Chapter VI: Part 6

"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.