Chapter 15

"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.