Fashion and Famine

by Ann S. Stephens

The season was late. The frost had been there nipping, biting and pinching up the noble growth of vegetables that was to supply Mrs. Gray's stall in the winter months. Half the great white onions lay above ground, with their silvery coats exposed. The beet beds were of a deep blackish crimson; and the cucumber vines had yielded up their last delicate gherkins. All her neighbors had gathered in their crops days ago, but the good old lady only laughed and chuckled over the example thus offered for her imitation. New England born and accustomed to the sharp east winds of Maine, she cared nothing for the petty frosts that only made the leaves of her beet and parsnip beds gorgeous, while their precious bulbs lay safely bedded in the soil. No matter what others did, she never gathered her garden crop till Thanksgiving. That was her harvest time, her great yearly jubilee—the season when her accounts were reckoned up—when her barns and cellars were running over with the wealth of her little farm.

Christmas, New Year, the Fourth of July, in short, all the holidays of the year were crowded into one with Mrs. Gray. During the whole twelve months, she commemorated Thanksgiving only. The reader must not, for a moment, suppose that the Thanksgiving Mrs. Gray loved to honor, was the miserable counterfeit of a holiday proclaimed by the governor of New York. No! Mrs. Gray scorned this poor attempt at imitation. It made her double chin quiver only to think of it. If ever a look of contempt crept into those benevolent eyes, it was when people would try to convince her that any governor out of New England, could enter into the spirit of a regular Down East Thanksgiving; or, that any woman, south of old Connecticut, could be educated into the culinary mysteries of a mince pie. Her faith was boundless, her benevolence great, but in these things Mrs. Gray could not force herself to believe.

You should have seen the old lady as Thanksgiving week drew near—not the New York one, but that solemnly proclaimed by the governor of Maine. Mrs. Gray heeded no other. That week the woman of a neighboring stall took charge of Mrs. Gray's business. The customers were served by a strange hand; the brightness of her comely face was confined to her own roof tree. She gave thanks to God for the bounties of the earth, heartily, earnestly; but it was her pleasure to render these thanks after the fashion of her ancestors.

You should have seen her then, surrounded by raisins, black currants, pumpkin sauce, peeled apples, sugar boxes, and plates of golden butter, her plump hand pearly with flour dust, the whole kitchen redolent with ginger, allspice, and cloves! You should have seen her grating orange peel and nutmegs, the border of her snow-white cap rising and falling to the motion of her hands, and the soft gray hair underneath, tucked hurriedly back of the ear on one side, where it had threatened to be in the way.

You should have seen her in that large, splint-bottomed rocking-chair, with a wooden bowl in her capacious lap, and a sharp chopping-knife in her right hand; with what a soft, easy motion the chopping-knife fell! with what a quiet and smiling air the dear old lady would take up a quantity of the powdered beef on the flat of her knife, and observe, as it showered softly down to the tray again, that "meat chopped too fine for mince pies was sure poison." Then the laugh—the quiet, mellow chuckle with which she regarded the astonished look of the Irish girl, who could not understand the mystery of this ancient saying.

Yes, you should have seen Mrs. Gray at this very time, in order to appreciate fully the perfections of an old-fashioned New England housewife. They are departing from the land. Railroads and steamboats are sweeping them away. In a little time, providing our humble tale is not first sent to oblivion, this very description will have the dignity of an antique subject. Women who cook their own dinners and take care of the work hands are getting to be legendary even now.

The day came at last, bland as the smile of a warm heart, a breath of summer seemed whispering with the over-ripe leaves. The sunshine was of that warm, golden yellow which belongs to the autumn. A few hardy flowers glowed in the front yard, richly tinted dahlias, marigolds, chrysanthemums, and China-asters, with the most velvety amaranths, still kept their bloom, for those huge old maples sheltered them like a tent, and flowers always blossomed later in that house than elsewhere. No wonder! Inside and out, all was pleasant and genial. The fall flowers seemed to thrive upon Mrs. Gray's smiles. Her rosy countenance, as she overlooked them, seemed to warm up their leaves like a sunbeam. Everything grew and brightened about her. Everything combined to make this particular Thanksgiving one to be remembered.

Now, all was in fine progress, nothing had gone wrong, not even the awkward Irish girl, for she had only to see that the potatoes were in readiness, and for that department she was qualified by birth.

Mrs. Gray had done wonders that morning. The dinner was in a most hopeful state of preparation. The great red crested, imperious looking turkey, that had strutted away his brief life in the barn-yard, was now snugly bestowed in the oven—Mrs. Gray had not yet degenerated down to a cooking-stove—his heavy coat of feathers was scattered to the wind. His head, that arrogant, crimson head, that had so often awed the whole poultry yard, lay all unheeded in the dust, close by the horse-block. There he sat, the poor denuded monarch—turned up in a dripping pan, simmering himself brown in the kitchen oven. Never, in all his pomp, had that bosom been so warmed and distended—yet the huge turkey had been a sad gourmand in his time. A rich thymy odor broke through every pore of his body; drops of luscious gravy dripped down his sides, filling the oven with an unctuous stream that penetrated a crevice in the door, and made the poor Irish girl cross herself devoutly. She felt her spirit so yearning after the good things of earth, and never having seen Thanksgiving set down in the calendar, was shy of surrendering her heart to a holiday that had no saint to patronize it.