“ 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 [316] 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! ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [165] and trampled in the dust. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [238] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [62] 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!" ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ While you are here, I have ordered all the pan [19] 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, 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”