A Story of Thanksgiving-Time.
BY RUTH HALL.
"Childern, childern, come here quick. That 'ere lame turkey's out ag'in."
So called Mrs. Amasa Andrews, in the kitchen doorway, and two shrill trebles answered her from the pumpkin patch.
"Oh, Aunt Polly, where's it gone to? Out in the orchard, or across the fields?"
"Under the hill, down by Uncle Jake's old place," waving away the panting figures who rushed into view from behind the corn-house. "You'd better hurry up, or he'll get clean away this time."
George and Patty needed no second warning. In the missing turkey were bound up delightful visions of "white meat," "wish-bones," and "stuffing," on which they had been dwelling for two months past, and which they had no idea of losing at this late day, only one little week before Thanksgiving. So they tore like small whirlwinds across the kitchen yard, squeezed under the fence, and slid down the steep hill, never stopping to take breath until they had lost sight of home, and had "Uncle Jake's old place" in view.
"Oh, George!" gasped little Patty then, "what if we didn't find it?—what ever would we do?"
"Wouldn't have no Thanksgivin'," replied George, stolidly.
"Oh, but I just couldn't bear that. I couldn't, truly. It is such a awful long time since we had a taste o' turkey, George."
"Not since last Christmas, before we ever thought o' comin' here to live," her brother mused, as he trimmed a switch with dexterous fingers. "Pa 'n' ma was alive then, 'n' little sister, 'n'— There's that gobbler now!"
They were close to the house, which had long been vacant, but now showed signs of life in open door and windows, and a faint curl of pale blue smoke from the tumble-down chimney. In the tiny door-yard stood the runaway, calmly picking at a few potato-skins in a rusty old tin pan.
The children crept softly up behind a brush heap, intending to rush from thence and surprise him, and were about to carry their scheme into effect, when George laid a detaining hand upon his sister's arm.
"Hush!" he whispered. "What's that comin'?"
"Oh, Sally," called a thin voice from the door of the little house, "come and see what's here. A turkey, Sally—a real turkey, sure's you live!"
"But it ain't for us," said another voice. Evidently Sally had come. "It belongs to some 'un, 'Melia, 'n' they'll come after it. That means a Thanksgivin' dinner for somebody"—with a heavy sigh.
"Oh dear!" went on the younger voice, "don't you wish 'twas ours, Sally? I never tasted turkey 'n all my life, an' I do hate corn meal so!"
"Turkey's for them that has fathers to buy 'em," replied Sally, with a sob in her voice; and then some one called shrilly from an inner room:
"Come, girls, Miss Watson's washin's ready;" and the little forms, at which our Patty and George had been furtively "peeking," disappeared.
It was the work of a few moments to catch the lame turkey, and to start him homeward at the point of George's switch; but someway neither child looked happy over the achievement.
"George," finally began Patty's pleading little voice.
"Well, what d'ye want?" in his gruffest manner.
"They hain't got no father, Georgie."
"No more ha' we, nor mother neither. We're orphans."
"Oh, George! when we've got such a good Aunt Polly, 'n' such a Uncle Amasa. An' corn meal, George."
Now Patty's brother "hated corn meal so" too, as his crafty sister knew. There was a little pause.
"Well, what shell we do?" he inquired, finally. "Tell Aunt Polly, 'n' get her to send 'em something down?"
"We couldn't do that," small Patty answered, decidedly. "They can't afford to do much extra, I'm afraid, Georgie. You know we're quite expensive, our keepin'; I heard old Miss Crandall tell Mike so."
"Miss Crandall's a gossip, Uncle Amasa says."
"But I know we are," poor Patty went on. "Aunt Polly ain't had no fall bunnit, you know, an' she does her own washin' since we come. I'm afraid we cost 'em quite a deal."
"Well, what shell we do?" George cried, desperately, and giving the lame turkey a savage cut over his saucy tail.
"I don't know what you'll do," was Polly's calm response, "but I shell give that 'Melia every smitch o' my turkey next Thursday. So there!"
There was another pause, and then George remarked, with a great showing of coolness: "Well, all right. An' I'll take Sally my turkey an' all my pumpkin pie!"
"Oh, you dear George!" began his sister, and then broke down and cried.
"What air you childern whisperin' about?" queried Aunt Polly, coming upon the two, sitting side by side on the wood-pile, later in the day.
Patty hesitated. Good and kind as Aunt Polly always was, her sharp eyes and sharper voice were awe-inspiring to her small niece. But George, whose bravery was the glory of his sister, looked up at the tall woman with his fearless gray eyes, and told the story of that morning's adventures and their resolution, adding:
"An' we were just a-wonderin', Aunt Polly, how we'd get the things down there, an' if you'd let Mike go with us, maybe, 'cause you know you say you don't like us to go where you don't know the folks."
"That'll be all right," his aunt said, simply, "an' I'm glad you thought of it, childern. 'It's more blessed to give,' you know. George, I wisht you'd get me some chips."
So she turned the subject then; but that evening, as Mr. and Mrs. Andrews sat together over the kitchen fire, with their charges asleep up stairs, Aunt Polly retold George's story, keenly watching her husband's face as she did so, although her eyes were apparently fixed upon her knitting.
Uncle Amasa took his pipe out of his mouth and drew a long breath. "Bless them childern," he said, heartily. "I vum, now, Polly, that makes me feel putty small—don't it you? To think o' their thinkin' of it, an' they a-lookin' forward to Thanksgivin'-day so long!"
"Well, what kin we do, Amasa?" was his wife's quiet question.
"Massy! I don't know. But we'll send that widder her dinner anyway, an' we won't rob them little childern o' theirn neither."
"But, Amasa"—Aunt Polly laid down her knitting—"don't you see that won't be the childern's givin'? I don't want to take away their dinners, dear knows; but 'twouldn't be right, after all, you know, for them to be gen'rous and keep their turkey too."
Uncle Amasa mused a moment. "That's so!" he said, ruefully, at last. "I tell ye, Polly, woman, we'll give 'em the hull turkey, an' we'll throw in the pies. I guess we won't starve on bacon an' cabbage, an' on Chris'mas I'll manage so's they can hev a turkey, 'n' we too. I love my dinner's much 's the next 'un, but I swan to massy them babies o' ourn make me feel putty small—putty small!"
And gathering up his boots and pipe, Uncle Amasa strode off to bed.
And so it came to pass that on Thanksgiving-eve George and Patty, accompanied by Uncle Amasa, not Mike, again followed the lame turkey under the hill to Uncle Jake's old place. But this time the recreant fowl was borne on their uncle's shoulders, in the huge market-basket, in company with potatoes and onions and golden pies and rosy cranberries; in short, with the party's Thanksgiving dinner.
Uncle Amasa first placed the basket on the cracked door-step, and then he and George concealed themselves in the darkness behind the brush heap, while Patty, the lightest and fleetest of the three, knocked at the door, and then ran swiftly to the common hiding-place.
A faint streak of light came from the doorway as Sally appeared holding a tallow candle aloft. A moment's silence while she stared at the basket, and kneeling by it explored the contents; then—
"Oh, mother! 'Melia!" she screamed, "it's a turkey, and it's pies, an'—oh, come quick an' see!"
There was the hurry of other footsteps, and a cry from 'Melia: "Just to look at the onions! Oh, I do love them!" and then some one upset and extinguished the candle, and under cover of the darkness Uncle Amasa drew the eager children away.
As they went up the hill together George remarked, "I'm glad she likes onions; so do I."
But Uncle Amasa drew his rough hand across his eyes, murmuring, in a choked sort of voice: "Well I swan, if between them two sets o' childern, them that gives 'n' them that takes, I don't feel putty small! Yes, I do that, put-ty small!"
[BITS OF ADVICE.]
BY AUNT MARJORIE PRECEPT.
A TALK ABOUT SURPRISE PARTIES.
"What's this?" said I. "Let me put on my glasses, please," as a bevy of nieces and nephews clustered around me, holding out square-shaped notes, which bore a resemblance on the outside to invitations. Invitations they were, to a surprise party at the residence of Miss Nellie E——, to be held on an appointed evening. Four or five signatures in rather scrawly hands were appended to them, and at the bottom of each billet I read a mysterious word, as, for instance, on Cora's, the word Lemons; on Kitty's, Sugar; on Rebecca's, Cake; and on Edwin's, Money. These were the articles which, it was explained, the guests were to bring with them to furnish the entertainment. Miss Nellie knew nothing about the honor in store for her, although an elder sister, who had been consulted, "did not object," said Alfred, "to our coming."
"But," added honest little Mary, "she did not seem very glad to have us."
"Children," said I, "there are several objections to surprise parties. People who wish to give parties usually prefer to name the time and select their guests themselves. It may be very inconvenient to a little girl's mother to have her house seized by a merry set of young folks, who enter it for the purpose of having a good time. The parents who are to provide lemon, sugar, and cake, or to supply the young gentlemen with pocket-money, may not wish to have their money or their goods used in that way. And, as a rule, gay evening parties, surprise or otherwise, interfere seriously with school duties, and therefore are not precisely the right things for boys and girls.
"Still, if you must surprise any one, Aunt Marjorie would advise you to politely decline these invitations, and look about for the poorest and neediest person you can find. Take the sugar, the lemons, the bread, the ham, and the little packets of pocket-money, put them safely in a basket, and set them down at the door of the crippled girl, or the lonely boy whose mother and father are dead. You will enjoy such a surprise party for months after it is over."
[THE FALL OF A MOUNTAIN.]
BY DAVID KER.
Some seventy years ago an old man sat at the door of his cottage in the Swiss village of Goldau enjoying the warmth of the summer sunshine, and the view of the fresh green valley dappled here and there with dark clumps of trees. All around the great purple mountains stood up against the sky, as if keeping guard over the pretty little village in their midst, with its tiny log-huts clustered beneath the shadow of the neat white church, like chickens nestling under the wing of the mother hen.
A big, florid, jolly-looking man came striding up the path, and held out his hand to the old peasant, with a hearty "Good-day, Neighbor Kraus."
"Good-day, Neighbor Schwartz. Fine weather to-day."
"Beautiful. We'll have a famous harvest this year, please God."
"I hope so, neighbor. Won't you sit down a minute? It's warm walking."
"Thanks; I will. Holloa! what's the matter over yonder?"
Right opposite them, five thousand feet overhead, towered the dark mass of the Rossberg, the highest of the surrounding mountains. Just as Schwartz spoke, its huge outline seemed to be agitated by a slight tremulous motion, like the nodding of a plume of feathers.
"Well, my friend, what are you staring at? Did you never see the trees shaking in the wind before?"
"Of course; but it seemed to me somehow as if it wasn't only the trees that shook, but the whole mountain."
"You're easily scared," chuckled the old man. "I suppose you're thinking of the old saying that the Rossberg is to fall some day. Bah! they've been saying so ever since I was a child, and it hasn't fallen yet."
Schwartz laughed, and the two friends went on talking. But suddenly the visitor started up with a look of unmistakable terror; and no wonder. His spiked staff, which he had stuck carelessly into the ground beside him when he sat down, was moving to and fro of itself!
"Good gracious! do you see that, Father Kraus? And look at those birds yonder, flying screaming away from the trees on the Rossberg! Something is wrong, say what you will."
At that moment Hans Godrel, the miller, came flying past, shouting: "Run for your lives! The stream's dried up, and that always comes before an earthquake or an avalanche. Run!"
"Pooh! I'll have time to fill my pipe again," said old Kraus, coolly producing his tobacco pouch.
But Schwartz was too thoroughly frightened to wait another moment. Down the hill he flew like a madman, and had barely got clear of the village when the earth shook under his feet so violently as to throw him down. He sprang up again just in time to see poor old Kraus's cottage vanish in a whirl of dust like a bursting bubble.
The next moment there came a terrific crash, followed by another so much louder that it seemed to shake the very sky. In a moment all was dark as night, and amid the gloom could be heard a medley of fearful sounds—the rending of strong timbers, the hollow rumble of falling rocks and gravel, the crash of wrecked buildings, the shrieks of the doomed inmates, and the roar of angry waves from the lake below, as if all its waters were breaking loose at once.
The last house of the village, on the side farthest from the Rossberg, was that of Antoine Sepel, the wood-cutter, who at the first alarm snatched up two of his children, and made for the opposite hill-side, calling to his wife to follow with the other two. But the youngest, Marianne, a little girl of six, had just run back into the house, and before her mother could reach her, the first crash came. The terrified woman seized the other girl, and fled without looking behind her.
But the old servant, Françoise, could think of her little favorite even under the shadow of coming destruction. She darted into the house, and had just caught the child in her arms, when the tremendous din of the final crash told her that it was too late. In an instant the house was lifted bodily from its place, and spun round like a top. The child was torn from her clasp, and she felt herself thrown violently forward, the strong timbers falling to pieces around her like a pack of cards. Still, however, the brave woman struggled to free herself; but the weight that kept her down defied her utmost strength. For her own safety she cared little, although a violent pain in her head and a numbness along her left arm told her that she was severely hurt. But where was the child?
"Marianne!" cried she, in desperation.
"Here I am," answered a tiny voice, seemingly not far from her. "I'm not hurt a bit, only there's something holding me down; and I can see light overhead quite plain. Won't they come and take us out soon?"
"No, there's no hope of that," said the old woman, feebly; "this is the day of doom for us all. Say your prayers, darling, and commend yourself to God."
And upward through the universal ruin, amid shattered rocks and uprooted mountains, stole the child's clear sweet voice, praying the prayer that she had learned at her mother's knee. It rose from that grim chaos of destruction like Jonah's prayer from the depths of the sea, and like it was heard and answered.
How long the two prisoners remained pent up in that living grave they could never have told; but all at once Marianne thought she heard a voice calling her name, and held her breath to listen. Yes, she was not mistaken; there was a voice calling to her, and it was the voice of her father!
Sepel, having seen his wife and the other three children placed in safety far up the opposite hill-side, had hurried back to seek the missing girl. But it was in vain that he looked for any trace of the village or even of the valley itself. The green, sunny uplands, where the laborers had been working and the children frolicking but a few hours before, were now one hideous disorder of fallen rocks, bare gravel, and black cindery dust, amid which he wandered at random, calling despairingly upon his lost darling.
But the answer came at last: a clear, musical call, which rose from a shapeless heap of ruin that even he had failed to recognize as his pretty little cottage. Hurrying to the spot, he began to tear away the rubbish with the strength of a giant, and speedily drew forth the child unhurt, the falling timbers, as if by miracle, having formed a kind of arch over her, completely protecting her from injury.
Brave old Françoise had been less fortunate. Her left arm was so badly hurt that she never recovered the use of it, and to the end of her life she was always timid and nervous from the effects of that terrible night. But, compared with the rest of the ill-fated villagers, she might well esteem herself fortunate. Four-fifths of them were killed on the spot, many more crippled for life, and those who escaped found themselves reduced to absolute beggary. Of Goldau itself nothing remained but the bell of its steeple, which was found more than a mile away. The lower end of Lake Lowertz, farther down the valley, was completely choked up by the falling rocks; and the water thus dislodged rushed in a mighty wave seventy feet high over the island in the centre, sweeping away every living thing upon it. The once happy and beautiful valley is still a frightful desert, and here and there among the surrounding hills you may find some white-haired grandfather who himself witnessed the calamity and will tell you, in his quaint mountain speech, how the Rossberg fell upon Goldau.
AN UNEXPECTED THANKSGIVING DINNER.