was, as Hannah said, "musical to hear 'em." Joe had a +cornstalk fiddle, and Eben an old singing book, which Diana read over +his shoulder while she kept on knitting her blue sock; and the three +youngsters—Sam, Obed, and Betty—with wide mouths and intent eyes, +followed Diana's "lining out" of that quaint hymn "The Old +Israelites," dwelling with special gusto and power on two of the +verses:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"We are little, 'tis true,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And our numbers are few,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sons of old Anak are tall;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But while I see a track<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I will never go back,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But go on at the risk of my all.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"The way is all new,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As it opens to view,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And behind is the foaming Red Sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So none need to speak<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the onions and leeks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or to talk about garlics to me!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Hannah's face grew brighter still. "We'll stay right here!" she said, +adding her voice to the singular old ditty with all her power:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"What though some in the rear<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Preach up terror and fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And complain of the trials they meet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tho' the giants before<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With great fury do roar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm resolved I can never retreat."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And in this spirit, sustained, no doubt, by the occasional chickens, +they lived the winter out, till blessed, beneficent spring came again, +and brought news, great news, with it. Not from the army, though. +There had been a post rider in Nepash during the January thaw, and he +brought short letters only. There was about to be a battle, and there +was no time to write more than assurances of health and good hopes for +the future. Only once since had news reached them from that quarter. A +disabled man from the Nepash company was brought home dying with +consumption. Hannah felt almost ashamed to rejoice in the tidings he +brought of John's welfare, when she heard his husky voice, saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> his +worn and ghastly countenance, and watched the suppressed agony in his +wife's eyes. The words of thankfulness she wanted to speak would have +been so many stabs in that woman's breast. It was only when her eight +children rejoiced in the hearing that she dared to be happy. But the +other news was from Sylvia. She was promised to the schoolmaster in +Litchfield. Only to think of it! Our Sylvy!</p> + +<p>Master Loomis had been eager to go to the war; but his mother was a +poor bedrid woman, dependent on him for support, and all the +dignitaries of the town combined in advising and urging him to stay at +home for the sake of their children, as well as his mother. So at home +he stayed, and fell into peril of heart, instead of life and limb, +under the soft fire of Sylvia's eyes, instead of the enemy's +artillery. Parson Everett could not refuse his consent, though he and +madam were both loth to give up their sweet daughter. But since she +and the youth seemed to be both of one mind about the matter, and he +being a godly young man, of decent parentage, and in a good way of +earning his living, there was no more to be said. They would wait a +year before thinking of marriage, both for better acquaintance and on +account of the troubled times.</p> + +<p>"Mayhap the times will mend, sir," anxiously suggested the +schoolmaster to Parson Everett.</p> + +<p>"I think not, I think not, Master Loomis. There is a great blackness +of darkness in hand, the Philistines be upon us, and there is moving +to and fro. Yea, Behemoth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> lifteth himself and shaketh his mane—h-m! +ah! h-m! It is not a time for marrying and giving in marriage, for +playing on sackbuts and dulcimers—h-m!"</p> + +<p>A quiet smile flickered around Master Loomis's mouth as he turned +away, solaced by a shy, sweet look from Sylvia's limpid eyes, as he +peeped into the keeping-room, where she sat with madam, on his way +out. He could afford to wait a year for such a spring blossom as that, +surely. And wait he did, with commendable patience, comforting his +godly soul with the fact that Sylvia was spared meantime the daily +tendance and care of a fretful old woman like his mother; for, though +Master Loomis was the best of sons, that did not blind him to the fact +that the irritability of age and illness were fully developed in his +mother, and he alone seemed to have the power of calming her. She +liked Sylvia at first, but became frantically jealous of her as soon +as she suspected her son's attachment. So the summer rolled away. +Hannah and her little flock tilled their small farm and gathered +plenteous harvest. Mindful of last year's experience, they raised +brood after brood of chickens, and planted extra acres of corn for +their feeding, so that when autumn came, with its vivid, splendid +days, its keen winds and turbulent skies, the new chicken yard, which +the boys had worked at through the summer, with its wattled fence, its +own tiny spring, and lofty covered roofs, swarmed with chickens, +ducks, and turkeys. Many a dollar was brought home about Thanksgiving +time for the fat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> fowls sold in Litchfield and Nepash; but dollars +soon vanished in buying winter clothes for so many children, or +rather, in buying wool to spin and weave for them. Mahala Green, the +village tailoress, came to fashion the garments, and the girls sewed +them. Uncouth enough was their aspect; but fashion did not yet reign +in Nepash, and if they were warm, who cared for elegance? Not Hannah's +rosy, hearty, happy brood. They sang and whistled and laughed with a +force and freedom that was kin to the birds and squirrels among whom +they lived; and Hannah's kindly, cheery face lit up as she heard them, +while a half sigh told that her husband and her soldier boys were +still wanting to her perfect contentment.</p> + +<p>At last they were all housed snugly for winter. The woodpile was +larger than ever before, and all laid up in the shed, beyond which a +rough shelter of chinked logs had been put up for the chickens, to +which their roosts and nest boxes, of coarse wicker, boards nailed +together, hollow bark from the hemlock logs, even worn-out tin pails, +had all been transferred. The cellar had been well banked from the +outside, and its darksome cavern held good store of apples, pork, and +potatoes. There was dried beef in the stairway, squashes in the +cupboard, flour in the pantry, and the great gentle black cow in the +barn was a wonderful milker. In three weeks Thanksgiving would come, +and even Hannah's brave heart sank as she thought of her absent +husband and boys; and their weary faces rose up be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>fore her as she +numbered over to herself her own causes for thankfulness, as if to +say: "Can you keep Thanksgiving without us?" Poor Hannah! She did her +best to set these thankless thoughts aside, but almost dreaded the +coming festival. One night, as she sat knitting by the fire, a special +messenger from Litchfield rode up to the door and brought stirring +news. Master Loomis's mother was dead, and the master himself, seeing +there was a new levy of troops, was now going to the war. But before +he went there was to be a wedding, and, in the good old fashion, it +should be on Thanksgiving Day, and Madam Everett had bidden as many of +Sylvy's people to the feast as would come.</p> + +<p>There was great excitement as Hannah read aloud the madam's note. The +tribe of Perkins shouted for joy, but a sudden chill fell on them when +mother spoke:</p> + +<p>"Now, children, hush up! I want to speak myself, ef it's a possible +thing to git in a word edgeways. We can't all go, fust and foremost. +'Tain't noways possible."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mother! Why? Oh, do! Not go to Sylvy's wedding?" burst in the +"infinite deep chorus" of youngsters.</p> + +<p>"No, you can't. There ain't no team in the county big enough to hold +ye all, if ye squeeze ever so much. I've got to go, for Sylvy'd be +beat out if mother didn't come. And Dolly's the oldest. She's got a +right to go."</p> + +<p>Loud protest was made against the right of primogeniture, but mother +was firm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Says so in the Bible. Leastways, Bible folks always acted so. The +first-born, ye know. Dolly's goin', sure. Eben's got to drive, and I +must take Obed. He'd be the death of somebody, with his everlastin' +mischief, if I left him to home. Mebbe I can squeeze in Betty, to keep +him company. Joe and Sam and Dianner won't be more'n enough to take +care o' the cows and chickens and fires, and all. Likewise of each +other."</p> + +<p>Sam set up a sudden howl at his sentence, and kicked the mongrel +yellow puppy, who leaped on him to console him, till that +long-suffering beast yelped in concert.</p> + +<p>Diana sniffed and snuffled, scrubbed her eyes with her checked apron, +and rocked back and forth.</p> + +<p>"Now, stop it!" bawled Joe. "For the land's sake, quit all this noise. +We can't all on us go; 'n' for my part, I don't want to. We'll hev a +weddin' of our own some day!" and here he gave a sly look at Dolly, +who seemed to understand it and blushed like an apple-blossom, while +Joe went on: "Then we'll all stay to 't, I tell ye, and have a right +down old country time."</p> + +<p>Mother had to laugh.</p> + +<p>"So you shall, Joe, and dance 'Money Musk' all night, if you want +to—same as you did to the corn huskin'. Now, let's see. Betty, she's +got that chintz gown that was your Sunday best, Dolly—the flowered +one, you know, that Dianner outgrowed. We must fix them lawn ruffles +into 't; and there's a blue ribbin laid away in my chest o' drawers +that'll tie her hair. It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> dreadful lucky we've got new shoes all +round; and Obed's coat and breeches is as good as new, if they be made +out of his pa's weddin' suit. That's the good o' good cloth. It'll +last most forever. Joe hed 'em first, then Sam wore 'em quite a spell, +and they cut over jest right for Obey. My black paduasoy can be fixed +up, I guess. But, my stars! Dolly, what hev' you got?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Mother, you know I ain't got a real good gown. There's the +black lutestring petticoat Sylvy fetched me two years ago; but there +ain't any gown to it. We calculated I could wear that linsey jacket to +meeting, under my coat; but 'twouldn't do rightly for a weddin'."</p> + +<p>"That's gospel truth. You can't wear that, anyhow. You've got to hev +somethin'. 'Twon't do to go to Sylvy's weddin' in linsey woolsy; but I +don't believe there's more'n two hard dollars in the house. There's a +few Continentals; but I don't count on them. Joe, you go over to the +mill fust thing in the morning and ask Sylvester to lend me his old +mare a spell to-morrer, to ride over to Nepash, to the store."</p> + +<p>"Why don't ye send Doll?" asked Joe, with a wicked glance at the girl +that set her blushing again.</p> + +<p>"Hold your tongue, Joseph, 'n' mind me. It's bedtime now, but I'll +wake ye up airly," energetically remarked Hannah. And next day, +equipped in cloak and hood, she climbed the old mare's fat sides and +jogged off on her errand; and by noon-mark was safe and sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> home +again, looking a little perplexed, but by no means cast down.</p> + +<p>"Well, Dolly," said she, as soon as cloak and hood were laid aside, +"there's the beautifulest piece of chintz over to the store you ever +see—jest enough for a gown. It's kind of buff-coloured ground, +flowered all over with roses, deep-red roses, as nateral as life. +Squire Dart wouldn't take no money for 't. He's awful sharp about them +new bills. Sez they ain't no more'n corn husks. Well, we ain't got a +great lot of 'em, so there's less to lose, and some folks will take +'em; but he'll let me have the chintz for 'leven yards o' soldier's +cloth—blue, ye know, like what we sent pa and the boys. And I spent +them two silver dollars on a white gauze neck-kercher and a piece of +red satin ribbin for ye, for I'm set on that chintz. Now hurry up 'nd +fix the loom right off. The web's ready, then we'll card the wool. +I'll lay ye a penny we'll have them 'leven yards wove by Friday. +To-day's Tuesday, Thanksgiving comes a Thursday week, an' ef we have +the chintz by sundown a Saturday there'll be good store of time for +Mahaly Green and you to make it afore Wednesday night. We'll hev a +kind of a Thanksgiving, after all. But I wisht your pa——" The +sentence ended in Hannah's apron at her eyes, and Dolly looked sober; +but in a minute she dimpled and brightened, for the pretty chintz gown +was more to her than half a dozen costly French dresses to a girl of +to-day. But a little cloud suddenly put out the dimples.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But, Mother, if somebody else should buy it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they won't. I've fixed that. I promised to fetch the cloth inside +of a week, and Squire Dart laid away the chintz for me till that time. +Fetch the wool, Dolly, before you set up the web, so's I can start."</p> + +<p>The wool was carded, spun, washed, and put into the dye tub, one "run" +of yarn that night; and another spun and washed by next day's +noon—for the stuff was to be checked, and black wool needed no +dyeing. Swiftly hummed the wheel, merrily flew the shuttle, and the +house steamed with inodorous dye; but nobody cared for that, if the +cloth could only be finished. And finished it was—the full measure +and a yard over; and on Saturday morning Sylvester's horse was +borrowed again, and Hannah came back from the village beaming with +pleasure, and bringing besides the chintz a yard of real cushion lace, +to trim the ruffles for Dolly's sleeves, for which she had bartered +the over yard of cloth and two dozen fresh eggs. Then even busier +times set in. Mahala Green had already arrived, for she was dressmaker +as well as tailoress, and was sponging and pressing over the black +paduasoy that had once been dove-coloured and was Hannah's sole piece +of wedding finery, handed down from her grandmother's wardrobe at +that. A dark green grosgrain petticoat and white lawn ruffles made a +sufficiently picturesque attire for Hannah, whose well-silvered hair +set off her still sparkling eyes and clear healthy skin. She appeared +in this unwonted finery on Thanksgiving morn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>ing to her admiring +family, having added a last touch of adornment by a quaint old jet +necklace, that glittered on the pure lawn neckkerchief with as good +effect as a chain of diamonds and much more fitness. Betty, in her +striped blue-and-white chintz, a clean dimity petticoat, and a blue +ribbon round her short brown curls, looked like a cabbage rosebud—so +sturdy and wholesome and rosy that no more delicate symbol suits her.</p> + +<p>Obed was dreadful in the old-fashioned costume of coat and breeches, +ill-fitting and shiny with wear, and his freckled face and round shock head +of tan-coloured hair thrown into full relief by a big, square collar of +coarse tatten lace laid out on his shoulders like a barber's towel, and +illustrating the great red ears that stood out at right angles above it. +But Obed was only a boy. He was not expected to be more than clean and +speechless; and, to tell the truth, Eben, being in the hobbledehoy stage of +boyhood—gaunt, awkward, and self-sufficient—rather surpassed his small +brother in unpleasant aspect and manner. But who would look at the boys +when Dolly stood beside them, as she did now, tall and slender, with the +free grace of an untrammelled figure, her small head erect, her eyes dark +and soft as a deer's, neatly clothed feet (not too small for her height) +peeping from under the black lutestring petticoat, and her glowing brunette +complexion set off by the picturesque buff-and-garnet chintz gown, while +her round throat and arms were shaded by delicate gauze<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> and snowy lace, +and about her neck lay her mother's gold beads, now and then tangling in +the heavy black curls that, tied high on her head with a garnet ribbon, +still dropped in rich luxuriance to her trim waist.</p> + +<p>The family approved of Dolly, no doubt, though their phrases of +flattery were as homely as heartfelt.</p> + +<p>"Orful slick-lookin', ain't she?" confided Joe to Eben; while sinful +Sam shrieked out: "Land o' Goshen! ain't our Dolly smart? Shan't I +fetch Sylvester over?"</p> + +<p>For which I regret to state Dolly smartly boxed his ears.</p> + +<p>But the pung was ready, and Sam's howls had to die out uncomforted. +With many parting charges from Hannah about the fires and fowls, the +cow, the hasty pudding, already put on for its long boil, and the +turkey that hung from a string in front of the fire and must be +watched well, since it was the Thanksgiving dinner, the "weddingers," +as Joe called them, were well packed in with blankets and hot stones +and set off on their long drive.</p> + +<p>The day was fair and bright, the fields of snow purely dazzling; but +the cold was fearful, and in spite of all their wraps, the keen winds +that whistled over those broad hilltops where the road lay seemed to +pierce their very bones, and they were heartily glad to draw up, by +twelve o'clock, at the door of the parsonage and be set before a +blazing fire, and revived with sundry mugs of foaming and steaming +flip, made potent with a touch of old peach brandy; for in those +ancient days, even in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> parsonages, the hot poker knew its office and +sideboards were not in vain.</p> + +<p>There was food, also, for the exhausted guests, though the refection +was slight and served informally in the kitchen corner, for the +ceremonial Thanksgiving dinner was to be deferred till after the +wedding. And as soon as all were warmed and refreshed they were +ushered into the great parlour, where a Turkey carpet, amber satin +curtains, spider-legged chairs and tables, and a vast carved sofa, +cushioned also with amber, made a regal and luxurious show in the eyes +of our rustic observers.</p> + +<p>But when Sylvy came in with the parson, who could look at furniture? +Madam Everett had lavished her taste and her money on the lovely +creature as if she were her own daughter, for she was almost as dear +to that tender, childless soul. The girl's lustrous gold-brown hair +was dressed high upon her head in soft puffs and glittering curls, and +a filmy thread-lace scarf pinned across it with pearl-headed pins. Her +white satin petticoat showed its rich lustre under a lutestring gown +of palest rose brocaded with silver sprigs and looped with silver +ribbon and pink satin roses. Costly lace clung about her neck and +arms, long kid gloves covered her little hands and wrists and met the +delicate sleeve ruffles, and about her white throat a great pink topaz +clasped a single string of pearls. Hannah could scarce believe her +eyes. Was this her Sylvy?—she who even threw Madam Everett, with her +velvet dress,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> powdered hair, and Mechlin laces, quite into the +background!</p> + +<p>"I did not like it, Mammy dear," whispered Sylvy, as she clung round +her astonished mother's neck. "I wanted a muslin gown; but madam had +laid this by long ago, and I could not thwart or grieve her, she is so +very good to me."</p> + +<p>"No more you could, Sylvy. The gown is amazing fine, to be sure; but +as long as my Sylvy's inside of it I won't gainsay the gown. It ain't +a speck too pretty for the wearer, dear." And Hannah gave her another +hug. The rest scarce dared to touch that fair face, except Dolly, who +threw her arms about her beautiful sister, with little thought of her +garments, but a sudden passion of love and regret sending the quick +blood to her dark brows and wavy hair in a scarlet glow.</p> + +<p>Master Loomis looked on with tender eyes. He felt the usual masculine +conviction that nobody loved Sylvy anywhere near as much as he did; +but it pleased him to see that she was dear to her family. The parson, +however, abruptly put an end to the scene.</p> + +<p>"H-m! my dear friends, let us recollect ourselves. There is a time for +all things. Yea, earth yieldeth her increase—h-m! The Lord ariseth to +shake visibly the earth—ahem! Sylvia, will you stand before the +sophy? Master Lummis on the right side. Let us pray."</p> + +<p>But even as he spoke the words a great knocking pealed through the +house: the brass lion's head on the front door beat a reveille loud +and long. The parson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> paused, and Sylvia grew whiter than before; +while Decius, the parson's factotum, a highly respectable old negro +(who, with his wife and daughter, sole servants of the house, had +stolen in to see the ceremony), ambled out to the vestibule in most +undignified haste. There came sounds of dispute, much tramping of +boots, rough voices, and quick words; then a chuckle from Decius, the +parlour door burst open, and three bearded, ragged, eager men rushed +in upon the little ceremony.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause of wonder and doubt, then a low cry from +Hannah, as she flew into her husband's arms; and in another second the +whole family had closed around the father and brothers, and for once +the hardy, stern, reticent New England nature, broken up from its +foundations, disclosed its depths of tenderness and fidelity. There +were tears, choking sobs, cries of joy. The madam held her lace +handkerchief to her eyes with real need of it; Master Loomis choked +for sympathy; and the parson blew his nose on the ceremonial bandanna +like the trumpet of a cavalry charge.</p> + +<p>"Let us pray!" said he, in a loud but broken voice; and holding fast +to the back of the chair, he poured out his soul and theirs before the +Lord with all the fervour and the fluency of real feeling. There was +no stumbling over misapplied texts now, no awkward objections in his +throat, but only glowing Bible words of thankfulness and praise and +joy. And every heart was uplifted and calm as they joined in the +"Amen."</p> + +<p>John's story was quickly told. Their decimated regi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>ment was +disbanded, to be reformed of fresh recruits, and a long furlough given +to the faithful but exhausted remnant. They had left at once for home, +and their shortest route lay through Litchfield. Night was near when +they reached the town, but they must needs stop to get one glimpse of +Sylvy and tidings from home, for fear lay upon them lest there might +be trouble there which they knew not of. So they burst in upon the +wedding. But Master Loomis began to look uneasy. Old Dorcas had +slipped out, to save the imperilled dinner, and Pokey, the maid (<i>née</i> +Pocahontas!) could be heard clinking glass and silver and pushing +about chairs; but the happy family were still absorbed in each other.</p> + +<p>"Mister Everett!" said the madam, with dignity, and the little +minister trotted rapturously over to her chair to receive certain low +orders.</p> + +<p>"Yes, verily, yes—h-m! A—my friends, we are assembled in this place +this evening—"</p> + +<p>A sharp look from madam recalled him to the fact that this was not a +prayer-meeting.</p> + +<p>"A—that is—yes, of a truth our purpose this afternoon was to—"</p> + +<p>"That's so!" energetically put in Captain John. "Right about face! +Form!" and the three Continentals sprung to their feet and assumed +their position, while Sylvy and Master Loomis resumed theirs, a +flitting smile in Sylvia's tearful eyes making a very rainbow.</p> + +<p>So the ceremony proceeded to the end, and was wound up with a short +prayer, concerning which Captain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> Perkins irreverently remarked to his +wife some days after:</p> + +<p>"Parson smelt the turkey, sure as shootin', Hannah. He shortened up so +'mazin' quick on that prayer. I tell you I was glad on't. I knew how +he felt. I could ha' ate a wolf myself."</p> + +<p>Then they all moved in to the dinner table—a strange group, from +Sylvia's satin and pearls to the ragged fatigue-dress of her father +and brothers; but there was no help for that now, and really it +troubled nobody. The shade of anxiety in madam's eye was caused only +by a doubt as to the sufficiency of her supplies for three unexpected +and ravenous guests; but a look at the mighty turkey, the crisp roast +pig, the cold ham, the chicken pie, and the piles of smoking +vegetables, with a long vista of various pastries, apples, nuts, and +pitchers of cider on the buffet, and an inner consciousness of a big +Indian pudding, for twenty-four hours simmering in the pot over the +fire, reassured her, and perhaps heartened up the parson, for after a +long grace he still kept his feet and added, with a kindly smile:</p> + +<p>"Brethren and friends, you are heartily welcome. Eat and be glad, for +seldom hath there been such cause and need to keep a Thanksgiving!"</p> + +<p>And they all said Amen!</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Adapted from "Huckleberries," Houghton, Mifflin Co.</p></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="AND_FROZE_TO_DEATH" id="AND_FROZE_TO_DEATH"></a>1800 AND FROZE TO DEATH<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By C. A. Stephens.</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An exciting story of a battle with a crazy moose. It has a +Thanksgiving flavour, too.</p></div> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_10.jpg" alt="W" width="66" height="50" /></div> +<p>hat shall we have for Thanksgiving dinner?" was a question which +distressed more than one household that year. Indeed, it was often a +question what to have for dinner, supper, or breakfast on any day. For +that was the strangely unpropitious, unproductive season of 1816, +quaintly known in local annals as "1800 and Froze to Death."</p> + + +<p>It was shortly after the close of the War of 1812 with England. Our +country was then poor and but little cultivated. There was no golden +West to send carloads of wheat and corn; no Florida or California to +send fruit; there were no cars, no railroads. What the people of the +Eastern States had they must raise for themselves, and that year there +were no crops.</p> + +<p>Nothing grew, nothing ripened properly. Winter lingered even in the +lap of May. As late as the middle of June there was a heavy snowstorm +in New England. Frosts occurred every fortnight of the season. The +seed potatoes, corn, and beans, when planted, either <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>rotted in the +ground or came up to be killed by the frosts. The cold continued +through July and August. A little barley, still less wheat and rye, a +few oats, in favourable situations, were the only cereals harvested, +and these were much pinched in the kernel.</p> + +<p>Actual starvation threatened hundreds of farmers' families as this +singular summer and autumn advanced. The corn crop, then the main +staple in the East, was wholly cut off. Two and three dollars a +bushel—equal to ten dollars to-day—were paid for corn that year—by +those who had the money to purchase it. Many of the poorer families +subsisted in part on the boiled sprouts of raspberry and other shrubs. +Starving children stole forth into the fields of the less indigent +farmers by night, and dug up the seed potatoes and sprouted corn to +eat raw.</p> + +<p>Moreover, there appeared to be little or no game in the forest; many +roving bears were seen, and wolves were bold. All wild animals, +indeed, behaved abnormally, as if they, too, felt that nature was out +of joint. The eggs of the grouse or partridge failed to hatch; even +woodchucks were lean and scarce. So of the brooding hens at the +settler's barn: the eggs would not hatch, and the hens, too, it is +said, gave up laying eggs, perhaps from lack of food. Even the song +birds fell into the "dumps" and neglected to rear young.</p> + +<p>The dreary, fruitless autumn drew on; and Thanksgiving Day bade fair +to be such a hollow mockery that in several states the governors did +not issue proclamations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></p> + +<p>Maine at that time was a part of the state of Massachusetts. My +impression is that the governor appointed November 28th as +Thanksgiving Day, but I am not sure. It is likely that not much +unction attended the announcement. The notices of it did not reach +many localities in Maine. In the neighbourhood where my grandparents +lived, in Oxford County, nothing was heard of it; but at a schoolhouse +meeting, on November 21st, our nearest neighbour, Jonas Edwards, made +a motion "that the people of the place keep the 28th of the month as +Thanksgiving Day—the best they could."</p> + +<p>The motion prevailed; and then the poor housewives began to ask the +question, "What shall we have for Thanksgiving dinner?" At our house +it is still remembered that one of my young great-uncles cried in +reply, "Oh, if we could only have a good big johnnycake!"</p> + +<p>And it was either that very night, or the night after, that the +exciting news came of the arrival of a shipload of corn at Bath and +Brunswick.</p> + +<p>At Brunswick, seat of the then infant Bowdoin College, Freeport, +Topsham, and other towns near the coast of Maine, where the people +were interested in maritime ventures, it had become known that a +surplus of corn was raised in Cuba, and could be purchased at a fair +price. An old schooner, commanded by one Capt. John Simmons, was +fitted out to sail for a cargo of the precious cereal. For three +months not a word was heard from schooner or skipper.</p> + +<p>Captain Simmons had purchased corn, however, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> loaded his crazy old +craft full to the deck with it. Heavy weather and head winds held him +back on his voyage home. Water got to the corn, and some of it swelled +to such an extent that the old schooner was like to burst. But it got +in at last, early in November, with three thousand bushels of this +West India corn.</p> + +<p>How the news of this argosy flew even to towns a day's journey up from +the coast!</p> + +<p>A great hunger for corncake swept through that part of the state; and +in our own little neighbourhood a searching canvass of the resources +of the five log farm-houses followed. As a result of it, young +Jonathan Edwards and my then equally youthful Great-uncle Nathaniel +set off the next day to drive to Brunswick with a span of old white +horses hitched in a farm wagon without springs, carrying four rather +poor sheep, four bushels of barley, and fifteen pounds of wool, which +they hoped to exchange for five bushels of that precious corn. On top +of it all there were three large bagfuls of hay for the horses. The +boys also took an axe and an old flintlock gun, for much of the way +was then through forest.</p> + +<p>It was a long day's drive for horses in poor condition, but they +reached Brunswick that night. There, however, they found the cargo of +corn so nearly sold out, or bartered away, that they were able to get +but three bushels to bring home.</p> + +<p>The corn was reckoned at nine dollars, the four sheep at only six +dollars, and it had been difficult "dickering"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> the fifteen pounds of +wool and the two bushels of barley as worth three dollars more. The +extra two bushels of barley went for their keep overnight. Such was +produce exchange in 1816.</p> + +<p>The next morning they started for home, lightly loaded with their +dearly bought corn. Their route lay along the Androscoggin River, and +they had got as far on their way as the present factory town of +Auburn, where the Little Androscoggin flows into the larger river of +the same name, when they had an adventure which resulted in very +materially increasing the weight of their load.</p> + +<p>It was a raw, cloudy day, and had begun to "spit snow"; and as it drew +toward noon, they stopped beside the road at a place where a large +pine and several birches leaned out from the brink of the deep gorge +through which the Little Androscoggin flows to join the larger stream. +Here they fed their horses on the last of the three bagfuls of hay, +but had nothing to cook or eat in the way of food themselves. The +weather was chilly, and my young Great-uncle Nathaniel said to +Jonathan:</p> + +<p>"If you will get some dry birchbark, I will flash the pan. We will +kindle a fire and warm up."</p> + +<p>Jonathan brought the bark, and meanwhile Nathaniel drew the charge +from the old "Queen's arm," then ignited some powder in the pan with +the flintlock, and started a blaze going.</p> + +<p>The blaze, however, had soon to be fed with dry fuel, and noticing a +dead firtop lying on the ground a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> few steps away, Jonathan took the +axe and ran to break it up; and the axe strokes among the dry stuff +made a considerable crackling.</p> + +<p>Throwing down the axe at last, Jonathan gathered up a large armful of +the dry branches, and had turned to the fire, when they both heard a +strange sound, like a deep grunt, not far away, followed by sharp +crashes of the brush down in the basin.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" Nathaniel exclaimed. "It's a bear I guess," and he +snatched up the empty gun to reload it. Jonathan, too, threw down his +armful of boughs and turned back to get the axe.</p> + +<p>Before they could do either, however, the strange grunts and crashes +came nearer, and a moment later a pair of broad antlers and a huge +black head appeared, coming up from the gorge.</p> + +<p>At sight of the snorting beast, Jonathan turned suddenly. "It's a +moose, Nat!" he cried. "A big bull moose! Shoot him! Shoot him!"</p> + +<p>Nat was making frantic efforts, but the gun was not reloaded. +Recharging an old "Queen's arm" was a work of time.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for the boys, the attention of the moose was full fixed on +the horses. With another furious snort, it gained the top of the bank +and bounded toward where they stood hitched, chewing their hay.</p> + +<p>The tired white horses looked up suddenly from their hay, and +perceiving this black apparition of the forest, snorted and tugged at +their halters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p> + +<p>With a frightful bellow, half squeal, half roar, the moose rose twelve +feet tall on his hind legs, and rushed at the one hitched nearest. The +horse broke its halter, ran headlong against its mate, recoiled, +bumped into a tree trunk, and then—the trees standing thick in front +of it—backed over the bank and went out of sight down the bluff, the +moose bounding after it, still bellowing hoarsely.</p> + +<p>The other horse had also broken its halter and ran off, while the two +boys stood amazed and alarmed at this tremendous exhibition of animal +ferocity.</p> + +<p>"Nat! Nat! He will kill that horse!" Jonathan exclaimed, and they both +ran to look over the bank. Horse and moose were now down near the +water, where the river ran deep and swift under the steep bank, the +horse trying vainly to escape through the tangled alder brush, the +moose savagely pursuing.</p> + +<p>The sight roused the boys to save their horse. Axe in hand, Jonathan +ran and slid down the bluff side, catching hold of trees and bushes as +he did so, to keep from going quite into the river. Nat followed him, +with the gun which he had hastily primed. Both horse and moose were +now thrashing amidst the alder clumps.</p> + +<p>"Shoot him, shoot him!" Jonathan shouted. "Why don't you fire? Oh, let +me have that gun!"</p> + +<p>It is not as easy as an onlooker often thinks to shoot an animal, even +a large one, in rapid motion, particularly among trees and brush; +something constantly gets in the way. Both animals were now tearing +along the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> brink of the deep stream, stumbling headlong one second, up +the next, plunging on. As often as Nat tried to steady himself on the +steep side of the bluff for a shot, either the horse was in the way or +both animals were wholly concealed by the bushes. Moreover, the boys +had to run fast through the brush to keep them in sight. Nat could not +shoot with certainty, and Jonathan grew wild over the delay.</p> + +<p>"Shoot him yourself, then!" Nat retorted, panting.</p> + +<p>Jonathan snatched the gun and dashed forward, Nat picking up the axe +and following after. On they ran for several hundred yards, barely +keeping pace with the animals. Jonathan experienced quite as much +difficulty in getting a shot as Nat had done.</p> + +<p>At last he aimed and snapped—and the gun did not go off.</p> + +<p>"You never primed it!" he exclaimed indignantly. Nat thought that he +had done so, but was not wholly certain; and feeling that he must do +his part somehow, he now dashed past Jonathan, and running on, +attempted to head the horse off at a little gully down the bank to +which they had now come. It was a brushy place; he fell headlong into +it himself, and rolled down, still grasping hard at the axe. He was +close upon the horse now, within a few yards of the water, and looking +up, he saw the moose's head among the alder brush. The creature +appeared to be staring at him, and regaining his feet, much excited, +Nat threw the axe with all his strength at the moose's head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span></p> + +<p>By chance rather than skill, the poll of the axe struck the animal +just above the eyes at the root of the antlers. It staggered, holding +its head to one side a moment, as if half-stunned or in pain. Then, +recovering, it snorted, and with a bound through the brush, jumped +into the stream, and either swam or waded across to the low sandy bank +on the other side. There it stood, still shaking its head.</p> + +<p>Jonathan had caught up with Nat by this time, and they both stood +watching the moose for some moments, hoping that the mad animal had +now had enough of the fracas and would go his way. The horse was in +the brush of the little gully, sticking fast there, or tired out by +its exertions; and they now began considering how they could best +extricate it and get it back up the bluff.</p> + +<p>Just then, however, their other horse neighed long and shrill from the +top of the bank, calling to its mate. The frightened horse beside them +neighed back in reply.</p> + +<p>These equine salutations produced an unexpected result. Another hoarse +snort and a splash of the water was the response from across the +stream.</p> + +<p>"He's coming again!" exclaimed Jonathan. "Have you got the +powder-horn, Nat? Give it to me quick, if you've got it!" Nathaniel +had had the powder-horn up on the bank, but had dropped it there, or +lost it out of his pocket in his scramble down the bluff.</p> + +<p>There was no time to search for it. The moose was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> plunging through +the narrow stream, and a moment later sprang ashore and came bounding +up the gully toward the horse.</p> + +<p>The boys shouted to frighten him off. The crazy creature appeared +neither to hear nor heed. Jonathan hastily took refuge behind a rock; +Nat jumped to cover of a tree trunk.</p> + +<p>In his rush at the horse, the moose passed close to them. Again Nat +hurled the axe at the animal's side. Jonathan, snatching up a heavy +stone, threw it with all his might. The horse, too, wheeling in the +narrow bed of the gully, kicked spitefully, lashing out its iron-shod +hoofs again and again, planting them hard on the moose's front.</p> + +<p>For some moments this singular combat raged there. Recovering the axe +and coming up behind the animal, Nat now attempted to deal a blow. The +moose wheeled, however, as if struck by sudden panic, and went clear +over Nat, who was thrown headlong and slid down into the water.</p> + +<p>The moose bounded clear over him, and again went splashing through the +Little Androscoggin to the other side, where it turned as before, +shaking its antlers and rending the brush with them.</p> + +<p>Nathaniel had caught hold of a bush, and thus saved himself from going +fully into the swift current. Jonathan helped him get out, and the two +young fellows stared at each other. The encounter had given them proof +of the mad strength and energy of the moose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, if we could only find that powder-horn somewhere!" Jonathan +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The horse up on the bluff sent forth again its shrill neigh, to which +the one beside them responded.</p> + +<p>And just as before, the moose, with an awful bellow, came plunging +through the little river and bounding up the gully.</p> + +<p>"My soul! Here he comes again!" Jonathan fairly yelled. "Get out o' +the way!"</p> + +<p>And Nat got out of the way as quickly as possible, taking refuge +behind the same rock in the side of the gully.</p> + +<p>Again the place resounded to a frightful medley of squeals, +bellowings, and crashes in the brush. This time Jonathan had caught up +the axe, and approaching the furious mêlée of whirling hoofs and +gnashing teeth from one side, attempted to get in a blow. In their +wild movements the enraged animals nearly ran over him, but he struck +and stumbled.</p> + +<p>The blow missed the moose's head, but fell on the animal's foreleg, +just below the knee, and broke the bone. The moose reared, and +wheeling on its hind legs, plunged down the gully, falling partly into +the river, much as Nat had done.</p> + +<p>A dozen times it now struggled to get up, almost succeeding, but fell +back each time. With the ardour of battle still glowing in him, +Jonathan rushed forward with the axe, and finally managed to deal the +moose a deathblow; with a knife they then bled it, and stood by, +triumphant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We've muttoned him! We've muttoned him!" Nat shouted. "But I never +had such a fight as that before."</p> + +<p>The horse, as it proved, was not seriously injured, but they were +obliged to cut away the alder brush in the gully to get the animal +back up the bluff, and were occupied for fully an hour doing so.</p> + +<p>The body of the moose was a huge one; it must have weighed fully +fourteen hundred pounds. The boys could no more have moved it than +they could move a mountain. Moreover, it was now beginning to snow +fine and fast.</p> + +<p>Jonathan had a fairly good knife, however, and by using the axe they +succeeded in rudely butchering the carcass and dismembering it. Even +then the quarters were so heavy that their full strength was required +to drag them up the bluff and load them into the wagon. The head, with +its broad, branching antlers, was all that they could lift to the top +of their now bulky load.</p> + +<p>The task had taken till past four o'clock of that stormy November +afternoon. Twilight was upon them, the wintry twilight of a snowstorm, +before they made start; and it was long past midnight when they +finally plodded home.</p> + +<p>There were corncake and moose venison for Thanksgiving dinner.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> From the <i>Youth's Companion</i>, November 26, 1908.</p></div></div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 19909-h.txt or 19909-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19909">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/9/0/19909</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Asa Don Dickinson + +Release Date: November 23, 2006 [eBook #19909] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD +SHOULD KNOW*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 19909-h.htm or 19909-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19909/19909-h/19909-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19909/19909-h.zip) + + + + + +What Every Child Should Know Library + +GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW + +Edited by + +ASA DON DICKINSON + +Editor of +"The Children's Book of Christmas Stories," Etc. + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "When we rounded the last patch of scrub pines and came +upon the long gray house fairly blazing with light ... the effect was +stunning."] + + + + +Published by Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., for +The Parents' Institute, Inc. +Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine" +52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York + +Copyright, 1915, by Doubleday, Page & Company + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +The Publishers desire to acknowledge the kindness of the Century +Company, Ginn & Co., the J. L. Hammett Company, Harper & Brothers, the +Houghton, Mifflin Company, the J. B. Lippincott Company, the Lothrop, +Lee & Shepard Company, the Outlook Company, the Perry Mason Company, +Charles Scribner's Sons, and others, who have granted permission to +reproduce herein selections from works bearing their copyright. + + + + + +CONTENTS + +(Note.--The stories marked with a star (*) will be most enjoyed by +younger children; those marked with a (dagger) are better suited to +older children.) + + +*The Kingdom of the Greedy. _By P. J. Stahl_ + +Thankful. _By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman_ + +Beetle Ring's Thanksgiving Mascot. _By Sheldon C. Stoddard_ + +[dagger]Mistress Esteem Elliott's Molasses Cake. _By Kate Upson Clark_ + +The First Thanksgiving. _By Albert F. Blaisdell and Francis K. Ball_ + +[dagger]Thanksgiving at Todd's Asylum. _By Winthrop Packard_ + +How We Kept Thanksgiving at Oldtown. _By Harriet Beecher Stowe_ + +*Wishbone Valley. _By R. K. Munkittrick_ + +Patem's Salmagundi. _By E. S. Brooks_ + +Miss November's Dinner Party. _By Agnes Carr_ + +*The Visit. _By Maud Lindsay_ + +The Story of Ruth and Naomi. _Adapted from the Bible_ + +Bert's Thanksgiving. _By J. T. Trowbridge_ + +*A Thanksgiving Story. _By Miss L. B. Pingree_ + +[dagger]John Inglefield's Thanksgiving. _By Nathaniel Hawthorne_ + +How Obadiah Brought About a Thanksgiving. _By Emily Hewitt Leland_ + +The White Turkey's Wing. _By Sophie Swet_ + +*The Thanksgiving Goose. _By Fannie Wilder Brown_ + +[dagger]An English Dinner of Thanksgiving. _By George Eliot_ + +A Novel Postman. _By Alice Wheildon_ + +[dagger]Ezra's Thanksgivin' Out West _By Eugene Field_ + +*Chip's Thanksgiving. _By Annie Hamilton Donnell_ + +[dagger]The Master of the Harvest. _By Mrs. Alfred Gatty_ + +*A Thanksgiving Dinner. _By Edna Payson Brett_ + +Two Old Boys. _By Pauline Shackleford Colyar_ + +A Thanksgiving Dinner That Flew Away. _By Hezekiah Butterworth_ + +[dagger]Mon-daw-min. _By H. R. Schoolcraft_ + +A Mystery in the Kitchen. _By Olive Thorne Miller_ + +*Who Ate the Dolly's Dinner? _By Isabel Gordon Curtis_ + +[dagger]An Old-fashioned Thanksgiving. _By Rose Terry Cooke_ + +1800 and Froze to Death. By _C. A. Stephens_ + + + + + + +THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THANKSGIVING STORIES + +THE KINGDOM OF THE GREEDY + +BY P. J. STAHL. + +TRANSLATED BY LAURA W. JOHNSON. + + This fairy tale of a gormandizing people contains no mention + of Thanksgiving Day. Yet its connection with our American + festival is obvious. Every one who likes fairy tales will + enjoy reading it. + + +The country of the Greedy, well known in history, was ruled by a king +who had much trouble. His subjects were well behaved, but they had one +sad fault: they were too fond of pies and tarts. It was as +disagreeable to them to swallow a spoonful of soup as if it were so +much sea water, and it would take a policeman to make them open their +mouths for a bit of meat, either boiled or roasted. This deplorable +taste made the fortunes of the pastry cooks, but also of the +apothecaries. Families ruined themselves in pills and powders; +camomile, rhubarb, and peppermint trebled in price, as well as other +disagreeable remedies, such as castor ---- which I will not name. + +The King of the Greedy sought long for the means of correcting this +fatal passion for sweets, but even the faculty were puzzled. + +"Your Majesty," said the great court doctor, Olibriers, at his last +audience, "your people look like putty! They are incurable; their +senseless love for good eating will bring them all to the grave." + +This view of things did not suit the King. He was wise, and saw very +plainly that a monarch without subjects would be but a sorry king. + +Happily, after this utter failure of the doctors, there came into the +mind of His Majesty a first-class idea: he telegraphed for Mother +Mitchel, the most celebrated of all pastry cooks. Mother Mitchel soon +arrived, with her black cat, Fanfreluche, who accompanied her +everywhere. He was an incomparable cat. He had not his equal as an +adviser and a taster of tarts. + +Mother Mitchel having respectfully inquired what she and her cat could +do for His Majesty, the King demanded of the astonished pastry cook a +tart as big as the capitol--bigger even, if possible, but no smaller! +When the King uttered this astounding order, deep emotion was shown by +the chamberlains, the pages, and lackeys. Nothing but the respect due +to his presence prevented them from crying "Long live Your Majesty!" +in his very ears. But the King had seen enough of the enthusiasm of +the populace, and did not allow such sounds in the recesses of his +palace. + +The King gave Mother Mitchel one month to carry out his gigantic +project. "It is enough," she proudly replied, brandishing her crutch. +Then, taking leave of the King, she and her cat set out for their +home. + +On the way Mother Mitchel arranged in her head the plan of the +monument which was to immortalize her, and considered the means of +executing it. As to its form and size, it was to be as exact a copy of +the capitol as possible, since the King had willed it; but its outside +crust should have a beauty all its own. The dome must be adorned with +sugarplums of all colours, and surmounted by a splendid crown of +macaroons, spun sugar, chocolate, and candied fruits. It was no small +affair. + +Mother Mitchel did not like to lose her time. Her plan of battle once +formed, she recruited on her way all the little pastry cooks of the +country, as well as all the tiny six-year-olds who had a sincere love +for the noble callings of scullion and apprentice. There were plenty +of these, as you may suppose, in the country of the Greedy; Mother +Mitchel had her pick of them. + +Mother Mitchel, with the help of her crutch and of Fanfreluche, who +miaowed loud enough to be heard twenty miles off, called upon all the +millers of the land, and commanded them to bring together at a certain +time as many sacks of fine flour as they could grind in a week. There +were only windmills in that country; you may easily believe how they +all began to go. B-r-r-r-r-r! What a noise they made! The clatter was +so great that all the birds flew away to other climes, and even the +clouds fled from the sky. + +At the call of Mother Mitchel all the farmers' wives were set to work; +they rushed to the hencoops to collect the seven thousand fresh eggs +that Mother Mitchel wanted for her great edifice. Deep was the emotion +of the fowls. The hens were inconsolable, and the unhappy creatures +mourned upon the palings for the loss of all their hopes. + +The milkmaids were busy from morning till night in milking the cows. +Mother Mitchel must have twenty thousand pails of milk. All the little +calves were put on half rations. This great work was nothing to them, +and they complained pitifully to their mothers. Many of the cows +protested with energy against this unreasonable tax, which made their +young families so uncomfortable. There were pails upset, and even some +milkmaids went head over heels. But these little accidents did not +chill the enthusiasm of the labourers. + +And now Mother Mitchel called for a thousand pounds of the best +butter. All the churns for twenty miles around began to work in the +most lively manner. Their dashers dashed without ceasing, keeping +perfect time. The butter was tasted, rolled into pats, wrapped up, and +put into baskets. Such energy had never been known before. + +Mother Mitchel passed for a sorceress. It was all because of her cat, +Fanfreluche, with whom she had mysterious doings and pantomimes, and +with whom she talked in her inspired moments, as if he were a real +person. Certainly, since the famous "Puss in Boots," there had never +been an animal so extraordinary; and credulous folks suspected him of +being a magician. Some curious people had the courage to ask +Fanfreluche if this were true; but he had replied by bristling, and +showing his teeth and claws so fiercely, that the conversation had +ended there. Sorceress or not, Mother Mitchel was always obeyed. No +one else was ever served so punctually. + +On the appointed day all the millers arrived with their asses trotting +in single file, each laden with a great sack of flour. Mother Mitchel, +after having examined the quality of the flour, had every sack +accurately weighed. This was head work and hard work, and took time; +but Mother Mitchel was untiring, and her cat, also, for while the +operation lasted he sat on the roof watching. It is only just to say +that the millers of the Greedy Kingdom brought flour not only +faultless but of full weight. They knew that Mother Mitchel was not +joking when she said that others must be as exact with her as she was +with them. Perhaps also they were a little afraid of the cat, whose +great green eyes were always shining upon them like two round lamps, +and never lost sight of them for one moment. + +All the farmers' wives arrived in turn, with baskets of eggs upon +their heads. They did not load their donkeys with them, for fear that +in jogging along they would become omelettes on the way. Mother +Mitchel received them with her usual gravity. She had the patience to +look through every egg to see if it were fresh. + +She did not wish to run the risk of having young chickens in a tart +that was destined for those who could not bear the taste of any meat +however tender and delicate. The number of eggs was complete, and +again Mother Mitchel and her cat had nothing to complain of. This +Greedy nation, though carried away by love of good eating, was +strictly honest. It must be said that where nations are patriotic, +desire for the common good makes them unselfish. Mother Mitchel's tart +was to be the glory of the country, and each one was proud to +contribute to such a great work. + +And now the milkmaids with their pots and pails of milk, and the +buttermakers with their baskets filled with the rich yellow pats of +butter, filed in long procession to the right and left of the cabin of +Mother Mitchel. There was no need for her to examine so carefully the +butter and the milk. She had such a delicate nose that if there had +been a single pat of ancient butter or a pail of sour milk she would +have pounced upon it instantly. But all was perfectly fresh. In that +golden age they did not understand the art, now so well known, of +making milk out of flour and water. Real milk was necessary to make +cheesecakes and ice cream and other delicious confections much adored +in the Greedy Kingdom. If any one had made such a despicable +discovery, he would have been chased from the country as a public +nuisance. + +Then came the grocers, with their aprons of coffee bags, and with the +jolly, mischievous faces the rogues always have. Each one clasped to +his heart a sugar loaf nearly as large as himself, whose summit, +without its paper cap, looked like new-fallen snow upon a pyramid. +Mother Mitchel, with her crutch for a baton, saw them all placed in +her storerooms upon shelves put up for the purpose. She had to be +very strict, for some of the little fellows could hardly part from +their merchandise, and many were indiscreet, with their tongues behind +their great mountains of sugar. If they had been let alone, they would +never have stopped till the sugar was all gone. But they had not +thought of the implacable eye of old Fanfreluche, who, posted upon a +water spout, took note of all their misdeeds. From another quarter +came a whole army of country people, rolling wheelbarrows and carrying +huge baskets, all filled with cherries, plums, peaches, apples, and +pears. All these fruits were so fresh, in such perfect condition, with +their fair shining skins, that they looked like wax or painted marble, +but their delicious perfume proved that they were real. Some little +people, hidden in the corners, took pains to find this out. Between +ourselves, Mother Mitchel made believe not to see them, and took the +precaution of holding Fanfreluche in her arms so that he could not +spring upon them. The fruits were all put into bins, each kind by +itself. And now the preparations were finished. There was no time to +lose before setting to work. + +The spot which Mother Mitchel had chosen for her great edifice was a +pretty hill on which a plateau formed a splendid site. This hill +commanded the capital city, built upon the slope of another hill close +by. After having beaten down the earth till it was as smooth as a +floor, they spread over it loads of bread crumbs, brought from the +baker's, and levelled it with rake and spade, as we do gravel in our +garden walks. Little birds, as greedy as themselves, came in flocks to +the feast, but they might eat as they liked, it would never be missed, +so thick was the carpet. It was a great chance for the bold little +things. + +All the ingredients for the tart were now ready. Upon order of Mother +Mitchel they began to peel the apples and pears and to take out the +pips. The weather was so pleasant that the girls sat out of doors, +upon the ground, in long rows. The sun looked down upon them with a +merry face. Each of the little workers had a big earthen pan, and +peeled incessantly the apples which the boys brought them. When the +pans were full, they were carried away and others were brought. They +had also to carry away the peels, or the girls would have been buried +in them. Never was there such a peeling before. + +Not far away, the children were stoning the plums, cherries, and +peaches. This work, being the easiest, was given to the youngest and +most inexperienced hands, which were all first carefully washed, for +Mother Mitchel, though not very particular about her own toilet, was +very neat in her cooking. The schoolhouse, long unused (for in the +country of the Greedy they had forgotten everything), was arranged for +this second class of workers, and the cat was their inspector. He +walked round and round, growling if he saw the fruit popping into any +of the little mouths. If they had dared, how they would have pelted +him with plum stones! But no one risked it. Fanfreluche was not to be +trifled with. + +In those days powdered sugar had not been invented, and to grate it +all was no small affair. It was the work that the grocers used to +dislike the most; both lungs and arms were soon tired. But Mother +Mitchel was there to sustain them with her unequalled energy. She +chose the labourers from the most robust of the boys. With mallet and +knife she broke the cones into round pieces, and they grated them till +they were too small to hold. The bits were put into baskets to be +pounded. One would never have expected to find all the thousand pounds +of sugar again. But a new miracle was wrought by Mother Mitchel. It +was all there! + +It was then the turn of the ambitious scullions to enter the lists and +break the seven thousand eggs for Mother Mitchel. It was not hard to +break them--any fool could do that; but to separate adroitly the yolks +and the whites demands some talent, and, above all, great care. We +dare not say that there were no accidents here, no eggs too well +scrambled, no baskets upset. But the experience of Mother Mitchel had +counted upon such things, and it may truly be said that there were +never so many eggs broken at once, or ever could be again. To make an +omelette of them would have taken a saucepan as large as a skating +pond, and the fattest cook that ever lived could not hold the handle +of such a saucepan. + +But this was not all. Now that the yolks and whites were once divided, +they must each be beaten separately in wooden bowls, to give them the +necessary lightness. The egg beaters were marshalled into two +brigades, the yellow and the white. Every one preferred the white, for +it was much more amusing to make those snowy masses that rose up so +high than to beat the yolks, which knew no better than to mix together +like so much sauce. Mother Mitchel, with her usual wisdom, had avoided +this difficulty by casting lots. Thus, those who were not on the white +side had no reason to complain of oppression. And truly, when all was +done, the whites and the yellows were equally tired. All had cramps in +their hands. + +Now began the real labour of Mother Mitchel. Till now she had been the +commander-in-chief--the head only; now she put her own finger in the +pie. First, she had to make sweetmeats and jam out of all the immense +quantity of fruit she had stored. For this, as she could only do one +kind at a time, she had ten kettles, each as big as a dinner table. +During forty-eight hours the cooking went on; a dozen scullions blew +the fire and put on the fuel. Mother Mitchel, with a spoon that four +modern cooks could hardly lift, never ceased stirring and trying the +boiling fruit. Three expert tasters, chosen from the most dainty, had +orders to report progress every half hour. + +It is unnecessary to state that all the sweetmeats were perfectly +successful, or that they were of exquisite consistency, colour, and +perfume. With Mother Mitchel there was no such word as _fail_. When +each kind of sweetmeat was finished, she skimmed it, and put it away +to cool in enormous bowls before potting. She did not use for this the +usual little glass or earthen jars, but great stone ones, like those +in the "Forty Thieves." Not only did these take less time to fill, but +they were safe from the children. The scum and the scrapings were +something, to be sure. But there was little Toto, who thought this was +not enough. He would have jumped into one of the bowls if they had not +held him. + +Mother Mitchel, who thought of everything, had ordered two hundred +great kneading troughs, wishing that all the utensils of this great +work should be perfectly new. These two hundred troughs, like her +other materials, were all delivered punctually and in good order. The +pastry cooks rolled up their sleeves and began to knead the dough with +cries of "Hi! Hi!" that could be heard for miles. It was odd to see +this army of bakers in serried ranks, all making the same gestures at +once, like well-disciplined soldiers, stooping and rising together in +time, so that a foreign ambassador wrote to his court that he wished +his people could load and fire as well as these could knead. Such +praise a people never forgets. + +When each troughful of paste was approved it was moulded with care +into the form of bricks, and with the aid of the engineer-in-chief, a +young genius who had gained the first prize in the school of +architecture, the majestic edifice was begun. Mother Mitchel herself +drew the plan; in following her directions, the young engineer showed +himself modest beyond all praise. He had the good sense to understand +that the architecture of tarts and pies had rules of its own, and that +therefore the experience of Mother Mitchel was worth all the +scientific theories in the world. + +The inside of the monument was divided into as many compartments as +there were kinds of fruits. The walls were no less than four feet +thick. When they were finished, twenty-four ladders were set up, and +twenty-four experienced cooks ascended them. These first-class artists +were each of them armed with an enormous cooking spoon. Behind them, +on the lower rounds of the ladders, followed the kitchen boys, +carrying on their heads pots and pans filled to the brim with jam and +sweetmeats, each sort ready to be poured into its destined +compartment. This colossal labour was accomplished in one day, and +with wonderful exactness. + +When the sweetmeats were used to the last drop, when the great spoons +had done all their work, the twenty-four cooks descended to earth +again. The intrepid Mother Mitchel, who had never quitted the spot, +now ascended, followed by the noble Fanfreluche, and dipped her finger +into each of the compartments, to assure herself that everything was +right. This part of her duty was not disagreeable, and many of the +scullions would have liked to perform it. But they might have lingered +too long over the enchanting task. As for Mother Mitchel, she had been +too well used to sweets to be excited now. She only wished to do her +duty and to insure success. + +All went on well. Mother Mitchel had given her approbation. Nothing +was needed now but to crown the sublime and delicious edifice by +placing upon it the crust--that is, the roof, or dome. This delicate +operation was confided to the engineer-in-chief who now showed his +superior genius. The dome, made beforehand of a single piece, was +raised in the air by means of twelve balloons, whose force of +ascension had been carefully calculated. First it was directed, by +ropes, exactly over the top of the tart; then at the word of command +it gently descended upon the right spot. It was not a quarter of an +inch out of place. This was a great triumph for Mother Mitchel and her +able assistant. + +But all was not over. How should this colossal tart be cooked? That +was the question that agitated all the people of the Greedy country, +who came in crowds--lords and commons--to gaze at the wonderful +spectacle. + +Some of the envious or ill-tempered declared it would be impossible to +cook the edifice which Mother Mitchel had built; and the doctors were, +no one knows why, the saddest of all. Mother Mitchel, smiling at the +general bewilderment, mounted the summit of the tart; she waved her +crutch in the air, and while her cat miaowed in his sweetest voice, +suddenly there issued from the woods a vast number of masons, drawing +wagons of well-baked bricks, which they had prepared in secret. This +sight silenced the ill-wishers and filled the hearts of the Greedy +with hope. + +In two days an enormous furnace was built around and above the +colossal tart, which found itself shut up in an immense earthen pot. +Thirty huge mouths, which were connected with thousands of winding +pipes for conducting heat all over the building, were soon choked with +fuel, by the help of two hundred charcoal burners, who, obeying a +private signal, came forth in long array from the forest, each +carrying his sack of coal. Behind them stood Mother Mitchel with a box +of matches, ready to fire each oven as it was filled. Of course the +kindlings had not been forgotten, and was all soon in a blaze. + +When the fire was lighted in the thirty ovens, when they saw the +clouds of smoke rolling above the dome, that announced that the +cooking had begun, the joy of the people was boundless. Poets +improvised odes, and musicians sung verses without end, in honour of +the superb prince who had been inspired to feed his people in so +dainty a manner, when other rulers could not give them enough even of +dry bread. The names of Mother Mitchel and of the illustrious engineer +were not forgotten in this great glorification. Next to His Majesty, +they were certainly the first of mankind, and their names were worthy +of going down with his to the remotest posterity. + +All the envious ones were thunderstruck. They tried to console +themselves by saying that the work was not yet finished, and that an +accident might happen at the last moment. But they did not really +believe a word of this. Notwithstanding all their efforts to look +cheerful, it had to be acknowledged that the cooking was possible. +Their last resource was to declare the tart a bad one, but that would +be biting off their own noses. As for declining to eat it, envy could +never go so far as that in the country of the Greedy. + +After two days, the unerring nose of Mother Mitchel discovered that +the tart was cooked to perfection. The whole country was perfumed with +its delicious aroma. Nothing more remained but to take down the +furnaces. Mother Mitchel made her official announcement to His +Majesty, who was delighted, and complimented her upon her punctuality. +One day was still wanting to complete the month. During this time the +people gave their eager help to the engineer in the demolition, +wishing to have a hand in the great national work and to hasten the +blessed moment. In the twinkling of an eye the thing was done. The +bricks were taken down one by one, counted carefully, and carried into +the forest again, to serve for another occasion. + +The TART, unveiled, appeared at last in all its majesty and splendour. +The dome was gilded, and reflected the rays of the sun in the most +dazzling manner. The wildest excitement and rapture ran through the +land of the Greedy. Each one sniffed with open nostrils the appetizing +perfume. Their mouths watered, their eyes filled with tears, they +embraced, pressed each other's hands, and indulged in touching +pantomimes. Then the people of town and country, united by one +rapturous feeling, joined hands, and danced in a ring around the +grand confection. + +No one dared to touch the tart before the arrival of His Majesty. +Meanwhile, something must be done to allay the universal impatience, +and they resolved to show Mother Mitchel the gratitude with which all +hearts were filled. She was crowned with the laurel of _conquerors_, +which is also the laurel of _sauce_, thus serving a double purpose. +Then they placed her, with her crutch and her cat, upon a sort of +throne, and carried her all round her vast work. Before her marched +all the musicians of the town, dancing, drumming, fifing, and tooting +upon all instruments, while behind her pressed an enthusiastic crowd, +who rent the air with their plaudits and filled it with a shower of +caps. Her fame was complete, and a noble pride shone on her +countenance. + +The royal procession arrived. A grand stairway had been built, so that +the King and his ministers could mount to the summit of this +monumental tart. Thence the King, amid a deep silence, thus addressed +his people: + +"My children," said he, "you adore tarts. You despise all other food. +If you could, you would even eat tarts in your sleep. Very well. Eat +as much as you like. Here is one big enough to satisfy you. But know +this, that while there remains a single crumb of this august tart, +from the height of which I am proud to look down on you, all other +food is forbidden you on pain of death. While you are here, I have +ordered all the pantries to be emptied, and all the butchers, bakers, +pork and milk dealers, and fishmongers to shut up their shops. Why +leave them open? Why indeed? Have you not here at discretion what you +love best, and enough to last you ever, _ever_ so long? Devote +yourselves to it with all your hearts. I do not wish you to be bored +with the sight of any other food. + +"Greedy ones! behold your TART!" + +What enthusiastic applause, what frantic hurrahs rent the air, in +answer to this eloquent speech from the throne! + +"Long live the King, Mother Mitchel, and her cat! Long live the tart! +Down with soup! Down with bread! To the bottom of the sea with all +beefsteaks, mutton chops, and roasts!" + +Such cries came from every lip. Old men gently stroked their chops, +children patted their little stomachs, the crowd licked its thousand +lips with eager joy. Even the babies danced in their nurses' arms, so +precocious was the passion for tarts in this singular country. Grave +professors, skipping like kids, declaimed Latin verses in honour of +His Majesty and Mother Mitchel, and the shyest young girls opened +their mouths like the beaks of little birds. As for the doctors, they +felt a joy beyond expression. They had reflected. They understood. +But--my friends!-- + +At last the signal was given. A detachment of the engineer corps +arrived, armed with pick and cutlass, and marched in good order to the +assault. A breach was soon opened, and the distribution began. The +King smiled at the opening in the tart; though vast, it hardly showed +more than a mouse hole in the monstrous wall. + +The King stroked his beard grandly. "All goes well," said he, "for him +who knows how to wait." + +Who can tell how long the feast would have lasted if the King had not +given his command that it should cease? Once more they expressed their +gratitude with cries so stifled that they resembled grunts, and then +rushed to the river. Never had a nation been so besmeared. Some were +daubed to the eyes, others had their ears and hair all sticky. As for +the little ones, they were marmalade from head to foot. When they had +finished their toilets, the river ran all red and yellow and was +sweetened for several hours, to the great surprise of all the fishes. + +Before returning home, the people presented themselves before the King +to receive his commands. + +"Children!" said he, "the feast will begin again exactly at six +o'clock. Give time to wash the dishes and change the tablecloths, and +you may once more give yourselves over to pleasure. You shall feast +twice a day as long as the tart lasts. Do not forget. Yes! if there is +not enough in this one, I will even order ANOTHER from Mother Mitchel; +for you know that great woman is indefatigable. Your happiness is my +only aim." (Marks of universal joy and emotion.) "You understand? +Noon, and six o'clock! There is no need for me to say be punctual! Go, +then, my children--be happy!" + +The second feast was as gay as the first, and as long. A pleasant walk +in the suburbs--first exercise--then a nap, had refreshed their +appetites and unlimbered their jaws. But the King fancied that the +breach made in the tart was a little smaller than that of the morning. + +"'Tis well!" said he, "'tis well! Wait till to-morrow, my friends; +yes, till day after to-morrow, and _next week_!" + +The next day the feast still went on gayly; yet at the evening meal +the King noticed some empty seats. + +"Why is this?" said he, with pretended indifference, to the court +physician. + +"Your Majesty," said the great Olibriers, "a few weak stomachs; that +is all." + +On the next day there were larger empty spaces. The enthusiasm visibly +abated. The eighth day the crowd had diminished one half; the ninth, +three quarters; the tenth day, of the thousand who came at first, only +two hundred remained; on the eleventh day only one hundred; and on the +twelfth--alas! who would have thought it?--a single one answered to +the call. Truly he was big enough. His body resembled a hogshead, his +mouth an oven, and his lips--we dare not say what. He was known in the +town by the name of Patapouf. They dug out a fresh lump for him from +the middle of the tart. It quickly vanished in his vast interior, and +he retired with great dignity, proud to maintain the honour of his +name and the glory of the Greedy Kingdom. + +But the next day, even he, the very last, appeared no more. The +unfortunate Patapouf had succumbed, and, like all the other +inhabitants of the country, was in a very bad way. In short, it was +soon known that the whole town had suffered agonies that night from +too much tart. Let us draw a veil over those hours of torture. Mother +Mitchel was in despair. Those ministers who had not guessed the secret +dared not open their lips. All the city was one vast hospital. No one +was seen in the streets but doctors and apothecaries' boys, running +from house to house in frantic haste. It was dreadful! Doctor +Olibriers was nearly knocked out. As for the King, he held his tongue +and shut himself up in his palace, but a secret joy shone in his eyes, +to the wonder of every one. He waited three days without a word. + +The third day, the King said to his ministers: + +"Let us go now and see how my poor people are doing, and feel their +pulse a little." + +The good King went to every house, without forgetting a single one. He +visited small and great, rich and poor. + +"Oh, oh! Your Majesty," said all, "the tart was good, but may we never +see it again! Plague on that tart! Better were dry bread. Your +Majesty, for mercy's sake, a little dry bread! Oh, a morsel of dry +bread, how good it would be!" + +"No, indeed," replied the King. "_There is more of that tart!_" + +"What! Your Majesty, _must_ we eat it all?" + +"You _must_!" sternly replied the King; "you _MUST_! By the immortal +beefsteaks! not one of you shall have a slice of bread, and not a loaf +shall be baked in the kingdom while there remains a crumb of that +excellent tart!" + +"What misery!" thought these poor people. "That tart forever!" + +The sufferers were in despair. There was only one cry through all the +town: "Ow! ow! ow!" For even the strongest and most courageous were in +horrible agonies. They twisted, they writhed, they lay down, they got +up. Always the inexorable colic. The dogs were not happier than their +masters; even they had too much tart. + +The spiteful tart looked in at all the windows. Built upon a height, +it commanded the town. The mere sight of it made everybody ill, and +its former admirers had nothing but curses for it now. Unhappily, +nothing they could say or do made it any smaller; still formidable, it +was a frightful joke for those miserable mortals. Most of them buried +their heads in their pillows, drew their nightcaps over their eyes, +and lay in bed all day to shut out the sight of it. But this would not +do; they knew, they felt it was there. It was a nightmare, a horrible +burden, a torturing anxiety. + +In the midst of this terrible consternation the King remained +inexorable during eight days. His heart bled for his people, but the +lesson must sink deep if it were to bear fruit in future. When their +pains were cured, little by little, through fasting alone, and his +subjects pronounced these trembling words, "We are hungry!" the King +sent them trays laden with--the inevitable tart. + +"Ah!" cried they, with anguish, "the tart again! Always the tart, and +nothing but the tart! Better were death!" + +A few, who were almost famished, shut their eyes, and tried to eat a +bit of the detested food; but it was all in vain--they could not +swallow a mouthful. + +At length came the happy day when the King, thinking their punishment +had been severe enough and could never be forgotten, believed them at +length cured of their greediness. That day he ordered Mother Mitchel +to make in one of her colossal pots a super-excellent soup of which a +bowl was sent to every family. They received it with as much rapture +as the Hebrews did the manna in the desert. They would gladly have had +twice as much, but after their long fast it would not have been +prudent. It was a proof that they had learned something already, that +they understood this. + +The next day, more soup. This time the King allowed slices of bread in +it. How this good soup comforted all the town! The next day there was +a little more bread in it and a little soup meat. Then for a few days +the kind Prince gave them roast beef and vegetables. The cure was +complete. + +The joy over this new diet was as great as ever had been felt for the +tart. It promised to last longer. They were sure to sleep soundly, and +to wake refreshed. It was pleasant to see in every house tables +surrounded with happy, rosy faces, and laden with good nourishing +food. + +The Greedy people never fell back into their old ways. Their once +puffed-out, sallow faces shone with health; they became, not fat, but +muscular, ruddy, and solid. The butchers and bakers reopened their +shops; the pastry cooks and confectioners shut theirs. The country of +the Greedy was turned upside down, and if it kept its name, it was +only from habit. As for the tart, it was forgotten. To-day, in that +marvellous country, there cannot be found a paper of sugarplums or a +basket of cakes. It is charming to see the red lips and the beautiful +teeth of the people. If they have still a king, he may well be proud +to be their ruler. + +Does this story teach that tarts and pies should never be eaten? No; +but there is reason in all things. + +The doctors alone did not profit by this great revolution. They could +not afford to drink wine any longer in a land where indigestion had +become unknown. The apothecaries were no less unhappy, spiders spun +webs over their windows, and their horrible remedies were no longer of +use. + +Ask no more about Mother Mitchel. She was ridiculed without measure by +those who had adored her. To complete her misfortune, she lost her +cat. Alas for Mother Mitchel! + +The King received the reward of his wisdom. His grateful people called +him neither Charles the Bold, nor Peter the Terrible, nor Louis the +Great, but always by the noble name of Prosper I, the Reasonable. + + + + +THANKFUL[1] + +BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN. + + This tale is evidence that Mrs. Freeman understands the + children of New England as well as she knows their parents. + There is a doll in the story, but boys will not mind this as + there are also two turkey-gobblers and a pewter dish full of + Revolutionary bullets. + + +Submit Thompson sat on the stone wall; Sarah Adams, an erect, prim +little figure, ankle-deep in dry grass, stood beside it, holding +Thankful. Thankful was about ten inches long, made of the finest +linen, with little rosy cheeks, and a fine little wig of flax. She +wore a blue wool frock and a red cloak. Sarah held her close. She even +drew a fold of her own blue homespun blanket around her to shield her +from the November wind. The sky was low and gray; the wind blew from +the northeast, and had the breath of snow in it. Submit on the wall +drew her quilted petticoats close down over her feet, and huddled +herself into a small space, but her face gleamed keen and resolute out +of the depths of a great red hood that belonged to her mother. Her +eyes were fixed upon a turkey-gobbler ruffling and bobbing around the +back door of the Adams house. The two gambrel-roofed Thompson and +Adams houses were built as close together as if the little village of +Bridgewater were a city. Acres of land stretched behind them and at +the other sides, but they stood close to the road, and close to each +other. The narrow space between them was divided by a stone wall which +was Submit's and Sarah's trysting-place. They met there every day and +exchanged confidences. They loved each other like sisters--neither of +them had an own sister--but to-day a spirit of rivalry had arisen. + +[Footnote 1: From _Harper's Young People_, November 25, 1890.] + +The tough dry blackberry vines on the wall twisted around Submit; she +looked, with her circle of red petticoat, like some strange late +flower blooming out on the wall. "I know he don't, Sarah Adams," said +she. + +"Father said he'd weigh twenty pounds," returned Sarah, in a small, +weak voice, which still had persistency in it. + +"I don't believe he will. Our Thanksgiving turkey is twice as big. You +know he is, Sarah Adams." + +"No, I don't, Submit Thompson." + +"Yes, you do." + +Sarah lowered her chin, and shook her head with a decision that was +beyond words. She was a thin, delicate-looking little girl, her small +blue-clad figure bent before the wind, but there was resolution in her +high forehead and her sharp chin. + +Submit nodded violently. + +Sarah shook her head again. She hugged Thankful, and shook her head, +with her eyes still staring defiantly into Submit's hood. + +Submit's black eyes in the depths of it were like two sparks. She +nodded vehemently; the gesture was not enough for her; she nodded and +spoke together. "Sarah Adams," said she, "what will you give me if our +turkey is bigger than your turkey?" + +"It ain't." + +"What will you give me if it is?" + +Sarah stared at Submit. "I don't know what you mean, Submit Thompson," +said she, with a stately and puzzled air. + +"Well, I'll tell you. If your turkey weighs more than ours I'll give +you--I'll give you my little work-box with the picture on the top, and +if our turkey weighs more than yours you give me--What will you give +me, Sarah Adams?" + +Sarah hung her flaxen head with a troubled air. "I don't know," said +she. "I don't believe I've got anything mother would be willing to +have me give away." + +"There's Thankful. Your mother wouldn't care if you gave her away." + +Sarah started, and hugged Thankful closer. "Yes, my mother would care, +too," said she. "Don't you know my Aunt Rose from Boston made her and +gave her to me?" + +Sarah's beautiful young Aunt Rose from Boston was the special +admiration of both the little girls. Submit was ordinarily impressed +by her name, but now she took it coolly. + +"What if she did?" she returned. "She can make another. It's just +made out of a piece of old linen, anyhow. My work-box is real +handsome; but you can do just as you are a mind to." + +"Do you mean I can have the work-box to keep?" inquired Sarah. + +"Course I do, if your turkey's bigger." + +Sarah hesitated. "Our turkey is bigger anyhow," she murmured. "Don't +you think I ought to ask mother, Submit?" she inquired suddenly. + +"No! What for? I don't see anything to ask your mother for. She won't +care anything about that rag doll." + +"Ain't you going to ask your mother about the work-box?" + +"No," replied Submit stoutly. "It's mine; my grandmother gave it to +me." + +Sarah reflected. "I _know_ our turkey is the biggest," she said, +looking lovingly at Thankful, as if to justify herself to her. "Well, +I don't care," she added, finally. + +"Will you?" + +"Yes." + +"When's yours going to be killed?" + +"This afternoon." + +"So's ours. Then we'll find out." + +Sarah tucked Thankful closer under her shawl. "I know our turkey is +biggest," said she. She looked very sober, although her voice was +defiant. Just then the great turkey came swinging through the yard. He +held up his head proudly and gobbled. His every feather stood out in +the wind. He seemed enormous--a perfect giant among turkeys. "_Look_ +at him!" said Sarah, edging a little closer to the wall; she was +rather afraid of him. + +"He ain't half so big as ours," returned Submit, stoutly; but her +heart sank. The Thompson turkey did look very large. + +"Submit! Submit!" called a voice from the Thompson house. + +Submit slowly got down from the wall. "His feathers are a good deal +thicker than ours," she said, defiantly, to Sarah. + +"Submit," called the voice, "come right home! I want you to pare +apples for the pies. Be quick!" + +"Yes, marm," Submit answered back, in a shrill voice; "I'm coming!" +Then she went across the yard and into the kitchen door of the +Thompson house, like a red robin into a nest. Submit had been taught +to obey her mother promptly. Mrs. Thompson was a decided woman. + +Sarah looked after Submit, then she gathered Thankful closer, and also +went into the house. Her mother, as well as Mrs. Thompson, was +preparing for Thanksgiving. The great kitchen was all of a pleasant +litter with pie plates and cake pans and mixing bowls, and full of +warm, spicy odours. The oven in the chimney was all heated and ready +for a batch of apple and pumpkin pies. Mrs. Adams was busy sliding +them in, but she stopped to look at Sarah and Thankful. Sarah was her +only child. + +"Why, what makes you look so sober?" said she. + +"Nothing," replied Sarah. She had taken off her blanket, and sat in +one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs, holding Thankful. + +"You look dreadful sober," said her mother. "Are you tired?" + +"No, marm." + +"I'm afraid you've got cold standing out there in the wind. Do you +feel chilly?" + +"No, marm. Mother, how much do you suppose our turkey weighs?" + +"I believe father said he'd weigh about twenty pounds. You are sure +you don't feel chilly?" + +"No, marm. Mother, do you suppose our turkey weighs more than +Submit's?" + +"How do you suppose I can tell? I ain't set eyes on their turkey +lately. If you feel well, you'd better sit up to the table and stone +that bowl of raisins. Put your dolly away, and get your apron." + +But Sarah stoned raisins with Thankful in her lap, hidden under her +apron. She was so full of anxiety that she could not bear to put her +away. Suppose the Thompson turkey should be larger, and she should +lose Thankful--Thankful that her beautiful Aunt Rose had made for her? + +Submit, over in the Thompson house, had sat down at once to her apple +paring. She had not gone into the best room to look at the work-box +whose possession she had hazarded. It stood in there on the table, +made of yellow satiny wood, with a sliding lid ornamented with a +beautiful little picture. Submit had a certain pride in it, but her +fear of losing it was not equal to her hope of possessing Thankful. +Submit had never had a doll, except a few plebeian ones, manufactured +secretly out of corncobs, whom it took more imagination than she +possessed to admire. + +Gradually all emulation over the turkeys was lost in the naughty +covetousness of her little friend and neighbour's doll. Submit felt +shocked and guilty, but she sat there paring the Baldwin apples, and +thinking to herself: "If our turkey is only bigger, if it only is, +then--I shall have Thankful." Her mouth was pursed up and her eyes +snapped. She did not talk at all, but pared very fast. + +Her mother looked at her. "If you don't take care, you'll cut your +fingers," said she. "You are in too much of a hurry. I suppose you +want to get out and gossip with Sarah again at the wall, but I can't +let you waste any more time to-day. There, I told you you would!" + +Submit had cut her thumb quite severely. She choked a little when her +mother tied it up, and put on some balm of Gilead, which made it smart +worse. + +"Don't cry!" said her mother. "You'll have to bear more than a cut +thumb if you live." + +[Illustration: "How much do you suppose our turkey weighs?"] + +And Submit did not let the tears fall. She came from a brave race. Her +great-grandfather had fought in the Revolution; his sword and +regimentals were packed in the fine carved chest in the best room. +Over the kitchen shelf hung an old musket with which her +great-grandmother, guarding her home and children, had shot an Indian. +In a little closet beside the chimney was an old pewter dish full of +homemade Revolutionary bullets, which Submit and her brothers had for +playthings. A little girl who played with Revolutionary bullets ought +not to cry over a cut thumb. + +Submit finished paring the apples after her thumb was tied up, +although she was rather awkward about it. Then she pounded spices in +the mortar, and picked over cranberries. Her mother kept her busy +every minute until dinnertime. When Submit's father and her two +brothers, Thomas and Jonas, had come in, she began on the subject +nearest her heart. + +"Father," said she, "how much do you think our Thanksgiving turkey +will weigh?" + +Mr. Thompson was a deliberate man. He looked at her a minute before +replying. "Seventeen or eighteen pounds," replied he. + +"Oh, Father! don't you think he will weigh twenty?" Mr. Thompson shook +his head. + +"He don't begin to weigh so much as the Adams' turkey," said Jonas. +"Their turkey weighs twenty pounds." + +"Oh, Thomas! do you think their turkey weighs more than ours?" cried +Submit. + +Thomas was her elder brother; he had a sober, judicial air like his +father. "Their turkey weighs considerable more than ours," said he. + +Submit's face fell. + +"You are not showing a right spirit," said her mother, severely. "Why +should you care if the Adams' turkey does weigh more? I am ashamed of +you!" + +Submit said no more. She ate her dinner soberly. Afterward she wiped +dishes while her mother washed. All the time she was listening. Her +father and brothers had gone out; presently she started. "Oh, Mother, +they're killing the turkey!" said she. + +"Well, don't stop while the dishes are hot, if they are," returned her +mother. + +Submit wiped obediently, but as soon as the dishes were set away, she +stole out in the barn where her father and brothers were picking the +turkey. + +"Father, when are you going to weigh him?" she asked timidly. + +"Not till to-night," said her father. + +"Submit!" called her mother. + +Submit went in and swept the kitchen floor. It was an hour after that, +when her mother was in the south room, getting it ready for her +grandparents, who were coming home to Thanksgiving--they had been on a +visit to their youngest son--that Submit crept slyly into the pantry. +The turkey lay there on the broad shelf before the window. Submit +looked at him. She thought he was small. "He was 'most all feathers," +she whispered, ruefully. She stood looking disconsolately at the +turkey. Suddenly her eyes flashed and a red flush came over her face. +It was as if Satan, coming into that godly new England home three +days before Thanksgiving, had whispered in her ear. + +Presently Submit stole softly back into the kitchen, set a chair +before the chimney cupboard, climbed up, and got the pewter dish full +of Revolutionary bullets. Then she stole back to the pantry and +emptied the bullets into the turkey's crop. Then she got a needle and +thread from her mother's basket, sewed up the crop carefully, and set +the empty dish back in the cupboard. She had just stepped down out of +the chair when her brother Jonas came in. + +"Submit," said he, "let's have one game of odd or even with the +bullets." + +"I am too busy," said Submit. "I've got to spin my stint." + +"Just one game. Mother won't care." + +"No; I can't." + +Submit flew to her spinning wheel in the corner. Jonas, still +remonstrating, strolled into the pantry. + +"I don't believe mother wants you in there," Submit said anxiously. + +"See here, Submit," Jonas called out in an eager voice, "I'll get the +steelyards, and we'll weigh the turkey. We can do it as well as +anybody." + +Submit left her spinning wheel. She was quite pale with trepidation +when Jonas and she adjusted the turkey in the steelyards. What if +those bullets should rattle out? But they did not. + +"He weighs twenty pounds and a quarter," announced Jonas, with a +gasp, after peering anxiously at the figures. "He's the biggest turkey +that was ever raised in these parts." + +Jonas exulted a great deal, but Submit did not say much. As soon as +Jonas had laid the turkey back on the shelf and gone out, she watched +her chance and removed the bullets, replacing them in the pewter dish. + +When Mr. Thompson and Thomas came home at twilight there was a deal of +talk over the turkey. + +"The Adams' turkey doesn't weigh but nineteen pounds," Jonas +announced. "Sarah was out there when they weighed him, and she 'most +cried." + +"I think Sarah and Submit and all of you are very foolish about it," +said Mrs. Thompson severely. "What difference does it make if one +weighs a pound or two more than the other, if there is enough to go +round?" + +"Submit looks as if she was sorry ours weighed the most now," said +Jonas. + +"My thumb aches," said Submit. + +"Go and get the balm of Gilead bottle, and put some more on," ordered +her mother. + +That night when she went to bed she could not say her prayers. When +she woke in the morning it was with a strange, terrified feeling, as +if she had climbed a wall into some unknown dreadful land. She +wondered if Sarah would bring Thankful over; she dreaded to see her +coming, but she did not come. Submit herself did not stir out of the +house all that day or the next, and Sarah did not bring Thankful until +next morning. + +They were all out in the kitchen about an hour before dinner. +Grandfather Thompson sat in his old armchair at one corner of the +fireplace, Grandmother Thompson was knitting, and Jonas and Submit +were cracking butternuts. Submit was a little happier this morning. +She thought Sarah would never bring Thankful, and so she had not done +so much harm by cheating in the weight of the turkey. + +There was a tug at the latch of the kitchen door; it was pushed open +slowly and painfully, and Sarah entered with Thankful in her arms. She +said not a word to anybody, but her little face was full of woe. She +went straight to Submit, and laid Thankful in her lap; then she turned +and fled with a great sob. The door slammed after her. All the +Thompsons stopped and looked at Submit. + +"Submit, what does this mean?" her father asked. + +Submit looked at him, trembling. + +"Speak," said he. + +"Submit, mind your father," said Mrs. Thompson. + +"What did she bring you the doll baby for?" asked Grandmother +Thompson. + +"Sarah--was going to give me Thankful if--our turkey weighed most, and +I was going to--give her my work-box if hers weighed most," said +Submit jerkily. Her lips felt stiff. + +Her father looked very sober and stern. He turned to his father. When +Grandfather Thompson was at home, every one deferred to him. Even at +eighty he was the recognized head of the house. He was a wonderful +old man, tall and soldierly, and full of a grave dignity. He looked at +Submit, and she shrank. + +"Do you know," said he, "that you have been conducting yourself like +unto the brawlers in the taverns and ale-houses?" + +"Yes, sir," murmured Submit, although she did not know what he meant. + +"No godly maid who heeds her elders will take part in any such foolish +and sinful wager," her grandfather continued. + +Submit arose, hugging Thankful convulsively. She glanced wildly at her +great-grandmother's musket over the shelf. The same spirit that had +aimed it at the Indian possessed her, and she spoke out quite clearly: +"Our turkey didn't weigh the most," said she. "I put the Revolutionary +bullets in his crop." + +There was silence. Submit's heart beat so hard that Thankful quivered. + +"Go upstairs to your chamber, Submit," said her mother, "and you need +not come down to dinner. Jonas, take that doll and carry it over to +the Adams' house." + +Submit crept miserably out of the room, and Jonas carried Thankful +across the yard to Sarah. + +Submit crouched beside her little square window set with tiny panes of +glass, and watched him. She did not cry. She was very miserable, but +confession had awakened a salutary smart in her soul, like the balm +of Gilead on her cut thumb. She was not so unhappy as she had been. +She wondered if her father would whip her, and she made up her mind +not to cry if he did. + +After Jonas came back she still crouched at the window. Exactly +opposite in the Adams' house was another little square window, and +that lighted Sarah's chamber. All of a sudden Sarah's face appeared +there. The two little girls stared pitifully at each other. Presently +Sarah raised her window, and put a stick under it; then Submit did the +same. They put their faces out, and looked at each other a minute +before speaking. Sarah's face was streaming with tears. + +"What you crying for?" called Submit softly. + +"Father sent me up here 'cause it is sinful to--make bets, and Aunt +Rose has come, and I can't have any--Thanksgiving dinner," wailed +Sarah. + +"I'm wickeder than you," said Submit. "I put the Revolutionary bullets +in the turkey to make it weigh more than yours. Yours weighed the +most. If mother thinks it's right, I'll give you the work-box." + +"I don't--want it," sobbed Sarah. "I'm dreadful sorry you've got to +stay up there, and can't have any dinner, Submit." + +Answering tears sprang to Submit's eyes. "I'm dreadful sorry you've +got to stay up there, and can't have any dinner," she sobbed back. + +There was a touch on her shoulder. She looked around and there stood +the grandmother. She was trying to look severe, but she was beaming +kindly on her. Her fat, fair old face was as gentle as the mercy that +tempers justice; her horn spectacles and her knitting needles and the +gold beads on her neck all shone in the sunlight. + +"You had better come downstairs, child," said she. "Dinner's 'most +ready, and mebbe you can help your mother. Your father isn't going to +whip you this time, because you told the truth about it, but you +mustn't ever do such a dreadful wicked thing again." + +"No, I won't," sobbed Submit. She looked across, and there beside +Sarah's face in the window was another beautiful smiling one. It had +pink cheeks and sweet black eyes and black curls, among which stood a +high tortoise-shell comb. + +"Oh, Submit!" Sarah called out, joyfully, "Aunt Rose says I can go +down to dinner!" + +"Grandmother says I can!" called back Submit. + +The beautiful smiling face opposite leaned close to Sarah's for a +minute. + +"Oh, Submit!" cried Sarah, "Aunt Rose says she will make you a doll +baby like Thankful, if your mother's willing!" + +"I guess she'll be willing if she's a good girl," called Grandmother +Thompson. + +Submit looked across a second in speechless radiance. Then the faces +vanished from the two little windows, and Submit and Sarah went down +to their Thanksgiving dinners. + + + + +BEETLE RING'S THANKSGIVING MASCOT[2] + +BY SHELDON C. STODDARD. + + Beetle Ring had the reputation of being the toughest lumber + camp on the river. The boys were certainly rough, and rather + hard drinkers, but their hearts were in the right place, + after all. + + +Six months of idleness following a long run of fever, a lost position, +and consequent discouragement had brought poverty and wretchedness to +Joe Bennett. + +The lumber camp on the Featherstone, where he had been at work, had +broken up and gone, and an old shack, deserted by some hunter, and now +standing alone in the great woods, was the only home he could provide +for his little family. It had answered its purpose as a makeshift in +the warm weather, but now, in late November, and with the terrible +northern winter coming swiftly on, it was small wonder the young +lumberman had been discouraged as he tried to forecast the future. + +His strength had returned, however, and lately something of his old +courage, for he had found work. It was fifteen miles away, to be sure, +and in "Beetle Ring" lumber camp, the camp that bore the reputation of +being the roughest on the Featherstone, but it was work. + +[Footnote 2: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 30, 1905.] + +He was earning something, and might hope soon to move his family into +a habitable house and civilization. + +But his position at Beetle Ring was not an enviable one. The men took +scant pains to conceal their dislike for the young fellow who +steadfastly refused to "chip in" when the camp jug was sent to the +Skylark, the nearest saloon, some miles down the river, and who +invariably declined to join in the camp's numerous sprees. But Bennett +worked on quietly. + +And in the meantime to the old shack in the woods the baby had +come--in the bleak November weather. + +Night was settling down over the woods. An old half-breed woman was +tending the fire in the one room of the shack, and on the wretched bed +lay a fair-faced woman, the young wife and mother, who looked +wistfully out at the bleak woods, white with the first snow, then +turned her wan, pale face toward the tiny bundle at her side. + +"Your pappy will come to-night, baby," she said, softly. "It's +Saturday, and your pappy will come to-night, sure." She drew the +covers more closely, and tucked them carefully about the small figure. + +"Mend the fire, Lisette, please. It's cold. And, Lisette, please watch +out down the road. Sometimes Joe comes early Saturdays." + +The old woman shook her head and muttered over the little pile of +wood, but she fed the fire, and then turned and looked down the long +white trail. + +"No Joe yet," she said, with a sympathetic glance toward the bed. She +looked at the thick gray clouds, and added, "Heap snow soon." + +But the night came down and the evening passed, while the women waited +anxiously. It was near midnight when the wife's face lighted up +suddenly at a sound outside, and directly there was a pounding, +uncertain step on the threshold. The door opened and Bennett came in +clumsily. + +The woman's little glad cry of welcome was changed to one of +apprehension at her husband's appearance. The resolute swing and +bearing of the lumberman--that had returned as he regained his +strength--were gone. He clumped across the room unsteadily on a pair +of rude crutches, his left foot swathed in bandages--a big, ungainly +bundle. + +"What is it, Joe?" the wife asked anxiously. + +"Just more of my precious luck, that's all, Nannie." He threw off the +old box coat and heavy cap, brushed the melting snow from his hair and +beard, and without waiting to warm his chilled hands at the fire, +hobbled to the bed and bent over the woman and the tiny bundle. + +"Are you all right, Nan?" he asked anxiously. + +"All right, Joe; but I've been so worried!" + +"And the baby, Nan?" + +The wife gently pushed back the covers and proudly brought to view a +tiny pink and puckered face. "Fine, Joe. She's just as fine, isn't +she?" + +A proud, happy light flickered for a moment in the man's eyes as he +stooped to kiss the tiny face; then he shut his teeth hard and +swallowed suddenly. + +"What is it, Joe?" his wife asked, looking at the rudely bandaged +foot. + +"Cut it--nigh half off, and hurt the bone. It'll be weeks before I can +do a stroke of work again. It means--I don't know what, and I daren't +think what, Nannie. The cook sewed it up." He glowered at the injured +member savagely. + +His wife's face grew paler still, but she only asked tenderly, "How +did you ever get here, Joe?" + +"Rode one of Pose Breem's hosses--his red roan." + +"Fifteen miles on horseback with that foot? I should have thought it +would have killed you, Joe." + +"I had to come, Nan," said the lumberman. "I didn't know how you were +getting on, and I had to come." + +"I didn't suppose they'd let you have a horse, any of 'em, now +sleighing's come." + +"They wouldn't--if I'd asked 'em. They don't seem to like me very +well, and I didn't ask." + +His wife's big, wistful eyes were turned upon him in quick alarm. "I'm +scared, Joe, if you took a horse without asking. What'll they think? +Where is it, Joe?" + +"Don't ye worry, Nan. I've sent the horse back by Pikepole Pete. He'll +have him back before morning--Pose won't miss him till then--and I +wrote a note explaining. Pose will be mad some, but he'll get over +it." + +The young lumberman listened uneasily to the storm, which was +increasing, looked at his wife's pale face a moment, and added: + +"I had to come, Nan. I just had to." + +But the woman was only half reassured. "If anything should happen," +she said, "if he shouldn't get it back, they'd think you--you stole +it, and--" + +"There, there, Nan!" broke in her husband, "don't be crossing bridges. +Pete'll take the horse back. I've done the fellow lots of favours, and +he won't go back on me. Don't worry, girl!" + +He moved the bandaged foot and winced, but not from the pain of the +wound. The hard look grew deeper on his face. "I'm down on my luck, +Nan," he said, hopelessly. "There's no use trying. Everything's +against me, everything--following me like grim death. And grim death," +he jerked the words out harshly, "is like to be the end of it, here in +this old shack that's not fit to winter hogs in, let alone humans. +There's not wood enough cut to last a week. You'll freeze, Nan, you +and the baby, and I'm--just nothing." + +He took two silver dollars from his pocket, and said, almost savagely, +"There's what we've got to winter on, and me crippled." + +But his wife put her hand on his softly. "Don't you give up so, Joe," +she said. And presently she added: "Next Thursday's Thanksgiving. +We've seen hard times, and we may see harder, but I never knew +Thanksgiving to come yet without something to be thankful +for--never." + +Outside the storm continued, fine snow sifting down rapidly. "Pikepole +Pete" found stiff work facing it, and bent low over the red roan's +neck. + +"Blue blazes!" he muttered. "Bennett's a good fellow all right, and +he's hurt; but if he hadn't nigh saved my life twice he could get this +critter back himself fer all of me!" He glanced at the dark woods and +drew up suddenly. "The road forks here, and Turner's is yonder--less +than a mile. I'll hitch in his barn a spell and go on later," and he +took the Turner fork. + +But at Turner's Pete found two or three congenial spirits--and a jug; +and a few hours later the easy-going fellow was deep in a tipsy sleep +that would last for hours. + +The following Sunday morning came bright and clear upon freshly fallen +snow that softened all the ruder outlines of town and field and woods. +Beetle Ring camp lay wrapped in fleecy whiteness. + +The camp was late astir, for Sunday was Beetle Ring's day--not of +rest, but of carousal. Two men had started out rather early--the +camp's jug delegation to the Skylark. Presently the men began to +straggle out to the snug row of sheds where the horses were kept. +Posey Breem yawned lazily as he threw open the door of his particular +stall, then suddenly brought himself together with a jerk and stared +fixedly. + +"What ails you now, Pose? Seen a ghost?" + +"Skid" Thomson stopped with the big measure of feed which he was +carrying. + +"No, I've seen no ghost," said Breem slowly, still staring. "Look +here, Skid!" Thomson looked into the stall, and nearly dropped the +measure. + +"By George, Pose!" he said. "By--George!" + +The news flew over the camp like wildfire. Posey Breem's red roan, the +best horse in the camp, had been stolen! The burly lumbermen came +hurrying from all directions. There was no doubt about it--the horse +was gone, and the snow had covered every trace. There was absolutely +no clue to follow. Silently and sullenly the men filed in to +breakfast. In a lumberman's eyes hardly a crime could exceed that of +horse stealing. + +"What I want to know is," said Breem, as he glanced sharply round the +long room of the camp, "what's become of that yellow-haired +jay--Bennett?" + +"By George!" said Skid Thomson, "that's right! Where is the critter?" + +"Skipped!" said Bill Bates, sententiously, after a quick search had +been made. "It's all plain enough now. I never liked the close-fisted +critter." + +"Nor I, either!" growled Skid. "Never chipped in with the boys, but +was laying low just the same." + +"You won't catch him, either," said Bates. "They're sharp--that kind. +The critter knew 'twould snow and hide his tracks." + +"And I'd just sewed up his blamed foot!" muttered the cook in disgust. + +"Maybe we'll catch him. Up to Fat Pine two years ago," began Breem, +reminiscently, "Big Donovan had a horse stole. They caught the +fellow." + +"Yes, I remember," said Skid Thomson. "I was there. We caught him up +north." The men nodded understandingly and approvingly. + +"Wuth a hundred and fifty dollars, the roan was," said Breem. + +Beetle Ring camp passed an uneasy day, the "jug" for once receiving +scant attention. Late in the afternoon "Trapper John," an old +half-breed who hunted and trapped about the woods, stopped at the camp +to get warm. + +"Didn't see anybody with a horse last night or this morning, eh, +John?" asked Posey Breem. + +"Um, yes," responded the old trapper, quickly. "Saw um horse las' +night--man ride--big foot--so." Old John held out his arms in +exaggerated illustration. + +Beetle Ring rose to its feet as one man. "What colour was the horse, +John?" asked Breem softly. + +"Huh! Can't see good after dark, but think um roan." Breem looked +slowly round the silent camp, and Beetle Ring grimly made ready for +business. + +It was evening when the men stopped a few rods below the shack. A +light shone out from a window, lighting up a little space in the +sombre woods. + +"The fellow's got pals prob'bly," said Posey Breem. "You wait here +while I do a little scouting." + +Breem crept cautiously into the circle of light, and glancing through +the uncurtained window, saw his man--with his "pals." He saw upon the +miserable bed a woman with a thin, pale face and sad, wistful eyes, +eyes that yet lighted up with a beautiful pride as they rested upon +the man, who sat close by, holding a tiny bundle in his arms. + +The man shifted his position a little, so that the light fell upon the +bundle, and then the watcher outside saw the sleeping face of a baby. + +There was a rumour in the camp that Posey Breem had not always been +the man that he was--that a woman had once blessed his life. But since +they had carried the young mother away, with her dead baby on her +breast, to place the two in one deep grave together, he had gone +steadily downward. + +With hungry eyes Breem gazed at the scene in the poor little house, +his thoughts flying backward over the years. A sudden sharp, impatient +whistle roused him, and he strode hastily back to the waiting men. + +"Well, Pose?" interrogated Skid impatiently. + +"He's there, all right," said Breem, in a peculiar tone. "I ain't +overmuch given to advising prowling round folks' houses, but you +fellows just look in yonder." He jerked his head toward the shack. And +a line of big, rough-looking men filed into the little illumined +space, to come back presently silent and subdued. + +"Now let's go home," said Breem, turning his horse toward camp. + +"And your horse, Pose?" questioned Bates. + +"Burn the horse!" said Breem quickly. "D'ye think the like of yonder's +a horse thief? I ain't worrying 'bout the horse." And the men rode +back to camp silently. + +The next morning, when Breem swung open the door of the stall, he was +not surprised to find the red roan standing quietly by the side of his +mate. A bit of crumpled paper was pinned to the blanket. Breem read: + + I rode your horse. I had to. I'll surely make it right. + + BENNETT. + +"Course he had to!" growled the lumberman, and he passed the paper +round. + +"Oncommon peart baby," said Skid, at last. + +"Dreadful cold shack, though!" muttered Bates, conveying a quarter of +a griddlecake to his mouth. + +"That's just it," said Pose, scowling. "Just let a stiff nip of winter +come, and the woman yonder and the little critter, they'd freeze, +that's what they'd do, in that old rattletrap." + +The men looked at one another in solemn assent. "And I've been +thinking," continued Breem, "since Bennett there belonged to the camp, +and since we kind of misused the fellow for being stingy--for which we +ought to have been smashed with logs--that we have a kind of a claim +on 'em, as 'twere, and they on us. And we must get 'em out of that +yonder before they freeze plumb solid." He stopped inquiringly. + +"Right as right," assented several. + +"And I've been thinking," said Bates suddenly, "about that storeroom +of ours. It's snug and warm, and there's a lot of room in it, and we +can put a stove into it and--" But the rest of Bates's suggestion was +drowned in a round of applause. + +"And _I've_ been thinking, just a little," put in Skid Thomson, "and +if I've figured correct, next Thursday's Thanksgiving--don't know as +I've thought of it in ten years--and if we stir round sharp we can get +things ready by then, and--well, 'twouldn't hurt Beetle Ring to +celebrate for once--" But Skid was also interrupted by a cheer. + +"And it's my firm belief," reflected Bates with an air of profound +conviction, "that that baby of Bennett's was designed special and, as +you might say, providential, for to be Beetle Ring's mascot. Fat Pine +and Horseshoe have 'em--mascots--to bring luck, and I've noticed +Beetle Ring ain't had the luck lately it should have." + +Bates paused, and the camp meditated in silent delight. + +Thanksgiving morning was a cold one, but clear. More snow had fallen, +and the deep, feathery whiteness stretched away until lost in the dark +background of the pines and spruces. A wavering line of smoke rose +over the roof of the little old shack in the woods. + +Bennett was winding rags round the armpieces of the rough crutches. He +had dragged in some short limbs the day before for fuel, but in so +doing had broken open the wound, which gave him excruciating pain. + +"Joe," said his wife, suddenly, "where are you going?" + +"I'm going to try for help, Nan. We're out of nigh everything, and my +foot no better." + +"You can't do it, Joe. You--you'll die, if you try, Joe, alone in the +woods. Oh, Joe!" + +The look of hope that had never wholly left the woman's eyes was +slowly fading out. + +"We'll all die if I don't try, Nannie. I'm--" + +"Huh!" suddenly exclaimed the old woman, peering out of the little +window. "Heap men, heap horses! Look, see 'em come!" + +Bennett turned hastily, and saw a long line of stalwart men and sturdy +horses threshing resolutely through the deep snow and heading directly +for the shack. He looked keenly at the men, and his face paled a +little, but he said steadily, "It's the Beetle Ring men, Nan." + +His wife gave a sharp cry. "It's the horse, Joe! It's the horse! +They're after you, Joe, sure!" She caught her husband's arm. + +The men were now filling up the little space before the shack. +Directly there came a sounding knock. Bennett opened the door to admit +the burly frame of Posey Breem. He said quietly: + +"I'm here all right, Pose, and I took your horse, but--" + +"Burn the hoss!" said Breem explosively. "That's all right. Shake, +pard!" He held out a brawny hand. Bennett "shook" wonderingly. + +"Wife, pard?" asked Breem, gently, nodding toward the bed. Bennett +hastily introduced him. + +"Kid, pard?" Breem pointed a stubby finger at the little bundle. + +Bennett nodded. + +The lumberman grinned delightedly, then coughed a little, and began +awkwardly: + +"Pard, th' boys over at Beetle Ring heard--as you might say, +accidental"--Breem coughed into his big hand--"about your folks over +here, your wife _and_--the baby. They were powerful interested, +specially about the baby. Why, pard, some of the boys hain't seen a +baby in ten years, and we thought as you belonged to the camp, maybe +you and your wife would allow that the camp had a sort of claim on the +little critter yonder." He eyed the tiny bundle wistfully. + +"And another thing that hit the boys, pard," he went on. "Up at Fat +Pine they got what they call a mascot, bein' a tame b'ar; an' up at +Horseshoe they got a mascot, bein' a goat. Lots of camps have +'em--fetches luck. And the boys are sure that this baby of yours was +designed special to be Beetle Ring's mascot. Now, pard, Beetle Ring, +as you know, ain't what you'd call a Sunday-school, but the boys +they'll behave. They fixed up that storeroom to beat all, nice bed, +big stove, and lots of wood, and so on, and we've got a cow for the +woman and baby. Say, we want you powerful. Got a sleigh fixed, hemlock +boughs and a cover of robes and blankets, and Skid'll drive careful. +He's a master at drivin', Skid is. You'll come, won't you? The boys +are waitin'." + +Big tears were in the woman's eyes as she turned toward her husband. +"Oh, Joe," she said, and choked suddenly; but she pressed the baby +tightly to her breast. "I knew 'twould come Thanksgiving." + +"There, pard," said Breem, after blowing his nose explosively, "you +just see to wrappin' up the woman and the kid, and me and Skid, being +as you're hurt, you know, 'll tote 'em out to the sleigh." + +The young mother was soon placed carefully in the sleigh, the old +woman following. But when Skid Thomson appeared in the door of the old +shack, bearing a tiny form muffled up with wondrous care, the whole of +Beetle Ring shouted. + +Breem led up a spare horse for Bennett's use. The latter stopped +short, with a curious expression on his face. The horse was the red +roan. + +But Breem only said, his keen eyes twinkling: + +"Under such circumstances as these, pard, you're welcome to all the +hosses in Beetle Ring." + +With steady, practiced hand Skid Thomson guided his powerful team +through the deep snow, over the rough forest road; and sometimes +brawny arms carried the sleigh bodily over the roughest places. + + * * * * * + +At the close of the day an anxious consultation took place in the big +main room of Beetle Ring, and presently two men appeared outside. + +They walked slowly toward what had been the camp's storeroom, but +halted before the door hesitatingly. + +"You go in ahead, Skid, and ask 'em," said Breem, earnestly, to his +companion. + +"No, go ahead yourself, Pose. I'd be sure to calk a hoss or split a +runner, or somethin'. Go on!" + +Breem knocked, and both went in. + +"All right, pard?" + +"Right as right, Pose," said Joe Bennett. + +"Wife all right?" Breem turned toward the bed, and Mrs. Bennett smiled +up at him with happy eyes, and with a bit of colour already showing in +her pale face. Breem smiled back broadly. Then he asked, "_And_, pard, +the baby?" + +"Peart as peart, Pose." + +Breem waited a little, twirling his cap, but receiving a sharp thump +from Thomson, went on: + +"The boys, pard, are anxious about the little critter. They're kind of +hankering, pard, and, mum, if you are willin', and ain't 'fraid to +trust her with us, why, we'd be mighty glad to tote her--just for a +few minutes--over to camp. The boys are stiddy, all of 'em, stiddy as +churches. They hain't soaked a mite to-day, mum, and they ain't goin' +to; they've hove the jug into a snowdrift, and they'd take it kind, +mum--if you are willin'." + +The woman, still smiling happily, was already wrapping up the baby. + +Breem held up a warning finger when he returned a little later, and +again smiled delightedly. + +"Went to sleep a-totin'--if you'll believe it, the burned little +critter!" he said, softly. "And," he added, "the boys, pard, are +mighty pleased; and, mum, they thank you kindly. They say, the boys +do, there ain't such a mascot as theirs in five hundred miles; they +see luck comin', chunks of it, pard, already." And the big fellow went +out and closed the door gently. + + + + +MISTRESS ESTEEM ELLIOTT'S MOLASSES CAKE[3] + +The Story of a Postponed Thanksgiving[4] + +By Kate Upson Clark. + + Older boys and girls who are familiar with "The Courtship of + Miles Standish" will enjoy the colonial flavour of this tale + of 1705. + + +"Obed!" called Mistress Achsah Ely from her front porch, "step thee +over to Squire Belding's, quick! Here's a teacup! Ask Mistress Belding +for the loan of some molasses. Nothing but molasses and hot water +helps the baby when he is having such a turn of colic. Beseems me he +will have a fit! Make haste, Obed!" + +[Footnote 3: From _Wideawake_, November, 1891, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.] + +[Footnote 4: The main facts in this story are strictly historical.] + +At that very moment Squire Belding's little daughter Hitty was +travelling toward Mistress Ely's for the purpose of borrowing molasses +wherewith to sweeten a ginger cake. Hitty and Obed, who were of an +age, met, compared notes, and then returned to their respective homes. +Shortly afterward both of them darted forth again, bound on the same +errands as before, only in different directions. + +Mr. Chapin, the storekeeper, hadn't "set eyes on any molasses for a +week. The river's frozen over so mean and solid," he said, "there's no +knowing when there'll be any molasses in town." + +There had been very peculiar weather in Colchester during this month +of October, 1705. First, on the 13th (Old Style), an unprecedently +early date, had come a "terrible cold snap," lasting three days. This +was followed by two days of phenomenal mildness. The river had frozen +over during the "cold snap," and the ice had melted during the warm +days, until, on the 19th, it was breaking up and preparing to go out +to sea. In the night of the 19th had descended a frigid blast, colder +than the original one. This had arrested the broken ice, piled it up +in all sorts of fantastic forms, and congealed it till it looked like +a rough Alaskan glacier. After the cold wind had come a heavy +snowstorm. All Colchester lay under three feet of snow. Footpaths and +roads were broken out somewhat in the immediate village, but no +farther. It was most unusual to have the river closed so early in the +season, and consequently the winter supplies, which were secured from +New London and Norwich, had not been laid in. Even Mr. Chapin, the +storekeeper, was but poorly supplied with staples of which he +ordinarily kept an abundance on hand. + +Therefore when Obed and Hitty had made the tour of the neighbourhood +they found but one family, that of Deacon Esteem Elliott, the richest +man in the place, which had any molasses. Mistress Elliott, in spite +of her wealth, was said to be "none too free with her stuff," and she +was not minded to lend any molasses under the circumstances, for "a +trifling foolish" cake. Obed's representation of the distress of the +Ely baby, however, appealed even to her, and she lent him a large +spoonful of the precious liquid. + +That afternoon there was as much visiting about among the Colchester +housewives as the drifts permitted. Such a state of things had never +been known since the town was settled. No molasses! And Thanksgiving +appointed for the first Thursday in November! Pray what would +Thanksgiving amount to, they inquired, with no pumpkin pies, no baked +beans, no molasses cake, no proper sweetening for the rum so freely +used in those days? + +Mistress Esteem Elliott was even more troubled than the rest of +Colchester, for was not her buxom daughter, and only child, Prudence +Ann, to be married on Thanksgiving Day to the son of a great magnate +in the neighbouring town of Hebron? And was it not the intention to +invite all of the aristocracy of both towns to be present at the +marriage feast? + +Mistress Elliott accordingly pursued her way upon this Tuesday +afternoon, October 19, 1705, over to Mistress Achsah Ely's. There she +found Mistress Belding, who, remembering Mistress Elliott's refusal to +lend her molasses, was naturally somewhat chill in her manner. + +Mistress Elliott had scarcely pulled off her homespun leggings (made +with stout and ample feet) and pulled out her knitting work, when +Mistress Camberly, the parson's wife, a lady of robust habit and +voluble tongue, came in. + +"And what are we going to do, Mistress Ely?" she burst out, as soon as +the door was opened at her knock. "Not a drop of molasses to be had +for love nor money, and Thanksgiving Day set for the 4th of November!" + +"Mistress Elliott has a-plenty of molasses," affirmed Mistress +Belding, with a haughty look at her unaccommodating neighbour. + +"I'd have you to know, Mistress Betty Belding," retorted Mistress +Elliott, "that I have a bare quart or so in my jug, and, so far as I +can learn, that is all that the whole town of Colchester has got to +depend upon till the roads or the river can be broken to Norwich." + +Mistress Ely well understood this little passage-at-arms, for Obed had +told her the whole story; but as her baby had been cured by Mistress +Elliott's molasses, she did not think it proper to interfere in the +matter. Neither did the good parson's wife, although she could not +comprehend the rights of the case. She simply repeated her first +question: "What are we going to do about it, I should like to know?" + +"I wonder if Thanksgiving Day could not be put off a week," suggested +Mistress Belding, who had a good head, and was even reported to give +such advice to her husband that he always thought best to heed it. + +"Such a thing was never heard of!" cried Mistress Elliott. + +"But there's no law against it," insisted Mistress Belding boldly. "By +a week from the set day there will surely be some means of getting +about the country, and then we can have a Thanksgiving that's worth +the setting down to." + +After a long talk the good women separated in some doubt, but as +Squire Belding and Mr. Ely were two of the three selectmen, they were +soon acquainted with the drift of the afternoon's discussion. The +result of it all is thus chronicled in the town records of Colchester: + + "At a legal town-meeting held in Colchester, October 29, + 1705, it was voted that WHEREAS there was a Thanksgiving + appointed to be held on the first Thursday in November, and + our present circumstances being such that it cannot with + convenience be attended on that day, it is therefore voted + and agreed by the inhabitants as aforesaid (concluding the + thing will not be otherwise than well resented) that the + second Thursday of November aforesaid shall be set aside for + that service." + +This proceeding was, on the whole, as the selectmen had hoped that it +would be, "well resented" among the Colchester people, but there was +one household in which there was rebellion at the mandate. In the +great sanded kitchen of Deacon Esteem Elliott pretty, spoilt Prudence +Ann was fairly raging over it. + +"I had set my heart on being married on Thanksgiving Day," she sobbed, +"And here it won't be Thanksgiving Day at all! And as for putting off +a wedding, everybody knows there is no surer way of bringing ill luck +down than that! I say I won't have it put off! But we can't have any +party with no molasses in town! Oh, dear! I might as well be married +in the back kitchen with a linsey gown on, as if I were the daughter +of old Betty, the pie woman! There!" + +Then the proud girl would break into fresh sobs, and vow vengeance +upon the selectmen of Colchester. She even sent her father to +expostulate with them, but it was of no use. They had known all along +that the Elliotts did not want the festival day put off, but nobody in +Colchester minded very much if the Elliotts were a little crossed. + +Prudence Ann would not face the reality till after the Sabbath was +past. On that day the expectant bridegroom managed to break his way +through the drifts from Hebron, and he was truly grieved, as he should +have been, at the very unhappy state of mind of his betrothed. He +avowed himself, however, in a way which augured well for the young +people's future, ready to do just what Prudence Ann and her family +decided was best. + +On Monday morning Mistress Elliott sat down with her unreasonable +daughter and had a serious talk with her. + +"Now, Prudence Ann," she began, "you must give up crying and fretting. +If you are going to be married on Thursday, we have got a great deal +of work to do between now and then. If you are going to wait till +next week, I want to know it. Of course you can't have a large party, +if you choose to be married on the 4th, but we will ask John's folks +and Aunt Susanna and Uncle Martin and Parson Camberley and his wife. +We can bake enough for them with what's in the house. If you wait +another week, you can probably have a better party--and now you have +it all in a nutshell." + +Prudence Ann was hysterical even yet, but at last her terror of a +postponed wedding overcame every other consideration. The day was set +for the 4th, and the few guests were bidden accordingly. + +On the morning of the wedding, on a neat shelf in the back kitchen of +the Elliott residence, various delicacies were resting, which had been +baked for the banquet. Mistress Elliott's molasses had sufficed to +make a vast cake and several pumpkin pies. These, hot from the oven, +had been placed in the coolness of the back kitchen until they should +be ready for eating. + +It so happened that Miss Hitty Belding's sharp eyes, as she passed +Mistress Elliott's back door, bound on an errand to the house of the +neighbour living just beyond, fell upon the rich golden brown of this +wonderful cake. As such toothsome dainties were rare in Colchester at +just this time, it is not strange that her childish soul coveted it, +for Hitty was but ten years old. As she walked on she met Obed Ely. + +"I tell you what, Obed," said Miss Hitty, "you ought to see the great +molasses cake which Mistress Elliott has made for Prudence Ann's +wedding. It is in her back kitchen. I saw it right by the door. Mean +old thing! She wouldn't lend my mother any molasses to make _us_ a +cake. I wish I had hers!" + +"So do I!" rejoined Obed, with watering lips. "I'm going to peek in +and see it." + +Obed went and "peeked," while Hitty sauntered slowly on. The +contemplation of the cake under the circumstances was too much for +even so well-brought-up a boy as Obed. Without stopping to really +think what he was doing, he unwound from his neck his great woollen +"comforter," wrapped it hastily around the cake, and was walking with +it beside Hitty in the lonely, drifted country road five minutes +later. The hearts of the two little conspirators--for they felt guilty +enough--beat very hard, but they could not help thinking how good that +cake would taste. A certain Goodsir Canty's cornhouse stood near them +in a clump of trees beside the road, and as the door was open they +crept in, gulped down great "chunks" of cake, distributed vast slices +of what was left about their persons, Obed taking by far the lion's +share, and then they parted, vowing eternal secrecy. Nobody had seen +them, and something which happened just after they had left Mistress +Elliott's back kitchen directed suspicion to an entirely different +quarter. + +Not two minutes after Obed's "comforter" had been thrown around the +great cake a beautiful calf, the pride of Mistress Elliott's heart, +and which was usually kept tied in the barn just beyond the back +kitchen, somehow unfastened her rope and came strolling along past the +open back door. The odour of the pumpkin pies naturally interested +her, and she proceeded to lick up the delicious creamy filling of one +after another with great zest. + +Just as she was finishing the very last one of the four or five which +had stood there, Mistress Elliott appeared upon the scene, to find her +precious dainties faded like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving +behind them only a few broken bits of pie crust. A series of "short, +sharp shocks" (as described in "The Mikado") then rent the air, +summoning Prudence Ann and Delcy, the maid, to the scene of the +calamity. Let us draw a veil over the succeeding ten minutes. + +At the end of that time Prudence Ann lay upon the sitting-room lounge +(or "settle," as they called it then) passing from one fainting fit +into another, and Delcy was out in search of the doctor and such +family friends as were likely to be of service in this unexpected +dilemma. It was, of course, supposed that the calf had devoured the +whole of the mighty cake as well as the pies. It was lucky for Obed +and Hitty that the poor beast could not speak. As it was, nobody so +much as thought of accusing them of the theft, though there were +plenty of crumbs in their pockets, while the death of the innocent +heifer was loudly demanded by the angry Prudence Ann. It was only by +artifice and diplomacy that Mistress Elliott was able to preserve the +life of her favourite, which, if it had really eaten the cake, must +surely have perished. + +The wedding finally came off on the 4th, though there was a pouting +bride, and nuts, apples, and cider were said to be the chief +refreshments. Prudence Ann, however, probably secured the "good luck" +for which she was so anxious, for there is no record nor tradition to +the contrary in all Colchester. + +Nothing would probably ever have been known of the real fate of the +famous cake if the tale had not been told by Mistress Hitty in her old +age to her grandchildren, with appropriate warnings to them never to +commit similar misdemeanours themselves. + +Little Obed Ely, the active agent in the theft, died not long after +it. His tombstone, very black and crumbled, stands in one of the old +burying grounds of the town, but nothing is carved upon it as to the +cause of his early death. + +The story of the Colchester molasses famine, and the consequent +postponement of their Thanksgiving, naturally spread throughout all +the surrounding towns. It was said that in one of these a party of +roguish boys loaded an old cannon with molasses and fired it in the +direction of Colchester. How they did this has not been stated, and +some irreverent disbelievers in the more uncommon of our grandfathers' +stories have profanely declared it a myth. + + + + +THE FIRST THANKSGIVING[5] + +By Albert F. Blaisdell and Francis K. Ball. + + A story of the time long ago when the Pilgrims of Plymouth + invited the Indian chief Massasoit and his followers to + share their feast. + + +All through the first summer and the early part of autumn the Pilgrims +were busy and happy. They had planted and cared for their first fields +of corn. They had found wild strawberries in the meadows, raspberries +on the hillsides, and wild grapes in the woods. + +[Footnote 5: From "Short Stories from American History," Ginn & Co.] + +In the forest just back of the village wild turkeys and deer were +easily shot. In the shallow waters of the bay there was plenty of +fish, clams, and lobsters. + +The summer had been warm, with a good deal of rain and much sunshine; +and so when the autumn came there was a fine crop of corn. + +"Let us gather the fruits of our first labours and rejoice together," +said Governor Bradford. + +"Yes," said Elder Brewster, "let us take a day upon which we may thank +God for all our blessings, and invite to it our Indian friends who +have been so kind to us." + +The Pilgrims said that one day was not enough; so they planned to +have a celebration for a whole week. This took place most likely in +October. + +The great Indian chief, Massasoit, came with ninety of his bravest +warriors, all gayly dressed in deerskins, feathers, and foxtails, with +their faces smeared with red, white, and yellow paint. + +As a sign of rank, Massasoit wore round his neck a string of bones and +a bag of tobacco. In his belt he carried a long knife. His face was +painted red, and his hair was so daubed with oil that Governor +Bradford said he "looked greasily." + +Now there were only eleven buildings in the whole of Plymouth village, +four log storehouses and seven little log dwelling-houses; so the +Indian guests ate and slept out of doors. This was no matter, for it +was one of those warm weeks in the season we call Indian summer. + +To supply meat for the occasion four men had already been sent out to +hunt wild turkeys. They killed enough in one day to last the whole +company almost a week. + +Massasoit helped the feast along by sending some of his best hunters +into the woods. They killed five deer, which they gave to their +paleface friends, that all might have enough to eat. + +Under the trees were built long, rude tables on which were piled baked +clams, broiled fish, roast turkey, and deer meat. + +The young Pilgrim women helped serve the food to the hungry redskins. + +Let us remember two of the fair girls who waited on the tables. One +was Mary Chilton, who leaped from the boat at Plymouth Rock; the other +was Mary Allerton. She lived for seventy-eight years after this first +Thanksgiving, and of those who came over in the _Mayflower_ she was +the last to die. + +What a merry time everybody had during that week! It may be they joked +Governor Bradford about stepping into a deer trap set by the Indians +and being jerked up by the leg. + +How the women must have laughed as they told about the first Monday +morning at Cape Cod, when they all went ashore to wash their clothes! + +It must have been a big washing, for there had been no chance to do it +at sea, so stormy had been the long voyage of sixty-three days. They +little thought that Monday would afterward be kept as washday. + +Then there was young John Howland, who in mid-ocean fell overboard but +was quick enough to catch hold of a trailing rope. Perhaps after +dinner he invited Elizabeth Tilley, whom he afterward married, to sail +over to Clarke's Island and return by moonlight. + +With them, it may be, went John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, whose +love story is so sweetly told by Longfellow. + +One proud mother, we may be sure, showed her bright-eyed boy, +Peregrine White. + +And so the fun went on. In the daytime the young men ran races, played +games, and had a shooting match. Every night the Indians sang and +danced for their friends; and to make things still more lively they +gave every now and then a shrill war whoop that made the woods echo in +the still night air. + +The Indians had already learned to love and fear Captain Miles +Standish. Some of them called him "Boiling Water" because he was +easily made angry. Others called him "Captain Shrimp," on account of +his small size. + +Every morning the shrewd captain put on his armour and paraded his +little company of a dozen or more soldiers; and when he fired off the +cannon on Burial Hill the Indians must have felt that the English were +men of might thus to harness up thunder and lightning. + +During this week of fun and frolic it was a wonder if young Jack +Billington did not play some prank on the Indians. He was the boy who +fired off his father's gun one day, close to a keg of gunpowder, in +the crowded cabin of the _Mayflower_. + +The third day came. Massasoit had been well treated, and no doubt +would have liked to stay longer, but he had said he could stay only +three days. So the pipe of peace was silently passed around. + +Then, taking their presents of glass beads and trinkets, the Indian +king and his warriors said farewell to their English friends and began +their long tramp through the woods to their wigwams on Mount Hope Bay. + +On the last day of this Thanksgiving party the Pilgrims had a service +of prayer and praise. Elder Brewster preached the first Thanksgiving +sermon. After thanking God for all his goodness, he did not forget the +many loved ones sleeping on the hillside. + +He spoke of noble John Carver, the first governor, who had died of +worry and overwork. + +Nor was Rose Standish forgotten, the lovely young wife of Captain +Miles Standish, whose death was caused by cold and lack of good food. + +And then there was gentle Dorothy, wife of Governor Bradford, who had +fallen overboard from the _Mayflower_ in Provincetown harbour while +her husband was coasting along the bleak shore in search of a place +for a home. + +The first Thanksgiving took place nearly three hundred years ago. +Since that time, almost without interruption, Thanksgiving has been +kept by the people of New England as the great family festival of the +year. At this time children and grandchildren return to the old home, +the long table is spread, and brothers and sisters, separated often by +many miles, again sit side by side. + +To-day Thanksgiving is observed in nearly all the states of the Union, +a season of sweet and blessed memories. + + + + +THANKSGIVING AT TODD'S ASYLUM[6] + +By Winthrop Packard. + + Many a chuckle lies in wait for the reader in the pages of + this story. And the humour is of the sweet, mellow sort that + sometimes brings moisture to the eyes as well as laughter to + the lips. + + +People said that if it had not been for that annuity Eph Todd would +have been at the poor farm himself instead of setting up a rival to +it; but there _was_ the annuity, and that was the beginning of Todd's +asylum. + +[Footnote 6: From the _Outlook_, November 19, 1898.] + +No matter who or what you were, if you were in hard luck, Todd's +asylum was open to you. The No. 4 district schoolhouse clock was a +sample. For thirty years it had smiled from the wall upon successive +generations of scholars, until, one day, bowed with years and +infirmities, it had ceased to tick. It had been taken gently down, +laid out on a desk in state for a day or two, and finally was in +funeral procession to the rubbish heap when Eph Todd appeared. + +"You're not going to throw that good old clock away?" Eph had asked of +the committeeman who acted as bearer. + +"Guess I'll have to," replied the other. "I've wound it up tight, put +'most a pint of kerosene in it, and shook it till I'm dizzy, and it +won't tick a bit. Guess the old clock's done for." + +"Now see here," said Eph; "you just let me have a try at it. Let me +take it home a spell." + +"Oh, for that matter I'll give it to you," the committeeman replied. +"We've bought another for the schoolhouse." + +A day or two after the old clock ticked away as soberly as ever on the +wall of the Todd kitchen. + +"Took it home and boiled it in potash," Eph used to say; "and there it +is, just as good as it was thirty years ago." + +This was true, with restrictions, for enough enamel was gone from the +face to make the exact location of the hour an uncertain thing; and +there were days, when the wind was in the east, when the hour hand +needed periodical assistance. + +"It wasn't much of a job," as Eph said, "to reach up once an hour and +send the hand along one space, and Aunt Tildy had to have something to +look forward to." + +Aunt Tildy was the first inmate at Todd's, and if Eph had possessed no +other recommendation to eternal beatitude, surely Aunt Tildy's prayers +had been sufficient. She passed his house on her way to the poor farm +on the very day that news of the legacy arrived, and Eph had stopped +the carriage and begged the overseer to leave her with him. + +"Are you sure you can take care of her?" asked the overseer, +doubtfully. + +"Sure?" echoed Eph with delight. "Of course I'm sure. Ain't I got four +hundred dollars a year for the rest of my natural born days?" + +"He's a good fellow, Eph Todd," mused the overseer as he drove away, +"but I never heard of his having any money." + +Next day the news of the legacy was common property, and Aunt Tildy +had been an inmate at Todd's ever since. Her gratitude knew no bounds, +and she really managed to keep the house after a fashion, her chief +care being the clock. + +Then there was the heaven-born inventor. He had dissipated his +substance in inventing an incubator that worked with wonderful success +till the day the chickens were to come out, when it took fire and +burned up, taking with it chickens, barn, house, and furniture, +leaving the heaven-born inventor standing in the field, thinly clad, +and with nothing left in the world but another incubator. + +With this he had shown up promptly at Todd's, and there he had dwelt +thenceforth, using a pretty fair portion of the annuity in further +incubator experiments. + +With excellent sagacity, for him, Eph had obliged the heaven-born +inventor to keep his machine in a little shed behind the barn, so that +when this one burned up there was time to get the horse and cow out +before the barn burned, and the village fire department managed to +save the house. Repairing this loss made quite a hole in the annuity, +and all the heaven-born inventor had to show for it was Miltiades. He +had put a single turkey's egg in with a previous hatch, and though he +had raised nary chicken, and it was contrary to all rhyme and reason, +the turkey's egg had hatched and the chick had grown up to be +Miltiades. + +Miltiades was a big gobbler now, and had a right to be named Ishmael, +for his hand was against all men. He took care of himself, was never +shut up nor handled, and led a wild, nomadic life. + +Last of all came Fisherman Jones. He was old now and couldn't see very +well, unable to go to the brook or pond to fish, but he still started +out daily with the fine new rod and reel which the annuity had bought +for him, and would sit out in the sun, joint his rod together, and +fish in the dry pasture with perfect contentment. + +You would not think Fisherman Jones of much use, but it was he who +caught Miltiades and made the Thanksgiving dinner possible. + +The new barn had exhausted the revenues completely, and there would be +no more income until January 1st; but one must have a turkey for +Thanksgiving, and there was Miltiades. To catch Miltiades became the +household problem, and the heaven-born inventor set wonderful traps +for him, which caught almost everything but Miltiades, who easily +avoided them. Eph used to go out daily before breakfast and chase +Miltiades, but he might as well have chased a government position. +The turkey scorned him, and grew only wilder and tougher, till he had +a lean and hungry look that would have shamed Cassius. + +The day before Thanksgiving it looked as if there would be no turkey +dinner at Todd's, but here Fisherman Jones stepped into the breach. It +was a beautiful Indian-summer day, and he hobbled out into the field +for an afternoon's fishing. Here he sat on a log, and began to make +casts in the open. Nearby, under a savin bush, lurked Miltiades, and +viewed these actions with the scorn of long familiarity. By and by +Fisherman Jones kicked up a loose bit of bark, and disclosed beneath +it a fine fat white grub, of the sort which blossoms into June beetles +with the coming of spring. He was not so blind but that he saw this, +and with a chuckle at the thoughts it called up, he baited his hook +with it. + +A moment after, Eph Todd, coming out of the new barn, heard the click +of a reel, and was astonished to see Fisherman Jones standing almost +erect, his eyes blazing with the old-time fire, his rod bent, his reel +buzzing, while at the end of a good forty feet of line was Miltiades +rushing in frantic strides for the woods. + +"Good land!" said Eph; "it's the turkey! Snub him," he yelled. "Don't +let him get all the line on you! He's hooked! Snub him! snub him!" + +The whir of the reel deadened now, and the stride of Miltiades was +perceptibly lessened and then became but a vigorous up-and-down hop, +while the tense line sang in the gentle autumn breeze. + +"Eph Todd!" gasped Fisherman Jones, "this is the whoppingest old bass +I ever hooked onto yet. Beeswax, how he does pull!" And with the words +Fisherman Jones went backward over the log, waving the pole and a pair +of stiff legs in air. The turkey had suddenly slackened the line. + +"Give him the butt! Give him the butt!" roared Eph, rushing up. Even +where he lay the fisherman blood in Fisherman Jones responded to this +stirring appeal, and as the rod bent in a tense half circle a race +began such as no elderly fisherman was ever the centre of before. + +Round and round went Miltiades, with the white grub in his crop, and +the line above it gripped tightly in his strong beak; and round and +round went Eph Todd, his outstretched arms waving like the turkey's +wings, and his big boots denting the soft pasture turf with the vigour +of his gallop. In the centre Fisherman Jones, too nearsighted to see +what he had hooked, had risen on one knee, and revolved with the +coursing bird, his soul wrapped in one idea: to keep the butt of his +rod aimed at the whirling game. + +"Hang to him! Reel him in! We'll get him!" shouted Eph; and, with the +word, he caught his toe and vanished into the prickly depths of the +savin bush, just as the heaven-born inventor came over the hill. It +would be interesting to know just what scheme the heaven-born inventor +would have put in motion for the capture of Miltiades, but just then +he stepped into one of his own extraordinary traps, set for the +turkey of course, and, with one foot held fast, began to flounder +about with cries of rage and dismay. + +This brought Eph's head above the fringe of savin bush again, and now +he beheld a wonderful sight. Fisherman Jones was again on his feet, +staring in wild surprise at Miltiades, whom he sighted for the first +time, within ten feet of him. There was no pressure on the reel, and +Miltiades was swallowing the line in big gulps, evidently determined +to have not only the white grub, but all that went with it. + +Fisherman Jones's cry of dismay was almost as bitter as that of the +heaven-born inventor, who still writhed in his own trap. + +"Oh, Eph! Eph!" he whimpered, "he's eating up my tackle! He's eating +up my tackle!" + +"Never mind!" shouted Eph. "Don't be afraid! I reckon he'll stop when +he gets to the pole!" + +Those of us who knew Miltiades at his best have doubts as to this, +but, fortunately, it was not put to the test. Eph scrambled out of his +bush, and, taking up the chase once more, soon brought it to an end, +for Fisherman Jones, his nerve completely gone, could only stand and +mumble sadly to himself, "He's eating up my tackle! He's eating up my +tackle!" and the line, wrapping about his motionless form, led Eph and +the turkey in a brief spiral which ended in the conjunction of the +three. + +It was not until the turkey was decapitated that Eph remembered the +heaven-born inventor and hastened to his rescue. He was still in the +trap, but he was quite content, for he was figuring out a plan for an +automatic release from the same, something which should hold the +captive so long and then let him go in the interests of humanity. He +found the trap from the captive's point of view very interesting and +instructive. + +The tenacity of Miltiades's make-up was further shown by the +difficulty Eph and Fisherman Jones had in separating him from his +feathers that evening; and Aunt Tildy was so interested in the project +of the heaven-born inventor to raise featherless turkeys that she +forgot the yeast cake she had put to soak until it had been boiling +merrily for some time. Everything seemed to go wrong-end-to, and they +all sat up so late that Mrs. Simpkins, across the way, was led to +observe that "Either some one was dead over at Todd's or else they +were having a family party"; and in a certain sense she was right both +ways. + +The crowning misadventure came next morning. Eph started for the +village with his mind full of commissions from Aunt Tildy, some of +which he was sure to forget, and in a great hurry lest he forget them +all. He threw the harness hastily upon Dobbin, hitched him into the +wagon which had stood out on the soft ground overnight, and with an +eager "Get up, there!" gave him a slap with the reins. + +Next moment there was a ripping sound, and the heaven-born inventor +came to the door just in time to see the horse going out of the yard +on a run, with Eph following, still clinging to the reins, and taking +strides much like those of Baron Munchausen's courier. + +"Here, here!" called the inventor, "you've forgot the wagon. Come +back, Eph! You've forgot the wagon!" + +"Jeddediah Jodkins!" said Eph, as he swung an eccentric curve about +the gatepost; "do you--whoa!--suppose I'm such a--whoa! whoa!--fool +that I don't know that I'm not riding--whoa! in a--whoa! +whoa!--wagon?" And with this Eph vanished up street in the wake of the +galloping horse, still clinging valiantly to the reins. + +"I believe he did forget that wagon," said the heaven-born inventor; +"he's perfectly capable of it." But when he reached the barn he saw +the trouble. The ground had frozen hard overnight, and the wagon +wheels sunken in it were held as in a vise. Eph had started the horse +suddenly, and the obedient animal had walked right out of the shafts, +harness and all. + +A half hour later Eph was back with Dobbin, unharmed but a trifle +weary. It took an hour more and all Aunt Tildy's hot water to thaw out +the wheels, and when it was done Eph was so confused that he drove to +the village and back and forgot every one of his commissions. And in +the midst of all this the clock stopped. That settled the matter for +Aunt Tildy. She neglected the pudding, she forgot the pies, and she +let the turkey bake and bake in the overheated oven while she fretted +about that clock; and when it was finally set going, after long and +careful investigation by Eph, and frantic but successful attempts on +the part of Aunt Tildy to keep the heaven-born inventor from ruining +it forever, it was the dinner hour. + +Poor Aunt Tildy! That dinner was the crowning sorrow of her life. The +vegetables were cooked to rags, the pies were charcoal shells, and the +pudding had not been made. As for Miltiades, he was ten times tougher +than in life, and Eph's carving knife slipped from his form without +making a dent. Aunt Tildy wept at this, and Fisherman Jones and the +inventor looked blank enough, but there was no sorrow in the +countenance of Eph. He cheered Aunt Tildy, and he cracked jokes that +made even Fisherman Jones laugh. + +"Why, bless you!" he said, "ever since I was a boy I've been looking +for a chance to make a Thanksgiving dinner out of bread and milk. And +now I've got it. Why, I wouldn't have missed this for anything!" And +there came a knock at the door. + +Even Eph looked a trifle blank at this. If it should be company! "Come +in!" he called. + +The door was pushed aside and a big, steaming platter entered. It was +upheld by a small boy, who stammered diffidently, "My moth-moth-mother +thaid she wanted you to try thum of her nith turkey." + +"Well, well!" said Eph; "Aunt Tildy has cooked a turkey for us to-day, +and she's a main good cook"--Eph did not appear to see the signs the +heaven-born inventor was making to him--"but I've heard that your +mother does things pretty well, too. We're greatly obliged." And Eph +put the steaming platter on the table. + +"She thays you c-c-can thend the platter home to-morrow," stammered +the boy, and stammering himself out, he ran into another. The other +held high a big dish of plum pudding, from which a spicy aroma filled +the room. Again the heaven-born inventor made signs to Eph. + +"Our folks told me to ask if you wouldn't try this plum pudding," said +the newcomer. "They made an extra one, and the cousins we expected +didn't come, so we can spare it just as well as not." + +It seemed as if Eph hesitated a moment, and the inventor's face became +a panorama. Then he took the boy by the hand, and there was an odd +shake in his voice as he said: + +"I'm greatly obliged to you. We all are. Something happened to our +plum pudding, and we didn't have any. Tell your ma we send our +thanks." + +There was a sound of voices greeting in the hallway, and two young +girls entered, each laden with a basket. + +"Oh, Mr. Todd," they both said at once, "we couldn't wait to knock. We +want you to try some of our Thanksgiving. It was mother's birthday, +and we cooked extra for that, and we've got so much. We can't get all +ours onto the table. She'll feel real hurt if you don't." + +Somehow Eph couldn't say a word, but there was nothing the matter with +the heaven-born inventor. His speech of delighted acceptance was such +a good one that before he was half done the girls had loaded the table +with good things, and, with smiles and nods and "good-byes," slipped +out as rapidly and as gayly as they had come in. It was like a gust of +wind from a summer garden. + +The table, but now so bare, fairly sagged and steamed with offerings +of Thanksgiving. Somehow the steam got into Eph's eyes and made them +wet, till all he could do was to say whimsically: + +"There goes my last chance at a bread-and-milk Thanksgiving." + +But now Aunt Tildy had the floor, with her faded face all alight. + +"Eph Todd," she said, "you needn't look so flustrated. It's nothing +more than you deserve and not half so much either. Ain't you the +kindest man yourself that ever lived? Ain't you always doing something +for everybody, and helping every one of these neighbours in all sorts +of ways? I'd like to know what the whole place would do without you! +And now, just because they remember you on Thanksgiving Day, you look +like--" + +The steam had got into Aunt Tildy's eyes now, and she sat down again +just as there came another knock at the door, a timid sort of knock +this time. + +The heaven-born inventor's face widened in beatified smiles of +expectation at this, but Eph looked him sternly in the eye. + +"Jeddediah Jodkins!" he said; "if that is any more people bringing +things to eat to this house, they'll have to go away. We can't have +it. We've got enough here now to feed a--a boarding school." + +The heaven-born inventor sprang eagerly to his feet. "Don't you do it, +Eph," he said, "don't you do it. I've just thought of a way to can +it." + +A thinly clad man and woman stood at the door which Eph opened. Both +looked pale and tired, and the woman shivered. + +"Can you tell me where I can get work," asked the man, doggedly, "so +that I can earn a little something to eat? We are not beggars"--he +flushed a little through his pallor--"but I have had no work lately, +and we have eaten nothing since yesterday. We are looking--" + +The man stopped, and well he might, for Eph was dancing wildly about +the two, and hustling them into the house. + +"Come in!" he shouted. "Come in! Come in! You're the folks we are +waiting for! Eat? Why, goodness gra-cious! We've got so much to eat we +don't know what to do with it." + +He had them in chairs in a moment and was piling steaming roast turkey +on their plates. "There!" he said, "don't you say another word till +you have filled up on that. Folks"--and he returned to the +others--"here's two friends that have come to stay a week with us and +help eat turkey. Fall to! This is going to be the pleasantest +Thanksgiving we've had yet." + +And thus two new inmates were added to Todd's asylum. + + + + +HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN[7] + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. + + The old-time New England Thanksgiving has been described + many times, but never better then by the author of "Uncle + Tom's Cabin" in her less successful but more artistic novel, + "Oldtown Folks," from which book the following narrative has + been adapted. + + +When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the +yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, +and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and +the warm, late days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and +still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but +with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over +the community a sort of genial repose of spirit--a sense of something +accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar +of life--and the deacon began to say to the minister, of a Sunday, "I +suppose it's about time for the Thanksgiving proclamation." + +[Footnote 7: Adapted from "Oldtown Folks," Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +Conversation at this time began to turn on high and solemn culinary +mysteries and receipts of wondrous power and virtue. New modes of +elaborating squash pies and quince tarts were now ofttimes carefully +discussed at the evening firesides by Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and +notes seriously compared with the experiences of certain other aunties +of high repute in such matters. I noticed that on these occasions +their voices often fell into mysterious whispers, and that receipts of +especial power and sanctity were communicated in tones so low as +entirely to escape the vulgar ear. I still remember the solemn shake +of the head with which my Aunt Lois conveyed to Miss Mehitable +Rossiter the critical properties of _mace_, in relation to its powers +of producing in corn fritters a suggestive resemblance to oysters. As +ours was an oyster-getting district, and as that charming bivalve was +perfectly easy to come at, the interest of such an imitation can be +accounted for only by the fondness of the human mind for works of art. + +For as much as a week beforehand, "we children" were employed in +chopping mince for pies to a most wearisome fineness, and in pounding +cinnamon, all-spice, and cloves in a great lignum-vitae mortar; and the +sound of this pounding and chopping reechoed through all the rafters +of the old house with a hearty and vigorous cheer most refreshing to +our spirits. + +In those days there were none of the thousand ameliorations of the +labours of housekeeping which have since arisen--no ground and +prepared spices and sweet herbs; everything came into our hands in the +rough, and in bulk, and the reducing of it into a state for use was +deemed one of the appropriate labours of childhood. Even the very salt +that we used in cooking was rock salt, which we were required to wash +and dry and pound and sift before it became fit for use. + +At other times of the year we sometimes murmured at these labours, but +those that were supposed to usher in the great Thanksgiving festival +were always entered into with enthusiasm. There were signs of richness +all around us--stoning of raisins, cutting of citron, slicing of +candied orange peel. Yet all these were only dawnings and intimations +of what was coming during the week of real preparation, after the +Governor's proclamation had been read. + +The glories of that proclamation! We knew beforehand the Sunday it was +to be read, and walked to church with alacrity, filled with gorgeous +and vague expectations. + +The cheering anticipation sustained us through what seemed to us the +long waste of the sermon and prayers; and when at last the auspicious +moment approached--when the last quaver of the last hymn had died +out--the whole house rippled with a general movement of complacency, +and a satisfied smile of pleased expectation might be seen gleaming on +the faces of all the young people, like a ray of sunshine through a +garden of flowers. + +Thanksgiving now was dawning! We children poked one another, and +fairly giggled with unreproved delight as we listened to the crackle +of the slowly unfolding document. That great sheet of paper impressed +us as something supernatural, by reason of its mighty size and by the +broad seal of the State affixed thereto; and when the minister read +therefrom, "By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty +repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders. Then, +after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the Commonwealth had +that year received at the hands of Divine Providence, came at last the +naming of the eventful day, and, at the end of all, the imposing +heraldic words, "God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." And +then, as the congregation broke up and dispersed, all went their +several ways with schemes of mirth and feasting in their heads. + +And now came on the week in earnest. In the very watches of the night +preceding Monday morning a preternatural stir below stairs and the +thunder of the pounding barrel announced that the washing was to be +got out of the way before daylight, so as to give "ample scope and +room enough" for the more pleasing duties of the season. + +The making of _pies_ at this period assumed vast proportions that +verged upon the sublime. Pies were made by forties and fifties and +hundreds, and made of everything on the earth and under the earth. + +The pie is an English institution, which, planted on American soil, +forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of genera +and species. Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand +strictly American seedlings from that main stock, evinced the power of +American housewives to adapt old institutions to new uses. Pumpkin +pies, cranberry pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant +pies, peach, pear, and plum pies, custard pies, apple pies, +Marlborough-pudding pies--pies with top crusts and pies without--pies +adorned with all sorts of fanciful flutings and architectural strips +laid across and around, and otherwise varied, attested the boundless +fertility of the feminine mind when once let loose in a given +direction. + +Fancy the heat and vigour of the great pan formation, when Aunt Lois +and Aunt Keziah, and my mother and grandmother, all in ecstasies of +creative inspiration, ran, bustled, and hurried--mixing, rolling, +tasting, consulting--alternately setting us children to work when +anything could be made of us, and then chasing us all out of the +kitchen when our misinformed childhood ventured to take too many +liberties with sacred mysteries. Then out we would all fly at the +kitchen door, like sparks from a blacksmith's window. + +On these occasions, as there was a great looseness in the police +department over us children, we usually found a ready refuge at Miss +Mehitable's with Tina,[8] who, confident of the strength of her +position with Polly, invited us into the kitchen, and with the air of +a mistress led us around to view the proceedings there. + +[Footnote 8: Tina was Miss Mehitable's adopted child; Polly her +faithful old maid-servant.] + +A genius for entertaining was one of Tina's principal characteristics; +and she did not fail to make free with raisins, or citrons, or +whatever came to hand, in a spirit of hospitality at which Polly +seriously demurred. That worthy woman occasionally felt the +inconvenience of the state of subjugation to which the little elf had +somehow or other reduced her, and sometimes rattled her chains +fiercely, scolding with a vigour which rather alarmed us, but which +Tina minded not a whit. Confident of her own powers, she would, in the +very midst of her wrath, mimic her to her face with such irresistible +drollery as to cause the torrent of reproof to end in a dissonant +laugh, accompanied by a submissive cry for quarter. + +"I declare, Tina Percival," she said to her one day, "you're saucy +enough to physic a horn bug! I never did see the beater of you! If +Miss Mehitable don't keep you in better order, I don't see what's to +become of any of us!" + +"Why, what did 'come of you before I came?" was the undismayed reply. +"You know, Polly, you and Aunty both were just as lonesome as you +could be till I came here, and you never had such pleasant times in +your life as you've had since I've been here. You're a couple of old +beauties, both of you, and know just how to get along with me. But +come, boys, let's take our raisins and go up into the garret and play +Thanksgiving." + +In the corner of the great kitchen, during all these days, the jolly +old oven roared and crackled in great volcanic billows of flame, +snapping and gurgling as if the old fellow entered with joyful +sympathy into the frolic of the hour; and then, his great heart being +once warmed up, he brooded over successive generations of pies and +cakes, which went in raw and came out cooked, till butteries and +dressers and shelves and pantries were literally crowded with a +jostling abundance. + +A great cold northern chamber, where the sun never shone, and where in +winter the snow sifted in at the window cracks, and ice and frost +reigned with undisputed sway, was fitted up to be the storehouse of +these surplus treasures. There, frozen solid, and thus well preserved +in their icy fetters, they formed a great repository for all the +winter months; and the pies baked at Thanksgiving often came out fresh +and good with the violets of April. + +During this eventful preparation week all the female part of my +grandmother's household, as I have before remarked, were at a height +above any ordinary state of mind; they moved about the house rapt in a +species of prophetic frenzy. It seemed to be considered a necessary +feature of such festivals that everybody should be in a hurry, and +everything in the house should be turned bottom upwards with +enthusiasm--so at least we children understood it, and we certainly +did our part to keep the ball rolling. + +At this period the constitutional activity of Uncle Fliakim increased +to a degree that might fairly be called preternatural. Thanksgiving +time was the time for errands of mercy and beneficence through the +country; and Uncle Fliakim's immortal old rubber horse and rattling +wagon were on the full jump in tours of investigation into everybody's +affairs in the region around. On returning, he would fly through our +kitchen like the wind, leaving open the doors, upsetting whatever came +in his way--now a pan of milk, and now a basin of mince--talking +rapidly, and forgetting only the point in every case that gave it +significance, or enabled any one to put it to any sort of use. When +Aunt Lois checked his benevolent effusions by putting the test +questions of practical efficiency, Uncle Fliakim always remembered +that he'd "forgotten to inquire about that," and skipping through the +kitchen, and springing into his old wagon, would rattle off again on a +full tilt to correct and amend his investigations. + +Moreover, my grandmother's kitchen at this time began to be haunted by +those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of uncertain fortunes, whom +a full experience of her bountiful habits led to expect something at +her hand at this time of the year. All the poor, loafing tribes, +Indian and half-Indian, who at other times wandered, selling baskets +and other light wares, were sure to come back to Oldtown a little +before Thanksgiving time, and report themselves in my grandmother's +kitchen. + +The great hogshead of cider in the cellar, which my grandfather called +the Indian hogshead, was on tap at all hours of the day; and many a +mugful did I draw and dispense to the tribes that basked in the +sunshine at our door. + +Aunt Lois never had a hearty conviction of the propriety of these +arrangements; but my grandmother, who had a prodigious verbal memory, +bore down upon her with such strings of quotations from the Old +Testament that she was utterly routed. + +"Now," says my Aunt Lois, "I s'pose we've got to have Betty Poganut +and Sally Wonsamug, and old Obscue and his wife, and the whole tribe +down, roosting around our doors till we give 'em something. That's +just mother's way; she always keeps a whole generation at her heels." + +"How many times must I tell you, Lois, to read your Bible?" was my +grandmother's rejoinder; and loud over the sound of pounding and +chopping in the kitchen could be heard the voice of her quotations: +"If there be among you a poor man in any of the gates of the land +which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, +nor shut thy hand, from thy poor brother. Thou shalt surely give him; +and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him, because +that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy +works; for the poor shall never cease from out of the land." + +These words seemed to resound like a sort of heraldic proclamation to +call around us all that softly shiftless class, who, for some reason +or other, are never to be found with anything in hand at the moment +that it is wanted. + +"There, to be sure," said Aunt Lois, one day when our preparations +were in full blast; "there comes Sam Lawson down the hill, limpsy as +ever; now he'll have his doleful story to tell, and mother'll give him +one of the turkeys." + +And so, of course, it fell out. + +Sam came in with his usual air of plaintive assurance, and seated +himself a contemplative spectator in the chimney corner, regardless of +the looks and signs of unwelcome on the part of Aunt Lois. + +"Lordy massy, how prosperous everything does seem here!" he said in +musing tones, over his inevitable mug of cider; "so different from +what 'tis t' our house. There's Hepsey, she's all in a stew, an' I've +just been an' got her thirty-seven cents' wuth o' nutmegs, yet she +says she's sure she don't see how she's to keep Thanksgiving, an' +she's down on me about it, just as ef 'twas my fault. Yeh see, last +winter our old gobbler got froze. You know, Mis' Badger, that 'ere +cold night we hed last winter. Wal, I was off with Jake Marshall that +night; ye see, Jake, he had to take old General Dearborn's corpse into +Boston, to the family vault, and Jake, he kind o' hated to go alone; +'twas a drefful cold time, and he ses to me,' Sam, you jes' go 'long +with me'; so I was sort o' sorry for him, and I kind o' thought I'd +go 'long. Wal, come 'long to Josh Bissel's tahvern, there at the +Halfway House, you know, 'twas so swingeing cold we stopped to take a +little suthin' warmin', an' we sort o' sot an' sot over the fire, +till, fust we knew, we kind o' got asleep; an' when we woke up we +found we'd left the old General hitched up t' th' post pretty much all +night. Wal, didn't hurt him none, poor man; 'twas allers a favourite +spot o' his'n. But, takin' one thing with another, I didn't get home +till about noon next day, an' I tell you, Hepsey she was right down on +me. She said the baby was sick, and there hadn't been no wood split, +nor the barn fastened up, nor nuthin'. Lordy massy, I didn't mean no +harm; I thought there was wood enough, and I thought likely Hepsey'd +git out an' fasten up the barn. But Hepsey, she was in one o' her +contrary streaks, an' she wouldn't do a thing; an' when I went out to +look, why, sure 'nuff, there was our old tom-turkey froze as stiff as +a stake--his claws jist a stickin' right straight up like this." Here +Sam struck an expressive attitude, and looked so much like a frozen +turkey as to give a pathetic reality to the picture. + +"Well, now, Sam, why need you be off on things that's none of your +business?" said my grandmother. "I've talked to you plainly about that +a great many times, Sam," she continued, in tones of severe +admonition. "Hepsey is a hard-working woman, but she can't be expected +to see to everything, and you oughter 'ave been at home that night to +fasten up your own barn and look after your own creeturs." + +Sam took the rebuke all the more meekly as he perceived the stiff +black legs of a turkey poking out from under my grandmother's apron +while she was delivering it. To be exhorted and told of his +shortcomings, and then furnished with a turkey at Thanksgiving, was a +yearly part of his family program. In time he departed, not only with +the turkey, but with us boys in procession after him, bearing a mince +and a pumpkin pie for Hepsey's children. + +"Poor things!" my grandmother remarked; "they ought to have something +good to eat Thanksgiving Day; 'tain't their fault that they've got a +shiftless father." + +Sam, in his turn, moralized to us children, as we walked beside him: +"A body'd think that Hepsey'd learn to trust in Providence," he said, +"but she don't. She allers has a Thanksgiving dinner pervided; but +that 'ere woman ain't grateful for it, by no manner o' means. Now +she'll be jest as cross as she can be, 'cause this 'ere ain't _our_ +turkey, and these 'ere ain't our pies. Folks doos lose so much that +hes sech dispositions." + +A multitude of similar dispensations during the course of the week +materially reduced the great pile of chickens and turkeys which black +Caesar's efforts in slaughtering, picking, and dressing kept daily +supplied.... + + * * * * * + +Great as the preparations were for the dinner, everything was so +contrived that not a soul in the house should be kept from the +morning service of Thanksgiving in the church, and from listening to +the Thanksgiving sermon, in which the minister was expected to express +his views freely concerning the politics of the country and the state +of things in society generally, in a somewhat more secular vein of +thought than was deemed exactly appropriate to the Lord's day. But it +is to be confessed that, when the good man got carried away by the +enthusiasm of his subject to extend these exercises beyond a certain +length, anxious glances, exchanged between good wives, sometimes +indicated a weakness of the flesh, having a tender reference to the +turkeys and chickens and chicken pies which might possibly be +overdoing in the ovens at home. But your old brick oven was a true +Puritan institution, and backed up the devotional habits of good +housewives by the capital care which he took of whatever was committed +to his capacious bosom. A truly well-bred oven would have been ashamed +of himself all his days and blushed redder than his own fires, if a +God-fearing house matron, away at the temple of the Lord, should come +home and find her pie crust either burned or underdone by his over or +under zeal; so the old fellow generally managed to bring things out +exactly right. + +When sermons and prayers were all over, we children rushed home to see +the great feast of the year spread. + +What chitterings and chatterings there were all over the house, as all +the aunties and uncles and cousins came pouring in, taking off their +things, looking at one another's bonnets and dresses, and mingling +their comments on the morning sermon with various opinions on the new +millinery outfits, and with bits of home news and kindly neighbourhood +gossip. + +Uncle Bill, whom the Cambridge college authorities released, as they +did all the other youngsters of the land, for Thanksgiving Day, made a +breezy stir among them all, especially with the young cousins of the +feminine gender. + +The best room on this occasion was thrown wide open, and its habitual +coldness had been warmed by the burning down of a great stack of +hickory logs, which had been heaped up unsparingly since morning. It +takes some hours to get a room warm where a family never sits, and +which therefore has not in its walls one particle of the genial +vitality which comes from the indwelling of human beings. But on +Thanksgiving Day, at least, every year this marvel was effected in our +best room. + +Although all servile labour and vain recreation on this day were by +law forbidden, according to the terms of the proclamation, it was not +held to be a violation of the precept that all the nice old aunties +should bring their knitting work and sit gently trotting their needles +around the fire; nor that Uncle Bill should start a full-fledged romp +among the girls and children, while the dinner was being set on the +long table in the neighbouring kitchen. Certain of the good elderly +female relatives, of serious and discreet demeanour, assisted at this +operation. + +But who shall do justice to the dinner, and describe the turkey, and +chickens, and chicken pies, with all that endless variety of +vegetables which the American soil and climate have contributed to the +table, and which, without regard to the French doctrine of courses, +were all piled together in jovial abundance upon the smoking board? +There was much carving and laughing and talking and eating, and all +showed that cheerful ability to despatch the provisions which was the +ruling spirit of the hour. After the meat came the plum puddings, and +then the endless array of pies, till human nature was actually +bewildered and overpowered by the tempting variety; and even we +children turned from the profusion offered to us, and wondered what +was the matter that we could eat no more. + +When all was over, my grandfather rose at the head of the table, and a +fine venerable picture he made as he stood there, his silver hair +flowing in curls down each side of his clear, calm face, while, in +conformity to the old Puritan custom, he called their attention to a +recital of the mercies of God in His dealings with their family. + +It was a sort of family history, going over and touching upon the +various events which had happened. He spoke of my father's death, and +gave a tribute to his memory; and closed all with the application of a +time-honoured text, expressing the hope that as years passed by we +might "so number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom"; and +then he gave out that psalm which in those days might be called the +national hymn of the Puritans. + + "Let children hear the mighty deeds + Which God performed of old, + Which in our younger years we saw, + And which our fathers told. + + "He bids us make his glories known, + His works of power and grace. + And we'll convey his wonders down + Through every rising race. + + "Our lips shall tell them to our sons, + And they again to theirs; + That generations yet unborn + May teach them to their heirs. + + "Thus shall they learn in God alone + Their hope securely stands; + That they may ne'er forget his works, + But practise his commands." + +This we all united in singing to the venerable tune of St. Martin's, +an air which, the reader will perceive, by its multiplicity of quavers +and inflections gave the greatest possible scope to the cracked and +trembling voices of the ancients, who united in it with even more zeal +than the younger part of the community. + +Uncle Fliakim Sheril, furbished up in a new crisp black suit, and with +his spindleshanks trimly incased in the smoothest of black silk +stockings, looking for all the world just like an alert and spirited +black cricket, outdid himself on this occasion in singing _counter_, +in that high, weird voice that he must have learned from the wintry +winds that usually piped around the corners of the old house. But any +one who looked at him, as he sat with his eyes closed, beating time +with head and hand, and, in short, with every limb of his body, must +have perceived the exquisite satisfaction which he derived from this +mode of expressing himself. I much regret to be obliged to state that +my graceless Uncle Bill, taking advantage of the fact that the eyes of +all his elders were devotionally closed, stationing himself a little +in the rear of my Uncle Fliakim, performed an exact imitation of his +_counter_ with such a killing facility that all the younger part of +the audience were nearly dead with suppressed laughter. Aunt Lois, who +never shut her eyes a moment on any occasion, discerned this from a +distant part of the room, and in vain endeavoured to stop it by +vigorously shaking her head at the offender. She might as well have +shaken it at a bobolink tilting on a clover top. In fact, Uncle Bill +was Aunt Lois's weak point, and the corners of her own mouth were +observed to twitch in such a suspicious manner that the whole moral +force of her admonition was destroyed. + +And now, the dinner being cleared away, we youngsters, already excited +to a tumult of laughter, tumbled into the best room, under the +supervision of Uncle Bill, to relieve ourselves with a game of +"blindman's bluff," while the elderly women washed up the dishes and +got the house in order, and the men folks went out to the barn to look +at the cattle, and walked over the farm and talked of the crops. + +In the evening the house was all open and lighted with the best of +tallow candles, which Aunt Lois herself had made with especial care +for this illumination. It was understood that we were to have a dance, +and black Caesar, full of turkey and pumpkin pie, and giggling in the +very jollity of his heart, had that afternoon rosined his bow, and +tuned his fiddle, and practised jigs and Virginia reels, in a way that +made us children think him a perfect Orpheus.... + +You may imagine the astounding wassail among the young people.... My +Uncle Bill related the story of "the Wry-mouth Family," with such +twists and contortions and killing extremes of the ludicrous as +perfectly overcame even the minister; and he was to be seen, at one +period of the evening, with a face purple with laughter and the tears +actually rolling down over his well-formed cheeks, while some of the +more excitable young people almost fell in trances and rolled on the +floor in the extreme of their merriment. In fact, the assemblage was +becoming so tumultuous, that the scrape of Caesar's violin and the +forming of sets for a dance seemed necessary to restore the peace.... + +Uncle Bill would insist on leading out Aunt Lois, and the bright +colour rising to her thin cheeks brought back a fluttering image of +what might have been beauty in some fresh, early day. Ellery Davenport +insisted upon leading forth Miss Deborah Kittery, notwithstanding her +oft-repeated refusals and earnest protestations to the contrary. As to +Uncle Fliakim, he jumped and frisked and gyrated among the single +sisters and maiden aunts, whirling them into the dance as if he had +been the little black gentleman himself. With that true spirit of +Christian charity which marked all his actions, he invariably chose +out the homeliest and most neglected, and thus worthy Aunt Keziah, +dear old soul, was for a time made quite prominent by his +attentions.... + +Grandmother's face was radiant with satisfaction, as the wave of +joyousness crept up higher and higher round her, till the elders, who +stood keeping time with their heads and feet, began to tell one +another how they had danced with their sweethearts in good old days +gone by, and the elder women began to blush and bridle, and boast of +steps that they could take in their youth, till the music finally +subdued them, and into the dance they went. + +"Well, well!" quoth my grandmother; "they're all at it so hearty I +don't see why I shouldn't try it myself." And into the Virginia reel +she went, amid screams of laughter from all the younger members of the +company. + +But I assure you my grandmother was not a woman to be laughed at; for +whatever she once set on foot she "put through" with a sturdy energy +befitting a daughter of the Puritans. + +"Why shouldn't I dance?" she said, when she arrived red and +resplendent at the bottom of the set. "Didn't Mr. Despondency and Miss +Muchafraid and Mr. Readytohalt all dance together in the 'Pilgrim's +Progress?'" And the minister in his ample flowing wig, and my lady in +her stiff brocade, gave to my grandmother a solemn twinkle of +approbation. + +As nine o'clock struck, the whole scene dissolved and melted; for what +well-regulated village would think of carrying festivities beyond that +hour? + +And so ended our Thanksgiving at Oldtown. + + + + +WISHBONE VALLEY[9] + +BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK. + + A Thanksgiving ghost story about a boy who dined not wisely + but too well. + + +The Thanksgiving feast had just ended, and only Donald and his little +sister Grace remained at the table, looking drowsily at the +plum-pudding that they couldn't finish, but which they disliked to +leave on their plates. + +[Footnote 9: From _Harper's Young People_, November 21, 1893.] + +When the plates had been removed, and the plum-pudding taken to the +kitchen and placed beside the well-carved gobbler, Donald and Grace +were too tired to rise from their chairs to have their faces washed. +They seemed lost in a roseate repose, until Grace finally thought of +the wishbone that they intended to break after dinner. + +"Come, now, Donald," she said, "let's break the old gobbler's +wishbone." + +"All right," replied Donald, opening his eyes slowly, and unwrapping +the draperies of his sweet plum-pudding dreams from about him, "let's +do it now." So he held up the wishbone, and Grace took hold of the +other end of it with a merry laugh. + +"Here, you must not take hold so far from the end, because I have a +fine wish to make, and want to get the big half if possible." + +"So have I a nice wish to make," replied Grace, with a sigh, "and I +also want the big end." + +And so they argued for a few minutes, until their mother entered the +room and told them that if they could not stop quarrelling over the +wishbone she would take it from them and throw it into the fire. So +they lost no time in taking it by the ends and snapping it asunder. + +"Hurrah!" exclaimed Donald, observing Grace's expression of +disappointment. "I've got it!" + +"Well, I've made a wish, too," said Grace. + +"But it won't come true," replied Donald, "because you have the little +end." + +And then Donald thought he would go out in the air and play, because +his great dinner made him feel very uncomfortable. When he was out in +the barnyard it was just growing dusk, and Donald, through his +half-closed eyes, observed a gobbler strutting about. To his great +surprise the gobbler approached him instead of running away. + +"I thought we had you for dinner to-day," said Donald. + +"You did," replied the gobbler coldly, "and you had a fine old time, +didn't you?" + +"Yes," said Donald, "you made a splendid dinner, and you ought to be +pleased to think you made us all so happy. Your second joints were +very sweet and juicy, and your drumsticks were like sticks of candy." + +"And you broke my poor old wishbone with your little sister, didn't +you?" + +"I did." + +"And what did you wish?" asked the gobbler. + +"You mustn't ask me that," replied Donald, "because, you know, if I +tell you the wish I made it would not come true." + +"But it was my wishbone," persisted the gobbler, "and I think I ought +to know something about it." + +"You have rights, I suppose, and your argument is not without force," +replied Donald, with calm dignity. + +The gobbler was puzzled at so lofty a reply, and not understanding it, +said: + +"I am only the ghost, or spirit, of the gobbler you ate to-day, but +still I remember how one day last summer you threw a pan of water on +me, and alluded to my wattles as a red necktie, and called me 'Old +Harvard,' Now, come along!" + +"Where?" asked Donald. + +"To Wishbone Valley, where you will see the spirits of my ancestors +eaten by your family." + +It was now dusk, and Donald didn't like the idea of going to such a +place. He was a brave, courageous boy, on most occasions, but the idea +of going to Wishbone Valley when the stars were appearing filled him +with a dread that he didn't like to acknowledge even to the ghost of a +gobbler. + +"I can't go with you now, Mr. Gobbler," he said, "because I have a lot +of lessons to study for next Monday; wait until to-morrow, and I will +gladly go with you." + +"Come along," replied the gobbler, with a provoked air, "and let your +lessons go until to-morrow, when you will have plenty of light." + +Thereupon the gobbler extended his wing and took Donald by the hand, +and started on a trot. + +"Not so fast," protested Donald. + +"Why not?" demanded the gobbler in surprise. + +"Because," replied Donald, with a groan, "I have just had my dinner, +and I'm too full of you to run." + +So the gobbler kindly and considerately slackened his pace to a walk, +and the two proceeded out of the barnyard and across a wide meadow to +a little valley surrounded by a dense thicket. The moon was just +rising and the thicket was silvered by its light, while the dry leaves +rustled weirdly in the cold crisp air. + +"This," said the gobbler, "is Wishbone Valley. Look and see." + +Donald strained his eyes, and, sure enough, there were wishbones +sticking out of the ground in every direction. He thought they looked +like little croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of +offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to +make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in +an offhand way: + +"Let's break one and make a wish." + +The ghost of the old gobbler frowned, drew himself up, and uttered a +ghostly whistle that seemed to cut the air. As he did so, the ghosts +of the other turkeys long since eaten popped out of the thickets with +a great flapping of wings, and each one perched upon a wishbone and +gazed upon poor Donald, who was so frightened that his collar flew +into a standing position, while he stood upon his toes, with his knees +knocking together at a great rate. + +Every turkey fixed its eyes upon the trembling boy, who was beside +himself with fear. + +"What shall we do with him, grandpapa?" asked the gobbler of an +ancient bird that could scarcely contain itself and remain on its +wishbone. + +"I cannot think of anything terrible enough, Willie," replied the +grandparent. "It almost makes my ghost-ship boil when I think of the +way in which he used to amuse himself by making me a target for his +bean shooter. Often when I was asleep in the button-ball he would +fetch me one on the side of the head that would give me an earache for +a week. But now it is our turn." + +Here the other turkeys broke into a wild chorus of approval. + +"Take his bean shooter from his pocket," suggested another bird, "and +let's have a shot at him." + +Donald was compelled to hand out his bean shooter, and the grandparent +took it, lay on his back, and with the handle of the bean shooter in +one claw and the missile end in the other began to send pebbles at +Donald at a great rate. He could hear them whistling past his ears, +but could not see them to dodge. Fortunately none struck him, and when +the turkeys felt that they had had fun enough of that kind at his +expense the bean shooter was returned to him. + +"Now, then," said the gobbler's Aunt Fanny, "he once gave me a string +of yellow beads for corn." + +"What shall we do to him for that?" asked the gobbler. + +"Make him eat a lot of yellow beads," said the chorus. + +"But we have no beads," said the gobbler sadly. + +"Then let's poke him with a stick," suggested the gobbler's Granduncle +Sylvester; "he used to do that to us." + +So they all took up their wishbones and poked Donald until he was +sore. Sometimes they would hit him in a ticklish spot, and throw him +into such a fit of laughter that they thought he was enjoying it all +and chaffing them. So they stuck their wishbones into the ground, and +took their positions on them once more, to take a needed rest, for the +poor ghosts were greatly exhausted. + +There was one quiet turkey who had taken no part in the proceedings. + +"Why don't you suggest something?" demanded Uncle Sylvester. + +"Because," replied the quiet turkey, "Donald never did anything to me, +and I must treat him accordingly. I was raised and killed a long way +from here, and canned. Donald's father bought me at a store. To be a +ghost in good standing I should be on the farm where I was killed, +and really I don't know why I should be here." + +"Then you should be an impartial judge," said Aunt Fanny. "Now what +shall we do with him?" + +"Tell them to let me go home," protested Donald, "and I'll agree never +to molest or eat turkey again; I will give them all the angleworms I +can dig every day, and on Thanksgiving Day I'll ask my father to have +roast beef." + +"I think," replied the impartial canned ghost, "that as all boys +delight in chasing turkeys with sticks, it would be eminently just and +proper for us, with the exception of myself, to chase this boy and +beat him with our' wishbones, to let him learn by experience that +which he could scarcely learn by observation." + +"What could I do but eat turkey when it was put on the table?" +protested Donald. + +"But you could help chasing us around with sticks," sang the chorus. + +They thereupon descended from the wishbones upon which they had been +perching, and flying after him, they darted the wishbones, which they +held in their beaks, into his back and neck as hard as they could. +Donald ran up and down Wishbone Valley, calling upon them to stop, and +declaring that if turkey should ever be put upon the table again he +would eat nothing but the stuffing. When Donald found that the +wishbones were sticking into his neck like so many hornet stings, he +made up his mind that he would run for the house. Finally the +wishbone tattoo stopped, and when he looked around, the gobbler, who +was twenty feet away, said: "When a Thanksgiving turkey dies, his +ghost comes down here to Wishbone Valley to join his ancestors, and it +never after leaves the valley. You will now know why every spring the +turkeys steal down here to hatch their little ones. As you are now +over the boundary line you are safe." + +"Thank you," said Donald gratefully. + +"Good-bye," sang all the ghosts in chorus. + +There was then a great ghostly flapping and whistling, and the turkeys +and wishbones all vanished from sight. + +Donald ran home as fast as his trembling legs could carry him, and he +fancied that the surviving turkeys on the place made fun of him as he +passed on his way. + +When he reached the house he was very happy, but made no allusion to +his experience in Wishbone Valley, for fear of being laughed at. + +"Come, Donald," said his mother, shortly after his arrival, "it is +almost bedtime; you had better eat that drumstick and retire." + +"I think I have had turkey enough for to-day," replied Donald, with a +shudder, "and if it is just the same, I would rather have a nice thick +piece of pumpkin pie." + +So the girl placed a large piece of pie before him; and while he was +eating with the keen appetite given him by the crisp air of Wishbone +Valley, he heard a great clattering of hoofs coming down the road. +These sounds did not stop until the express wagon drew up in front of +the house, and the driver brought in a large package for Donald. + +"Hurrah!" shouted Donald, in boundless glee. "Uncle Arthur has sent me +a nice bicycle! Wasn't it good of him?" + +"Didn't you wish for a bicycle to-day, when you got the big end of the +wishbone?" asked his little sister Grace. + +"What makes you think so?" asked Donald, with a laugh. + +"Oh, I knew it all the time; and my wish came true, too." + +"How could your wish come true?" asked Donald, with a puzzled look, +"when you got the little half of the wishbone?" + +"I don't know," replied Grace, "but my wish did come true." + +"And what did you wish?" + +"Why," said Grace, running up and kissing her little brother +affectionately, "I wished your wish would come true, of course." + + + + +PATEM'S SALMAGUNDI[10] + +BY E. S. BROOKS. + + New York boys, especially, will enjoy this tale of the + doings of a group of Dutch schoolboys in old New Amsterdam. + + +Little Patem Onderdonk meant mischief. There was a snap in his eyes +and a look on his face that were certain proof of this. I am bound to +say, however, that there was nothing new or strange in this, for +little Patem Onderdonk generally did mean mischief. Whenever any one's +cow was found astray beyond the limits, or any one's bark gutter laid +askew so that the roof-water dripped on the passer's head, or whenever +the dominie's dog ran howling down the Heeren Graaft with a battered +pypken cover tied to his suffering tail, the goode vrouws in the +neighbourhood did not stop to wonder who could have done it; they +simply raised both hands in a sort of injured resignation and +exclaimed: + +"_Ach so_; what's gone of Patem's Elishamet's Patem?" + +So you see little Patem Onderdonk was generally at the bottom of +whatever mischief was afoot in those last Dutch days of New Amsterdam +on the island of Manhattan. + +[Footnote 10: From "Storied Holidays," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.] + +But this time he was conjuring a more serious bit of mischief than +even he usually attempted. This was plain from the appearance of the +startled but deeply interested faces of the half-dozen boys gathered +around him on the bridge. + +"But I say, Patem," queried young Teuny Vanderbreets, who was always +ready to second any of Patem's plans, "how can we come it over the +dominie as you would have us?" + +"So then, Teuny," cried Patem, in his highest key of contempt, "did +your wits blow away with your hat out of Heer Snediker's nut tree +yesterday? Do not you know that the Heer Governor is at royal odds +with Dominie Curtius because the skinflint old dominie will not pay +the taxes due the town? Why, lad, the Heer Governor will back us up!" + +"And why will he not pay the taxes, Patem?" asked Jan Hooglant, the +tanner's son. + +"Because he's a skinflint, I tell you," asserted Patem, "though I do +believe he says that he was brought here from Holland as one of the +Company's men, and ought not therefore pay taxes to the Company. +That's what I did hear them say at the Stadt Huys this morning, and +Heer Vanderveer, the schepen, said there, too, that Dominie Curtius +was not worth one of the five hundred guilders which he doth receive +for our teaching. And sure, if the burgomaster and schepens will have +none of the old dominie, why then no more will we who know how stupid +are his lessons, and how his switch doth sting. So, hoy, lads, let's +turn him out." + +And with that little Patem Onderdonk gave Teuny Vanderbreets' broad +back a sounding slap with his battered horn book and crying, "Come on, +lads," headed his mutinous companions on a race for the rickety little +schoolhouse near the fort. + +It was hard lines for Dominie Curtius all that day at school. The boys +had never been so unruly; the girls never so inattentive. Rebellion +seemed in the air, and the dominie, never a patient or gentle-mannered +man, grew harsher and more exacting as the session advanced. His reign +as master of the Latin School of New Amsterdam had not been a +successful one, and his dispute with the town officers as to his +payment of taxes had so angered him that, as Patem declared, "he +seemed moved to avenge himself upon the town's children." + +This being the state of affairs, Dominie Curtius's mood this day was +not a pleasant one, and the school exercises had more to do with the +whipping horse and the birch twigs than with the horn book and the +Latin conjugations. + +The boys, I regret to say, were hardened to this, because of much +practice, but when the dominie, enraged at some fresh breach of rigid +discipline, glared savagely over his big spectacles and then swooped +down upon pretty little Antje Adrianse who had done nothing whatever, +the whole school broke into open rebellion. Horn books, and every +possible missile that the boys had at hand, went flying at the +master's head, and the young rebels, led on by Patem and Teuny, +charged down upon the unprepared dominie, rescued trembling little +Antje from his clutch, and then one and all rushed pell-mell from the +school with shouts of triumph and derision. + +But when the first flush of their victory was over, the boys realized +that they had done a very daring and risky thing. It was no small +matter in those days of stern authority and strict home government for +girls and boys to resist the commands of their elders; and to run away +from school was one of the greatest of crimes. So they all looked at +Patem in much anxiety. + +"Well," cried several of the boys almost in a breath, "and now what +shall we do, Patem? You have us in a pretty fix." + +Patem waved his hand like a young Napoleon. + +"_Ach_! ye are all cowards," he cried shrilly. "What will we _do_? +Why, then we will but do as if we were burgomasters and schepens--as +we will be some day. We will to the Heer Governor straight, and lay +our demands before him." + +Well, well; this _was_ bold talk! The Heer Governor! Not a boy in all +New Amsterdam but would sooner face a gray wolf in the Sapokanican +woods than the Heer Governor Stuyvesant. + +"So then, Patem Onderdonk," they cried, "you may do it yourself, for, +good faith, we will not." + +"Why," said Jan Hooglant, "why, Patem, the Heer Governor will have us +rated soundly over the ears for daring such a thing; and we will all +catch more of it when we get home. Demand of the Heer Governor indeed! +Why, boy, you must be crazy!" + +But Patem was not crazy. He was simply determined; and at last, by +threats and arguments and coaxing words, he gradually won over a +half-dozen of the boldest spirits to his side and, without more ado, +started with them to interview the Heer Governor. + +But, quickly as they acted, the schoolmaster was still more prompt in +action. Defeated and deserted by his scholars, Dominie Curtius had +raged about the schoolroom for a while, spluttering angrily in mingled +Dutch and Polish, and then, clapping his broad black hat upon his +head, marched straight to the fort to lay his grievance before the +Heer Governor. + +The Heer Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General for the Dutch West India +Company in their colony of New Netherlands, walked up and down the +Governor's chamber in the fort at New Amsterdam woefully perplexed. +The Heer Governor was not a patient man, and a combination of +annoyances was hedging him about and making his government of his +island province anything but pleasant work. + +The "malignant English" of the Massachusetts and Hartford colonies +were pressing their claim to the ownership of the New Netherlands, +just as, to the south, the settlers on Lord De La Ware's patent were +also doing; the "people called Quakers," whom the Heer Governor had +publicly whipped for heresy and sent a-packing, were spreading their +"pernicious doctrine" through Long Island and other outer edges of the +colony, and the Indians around Esopus, the little settlement which the +province had planted midway on the Hudson between New Amsterdam and +Beaverwyck (now Albany), were growing restless and defiant. Thump, +thump, thump, across the floor went the wooden leg with its silver +bands, and with every thump the Heer Governor grew still more puzzled +and angered. For the Heer Governor could not bear to have things go +wrong. + +Suddenly, with scant ceremony and but the apology of a request for +admittance, there came into the Heer Governor's presence the Dominie +Doctor Alexander Carolus Curtius, master of the Latin School. + +"Here is a pretty pass, Heer Governor!" he cried excitedly. "My pupils +of the Latin School have turned upon me in revolt and have deserted me +in a body." + +"_Ach_; then you are rightly served for a craven and a miser, sir!" +burst out the angry Governor, turning savagely upon the surprised +schoolmaster. + +This was a most unexpected reception for Doctor and Dominie Curtius. +But, as it happened, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant was just now +particularly vexed with the objectionable Dominie. At much trouble and +after much solicitation on his part the Heer Governor had prevailed +upon his superiors and the proprietors of the province, the Dutch West +India Company, to send from Holland a schoolmaster or "rector" for +the children of their town of New Amsterdam, and the Company had sent +over Dominie Curtius. + +The Heer Governor had entertained great hopes of what the new +schoolmaster was to do, and now to find him a subject of complaint +from both the parents of the scholars and the officials of the town +made the hasty Governor doubly dissatisfied. The Dominie's intrusion, +therefore, at just this stage of all his perplexities gave the Heer +Governor a most convenient person on whom to vent his bad feelings. + +"Yes, sirrah, a craven and a miser!" continued the angry Governor, +stamping upon the floor with both wooden leg and massive cane. "You, +who can neither govern our children nor pay your just dues to the +town, can be no fit master for our youth. No words, sirrah, no words," +he added, as the poor dominie tried to put in a word in his defence, +"no words, sir; you are discharged from further labour in this +province. I will see that one who can ride wisely and pay his just +dues shall be placed here in your stead." + +Protests and appeals, explanations and arguments, were of no avail. +When the Heer Governor Stuyvesant said a thing, he meant it, and it +was useless for any one to hope for a change. The unpopular Dominie +Curtius must go--and go he did. + +But, as he left, the delegation of boys, headed by young Patem +Onderdonk, came into the fort and sought to interview the Heer +Governor. + +The sentry at the door would have sent them off without further ado, +but, hearing their noise, the Heer Governor came to the door. + +"So, so, young rapscallions," he cried, "you, too, must needs disturb +the peace and push yourself forward into public quarrels! Get you +gone! I will have none of your words. Is it not enough that I must +needs send the schoolmaster a-packing, without being worried by +graceless young varlets as you?" + +"And hath the Dominie Curtius gone indeed, Heer Governor?" Patem dared +to ask. + +"Hath he, hath he, boy?" echoed the Governor, turning upon his +audacious young questioner with uplifted cane. "Said I not so, and +will you dare doubt my word, rascal? Begone from the fort, all of you, +ere I do put you all in limbo, or send word to your good folk to give +you the floggings you do no doubt all so richly deserve." + +Discretion is the better part of valour, and the boyish delegation +hastily withdrew. But when once they were safely out of hearing of the +Heer Governor, beyond the Land Gate at the Broad Way, they took breath +and indulged in a succession of boyish shouts. + +"And that doth mean no school, too!" cried young Patem Onderdonk, +flinging his cap in air. "Huzzoy for that, lads; huzzoy for that!" + +And the "huzzoys" came with right good-will from every boy of the +group. + +Within less than a week the whole complexion of affairs in that little +island city was entirely changed. Both the Massachusetts and the +Maryland claimants ceased, for a time at least, their unfounded +demands. A treaty at Hartford settled the disputed question of +boundary-lines, and the Maryland governor declared "that he had not +intended to meddle with the government of Manhattan." Added to this, +Sewackenamo, chief of the Esopus Indians, came to the fort at New +Amsterdam and "gave the right hand of friendship" to the Heer +Governor, and by the interchange of presents a treaty of peace was +ratified. So, one by one, the troubles of the Heer Governor melted +away, his brow became clear and, "partaking of the universal +satisfaction," so says the historian, "he proclaimed a day of general +thanksgiving." + +Thanksgiving in the colonies was a matter of almost yearly occurrence. +Since the first Thanksgiving Day on American shores, when, in 1621, +the Massachusetts colony, at the request of Governor Bradford, +rejoiced, "after a special manner after we had gathered the fruit of +our labours," the observance of days of thanksgiving for mercies and +benefits had been frequent. But the day itself dates still further +back. The States of Holland after establishing their freedom from +Spain had, in the year 1609, celebrated their deliverance from tyranny +"by thanksgiving and hearty prayers," and had thus really first +instituted the custom of an official thanksgiving. And the Dutch +colonists in America followed the customs of the Fatherland quite as +piously and fervently as did the English colonists. + +So, when the proclamation of the Heer Governor Stuyvesant for a day of +thanksgiving was made known, in this year of mercies, 1659, all the +townfolk of New Amsterdam made ready to keep it. + +But young people are often apt to think that the world moves for them +alone. The boys of this little Dutch town at the mouth of the Hudson +were no different from other boys, and cared less for treaties and +Indians and boundary questions than for their own matters. They, +therefore, concluded that the Heer Governor had proclaimed a +thanksgiving because, as young Patem Onderdonk declared, "he had +gotten well rid of Dominie Curtius and would have no more +schoolmasters in the colony." + +"And so, lads," cried the exuberant young Knickerbocker, "let us +wisely celebrate the Thanksgiving. I will even ask the mother to make +for me a rare salmagundi which we lads, who were so rated by the Heer +Governor, will ourselves give to him as our Thanksgiving offering, for +the Heer Governor, so folk do say, doth rarely like the salmagundi." + +Now the salmagundi was (to some palates) a most appetizing mixture, +compounded of salted mackerel, or sometimes of chopped meat, seasoned +with oil and vinegar, pepper and raw onions--not an altogether +attractive dish to read of, but welcome to and dearly loved by many an +old Knickerbocker even up to a recent date. Its name, too, as most of +you bright boys and girls doubtless know, furnished the title for one +of the works of Washington Irving, best loved of all the +Knickerbockers. + +Thanksgiving Day came around, and so did Patem's salmagundi, as highly +seasoned and appetizing a one as the Goode Vrouw Onderdonk could make. + +The lengthy prayers and lengthier sermon of good Dominie Megapolensis +in the Fort Church were over and the Thanksgiving dinners were very +nearly ready when up to the Heer Governor's house came a half-dozen +boys, with Patem Onderdonk at their head bearing a neatly covered +dish. + +Patem had well considered and formed in his mind what he deemed just +the speech of presentation to please the Heer Governor, but when the +time came to face that awful personage his valour and his eloquence +alike began to ooze away. + +And, it must be confessed, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant did not +understand boys, nor did he particularly favour them. He was hasty and +overbearing though high-minded, loyal, and brave, but he never could +"get on" with the ways and pranks of boys. + +And as for the boys themselves, when once they stood in the presence +of the greatest dignitary in the province, Patem's ready tongue seemed +to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and he hummed and hawed and +hesitated until the worthy Heer Governor lost patience and broke in: + +"Well, well, boys; what is the stir? Speak quick if at all, for when a +man's dinner waiteth he hath scant time for stammering boys." + +Then Patem spoke up. + +"Heer Governor," he said, "the boys hereabout, remembering your +goodness in sending away our most pestilential master, the Dominie +Curtius, and in proclaiming a Thanksgiving for his departure and for +the ending of our schooling--" + +"What, what, boy!" cried the Heer Governor, "art crazy then, or would +you seek to make sport of me, your governor? Thanksgiving for the +breaking up of school! Out on you for a set of malapert young knaves! +Do you think the world goeth but for your pleasures alone? Why, this +is ribald talk! I made no Thanksgiving for your convenience, rascals, +but because that the Lord in His grace hath relieved the town from +danger--" + +"Of which, Heer Governor," broke in the most impolitic Patem, "we did +think the Dominie Curtius and his school were part. And so we have +brought to you this salmagundi as our Thanksgiving offering to you for +thus freeing us of a pest and a sorrow--" + +"How now, how now, sirrah!" again came the interruption from the +scandalized Heer Governor when he could recover from his surprise, "do +you then dare to call your schooling a pest and a sorrow? Why, you +graceless young varlets, I do not seek to free you from schooling. I +do even now seek to bring you speedily the teaching you do so much +stand in need of. Even now, within the week forthcoming, the good +Dominie Luyck, the tutor of mine own household, will see to the +training and teaching of this town, and so I will warrant to the +flogging, too, of all you sad young rapscallions who even now by this +your wicked talk do show your need both of teaching and of flogging." + +And then, forgetful of the boys' Thanksgiving offering and in high +displeasure at what he deemed their wilful and deliberate ignorance, +the Heer Governor turned the delegation into the street and hastened +back to his waiting dinner. + +"_Ach, so_," cried young Teuny Vanderbreets, as the disgusted and +disconsolate six gathered in the roadway and looked at one another +ruefully. "Here is a fine mix-up--a regular salmagundi, Patem +Onderdonk, and no question. And you did say that this Thanksgiving was +all our work. Out upon you, say I! Here are we to be saddled with a +worse master than before. Hermanus Smeeman did tell me that Nick +Stuyvesant did tell him that Dominie Luyck is a most hard and +worry-ful master." + +There was a universal groan of disappointment and disgust, and then +Patem said philosophically: + +"Well, lads, what's done is done and what is to be will be. Let us eat +the salmagundi anyhow and cry, 'Confusion to Dominie Luyck.'" + +And they did eat it, then and there, for indigestion had no terror to +those lads of hardy stomachs. + +But as for the toast of "Confusion to Dominie Luyck," that came to +naught. For Dominie Aegidius Luyck proved a most efficient and skilful +teacher. Under his rule the Latin School of New Amsterdam became +famous throughout the colonies, so that scholars came to it for +instruction from Beaverwyck and South River and even from distant +Virginia. + +So the Thanksgiving of the boys of New Amsterdam became a day of +mourning, and Patem's influence as a leader and an oracle suffered +sadly for a while. + +Five years after, on a sad Monday morning in September, 1664, the +little city was lost to the Dutch West India Company and, spite of the +efforts and protests of its sturdy Governor, the red, white, and blue +banner of the Netherlands gave place to the flag of England. And when +that day came the young fellows who then saw the defeat and +disappointment of the Heer Governor Stuyvesant were not so certain +that Patem Onderdonk was wrong when he claimed that it was all a just +and righteous judgment on the Heer Governor for his refusal of the +boys' request for no school, and for his treatment of them on that sad +Thanksgiving Day when he so harshly rebuked their display of gratitude +and lost forever his chance to partake of Patem's Salmagundi. + + + + +MRS. NOVEMBER'S DINNER PARTY[11] + +BY AGNES CARR. + + An amusing allegorical fantasy. All the most interesting + Days, grandchildren of Mother Year, came to Mrs. November's + dinner party, to honour the birthday of her daughter, + Thanksgiving. + + +The widow November was very busy indeed this year. What with elections +and harvest homes, her hands were full to overflowing; for she takes +great interest in politics, besides being a social body, without whom +no apple bee or corn husking is complete. + +[Footnote 11: From _Harper's Young People_, November 23, 1880.] + +Still, worn out as she was, when her thirty sons and daughters +clustered round, and begged that they might have their usual family +dinner on Thanksgiving Day, she could not find it in her hospitable +heart to refuse, and immediately invitations were sent to her eleven +brothers and sisters, old Father Time, and Mother Year, to come with +all their families and celebrate the great American holiday. + +Then what a busy time ensued! What a slaughter of unhappy barnyard +families--turkeys, ducks, and chickens! What a chopping of apples and +boiling of doughnuts! What a picking of raisins and rolling of pie +crust, until every nook and corner of the immense storeroom was +stocked with "savoury mince and toothsome pumpkin pies," while so +great was the confusion that even the stolid red-hued servant, Indian +Summer, lost his head, and smoked so continually he always appeared +surrounded by a blue mist, as he piled logs upon the great bonfires in +the yard, until they lighted up the whole country for miles around. + +But at length all was ready; the happy day had come, and all the +little Novembers, in their best "bib and tucker," were seated in a +row, awaiting the arrival of their uncles, aunts, and cousins, while +their mother, in russet-brown silk trimmed with misty lace, looked +them over, straightening Guy Fawkes's collar, tying Thanksgiving's +neck ribbon, and settling a dispute between two little presidential +candidates as to which should sit at the head of the table. + +Soon a merry clashing of bells, blowing of horns, and mingling of +voices were heard outside, sleighs and carriages dashed up to the +door, and in came, "just in season," Grandpa Time, with Grandma Year +leaning on his arm, followed by all their children and grandchildren, +and were warmly welcomed by the hostess and her family. + +"Oh, how glad I am we could all come to-day!" said Mr. January, in his +crisp, clear tones, throwing off his great fur coat, and rushing to +the blazing fire. "There is nothing like the happy returns of these +days." + +"Nothing, indeed," simpered Mrs. February, the poetess. "If I had had +time I should have composed some verses for the occasion; but my son +Valentine has brought a sugar heart, with a sweet sentiment on it, to +his cousin Thanksgiving. I, too, have taken the liberty of bringing a +sort of adopted child of mine, young Leap Year, who makes us a visit +every four years." + +"He is very welcome, I am sure," said Mrs. November, patting Leap Year +kindly on the head. "And, Sister March, how have you been since we +last met?" + +"Oh! we have had the North, South, East, and West Winds all at our +house, and they have kept things breezy, I assure you. But I really +feared we should not get here to-day; for when we came to dress I +found nearly everything we had was lent; so that must account for our +shabby appearance." + +"He! he! he!" tittered little April Fool. "What a sell!" And he shook +until the bells on his cap rang; at which his father ceased for a +moment showering kisses on his nieces and nephews, and boxed his ears +for his rudeness. + +"Oh, Aunt May! do tell us a story," clamoured the younger children, +and dragging her into a corner she was soon deep in such a moving tale +that they were all melted to tears, especially the little Aprils, who +cry very easily. + +Meanwhile, Mrs. June, assisted by her youngest daughter, a "sweet girl +graduate," just from school, was engaged in decking the apartment with +roses and lilies and other fragrant flowers that she had brought from +her extensive gardens and conservatories, until the room was a +perfect bower of sweetness and beauty; while Mr. July draped the walls +with flags and banners, lighted the candles, and showed off the tricks +of his pet eagle, Yankee Doodle, to the great delight of the little +ones. + +Madam August, who suffers a great deal with the heat, found a seat on +a comfortable sofa, as far from the fire as possible, and waved a huge +feather fan back and forth, while her thirty-one boys and girls, led +by the two oldest, Holiday and Vacation, ran riot through the long +rooms, picking at their Aunt June's flowers, and playing all sorts of +pranks, regardless of tumbled hair and torn clothes, while they +shouted, "Hurrah for fun!" and behaved like a pack of wild colts let +loose in a green pasture, until their Uncle September called them, +together with his own children, into the library, and persuaded them +to read some of the books with which the shelves were filled, or play +quietly with the game of Authors and the Dissected Maps. + +"For," said Mr. September to Mrs. October, "I think Sister August lets +her children romp too much. I always like improving games for mine, +although I have great trouble to make Equinox toe the line as he +should." + +"That is because you are a schoolmaster," laughed Mrs. October, +shaking her head, adorned with a wreath of gayly tinted leaves; "but +where is my baby?" + +At that moment a cry was heard without, and Indian Summer came running +in to say that little All Hallows had fallen into a tub of water while +trying to catch an apple that was floating on top, and Mrs. October, +rushing off to the kitchen, returned with her youngest in a very wet +and dripping condition, and screaming at the top of his lusty little +lungs, and could only be consoled by a handful of chestnuts, which his +nurse, Miss Frost, cracked open for him. + +The little Novembers, meanwhile, were having a charming time with +their favourite cousins, the Decembers, who were always so gay and +jolly, and had such a delightful papa. He came with his pockets +stuffed full of toys and sugarplums, which he drew out from time to +time, and gave to his best-loved child, Merry Christmas, to distribute +amongst the children, who gathered eagerly around their little cousin, +saying: + + "Christmas comes but once a year, + But when she comes she brings good cheer." + +At which Merry laughed gayly, and tossed her golden curls, in which +were twined sprays of holly and clusters of brilliant scarlet berries. + +At last the great folding-doors were thrown open. Indian Summer +announced that dinner was served, and a long procession of old and +young being quickly formed, led by Mrs. November and her daughter +Thanksgiving, whose birthday it was, they filed into the spacious +dining-room, where stood the long table groaning beneath its weight of +good things, while four servants ran continually in and out bringing +more substantials and delicacies to grace the board and please the +appetite. Winter staggered beneath great trenchers of meat and +poultry, pies and puddings; Spring brought the earliest and freshest +vegetables; Summer, the richest creams and ices; while Autumn served +the guests with fruit, and poured the sparkling wine. + +All were gay and jolly, and many a joke was cracked as the contents of +each plate and dish melted away like snow before the sun; and the +great fires roared in the wide chimneys as though singing a glad +Thanksgiving song. + +New Year drank everybody's health, and wished them "many happy returns +of the day," while Twelfth Night ate so much cake he made himself +quite ill, and had to be put to bed. + +Valentine sent mottoes to all the little girls, and praised their +bright eyes and glossy curls. "For," said his mother, "he is a sad +flatterer, and not nearly so truthful, I am sorry to say, as his +brother, George Washington, who never told a lie." + +At which Grandfather Time gave George a quarter, and said he should +always remember what a good boy he was. + +After dinner the fun increased, all trying to do something for the +general amusement. Mrs. March persuaded her son, St. Patrick, to dance +an Irish Jig, which he did to the tune of the "Wearing of the Green," +which his brothers, Windy and Gusty, blew and whistled on their +fingers. + +Easter sang a beautiful song, the little Mays "tripped the light +fantastic toe" in a pretty fancy dance, while the Junes sat by so +smiling and sweet it was a pleasure to look at them. + +Independence, the fourth child of Mr. July, who is a bold little +fellow, and a fine speaker, gave them an oration he had learned at +school; and the Augusts suggested games of tag and blindman's buff, +which they all enjoyed heartily. + +Mr. September tried to read an instructive story aloud, but was +interrupted by Equinox, April Fool, and little All Hallows, who pinned +streamers to his coat tails, covered him with flour, and would not let +him get through a line; at which Mrs. October hugged her tricksy baby, +and laughed until she cried, and Mr. September retired in disgust. + +"That is almost too bad," said Mrs. November, as she shook the popper +vigorously in which the corn was popping and snapping merrily; "but, +Thanksgiving, you must not forget to thank your cousins for all they +have done to honour your birthday." + +At which the demure little maiden went round to each one, and returned +her thanks in such a charming way it was quite captivating. + +Grandmother Year at last began to nod over her teacup in the chimney +corner. + +"It is growing late," said Grandpa Time. + +"But we must have a Virginia Reel before we go," said Mr. December. + +"Oh, yes, yes!" cried all the children. + +Merry Christmas played a lively air on the piano, and old and young +took their positions on the polished floor with grandpa and grandma at +the head. + +Midsummer danced with Happy New Year, June's Commencement with +August's Holiday, Leap Year with May Day, and all "went merry as a +marriage bell." + +The fun was at its height when suddenly the clock in the corner struck +twelve. Grandma Year motioned all to stop, and Grandfather Time, +bowing his head, said softly, "Hark! my children, Thanksgiving Day is +ended." + + + + +THE VISIT[12] + +A STORY OF THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWER + +BY MAUD LINDSAY. + + The children went back to spend Thanksgiving at + grandfather's farm. They got into some trouble and were + afraid that they would miss their dinner. + + +Early one morning Grandmother Grey got up, opened the windows and +doors of the farmhouse, and soon everybody on the place was stirring. +The cook hurried breakfast, and no sooner was it over than Grandfather +Grey went out to the barn and hitched the two horses to the wagon. + +[Footnote 12: From "More Mother Stories," Milton Bradley Company.] + +"Get up, Robin and Dobbin!" he said, as he drove through the big gate. +"If you knew who were coming back in this wagon you would not be +stepping so slowly." + +The old horses pricked up their ears when they heard this, and trotted +away as fast as they could down the country road until they came to +town. Just as they got to the railway station the train came whizzing +in. + +"All off!" cried the conductor, as the train stopped; and out came a +group of children who were, every one of them, Grandfather and +Grandmother Grey's grandchildren. They had come to spend Thanksgiving +Day on the farm. + +There was John, who was named for grandfather and looked just like +him, and the twins, Teddie and Pat, who looked like nobody but each +other; their papa was grandfather's oldest son. Then there was Louisa, +who had a baby sister at home, and then Mary Virginia Martin, who was +her mamma's only child. + +"I tell you," said grandfather, as he helped them into the wagon, +"your grandmother will be glad to see you!" + +And so she was. She was watching at the window for them when they +drove up, and when the children spied her they could scarcely wait for +grandfather to stop the wagon before they scrambled out. + +"Dear me, dear me!" said grandmother, as they all tried to kiss her at +the same time, "how you have grown." + +"I am in the first grade," said John, hugging her with all his might. + +"So am I," cried Louisa. + +"We are going to be," chimed in the twins; and then they all talked at +once, till grandmother could not hear herself speak. + +Then, after they had told her all about their mammas and papas, and +homes, and cats and dogs, they wanted to go and say "how do you do" to +everything on the place. + +"Take care of yourselves," called grandmother, "for I don't want to +send any broken bones home to your mothers." + +"I can take care of myself," said John. + +"So can we," said the rest; and off they ran. + +First they went to the kitchen where Mammy 'Ria was getting ready to +cook the Thanksgiving dinner; then out to the barnyard, where there +were two new red calves, and five little puppies belonging to Juno, +the dog, for them to see. Then they climbed the barnyard fence and +made haste to the pasture where grandfather kept his woolly sheep. +"Baa-a!" said the sheep when they saw the children; but then, they +always said that, no matter what happened. + +There were cows in this pasture, too, and Mary Virginia was afraid of +them, even though she knew that they were the mothers of the calves +she had seen in the barnyard. + +"Silly Mary Virginia!" said John, and Mary Virginia began to cry. + +"Don't cry," said Louisa. "Let's go to the hickory-nut tree." + +This pleased them all, and they hurried off; but on the way they came +to the big shed where grandfather kept his plows and reaper and +threshing machine and all his garden tools. + +The shed had a long, wide roof, and there was a ladder leaning against +it. When John saw that, he thought he must go up on the roof; and +then, of course, the twins went, too. Then Louisa and Mary Virginia +wanted to go, and although John insisted that girls could not climb, +they managed to scramble up the ladder to where the boys were. And +there they all sat in a row on the roof. + +"Grandmother doesn't know how well we can take care of ourselves," +said John. "But I am such a big boy that I can do anything. I can ride +a bicycle and go on errands--" + +"So can I," said Louisa. + +"We can ride on the trolley!" cried the twins. + +"Mamma and I go anywhere by ourselves," said Mary Virginia. + +"Moo!" said something down below; and when they looked, there was one +of the cows rubbing her head against the ladder. + +"Don't be afraid, Mary Virginia," said Louisa. "Cows can't climb +ladders." + +"Don't be afraid, Mary Virginia," said John. "I'll drive her away." + +So he kicked his feet against the shed roof and called, "Go away! go +away!" The twins kicked their feet, too, and called, "Go away! go +away!" and somebody, I don't know who, kicked the ladder and it fell +down and lay in the dry grass. And the cow walked peacefully on, +thinking about her little calf. + +"There, now!" exclaimed Louisa, "how shall we ever get down?" + +"Oh, that's nothing," said John. "All I'll have to do is to stand up +on the roof and call grandfather. Just watch me do it." + +So he stood up and called, "Grandfather! Grandfather! Grandfather!" +till he was tired; but no grandfather answered. + +Then the twins called, "Grandfather! Grandmother!" + +"Baa," said the sheep, as if beginning to think that somebody ought to +answer all that calling. + +Then they all called together: "Grandfather! Grandfather! +Grandfather!" and when nobody heard that, they began to feel +frightened and lonely. + +"I want to go home to my mother! I wish I hadn't come!" wailed Mary +Virginia. + +"It's Thanksgiving dinner time, too," said John, "and there's turkey +for dinner, for I saw it in the oven." + +"Pie, too," said Louisa. + +"Dear, dear!" cried the twins. + +And then they all called together once more, but this time with such a +weak little cry that not even the sheep heard it. + +The sun grew warmer and the shadows straighter as they sat there, and +grandmother's house seemed miles away when John stood up to look at +it. + +"They've eaten dinner by this time, I know," he said as he sat down +again; "and grandfather and grandmother have forgotten all about us." + +But grandfather and grandmother had not forgotten them, for just about +then grandmother was saying to grandfather: "You had better see where +the children are, for Thanksgiving dinner will soon be ready and I +know that they are hungry." + +So grandfather went out to look for them. He did not find them in the +kitchen nor the barnyard, so he called, "Johnnie! Johnnie!" and when +nobody answered he made haste to the pasture. + +The children saw him coming, and long before he had reached the gate +they began to call with all their might. This time grandfather +answered, "I'm coming!" and I cannot tell you how glad they were. + +In another minute he had set the ladder up again and they all came +down. Mary Virginia came first because she was the youngest girl, and +John came last because he was the biggest boy. Grandfather put his +arms around each one as he helped them down, and carried Mary Virginia +home on his back. When they got to the house dinner was just ready. + + The turkey was brown, the potatoes were sweet, + The sauce was so spicy, the biscuits were beat, + The great pumpkin pie was as yellow as gold, + And the apples were red as the roses, I'm told. + +It was such a good dinner that I had to tell you about it in rhyme! + + And I'm sure you'll agree, + With the children and me, + That there's never a visit so pleasant to pay + As a visit to grandma on Thanksgiving Day. + + + + +THE STORY OF RUTH AND NAOMI[13] + +ADAPTED FROM THE BIBLE, BY C. S. BAILEY AND C. M. LEWIS. + + Ruth's story is one of the most beautiful ones to be found + in the Old Book. As a tale of the harvest, it deserves to be + included in this collection. + + +Now it came to pass, many hundreds of years ago, that there was a good +woman named Naomi who lived in the land of the Moabites. She had once +been very rich and happy, but now her husband was dead and her two +sons also, and she had left only Orpah and Ruth, the wives of her +sons. There was a famine in the land. Naomi could find no grain in the +fields to beat into flour. She and Orpah and Ruth were lonely and sad +and very hungry. + +[Footnote 13: From "For the Children's Hour," Milton Bradley Company.] + +But Naomi heard there was a land where the Lord had visited His people +and given them bread; so she went forth from the place where she was, +and her two daughters with her, to the land called Judah. It was a +long, hard way to go. There were rough roads to travel and steep hills +to climb. Their feet grew so weary they could scarcely walk, and at +last Naomi said: + +"Go, return each to your father's house. The Lord deal kindly with +you as you have dealt with me. The Lord grant you that you may find +rest." + +Then she kissed them, and Orpah kissed her and left her, but Ruth +would not leave Naomi. And Naomi said to Ruth: + +"Behold, thy sister is gone back unto her own people; return thou!" + +But Ruth clung to Naomi more closely, as she said: + +"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: +for whither thou goest, there will I go; and where thou lodgest, there +will I lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." + +When Naomi saw that Ruth loved her so much, she forgot how tired and +hungry she was, and the two journeyed on together until they came to +Bethlehem in Judah in the beginning of the barley harvest. There was +no famine in Bethlehem. The fields were full of waving grain, and busy +servants were reaping it and gathering it up to bind into sheaves. +Above all were the fields of the rich man, Boaz, shining with barley +and corn. + +Naomi and Ruth came to the edge of the fields and watched the busy +reapers. They saw that after each sheaf was bound, and each pile of +corn was stacked, a little grain fell, unnoticed, to the ground. Ruth +said to Naomi: "Let me go to the field and glean the ears of corn +after them." And Naomi said to her, "Go, my daughter." And she went, +and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers. + +And Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to his reapers: "Whose damsel +is this?" for he saw how very beautiful Ruth was, and how busily she +was gleaning. The reapers said: "It is the damsel that came back with +Naomi out of the land of the Moabites." + +And Ruth ran up to Boaz, crying: "I pray you, let me glean and gather +after the reapers among the sheaves." + +And Boaz, who was good and kind, said to Ruth: + +"Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in any other field, +but abide here." + +Then Ruth bowed herself to the ground, and said: "Why have I found +such favour in thine eyes, seeing I am a stranger?" + +And Boaz answered her: "It hath been showed me all that thou hast done +to thy mother." + +So, all day, Ruth gleaned in Boaz's fields. At noon she ate bread and +parched corn with the others. Boaz commanded his reapers to let fall +large handfuls of grain, as they worked, for Ruth to gather, and at +night she took it all home to Naomi. + +"Where hast thou gleaned to-day?" asked Naomi, when she saw the food +that Ruth had brought to her. + +"The man's name with whom I wrought to-day is Boaz," said Ruth. And +Naomi said: "Blessed be he of the Lord--the man is near of kin unto +us." + +So Ruth gleaned daily, and at the end of the barley harvest the good +man Boaz took Ruth and Naomi to live with him in his own house +forever. + + + + +BERT'S THANKSGIVING[14] + +BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE. + + Bert is a manly, generous, warm-hearted fellow. Other boys + will like to read how good luck began to come his way on a + certain memorable Thanksgiving Day. + + +At noon, on a dreary November day, a lonesome little fellow, looking +very red about the ears and very blue about the mouth, stood kicking +his heels at the door of a cheap eating house in Boston, and offering +a solitary copy of a morning paper for sale to the people passing. + +[Footnote 14: From "Young Joe," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.] + +But there were really not many people passing, for it was Thanksgiving +Day, and the shops were shut, and everybody who had a home to go to +and a dinner to eat seemed to have gone home to eat that dinner, while +Bert Hampton, the newsboy, stood trying in vain to sell the last +"extry" left on his hands by the dull business of the morning. + +An old man, with a face that looked pinched, and who was dressed in a +seedy black coat and a much-battered stovepipe hat, stopped at the +same doorway, and, with one hand on the latch, appeared to hesitate +between hunger and a sense of poverty before going in. + +It was possible, however, that he was considering whether he could +afford himself the indulgence of a morning paper (seeing it was +Thanksgiving Day); so, at least, Bert thought, and accosted him +accordingly. + +"Buy a paper, sir? All about the fire in East Boston, and arrest of +safe-burglars in Springfield. Only two cents!" + +The little old man looked at the boy with keen gray eyes, which seemed +to light up the pinched and skinny face, and answered in a shrill +voice that whistled through white front teeth: + +"You ought to come down in your price this time of day. You can't +expect to sell a morning paper at twelve o'clock for full price." + +"Well, give me a cent then," said Bert. "That's less'n cost; but never +mind; I'm bound to sell out anyhow." + +"You look cold," said the old man. + +"Cold?" replied Bert; "I'm froze. And I want my dinner. And I'm going +to have a big dinner, too, seeing it's Thanksgiving Day." + +"Ah! lucky for you, my boy!" said the old man. "You've a home to go +to, and friends, too, I hope?" + +"No, _sir_; nary home, and nary friend; only my mother"--Bert +hesitated, and grew serious; then suddenly changed his tone--"and Hop +Houghton. I told him to meet me here, and we'd have a first-rate +Thanksgiving dinner together; for it's no fun to be eatin' alone +Thanksgiving Day! It sets a feller thinking of everything, if he ever +had a home and then hain't got a home any more." + +"It's more lonesome not to eat at all," said the old man, his gray +eyes twinkling. "And what can a boy like you have to think of? Here, I +guess I can find one cent for you, though there's nothing in the +paper, I know." + +The old man spoke with some feeling, his fingers trembled, and somehow +he dropped two cents instead of one into Bert's hand. + +"Here! You've made a mistake!" cried Bert. "A bargain's a bargain. +You've given me a cent too much." + +"No, I didn't. I never give anybody a cent too much." + +"But, see here!" And Bert showed the two cents, offering to return +one. + +"No matter," said the old man, "it will be so much less for _my_ +dinner, that's all." + +Bert had instinctively pocketed the pennies when, on a moment's +reflection, his sympathies were excited. + +"Poor old man!" he thought; "he's seen better days I guess. Perhaps +he's no home. A boy like me can stand it, but I guess it must be hard +for _him_. He _meant_ to give me the odd cent all the while; and I +don't believe he has had a decent dinner for many a day." + +All this, which I have been obliged to write out slowly in words, went +through Bert's mind like a flash. He was a generous little fellow, and +any kindness shown him, no matter how trifling, made his heart +overflow. + +"Look here!" he cried, "where are _you_ going to get your dinner +to-day?" + +"I can get a bite here as well as anywhere. It don't matter much to +me," replied the old man. + +"Dine with _me_," said Bert, laughing. "I'd like to have you." + +"I'm afraid I couldn't afford to dine as you are going to," said the +man, with a smile, his eyes twinkling again and his white front teeth +shining. + +"I'll pay for your dinner!" Bert exclaimed. "Come! We don't have a +Thanksgiving but once a year, and a feller wants a good time then." + +"But you are waiting for another boy." + +"Oh, Hop Houghton! He won't come now, it's so late. He's gone to a +place down in North Street, I guess--a place I don't like: there's so +much tobacco smoked and so much beer drank there." Bert cast a final +glance up the street. "No, he won't come now. So much the worse for +him! He likes the men down there; I don't." + +"Ah!" said the man, taking off his hat, and giving it a brush with his +elbow, as they entered the restaurant, as if trying to appear as +respectable as he could in the eyes of a newsboy of such fastidious +tastes. + +To make him feel quite comfortable in his mind on that point, Bert +hastened to say: + +"I mean rowdies, and such. Poor people, if they behave themselves, are +just as respectable to me as rich folks. I ain't the least mite +aristocratic." + +"Ah, indeed!" And the old man smiled again, and seemed to look +relieved. "I'm very glad to hear it." + +He placed his hat on the floor and took a seat opposite Bert at a +little table, which they had all to themselves. + +Bert offered him the bill of fare. + +"No, I must ask you to choose for me; but nothing very extravagant, +you know. I'm used to plain fare." + +"So am I. But I'm going to have a good dinner for once in my life, and +so shall you!" cried Bert, generously. "What do you say to chicken +soup, and then wind up with a thumping big piece of squash pie? How's +that for a Thanksgiving dinner?" + +"Sumptuous!" said the old man, appearing to glow with the warmth of +the room and the prospect of a good dinner. "But won't it cost you too +much?" + +"Too much? No, _sir_!" laughed Bert. "Chicken soup, fifteen cents; +pie--they give tremendous pieces here; thick, I tell you--ten cents. +That's twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do +this way every day in the year. But mother's glad to have me, once in +a while. Here, waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were +no very great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all. + +"Where is your mother? Why don't you dine with her?" the little man +asked. + +Bert's face grew sober in a moment. + +"That's the question: why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got +the best mother in the world. What I'm trying to do is to make a home +for her, so we can live together and eat our Thanksgiving dinners +together some time. Some boys want one thing, some another. There's +one goes in for good times; another's in such a hurry to get rich he +don't care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to +be with my mother and my two sisters again, and I ain't ashamed to say +so." + +Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on, while his companion +across the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look. + +"I haven't been with her now for two years, hardly at all since father +died. When his business was settled up--he kept a little grocery store +on Hanover Street--it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had +lived pretty well up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been +to school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got +her places to go out nursing, and she's a nurse now. Everybody likes +her, and she has enough to do. We couldn't be with her, of course. She +got us boarded at a good place, but I saw how hard it was going to be +for her to support us, so I said, 'I'm a boy; _I_ can do something for +_myself_. You just pay their board, and keep 'em to school, and I'll +go to work, and maybe help you a little, besides taking care of +myself.'" + +"What could _you_ do?" said the little old man. + +"That's it. I was only 'leven years old, and what could I? What I +should have liked would have been some nice place where I could do +light work, and stand a chance of learning a good business. But +beggars mustn't be choosers. I couldn't find such a place; and I +wasn't going to be loafing about the streets, so I went to selling +newspapers. I've sold newspapers ever since, and I shall be twelve +years old next month." + +"You like it?" said the old man. + +"I like to get my own living," replied Bert, proudly, "but what I want +is to learn some trade, or regular business, and settle down, and make +a home for--But there's no use talking about that. Make the best of +things, that's my motto. Don't this soup smell good? And don't it +taste good, too? They haven't put so much chicken in yours as they +have in mine. If you don't mind my having tasted it, we'll change." + +The old man declined this liberal offer, took Bert's advice to help +himself freely to bread, which "didn't cost anything," and ate his +soup with prodigious relish, as it seemed to Bert, who grew more and +more hospitable and patronizing as the repast proceeded. + +"Come, now, won't you have something between the soup and the pie? +Don't be afraid: I'll pay for it. Thanksgiving don't come but once a +year. You won't? A cup of tea, then, to go with your pie?" + +"I think I _will_ have a cup of tea; you are _so_ kind," said the old +man. + +"All right! Here, waiter! Two pieces of your fattest and biggest +squash pie; and a cup of tea, strong, for this gentleman." + +"I've told you about myself," added Bert; "suppose, now, _you_ tell +_me_ something." + +"About myself?" + +"Yes. I think that would go pretty well with the pie." + +But the man shook his head. "I could go back and tell about my plans +and hopes when I was a lad of your age, but it would be too much like +your own story over again. Life isn't what we think it will be when we +are young. You'll find that out soon enough. I am all alone in the +world now, and I am sixty-seven years old." + +"Have some cheese with your pie, won't you? It must be so lonely at +your age! What do you do for a living?" + +"I have a little place in Devonshire Street. My name is Crooker. +You'll find me up two flights of stairs, back room, at the right. Come +and see me, and I'll tell you all about my business, and perhaps help +you to such a place as you want, for I know several business men. Now +don't fail." + +And Mr. Crooker wrote his address with a little stub of a pencil on a +corner of the newspaper which had led to their acquaintance, tore it +off carefully, and gave it to Bert. + +Thereupon the latter took a card from his pocket, not a very clean +one, I must say (I am speaking of the card, though the remark will +apply equally well to the pocket) and handed it across the table to +his new friend. + +"_Herbert Hampton, Dealer in Newspapers_," the old man read, with his +sharp gray eyes, which glanced up funnily at Bert, seeming to say, +"Isn't this rather aristocratic for a twelve-year-old newsboy?" + +Bert blushed, and explained: "Got up for me by a printer's boy I know. +I'd done some favours for him, so he made me a few cards. Handy to +have sometimes, you know." + +"Well, Herbert," said the little old man, "I'm glad to have made your +acquaintance. The pie was excellent--not any more, thank you--and I +hope you'll come and see me. You'll find me in very humble quarters; +but you are not aristocratic, you say. Now won't you let me pay for my +dinner? I believe I have money enough. Let me see." + +Bert would not hear of such a thing, but walked up to the desk and +settled the bill with the air of a person who did not regard a +trifling expense. + +When he looked around again the little old man was gone. + +"Never mind, I'll go and see him the first chance I have," said Bert, +as he looked at the pencilled strip of newspaper margin again before +putting it into his pocket. + +He then went round to his miserable quarters, in the top of a cheap +lodging-house, where he made himself ready, by means of soap and water +and a broken comb, to walk five miles into the suburbs and get a +sight, if only for five minutes, of his mother. + +On the following Monday Bert, having a leisure hour, went to call on +his new acquaintance in Devonshire Street. + +Having climbed the two flights, he found the door of the back room at +the right ajar, and looking in, saw Mr. Crooker at a desk, in the act +of receiving a roll of money from a well-dressed visitor. + +Bert entered unnoticed and waited till the money was counted and a +receipt signed. Then, as the visitor departed, old Mr. Crooker looked +round and saw Bert. He offered him a chair, then turned to lock up the +money in a safe. + +"So this is your place of business?" said Bert, glancing about the +plain office room. "What do you do here?" + +"I buy real estate sometimes--sell--rent--and so forth." + +"Who for?" asked Bert. + +"For myself," said little old Mr. Crooker, with a smile. + +Bert stared, perfectly aghast at the situation. This, then, was the +man whom he had invited to dinner, and treated so patronizingly the +preceding Thursday! + +"I--I thought--you was a poor man." + +"I _am_ a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money +doesn't make a man rich. I've money enough. I own houses in the city. +They give me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer +riches once, but I lost them long ago." + +From the way the old man's voice trembled and eyes glistened, Bert +thought he must have meant by these riches friends he had lost--wife +and children, perhaps. + +"To think of _me_ inviting _you_ to dinner!" the boy cried, abashed +and ashamed. + +"It _was_ odd." And Mr. Crooker showed his white front teeth with a +smile. "But it may turn out to have been a lucky circumstance for both +of us. I like you; I believe in you; and I've an offer to make to you: +I want a trusty, bright boy in this office, somebody I can bring up to +my business, and leave it with, as I get too old to attend to it +myself. What do you say?" + +What _could_ Bert say? + +Again that afternoon he walked--or rather, ran--to his mother, and +after consulting with her, joyfully accepted Mr. Crooker's offer. + +Interviews between his mother and his employer soon followed, +resulting in something for which at first the boy had not dared to +hope. The lonely, childless old man, who owned so many houses, wanted +a home; and one of these houses he offered to Mrs. Hampton, with ample +support for herself and her children, if she would also make it a home +for him. + +Of course this proposition was accepted; and Bert soon had the +satisfaction of seeing the great ambition of his youth accomplished. +He had employment which promised to become a profitable business (as +indeed it did in a few years, he and the old man proved so useful to +each other); and, more than that, he was united once more with his +mother and sisters in a happy home where he has since had a good many +Thanksgiving dinners. + + + + +A THANKSGIVING STORY[15] + +BY MISS L. B. PINGREE. + + A three-minute story for the littlest boys and girls. + + +It was nearly time for Thanksgiving Day. The rosy apples and golden +pumpkins were ripe, and the farmers were bringing them into the +markets. + +[Footnote 15: From "Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories," J. L. +Hammett Company.] + +One day when two little children, named John and Minnie, were going to +school, they saw the turkeys and chickens and pumpkins in the window +of a market, and they exclaimed, "Oh, Thanksgiving Day! Oh, +Thanksgiving Day!" After school was over, they ran home to their +mother, and asked her when Thanksgiving Day would be. She told them in +about two weeks; then they began to talk about what they wanted for +dinner, and asked their mother a great many questions. She told them +she hoped they would have turkey and even the pumpkin pie they wanted +so much, but that Thanksgiving Day was not given us so that we might +have a good dinner, but that God had been a great many days and weeks +preparing for Thanksgiving. He had sent the sunshine and the rain and +caused the grains and fruits and vegetables to grow. And Thanksgiving +Day was for glad and happy thoughts about God, as well as for good +things to eat. + +Not long after, when John and Minnie were playing, John said to +Minnie, "I wish I could do something to tell God how glad I am about +Thanksgiving." "I wish so, too," said Minnie. Just then some little +birds came flying down to the ground, and Minnie said: "Oh, I know." +Then she told John, but they agreed to keep it a secret till the day +came. Now what do you think they did? Well, I will tell you. + +They saved their pennies, and bought some corn, and early Thanksgiving +Day, before they had their dinner, they went out into the street near +their home, and scattered corn in a great many places. What for? Why, +for the birds. While they were doing it, John said, "I know, Minnie, +why you thought of the birds: because they do not have any papas and +mammas after they are grown up to get a dinner for them on +Thanksgiving Day." "Yes, that is why," said Minnie. + +By and by the birds came and found such a feast, and perhaps they knew +something about Thanksgiving Day and must have sung and chirped +happily all day. + + + + +JOHN INGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. + + A sad Thanksgiving story is a rarity indeed. But the one + which follows reminds us that the Puritans, although they + originated our Thanksgiving festival, were after all a + sombre people, seldom free from a realizing sense of the + imminence of sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a genuine product of + Puritanism, inherited a full share of his forefathers' + constitutional melancholy and preoccupation with the darker + aspects of life--as this story bears witness. + + +On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith, +sat in his elbow-chair among those who had been keeping festival at +his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire +threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening +his rough visage so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, +all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned +on his own anvil. At John Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair. +The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the +family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic +merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of the +group was John Inglefield's son, who had been bred at college, and was +now a student of theology at Andover. There was also a daughter of +sixteen, whom nobody could look at without thinking of a rosebud +almost blossomed. The only other person at the fireside was Robert +Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his +journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of John Inglefield +than did the pale and slender student. + +Only these four had kept New England's festival beneath that roof. The +vacant chair at John Inglefield's right hand was in memory of his +wife, whom death had snatched from him since the previous +Thanksgiving. With a feeling that few would have looked for in his +rough nature, the bereaved husband had himself set the chair in its +place next his own; and often did his eye glance hitherward, as if he +deemed it possible that the cold grave might send back its tenant to +the cheerful fireside, at least for that one evening. Thus did he +cherish the grief that was dear to him. But there was another grief +which he would fain have torn from his heart; or, since that could +never be, have buried it too deep for others to behold, or for his own +remembrance. Within the past year another member of his household had +gone from him, but not to the grave. Yet they kept no vacant chair for +her. + +While John Inglefield and his family were sitting round the hearth +with the shadows dancing behind them on the wall, the outer door was +opened, and a light footstep came along the passage. The latch of the +inner door was lifted by some familiar hand, and a young girl came in, +wearing a cloak and hood, which she took off and laid on the table +beneath the looking-glass. Then, after gazing a moment at the fireside +circle, she approached, and took the seat at John Inglefield's right +hand, as if it had been reserved on purpose for her. + +"Here I am, at last, father," said she. "You ate your Thanksgiving +dinner without me, but I have come back to spend the evening with +you." + +Yes, it was Prudence Inglefield. She wore the same neat and maidenly +attire which she had been accustomed to put on when the household work +was over for the day, and her hair was parted from her brow in the +simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. If her cheek +might otherwise have been pale, yet the glow of the fire suffused it +with a healthful bloom. If she had spent the many months of her +absence in guilt and infamy, yet they seemed to have left no traces on +her gentle aspect. She could not have looked less altered had she +merely stepped away from her father's fireside for half an hour, and +returned while the blaze was quivering upward from the same brands +that were burning at her departure. And to John Inglefield she was the +very image of his buried wife, such as he remembered on the first +Thanksgiving which they had passed under their own roof. Therefore, +though naturally a stern and rugged man, he could not speak unkindly +to his sinful child, nor yet could he take her to his bosom. + +"You are welcome home, Prudence," said he, glancing sideways at her, +and his voice faltered. "Your mother would have rejoiced to see you, +but she has been gone from us these four months." + +"I know, father, I know it," replied Prudence quickly. "And yet, when +I first came in, my eyes were so dazzled by the firelight that she +seemed to be sitting in this very chair!" + +By this time, the other members of the family had begun to recover +from their surprise, and became sensible that it was no ghost from the +grave, nor vision of their vivid recollections, but Prudence, her own +self. Her brother was the next that greeted her. He advanced and held +out his hand affectionately, as a brother should; yet not entirely +like a brother, for, with all his kindness, he was still a clergyman +and speaking to a child of sin. + +"Sister Prudence," said he, earnestly, "I rejoice that a merciful +Providence hath turned your steps homeward in time for me to bid you a +last farewell. In a few weeks, sister, I am to sail as a missionary to +the far islands of the Pacific. There is not one of these beloved +faces that I shall ever hope to behold again on this earth. Oh, may I +see all of them--yours and all--beyond the grave!" + +A shadow flitted across the girl's countenance. + +"The grave is very dark, brother," answered she, withdrawing her hand +somewhat hastily from his grasp. "You must look your last at me by the +light of this fire." + +While this was passing, the twin girl--the rosebud that had grown on +the same stem with the castaway--stood gazing at her sister, longing +to fling herself upon her bosom, so that the tendrils of their hearts +might intertwine again. At first she was restrained by mingled grief +and shame, and by a dread that Prudence was too much changed to +respond to her affection, or that her own purity would be felt as a +reproach by the lost one. But, as she listened to the familiar voice, +while the face grew more and more familiar, she forgot everything save +that Prudence had come back. Springing forward she would have clasped +her in a close embrace. At that very instant, however, Prudence +started from her chair and held out both her hands with a warning +gesture. + +"No, Mary, no, my sister," cried she, "do not you touch me! Your bosom +must not be pressed to mine!" + +Mary shuddered and stood still, for she felt that something darker +than the grave was between Prudence and herself, though they seemed so +near each other in the light of their father's hearth, where they had +grown up together. Meanwhile Prudence threw her eyes around the room +in search of one who had not yet bidden her welcome. He had withdrawn +from his seat by the fireside and was standing near the door, with his +face averted so that his features could be discerned only by the +flickering shadow of the profile upon the wall. But Prudence called to +him in a cheerful and kindly tone: + +"Come, Robert," said she, "won't you shake hands with your old +friend?" + +Robert Moore held back for a moment, but affection struggled +powerfully and overcame his pride and resentment; he rushed toward +Prudence, seized her hand, and pressed it to his bosom. + +"There, there, Robert," said she, smiling sadly, as she withdrew her +hand, "you must not give me too warm a welcome." + +And now, having exchanged greetings with each member of the family, +Prudence again seated herself in the chair at John Inglefield's right +hand. She was naturally a girl of quick and tender sensibilities, +gladsome in her general mood, but with a bewitching pathos interfused +among her merriest words and deeds. It was remarked of her, too, that +she had a faculty, even from childhood, of throwing her own feelings +like a spell over her companions. Such as she had been in her days of +innocence, so did she appear this evening. Her friends, in the +surprise and bewilderment of her return, almost forgot that she had +ever left them, or that she had forfeited any of her claims to their +affection. In the morning, perhaps, they might have looked at her with +altered eyes, but by the Thanksgiving fireside they felt only that +their own Prudence had come back to them, and were thankful. John +Inglefield's rough visage brightened with the glow of his heart, as it +grew warm and merry within him; once or twice, even, he laughed till +the room rang again, yet seemed startled by the echo of his own mirth. +The brave young minister became as frolicsome as a schoolboy. Mary, +too, the rosebud, forgot that her twin-blossom had ever been torn from +the stem and trampled in the dust. And as for Robert Moore, he gazed +at Prudence with the bashful earnestness of love new-born, while she, +with sweet maiden coquetry, half smiled upon and half discouraged him. + +In short, it was one of those intervals when sorrow vanishes in its +own depth of shadow, and joy starts forth in transitory brightness. +When the clock struck eight, Prudence poured out her father's +customary draught of herb tea, which had been steeping by the fireside +ever since twilight. + +"God bless you, child," said John Inglefield, as he took the cup from +her hand; "you have made your old father happy again. But we miss your +mother sadly, Prudence, sadly. It seems as if she ought to be here +now." + +"Now, father, or never," replied Prudence. + +It was now the hour for domestic worship. But while the family were +making preparations for this duty, they suddenly perceived that +Prudence had put on her cloak and hood, and was lifting the latch of +the door. + +"Prudence, Prudence! where are you going?" cried they all with one +voice. + +As Prudence passed out of the door, she turned toward them and flung +back her hand with a gesture of farewell. But her face was so changed +that they hardly recognized it. Sin and evil passions glowed through +its comeliness, and wrought a horrible deformity; a smile gleamed in +her eyes, as of triumphant mockery, at their surprise and grief. + +"Daughter," cried John Inglefield, between wrath and sorrow, "stay and +be your father's blessing, or take his curse with you!" + +For an instant Prudence lingered and looked back into the fire-lighted +room, while her countenance wore almost the expression as if she were +struggling with a fiend who had power to seize his victim even within +the hallowed precincts of her father's hearth. The fiend prevailed, +and Prudence vanished into the outer darkness. When the family rushed +to the door, they could see nothing, but heard the sound of wheels +rattling over the frozen ground. + +That same night, among the painted beauties at the theatre of a +neighbouring city, there was one whose dissolute mirth seemed +inconsistent with any sympathy for pure affections, and for the joys +and griefs which are hallowed by them. Yet this was Prudence +Inglefield. Her visit to the Thanksgiving fireside was the realization +of one of those waking dreams in which the guilty soul will sometimes +stray back to its innocence. But Sin, alas! is careful of her +bondslaves; they hear her voice, perhaps, at the holiest moment, and +are constrained to go whither she summons them. The same dark power +that drew Prudence Inglefield from her father's hearth--the same in +its nature, though heightened then to a dread necessity--would snatch +a guilty soul from the gate of heaven, and make its sin and its +punishment alike eternal. + + + + +HOW OBADIAH BROUGHT ABOUT A THANKSGIVING[16] + +BY EMILY HEWITT LELAND. + + The Waddle family had very bad luck on their farm in the + West. And they certainly were homesick! But Obadiah and his + uncle, between them, found means to mend matters. + + +That an innocent and helpless baby should be named Obadiah Waddle was +an outrage which the infant unceasingly resented from the time he got +old enough to realize the awful gulf that lay between his name and +those of his more fortunate mates. The experiences of his first day at +school were branded into his soul; and although he made friends by his +bright face and kind and honest nature, scarcely a day passed during +his six years of village schooling without his absurd name flying out +at him from some unsuspected ambush and making him wince. + +[Footnote 16: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1903.] + +It was bad enough when the guying came from a boy, but when a girl +took to punning, jeering, or giggling at him it seemed as if his +burden was greater than he could bear. Then he would go home through +the woods and fields to avoid human beings, so hurt and unhappy that +nothing but his mother's greeting and the smell of a good supper could +cheer him. + +At home he had no trouble. His mother and his baby sister called him +Obie, and sweet was his name on their lips. His father, who had +objected to "Obadiah" from the first, called him Bub or Bubby; but one +can bear almost any name when it comes with a loving smile or a pat on +the shoulder, which was Mr. Waddle's way of addressing his only son. + +Very early in life it had been explained to Obadiah that he was named +for his mother's favourite brother, who went to California to live, +after hanging a silver dollar on a black silk cord round the neck of +his little namesake. + +Obadiah often looked at this dollar, which was kept in a little box +with a broken earring, a hair chain, a glass breastpin, and an ancient +"copper"; and sometimes on circus days or on the Fourth of July he +wished there was no hole in it that he might expend it on side-shows +and lemonade or on monstrous firecrackers. + +But he knew that his mother valued it highly because Uncle Obie gave +it to him and because there were little dents in it made by his +vigorous first teeth; so he always returned it to the box with a sigh +of resignation, and made the most of the twenty-five cents given him +by his father on the great days of the year. + +When he was eleven years old the Waddle family moved West, and the +last thing Obadiah heard as the train pulled away from the little +station of his native town was this verse, lustily shouted from a +group of schoolmates assembled to bid him good-bye: + + "Oh, Obadiah, you're going West, + Where the prairie winds don't have no rest, + You'll have to waddle your level best. + Good-bye, my lover, good-bye!" + +Ill-fortune attended the Waddles in their western home. To be sure, +they had their rich, broad acres, with never a stone or a stump to +hinder the smooth cutting plow, but a frightful midsummer storm in the +second year literally wiped out crops and cattle, and left them with +their bare lives in their lowly sod house. + +"Drought first year, tornado second. If next year's a failure, we'll +go back--if we can raise money enough to go with. Three times and then +out!" said Mr. Waddle. + +Mrs. Waddle broke down and wept. It scared the children to learn that +their mother could cry--their mother, who was always so bright and +cheerful and who always laughed away their griefs! + +Mr. Waddle was scared, too. He bent down and patted her shoulder--his +favourite way of soothing beast or human being. + +"Now, Mary, Mary! Don't you go back on us. We can stand everything as +long as you are all right. Don't feel bad! We'll pick up again. +There's time enough yet to grow turnips and fodder corn." + +"But what will we fodder it to?" wailed Mrs. Waddle. + +Mr. Waddle could not answer, thinking of his splendid horses, and of +his pure Jersey cows that would never answer to his call again. + +"Well, I am ashamed of myself!" said Mrs. Waddle, after a few moments, +bravely drying her eyes. "And I'm wicked, too! I've just wished that +something would happen so we'd have to go back East, and it's +happened; and we might have all been killed. And I'm going to stop +just where I am. I don't care where we live--or how we live--so long +as we are all together--and well--and there's a crust in the house and +water to drink." + +Rising, she seized the broom and began vigorously to sweep together +the leaves and grass which the cyclone had cast in through the open +door. + +"I declare, Mary!" said Mr. Waddle. "Do you mean to say you've been +homesick all this time?" + +"I'd give more for the north side of one of those old Vermont hills +than I would for the whole prairie!" was the emphatic reply. "But I'm +not going to say another single word." + +Mr. Waddle felt a thrill of comfort in knowing he was not alone in his +yearning for the old home. It was singular that these two, who loved +each other so truly, could so hide their inmost feelings. Each had +feared to appear weak to the other. + +Mr. Waddle looked at his wife with almost a radiant smile. "Well, +Mary, we'll go back in the fall--if we can sell. I guess we can hire +the Deacon Elbridge place I see by last week's paper it's still for +sale or rent, and carpenter work in old Hartbridge is about as +profitable for me as farming out West." + +"I'm glad you wouldn't mind going back, Homer," said Mrs. Waddle, and +they looked at each other as in the days of their courtship. + +But selling the farm was not easy, and October found the Waddles in +painful straits. + +"What will we have for Thanksgiving, Ma?" asked Obadiah. + +"Oh, a pair of nice prairie chickens, mashed turnips, hot biscuits, +and melted sugar," cheerfully replied Mrs. Waddle. + +"That sounds pretty good," said Obadiah; but when he got out of doors +he said to himself that you could not shoot prairie chickens without +ammunition, and that he had no bait even if he tried to use his quail +traps. He also reflected that his mother looked thin and pale, that +sister Ellie needed shoes, and that plum pudding and mince pie used to +be on Thanksgiving tables. But this was the day for his story +paper--post-office day--which seemed to cheer things up somehow. + +When he went to town for the mail he would see if his father, who was +at work carpentering on a barn, could not spare a dime for a little +powder and shot. So the boy trudged away on his long walk, with his +empty gun on his shoulder and the hope of youth in his heart. + +His father, busy at work, greeted him cheerily, but had no dime for +powder and shot. Pay for the work was not to be had until the first of +December, and meanwhile every penny must be saved--for coal and for +Ellie's shoes. + +"It leaves Thanksgiving out in the cold, doesn't it, Bub? But we'll +make it up at Christmas, maybe," said Mr. Waddle, as Obadiah turned to +go. "Here's three cents for a bite of candy for Sis, and take good +care of mother. I'll be home day after to-morrow, likely." + +Obadiah jingled the three pennies in his pocket as he walked to the +combined store and post-office. Three cents! They would buy a charge +or two of powder and shot, and he still had a few caps. And candy was +not good for people anyhow! He wished he had asked his father if he +might buy ammunition instead. + +"But I'll not bother him again," he decided, "and Sis will be glad +enough of the candy." + +He would not buy rashly. He looked over the jars of striped sticks, +peppermint drops, chocolate mice, and mixed varieties. Then he sat +down on a nail keg to await the distribution of the mail. He watched +the people standing by for the opening of the delivery window. It was +a rare thing for his family to get a letter, but then they seldom sent +one. + +Once in a while a newspaper came from Uncle Obadiah, but only one +letter in two years. Perhaps if he knew what hard luck they were +having he would write oftener. The boy had heard his mother say only +the week before that she wanted to write to Brother Obie, but was no +hand at letters, especially when there was no good news to write. + +A thought now came to young Obadiah. He would write to his Uncle +to-morrow, and his brain began fairly to hum with what he would say. +When his time came he invested one cent in a clean white stick of +candy and the remaining two in a postage stamp. "I'll pay two cents +back to pa as soon as I get the answer," he said confidently to his +questioning conscience. + +His walk home abounded in exasperations. Never had game appeared so +plentiful. Three separate flocks of prairie chickens flew directly +over his head, a rabbit scurried across his path, and in the stubble +of the ruined grainfields rose and fell little clouds of quail. + +"They just know it ain't loaded!" grumbled Obadiah, trudging with his +empty gun. + +That night, after Sis had gone to sleep, and his mother had lain down +beside her, cheerfully remarking that bed was cheaper than fire, and +that she was glad there was a good wood lot on the Elbridge place, +Obadiah, behind the sheltering canvas partition that separated the +kitchen from the bedrooms, wrote the following letter: + + DEAR UNCLE:--Last year our crops were burned up by the + drought and this year they were swept away by a cyclone and + all the stock was killed, and father will not get his pay + for carpenter work until December. If there was no hole in + the dollar you gave me when I was a baby I would take it and + buy something for Thanksgiving. I wish you would send me a + dollar without a hole in it as soon as you can and I will + send you the one with a hole in it. I would send it now but + I have not got stamps enough. I hope you are well. We are + all well, only ma is homesick. Your sincere nephew, + +OBADIAH WADDLE. + + P. S.--Please send your answer right to me, because I want + to surprise ma with some things for Thanksgiving. + +The next morning he set off to look at his most distant quail traps, +found them empty, and circled round to the village, where he posted +his letter. + +The days crept slowly by, and times grew more and more uncomfortable +in the little sod house. Often when Obadiah was doing his "sums" his +pencil would shy off to a corner of his slate and scribble a list of +items something like this: + +2 cents to Pa $.02 +Stamps and paper (to send the D) .06 +Powder and shot .10 +Tea and sugar for Ma .30 +1 lb. raisens .15 +6 eggs .08 +1 lb. butter .20 + ------ + .91 +More powder .09 + ------ + $1.00 + +Sometimes he would set down half a pound of "raisens" and add "candy +for Sis, .05," but this was in his reckless moments. Sober second +thought always convinced him that "raisens" would bring the greatest +good to the greatest number about Thanksgiving time. + +He casually asked his mother how long it took people to go to +California. + +"Well, Uncle Obie's newspapers always get here about four or five days +after they are printed. Dear me! I must write to your Uncle Obie just +as soon as we can spare the money for paper and stamps. He'll be glad +to know we are all alive and well, and that's about all I can tell +him." + +Obadiah smiled broadly behind his geography and began reckoning the +days. The answer might arrive about the 18th, but he heroically waited +until the 21st before going to ask for it. He reached the village long +before mail time, but saw so many things to consider in the grocery +and provision line that he was almost surprised when the rattle of the +"mail rig" and an in-gathering of people told that the important time +had arrived. + +The Waddles had given up their box, so he could not expect to see his +letter until it should be handed out to him from the general "W" pile. +He waited patiently. The fortunate owners of lock boxes took out their +letters with a proud air while the distributing was still going on. +Others, who had mere open boxes, drew close and tried to read inverted +superscriptions with poor success. Others who never had either letters +or papers, but who came in at this hour from force of habit, stood +near the stove or leaned on the counters and spoke of the weather and +swapped feeble jokes. Finally the small wooden window was flung open. +The little group got its papers and letters and gradually retired. + +"Any letter for me?" cried Obadiah, his heart jumping. + +"Nope; your pa got your papers last Saturday." + +"But--ain't there a letter--for me?" + +The man hastily ran over the half-dozen "W" missives. "Nope." + +Obadiah's heart was heavy as lead now. He went out into the sleety +weather and faced the long walk home. His eyes were so blurred with +tears he could hardly see and his feet came near slipping. + +A derisive shout came from across the street: "Hallo! Pretty bad +'waddling' this weather!" + +Obadiah pulled his hat over his eyes and tramped on in scornful +silence. + +And now another voice called out to him, a voice from the rear: "Oh, +say! Waddle! Come back here--package for ye!" Obadiah hastily went +back, his heart leaping. + +"Registered package," explained the postmaster. "'Most forgot it. Sign +your name on that line. Odd name you've got. No danger your mail going +to some other fellow." + +Obadiah laughed and said he guessed not, and hardly believing his +senses, again started for home, and soon struck out upon the +far-stretching road. In the privacy of the great prairie he looked at +the package again. How heavy it was for such a small one, and how +important looked the long row of stamps; and there was Uncle Obadiah's +name in one corner, proving that it was truly the answer! + +There must be a jackknife in it, or something besides the dollar. He +cut the stout twine, removed the wrapper, and lifted the cover of a +strong paper box. There was something wrapped in neat white paper and +feeling very solid. + +Obadiah removed the paper, and a heavy, handsome and very fat leather +purse slipped into his hand. He opened it. It had several +compartments, and in each one were three or more hard, flat, round +objects wrapped in more white paper to keep them from jingling, very +likely. + +Obadiah unwrapped one of these round, flat objects, and even in the +dull light of the drizzling and fading November day he could see that +it was a bright, clean, shining silver dollar--and had no hole in it. + +With hands fairly shaking with joy, he returned the purse to the box +and sped homeward. He ran all the way, only slowing up for breath now +and then, but it was dark, and the poor little supper was waiting when +he reached the house. The small lamp did not shed a very brilliant +light, but a mother does not need an electric glare in order to read +her child's face. + +"Well, Obie, what's happened?" asked his mother as soon as he was +inside the door. "Have you caught a whole flock of quails?" + +"Something better'n quails! Guess again, Ma!" + +"Three nice fat prairie hens then." + +"Something better'n prairie hens." And then Obie could wait no longer. +He pulled the package from under his coat and tossed it down beside +the poor old teapot, which had known little but hot water these many +weeks. + +"Why, it's from Brother Obie--to _you_!" exclaimed his mother, while +his father drew near and said, "Well, well!" + +"And look inside! I haven't half looked yet," said Obie, "but _you_ +look, Ma! I just want you to look!" + +Ma opened the box, and then the purse, and then the fourteen round +objects wrapped in white paper. And they made a fine glitter on the +red tablecloth. + +"Well, _well_!" repeated Mr. Waddle. + +"And here's something written," said Mrs. Waddle, taking a paper from +a pocket at the back of the purse. + +"Read it, Ma--out loud! _I_ don't care," said Obie generously. + +So Ma read it in a voice that trembled a little: + + MY DEAR NEPHEW:--If I count rightly, it is thirteen years + since your good mother labelled you Obadiah. I'm not near + enough to give you thirteen slaps--I wish I were--so I send + you thirteen dollars, and one to grow on. Never mind + returning the dollar with the hole in it--keep it for your + grandchildren to cut their teeth on. Give my love to your + parents and little sister; and if you look the purse through + closely, I think you will find something of interest to your + mother. It is about time she paid our old Vermont a visit. + Be a good boy. + +Your affectionate uncle, + +OBADIAH BROWN. + +"Oh, that blessed brother!" cried Mrs. Waddle, wiping her eyes with +her apron. + +Obie seized the purse and examined it on all sides. It was a very +wizard of a purse, for another little flat pocket was found in its +inmost centre, and from it Obie drew out another bit of folded paper +and opened it. + +"Why, it's a check!" shouted Mr. Waddle. "A check for you, Mary, +for--two--hundred--dollars! My! There's a brother for you!" + +"Oh, not two _hundred_--it must be twenty--it can't be--" faltered +Mrs. Waddle, wiping her eyes to look at the paper. + +Then she gave a little cry and fell to hugging all her family. "We can +all go back--we can go next week!" and she almost danced up and down +on the unresponsive clay floor. + +"I owe you two cents, Pa, and I'll pay it back to you just as soon as +I can get a dollar changed," said Obadiah proudly, fingering the +shining coins. + +"How's that, Bubby?" + +Then Obadiah explained. + +"I hope you didn't complain, Obie," said his mother, her happy face +clouding. + +"Well, I told him about the drought and the cyclone. I guess if I was +a near relation I wouldn't call that complaining. And then I asked him +if he wouldn't swap dollars with me, so I could have one without a +hole in it to get something for Thanks--" + +Mr. Waddle broke in with a shout of laughter, and Mrs. Waddle kissed +her son once more, and laughed, too, although her eyes were full of +tears. And then Obadiah knew everything was all right. + +"We can have Thanksgiving now, can't we, Ma?" he asked. "It's so near; +and I'm going to get all the things. We'll have chicken pie--_tame_ +chicken pie--and plum pudding--and butter--and cream for the +coffee--and cranberries--and lump sugar--and pumpkin pie--and--" + +"Oh, me wants supper!" exclaimed Sis. And then they laughed again, and +fell upon the cooling corn-bread and molasses and melancholy bits of +fried pork and the thin ghost of tea as if they were already engaged +in a feast of Thanksgiving. And so they were. + + + + +THE WHITE TURKEY'S WING[17] + +BY SOPHIE SWETT. + + Priscilla, the big white hen turkey, deserved a better fate + than to be eaten on Thanksgiving Day, and Minty and Jason + contrived to save her. + + +Mary Ellen was coming home from her school teaching at the Falls, and +Nahum from 'tending in Blodgett's store at Edom Four Corners, and +Uncle and Aunt Piper with Mirandy and Augustus and the twins were +coming from Juniper Hill, and there was every prospect of as merry a +Thanksgiving as one could wish to see. And Thanksgivings were always +merry at the Kittredge farm on Red Hill. Uncle Kittredge might be a +trifle over thrifty--a leetle nigh, his neighbours called him--but +there was no stinting at Thanksgiving, and when a boy is accustomed to +perpetual corn-bread and sausages, he knows how to appreciate +unlimited turkey and plum pudding; and when he is used to gloomy +evenings, in which Uncle Kittredge holds the one feeble kerosene lamp +between himself and a newspaper, Aunt Kittredge knits in silent +meditation on blue yarn stockings, he knows how good it is to have the +house filled with lights and people, jolly games going on in the +parlour, and candy-pulling in the kitchen. All these delights were +directly before Jason Kittredge as he dangled his legs from the stone +wall and whittled away at the skewers which Clorinda, the "hired +girl," had demanded of him, and yet his heart was as heavy as lead. + +[Footnote 17: From _Harper's Young People_, November 22, 1892.] + +He did not even look up when his sister Minty came up the hill toward +him. He knew it was Minty, because she was hop-skipping and humming, +and he knew that Aunt Kittredge had sent her to Mrs. Deacon Preble's +to get a recipe for snow pudding; she had said she "must have +something real stylish, because she had invited the new minister and +his daughter to dinner." + +"Oh, Jason, don't you wish it was always going to be Thanksgiving Day +after to-morrow?" Minty continued her hop-skipping; she went to and +fro before the dejected figure on the wall. Minty was tall for twelve, +and she had a very high forehead, which made Aunt Kittredge think that +she was going to be "smart." Aunt Kittredge made her comb her hair +straight back from the high forehead, and fasten it with a round comb; +not a vestige of hair showed under Minty's blue hood, and her forehead +looked bleak and cold, and her pale blue eyes were watery, and her new +teeth were large and overlapped each other; but Aunt Kittredge said it +was no matter, if she was only good and "smart." + +"Why, Jason, is anything the matter?" Minty stopped, breathless, and +the joy faded out of her face. Jason continued to whittle in gloomy +silence. His hands were almost purple with cold, and the wind flapped +his large pantaloons--they were Uncle Kittredge's old ones, and Aunt +Kittredge never thought it worth the while to consider the fit if they +were turned up so that he could walk in them. + +"You don't care because the new minister and his daughter are coming?" +pursued Minty. Jason's tastes, as she well knew, did not incline to +ministers and schoolmasters as companions in merrymaking. "She's a big +girl, almost sixteen, and she will go with Mary Ellen, and we shall +have Mirandy and Augustus and the twins, and the Sedgell girls and +Nehemiah Ham are coming in the evening, and we shall have such fun, +and such lots to eat!" + +"That's just like you. You're friv'lous. You don't know what an awful +hard world it is. You haven't got a realizing sense," said Jason +crushingly. + +This last accusation was one with which Aunt Kittredge was accustomed +to overwhelm Clorinda when she burned the pies or wore her best bonnet +to evening meeting. Minty's face grew so long that it looked like the +reflection of a face in a spoon, and the tears came into her eyes. It +must be a hard world, since Jason found it so. He was much +stouter-hearted than she; his round, snub-nosed, freckled face was +generally as cheerful as the sunshine. Jason had his troubles--Minty +well knew what they were--but he bore them manfully. He didn't like to +have Clorinda use his hens' eggs when he was saving them to sell, and +perhaps it was even more trying to be at school when the eggs man +came around, and have Aunt Kittredge sell his eggs and put the money +into her pocket. Jason wished to go into business for himself, and he +had a high opinion of the poultry business for a beginning. Cyrus, +their "hired man," had once lived with a man at North Edom who made +fabulous sums by raising poultry. But Aunt Kittredge's peculiar views +of the rights of boys interfered with his accumulation of the +necessary capital. All these troubles Jason bore bravely. It must be +some great misfortune that caused him to look so utterly despairing, +and to accuse her of such dreadful things, thought poor Minty. + +Jason took pity on her woful face. "P'raps you're not so much to +blame, Mint. You don't know," he said, in a somewhat softened tone. +"It's Aunt Kittredge." + +Minty heaved a long, long sigh. It generally _was_ Aunt Kittredge. + +"She's told Cyrus to kill the--the white turkey!" continued Jason, +with almost a break in his voice. + +"To kill Priscilla!" gasped Minty. "She couldn't--she wouldn't! Oh, +Jason, Cyrus won't do it, will he?" + +"Hasn't he got to if she says so?" demanded Jason grimly. + +"But Priscilla is yours," said Minty stoutly. + +"She says she only let me call her mine. Just as if I didn't save her +out of that weak brood when all the rest were killed by the +thunderstorm! And brought her up in cotton behind the kitchen stove, +no matter how much Clorinda scolded! And found her nest with +thirty-one eggs in it in the old pine stump! And she knows me and +follows me round." + +"I shouldn't think Aunt Kittredge would want to," said Minty +reflectively. + +"She wants a big turkey, because the minister and his daughter are +coming to dinner, and she doesn't want to have one of the young ones +killed, because she is too stin--" + +"I wouldn't care if I were you. After all, Priscilla is only a +turkey," said Minty, attempting to be cheerful. + +But this well-meant effort at consolation aroused Jason's wrath. +"That's just like a girl!" he cried. "What do you care if you only +have blue beads and lots of candy?" + +Poor Minty's face lengthened again, and her jaw fell. "There's my two +dollars and thirty cents, Jason," she said anxiously. + +Jason started; a ray of hope flushed his freckled face. + +"We can buy a big turkey over at Jonas Hicks's for all that money," +continued Minty. And then she drew nearer to Jason, and added a +thrilling whisper, "And we can hide Priscilla!" + +Jason stared at her in amazement. He had never expected Minty to come +to the front in an emergency. Perhaps the high forehead meant +something after all. "_She_'ll be after you about the money, you +know," he said, with a significant nod toward the house. + +"It's my own. I earned it picking berries and weeding old Mrs. +Jackman's garden. It's in my bank, and the bank won't open till +there's five dollars in it." + +Jason's face darkened. + +"But we can smash it," said Minty calmly. + +_Certainly_ the high forehead meant something. + +Priscilla was hidden. The "smashing" was done in extreme privacy +behind the stone wall of the pasture. Cyrus was bound over to secrecy, +as was also Jonas Hicks, who, after some haggling, sold them his +finest turkey for two dollars and thirty cents. + +"Cyrus is gettin' real handy and accommodatin'," said Clorinda the +next morning, when they were all in the kitchen, and Jason, ignobly +arrayed in Clorinda's kitchen-belle apron, was chopping, and Minty was +seeding raisins. "I expected nothin' but what I'd got to pick the +white turkey, and he's fetched her in all picked and drawed." + +"She don't weigh quite so much as I expected," said Uncle Kittredge, +as he suspended the turkey on the hook of the old steelyards. + +Jason and Minty slyly exchanged anxious glances. Neither of them had +looked at the turkey, and Minty's face was suffused with red even to +the roots of her tow-coloured hair. + +Mary Ellen and Nahum came that night, and bright and early on the +morning of Thanksgiving Day came Uncle and Aunt Piper with Mirandy and +Augustus and the twins, and the house was full of noise and jollity. +Jason was obliged to go to church in the morning with the grown +people, but Minty stayed at home to help Clorinda, and after much +manoeuvring she found an opportunity to run down to the shanty in +the logging road and feed the white turkey. The new minister and his +daughter came to dinner, and Jason and Minty were glad that the +children had seats at the far end of the table. The minister's +daughter was sixteen, and looked very stylish, and Aunt Kittredge said +she was glad enough that they had the snow pudding, and that she had +asked Aunt Piper to bring her sauce dishes. + +It had begun to be very merry at the far end of the table, in a quiet +way, for Aunt Kittredge's stern eye wandered constantly in that +direction, and Jason and Minty had almost forgotten that there were +trials and difficulties in life, when suddenly Aunt Piper's loud voice +sounded across the table, striking terror to their souls: + +"You don't say that this is the white turkey? Seems kind of a pity to +kill her, she was so handsome. But she eats real well. Now, you +mustn't forget to let me take a wing home to Sabriny. You know you +always promised her a wing for her hat when the white turkey was +killed." + +Sabriny was Aunt Piper's niece, who had been left at home to keep +house. + +"Sure enough I did," said Aunt Kittredge. "Jason, you go out to the +barn and get Cyrus to give you one of the white turkey's wings; and +Minty, you wrap it up nice, so it will be handy for your aunt to +carry. Go as soon as you've ate your dinner, so's to have it ready, +for Uncle Piper has got to get home before sundown." + +"Yes'm," answered Jason hoarsely, without lifting his eyes from his +plate. He could scarcely eat another mouthful, and Minty found it +unexpectedly easy to obey Aunt Kittredge's injunction to decline snow +pudding lest there should not be "enough to go round." + +"What are you going to do?" asked Minty, overtaking Jason, as he +walked dejectedly through the woodshed as soon as dinner was over. + +"I don't know; run away and be a cowboy like Hiram Trickey, I guess." + +Minty's heart gave a great throb. Hiram Trickey had sent home a +photograph, which showed him to have become very like the picture of a +pirate in Cyrus's old book, with pistols and a dirk at his belt. + +"Jason, the new minister's daughter has got a white gull's wing on her +hat, and--it's up in the spare chamber on the bed, and I don't think +Sabriny would ever know the difference." + +Jason stared in mild-eyed speechless wonder. Minty had never shown +herself a leading spirit before. + +"It will be dark before the minister's daughter goes, and there's a +veil over the hat, and if we put a little something white on it I'm +sure she won't notice. And when she does notice she won't know what +became of it. And we can save up and buy her another gull's wing." + +"Sabriny'll know," said Jason, but there was an accent of hope in his +voice. + +"They don't have turkeys, and they know that Priscilla wasn't a common +turkey; perhaps they won't know the difference," said Minty. "Anyway, +it will give us time to get Priscilla out of the way. If Aunt +Kittredge finds out, she will have her killed right away." + +"You go and get the wing off the minister's daughter's hat, Mint," +directed Jason firmly. + +Minty worked with trembling fingers in the chilly seclusion of the +spare chamber, but she made a neat package. And she stuck on to the +hat in place of the wing some feathers from the white rooster. + +There was an awful moment as Uncle and Aunt Piper were leaving. + +"Just let me see whether he's got a real handsome wing," said Aunt +Kittredge, taking the package which Minty had put into Aunt Piper's +hand. + +"Malachi is in considerable of a hurry, and they've done it up so +nice," said Aunt Piper. "There! I 'most forgot my sauce dishes, and +Sabriny's going to have company to-morrow!" + +Minty drew a long breath of relief as the carriage disappeared down +the lane, and Jason privately confided to her his opinion that she was +"an orfle smart girl." + +There was another dreadful moment when the minister's daughter went +home. They had played games until a very late hour, for Corinna, and +she dressed so hurriedly that she did not observe that anything had +happened to her hat, but as she went down the garden walk Jason and +Minty saw in the moonlight the rooster's feathers blowing from it. + +The next morning, in the privacy afforded by the great woodpile, to +which Jason had gone to chop his daily stint, the children debated the +advisability of committing the white turkey to the care of Lot Rankin, +who lived with his widowed mother on the edge of the woods. + +"It's hard to get a chance to feed her," said Jason, "and she may +squawk." + +"Lot Rankin may tell," suggested Minty. And she heaved a great sigh. +Conspiracy came hard to Minty. + +Just then the voice of the new minister's daughter came to their ears. +She was talking with Aunt Kittredge on the other side of the woodpile. + +"There was a high wind last night when I went home, and I suppose it +blew away. I am very sorry to lose it, because it was so pretty, and +it was a present, too," she said. + +"Maybe the children have found it; they're round everywhere," said +Aunt Kittredge. And then she called shrilly to Jason. + +Minty shrank down in a little heap behind a huge log as Jason stepped +bravely out from behind the woodpile, and answered promptly that he +had not seen the gull's wing. That was literally true; but how _she_ +was going to answer, Minty did not know. + +It was so great a relief that tears sprang to Minty's eyes when, after +a little more conversation, the minister's daughter went away. Aunt +Kittredge had taken it for granted that, as she remarked, "if one of +them young ones didn't know anything about it the other didn't." + +Minty felt her burden of guilt to be greater than she could bear. And +there was no way in which she could earn money enough to buy the +minister's daughter a new feather until berries were ripe and the +weeds grew in old Mrs. Jackman's garden. Minty racked her brains to +think of something she could give the minister's daughter to ease her +troubled conscience. There was her Bunker Hill monument, made of +shells, her most precious treasure; she would gladly have parted with +even that, but it stood upon the table in the parlour, and Aunt +Kittredge would discover so soon that it had gone. And Aunt Kittredge +was quite capable of asking the minister's daughter to return it. +Minty felt, despairingly, that this atonement was impossible. + +But suddenly a bright idea struck her. The feather on her summer +Sunday hat! It was blue--it had been white originally, but Aunt +Kittredge had thriftily had it dyed when it became soiled. Blue would +be very becoming to the minister's daughter, and perhaps she would +like it as well as her gull's wing. There was another sly visit to the +chilly spare chamber. Minty took the summer Sunday hat from its +bandbox in the closet, and carefully abstracted the blue feather. It +was slightly faded, and there were some traces of the wetting it had +received in a thunderstorm in spite of the handkerchief which Aunt +Kittredge carefully pinned over it; but Minty thought it still a very +beautiful feather. She put it into a little pasteboard box, wrote the +minister's daughter's name on it, placed it on her doorstep at dusk, +rang the bell, and ran away. + +It was nearly a week before she could find this opportunity to present +the feather, for Aunt Kittredge didn't allow her to go out after dark; +and in all that time they had not been able to negotiate with Lot +Rankin, for Lot had the mumps on both sides at once, and could not be +seen. But the very next day after the minister's daughter received her +feather--as if things were all coming right, thought Minty +hopefully--Uncle Kittredge sent her down to Lot Rankin's to find out +when he would be strong enough to help Cyrus in the logging camp; and +Jason gave her many charges concerning the contract she was to make +with Lot. But as she was going out of the house, there stood the +minister's daughter in the doorway, talking with Aunt Kittredge. + +"I shouldn't have known where it came from if Miss Plympton, the +milliner, hadn't happened to come in," the young girl was saying. "She +said at once, 'It's Minty Kittredge's feather. I had it dyed for her +last summer, and there's the little tag from the dye-house on it now.' +I can't think why she sent it to me." + +Aunt Kittredge turned to the shrinking figure behind her, holding the +blue feather accusingly in her hand. + +"Araminta Kittredge, what does this mean?" she demanded sternly. + +"I--I--she felt so bad about her gull's wing, and--and--" A rising sob +fairly choked Minty. + +"Please don't scold her. I'm sure she can explain," pleaded the +minister's daughter. + +"It's my duty to find out just what this means," said Aunt Kittredge +severely. "I never heard of a child doing such a high-handed thing! +You can do your errand now, because your uncle wants you to, but when +you come back I shall have a settlement with you." + +Poor Minty! She ran fast, never looking back, although the minister's +daughter called to her in kindliest tones. + +There was no hope of keeping a secret from Aunt Kittredge when once +she had discovered that there was one. The only chance of saving +Priscilla's life lay in persuading Lot Rankin to care for and conceal +her. + +But, alas! she found that Lot was not to be persuaded. He was going +into the woods to work, and his mother was "set against turkeys." +Moreover, she was "so lonesome most of the time that when folks _did_ +come along she told 'em all she knew." + +Jason, who had been very anxious, met her at the corner. Perhaps it +was not to be wondered at that Jason was somewhat cross and +unreasonable. He said only a girl would be so foolish as to send that +feather to the minister's daughter. Girls were all silly, even those +who had high foreheads, and he would never trust one again. He hoped +she was going to have sense enough not to tell, no matter what Aunt +Kittredge did. + +Poor Minty felt herself to be quite unequal to resisting Aunt +Kittredge, but she swallowed a lump in her throat and said firmly that +she would try to have sense enough. + +As they passed the blacksmith's shop, Liphlet, Uncle Piper's man, +called out to them: "Mebbe I shan't have time to go up to your house. +The blacksmith is sick, so I had to come over here to get the mare +shod, and I wish you'd tell your aunt that Sabriny says 'twan't no +turkey's wing that she sent her: 'twas some kind of a sea-bird's wing, +and it come off of somebody's bunnit, and she's a-goin' to fetch it +back!" + +Minty and Jason answered not a word, but as they went on they looked +at each other despairingly. + +"We should have been found out anyway," said Minty. + +Her pitifully white face seemed to touch Jason and arouse a spark of +manly courage in his bosom. + +"I'll stand by you, Mint, feather and all. You can't help being a +girl," he said magnanimously. "And I won't run away to be a cowboy +like Hiram Trickey." + +Minty gave him a little grateful glance, but she could not speak. It +did not seem so dreadful now about Hiram Trickey. She wished that a +girl could run away to be a cowboy. + +As they slowly and dejectedly drew near the house, they saw a horse +and a farm wagon at the door, and through the window they discovered +that Uncle and Aunt Kittredge, Clorinda, and Cyrus were all in the +kitchen. There was a visitor. Here was at least a slight reprieve. +They went around through the woodshed; it seemed advisable to approach +Aunt Kittredge with caution, even in the presence of a visitor. + +"Well, I must say I'm consid'able disappointed," the visitor was +saying, as they softly opened the door. He was a bluff, burly man, who +sat with his tall whip between his knees. "I ought to 'a' stopped when +I see her out there top of the stone wall the last time I come by--the +handsomest turkey cretur I ever did see, and I've been in the poultry +business this twenty years. I knew in a minute she belonged to that +breed that old Mis' Joskins had; she fetched 'em from York State. She +moved away before I knew it, and carried 'em all with her." + +"I bought some eggs of her, and 'most all of 'em hatched, but that +white turkey was the only one that lived," said Aunt Kittredge. "I +declare if I'd known she was anything more'n common, and worthy of +havin' her picture in a book--" + +"You'd ought to have known it, Maria!" said Uncle Kittredge testily. +"I wa'n't for havin' her killed, and you'd ought to have heard to me!" + +"I was calc'latin' to hev her picter right in the front of my new +poultry book," continued the visitor, whom the children now recognized +as the distinguished poultry dealer of North Edom for whom Cyrus had +once worked. "And I was going to have printed under it, 'From the farm +of Abner Kittredge, Esq., Corinna.' Be kind of a boom for you 'n' +Corinna, too--see? And if you didn't want to sell her right out, I +was calc'latin' to make you a handsome offer for all the eggs she +laid." + +"There! Now you see what you've done, Maria! I declare I wouldn't +gredge givin' a twenty dollar bill to fetch that white turkey back!" +exclaimed Uncle Kittredge. + +"Oh, oh! Uncle Kittredge!" Minty broke away from Jason, who would have +held her back, not feeling sure that it was quite time to speak, and +rushed into the room. "You needn't give twenty dollars! Priscilla is +down in the little shanty in the logging wood! We saved her--Jason and +I--and we bought a turkey of Jonas Hicks instead. I paid with my own +money, Aunt Kittredge! And then I--I took the gull's wing off the +minister's daughter's hat to send to Sabriny, and--and so that's why I +sent her the blue feather, and--and Sabriny's going to send the gull's +wing back--" + +"Jason, you go and fetch that turkey home!" said Uncle Kittredge. +"And, Maria, don't you blame them children one mite!" + +"I never heard of such high-handed doin's!" gasped Aunt Kittredge. + +"I expect I shall have to send you children each a copy of my book +with the picter of that turkey in it," said the poultry dealer. "And +maybe the boy and I can make kind of a contract about eggs and +chickens." + +The minister's daughter wore her gull's wing to church the next +Sunday, and she privately confided to Minty that she "didn't blame her +one bit." Aunt Kittredge looked at Minty somewhat severely for +several days but only as she looked at her when she turned around in +church or fidgeted in the long prayer. And after the poultry book came +out with Priscilla's photograph as a frontispiece, and people began to +make pilgrimages to the Red Hill farm to see the poultry, she was +heard to say several times that "it was wonderful to see how a smart +boy like Jason could make turkey raising pay," and that "as for Minty, +she always knew that high forehead of hers wasn't for nothing." + + + + +THE THANKSGIVING GOOSE[18] + +BY FANNIE WILDER BROWN. + + How a little boy learned to be thankful. A charming story + even though it _has_ a moral. + + +"But I don't like roast goose," said Guy, pouting. "I'd rather have +turkey. Turkey is best for Thanksgiving, anyway. Goose is for +Christmas." + +[Footnote 18: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1908.] + +Guy's mother did not answer. He watched her while she carefully wrote +G. T. W. on the corner of a pretty new red-bordered handkerchief. Five +others, all alike, and all marked alike, lay beside it. The initials +were his own. + +"Why didn't you buy some blue ones? I'd rather have them different," +he said. + +Mrs. Wright smiled a queer little smile, but did not answer. She +lighted a large lamp and held the marked corner of one of the +handkerchiefs against the hot chimney. The heat made the indelible ink +turn dark, although the writing had been so faint Guy hardly could see +it before. + +"Oh, dear," he cried, "there's a little blot at the top of that T! I +don't want to carry a handkerchief that has a blot on it." + +"Very well," said his mother. "I'll put them away, and you may carry +your old ones until you ask me to let you carry this one. I don't care +to furnish new things for a boy who doesn't appreciate them." + +"I don't like old--" + +"That'll do, Guy. Never mind the rest of the things that you don't +like. I want you to take this dollar down to Mrs. Burns. Tell her that +I shall have a day's work for her on Friday, and I thought she might +like to have part of the pay in advance to help make Thanksgiving +with. Please go now." + +"But a dollar won't help much. She won't like that. She always acts +just as if she was as happy as anybody. I don't want to go there on +such an errand as that." + +Mrs. Wright smiled again, but her tone was very grave. + +"Mrs. Burns is 'as happy as anybody,' Guy, and she has the +best-behaved children in the neighbourhood. The little ones almost +never cry, and I never have seen the older ones quarrel. But there are +eight children, and Mr. Burns has only one arm, so he can't earn much +money. Mrs. Burns has to turn her hands to all sorts of things to keep +the children clothed and fed. She'll be thankful to get the +dollar--you see if she isn't! And tell her if she is making mince pies +to sell this year, I'll take three." + +Guy walked very slowly down the street until he came to the little +house where the Burns family lived. + +"I'd hate to live here," he thought. "I don't see where they all +sleep. My room isn't big enough, but I don't believe there's a room in +this house as big as mine. I shouldn't have a bit of fun, ever, if I +lived here. And I'd hate to have my mother make pies and send me about +to sell them." + +Then he knocked on the front door, for there was no bell. No one came. +He could hear people talking in the distance, so he knew some of the +family were at home. Some one always was at home here to look after +the little children. He walked around to the kitchen door: it stood +open. The children were talking so fast they did not hear his knock. + +They were very busy. Katie, the eleven-year-old, and Malcolm, ten, +Guy's age, were cutting citron into long, thin strips, piling it on a +big blue plate. Mary and James, the eight-year-old twins, were paring +apples with a paring machine. The long, curling skins fell in a large +stone jar standing on a clean paper, spread on the floor. Charlie, who +was only four years old, was watching to see that none of the parings +fell over the edge of the jar. Susan, who was seven, was putting +raisins, a few at a time, into a meat chopper screwed down on the +kitchen table. George, three years old, was turning the handle of the +chopper to grind the raisins. Baby Joe was creeping about the kitchen +floor after a kitten. Mrs. Burns was taking a great piece of meat from +a steaming kettle on the back of the stove. Every one was working, +except the baby and the kitten, but all seemed to be having a glorious +time. What they were saying seemed so funny it was some time before +Guy could understand it. At last he was sure it was some kind of a +game. + +"Mice?" asked Susan. Mary squealed, and they all laughed. + +"Because they're small," said Mary. "Snakes?" + +"They can't climb trees," Mrs. Burns called out from the pantry. The +children fairly roared at that. "A pantry with no window in it?" + +"Oh, we've had that before," Katie answered. "I know what you say. +It's a good place to ripen pears in when Mrs. Wright gives us some." + +Guy knocked very loudly at that. He had not thought that he was +listening. + +The children started, but did not leave their work. They looked at +their mother. "Jamie," she said. Then Jamie came to meet Guy, and +invited him to walk in. + +"What game is it?" asked Guy, forgetting his errand. + +"Making mince pies," said Jamie. "It's lots of fun. Don't you want to +play? I'll let you turn the paring machine if you'd like that best." + +Guy said "Thank you" and began to turn the parer eagerly. + +"But I don't mean what you are doin'," said Guy. "I knew that was +mince pies. I thought that was work. I meant what you were saying. It +sounds so funny! I never heard it before." + +"Mamma made it up," explained Malcolm. "It's great fun. We always +play it at Thanksgiving time. You think of something that people don't +like, and the one who can think first tells what he is thankful for +about it. We call it 'Thanksgiving.'" + +Guy stayed for an hour, and played both games. Then, quite to his +surprise, the twelve o'clock whistles blew, and he had to go home. But +he remembered his errands and did them, to the great pleasure of the +whole Burns family. + +In the afternoon Guy spent some time writing a note to his mother. It +was badly written, but it made his mother happy. It read: + + DEAR MOTHER:--I am Thankful the blot isent any bigger. I am + Thankful the hankershefs isent black on the borders. I would + like that one with the Blot on to put in my pocket when you + read this. But my old ones are nice. The Burnses dont have + things to be Thankful for but they are Thankful just the + same. + + I am Thankful for the Goose we are going to have. The best + is I am Thankful I am not a Goose myself, for if I was I + wouldent know enough to be Thankful. + +Respectfully yours, + +GUY THEODORE WRIGHT. + + + + +AN ENGLISH DINNER OF THANKSGIVING[19] + +BY GEORGE ELIOT. + + Americans are not the only people who hold a feast each year + after the crops are gathered into barns. + + The older boys and girls who wish to know more of the jolly + English farmer, Martin Poyser, and his household, will enjoy + reading about them in George Eliot's great novel, "Adam + Bede." + + +It was a goodly sight--that table, with Martin Poyser's round +good-humoured face and large person at the head of it, helping his +servants to the fragrant roast beef, and pleased when the empty plates +came again. Martin, though usually blest with a good appetite, really +forgot to finish his own beef to-night--it was so pleasant to him to +look on in the intervals of carving, and see how the others enjoyed +their supper; for were they not men who, on all the days of the year +except Christmas Day and Sundays, ate their cold dinner, in a +makeshift manner, under the hedgerows, and drank their beer out of +wooden bottles--with relish certainly, but with their mouths toward +the zenith, after a fashion more endurable to ducks than to human +bipeds. Martin Poyser had some faint conception of the flavour such +men must find in hot roast beef and fresh-drawn ale. He held his head +on one side, and screwed up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and +watched half-witted Tom Tholer, otherwise known as "Tom Saft," +receiving his second plateful of beef. A grin of delight broke over +Tom's face as the plate was set down before him, between his knife and +fork, which he held erect, as if they had been sacred tapers; but the +delight was too strong to continue smouldering in a grin--it burst out +the next moment in a long-drawn "haw, haw!" followed by a sudden +collapse into utter gravity, as the knife and fork darted down on the +prey. Martin Poyser's large person shook with his silent unctuous +laugh; he turned toward Mrs. Poyser to see if she, too, had been +observant of Tom, and the eyes of husband and wife met in a glance of +good-natured amusement. + +[Footnote 19: From Chapter LIII of "Adam Bede."] + +But _now_ the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn, leaving +a fair large deal table for the bright drinking cans, and the foaming +brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks, pleasant to behold. +_Now_ the great ceremony of the evening was to begin--the harvest +song, in which every man must join; he might be in tune, if he liked +to be singular, but he must not sit with closed lips. The movement was +obliged to be in triple time; the rest was _ad libitum_. + +As to the origin of this song--whether it came in its actual state +from the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a +school or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant. There is a stamp +of unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the +former hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that +this unity may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds +which was a condition of primitive thought foreign to our modern +consciousness. Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first +quatrain an indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, +failing in imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of +iteration; others, however, may rather maintain that this very +iteration is an original felicity to which none but the most prosaic +minds can be insensible. + +The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony. (That is +perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our +forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly +_forte_, no can was filled: + + "Here's a health unto our master, + The founder of the feast; + Here's a health unto our master + And to our mistress! + + "And may his doings prosper, + Whate'er he takes in hand, + For we are all his servants, + And are at his command." + +But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung +_fortissimo_, with emphatic raps on the table, which gave the effect +of cymbals and drum together. Alick's can was filled, and he was +bound to empty it before the chorus ceased. + + "Then drink, boys, drink! + And see ye do not spill, + For if ye do, ye shall drink two, + For 'tis our master's will." + +When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed +manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand--and so +on, till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of +the chorus. Tom Saft--the rogue--took care to spill a little by +accident; but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to +prevent the exaction of the penalty. + +To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of +obvious why the "Drink, boys, drink!" should have such an immediate +and often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that +all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious; it was the +regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to +do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over +their wine glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, +had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in +the ceremony; and had not finished his contemplation, until a silence +of five minutes declared that "Drink, boys, drink!" was not likely to +begin again for the next twelve-month. Much to the regret of the boys +and Totty; on them the stillness fell rather flat, after that +glorious thumping of the table, toward which Totty, seated on her +father's knee, contributed with her small might and small fist. + +When Bartle reentered, however, there appeared to be a general desire +for solo music after the choral. Nancy declared that Tim the wagoner +knew a song and was "allays singing like a lark i' the stable"; +whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, "Come, Tim, lad, let's hear +it." Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn't +sing; but this encouraging invitation of the master's was echoed all +round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could +say, "Come, Tim"--except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity +of unnecessary speech. At last Tim's next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, +began to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing +rather savage, said, "Let me alooan, will ye? else I'll ma' ye sing a +toon ye wonna like." A good-tempered wagoner's patience has limits, +and Tim was not to be urged further. + +"Well, then, David, ye're the lad to sing," said Ben, willing to show +that he was not discomfited by this check. "Sing 'My loove's a roos +wi'out a thorn.'" + +The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted +expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity +rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent +to Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve +over his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. +And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the +desire to hear David's song. But in vain. The lyrism of the evening +was in the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that +retreat just yet.... + + + + +A NOVEL POSTMAN[20] + +BY ALICE W. WHEILDON. + + A little country girl made known her wants in a decidedly + original way. A small boy in the city did his best to + satisfy them. This is at once a story of Thanksgiving and of + Christmas. + + +"Oh, mother! what do you suppose Ellen found in the turkey? You never +could guess. It's a letter--yes, a real letter just stuffed +inside--see!" And Freddie held before his mother's wondering eyes a +soiled and crumpled envelope which seemed to contain a letter. + +[Footnote 20: From _Wideawake_, November, 1889. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard +Company.] + +Freddie had been in the kitchen all the morning watching the various +operations for the Thanksgiving dinner which was "to come off" the +next day, when all the "sisters, cousins, and aunts" of the family +were to assemble, as was their custom each year, and great was the +commotion in the kitchen and much there was for Master Fred to +inspect. When Ellen put her hand into the turkey to arrange him for +the stuffing, great was her astonishment at finding a piece of paper. +Drawing it quickly out she called, "Freddie, Freddie, see here! See +what I've found in the turkey! I declare if he isn't a new kind of a +postman, for sure as you're born this is a letter, come from +somewhere, in the turkey. My! who ever heard of such a thing?" + +Freddie, standing with eyes and mouth wide open, finally said, "Why, +Ellen, do you believe it is a letter?" + +"Why, of course it is! Don't you see it's in a' envelope and all +sealed and everything?" + +"Yes, but it hasn't any stamp and how could a turkey bring it--how did +it get in him?" + +"Oh," laughed Ellen, "that's the question! You'd better take it right +up to your mother and get her to read it to you and perhaps it will +tell." + +So Freddie, all excitement, rushed upstairs and into his mother's +room, shouting as we have read. + +His mother took the letter from him. "Where did you get this, +Freddie--what do you mean by finding it in the turkey?" + +"Why, Ellen found it in the turkey when she was fixing him, and I +don't see how it got there." + +Mrs. Page turned the envelope and slowly read, "To the lady who buys +this turkey," written with a pencil and in rather crooked letters on +the outside; then opening the envelope she found, surely enough, a +letter within, also written in pencil, in rather uncertain letters, +some large, some quite small, some on the line, others above or below, +but all bearing sufficient relation to one another for her finally to +decipher the following: + +_Nov. 20_, + +_Mad River Village, N. H._ + + dere lady I doo want a dol for Christmas orful and mother + says that Sante Claws is so busy in the city that she gueses + he forgits the cuntry and for me to rite to the city lady + who buys our turkey and ask her if she will pleas to ask + Sante Claws if he could send a dol way up here in the cuntry + to me. I will hang my stockin in the chimly and he cannot + mistake the house becaus it is the only house that is black + in the hole place. I have prayed to him lots of times to + give me a dol but I gues he does not mind prayers much from + a little girl so far away so will you pleas to ask him for + me and oblige + +LUCY TILLAGE. + + P. S.--I hope the turkey will be good to eat, he is our very + best one and I was sorry to have him killed, but I never had + a dol. + +Freddie listened, very much interested, sometimes helping to make out +the letters while his mother read this remarkable letter. At its +conclusion he dropped upon a chair in deep thought while in his +imagination he saw a small black house surrounded by turkeys running +wildly about while a little girl tried to catch the largest. + +"Oh, mother," at length he sighed, "only think of a girl who never had +a doll, and Beth has so many she don't know what to do with them +all--shall you ask Santa Claus to send her one?" + +"Well," said Mrs. Page, who also had been in deep thought, "do you +think we better ask Santa Claus to send her one, or send her one +ourselves? You and Beth might send her one for a Christmas present." + +At once Freddie became fired with the desire to rush to a store, +purchase a doll, and send it off to the little "black house." He +seemed to think the house was little because the girl was little. + +"No, no, Freddie, not so fast," said Mrs. Page. "I think we better +wait till papa comes home and then we will ask his advice about it: +first, if he knows of a town in New Hampshire of this name, and then +if he thinks there may really be a little girl there who has such an +odd name--I shouldn't be surprised if Papa could find out all about +her." + +Freddie thought it was hard to wait until his father came home before +something was done about securing a doll; still he knew his mother was +right and tried to be patient, wishing Beth would come home, wondering +how the little girl looked, and if she had any brothers who wanted +something, and fifty other things, till he heard his father's key in +the front door; then down he rushed, flourishing the open sheet in his +hand, and gave him a most bewildering and rapid account of the letter +and the finding it in the turkey, ending with, "Now, Papa, do you know +of any such town, and did you ever hear of Lucy Tillage before, or of +anybody's turkey having a letter sent in him, and don't you think we +might send her the doll right away so's she might have it for +Christmas sure--don't you, Papa? And if we can't get a new one won't +you tell Beth to send one of hers? I know she won't want so many +and--" + +"Oh! stop, my boy," said Mr. Page, laughing heartily; "wait a moment, +Fred, I don't half understand what this is all about--a letter and a +turkey and a little girl with a doll and a turkey in a black house--" + +"Now, Papa, you're getting it all mixed up; you read the letter +yourself, please." + +So Mr. Page read the letter and heard about finding it in the turkey, +and then talked it over with his wife and Freddie and Beth, who had +come in from her play, and it was decided that he should write to the +postmaster and minister in Mad River Village asking them if they knew +of any family in the place of the name of Tillage, and if they did, +whether they were a poor family, and how many children they had, and +anything else they might know of them. + +There was no time to lose if the doll was to be sent for Christmas, so +both letters were written that very evening and Freddie begged to put +them in the post box himself that there might be no mistake in that. + +Then came a long time of waiting for Master Fred. At first he thought +one day would be enough for the letter to find its way to Mad River +Village; but upon a solemn consultation with the cousins and aunts who +came to the Thanksgiving party, it was decided that three days, at +least, ought to be allowed for a letter to reach a place that none of +them had ever heard of, and perhaps there was not such a village +anywhere after all but Freddie had made up his mind that there was +somewhere, and so each morning found him watching for the postman and +each night he went to bed disappointed, saying, "Oh! I hope there is a +truly Mad Village." + +Beth was almost as much excited as Fred about Lucy's letter, but still +she laughed at him as older sisters sometimes seem to take pleasure +in doing, saying, "I guess it's a delicious wonderland kind of a +letter, and that the people up there are mad people to be sending +letters in turkeys!" + +"Well, you just wait, Beth, and see if they are," answered Fred; and +sure enough, after ten days of waiting Freddie was rewarded by +receiving from the postman a yellow envelope with "Mad River Village" +printed in large, clear letters "right side of the stamp." He ran as +fast as he could with it to his father, shouting to Beth by the way to +"come and see if there isn't a Mad Village and a Lucy Tillage." + +Mr. Page was never given so short a time before to open a letter and +adjust his glasses, but then a letter had never before been received +under such circumstances. It proved to be from the postmaster at Mad +River Village, and ran as follows: + +Mad River Village, N. H. + + MR. PAGE of Boston: I rec. your letter a Day or two since + and hasten to ans. it right away, as you wish, by this + morning's mail which I must put up pretty soon so this + letter must be short. Yes sir I do know a family in this + town by the name of Tillage and they're a good respectable + family too. They live a mile or two out of the village on a + farm his father left him and I guess they have pretty hard + times making both ends meet--there ain't much sale up here + for farm things, you know, and it costs a heap to send them + to Boston but they do say that of late he's raised lots of + chickens and turkeys to send to Boston for Thanksgiving. + Last year he and his wife started in on taking summer + boarders and I guess they done first rate. They're young + folks, got three children, a little girl a small boy and a + baby and I guess they'll do as well as any one can on that + farm, it's a likely place but his father ain't been dead + long and Geo. didn't have no show while the old man was + alive. He buys his flour and groceries of me and I call him + a honest fellow and I guess you'd like to board with them if + you want to try them next summer. I don't think of anything + more to say so will close. + +Yours respt. + +JOSIAH SAFFORD. + + P. S.--His name and address are George Tillage, Intervale + Farm, Mad River Village, N. H. + +This was a highly satisfactory letter, especially to Master Fred who +had shouted gleefully to Beth, "I told you so!" "I do know a family of +the name of Tillage," and when his father read "three children, a +little girl, etc.," he nearly turned a somersault in his excitement, +dancing about and saying, "that's Lucy! that's Lucy!" + +Mr. Page turned smilingly to his wife, saying, "Well, my dear, this +does not sound so much like a fairy tale after all, and I really think +you and the children must play Santa Claus and send Lucy a doll." + +"Oh, yes, Papa, of course we must! Yes, do, Mamma!" shouted both +children at once. "It'll be such fun and she won't know where it comes +from." + +Mrs. Page was only too willing, so she promised, only adding that she +hoped the minister would give an equally good account. + +The children, however, were quite satisfied with the postmaster's +letter and began preparations the very next morning to secure the doll +and her "fit out" as Beth called it. First, Beth's dolls were looked +at to see if one of them would do to take a trip into the country, but +although there were quite a number of them none seemed to just suit +their ideas of what Lucy's doll should be. So Mamma was appealed to +and in consequence a visit was paid to Partridge's store by Mrs. Page, +accompanied by Beth and Master Fred. Here such a bewildering array of +dolls was presented to the children that it was with difficulty they +finally decided upon one with blue eyes and short golden hair, and +real hair that curled bewitchingly. Then came the selection of the +"fit out." Freddie thought she should have skates and a watch and +bracelets and one of the cunning waterproof cloaks and a trunk--in +fact, everything that could be bought for a doll (and in these days +that means all articles of apparel, whether for use or ornament, that +could be bought for a real person); but Mrs. Page explained that she +would not need so many things in Mad River Village, so he was +contented with a trunk which he selected himself, while his mother and +Beth bought a little hat and cloak, shoes, stockings, and a pretty +sunshade--the dresses and underclothing Beth thought she could make +with the aid of her mother's seamstress, and she was very ambitious to +try. + +Freddie thought the "small boy" and the "baby" ought to have presents +sent to them also; so he was allowed to select a drum, which he was +sure the boy "would like best of anything," and a pretty rattle and a +rubber cow for the baby. + +It was a very busy season of the year for the Pages as well as for +other people, and Beth had many presents to think about, but she kept +the little dresses and clothes for Lucy's doll in mind and worked and +planned with a will all the time she could spare for them, and Mary, +the seamstress, sewed and sewed, and as she knew how to cut dresses as +well as make them, in about two weeks they had, as Beth said, "a +lovely fit out," even to a tiny muff and collar made from some bits of +fur mamma had and a sweet little hood made just like Beth's own. + +Then Miss Doll was dressed in her travelling suit, muff and all, her +other dresses and clothing packed in the little trunk, and she herself +carefully tucked in on top, then Beth shut the cover and locked it, +tying the key to one of the buckles of the side strap--a box had been +procured and into it was packed the trunk, the drum, and the presents +for the baby, supplemented by Freddie with a ball which he had found +among his own playthings and two cornucopias of candy which he had +purchased himself, saying that "Christmas won't be Christmas if they +don't have some candy." Mrs. Page "filled in the nooks and corners +just to steady the whole," as she modestly said, with a pair of strong +warm mittens for Mr. Tillage, some magazines and books, several pairs +of long thick stockings which Freddie had outgrown but not worn out, +and over the whole a beautiful warm shawl. + +Then Beth and Fred composed a letter together which Beth wrote and +they both signed: + + DEAR LUCY TILLAGE:--The turkey brought the letter safely to + us and we wanted to be Santa Claus ourselves and so send the + doll and the other things for a Christmas present to you and + your brother and the baby. + + We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. + +BETH PAGE, + +FRED PAGE. + +This they neatly folded, put in an envelope addressed to Miss Lucy +Tillage, Mad River Village, and placed on the shawl where it might be +seen the moment the box was opened. They felt very proud and happy +when the box was finally nailed up and directed in clear printed +letters to + +GEORGE TILLAGE, + Intervale Farm, + Mad River Village, + New Hampshire. + +Freddie insisted that Lucy's name ought to be put on, too, as she was +the one who had written the letter and to whom the box was really +sent; so "For Lucy" was printed across one corner and underlined that +her father might see it was sent particularly to her. It all seemed so +mysterious, sending presents to people they did not know, and so +delightful, that they thought this the best Christmas they had ever +known and only wished that they could be in the little "black house" +when the box was opened, to see Lucy's face as she caught sight of the +cunning trunk and then the doll which she had so longed for. + +The very day the box was sent on its way there came a letter from a +minister in the town in which Mad River Village was located, saying +that he "did not know any family of the name of Tillage, but upon +inquiry he had found that there was a family of that name living on +the other side of the river, but as they did not go to his church he +was not acquainted with them; he was sorry, etc., etc." + +But the children cared little for this letter; their faith in Lucy was +not shaken, and they were very happy that they had answered her +letter. + + + + +EZRA'S THANKSGIVIN' OUT WEST[21] + +BY EUGENE FIELD. + + A Kansas settler's recollections of an old-time Thanksgiving + in western Massachusetts. Older boys and girls will best + appreciate the tender sentiment of the picture which Eugene + Field has painted so vividly by his masterly use of homely + dialect. + + +Ezra had written a letter to the home folks, and in it he had +complained that never before had he spent such a weary, lonesome day +as this Thanksgiving Day had been. Having finished this letter, he sat +for a long time gazing idly into the open fire that snapped cinders +all over the hearthstone and sent its red forks dancing up the chimney +to join the winds that frolicked and gambolled across the Kansas +prairies that raw November night. It had rained hard all day, and was +cold; and although the open fire made every honest effort to be +cheerful, Ezra, as he sat in front of it in the wooden rocker and +looked down into the glowing embers, experienced a dreadful feeling of +loneliness and homesickness. + +[Footnote 21: From "A Little Book of Profitable Tales," copyright, +1889, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.] + +"I'm sick o' Kansas," said Ezra to himself. "Here I've been in this +plaguey country for goin' on a year, and--yes, I'm sick of it, +powerful sick of it. What a miser'ble Thanksgivin' this has been! +They don't know what Thanksgivin' is out this way. I wish I was back +in ol' Mass'chusetts--that's the country for _me_, and they hev the +kind o' Thanksgivin' I like!" + +Musing in this strain, while the rain went patter-patter on the +windowpanes, Ezra saw a strange sight in the fireplace--yes, right +among the embers and the crackling flames Ezra saw a strange, +beautiful picture unfold and spread itself out like a panorama. + +"How very wonderful!" murmured the young man. Yet he did not take his +eyes away, for the picture soothed him and he loved to look upon it. + +"It is a pictur' of long ago," said Ezra softly. "I had like to forgot +it, but now it comes back to me as nat'ral-like as an ol' friend. An' +I seem to be a part of it, an' the feelin' of that time comes back +with the pictur', too." + +Ezra did not stir. His head rested upon his hand, and his eyes were +fixed upon the shadows in the firelight. + +"It is a pictur' of the ol' home," said Ezra to himself. "I am back +there in Belchertown, with the Holyoke hills up north an' the +Berkshire Mountains a-loomin' up gray an' misty-like in the western +horizon. Seems as if it wuz early mornin'; everything is still, and it +is so cold when we boys crawl out o' bed that, if it wuzn't +Thanksgivin' mornin', we'd crawl back again an' wait for Mother to +call us. But it _is_ Thanksgivin' mornin', and we're goin' skatin' +down on the pond. The squealin' o' the pigs has told us it is five +o'clock, and we must hurry; we're goin' to call by for the Dickerson +boys an' Hiram Peabody, an' we've got to hyper! Brother Amos gets on +about half o' my clothes, and I get on 'bout half o' his, but it's all +the same; they are stout, warm clo'es, and they're big enough to fit +any of us boys--Mother looked out for that when she made 'em. When we +go downstairs, we find the girls there, all bundled up nice an' +warm--Mary an' Helen an' Cousin Irene. They're going with us, an' we +all start out tiptoe and quiet-like so's not to wake up the ol' folks. +The ground is frozen hard; we stub our toes on the frozen ruts in the +road. When we come to the minister's house, Laura is standin' on the +front stoop a-waitin' for us. Laura is the minister's daughter. She's +a friend o' Sister Helen's--pretty as a dagerr'otype, an' gentle-like +and tender. Laura lets me carry her skates, an' I'm glad of it, +although I have my hands full already with the lantern, the hockies, +and the rest. Hiram Peabody keeps us waitin', for he has overslept +himself, an' when he comes trottin' out at last the girls make fun of +him--all except Sister Mary, an' she sort o' sticks up for Hiram, an' +we're all so 'cute we kind o' calc'late we know the reason why. + +"And now," said Ezra softly, "the pictur' changes: seems as if I could +see the pond. The ice is like a black lookin'-glass, and Hiram Peabody +slips up the first thing, an' down he comes, lickety-split, an' we all +laugh--except Sister Mary, an' _she_ says it is very imp'lite to +laugh at other folks' misfortunes. Ough! how cold it is, and how my +fingers ache with the frost when I take off my mittens to strap on +Laura's skates! But, oh, how my cheeks burn! And how careful I am not +to hurt Laura, an' how I ask her if that's 'tight enough,' an' how she +tells me 'jist a little tighter' and how we two keep foolin' along +till the others hev gone an' we are left alone! An' how quick I get my +_own_ skates strapped on--none o' your new-fangled skates with springs +an' plates an' clamps an' such, but honest, ol'-fashioned wooden ones +with steel runners that curl up over my toes an' have a bright brass +button on the end! How I strap 'em and lash 'em and buckle 'em on! An' +Laura waits for me an' tells me to be sure to get 'em on tight +enough--why, bless me! after I once got 'em strapped on, if them +skates hed come off, the feet wud ha' come with 'em! An' now away we +go--Laura and me. Around the bend--near the medder where Si Barker's +dog killed a woodchuck last summer--we meet the rest. We forget all +about the cold. We run races an' play snap the whip, an' cut all sorts +o' didoes, an' we never mind the pick'rel weed that is froze in on the +ice an' trips us up every time we cut the outside edge; an' then we +boys jump over the air holes, an' the girls stan' by an' scream an' +tell us they know we're agoin' to drownd ourselves. So the hours go, +an' it is sun-up at last, an' Sister Helen says we must be gettin' +home. When we take our skates off, our feet feel as if they were wood. +Laura has lost her tippet; I lend her mine, and she kind o' blushes. +The old pond seems glad to have us go, and the fire-hangbird's nest +in the willer tree waves us good-bye. Laura promises to come over to +our house in the evenin', and so we break up. + +"Seems now," continued Ezra musingly, "seems now as if I could see us +all at breakfast. The race on the pond has made us hungry, and Mother +says she never knew anybody else's boys that had such capac'ties as +hers. It is the Yankee Thanksgivin' breakfast--sausages an' fried +potatoes, an' buckwheat cakes, an' syrup--maple syrup, mind ye, for +Father has his own sugar bush, and there was a big run o' sap last +season. Mother says, 'Ezry an' Amos, won't you never get through +eatin'? We want to clear off the table, fer there's pies to make, and +nuts to crack, and laws sakes alive! The turkey's got to be stuffed +yet!' Then how we all fly around! Mother sends Helen up into the attic +to get a squash while Mary's makin' the pie crust. Amos an' I crack +the walnuts--they call 'em hickory nuts out in this pesky country of +sagebrush and pasture land. The walnuts are hard, and it's all we can +do to crack 'em. Ev'ry once'n a while one on 'em slips outer our +fingers and goes dancin' over the floor or flies into the pan Helen is +squeezin' pumpkin into through the col'nder. Helen says we're +shif'less an' good for nothin' but frivolin'; but Mother tells us how +to crack the walnuts so's not to let 'em fly all over the room, an' +so's not to be all jammed to pieces like the walnuts was down at the +party at the Peasleys' last winter. An' now here comes Tryphena +Foster, with her gingham gown an' muslin apron on; her folks have gone +up to Amherst for Thanksgivin', an' Tryphena has come over to help our +folks get dinner. She thinks a great deal o' Mother, 'cause Mother +teaches her Sunday-school class an' says Tryphena oughter marry a +missionary. There is bustle everywhere, the rattle uv pans an' the +clatter of dishes; an' the new kitchen stove begins to warm up an' git +red, till Helen loses her wits and is flustered, an' sez she never +could git the hang o' that stove's dampers. + +"An' now," murmured Ezra gently, as a tone of deeper reverence crept +into his voice, "I can see Father sittin' all by himself in the +parlour. Father's hair is very gray, and there are wrinkles on his +honest old face. He is lookin' through the winder at the Holyoke hills +over yonder, and I can guess he's thinkin' of the time when he wuz a +boy like me an' Amos, an' uster climb over them hills an' kill +rattlesnakes an' hunt partridges. Or doesn't his eyes quite reach the +Holyoke hills? Do they fall kind o' lovingly but sadly on the little +buryin' ground jest beyond the village? Ah, Father knows that spot, +an' he loves it, too, for there are treasures there whose memory he +wouldn't swap for all the world could give. So, while there is a kind +o' mist in Father's eyes, I can see he is dreamin'-like of sweet an' +tender things, and a-communin' with memory--hearin' voices I never +heard, an' feelin' the tech of hands I never pressed; an' seein' +Father's peaceful face I find it hard to think of a Thanksgivin' +sweeter than Father's is. + +"The pictur' in the firelight changes now," said Ezra, "an' seems as +if I wuz in the old frame meetin'-house. The meetin'-house is on the +hill, and meetin' begins at half-pas' ten. Our pew is well up in +front--seems as if I could see it now. It has a long red cushion on +the seat, and in the hymn-book rack there is a Bible an' a couple of +Psalmodies. We walk up the aisle slow, and Mother goes in first; then +comes Mary, then me, then Helen, then Amos, and then Father. Father +thinks it is jest as well to have one o' the girls set in between me +an' Amos. The meetin'-house is full, for everybody goes to meetin' +Thanksgivin' Day. The minister reads the proclamation an' makes a +prayer, an' then he gives out a psalm, an' we all stan' up an' turn +'round an' join the choir. Sam Merritt has come up from Palmer to +spend Thanksgivin' with the ol' folks, an' he is singin' tenor to-day +in his ol' place in the choir. Some folks say he sings wonderful well, +but _I_ don't like Sam's voice. Laura sings soprano in the choir, and +Sam stands next to her an' holds the book. + +"Seems as if I could hear the minister's voice, full of earnestness +an' melody, comin' from way up in his little round pulpit. He is +tellin' us why we should be thankful, an', as he quotes Scriptur' an' +Dr. Watts, we boys wonder how anybody can remember so much of the +Bible. Then I get nervous and worried. Seems to me the minister was +never comin' to lastly, and I find myself wonderin' whether Laura is +listenin' to what the preachin' is about, or is writin' notes to Sam +Merritt in the back of the tune book. I get thirsty, too, and I +fidget about till Father looks at me, and Mother nudges Helen, and +Helen passes it along to me with interest. + +"An' then," continues Ezra in his revery, "when the last hymn is given +out an' we stan' up agin an' join the choir, I am glad to see that +Laura is singin' outer the book with Miss Hubbard, the alto. An' goin' +out o' meetin' I kind of edge up to Laura and ask her if I kin have +the pleasure of seein' her home. + +"An' now we boys all go out on the Common to play ball. The Enfield +boys have come over, and, as all the Hampshire county folks know, they +are tough fellers to beat. Gorham Polly keeps tally, because he has +got the newest jackknife--oh, how slick it whittles the old broom +handle Gorham picked up in Packard's store an' brought along jest to +keep tally on! It is a great game of ball; the bats are broad and +light, and the ball is small and soft. But the Enfield boys beat us at +last; leastwise they make 70 tallies to our 58, when Heman Fitts +knocks the ball over into Aunt Dorcas Eastman's yard, and Aunt Dorcas +comes out an' picks up the ball an' takes it into the house, an' we +have to stop playin'. Then Phineas Owen allows he can flop any boy in +Belchertown, an' Moses Baker takes him up, an' they wrassle like two +tartars, till at last Moses tuckers Phineas out an' downs him as slick +as a whistle. + +"Then we all go home, for Thanksgivin' dinner is ready. Two long +tables have been made into one, and one of the big tablecloths Gran'ma +had when she set up housekeepin' is spread over 'em both. We all set +round--Father, Mother, Aunt Lydia Holbrook, Uncle Jason, Mary, Helen, +Tryphena Foster, Amos, and me. How big an' brown the turkey is, and +how good it smells! There are bounteous dishes of mashed potato, +turnip, an' squash, and the celery is very white and cold, the +biscuits are light and hot, and the stewed cranberries are red as +Laura's cheeks. Amos and I get the drumsticks; Mary wants the wishbone +to put over the door for Hiram, but Helen gets it. Poor Mary, she +always _did_ have to give up to 'rushin' Helen,' as we call her. The +pies--oh, what pies Mother makes; no dyspepsia in 'em, but good nature +an' good health an' hospitality! Pumpkin pies, mince, an' apple, too, +and then a big dish of pippins an' russets an' bellflowers, an', last +of all, walnuts with cider from the Zebrina Dickerson farm! I tell ye, +there's a Thanksgivin' dinner for ye! that's what we get in old +Belchertown; an' that's the kind of livin' that makes the Yankees so +all-fired good an' smart. + +"But the best of all," said Ezra very softly to himself, "oh, yes, the +best scene in all the pictur' is when evenin' comes, when all the +lamps are lit in the parlour, when the neighbours come in, and when +there is music and singing an' games. An' it's this part o' the +pictur' that makes me homesick now and fills my heart with a longin' I +never had before; an' yet it sort o' mellows and comforts me, too. +Miss Serena Cadwell, whose beau was killed in the war, plays on the +melodeon, and we all sing--all on us: men, womenfolks, an' children. +Sam Merritt is there, and he sings a tenor song about love. The women +sort of whisper round that he's goin' to be married to a Palmer lady +nex' spring, an' I think to myself I never heard better singin' than +Sam's. Then we play games--proverbs, buzz, clap-in-clap-out, +copenhagen, fox-an'-geese, button-button-who's-got-the-button, +spin-the-platter, go-to-Jerusalem, my-ship's-come-in; and all the +rest. The ol' folks play with the young folks just as nat'ral as can +be; and we all laugh when Deacon Hosea Cowles hez to measure six yards +of love ribbon with Miss Hepsey Newton, and cut each yard with a kiss; +for the deacon hez been sort o' purrin' round Miss Hepsey for goin' on +two years. Then, aft'r a while, when Mary and Helen bring in the +cookies, nutcakes, cider, an' apples, Mother says: 'I don't believe +we're goin' to hev enough apples to go round; Ezry, I guess I'll have +to get you to go down cellar for some more.' Then I says: 'All right, +Mother, I'll go, providin' some one 'll go along an' hold the candle.' +An' when I say this I look right at Laura, an' she blushes. Then +Helen, jest for meanness, says: 'Ezry, I s'pose you ain't willin' to +have your fav'rite sister go down cellar with you and catch her death +o' cold?' But Mary, who hez been showin' Hiram Peabody the phot'graph +album for more'n an hour, comes to the rescue an' makes Laura take the +candle, and she shows Laura how to hold it so it won't go out. + +"The cellar is warm an' dark. There are cobwebs all between the +rafters an' everywhere else except on the shelves where Mother keeps +the butter an' eggs an' other things that would freeze in the butt'ry +upstairs. The apples are in bar'ls up against the wall, near the +potater bin. How fresh an' sweet they smell! Laura thinks she sees a +mouse, an' she trembles an' wants to jump up on the pork bar'l, but I +tell her that there shan't no mouse hurt her while I'm around; and I +mean it, too, for the sight of Laura a-tremblin' makes me as strong as +one of Father's steers. 'What kind of apples do you like best, Ezry?' +asks Laura, 'russets or greenin's or crow-eggs or bellflowers or +Baldwins or pippins?' 'I like the Baldwins best,' says I, ''coz they +got red cheeks just like yours.' 'Why, Ezry Thompson! how you talk!' +says Laura. 'You oughter be ashamed of yourself!' But when I get the +dish filled up with apples there ain't a Baldwin in all the lot that +can compare with the bright red of Laura's cheeks. An' Laura knows it, +too, an' she sees the mouse again, an' screams, and then the candle +goes out, and we are in a dreadful stew. But I, bein' almost a man, +contrive to bear up under it, and knowin' she is an orph'n, I comfort +an' encourage Laura the best I know how, and we are almost upstairs +when Mother comes to the door and wants to know what has kep' us so +long. Jest as if Mother doesn't know! Of course she does; an' when +Mother kisses Laura good-bye that night there is in the act a +tenderness that speaks more sweetly than even Mother's words. + +"It is so like Mother," mused Ezra; "so like her with her gentleness +an' clingin' love. Hers is the sweetest picture of all, and hers the +best love." + +Dream on, Ezra; dream of the old home with its dear ones, its holy +influences, and its precious inspiration!--Mother. Dream on in the +faraway firelight; and as the angel hand of memory unfolds these +sacred visions, with thee and them shall abide, like a Divine +Comforter, the spirit of Thanksgiving. + + + + +CHIP'S THANKSGIVING[22] + +BY ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL. + + Chip had plenty of nuts on Thanksgiving Day. The little lady + called Heart's Delight saw to that. Can you guess who Chip + was? + + +They had got "way through," as Terry said, to the nuts. It had been a +beautiful Thanksgiving dinner "so far." Grandmother's sweet face +beamed down the length of the great table, over all the little crinkly +grandheads, at grandfather's face. Everybody felt very thankful. + +[Footnote 22: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1903.] + +"I wish all the children this side o' the north pole had had some +turkey, too, and squash and cram'bry--and things," said Silence +quietly. Silence was always wishing beautiful things like that. + +"An' some nuts," added Terry, setting his small white teeth into the +meat of a big fat walnut. "It wouldn't seem Thanksgivingy 'thout +nuts." + +"I know somebody who would be thankful with just nuts," smiled +grandfather. "Indeed, I think he'd rather have them for all the +courses of his Thanksgiving dinner!" + +"Just nuts! No turkey, nor puddin', nor anything?" + +The crinkly grandheads all bobbed up from their plates and +nut-pickers in amazement. Just nuts! + +"Yes. Guess who he is?" Grandfather's laughing eyes twinkled up the +long table at grandmother. + +"I'll give you three guesses apiece, beginning with Heart's Delight. +Guess number one, Heart's Delight." + +"Chip," gravely. Heart's Delight had guessed it the very first guess. + +"Chip!" laughed all the little grand girls and boys. Why, of course! +Chip! He would rather have just nuts for Thanksgiving dinner! + +"I wish he had some o' mine!" cried Silence. + +"An' mine!" cried Terry; and all the others wished he had some of +theirs. What a Thanksgiving dinner little Chip would have had! + +"He's got plenty, thank you." It was the shy little voice of Heart's +Delight. A soft pink colour had come into her round cheeks. Everybody +looked at her inquiringly, for how did Heart's Delight know Chip had +plenty of nuts? Then Terry remembered something. + +"Oh, that's where her nuts went to!" he cried. "Heart's Delight gave +'em to Chip! We couldn't think what she'd done with 'em all." + +The pink colour was growing pinker--very pink indeed. + +"Yes, that's where," said Silence, leaning over to squeeze one of +Heart's Delight's little hands. And sure enough, it was. In the +beautiful nut month of October, when the children went after their +winter's supply of nuts, little Heart's Delight had left all her +little rounded heap just where bright-eyed, nut-loving squirrel Chip +would be sure to find them and hurry them away to his winter hole. And +Chip had found them, she was sure, for not one was left when she went +back to see, the next day. + +"Why, maybe this very minute--right now--Chip's cracking his +Thanksgiving dinner!" Terry laughed. + +"Same as we are! Maybe he's got to the nut cour--oh, they're all nut +courses! But maybe he's sittin' up to his table with the rest of the +folks, thanksgiving to Heart's Delight," Silence said. + +Heart's Delight's little shy face nearly hid itself over her plate. +This was dreadful! It was necessary to change the subject at once, and +a dear little thought came to her aid. + +"But I'm afraid he hasn't got any gran'father and gran'mother to his +Thanksgiving," she said softly. "I shouldn't think anybody could +thanksgive 'thout a gran'mother and gran'father." + + + + +THE MASTER OF THE HARVEST[23] + +BY MRS. ALFRED GATTY. + + A good old-fashioned story for the older boys and girls to + read on the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day. + + +The Master of the Harvest walked by the side of his cornfields in the +early year, and a cloud was over his face, for there had been no rain +for several weeks, and the earth was hard from the parching of the +cold east winds, and the young wheat had not been able to spring up. + +[Footnote 23: From "Parables from Nature."] + +So, as he looked over the long ridges that lay stretched in rows +before him, he was vexed, and began to grumble, and say, "The harvest +would be backward, and all things would go wrong." At the mere thought +of which he frowned more and more, and uttered words of complaint +against the heavens, because there was no rain; against the earth, +because it was so dry and unyielding; against the corn, because it had +not sprung up. + +And the man's discontent was whispered all over the field, and all +along the long ridges where the corn seeds lay; and when it reached +them they murmured out, "How cruel to complain! Are we not doing our +best? Have we let one drop of moisture pass by unused, one moment of +warmth come to us in vain? Have we not seized on every chance, and +striven every day to be ready for the hour of breaking forth? Are we +idle? Are we obstinate? Are we indifferent? Shall we not be found +waiting and watching? How cruel to complain!" + +Of all this, however, the Master of the Harvest heard nothing, so the +gloom did not pass away from his face. On the contrary, he took it +with him into his comfortable home, and repeated to his wife the dark +words that all things were going wrong; that the drought would ruin +the harvest, for the corn was not yet sprung. + +And still thinking thus, he laid his head on his pillow, and presently +fell asleep. + +But his wife sat up for a while by the bedside, and opened her Bible, +and read, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are +the angels." + +Then she wrote this text in pencil on the flyleaf at the end of the +book, and after it the date of the day, and after the date the words, +"Lord, the husbandman, Thou waitest for the precious fruit Thou hast +sown, and hast long patience for it! Amen, O Lord, Amen!" + +After which the good woman knelt down to pray, and as she prayed she +wept, for she knew that she was very ill. + +But what she prayed that night was heard only in heaven. + +And so a few days passed on as before, and the house was gloomy with +the discontent of its master; but at last one evening the wind +changed, the sky became heavy with clouds, and before midnight there +was rain all over the land; and when the Master of the Harvest came in +next morning, wet from his early walk by the cornfields, he said it +was well it had come at last, and that, at last, the corn had sprung +up. + +On which his wife looked at him with a smile, and said, "How often +things came right, about which one had been anxious and disturbed." To +which her husband made no answer, but turned away and spoke of +something else. + +Meantime, the corn seeds had been found ready and waiting when the +hour came, and the young sprouts burst out at once; and very soon all +along the long ridges were to be seen rows of tender blades, tinting +the whole field with a delicate green. And day by day the Master of +the Harvest saw them and was satisfied; but because he was satisfied, +and his anxiety was gone, he spoke of other things, and forgot to +rejoice. + +And a murmur arose among them: "Should not the Master have welcomed us +to life? He was angry but lately, because the seed he had sown had not +yet brought forth; now that it has brought forth, why is he not glad? +What more does he want? Have we not done our best? Are we not doing it +minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day? From the morning and +evening dews, from the glow of the midday sun, from the juices of the +earth, from the breezes which freshen the air, even from clouds and +rain, are we not taking in food and strength, warmth and life, +refreshment and joy; so that one day the valleys may laugh and sing, +because the good seed hath brought forth abundantly? Why does he not +rejoice?" + +As before, however, of all they said the Master of the Harvest heard +nothing; and it never struck him to think of the young corn blades' +struggling life. Nay, once, when his wife asked him if the wheat was +doing well, he answered, "Very fairly," and nothing more. But she +then, because the evening was fine and the fairer weather had revived +her failing powers, said she would walk out by the cornfields herself. + +And so it came to pass that they went out together. And together they +looked all along the long green ridges of wheat, and watched the +blades as they quivered and glistened in the breeze which sprang up +with the setting sun. Together they walked, together they looked; +looking at the same things and with the same human eyes; even as they +had walked, and looked, and lived together for years, but with a world +dividing their hearts; and what was ever to unite them? + +Even then, as they moved along, she murmured half aloud, half to +herself, thinking of the anxiety that had passed away: "Thou visitest +the earth, and blessest it; thou makest it very plenteous." + +To which he answered, if answer it may be called, "Why are you always +so gloomy? Why should Scripture be quoted about such common things?" + +And she looked in his face and smiled, but did not speak; and he +could not read the smile, for the life of her heart was as hidden to +him as the life of the corn blades in the field. + +And so they went home together, no more being said by either; for, as +she turned round, the sight of the setting sun and of the young +freshly growing wheat blades brought tears into her eyes. + +_She_ might never see the harvest upon earth again; for her that other +was at hand, whereof the reapers were to be angels. + +And when she opened her Bible that night she wrote on the flyleaf the +text she had quoted to her husband, and after the text the date of the +day, and after the date the words, "Bless me, even me also, oh, my +Father, that I may bring forth fruit with patience!" + +Very peaceful were the next few weeks that followed, for all nature +seemed to rejoice in the weather, and the corn blades shot up till +they were nearly two feet high, and about them the Master of the +Harvest had no complaints to make. + +But at the end of that time, behold, the earth began to be hard and +dry again, for once more rain was wanted; and by degrees the growing +plants failed for want of moisture and nourishment, and lost power and +colour, and became weak and yellow in hue. And once more the +husbandmen began to fear and tremble, and once more the brow of the +Master of the Harvest was over-clouded with angry apprehension. + +And as the man got more and more anxious about the fate of his crops, +he grew more and more irritable and distrustful, and railed as before, +only louder now, against the heavens because there was no rain; +against the earth because it lacked moisture; against the corn plants +because they had waxed feeble. + +Nay, once, when his sick wife reproved him gently, praying him to +remember how his fears had been turned to joy before, he reproached +her in his turn for sitting in the house and pretending to judge of +what she could know nothing about, and bade her come out and see for +herself how all things were working together for ill. + +And although he spoke it in bitter jest, and she was very ill, she +said she would go, and went. + +So once more they walked out together, and once more looked over the +cornfields; but when he stretched out his arm and pointed to the long +ridges of blades, and she saw them shrunken and faded in hue, her +heart was grieved within her, and she turned aside and wept over them. + +Nevertheless, she said she durst not cease from hope, since an hour +might renew the face of the earth, if God so willed; neither should +she dare to complain, _even the harvest were to fail_. At which words +the Master of the Harvest stopped short, amazed, to look at his wife, +for her soul was growing stronger as her body grew weaker, and she +dared to say things now which she would have had no courage to utter +before. + +But of all this he knew nothing, and what he thought, as he listened, +was that she was as weak in mind as in body; and what he said was that +a man must be an idiot who would not complain when he saw the bread +taken from under his very eyes! + +And his murmurings and her tears sent a shudder all along the long +ridges of sickly corn blades, and they asked one of another, "Why does +he murmur? and, Why does she weep? Are we not doing all we can? Do we +slumber or sleep, and let opportunities pass by unused? Are we not +watching and waiting against the times of refreshing? Shall we not be +found ready at last? Why does he murmur? and, Why does she weep? Is +she, too, fading and waiting? Has she, too, a master who has lost +patience?" + +Meantime, when she opened her Bible that night, she wrote on the +flyleaf the text, "Wherefore should a man complain, a man for the +punishment of his sins?" and after the text the date of the day, and +after the date the words, "Thou dost turn Thy face from us, and we are +troubled; but, Lord, how long, how long?" + +And by and by came on the long-delayed times of refreshing, but so +slowly and imperfectly that the change in the corn could scarcely be +detected for a while. Nevertheless, it told at last, and stems +struggled up among the blades, and burst forth into flowers, which +gradually ripened into ears of grain. But a struggle it had been, and +continued to be, for the measure of moisture was scant, and the due +amount of warmth in the air was wanting. Nevertheless, by struggling +and effort the young wheat advanced, little by little, in growth; +preparing itself, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, as best +it could, for the great day of the harvest. As best it could! Would +the Master of the Harvest ask more? Alas! he had still something to +find fault with, for when he looked at the ears and saw that they were +small and poor, he grumbled, and said the yield would be less than it +ought to be, and the harvest would be bad. + +And as more weeks went on, and the same weather continued, and the +progress was very, very slow, he spoke out of his vexation to his wife +at home, to his friends at the market, and to the husbandmen who +passed by and talked with him about the crops. + +And the voice of his discontent was breathed over the cornfield, all +along the long ridges where the plants were labouring, and waiting, +and watching. And they shuddered and murmured: "How cruel to complain! +Had we been idle, had we been negligent, had we been indifferent, we +might have passed away without bearing fruit at all. How cruel to +complain!" + +But of all this the Master of the Harvest heard nothing, so he did not +cease to complain. + +Meantime, another week or two went on, and people as they glanced over +the land wished that a few good rainy days would come and do their +work decidedly, so that the corn ears might fill. And behold, while +the wish was yet on their lips, the sky became charged with clouds, +darkness spread over the country, a wild wind rose, and the growling +of thunder announced a storm. And such a storm! People hid from it in +cellars and closets and dark corners, as if now, for the first time, +they believed in a God, and were trembling at the new-found fact; as +if they could never discover Him in His sunshine and blessings, but +only thus in His tempests and wrath. + +And all along the long ridges of wheat plants drove the rain-laden +blast, and they bent down before it and rose up again, like the waves +of a labouring sea. Ears over ears they bowed down; ears above ears +they rose up. They bowed down as if they knew that to resist was +destruction; they rose up as if they had a hope beyond the storm. Only +here and there, where the whirlwinds were the strongest, they fell +down and could not lift themselves again. So the damage done was but +little, and the general good was great. But when the Master of the +Harvest saw here and there patches of overweighted corn yet dripping +from the thunder showers, he grew angry for them, and forgot to think +of the long ridges that stretched over his fields, where the corn ears +were swelling and rejoicing. + +And he came in gloomy to his home, when his wife was hoping that now, +at last, all would be well; and when she looked at him the tumult of +her soul grew beyond control, and she knelt down before him as he sat +moody in his chair, and threw her arms round him, and cried out: "It +is of the Lord's mercies that we are not utterly consumed. Oh, +husband! pray for the corn and for me, that it may go well with us at +the last! Carry me upstairs!" And his anger was checked by fear, and +he carried her upstairs and laid her on the bed, and said it must be +the storm which had shaken her nerves. But whether he prayed for +either the corn or her that night she never knew. + +And presently came a new distress: for when the days of rain had +accomplished their gracious work, and every one was satisfied, behold, +they did not cease. And as hitherto the cry had gone up for water on +the furrows, so now men's hearts failed them for fear lest it should +continue to overflowing, and lest mildew should set in upon the full, +rich ears, and the glorious crops should be lost. + +And the Master of the Harvest walked out by his cornfields, his face +darker than ever. And he railed against the rain because it would not +cease; against the sun because it would not shine; against the wheat +because it might perish before the harvest. + +"But why does he always and only complain?" moaned the corn plants, as +the new terror was breathed over the field. "Have we not done our best +from the first? And has not mercy been with us, sooner or later, all +along? When moisture was scant, and we throve but little, why did he +not rejoice over that little, and wait, as we did, for more? Now that +abundance has come, and we swell triumphant in strength and in hope, +why does he not share our joy in the present, and wait in trust, as we +do, for the future ripening change? Why does he always complain? Has +he himself some hard master, who would fain reap where he has not +sown, and gather where he has not strewed, and who has no pity for his +servants who strive?" + +But of all this the Master of the Harvest heard nothing. And when the +days of rain had rolled into weeks and the weeks into months, and the +autumn set in, and the corn still stood up green in the ridges, as if +it never meant to ripen at all, the boldest and most hopeful became +uneasy, and the Master of the Harvest despaired. + +But his wife had risen no more from her bed, where she lay in sickness +and suffering, yet in patient trust, watching the sky through the +window that faced her pillow, looking for the relief that came at +last. For even at the eleventh hour, when hope seemed almost over, and +men had half learned to submit to their expected trial, the dark days +began to be varied by a few hours of sunshine; and though these passed +away, and the gloom and rain returned again, yet they also passed away +in their turn, and the sun shone out once more. + +And the poor sick wife, as she watched, said to those around her that +the weather was gradually changing, and that all would come right at +last; and sighing a prayer that it might be so with herself also, she +had her Bible brought to the bed, and wrote in the flyleaf the text, +"Some thirty, some sixty, some an hundredfold"; and after the text the +date of the day, for on that day the sun had been shining steadily for +many hours. And after the date the words, "Unto whom much is given, +of him shall much be required; yet if Thou, Lord, be extreme to mark +iniquity, O Lord, who may stand?" + +And day by day, the hours of sunshine were more in number, and the +hours of rain and darkness fewer, and by degrees the green corn ears +ripened into yellow, and the yellow turned into gold, and the harvest +was ready, and the labourers not wanting. And the bursting corn broke +out into songs of rejoicing, and cried, "At least we have not waited +and watched in vain! Surely goodness and mercy have followed us all +the days of our life, and we are crowned with glory and honour. Where +is the Master of the Harvest, that he may claim his own with joy?" + +But the Master of the Harvest was bending over the bed of his dying +wife. + +And she whispered that her Bible should be brought, and he brought it, +and she said, "Open it at the flyleaf at the end, and write, 'It is +sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in +dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised +in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body!'" +And she bade him add the date of the day, and after the date of the +day, the words, "O Lord, in Thy mercy say of me--She hath done what +she could!" And then she laid her hand in his, and so fell asleep in +hope. + +And the harvest of the earth was gathered into barns, and the +gathering-day of rejoicing was over, and the Master of it all sat +alone by his fireside, with his wife's Bible on his knee. And he read +the texts and the dates and the prayers, from the first day when the +corn seeds were held back by drought; and as he read a new heart +seemed to burst out within him from the old one--a heart which the +Lord of the other Harvest was making soft, and the springing whereof +He would bless. + +And henceforth, in his going out and coming in from watching the +fruits of the earth, the texts and the dates and the prayers were ever +present in his mind, often rising to his lips; and he murmured and +complained no more, let the seasons be what they would and his fears +however great; for the thought of the late-sprung seed in his own dry +cold heart, and of the long suffering of Him who was Lord and Master +of all, was with him night and day. And more and more as he prayed for +help, that the weary struggle might be blessed, and the new-born +watching and waiting not be in vain, so more and more there came over +his spirit a yearning for that other harvest, where he and she who had +gone before might be gathered in together. + +And thus--in one hope of their calling--the long-divided hearts were +united at last. + + + + +A THANKSGIVING DINNER[24] + +BY EDNA PAYSON BRETT. + + Ministers' sons, somehow, have a bad reputation. Little + Johnnie was one and he thought it pretty hard to have to go + to church on Thanksgiving Day. But the pink-frosted cakes-- + + +"Oh, dear!" puffed a certain little boy one bright Thanksgiving +morning, as he jerked his chubby neck into the stiffest of white +collars. "Great fun, isn't it, having to sit up in meeting for a +couple of hours straight as a telegraph pole when I might be playing +football and beating the Haddam team all to hollow! This is what comes +of your pa's being the minister, I s'pose." + +[Footnote 24: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 29, 1900.] + +But Johnnie, for that was his name, continued his dressing, the ten +years of his young life having taught him how useless it is to make a +fuss over what has to be done. + +In a few minutes he had finished, and was quite satisfied with his +appearance, but for his shoes. These he eyed for a moment, and +concluding that they would not pass inspection, started for the +woodshed to give them a shine. + +On his way he passed the open dining-room door, and suddenly halted. +"Oh! Why can't I have a nice little lunch during sermon time?" + +He took a step back and peeped slyly into the room; then stole across +to the old-fashioned cupboard, stealthily opening the doors, and such +an array of good things you never beheld! Sally was the best cook in +Brockton any day, but on Thanksgiving she could work wonders. + +He looked with longing eyes from one dish to another. Now the big pies +were out of the question, and the cranberry tarts--he felt of them +lovingly--but no, they were altogether too sticky. He stood on tiptoe +to see what was on the second shelf. To his delight he found a platter +filled with just the daintiest little pink-frosted cakes you ever saw. + +"O-oo, thimble cakes!" he exclaimed. "You are just the fellows I want! +I'll take you along to church with me." He cast one quick glance +around, then grabbed a handful of the tiny cakes and crammed them into +his trousers' pocket. + +"Lucky for me ma isn't going to meeting to-day," chuckled the naughty +boy, "and I don't believe grandma'd ever tell on me if I carried along +the turkey!" + +The early bell had now begun to ring, and Johnnie started for the +village church. + +"Come, my son," said Doctor Goodwin, as they entered the +meeting-house, "you are to sit in the front seat with grandma this +morning: she is particularly anxious to hear every word of the sermon +to-day. And where's your contribution, boy? You haven't forgotten +that?" + +"No, sir," meekly answered Johnnie, "it's tied up in my handkerchief." +But his heart sank--the front seat! How ever was his lunch to come in +now? + +The opening hymn had been sung, the prayer of thanksgiving offered, +and now, as the collection was about to be taken, the pastor begged +his people to be especially generous to the poor on this day. + +Up in the front pew sat Johnnie, but never a word of the notice did he +hear, so busy was he planning out his own little affair. It wasn't +such easy planning either, just supposing he got caught! + +But what was that? Johnnie jumped as if he had been struck. However, +it was nothing but the money plate under his nose, and the good Deacon +Simms standing calmly by. + +To the guilty boy it seemed as if the deacon must have been waiting +for ten minutes at the least, and in a great flurry he began to fumble +for his handkerchief. What _had_ he done with it? Oh, there it was at +last, way down in the depths of his right trousers' pocket. + +He caught hold of the knotted corner, and out came the handkerchief +with a whisk and a flourish, and scatter, rattle, helter-skelter, out +flew a half-dozen pink thimble cakes, down upon the floor, back into +Mrs. Smiley's pew, and to Johnnie's horror one pat into the deacon's +plate! + +The good man's eyes tried not to twinkle as he removed the unusual +offering, and passed on more quickly than was his wont. + +Miserable Johnnie, with his face as red as a rooster's comb and eyes +cast down in shame, saw nothing but the green squares on the carpet +and the dreadful pink-frosted cakes. He was sure that every one in the +church was glaring at him; probably even grandma had forsaken him, and +each moment he dreaded--he knew not what. + +To his surprise, the service seemed to go right on as usual. Another +hymn was sung, and then there was a general settling down for the +sermon. Very soon he began to grow tired of just gazing at the floor, +yet he dared not look up, and by and by the heavy eyes drooped and +Johnny was fast asleep. + +All was now quiet in the meeting-house save the calm, steady voice of +the preacher. Pretty soon a wee creature dressed all in soft brown +stole across the floor of a certain pew. She was a courageous little +body indeed, but what mother would not venture a good deal for her +hungry babies? Such a repast as this was certainly the opportunity of +a lifetime. Looking cautiously around, then concluding that all was +safe, she disappeared down a hole in a corner way under the seat. In a +twinkling she was back again; this time, however, she was not alone. +Four little ones pattered after Mamma Mouse, and eight bright eyes +spied a dinner worth running for. + +Never mind what they did; but when Johnnie awoke at the strains of +the closing hymn and tried to remember what had gone wrong, he saw +nothing of the pink-frosted cakes save some scattered crumbs. + +What could have become of them, he thought, in bewilderment. + +He hardly knew how he got out of the church that day, but he found +himself rushing down the road a sadder and a wiser boy. Grandma and +papa had remained to chat. Johnnie did not feel like chatting to-day. + +When he reached the house he did not go in, but out to the hayloft, +his favourite resort in time of trouble. When the dinner bell sounded, +notwithstanding the delicious Thanksgiving odours which had been +wafted even to the barn, it was an unwelcome summons; yet go he must, +and walking sheepishly into the dining-room, he slunk into his chair. + +"Well, John," said his father, as he helped him to turkey, "I +understand that you did not forget the poor to-day. Eh, my son?" + +"The poor?" What could he mean? Johnnie was too puzzled to speak. + +Then his father went on to tell how little Mrs. Mouse and her babies +had nibbled a wondrous dinner of pink thimble cakes on the floor of +pew number one while Johnnie slept. Grandma and Mrs. Smiley had told +him all about it on the way home; besides, he had seen enough himself +from the pulpit. + +Johnny bravely bore the laugh at his expense, and as the merriment +died away heaved a deep sigh of relief, and exclaimed, "Well, I'm +glad somebody had a feast, even if it wasn't the fellow 'twas meant +for! Humph, _'twas_ quite a setup for poor church mice, wasn't it? But +they needn't be looking for another next year. You don't catch me +trying that again--no-sir-ee!" + + + + +TWO OLD BOYS[25] + +BY PAULINE SHACKLEFORD COLYAR. + + Walter's two grandfathers were a pair of jolly chums, _as + boys_. There is plenty of humour in this tale of a turkey + hunt. + + +"Day after to-morrow will be Thanksgiving," said Walter, taking his +seat beside Grandpa Davis on the top step of the front gallery. + +[Footnote 25: _From Lippincott's Monthly Magazine_, December, 1896.] + +"And no turkey for dinner, neither," retorted Grandma Davis, while her +bright steel needles clicked in and out of the sock she was knitting. + +The old man was smoking his evening pipe, and sat for a moment with +his eyes fixed meditatively upon the blue hills massed in the +distance. + +"Have we got so pore as all that, Mother?" he asked, after a while, +glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who was rocking to and fro +just back of him. + +"I'm obleeged to own to the truth," answered the old lady dejectedly. +"What with the wild varmints in the woods and one thing an' another, +I'm about cleaned out of all the poultry I ever had. It's downright +disheartenin'." + +"Well, then," asserted Grandpa Davis, with an unmirthful chuckle, "it +don't appear to me as we've got so powerful much to be thankful about +this year." + +"Why, Grandpa!" cried Walter, in shocked surprise, "I never did hear +you talk like that before." + +"Never had so much call to do it, mebbe," interposed the old man +cynically. + +The last rays of the setting sun touched the two silvered heads, and +rested there like a benediction, before disappearing below the +horizon. + +Silence had fallen upon the little group, and a bullfrog down in the +fishpond was croaking dismally. + +"Why don't you go hunting, and try to kill you a turkey for +Thanksgiving?" ventured Walter, slipping his arm insinuatingly through +his grandfather's. "I saw a great big flock of wild ones down on the +branch last week, and I got right close up to them before they flew." + +"I reckon there ought to be a smart sight of game round and about them +cane brakes along that branch," said the old man slowly, as though +thinking aloud. "It used to be ahead of any strip of woods in all +these parts, when me and Dick was boys. But nobody ain't hunted there, +to my knowledge, not sence me and him fell out." + +"I wish you and Grandpa Dun were friends," sighed Walter. "It does +seem too bad to have two grandpas living right side by side, and not +speaking." + +"I ain't got no ill-will in my heart for Dick," replied Grandpa Davis, +"but he is too everlastin' hard-headed to knock under, and I'll be +blamed if I go more'n halfway toward makin' up." + +"That's just exactly what Grandpa Dun says about you," Walter assured +him very earnestly. + +"Wouldn't wonder if he did," said the old man pointedly. "Dick is +always ben a mighty hand to talk, and he'd drap dead in his tracks if +he couldn't get in the last word." + +Be this as it might, the breach had begun when the Davis cattle broke +down the worn fence and demolished the Dun crop of corn, and it +widened when the Dun hogs found their way through an old water gap and +rooted up a field of the Davis sweet potatoes. Several times similar +depredations were repeated, and then shotguns were used on both sides +with telling effect. The climax was reached when John Dun eloped with +Rebecca, the only child of the Davises. + +The young couple were forbidden their respective homes, though the +farm they rented was scarce half a mile away, and the weeks rolled +into months without sign of their parents relenting. + +When Walter was born, however, the two grandmothers stole over, +without their husbands' knowledge, and mingled their tears in happy +communion over the tiny blue-eyed mite. + +It was a memorable day at each of the houses when the sturdy little +fellow made his way, unbidden and unattended, to pay his first call, +and ever afterward (though they would not admit it, even to +themselves) the grandfathers watched for his coming, and vied with +each other in trying to win the highest place in his young affections. + +He had inherited characteristics of each of his grandsires, and +possessed the bold, masterful manner which was common to them both. +"Say, Grandpa," he urged, "go hunting to-morrow and try to kill a +turkey for Thanksgiving, won't you? I know grandma would feel better +to have one, and if you make a cane caller, like papa does, I'll bet +you can get a shot at one sure." + +The old man did not commit himself about going, but when Walter saw +him surreptitiously take down his gun from the pegs on the wall across +which it had lain for so many years, and began to rub the barrels and +oil the hammers, he went home satisfied that he had scored another +victory. + +Perhaps nothing less than his grandson's pleading could have induced +Grandpa Davis to visit again the old hunting-ground which had been so +dear to him in bygone days, which was so rich in hallowed memories. It +seemed almost a desecration of the happy past to hunt there now alone. + +The first cold streaks of dawn were just stealing into the sky the +next morning when, accoutred with shot-pouch, powder-flask, and his +old double-barrelled gun, Grandpa Davis made his way toward the +branch. A medley of bird notes filled the air, long streamers of gray +moss floated out from the swaying trees, and showers of autumn leaves +fluttered down to earth. Some of the cows were grazing outside the +pen, up to their hocks in lush, fresh grass, while others lay on the +ground contentedly chewing their cuds. All of them raised their heads +and looked at him as he passed them by. + +How like old times it was to be up at daybreak for a hunt! The long +years seemed suddenly to have rolled away, leaving him once more a +boy. He almost wondered why Dick had not whistled to him as he used to +do. Dick was an early riser, and somehow always got ready before he +did. + +There was an alertness in the old man's face and a spring in his step +as he lived over in thought the joyous days of his childhood. The +clouds were flushed with pink when he came in sight of the big water +oak on the margin of the stream, and recollected how he and Dick had +loved to go swimming in the deep, clear water beneath its shade. + +"We used to run every step of the way," he soliloquized, laughing, +"unbuttonin' as we went, chuck our clothes on the bank, and 'most +break our necks tryin' to git in the water fust. I've got half a +notion to take a dip this mornin', if it wasn't quite so cool," he +went on, but a timely twinge of rheumatism brought him to his senses, +and he seated himself on the roots of a convenient tree. + +Cocking his gun, he laid it across his knees, and waited there +motionless, imitating the yelp of a turkey the while. Three or four +small canes, graduated in size, and fitted firmly one into the other, +enabled him to make the note, and so expert had he become by long +practice that the deception was perfect. + +After a pause he repeated the call; then came another pause, another +call, and over in the distance there sounded an answer. How the blood +coursed through the old man's veins as he listened! There it was +again. It was coming nearer, but very slowly. He wondered how many +were in the flock, and called once more. This time, to his surprise, +an answer came from a different direction--a long, rasping sound, a +sort of cross between a cock's crow and a turkey's yelp. + +He started involuntarily, and very cautiously peeped around. Hardly +twenty steps from him another gray head protruded itself from the hole +of another tree, and Grandpa Davis and Grandpa Dun looked into each +other's eyes. + +"I'll be double-jumped-up if that ain't Dick!" cried Grandpa Davis, +under his breath. "And there ain't a turkey as ever wore a feather +that he could fool. A minute more, and he'll spile the fun. Dick," he +commanded, "stop that racket, and sneak over here by me," beckoning +mysteriously. "Sh-h-h! they are answerin' ag'in. Down on your +marrow-bones whilst I call." + +Flattening himself upon the ground as nearly as he could, and creeping +behind the undergrowth, Grandpa Dun made his way laboriously to the +desired spot. He had never excelled in calling turkeys, but he was a +far better shot than Grandpa Davis. + +Without demur the two old boys fell naturally into the _role_ of +former days. Breathless and excited, they crouched there, waiting for +the fateful moment. Their nerves were tense, their eyes dilated, and +their hearts beating like trip-hammers. + +Grandpa Davis had continued to call, and now the answer was very near. + +"Gimme the first shot, Billy," whispered Grandpa Dun. "I let you do +the callin'; and, besides, you know you never could hit nothin' that +wasn't as big as the side of a meetin'-house." + +Before Grandpa Davis had time to reply, there came the "put-put-put" +which signals possible danger. A stately gobbler raised his head to +reconnoitre; two guns were fired almost simultaneously, and, with a +whir and a flutter, the flock disappeared in the cane brake. + +The two old boys bounded over the intervening sticks and stumps with +an agility that Walter himself might have envied, and bending over the +prostrate gobbler exclaimed in concert: "Ain't he a dandy, though!" + +They examined him critically, cutting out his beard as a trophy, and +measured the spread of his wings. + +"But he's yourn, after all, Dick," said Grandpa Davis ruefully. "These +here ain't none of my shot, so I reckon I must have missed him." + +"I knowed you would, Billy, afore your fired," Grandpa Dun replied, +with mock gravity, "but that don't cut no figger. He's big enough for +us to go halvers and both have plenty. More'n that, you done the +callin' anyhow." + +Then they laughed, and as they looked into one another's faces, each +seemed to realize for the first time that his quondam chum was an old +man. + +A moment before they had been two rollicking boys off on a lark +together--playing hooky, perhaps--and in the twinkling of an eye some +wicked fairy had waved her wand and metamorphosed them into Walter's +two grandfathers, who had not spoken to each other since years before +the lad was born. + +Yet the humour of the situation was irresistible after all, and, +without knowing just how it happened, or which made the first advance, +Dick and Billy found themselves still laughing until the tears coursed +down their furrowed cheeks, and shaking hands with as much vigour as +though each one had been working a pump handle. + +"I'll tell you what it is, Billy," said Dick at last; "you all come +over to my house, and we'll eat him together on Thanksgivin'." + +"See here, Dick," suggested Billy, abstracting a nickel from his +trousers' pocket; "heads at your house, and tails at mine." + +"All right," came the hearty response. + +Billy tossed the coin into the air: it struck a twig and hid itself +among the fallen leaves, where they sought it in vain. + +"'Tain't settled yet," announced Dick; "but lemme tell you what let's +do. S'posin' we all go over to-morrow--it'll be Thanksgivin', you +know--and eat him at John's house." + +"Good!" cried Billy, with beaming face. "You always did have a head +for thinkin' up things, Dick, and this here'll sorter split the +difference, and ease matters so as--" + +"Yes, and our two old women can draw straws, if they've got a mind to, +and see which of them is obligated to make the fust call," interrupted +Dick. + +"Jist heft him, old feller," urged one of them. + +"Ain't he a whopper, though!" exclaimed the other. + +"Have a chaw, Dick?" asked Billy, offering his plug of tobacco. + +"Don't keer if I do," acquiesced Dick, biting off a goodly mouthful. + +Seating themselves upon a fallen hickory log, they chewed and +expectorated, recalling old times, and enjoying their laugh with the +careless freedom of their childhood days. + +"Dick, do your ricolleck the fight you and a coon had out on the limb +of that tree over yonder, one night?" queried Billy, nudging his +companion in the ribs. "He come mighty nigh gittin' the best of you." + +"He tore one sleeve out of my jacket, and mammy gimme a beatin' +besides," giggled Dick. "And say, Billy, wasn't it fun the day we +killed old man Lee's puddle ducks for wild ones? I don't believe I +ever run as fast in my life." + +"And, Dick, do you remember the night your pappy hung the saddle up on +the head of the bed to keep you from ridin' the old gray mare to +singin' school, and you rid her, bareback, anyway? You ricolleck you +was stoopin' over, blowin' the fire, next mornin', when he seen the +hairs on your britches, an' come down on you with the leather strop +afore you knowed it." + +Thus one adventure recalled another, and the two old boys laughed +uproariously, clapping their hands and holding their sides, while the +sun climbed up among the treetops. + +"Ain't we ben two old fools to stay mad all this time?" asked one of +them, and the other readily agreed that they had, as they once more +grasped hands before parting. + +Walter had arranged the Thanksgiving surprise for his parents, but +when he brought home the big gobbler he was unable longer to keep the +secret, and divulged his share in what had happened. + +"I didn't really believe either one of them could hit a turkey," he +confided to his father, "but I wanted to have them meet once more, for +I knew if they did they would make friends." + +The parlour was odorous with late fall roses next morning, the table +set, and Walter and his parents in gala attire, when two couples, +walking arm in arm, appeared upon the stretch of white road leading up +to the front gate. + +One couple was slightly in advance of the other, and Grandpa Davis, +who was behind, whispered to his wife: + +"Listen, Mary, Dick is actually tryin' to sing, and he never could +turn a tune, but somehow it does warm up my heart to hear him: seems +like old times ag'in." + +After dinner was over--and such a grand dinner it was--Grandpa Davis +voiced the sentiment of the rest of the happy family party when he +announced, quite without warning: + +"Well, this here has ben the thankfulles' Thanksgivin' I ever seen, +and I hope the good Lord will spar' us all for yet a few more." + + + + +A THANKSGIVING DINNER THAT FLEW AWAY[26] + +BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. + + A Cape Cod story about a wise old gander whose adventure on + the sea insured him against the perils of the Thanksgiving + hatchet. For boys or girls. + + +There is one sound that I shall always remember. It is "Honk!" + +[Footnote 26: From "Zigzag Journeys in Acadia and New France," +Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company.] + +I spun around like a top, one summer day when I heard it, looking +nervously in every direction. + +I had just come down from the city to the Cape with my sister Hester +for my third summer vacation. I had left the cars with my arms full of +bundles, and hurried toward Aunt Targood's. + +The cottage stood in from the road. There was a long meadow in front +of it. In the meadow were two great oaks and some clusters of lilacs. +An old, mossy stone wall protected the grounds from the road, and a +long walk ran from the old wooden gate to the door. + +It was a sunny day, and my heart was light. The orioles were flaming +in the old orchards; the bobolinks were tossing themselves about in +the long meadows of timothy, daisies, and patches of clover. There +was a scent of new-mown hay in the air. + +In the distance lay the bay, calm and resplendent, with white sails +and specks of boats. Beyond it rose Martha's Vineyard, green and cool +and bowery, and at its wharf lay a steamer. + +I was, as I said, light-hearted. I was thinking of rides over the +sandy roads at the close of the long, bright days; of excursions on +the bay; of clambakes and picnics. + +I was hungry, and before me rose visions of Aunt Targood's fish +dinners, roast chickens, and berry pies. I was thirsty, but ahead was +the old well sweep, and behind the cool lattice of the dairy window +were pans of milk in abundance. + +I tripped on toward the door with light feet, lugging my bundles, and +beaded with perspiration, but unmindful of all discomforts in the +thought of the bright days and good things in store for me. + +"Honk! honk!" + +My heart gave a bound! + +_Where_ did that sound come from? + +Out of a cool cluster of innocent-looking lilac bushes I saw a dark +object cautiously moving. It seemed to have no head. I knew, however, +that it had a head. I had seen it; it had seized me once in the +previous summer, and I had been in terror of it during all the rest of +the season. + +I looked down into the irregular grass, and saw the head and a very +long neck running along on the ground, propelled by the dark body, +like a snake running away from a ball. It was coming toward me, and +faster and faster as it approached. + +I dropped my bundles. + +In a few flying leaps I returned to the road again, and armed myself +with a stick from a pile of cordwood. + +"Honk! honk! honk!" + +It was a call of triumph. The head was high in the air now. My enemy +moved grandly forward, as became the monarch of the great meadow +farmyard. + +I stood with beating heart, after my retreat. + +It was Aunt Targood's gander. + +How he enjoyed his triumph, and how small and cowardly he made me +feel! + +"Honk! honk! honk!" + +The geese came out of the lilac bushes, bowing their heads to him in +admiration. Then came the goslings--a long procession of awkward, +half-feathered things; they appeared equally delighted. + +The gander seemed to be telling his admiring audience all about it: +how a strange lad with many bundles had attempted to cross the yard; +how he had driven him back, and had captured his bundles, and now was +monarch of the field. He clapped his wings when he had finished his +heroic story, and sent forth such a "Honk!" as might have startled a +major-general. + +Then he, with an air of great dignity and coolness, began to examine +my baggage. + +Among my effects were several pounds of chocolate caramels done up in +brown paper. Aunt Targood liked caramels, and I brought her a large +supply. + +He tore off the wrappers quickly. He bit one. It was good. He began to +distribute the bonbons among the geese, and they, with much liberality +and good-will, among the goslings. + +This was too much. I ventured through the gate, swinging my cordwood +stick. + +"Shoo!" + +He dropped his head on the ground, and drove it down the walk in a +lively waddle toward me. + +"Shoo!" + +It was Aunt Targood's voice at the door. + +He stopped immediately. + +His head was in the air again. + +"Shoo!" + +Out came Aunt Targood with her broom. + +She always corrected the gander with her broom. If I were to be +whipped I should choose a broom--not the stick. + +As soon as he beheld the broom he retired, although with much offended +pride and dignity, to the lilac bushes; and the geese and goslings +followed him. + +"Hester, you dear child," she said to my sister, "come here. I was +expecting you, and had been looking out for you, but missed sight of +you. I had forgotten all about the gander." + +We gathered up the bundles and the caramels. I was light-hearted +again. + +How cool was the sitting-room, with the woodbine falling about the +open window! + +Aunt brought me a pitcher of milk, and some strawberries, some bread +and honey, and a fan. + +While I was resting and taking my lunch, I could hear the gander +discussing the affairs of the farmyard with the geese. I did not +greatly enjoy the discussion. His tone of voice was very proud, and he +did not seem to be speaking well of me. + +I was suspicious that he did not think me a very brave lad. A young +person likes to be spoken well of, even by the gander. + +Aunt Targood's gander had been the terror of many well-meaning people, +and of some evildoers, for many years. I have seen tramps and pack +peddlers enter the gate, and start on toward the door, when there +would sound that ringing warning like a war blast, "Honk, honk!" and +in a few minutes these unwelcome people would be gone. Farmhouse +boarders from the city would sometimes enter the yard, thinking to +draw water by the old well sweep; in a few minutes it was customary to +hear shrieks, and to see women and children flying over the walls, +followed by air-rending "Honks!" and jubilant cackles from the +victorious gander and his admiring family. + +Aunt Targood sometimes took summer boarders. Among those that I +remember was the Rev. Mr. Bonney, a fervent-souled Methodist preacher. +He put the gander to flight with the cart whip, on the second day +after his arrival, and seemingly to aunt's great grief; but he never +was troubled by the feathered tyrant again. + +Young couples sometimes came to Father Bonney to be married; and one +summer afternoon there rode up to the gate a very young couple, whom +we afterward learned had "run away," or rather, had attempted to get +married without their parents' approval. The young bridegroom hitched +the horse, and helped from the carriage the gayly dressed miss he +expected to make his wife. They started up the walk upon the run, as +though they expected to be followed and haste was necessary to prevent +the failure of their plans. + +"Honk!" + +They stopped. It was a voice of authority. + +"Just look at him!" said the bride. "Oh, oh!" + +The bridegroom cried "Shoo!" but he might as well have said "Shoo" to +a steam engine. On came the gander, with his head and neck upon the +ground. He seized the lad by the calf of his leg, and made an +immediate application of his wings. The latter seemed to think he had +been attacked by dragons. As soon as he could shake him off he ran. So +did the bride, but in another direction; and while the two were thus +perplexed and discomfited, the bride's father appeared in a carriage, +and gave her a most forcible invitation to ride home with him. She +accepted it without discussion. What became of the bridegroom, or how +the matter ended, we never knew. + +"Aunt, what makes you keep that gander year after year?" said I one +evening, as we were sitting on the lawn before the door. "Is it +because he is a kind of watchdog, and keeps troublesome people away?" + +"No, child, no; I do not wish to keep most people away--not +well-behaved people--nor to distress nor annoy any one. The fact is, +there is a story about that gander that I do not like to speak of to +every one--something that makes me feel tender toward him; so that if +he needs a whipping I would rather do it. He knows something that no +one else knows. I could not have him killed or sent away. You have +heard me speak of Nathaniel, my oldest boy?" + +"Yes." + +"That is his picture in my room, you know. He was a good boy to me. He +loved his mother. I loved Nathaniel--you cannot think how much I loved +Nathaniel. It was on my account that he went away. + +"The farm did not produce enough for us all--Nathaniel, John, and me. +We worked hard, and had a hard time. One year--that was ten years +ago--we were sued for our taxes. + +"'Nathaniel,' said I, 'I will go to taking boarders.' + +"Then he looked up to me and said--oh, how noble and handsome he +appeared to me: + +"'Mother, I will go to sea.' + +"'Where?' asked I, in surprise. + +"'In a coaster.' + +"I turned white. How I felt! + +"'You and John can manage the place,' he continued. 'One of the +vessels sails next week--Uncle Aaron's; he offers to take me.' + +"It seemed best, and he made preparations to go. + +"The spring before Skipper Ben--you have met Skipper Ben--had given me +some goose eggs; he had brought them from Canada, and said that they +were wild goose eggs. + +"I set them under hens. In four weeks I had three goslings. I took +them into the house at first, but afterward made a pen for them out in +the yard. I brought them up myself, and one of those goslings is that +gander. + +"Skipper Ben came over to see me the day before Nathaniel was to sail. +Aaron came with him. + +"I said to Aaron: + +"'What can I give Nathaniel to carry to sea with him to make him think +of home? Cake, preserves, apples? I haven't got much; I have done all +I can for him, poor boy.' + +"Brother looked at me curiously, and said: + +"'Give him one of those wild geese, and we will fatten it on shipboard +and will have it for our Thanksgiving dinner.' + +"What Brother Aaron said pleased me. The young gander was a noble +bird, the handsomest of the lot; and I resolved to keep the geese to +kill for my own use, and to give _him_ to Nathaniel. + +"The next morning--it was late in September--I took leave of +Nathaniel. I tried to be calm and cheerful and hopeful. I watched him +as he went down the walk with the gander struggling under his arms. A +stranger would have laughed, but I did not feel like laughing; it was +true that the boys who went coasting were usually gone but a few +months, and came home hardy and happy. But when poverty compels a +mother and son to part, after they have been true to each other, and +shared their feelings in common, it seems hard, it seems hard--though +I do not like to murmur or complain at anything allotted to me. + +"I saw him go over the hill. On the top he stopped and held up the +gander. He disappeared; yes, my own Nathaniel disappeared. I think of +him now as one who disappeared. + +"November came. It was a terrible month on the coast that year. Storm +followed storm; the sea-faring people talked constantly of wrecks and +losses. I could not sleep on the nights of those high winds. I used to +lie awake thinking over all the happy hours that I had lived with +Nathaniel. + +"Thanksgiving week came. + +"It was full of an Indian-summer brightness after the long storms. The +nights were frosty, bright, and calm. + +"I could sleep on those calm nights. + +"One morning I thought I heard a strange sound in the woodland +pasture. It was like a wild goose. I listened; it was repeated. I was +lying in bed. I started up--I thought I had been dreaming. + +"On the night before Thanksgiving I went to bed early, being very +tired. The moon was full; the air was calm and still. I was thinking +of Nathaniel, and I wondered if he would indeed have the gander for +his Thanksgiving dinner, if it would be cooked as well as I would have +cooked it, and if he would think of me that day. + +"I was just going to sleep when suddenly I heard a sound that made me +start up and hold my breath. + +"'_Honk_!' + +"I thought it was a dream followed by a nervous shock. + +"'_Honk! honk!_' + +"There it was again, in the yard, I was surely awake and in my senses. + +"I heard the geese cackle. + +"'_Honk! honk! honk!_' + +"I got out of bed and lifted the curtain. It was almost as light as +day. + +"Instead of two geese there were three. Had one of the neighbours' +geese stolen away? + +"I should have thought so, and should not have felt disturbed, but for +the reason that none of the neighbours' geese had that peculiar +call--that hornlike tone that I had noticed in mine. + +"I went out of the door. + +"The _third_ goose looked like the very gander I had given Nathaniel. +Could it be? + +"I did not sleep. I rose early and went to the crib for some corn. + +"It _was_ a gander--a 'wild gander'--that had come in the night. He +seemed to know me. + +"I trembled all over as though I had seen a ghost. I was so faint that +I sat down on the meal chest. + +"As I was in that place, a bill pecked against the door. The door +opened. The strange gander came hobbling over the crib stone and went +to the corn bin. He stopped there, looked at me, and gave a sort of +glad 'Honk' as though he knew me and was glad to see me. + +"I was certain that he was the gander I had raised and that Nathaniel +had lifted into the air when he gave me his last recognition from the +top of the hill. + +"It overcame me. It was Thanksgiving. The church bell would soon be +ringing as on Sunday. And here was Nathaniel's Thanksgiving dinner and +Brother Aaron's--had it flown away? Where was the vessel? + +"Years have passed--ten. You know I waited and waited for my boy to +come back. December grew dark with its rainy seas; the snows fell; May +lighted up the hills, but the vessel never came back. Nathaniel--my +Nathaniel--never returned. + +"That gander knows something he could tell me if he could talk. Birds +have memories. _He_ remembered the corncrib--he remembered something +else. I wish he _could_ talk, poor bird! I wish he could talk. I will +never sell him, nor kill him, nor have him abused. He _knows_!" + + + + +MON-DAW-MIN, OR THE ORIGIN OF INDIAN CORN[27] + +BY H. R. SCHOOLCRAFT. + + This is the real Indian fairy tale of the birth of + Mon-daw-min. Readers of Longfellow will remember his + treatment of the same subject in "Hiawatha." + + +In Times past, a poor Indian was living with his wife and children in +a beautiful part of the country. He was not only poor, but inexpert in +procuring food for his family, and his children were all too young to +give him assistance. Although poor, he was a man of a kind and +contented disposition. He was always thankful to the Great Spirit for +everything he received. The same disposition was inherited by his +eldest son, who had now arrived at the proper age to undertake the +ceremony of the Ke-ig-uish-im-o-win, or fast, to see what kind of a +spirit would be his guide and guardian through life. Wunzh, for this +was his name, had been an obedient boy from his infancy, and was of a +pensive, thoughtful, and mild disposition, so that he was beloved by +the whole family. As soon as the first indications of spring appeared, +they built him the customary little lodge at a retired spot, some +distance from their own, where he would not be disturbed during this +solemn rite. In the meantime he prepared himself, and immediately went +into it, and commenced his fast. The first few days he amused himself, +in the mornings, by walking in the woods and over the mountains, +examining the early plants and flowers, and in this way prepared +himself to enjoy his sleep, and at the same time stored his mind with +pleasant ideas for his dreams. While he rambled through the woods, he +felt a strong desire to know how the plants, herbs, and berries grew +without any aid from man, and why it was that some species were good +to eat and others possessed medicinal or poisonous juices. He recalled +these thoughts to mind after he became too languid to walk about, and +had confined himself strictly to the lodge; he wished he could dream +of something that would prove a benefit to his father and family, and +to all others. "True!" he thought, "the Great Spirit made all things, +and it is to him that we owe our lives. But could he not make it +easier for us to get our food than by hunting animals and taking fish? +I must try to find out this in my visions." + +[Footnote 27: From "The Myth of Hiawatha."] + +On the third day he became weak and faint, and kept his bed. He +fancied, while thus lying, that he saw a handsome young man coming +down from the sky and advancing toward him. He was richly and gayly +dressed, having on a great many garments of green and yellow colours, +but differing in their deeper or lighter shades. He had a plume of +waving feathers on his head, and all his motions were graceful. + +"I am sent to you, my friend," said the celestial visitor, "by that +Great Spirit who made all things in the sky and on the earth. He has +seen and knows your motives in fasting. He sees that it is from a kind +and benevolent wish to do good to your people, and to procure a +benefit for them, and that you do not seek for strength in war or the +praise of warriors. I am sent to instruct you, and show you how you +can do your kindred good." He then told the young man to arise, and +prepare to wrestle with him, as it was only by this means that he +could hope to succeed in his wishes. Wunzh knew he was weak from +fasting, but he felt his courage rising in his heart, and immediately +got up, determined to die rather than fail. He commenced the trial, +and after a protracted effort was almost exhausted when the beautiful +stranger said, "My friend, it is enough for once; I will come again to +try you"; and, smiling on him, he ascended in the air in the same +direction from which he came. The next day the celestial visitor +reappeared at the same hour and renewed the trial. Wunzh felt that his +strength was even less than the day before, but the courage of his +mind seemed to increase in proportion as his body became weaker. +Seeing this, the stranger again spoke to him in the same words he used +before, adding, "To-morrow will be your last trial. Be strong, my +friend, for this is the only way you can overcome me, and obtain the +boon you seek." On the third day he again appeared at the same time +and renewed the struggle. The poor youth was very faint in body, but +grew stronger in mind at every contest, and was determined to prevail +or perish in the attempt. He exerted his utmost powers, and after the +contest had been continued the usual time, the stranger ceased his +efforts and declared himself conquered. For the first time he entered +the lodge, and sitting down beside the youth, he began to deliver his +instructions to him, telling him in what manner he should proceed to +take advantage of his victory. + +"You have won your desires of the Great Spirit," said the stranger. +"You have wrestled manfully. To-morrow will be the seventh day of your +fasting, your father will give you food to strengthen you, and as it +is the last day of trial, you will prevail. I know this, and now tell +you what you must do to benefit your family and your tribe. +To-morrow," he repeated, "I shall meet you and wrestle with you for +the last time; and, as soon as you have prevailed against me, you will +strip off my garments and throw me down, clean the earth of roots and +weeds, make it soft, and bury me in the spot. When you have done this, +leave my body in the earth, and do not disturb it, but come +occasionally to visit the place, to see whether I have come to life, +and be careful never to let the grass or weeds grow on my grave. Once +a month cover me with fresh earth. If you follow my instructions, you +will accomplish your object of doing good to your fellow-creatures by +teaching them the knowledge I now teach you." He then shook him by the +hand and disappeared. + +In the morning the youth's father came with some slight refreshments, +saying, "My son, you have fasted long enough. If the Great Spirit will +favour you, he will do it now. It is seven days since you have tasted +food, and you must not sacrifice your life. The Master of Life does +not require that." "My father," replied the youth, "wait till the sun +goes down. I have a particular reason for extending my fast to that +hour." "Very well," said the old man. "I shall wait till the hour +arrives, and you feel inclined to eat." + +At the usual hour of the day the sky visitor returned, and the trial +of strength was renewed. Although the youth had not availed himself of +his father's offer of food, he felt that new strength had been given +to him, and that exertion had renewed his strength and fortified his +courage. He grasped his angelic antagonist with supernatural strength, +threw him down, took from him his beautiful garments and plume, and +finding him dead, immediately buried him on the spot, taking all the +precautions he had been told of, and being very confident, at the same +time, that his friend would again come to life. He then returned to +his father's lodge, and partook sparingly of the meal that had been +prepared for him. But he never for a moment forgot the grave of his +friend. He carefully visited it throughout the spring, and weeded out +the grass, and kept the ground in a soft and pliant state. Very soon +he saw the tops of the green plumes coming through the ground; and the +more careful he was to obey his instructions in keeping the ground in +order, the faster they grew. He was, however, careful to conceal the +exploit from his father. Days and weeks had passed in this way. The +summer was now drawing toward a close, when one day, after a long +absence in hunting, Wunzh invited his father to follow him to the +quiet and lonesome spot of his former fast. The lodge had been +removed, and the weeds kept from growing on the circle where it stood, +but in its place stood a tall and graceful plant, with bright coloured +silken hair, surmounted with nodding plumes and stately leaves, and +golden clusters on each side. "It is my friend," shouted the lad; "it +is the friend of all mankind. It is _Mondawmin_. We need no longer +rely on hunting alone; for, as long as this gift is cherished and +taken care of, the ground itself will give us a living." He then +pulled an ear. "See, my father," said he, "this is what I fasted for. +The Great Spirit has listened to my voice, and sent us something new, +and henceforth our people will not alone depend upon the chase or upon +the waters." + +He then communicated to his father the instructions given him by the +stranger. He told him that the broad husks must be torn away, as he +had pulled off the garments in his wrestling; and having done this, +directed him how the ear must be held before the fire till the outer +skin became brown, while all the milk was retained in the grain. The +whole family then united in feast on the newly grown ears, expressing +gratitude to the Merciful Spirit who gave it. So corn came into the +world. + + + + +A MYSTERY IN THE KITCHEN[28] + +BY OLIVE THORNE MILLER. + + The boy who has a sister and the girl who has a brother are + the ones who will best like this story of the spirited + twins, Jessie and Jack. Jessie wanted to take music lessons + and Jack tried mining in Colorado. + + +Something very mysterious was going on in the Jarvis kitchen. The +table was covered with all sorts of good things--eggs and butter and +raisins and citron and spices; and Jessie, with her sleeves rolled up +and a white apron on, was bustling about, measuring and weighing and +chopping and beating and mixing those various ingredients in a most +bewildering way. + +[Footnote 28: From "Kristy's Surprise Party," Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +Moreover, though she was evidently working for dear life, her face was +full of smiles; in fact, she seemed to have trouble to keep from +laughing outright, while Betty, the cook, who was washing potatoes at +the sink, fairly giggled with glee every few minutes, as if the sight +of Miss Jessie working in the kitchen was the drollest thing in the +world. + +It was one of the pleasantest sights that big, sunny kitchen had seen +for many a day, and the only thing that appeared mysterious about it +was that the two workers acted strangely like conspirators. If they +laughed--as they did on the slightest provocation--it was very soft +and at once smothered. Jessie went often to the door leading into the +hall, and listened; and if there came a knock on the floor, she +snatched off her apron, hastily wiped her hands, rolled down her +sleeves, asked Betty if there was any flour on her, and then hurried +away into another part of the house, trying to look cool and quiet, as +if she had not been doing anything. + +On returning from one of these excursions, as she rolled up her +sleeves again, she said: + +"Betty, we must open the other window if it is cold. Mamma thought she +smelled roast turkey!" + +Betty burst into a laugh which she smothered in her apron. Jessie +covered her mouth and laughed, too, but the window was opened to make +a draught and carry out the delicious odours, which, it must be +confessed, did fill that kitchen so full that no wonder they crept +through the cracks, and the keyholes, and hung about Jessie's dress as +she went through the hall, in a way to make one's mouth water. + +"What did ye tell her?" asked Betty, as soon as she could speak. + +"Oh, I told her I thought potpie smelled a good deal like turkey," +said Jessie, and again both laughed. "Wasn't it lucky we had potpie +to-day? I don't know what I should have said if we hadn't." + +Well, it was not long after that when Jessie lined a baking-dish with +nice-looking crust, filled it with tempting looking chicken legs and +wings and breasts and backs and a bowlful of broth, laid a white +blanket of crust over all, tucked it in snugly around the edge, cut +some holes in the top, and shoved it into the oven just after Betty +drew out a dripping pan in which reposed, in all the glory of rich +brown skin, a beautiful turkey. Mrs. Jarvis couldn't have had any nose +at all if she didn't smell that. It filled the kitchen full of nice +smells, and Betty hurried it into the pantry, where the window was +open to cool. + +Then Jessie returned to the spices and fruits she had been working +over so long, and a few minutes later she poured a rich, dark mass +into a tin pudding-dish, tied the cover on tight, and slipped it into +a large kettle of boiling water on the stove. + +"There!" she said, "I hope that'll be good." + +"I know it will," said Betty confidently. "That's y'r ma's best +receipt." + +"Yes, but I never made it before," said Jessie doubtfully. + +"Oh, I know it'll be all right, 'n' I'll watch it close," said Betty; +"'n' now you go'n sit with y'r ma. I want that table to git dinner." + +"But I'm going to wash all these things," said Jessie. + +"You go long! I'd ruther do that myself. 'Twon't take me no time," +said Betty. + +Jessie hesitated. "But you have enough to do, Betty." + +"I tell you I want to do it," the girl insisted. + +"Oh, I know!" said Jessie; "you like to help about it. Well, you may; +and I'm much obliged to you, besides." And after a last look at the +fine turkey cooling his heels (if he had any) in the pantry, Jessie +went into the other part of the house. + +When dinner time arrived and papa came from town, there duly appeared +on the table the potpie before mentioned, and various other things +pleasant to eat, but nothing was seen of the turkey so carefully +roasted nor of the chicken pie, nor of the pudding that caused the +young cook so much anxiety. Nothing was said about them, either, and +it was not Thanksgiving nor Christmas, though it was only a few days +before the former. + +It was certainly odd, and stranger things happened that night. In the +first place, Jessie sat up in her room and wrote a letter; and then, +after her mother was in bed and everything still, she stole down the +back stairs with a candle, quietly, as though she was doing some +mischief. Betty, who came down to help her, brought a box in from the +woodshed; and the two plotters, very silently, with many listenings at +the door to see if any one was stirring, packed that box full of good +things. + +In it the turkey, wrapped in a snowy napkin, found a bed, the chicken +pie and the plum pudding--beautiful looking as Betty said it would +be--bore him company; and numerous small things, jam jars, fruits, +etc., etc., filled the box to its very top. Then the cover, provided +with screws so that no hammering need be done, was fastened on. + +"Now you go to bed, Miss Jessie," whispered Betty. "I'll wait." + +"No, you must be tired," said Jessie. "I'd just as lief." + +"But I'd ruther," said Betty shortly--"'n' I'm going to; it won't be +long now." + +So Jessie crept quietly upstairs, and before long there was a low rap +on the kitchen door. Betty opened it, and there stood a man. + +"Ready?" said he. + +"Yes," answered Betty; "but don't speak loud; Miss Jarvis has sharp +ears, 'n' we don't want her disturbed. Here's the card to mark it by," +and she produced a card from the table. + +The man put it in his pocket, shouldered the box, and Betty shut the +door. + +Not one of those good things ever went into the Jarvis dining-room! + +The next morning things went on just as usual in the house. The +kitchen door was left open and Mrs. Jarvis was welcome to smell any of +the appetizing odours that wafted out into her room. Jessie resumed +her study, and especially her practice, for she hoped some day to be a +great musician. She waited on her mother and took charge of the +housekeeping, so much as was necessary with the well-tried servant at +the head of the kitchen. And though she had but sixteen years over her +bright brown head, she proved herself to be what in that little New +England town was called "capable." + +But that box of goodies! Let us see where it went. + +It was Thanksgiving morning in a rough-looking little mining +settlement in Colorado. In a shanty rougher and more comfortless than +the rest were two persons: one, a man of thirty, was deeply engaged in +cleaning and oiling a gun which lay in pieces about him on the rough +bench where he sat; the other, a youth of sixteen, was trying to make +a fire burn in the primitive-looking affair that did duty as a stove. +Both wore coarse miner's suits, and picks and other things about the +room told that their business was to dig for the yellow dust we are +all so greedy to have. + +Evidently luck had not been good, for the whole place appeared run +down, and the two looked absolutely hungry. + +It was Thanksgiving morning, as I said, but no thankfulness shone in +the two pale, thin faces. Both were sad, and the younger one almost +hopeless. + +"Jack," said the elder, pausing in his operations, "mind you give that +old hen a good boil, or we won't be able to eat it." + +"It'll be better'n nothing, anyway, I suppose," said Jack gloomily. + +"Not much. 'Specially if you don't get the taste of sage brush out of +it. Lucky I happened to get that shot at her, anyway," he went on, +"I've seen worse dinners--even Thanksgiving dinners--than a sage hen." + +"I haven't," said Jack shortly; for the mention of Thanksgiving had +brought up before him with startling vividness the picture of a bright +dining-room in a certain town far away, a table loaded with good +things, and surrounded by smiling faces, and the contrast was almost +more than he could bear. + +"Well, don't be down on your luck, boy, so long as you can get a good +fat hen to eat, if she does happen to be too fond of seasoning before +she's dead!" replied the other cheerfully; "we haven't struck it yet, +but it's always darkest just before dawn, you know. We may be +millionaires before this time to-morrow." + +"We may," answered Jack; but he didn't look as if he had much hope of +it. + +A few hours later the occupants of the cabin sat down to their +Thanksgiving dinner. It consisted of the hen aforesaid, cut in pieces +and boiled--looking very queer, too--served in the kettle in which the +operation had been performed. The table was at one end of the bench, +the table service two jackknives and two iron spoons--absolutely +nothing else. + +The elder sat on the bench, the younger drew up a keg that had held +powder, and the dinner was about to begin. + +But that hen was destined never to be eaten, for just at that moment +the door was pushed open in the rude way of the country, a box set +down on the floor, and a rough voice announced: + +"A box for Mr. Jack Jones." + +Jack started up. + +"For me, there must be a mistake! Nobody knows--" He stopped, for he +had not mentioned that his name was assumed. + +"Likely not!" said the man, with a knowing look, "but folks has a +mighty queer way of findin' out," and he shut the door and left. + +Jack stood staring at the box as if he had lost his wits. It could not +be from home, for no one knew where he went when he stole out of the +house one night six months ago, and ran away to seek his fortune. Not +a line had he ever written--not even when very ill, as he had been; +not even when without a roof to cover his head, as he had been more +than once; not even when he had not eaten for two days, as also, alas, +had been his experience. + +He had deliberately run away, because--how trivial it looked to him +now, and how childish seemed his conduct--because he thought his +father too hard on him; would not allow him enough liberty; wanted to +dictate to this man of sixteen; he intended to show him that he could +get on alone. + +Poor Jack, the only comfort he had been able to extract from his hard +lot these many months of wandering, of work, of suffering such as he +had never dreamed of--his only comfort was that his tender mother +didn't know, his only sister would no more be worried by his grumbling +and complaints, and his father would be convinced now that he wasn't a +baby. Small comfort, too, to balance the hardships that had fallen to +his lot since the money he had drawn from the savings bank--his little +all--was used up. + +"Why don't you open it?" The gruff but not unkind voice of his +roommate, whom he called Tom, aroused him. "Maybe there's something in +it better'n sage hen," trying to raise a smile. + +But no smile followed. Mechanically Jack sought the tools to open it, +and in a few moments the cover was off. + +It _was_ from home! On the very top was a letter addressed to Jack +Jarvis in a hand that he well knew. + +He hastily stuffed it into his pocket unopened. The layers of paper +were removed, and as each one was thrown off, something new appeared. +Not a word was spoken, but the kettle of sage hen was silently put on +the floor by Tom as the bench began to fill up. A jar of cranberry +sauce, another of orange marmalade, oranges and apples, a plum +pudding, a chicken pie, and lastly, in its white linen wrapper, the +turkey we saw browning in that far-off New England kitchen. + +As one by one these things were lifted out and placed on the bench a +deep silence reigned in the cabin. Jack had choked at sight of the +letter, and memories of days far different from these checked even +Tom's usually lively tongue. A strange unpacking it was; how different +from the joyful packing at dead of night with those two laughing girl +faces bending over it! + +When all was done, and the silence grew painful, Jack blurted out: +"Help yourself," and bustled about, busily gathering up the papers and +folding them, and stuffing them back in the box, as though he were the +most particular housekeeper in the world. But if Jack couldn't eat, +something, too, ailed Tom. He said simply: + +"Don't feel hungry. Believe I'll go out and see what I can find," and +shouldering his gun, now cleaned and put together, he quickly went out +and shut the door. + +Jack sat down on the keg and looked at the things which so vividly +brought home, and his happy life there, before him. He did not feel +hungry, either. He sat and stared for some time. Then he remembered +his letter. He drew it from his pocket and opened it. It was very +thick; and when he pulled it out of the envelope the first thing he +saw was the smiling face of his sister Jessie, his twin sister, his +playmate and comrade, his confidante from the cradle. The loss of her +ever-willing sympathy had been almost more to him than all the rest of +his troubles. + +This was another shock that brought something to his eyes that made +him see the others through a mist. There were the pictures of his +mother, whose gentle voice he could almost hear, and of his father, +whose gray hairs and sad face he suddenly remembered were partly his +work. + +At last he read the letter. It began: + + DEAR JACK:--I've just found out where you are, and I'm so + glad. I send you this Thanksgiving dinner. It was too bad + for you to go off so. You don't know how dreadful it was for + mamma; she was sick a long time, and we were scared to death + about her, but she's better now; she can sit up most all + day. + + Oh, Jack! Father _cried_! I'm sure he did, and he almost ran + out of the room, and didn't say anything to anybody all day. + But I was determined I'd find you. I shan't tell you how I + did it, but Uncle John helped me, and now, Jack, he says he + wants just such a fellow as you to learn his business, and + he'll make you a very good offer. And, Jack, that's my + turkey--my Winnie--and nobody but Betty knows anything about + this box and this letter. I send you all my money out of the + savings bank (I didn't tell _anybody_ that), and I _want_ + you to come home. You'll find the money under the + cranberries. I thought it would be safe there, and I knew + you'd eat them all, you're so fond of cranberries. I didn't + tell anybody because I want to surprise them, and besides, + let them think you came home because you got ready. It's + nobody's business where you got the money anyway. + + Now do come right home, Jack. You can get here in a week's + time, I know. + +Your affectionate sister, + +JESSIE. + +Jack laid the letter down with a rush of new feelings and thoughts +that overwhelmed him. He sat there for hours; he knew nothing of time. +He had mechanically turned the cranberry jar upside down and taken +from the bottom, carefully wrapped in white paper, fifty dollars. + +A pang went through him. Well did he know what that money represented +to his sister; by how many sacrifices she had been saving it for a +year or two, with the single purpose of taking the lessons from a +great master that were to fit her to teach, to take an independent +position in the world, to relieve her father, who had lost a large +slice of his comfortable income, and who was growing old and sad under +his burden. She had often talked it over with Jack. + +Now she had generously given up the whole to him, all her hopes and +dreams of independence; and he--he who should have been the support of +his sister, the right arm of his father--he had basely deserted. + +These thoughts and many more surged through his mind that long +afternoon, and when Tom returned as the shadows were growing long, he +sat exactly as he had been left. + +On Tom's entrance he roused himself. There was a new light in his eye. + +"Come, Tom," he said, "dinner's waiting. You must be hungry by this +time." + +"I am that," said Tom, who had been through his own mental struggles +meanwhile. + +The two sat down once more to their Thanksgiving dinner, and this time +they managed to eat, though Jack choked whenever he thought of tasting +a bit of Jessie's pet turkey, Winnie; and much as he liked turkey, and +a home turkey at that, he could not touch it. + +After the meal, when the provisions were stored away in the cupboard +(a soap box) much too small for such a supply, it had grown quite +dark, and the two, still disinclined to talk, went to their beds--if +the rough bunks they occupied may be dignified by that name. + +But not to sleep--at least not Jack, who tumbled and tossed all night +and got up in the morning with an energy and life he had not shown for +weeks. + +After breakfast Tom shouldered his pick and said: + +"I'll go on, Jack, while you clear up." Yet he felt in his heart he +should never see Jack again; for there was a homestruck look in his +face that the man of experience in the ways of runaway boys knew well. + +He was not surprised that Jack did not join him, nor that when he +returned at night to the cabin he found him gone and a note pinned up +on the door: + + I can't stand it--I'm off for home. You may have my share of + everything. + + JACK. + +It was a cold evening in early December, and there seemed to be an +undercurrent of excitement in the Jarvis household. The table was +spread in the dining-room with the best silver and linen. Mrs. Jarvis +was better, and had even been able to go into the kitchen to +superintend the preparations for dinner. + +Jessie went around with a shining face that no one understood and she +could not explain. + +Betty was strangely nervous, and had made several blunders that +morning which mortified the faithful servant very much. An air of +expectancy pervaded the whole house, though the two heads of it had +not a hint of the cause. + +Jessie heard the train she had decided to be the important one. She +could hardly contain herself for expectation. She tried hard to sober +herself now and then by the thought, "Perhaps he won't come," but she +couldn't stay sobered, for she felt as certain that he would as that +she lived. + +You all know how it happened. The door opened and Jack walked in. One +instant of blank silence, and then a grand convulsion. + +Jack fell on his knees with his face in his mother's lap, though he +had not thought a moment before of doing any such thing. Jessie hung +over him, frantically hugging him. Mr. Jarvis, vainly trying to join +this group, could only lay his hands on Jack's head and say in a +broken voice: "My son! My son!" while Betty performed a war dance +around the party, wildly brandishing a basting spoon in one hand and +wiping her streaming eyes on the dishcloth which she held in the +other. + +It was long before a word could be spoken, and the dinner was totally +ruined, as Betty declared with tears (though they were not for +sorrow), before any one could calm down enough to eat. + +Then the reaction set in, and justice was done to the dinner, while +talk went on in a stream. Jack did not tell his adventures; he only +said that he had come from the city, where he had made arrangements +for a situation with Uncle John--at which Jessie's eyes sparkled. His +looks, even after a week of comfort and hope, spoke for his +sufferings. + +There is little more to tell. Jack Jarvis at seventeen was a different +boy from the Jack who at sixteen started out to seek his fortune. You +may be sure that Jessie had her music lessons after all, and that a +new Winnie with a fine young brood at her heels stalked about the +Jarvis grounds the next spring. + + + + +WHO ATE THE DOLLY'S DINNER?[29] + +BY ISABEL GORDON CURTIS. + + A good story for the Big Sister to read to the little boys + and girls. + + +"Why can't dollies have a Thanksgiving dinner as well as real folks?" +asked Polly Pine. + +[Footnote 29: From "For the Children's Hour," Milton Bradley Company.] + +"I don't know why," said mamma, laughing; "go and dress them in their +best clothes, get the dolls' house swept and dusted and the table +ready. Then I'll fix their dinner before we go downstairs." + +"Oh, how nice!" said Polly Pine. + +The doll house stood in the nursery. It was very big and very +beautiful. It was painted red; it had tall chimneys, and a fine front +door with R. Bliss on a brass plate. There were lace curtains at the +windows, and two steps led up to the cunning little piazza. Polly Pine +swept the rooms with her tiny broom and dusted them. Then she set the +table in the dining-room with the very best dishes and the finest +silver. She set a teeny vase in the middle of the table, with two +violets in it, and she put dolly table napkins at each place. + +When the house was all nice and clean she dressed Lavinia in her pink +muslin, and Dora Jane in her gray velvet, and Hannah Welch in her +yellow silk; then she seated them around the table, each one in her +own chair. Polly was just telling them about company manners, how they +must not eat with their knives, or leave their teaspoons in their cups +when they drank their tea, when the door opened and in came mamma with +a real dolls' Thanksgiving dinner. + +There was a chicken bone to put on the platter before Hannah Welch, +for Hannah always did the carving. There were cunning little dishes of +mashed potato and cranberry sauce, and some celery in a tiny tumbler, +and the smallest squash pie baked in a patty pan. Polly Pine just +hopped up and down with delight when she saw it. She set everything on +the table; then she ran away to put on her nicest muslin frock with +the pink ribbons, and she went downstairs to her own dinner. + +There were gentlemen there for dinner--gentlemen Polly was very fond +of--and she had a nice time visiting with one of them. He could change +his table napkin into a white rabbit, and she forgot all about the +dolls' Thanksgiving dinner until it was dessert-time, and the nuts and +raisins came in. + +Then Polly remembered, and she jumped down from her chair and asked +mamma if she might go upstairs and see if the dolls had eaten their +dinner. When mamma told about the doll house Thanksgiving, all the +family wanted to go, too, to find out if the dolls had enjoyed their +dinner. + +The front door of the doll house was open, and there sat the dolls +just as their little mistress had left them--only they had eaten +nearly all the dinner! Everything was gone except the potato and the +cranberry sauce. The chicken leg was picked bare, the bread was +nibbled, and the little pie was eaten all around. + +"Well, this is funny," said papa. + +Just then they heard a funny, scratching noise in the doll house, and +a little gray mouse jumped out from under the table. He ran out the +front door of the doll house, and over the piazza, and down the steps +before you could say "Jack Robinson." In a minute he was gone--nobody +knew where. There was another tiny mouse in the doll house under the +parlour sofa, and a third one under Lavinia's bed, with a poor, +frightened gray tail sticking out. They all got away safe. Papa would +not allow mamma to go for the cat. He said: + +"Why can't a poor little mouse have a Thanksgiving dinner as well as +we?" + + + + +AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING[30] + +BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. + + A long story about a family of hardy New England pioneers in + Revolutionary days. It will be most enjoyed by the older + children. + + +"Pile in, Hannah. Get right down 'long o' the clock, so's to kinder +shore it up. I'll fix in them pillers t'other side on't, and you can +set back ag'inst the bed. Good-bye, folks! Gee up! Bright. Gee! I tell +ye, Buck." + +[Footnote 30: Adapted from "Huckleberries," Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +"Good-bye!" nodded Hannah, from the depths of the old calash which +granny had given her for a riding-hood, and her rosy face sparkled +under the green shadow like a blossom under a burdock leaf. + +This was their wedding journey. Thirty long miles to be travelled, at +the slow pace of an oxcart, where to-day a railroad spins by, and a +log hut in the dim distance. + +But Hannah did not cry about it. There was a momentary choking, +perhaps, in her throat, as she caught a last view of granny's mob cap +and her father's rough face, with the red head of her small +stepbrother between them, grouped in the doorway. Her mother had died +long ago, and there was another in her place now, and a swarm of +children. Hannah was going to her own home, to a much easier life, +and going with John. Why should she cry? + +Besides, Hannah was the merriest little woman in the country. She had +a laugh always lying ready in a convenient dimple. + +She never knew what "blues" meant, except to dye stocking yarn. She +was sunny as a dandelion and gay as a bobolink. Her sweet good nature +never failed through the long day's journey, and when night came she +made a pot of tea at the campfire, roasted a row of apples, and +broiled a partridge John shot by the wayside, with as much enjoyment +as if this was the merriest picnic excursion, and not a solitary camp +in the forest, long miles away from any human dwelling, and by no +means sure of safety from some lingering savage, some beast of harmful +nature, or at least a visit from a shambling black bear, for bears +were plentiful enough in that region. + +But none of these things worried Hannah. She ate her supper with +hearty appetite, said her prayers with John, and curled down on the +featherbed in the cart, while John heaped on more wood, and, +shouldering his musket, went to lengthen the ropes that tethered his +oxen, and then mounted guard over the camp. Hannah watched his fine, +grave face, as the flickering light illuminated it, for a few minutes, +and then slept tranquilly till dawn. And by sunset next day the little +party drew up at the door of the log hut they called home. + +It looked very pretty to Hannah. She had the fairy gift, that is so +rare among mortals, of seeing beauty in its faintest expression; and +the young grass about the rough stone doorstep, the crimson cones on +the great larch tree behind it, the sunlit panes of the west window, +the laugh and sparkle of the brook that ran through the clearing, the +blue eyes of the squirrel caps that blossomed shyly and daintily +beside the stumps of new-felled trees--all these she saw and delighted +in. And when the door was open, the old clock set up, the bed laid on +the standing bedplace, and the three chairs and table ranged against +the wall, she began her house-wifery directly, singing as she went. +Before John had put his oxen in the small barn, sheltered the cart and +the tools in it, and shaken down hay into the manger, Hannah had made +a fire, hung on the kettle, spread up her bed with homespun sheets and +blankets and a wonderful cover of white-and-red chintz, set the table +with a loaf of bread, a square of yellow butter, a bowl of maple +sugar, and a plate of cheese; and even released the cock and the hen +from their uneasy prison in a splint basket, and was feeding them in +the little woodshed when John came in. + +His face lit up, as he entered, with that joyful sense of home so +instinctive in every true man and woman. He rubbed his hard hands +together, and catching Hannah as she came in at the shed door, +bestowed upon her a resounding kiss. + +"You're the most of a little woman I ever see, Hannah, I swan to +man." + +Hannah laughed like a swarm of spring blackbirds. + +"I declare, John, you do beat all! Ain't it real pleasant here? Seems +to me I never saw things so handy." + +Oh, Hannah, what if your prophetic soul could have foreseen the +conveniences of this hundred years after! Yet the shelves, the pegs, +the cupboard in the corner, the broad shelf above the fire, the great +pine chest under the window, and the clumsy settle, all wrought out of +pine board by John's patient and skilful fingers, filled all her +needs; and what can modern conveniences do more? + +So they ate their supper at home for the first time, happy as +new-nested birds, and far more grateful. + +John had built a sawmill on the brook a little way from the house, and +already owned a flourishing trade, for the settlement about the lake +from which Nepasset Brook sprung was quite large, and till John +Perkins went there the lumber had been all drawn fifteen miles off, to +Litchfield, and his mill was only three miles from Nepash village. +Hard work and hard fare lay before them both, but they were not +daunted by the prospect.... + +By and by a cradle entered the door, and a baby was laid in it.... + +One baby is well enough in a log cabin, with one room for all the +purposes of life; but when next year brought two more, a pair of stout +boys, then John began to saw lumber for his own use. A bedroom was +built on the east side of the house, and a rough stairway into the +loft--more room perhaps than was needed; but John was called in Nepash +"a dre'dful forecastin' man," and he took warning from the twins. And +timely warning it proved, for as the years slipped by, one after +another, they left their arrows in his quiver till ten children +bloomed about the hearth. The old cabin had disappeared entirely. A +good-sized frame house of one story, with a high-pitched roof, stood +in its stead, and a slab fence kept roving animals out of the yard and +saved the apple trees from the teeth of stray cows and horses. + +Poor enough they were still. The loom in the garret always had its web +ready, the great wheel by the other window sung its busy song year in +and year out. Dolly was her mother's right hand now; and the twins, +Ralph and Reuben, could fire the musket and chop wood. Sylvy, the +fourth child, was the odd one. All the rest were sturdy, rosy, +laughing girls and boys; but Sylvy had been a pining baby, and grew up +into a slender, elegant creature, with clear gray eyes, limpid as +water, but bright as stars, and fringed with long golden lashes the +colour of her beautiful hair--locks that were coiled in fold on fold +at the back of her fine head, like wreaths of undyed silk, so pale was +their yellow lustre. She bloomed among the crowd of red-cheeked, +dark-haired lads and lasses, stately and incongruous as a June lily in +a bed of tulips. But Sylvy did not stay at home. The parson's lady at +Litchfield came to Nepash one Sunday, with her husband, and seeing +Sylvy in the square corner pew with the rest, was mightily struck by +her lovely face, and offered to take her home with her the next week, +for the better advantages of schooling. Hannah could not have spared +Dolly; but Sylvia was a dreamy, unpractical child, and though all the +dearer for being the solitary lamb of the flock by virtue of her +essential difference from the rest, still, for that very reason, it +became easier to let her go. Parson Everett was childless, and in two +years' time both he and his wife adored the gentle, graceful girl; and +she loved them dearly. They could not part with her, and at last +adopted her formally as their daughter, with the unwilling consent of +John and Hannah. Yet they knew it was greatly "for Sylvy's +betterment," as they phrased it; so at last they let her go. + +But when Dolly was a sturdy young woman of twenty-five the war-trumpet +blew, and John and the twins heard it effectually. There was a sudden +leaving of the plow in the furrow. The planting was set aside for the +children to finish, the old musket rubbed up, and with set lips and +resolute eyes the three men walked away one May morning to join the +Nepash company. Hannah kept up her smiling courage through it all. If +her heart gave way, nobody knew it but God and John. The boys she +encouraged and inspired, and the children were shamed out of their +childish tears by mother's bright face and cheery talk. + +Then she set them all to work. There was corn to plant, wheat to sow, +potatoes to set; flax and wool to spin and weave, for clothes would be +needed for all, both absent and stay-at-homes. There was no father to +superintend the outdoor work; so Hannah took the field, and marshalled +her forces on Nepasset Brook much as the commander-in-chief was doing +on a larger scale elsewhere. Eben, the biggest boy, and Joey, who came +next him, were to do all the planting; Diana and Sam took on +themselves the care of the potato patch, the fowls, and the cow; Dolly +must spin and weave when mother left either the wheel or loom to +attend to the general ordering of the forces; while Obed and Betty, +the younglings of the flock, were detailed to weed, pick vegetables +(such few as were raised in the small garden), gather berries, herbs, +nuts, hunt the straying turkeys' nests, and make themselves generally +useful. At evening all the girls sewed; the boys mended their shoes, +having learned so much from a travelling cobbler; and the mother +taught them all her small stock of schooling would allow. At least, +they each knew how to read, and most of them to write, after a very +uncertain fashion. As to spelling, nobody knew how to spell in those +days.... But they did know the four simple rules of arithmetic, and +could say the epigrammatic rhymes of the old New England Primer and +the sibyllic formulas of the Assembly's Catechism as glibly as the +child of to-day repeats "The House That Jack Built." + +So the summer went on. The corn tasselled, the wheat ears filled well, +the potatoes hung out rich clusters of their delicate and graceful +blossoms, beans straggled half over the garden, the hens did their +duty bravely, and the cow produced a heifer calf. + +Father and the boys were fighting now, and mother's merry words were +more rare, though her bright face still wore its smiling courage. They +heard rarely from the army. Now and then a post rider stopped at the +Nepash tavern and brought a few letters or a little news; but this was +at long intervals, and women who watched and waited at home without +constant mail service and telegraphic flashes, aware that news of +disaster, of wounds, of illness, could only reach them too late to +serve or save, and that to reach the ill or the dying involved a +larger and more disastrous journey than the survey of half the world +demands now--these women endured pangs beyond our comprehension, and +endured them with a courage and patience that might have furnished +forth an army of heroes, that did go far to make heroes of that +improvised, ill-conditioned, eager multitude who conquered the trained +bands of their oppressors and set their sons "free and equal," to use +their own dubious phraseology, before the face of humanity at large. + +By and by winter came on with all its terrors. By night wolves howled +about the lonely house, and sprung back over the palings when Eben +went to the door with his musket. Joe hauled wood from the forest on a +hand-sled, and Dolly and Diana took it in through the kitchen window +when the drifts were so high that the woodshed door could not be +opened. Besides, all the hens were gathered in there, as well for +greater warmth as for convenience in feeding, and the barn was only to +be reached with snowshoes and entered by the window above the manger. + +Hard times these were. The loom in the garret could not be used, for +even fingers would freeze in that atmosphere; so the thread was wound +off, twisted on the great wheel, and knit into stockings, the boys +learning to fashion their own, while Hannah knit her anxiety and her +hidden heartaches into socks for her soldier boys and their father. + +By another spring the aching and anxiousness were a little dulled, for +habit blunts even the keen edge of mortal pain. They had news that +summer that Ralph had been severely wounded, but had recovered; that +John had gone through a sharp attack of camp-fever; that Reuben was +taken prisoner, but escaped by his own wit. Hannah was thankful and +grateful beyond expression. Perhaps another woman would have wept and +wailed, to think all this had come to pass without her knowledge or +her aid; but it was Hannah's way to look at the bright side of things. +Sylvia would always remember how once, when she was looking at Mount +Tahconic, darkened by a brooding tempest, its crags frowning blackly +above the dark forest at its foot and the lurid cloud above its head +torn by fierce lances of light, she hid her head in her mother's +checked apron, in the helpless terror of an imaginative child; but, +instead of being soothed and pitied, mother had only laughed a little +gay laugh, and said gently, but merrily: + +"Why, Sylvy, the sun's right on the other side, only you don't see +it." + +After that she always thought her mother saw the sun when nobody else +could. And in a spiritual sense it was true. + +Parson Everett rode over once or twice from Litchfield that next +summer to fetch Sylvia and to administer comfort to Hannah. He was a +quaint, prim little gentleman, neat as any wren, but mild-mannered as +wrens never are, and in a moderate way kindly and sympathetic. When +the children had haled their lovely sister away to see their rustic +possessions, Parson Everett would sit down in a high chair, lay aside +his cocked hat, spread his silk pocket handkerchief over his knees, +and prepare to console Hannah. + +"Mistress Perkins, these are trying times, trying times. There is a +sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees--h-m! Sea and waves +roaring of a truth--h-m! h-m! I trust, Mistress Perkins, you submit to +the Divine Will with meekness." + +"Well, I don't know," replied Hannah, with a queer little twinkle in +her eye. "I don't believe I be as meek as Moses, parson. I should like +things fixed different, to speak truth." + +"Dear me! Dear me--h-m! h-m! My good woman, the Lord reigneth. You +must submit; you must submit. You know it is the duty of a vessel of +wrath to be broken to pieces if it glorifieth the Maker." + +"Well, mebbe 'tis. I don't know much about that kind o' vessel. I've +got to submit because there ain't anything else to do, as I see. I +can't say it goes easy--not'n' be honest; but I try to look on the +bright side, and to believe the Lord'll take care of my folks better'n +I could, even if they was here." + +"H-m! h-m! Well," stammered the embarrassed parson, completely at his +wit's end with this cheerful theology, "well, I hope it is grace that +sustains you, Mistress Perkins, and not the vain elation of the +natural man. The Lord is in His holy temple; the earth is His +footstool--h-m!" The parson struggled helplessly with a tangle of +texts here; but the right one seemed to fail him, till Hannah +audaciously put it in: + +"Well, you know what it says about takin' care of sparrers, in the +Bible, and how we was more valerable than they be, a lot. That kind o' +text comes home these times, I tell ye. You fetch a person down to the +bedrock, as Grandsir Penlyn used to say, and then they know where they +be. And ef the Lord is really the Lord of all, I expect He'll take +care of all; 'nd I don't doubt but what He is and does. So I can fetch +up on that." + +Parson Everett heaved a deep sigh, put on his cocked hat, and blew his +nose ceremonially with the silk handkerchief. Not that he needed to: +but as a sort of shaking off of the dust of responsibility and ending +the conversation, which, if it was not heterodox on Hannah's part, +certainly did not seem orthodox to him.... He did not try to console +her any more, but contented himself with the stiller spirits in his +own parish, who had grown up in and after his own fashion. + +Another dreadful winter settled down on Nepasset township. There was +food enough in the house and firewood in the shed; but neither food +nor fire seemed to assuage the terrible cold, and with decreased +vitality decreased courage came to all. Hygienics were an unforeseen +mystery to people of that day. They did not know that nourishing food +is as good for the brain as for the muscles. They lived on potatoes, +beets, beans, with now and then a bit of salt pork or beef boiled in +the pot with the rest; and their hearts failed, as their flesh did, +with this sodden and monotonous diet. One ghastly night Hannah almost +despaired. She held secret council with Dolly and Eben, while they +inspected the potato bin and the pork barrel, as to whether it would +not be best for them to break up and find homes elsewhere for the +winter. Her father was old and feeble. He would be glad to have her +with him and Betty. The rest were old enough to "do chores" for their +board, and there were many families where help was needed, both in +Nepash and Litchfield, since every available man had gone to the war +by this time. But while they talked a great scuffling and squawking in +the woodhouse attracted the boys upstairs. Joe seized the tongs and +Diana the broomstick. An intruding weasel was pursued and slaughtered; +but not till two fowls, fat and fine, had been sacrificed by the +invader and the tongs together. The children were all hungry, with +the exhaustion of the cold weather, and clamoured to have these +victims cooked for supper. Nor was Hannah unmoved by the appeal. Her +own appetite seconded. The savoury stew came just in time. It aroused +them to new life and spirits. Hannah regained courage, wondering how +she could have lost heart so far, and said to Dolly, as they washed up +the supper dishes: + +"I guess we'll keep together, Dolly. It'll be spring after a while, +and we'll stick it out together." + +"I guess I would," answered Dolly. "And don't you believe we should +all feel better to kill off them fowls--all but two or three? They're +master hands to eat corn, and it does seem as though that biled hen +done us all a sight o' good to-night. Just hear them children." + +And it certainly was, as Hannah said, "musical to hear 'em." Joe had a +cornstalk fiddle, and Eben an old singing book, which Diana read over +his shoulder while she kept on knitting her blue sock; and the three +youngsters--Sam, Obed, and Betty--with wide mouths and intent eyes, +followed Diana's "lining out" of that quaint hymn "The Old +Israelites," dwelling with special gusto and power on two of the +verses: + + "We are little, 'tis true, + And our numbers are few, + And the sons of old Anak are tall; + But while I see a track + I will never go back, + But go on at the risk of my all. + + "The way is all new, + As it opens to view, + And behind is the foaming Red Sea; + So none need to speak + Of the onions and leeks + Or to talk about garlics to me!" + +Hannah's face grew brighter still. "We'll stay right here!" she said, +adding her voice to the singular old ditty with all her power: + + "What though some in the rear + Preach up terror and fear, + And complain of the trials they meet, + Tho' the giants before + With great fury do roar, + I'm resolved I can never retreat." + +And in this spirit, sustained, no doubt, by the occasional chickens, +they lived the winter out, till blessed, beneficent spring came again, +and brought news, great news, with it. Not from the army, though. +There had been a post rider in Nepash during the January thaw, and he +brought short letters only. There was about to be a battle, and there +was no time to write more than assurances of health and good hopes for +the future. Only once since had news reached them from that quarter. A +disabled man from the Nepash company was brought home dying with +consumption. Hannah felt almost ashamed to rejoice in the tidings he +brought of John's welfare, when she heard his husky voice, saw his +worn and ghastly countenance, and watched the suppressed agony in his +wife's eyes. The words of thankfulness she wanted to speak would have +been so many stabs in that woman's breast. It was only when her eight +children rejoiced in the hearing that she dared to be happy. But the +other news was from Sylvia. She was promised to the schoolmaster in +Litchfield. Only to think of it! Our Sylvy! + +Master Loomis had been eager to go to the war; but his mother was a +poor bedrid woman, dependent on him for support, and all the +dignitaries of the town combined in advising and urging him to stay at +home for the sake of their children, as well as his mother. So at home +he stayed, and fell into peril of heart, instead of life and limb, +under the soft fire of Sylvia's eyes, instead of the enemy's +artillery. Parson Everett could not refuse his consent, though he and +madam were both loth to give up their sweet daughter. But since she +and the youth seemed to be both of one mind about the matter, and he +being a godly young man, of decent parentage, and in a good way of +earning his living, there was no more to be said. They would wait a +year before thinking of marriage, both for better acquaintance and on +account of the troubled times. + +"Mayhap the times will mend, sir," anxiously suggested the +schoolmaster to Parson Everett. + +"I think not, I think not, Master Loomis. There is a great blackness +of darkness in hand, the Philistines be upon us, and there is moving +to and fro. Yea, Behemoth lifteth himself and shaketh his mane--h-m! +ah! h-m! It is not a time for marrying and giving in marriage, for +playing on sackbuts and dulcimers--h-m!" + +A quiet smile flickered around Master Loomis's mouth as he turned +away, solaced by a shy, sweet look from Sylvia's limpid eyes, as he +peeped into the keeping-room, where she sat with madam, on his way +out. He could afford to wait a year for such a spring blossom as that, +surely. And wait he did, with commendable patience, comforting his +godly soul with the fact that Sylvia was spared meantime the daily +tendance and care of a fretful old woman like his mother; for, though +Master Loomis was the best of sons, that did not blind him to the fact +that the irritability of age and illness were fully developed in his +mother, and he alone seemed to have the power of calming her. She +liked Sylvia at first, but became frantically jealous of her as soon +as she suspected her son's attachment. So the summer rolled away. +Hannah and her little flock tilled their small farm and gathered +plenteous harvest. Mindful of last year's experience, they raised +brood after brood of chickens, and planted extra acres of corn for +their feeding, so that when autumn came, with its vivid, splendid +days, its keen winds and turbulent skies, the new chicken yard, which +the boys had worked at through the summer, with its wattled fence, its +own tiny spring, and lofty covered roofs, swarmed with chickens, +ducks, and turkeys. Many a dollar was brought home about Thanksgiving +time for the fat fowls sold in Litchfield and Nepash; but dollars +soon vanished in buying winter clothes for so many children, or +rather, in buying wool to spin and weave for them. Mahala Green, the +village tailoress, came to fashion the garments, and the girls sewed +them. Uncouth enough was their aspect; but fashion did not yet reign +in Nepash, and if they were warm, who cared for elegance? Not Hannah's +rosy, hearty, happy brood. They sang and whistled and laughed with a +force and freedom that was kin to the birds and squirrels among whom +they lived; and Hannah's kindly, cheery face lit up as she heard them, +while a half sigh told that her husband and her soldier boys were +still wanting to her perfect contentment. + +At last they were all housed snugly for winter. The woodpile was +larger than ever before, and all laid up in the shed, beyond which a +rough shelter of chinked logs had been put up for the chickens, to +which their roosts and nest boxes, of coarse wicker, boards nailed +together, hollow bark from the hemlock logs, even worn-out tin pails, +had all been transferred. The cellar had been well banked from the +outside, and its darksome cavern held good store of apples, pork, and +potatoes. There was dried beef in the stairway, squashes in the +cupboard, flour in the pantry, and the great gentle black cow in the +barn was a wonderful milker. In three weeks Thanksgiving would come, +and even Hannah's brave heart sank as she thought of her absent +husband and boys; and their weary faces rose up before her as she +numbered over to herself her own causes for thankfulness, as if to +say: "Can you keep Thanksgiving without us?" Poor Hannah! She did her +best to set these thankless thoughts aside, but almost dreaded the +coming festival. One night, as she sat knitting by the fire, a special +messenger from Litchfield rode up to the door and brought stirring +news. Master Loomis's mother was dead, and the master himself, seeing +there was a new levy of troops, was now going to the war. But before +he went there was to be a wedding, and, in the good old fashion, it +should be on Thanksgiving Day, and Madam Everett had bidden as many of +Sylvy's people to the feast as would come. + +There was great excitement as Hannah read aloud the madam's note. The +tribe of Perkins shouted for joy, but a sudden chill fell on them when +mother spoke: + +"Now, children, hush up! I want to speak myself, ef it's a possible +thing to git in a word edgeways. We can't all go, fust and foremost. +'Tain't noways possible." + +"Oh, Mother! Why? Oh, do! Not go to Sylvy's wedding?" burst in the +"infinite deep chorus" of youngsters. + +"No, you can't. There ain't no team in the county big enough to hold +ye all, if ye squeeze ever so much. I've got to go, for Sylvy'd be +beat out if mother didn't come. And Dolly's the oldest. She's got a +right to go." + +Loud protest was made against the right of primogeniture, but mother +was firm. + +"Says so in the Bible. Leastways, Bible folks always acted so. The +first-born, ye know. Dolly's goin', sure. Eben's got to drive, and I +must take Obed. He'd be the death of somebody, with his everlastin' +mischief, if I left him to home. Mebbe I can squeeze in Betty, to keep +him company. Joe and Sam and Dianner won't be more'n enough to take +care o' the cows and chickens and fires, and all. Likewise of each +other." + +Sam set up a sudden howl at his sentence, and kicked the mongrel +yellow puppy, who leaped on him to console him, till that +long-suffering beast yelped in concert. + +Diana sniffed and snuffled, scrubbed her eyes with her checked apron, +and rocked back and forth. + +"Now, stop it!" bawled Joe. "For the land's sake, quit all this noise. +We can't all on us go; 'n' for my part, I don't want to. We'll hev a +weddin' of our own some day!" and here he gave a sly look at Dolly, +who seemed to understand it and blushed like an apple-blossom, while +Joe went on: "Then we'll all stay to 't, I tell ye, and have a right +down old country time." + +Mother had to laugh. + +"So you shall, Joe, and dance 'Money Musk' all night, if you want +to--same as you did to the corn huskin'. Now, let's see. Betty, she's +got that chintz gown that was your Sunday best, Dolly--the flowered +one, you know, that Dianner outgrowed. We must fix them lawn ruffles +into 't; and there's a blue ribbin laid away in my chest o' drawers +that'll tie her hair. It's dreadful lucky we've got new shoes all +round; and Obed's coat and breeches is as good as new, if they be made +out of his pa's weddin' suit. That's the good o' good cloth. It'll +last most forever. Joe hed 'em first, then Sam wore 'em quite a spell, +and they cut over jest right for Obey. My black paduasoy can be fixed +up, I guess. But, my stars! Dolly, what hev' you got?" + +"Well, Mother, you know I ain't got a real good gown. There's the +black lutestring petticoat Sylvy fetched me two years ago; but there +ain't any gown to it. We calculated I could wear that linsey jacket to +meeting, under my coat; but 'twouldn't do rightly for a weddin'." + +"That's gospel truth. You can't wear that, anyhow. You've got to hev +somethin'. 'Twon't do to go to Sylvy's weddin' in linsey woolsy; but I +don't believe there's more'n two hard dollars in the house. There's a +few Continentals; but I don't count on them. Joe, you go over to the +mill fust thing in the morning and ask Sylvester to lend me his old +mare a spell to-morrer, to ride over to Nepash, to the store." + +"Why don't ye send Doll?" asked Joe, with a wicked glance at the girl +that set her blushing again. + +"Hold your tongue, Joseph, 'n' mind me. It's bedtime now, but I'll +wake ye up airly," energetically remarked Hannah. And next day, +equipped in cloak and hood, she climbed the old mare's fat sides and +jogged off on her errand; and by noon-mark was safe and sound home +again, looking a little perplexed, but by no means cast down. + +"Well, Dolly," said she, as soon as cloak and hood were laid aside, +"there's the beautifulest piece of chintz over to the store you ever +see--jest enough for a gown. It's kind of buff-coloured ground, +flowered all over with roses, deep-red roses, as nateral as life. +Squire Dart wouldn't take no money for 't. He's awful sharp about them +new bills. Sez they ain't no more'n corn husks. Well, we ain't got a +great lot of 'em, so there's less to lose, and some folks will take +'em; but he'll let me have the chintz for 'leven yards o' soldier's +cloth--blue, ye know, like what we sent pa and the boys. And I spent +them two silver dollars on a white gauze neck-kercher and a piece of +red satin ribbin for ye, for I'm set on that chintz. Now hurry up 'nd +fix the loom right off. The web's ready, then we'll card the wool. +I'll lay ye a penny we'll have them 'leven yards wove by Friday. +To-day's Tuesday, Thanksgiving comes a Thursday week, an' ef we have +the chintz by sundown a Saturday there'll be good store of time for +Mahaly Green and you to make it afore Wednesday night. We'll hev a +kind of a Thanksgiving, after all. But I wisht your pa----" The +sentence ended in Hannah's apron at her eyes, and Dolly looked sober; +but in a minute she dimpled and brightened, for the pretty chintz gown +was more to her than half a dozen costly French dresses to a girl of +to-day. But a little cloud suddenly put out the dimples. + +"But, Mother, if somebody else should buy it?" + +"Oh, they won't. I've fixed that. I promised to fetch the cloth inside +of a week, and Squire Dart laid away the chintz for me till that time. +Fetch the wool, Dolly, before you set up the web, so's I can start." + +The wool was carded, spun, washed, and put into the dye tub, one "run" +of yarn that night; and another spun and washed by next day's +noon--for the stuff was to be checked, and black wool needed no +dyeing. Swiftly hummed the wheel, merrily flew the shuttle, and the +house steamed with inodorous dye; but nobody cared for that, if the +cloth could only be finished. And finished it was--the full measure +and a yard over; and on Saturday morning Sylvester's horse was +borrowed again, and Hannah came back from the village beaming with +pleasure, and bringing besides the chintz a yard of real cushion lace, +to trim the ruffles for Dolly's sleeves, for which she had bartered +the over yard of cloth and two dozen fresh eggs. Then even busier +times set in. Mahala Green had already arrived, for she was dressmaker +as well as tailoress, and was sponging and pressing over the black +paduasoy that had once been dove-coloured and was Hannah's sole piece +of wedding finery, handed down from her grandmother's wardrobe at +that. A dark green grosgrain petticoat and white lawn ruffles made a +sufficiently picturesque attire for Hannah, whose well-silvered hair +set off her still sparkling eyes and clear healthy skin. She appeared +in this unwonted finery on Thanksgiving morning to her admiring +family, having added a last touch of adornment by a quaint old jet +necklace, that glittered on the pure lawn neckkerchief with as good +effect as a chain of diamonds and much more fitness. Betty, in her +striped blue-and-white chintz, a clean dimity petticoat, and a blue +ribbon round her short brown curls, looked like a cabbage rosebud--so +sturdy and wholesome and rosy that no more delicate symbol suits her. + +Obed was dreadful in the old-fashioned costume of coat and breeches, +ill-fitting and shiny with wear, and his freckled face and round shock head +of tan-coloured hair thrown into full relief by a big, square collar of +coarse tatten lace laid out on his shoulders like a barber's towel, and +illustrating the great red ears that stood out at right angles above it. +But Obed was only a boy. He was not expected to be more than clean and +speechless; and, to tell the truth, Eben, being in the hobbledehoy stage of +boyhood--gaunt, awkward, and self-sufficient--rather surpassed his small +brother in unpleasant aspect and manner. But who would look at the boys +when Dolly stood beside them, as she did now, tall and slender, with the +free grace of an untrammelled figure, her small head erect, her eyes dark +and soft as a deer's, neatly clothed feet (not too small for her height) +peeping from under the black lutestring petticoat, and her glowing brunette +complexion set off by the picturesque buff-and-garnet chintz gown, while +her round throat and arms were shaded by delicate gauze and snowy lace, +and about her neck lay her mother's gold beads, now and then tangling in +the heavy black curls that, tied high on her head with a garnet ribbon, +still dropped in rich luxuriance to her trim waist. + +The family approved of Dolly, no doubt, though their phrases of +flattery were as homely as heartfelt. + +"Orful slick-lookin', ain't she?" confided Joe to Eben; while sinful +Sam shrieked out: "Land o' Goshen! ain't our Dolly smart? Shan't I +fetch Sylvester over?" + +For which I regret to state Dolly smartly boxed his ears. + +But the pung was ready, and Sam's howls had to die out uncomforted. +With many parting charges from Hannah about the fires and fowls, the +cow, the hasty pudding, already put on for its long boil, and the +turkey that hung from a string in front of the fire and must be +watched well, since it was the Thanksgiving dinner, the "weddingers," +as Joe called them, were well packed in with blankets and hot stones +and set off on their long drive. + +The day was fair and bright, the fields of snow purely dazzling; but +the cold was fearful, and in spite of all their wraps, the keen winds +that whistled over those broad hilltops where the road lay seemed to +pierce their very bones, and they were heartily glad to draw up, by +twelve o'clock, at the door of the parsonage and be set before a +blazing fire, and revived with sundry mugs of foaming and steaming +flip, made potent with a touch of old peach brandy; for in those +ancient days, even in parsonages, the hot poker knew its office and +sideboards were not in vain. + +There was food, also, for the exhausted guests, though the refection +was slight and served informally in the kitchen corner, for the +ceremonial Thanksgiving dinner was to be deferred till after the +wedding. And as soon as all were warmed and refreshed they were +ushered into the great parlour, where a Turkey carpet, amber satin +curtains, spider-legged chairs and tables, and a vast carved sofa, +cushioned also with amber, made a regal and luxurious show in the eyes +of our rustic observers. + +But when Sylvy came in with the parson, who could look at furniture? +Madam Everett had lavished her taste and her money on the lovely +creature as if she were her own daughter, for she was almost as dear +to that tender, childless soul. The girl's lustrous gold-brown hair +was dressed high upon her head in soft puffs and glittering curls, and +a filmy thread-lace scarf pinned across it with pearl-headed pins. Her +white satin petticoat showed its rich lustre under a lutestring gown +of palest rose brocaded with silver sprigs and looped with silver +ribbon and pink satin roses. Costly lace clung about her neck and +arms, long kid gloves covered her little hands and wrists and met the +delicate sleeve ruffles, and about her white throat a great pink topaz +clasped a single string of pearls. Hannah could scarce believe her +eyes. Was this her Sylvy?--she who even threw Madam Everett, with her +velvet dress, powdered hair, and Mechlin laces, quite into the +background! + +"I did not like it, Mammy dear," whispered Sylvy, as she clung round +her astonished mother's neck. "I wanted a muslin gown; but madam had +laid this by long ago, and I could not thwart or grieve her, she is so +very good to me." + +"No more you could, Sylvy. The gown is amazing fine, to be sure; but +as long as my Sylvy's inside of it I won't gainsay the gown. It ain't +a speck too pretty for the wearer, dear." And Hannah gave her another +hug. The rest scarce dared to touch that fair face, except Dolly, who +threw her arms about her beautiful sister, with little thought of her +garments, but a sudden passion of love and regret sending the quick +blood to her dark brows and wavy hair in a scarlet glow. + +Master Loomis looked on with tender eyes. He felt the usual masculine +conviction that nobody loved Sylvy anywhere near as much as he did; +but it pleased him to see that she was dear to her family. The parson, +however, abruptly put an end to the scene. + +"H-m! my dear friends, let us recollect ourselves. There is a time for +all things. Yea, earth yieldeth her increase--h-m! The Lord ariseth to +shake visibly the earth--ahem! Sylvia, will you stand before the +sophy? Master Lummis on the right side. Let us pray." + +But even as he spoke the words a great knocking pealed through the +house: the brass lion's head on the front door beat a reveille loud +and long. The parson paused, and Sylvia grew whiter than before; +while Decius, the parson's factotum, a highly respectable old negro +(who, with his wife and daughter, sole servants of the house, had +stolen in to see the ceremony), ambled out to the vestibule in most +undignified haste. There came sounds of dispute, much tramping of +boots, rough voices, and quick words; then a chuckle from Decius, the +parlour door burst open, and three bearded, ragged, eager men rushed +in upon the little ceremony. + +There was a moment's pause of wonder and doubt, then a low cry from +Hannah, as she flew into her husband's arms; and in another second the +whole family had closed around the father and brothers, and for once +the hardy, stern, reticent New England nature, broken up from its +foundations, disclosed its depths of tenderness and fidelity. There +were tears, choking sobs, cries of joy. The madam held her lace +handkerchief to her eyes with real need of it; Master Loomis choked +for sympathy; and the parson blew his nose on the ceremonial bandanna +like the trumpet of a cavalry charge. + +"Let us pray!" said he, in a loud but broken voice; and holding fast +to the back of the chair, he poured out his soul and theirs before the +Lord with all the fervour and the fluency of real feeling. There was +no stumbling over misapplied texts now, no awkward objections in his +throat, but only glowing Bible words of thankfulness and praise and +joy. And every heart was uplifted and calm as they joined in the +"Amen." + +John's story was quickly told. Their decimated regiment was +disbanded, to be reformed of fresh recruits, and a long furlough given +to the faithful but exhausted remnant. They had left at once for home, +and their shortest route lay through Litchfield. Night was near when +they reached the town, but they must needs stop to get one glimpse of +Sylvy and tidings from home, for fear lay upon them lest there might +be trouble there which they knew not of. So they burst in upon the +wedding. But Master Loomis began to look uneasy. Old Dorcas had +slipped out, to save the imperilled dinner, and Pokey, the maid (_nee_ +Pocahontas!) could be heard clinking glass and silver and pushing +about chairs; but the happy family were still absorbed in each other. + +"Mister Everett!" said the madam, with dignity, and the little +minister trotted rapturously over to her chair to receive certain low +orders. + +"Yes, verily, yes--h-m! A--my friends, we are assembled in this place +this evening--" + +A sharp look from madam recalled him to the fact that this was not a +prayer-meeting. + +"A--that is--yes, of a truth our purpose this afternoon was to--" + +"That's so!" energetically put in Captain John. "Right about face! +Form!" and the three Continentals sprung to their feet and assumed +their position, while Sylvy and Master Loomis resumed theirs, a +flitting smile in Sylvia's tearful eyes making a very rainbow. + +So the ceremony proceeded to the end, and was wound up with a short +prayer, concerning which Captain Perkins irreverently remarked to his +wife some days after: + +"Parson smelt the turkey, sure as shootin', Hannah. He shortened up so +'mazin' quick on that prayer. I tell you I was glad on't. I knew how +he felt. I could ha' ate a wolf myself." + +Then they all moved in to the dinner table--a strange group, from +Sylvia's satin and pearls to the ragged fatigue-dress of her father +and brothers; but there was no help for that now, and really it +troubled nobody. The shade of anxiety in madam's eye was caused only +by a doubt as to the sufficiency of her supplies for three unexpected +and ravenous guests; but a look at the mighty turkey, the crisp roast +pig, the cold ham, the chicken pie, and the piles of smoking +vegetables, with a long vista of various pastries, apples, nuts, and +pitchers of cider on the buffet, and an inner consciousness of a big +Indian pudding, for twenty-four hours simmering in the pot over the +fire, reassured her, and perhaps heartened up the parson, for after a +long grace he still kept his feet and added, with a kindly smile: + +"Brethren and friends, you are heartily welcome. Eat and be glad, for +seldom hath there been such cause and need to keep a Thanksgiving!" + +And they all said Amen! + + + + +1800 AND FROZE TO DEATH[31] + +BY C. A. STEPHENS. + + An exciting story of a battle with a crazy moose. It has a + Thanksgiving flavour, too. + + +"What shall we have for Thanksgiving dinner?" was a question which +distressed more than one household that year. Indeed, it was often a +question what to have for dinner, supper, or breakfast on any day. For +that was the strangely unpropitious, unproductive season of 1816, +quaintly known in local annals as "1800 and Froze to Death." + +[Footnote 31: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1908.] + +It was shortly after the close of the War of 1812 with England. Our +country was then poor and but little cultivated. There was no golden +West to send carloads of wheat and corn; no Florida or California to +send fruit; there were no cars, no railroads. What the people of the +Eastern States had they must raise for themselves, and that year there +were no crops. + +Nothing grew, nothing ripened properly. Winter lingered even in the +lap of May. As late as the middle of June there was a heavy snowstorm +in New England. Frosts occurred every fortnight of the season. The +seed potatoes, corn, and beans, when planted, either rotted in the +ground or came up to be killed by the frosts. The cold continued +through July and August. A little barley, still less wheat and rye, a +few oats, in favourable situations, were the only cereals harvested, +and these were much pinched in the kernel. + +Actual starvation threatened hundreds of farmers' families as this +singular summer and autumn advanced. The corn crop, then the main +staple in the East, was wholly cut off. Two and three dollars a +bushel--equal to ten dollars to-day--were paid for corn that year--by +those who had the money to purchase it. Many of the poorer families +subsisted in part on the boiled sprouts of raspberry and other shrubs. +Starving children stole forth into the fields of the less indigent +farmers by night, and dug up the seed potatoes and sprouted corn to +eat raw. + +Moreover, there appeared to be little or no game in the forest; many +roving bears were seen, and wolves were bold. All wild animals, +indeed, behaved abnormally, as if they, too, felt that nature was out +of joint. The eggs of the grouse or partridge failed to hatch; even +woodchucks were lean and scarce. So of the brooding hens at the +settler's barn: the eggs would not hatch, and the hens, too, it is +said, gave up laying eggs, perhaps from lack of food. Even the song +birds fell into the "dumps" and neglected to rear young. + +The dreary, fruitless autumn drew on; and Thanksgiving Day bade fair +to be such a hollow mockery that in several states the governors did +not issue proclamations. + +Maine at that time was a part of the state of Massachusetts. My +impression is that the governor appointed November 28th as +Thanksgiving Day, but I am not sure. It is likely that not much +unction attended the announcement. The notices of it did not reach +many localities in Maine. In the neighbourhood where my grandparents +lived, in Oxford County, nothing was heard of it; but at a schoolhouse +meeting, on November 21st, our nearest neighbour, Jonas Edwards, made +a motion "that the people of the place keep the 28th of the month as +Thanksgiving Day--the best they could." + +The motion prevailed; and then the poor housewives began to ask the +question, "What shall we have for Thanksgiving dinner?" At our house +it is still remembered that one of my young great-uncles cried in +reply, "Oh, if we could only have a good big johnnycake!" + +And it was either that very night, or the night after, that the +exciting news came of the arrival of a shipload of corn at Bath and +Brunswick. + +At Brunswick, seat of the then infant Bowdoin College, Freeport, +Topsham, and other towns near the coast of Maine, where the people +were interested in maritime ventures, it had become known that a +surplus of corn was raised in Cuba, and could be purchased at a fair +price. An old schooner, commanded by one Capt. John Simmons, was +fitted out to sail for a cargo of the precious cereal. For three +months not a word was heard from schooner or skipper. + +Captain Simmons had purchased corn, however, and loaded his crazy old +craft full to the deck with it. Heavy weather and head winds held him +back on his voyage home. Water got to the corn, and some of it swelled +to such an extent that the old schooner was like to burst. But it got +in at last, early in November, with three thousand bushels of this +West India corn. + +How the news of this argosy flew even to towns a day's journey up from +the coast! + +A great hunger for corncake swept through that part of the state; and +in our own little neighbourhood a searching canvass of the resources +of the five log farm-houses followed. As a result of it, young +Jonathan Edwards and my then equally youthful Great-uncle Nathaniel +set off the next day to drive to Brunswick with a span of old white +horses hitched in a farm wagon without springs, carrying four rather +poor sheep, four bushels of barley, and fifteen pounds of wool, which +they hoped to exchange for five bushels of that precious corn. On top +of it all there were three large bagfuls of hay for the horses. The +boys also took an axe and an old flintlock gun, for much of the way +was then through forest. + +It was a long day's drive for horses in poor condition, but they +reached Brunswick that night. There, however, they found the cargo of +corn so nearly sold out, or bartered away, that they were able to get +but three bushels to bring home. + +The corn was reckoned at nine dollars, the four sheep at only six +dollars, and it had been difficult "dickering" the fifteen pounds of +wool and the two bushels of barley as worth three dollars more. The +extra two bushels of barley went for their keep overnight. Such was +produce exchange in 1816. + +The next morning they started for home, lightly loaded with their +dearly bought corn. Their route lay along the Androscoggin River, and +they had got as far on their way as the present factory town of +Auburn, where the Little Androscoggin flows into the larger river of +the same name, when they had an adventure which resulted in very +materially increasing the weight of their load. + +It was a raw, cloudy day, and had begun to "spit snow"; and as it drew +toward noon, they stopped beside the road at a place where a large +pine and several birches leaned out from the brink of the deep gorge +through which the Little Androscoggin flows to join the larger stream. +Here they fed their horses on the last of the three bagfuls of hay, +but had nothing to cook or eat in the way of food themselves. The +weather was chilly, and my young Great-uncle Nathaniel said to +Jonathan: + +"If you will get some dry birchbark, I will flash the pan. We will +kindle a fire and warm up." + +Jonathan brought the bark, and meanwhile Nathaniel drew the charge +from the old "Queen's arm," then ignited some powder in the pan with +the flintlock, and started a blaze going. + +The blaze, however, had soon to be fed with dry fuel, and noticing a +dead firtop lying on the ground a few steps away, Jonathan took the +axe and ran to break it up; and the axe strokes among the dry stuff +made a considerable crackling. + +Throwing down the axe at last, Jonathan gathered up a large armful of +the dry branches, and had turned to the fire, when they both heard a +strange sound, like a deep grunt, not far away, followed by sharp +crashes of the brush down in the basin. + +"What's that?" Nathaniel exclaimed. "It's a bear I guess," and he +snatched up the empty gun to reload it. Jonathan, too, threw down his +armful of boughs and turned back to get the axe. + +Before they could do either, however, the strange grunts and crashes +came nearer, and a moment later a pair of broad antlers and a huge +black head appeared, coming up from the gorge. + +At sight of the snorting beast, Jonathan turned suddenly. "It's a +moose, Nat!" he cried. "A big bull moose! Shoot him! Shoot him!" + +Nat was making frantic efforts, but the gun was not reloaded. +Recharging an old "Queen's arm" was a work of time. + +Fortunately for the boys, the attention of the moose was full fixed on +the horses. With another furious snort, it gained the top of the bank +and bounded toward where they stood hitched, chewing their hay. + +The tired white horses looked up suddenly from their hay, and +perceiving this black apparition of the forest, snorted and tugged at +their halters. + +With a frightful bellow, half squeal, half roar, the moose rose twelve +feet tall on his hind legs, and rushed at the one hitched nearest. The +horse broke its halter, ran headlong against its mate, recoiled, +bumped into a tree trunk, and then--the trees standing thick in front +of it--backed over the bank and went out of sight down the bluff, the +moose bounding after it, still bellowing hoarsely. + +The other horse had also broken its halter and ran off, while the two +boys stood amazed and alarmed at this tremendous exhibition of animal +ferocity. + +"Nat! Nat! He will kill that horse!" Jonathan exclaimed, and they both +ran to look over the bank. Horse and moose were now down near the +water, where the river ran deep and swift under the steep bank, the +horse trying vainly to escape through the tangled alder brush, the +moose savagely pursuing. + +The sight roused the boys to save their horse. Axe in hand, Jonathan +ran and slid down the bluff side, catching hold of trees and bushes as +he did so, to keep from going quite into the river. Nat followed him, +with the gun which he had hastily primed. Both horse and moose were +now thrashing amidst the alder clumps. + +"Shoot him, shoot him!" Jonathan shouted. "Why don't you fire? Oh, let +me have that gun!" + +It is not as easy as an onlooker often thinks to shoot an animal, even +a large one, in rapid motion, particularly among trees and brush; +something constantly gets in the way. Both animals were now tearing +along the brink of the deep stream, stumbling headlong one second, up +the next, plunging on. As often as Nat tried to steady himself on the +steep side of the bluff for a shot, either the horse was in the way or +both animals were wholly concealed by the bushes. Moreover, the boys +had to run fast through the brush to keep them in sight. Nat could not +shoot with certainty, and Jonathan grew wild over the delay. + +"Shoot him yourself, then!" Nat retorted, panting. + +Jonathan snatched the gun and dashed forward, Nat picking up the axe +and following after. On they ran for several hundred yards, barely +keeping pace with the animals. Jonathan experienced quite as much +difficulty in getting a shot as Nat had done. + +At last he aimed and snapped--and the gun did not go off. + +"You never primed it!" he exclaimed indignantly. Nat thought that he +had done so, but was not wholly certain; and feeling that he must do +his part somehow, he now dashed past Jonathan, and running on, +attempted to head the horse off at a little gully down the bank to +which they had now come. It was a brushy place; he fell headlong into +it himself, and rolled down, still grasping hard at the axe. He was +close upon the horse now, within a few yards of the water, and looking +up, he saw the moose's head among the alder brush. The creature +appeared to be staring at him, and regaining his feet, much excited, +Nat threw the axe with all his strength at the moose's head. + +By chance rather than skill, the poll of the axe struck the animal +just above the eyes at the root of the antlers. It staggered, holding +its head to one side a moment, as if half-stunned or in pain. Then, +recovering, it snorted, and with a bound through the brush, jumped +into the stream, and either swam or waded across to the low sandy bank +on the other side. There it stood, still shaking its head. + +Jonathan had caught up with Nat by this time, and they both stood +watching the moose for some moments, hoping that the mad animal had +now had enough of the fracas and would go his way. The horse was in +the brush of the little gully, sticking fast there, or tired out by +its exertions; and they now began considering how they could best +extricate it and get it back up the bluff. + +Just then, however, their other horse neighed long and shrill from the +top of the bank, calling to its mate. The frightened horse beside them +neighed back in reply. + +These equine salutations produced an unexpected result. Another hoarse +snort and a splash of the water was the response from across the +stream. + +"He's coming again!" exclaimed Jonathan. "Have you got the +powder-horn, Nat? Give it to me quick, if you've got it!" Nathaniel +had had the powder-horn up on the bank, but had dropped it there, or +lost it out of his pocket in his scramble down the bluff. + +There was no time to search for it. The moose was plunging through +the narrow stream, and a moment later sprang ashore and came bounding +up the gully toward the horse. + +The boys shouted to frighten him off. The crazy creature appeared +neither to hear nor heed. Jonathan hastily took refuge behind a rock; +Nat jumped to cover of a tree trunk. + +In his rush at the horse, the moose passed close to them. Again Nat +hurled the axe at the animal's side. Jonathan, snatching up a heavy +stone, threw it with all his might. The horse, too, wheeling in the +narrow bed of the gully, kicked spitefully, lashing out its iron-shod +hoofs again and again, planting them hard on the moose's front. + +For some moments this singular combat raged there. Recovering the axe +and coming up behind the animal, Nat now attempted to deal a blow. The +moose wheeled, however, as if struck by sudden panic, and went clear +over Nat, who was thrown headlong and slid down into the water. + +The moose bounded clear over him, and again went splashing through the +Little Androscoggin to the other side, where it turned as before, +shaking its antlers and rending the brush with them. + +Nathaniel had caught hold of a bush, and thus saved himself from going +fully into the swift current. Jonathan helped him get out, and the two +young fellows stared at each other. The encounter had given them proof +of the mad strength and energy of the moose. + +"Oh, if we could only find that powder-horn somewhere!" Jonathan +exclaimed. + +The horse up on the bluff sent forth again its shrill neigh, to which +the one beside them responded. + +And just as before, the moose, with an awful bellow, came plunging +through the little river and bounding up the gully. + +"My soul! Here he comes again!" Jonathan fairly yelled. "Get out o' +the way!" + +And Nat got out of the way as quickly as possible, taking refuge +behind the same rock in the side of the gully. + +Again the place resounded to a frightful medley of squeals, +bellowings, and crashes in the brush. This time Jonathan had caught up +the axe, and approaching the furious melee of whirling hoofs and +gnashing teeth from one side, attempted to get in a blow. In their +wild movements the enraged animals nearly ran over him, but he struck +and stumbled. + +The blow missed the moose's head, but fell on the animal's foreleg, +just below the knee, and broke the bone. The moose reared, and +wheeling on its hind legs, plunged down the gully, falling partly into +the river, much as Nat had done. + +A dozen times it now struggled to get up, almost succeeding, but fell +back each time. With the ardour of battle still glowing in him, +Jonathan rushed forward with the axe, and finally managed to deal the +moose a deathblow; with a knife they then bled it, and stood by, +triumphant. + +"We've muttoned him! We've muttoned him!" Nat shouted. "But I never +had such a fight as that before." + +The horse, as it proved, was not seriously injured, but they were +obliged to cut away the alder brush in the gully to get the animal +back up the bluff, and were occupied for fully an hour doing so. + +The body of the moose was a huge one; it must have weighed fully +fourteen hundred pounds. The boys could no more have moved it than +they could move a mountain. Moreover, it was now beginning to snow +fine and fast. + +Jonathan had a fairly good knife, however, and by using the axe they +succeeded in rudely butchering the carcass and dismembering it. Even +then the quarters were so heavy that their full strength was required +to drag them up the bluff and load them into the wagon. The head, with +its broad, branching antlers, was all that they could lift to the top +of their now bulky load. + +The task had taken till past four o'clock of that stormy November +afternoon. Twilight was upon them, the wintry twilight of a snowstorm, +before they made start; and it was long past midnight when they +finally plodded home. + +There were corncake and moose venison for Thanksgiving dinner. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD CHEER STORIES EVERY CHILD +SHOULD KNOW*** + + +******* This file should be named 19909.txt or 19909.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/0/19909 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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