Elsie’s Thanksgiving.
Margaret E. Sangster.
Dolly, it’s almost Thanksgiving; do you know what that means, my dear?
No? Well, I couldn’t expect it; you haven’t been with us a year,
And you came with my auntie from Paris, far over the wide blue sea,
And you’ll keep your first Thanksgiving, my beautiful Dolly, with me.
I’ll tell you about it, my darling, for grandma’s explained it all,
So that I understand why Thanksgiving always comes late in the fall,
When the nuts and the apples are gathered, and the work in the field is done,
And the fields, all reaped and silent, are asleep in the autumn sun.
It is then that we praise Our Father who sends the rain and the dew,
Whose wonderful loving-kindness is every morning new;
Unless we’d be heathen, Dolly, or worse, we must sing and pray,
And think about good things, Dolly, when we keep Thanksgiving Day.
But I like it very much better when from church we all go home,
And the married brothers and sisters and the troops of cousins come,
And we’re ever so long at the table, and dance and shout and play,
In the merry evening, Dolly, that ends Thanksgiving day.