CHAPTER XII.

THANKSGIVING IN CAMP.

The last thing before crawling under his blanket, Arthur, the “seasoned weather-sharp” of the troop, had called the attention of his mates to the fact that, just as he had predicted, the wind was commencing to come out of the Northwest, so that the rain that had been blown so wildly before the gale had already, no doubt, commenced to turn into sleet.

“We’re going to have the queerest Thanksgiving ever heard of in this section of the country,” Arthur had said. “Mark my words if it doesn’t change into a regular baby blizzard. Oakvale fellows won’t want to bother much with any football this year, if I know what’s what.”

All night long the wind whistled and moaned, and even howled at times around the corners of the bunk-house. Inside, it was fairly cheerful, for many times did Hugh get up and renew the fire which ate up the fuel at an alarming rate, as always happens when the wind blows at a gale. Finally, when morning came, and there were heard sounds to indicate that some of the sleepers had awakened, the place felt pretty cold. That was remedied, however, after the fire had been built up so that it fairly roared.

No sooner was Gus up than he went to where his brother lay.

“How are you feeling, Sam?” he asked, upon discovering that the other was awake.

“I hardly know yet,” came the reply. “I reckon I’ll be weak for a short spell, but that doctor of yours has done me heaps of good, and you can wager I’m bound to pull through all right. I’ve got a new lease of life, Gus, since you told me what you did about father. I’m crazy to see mother, and little baby sister Amy, too.”

Gus laughed. He was feeling ever so much more light-hearted himself, now that things had turned out so well.

“You forget that nearly five years have gone past since you were home, Sam,” he went on to say. “Amy isn’t a baby any longer, but the prettiest little girl the sun ever shone on. Wait till you see her, that’s all. She’s as sweet as she is pretty, which is the best part of it all. We worship her as if she might be a fairy queen in our house.”

Sam thereupon gave a half groan.

“I guess it goes without saying,” he remarked, sadly, “that all the badness in the Merrivale family was concentrated in me. Oh! how bitterly I’ve repented some of the mean things I did in those wild days; and nearly broke my mother’s heart. I’ve tried again and again to lay all the blame on father for being so strict; but, Gus, I know just as well as anything that I was at fault, too. But I’m going to make it all up, if I live long enough.”

Breakfast was eaten amidst considerable merriment. Everybody seemed to be quite cheerful, considering the fact that they were snowbound on the one great day of the fall which all true Americans celebrate at home or abroad, the Thanksgiving handed down from the Pilgrim Fathers.

“There’s something that’s bothering me,” remarked Billy, “and that’s _grub_!”

“What about it?” demanded Arthur. “So far as I can see it’s just prime, and as good as anything we ever packed into camp. Please put a couple of pieces of that bacon on my pannikin, will you, Hugh? It certainly goes to the spot. I never smell bacon or ham cooking at home but what my mind goes out to camp life. They seem, as Billy here would say, intimately connected.”

“Oh! the quality is gilt-edged,” the fat scout hastened to admit. “It’s the quantity that’s bothering me. Look what a hole we’ve made already in our stack, will you? Where will we be three days from now, tell me?”

Hugh laughed at hearing this complaint, because it was not the first time by any means that he had listened to Billy holding forth along similar lines.

“Oh! no use borrowing trouble, Billy,” he said, consolingly. “Don’t cross a bridge before you come to it, as lots of people do. There are several remedies to your disease. If necessary we can cut our outing short and speed back home in the big auto. Then again, if we conclude to stay, a couple of us can scour the country around this section, and visit several farm houses, where money will talk, and buy all the eggs and chickens we want. It’s all right, Billy, make your mind up to that.”

As the morning advanced none of them cared to stay outdoors more than was absolutely necessary, so keen was the wind. One by one they took turns wielding the camp ax, and bringing in stacks of wood.

Billy, remembering the day, laid out quite an extensive menu for Thanksgiving dinner, nor did he have any trouble about finding plenty of recruits ready to assist in peeling potatoes and doing the other chores.

“I did hope,” he announced, when asking their opinion of his intended bill of fare, “that somebody’d be smart enough to bag a plump gobbler. It would have been a splendid thing to grace the head of the table. But let’s be thankful we’ve got what might be called the poor man’s turkey—pork. That half ham is going to take the place of the National bird for this once. First time, though, since I was knee-high to a duck that I haven’t eaten real turkey on Thanksgiving.”

“There must always be a first time, Billy,” was Arthur’s consoling remark.

They put in most of the morning getting ready for the dinner. Billy fairly outdid all his previous efforts along the line of preparing a grand feast. He had looked ahead when laying in his stock of edibles, as was apparent when the meal finally was placed on the table.

The bill of fare Billy had written out and placed beside every tin pannikin was as follows:

Tomato soup, Celery, Tuna fish, à la Camp Merrivale, Boiled Ham (home smoked), Potatoes mashed (“Irish”), Yams, baked camp-style, Yellow turnips, Bread and butter, Pumpkin pie, Cheese, crackers and coffee.

Who cared because there was no table cloth, and that the dishes were of tin or granite or aluminum? What did it matter if the supply was so limited that often during the meal some one had to scurry over and do a little dishwashing before he could take the next course?

The ham was unbeatable, the fish just prime, the vegetables as “good as mother herself could have prepared them,” so they all admitted, and even the pumpkin pies that dear old Billy had smuggled into camp so carefully without any of the others knowing about it, came through in pretty good shape. The fact that they were broken a little mattered nothing to those boys who ate and ate until they could only look helplessly at one another, and wonder how under the sun they could ever dream of wanting anything more for forty-eight hours.

Perhaps that was one of the biggest events in Casey’s whole life. It must have been many a year since he had filled himself with such a choice collection of good things. Possibly it brought back memories that had almost faded from the mind of the old tramp, for to be sure he had once been a boy, and lived upon a farm. During the remainder of that whole day Casey was unusually quiet. When Sam asked him if he felt ill he shook his head and grinned, and simply said he was resurrecting dead recollections that he had never thought would rise again to haunt him.

Hugh only hoped they might continue to pester the old chap until finally he decided to give up this wandering life, and go back to see if any of his own kindred were still alive.

Casey did not intend going to town with them. They could guess why, for he as much as admitted that in times past he had been guilty of appropriating certain things to which he had no legal claim; and there was always a haunting fear in the mind of the old tramp that he was going to be jailed for these petty acts.

Sam was improving rapidly. Indeed, the fact was, it would have been most singular if such had not proved to be the case—with those merry fellows in his company to keep him laughing much of the time, so that his troubles fell from him very much as water does from a duck’s back.

Occasionally during that day he and Gus and Hugh talked matters over. Something in the shape of a plan of campaign was arranged, whereby Sam might in good time meet his devoted mother, and something be done looking toward a reconciliation with the stern father. So Sam declared, when night again drew near, that he believed he was far along the road to full recovery.