Lulu had never tasted turkey before. Her grandmother would not have one cooked until then, so she could say that she had eaten her first piece of turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
After dinner they played all kinds of games. All the uncles and aunts and grown-up cousins played blind-man’s-buff with them.
“HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”
XI.—OUR RAINY-DAY PLAYHOUSE.
We had a number of rainy-day playhouses. When it did not rain very hard, Myra and I would scamper out to our little playhouse made of boards, and listen to the patter of the drops.
It was not a very costly playhouse. It was built in a corner made by the shed and the orchard fence. One side of our playhouse was the shed. Another side was the fence; this open side we used to call our bay-window. A creeping hop vine twined around the rough fence-boards and made a green lace curtain for our bay-window. The third side was made of boards. Across this side stretched the wide board seat, which was the only furniture of our playhouse. The fourth, or front side of the playhouse consisted mostly of a “double-door,” of which we were very proud. This double-door was two large green blinds. Did not we feel like truly little housekeepers when we fastened those two blinds together with a snap!
When the rain came down in gentle showers we used to go out to the little playhouse and have a concert. First Myra would step up on to that wide board seat and recite a little piece. Then I would step up on to the seat and sing a little song. Perhaps while I was singing a robin in the orchard would begin to sing, O, so loud and sweet that all the orchard just rang with that sweet music! We would stop our concert and listen to the robin. When he had finished, we used to clap our little hands. And all the time the rain kept up a fairy “tinkle, tinkle,” as if some one was keeping time for us on a tiny piano.
Spat-t! Spat-t! would come the little drops through a tiny hole in the roof of our little house. We used to hold our faces up towards that little leak in the roof. Oftentimes a drop would strike us fairly on the tip of our small noses! Then how we would laugh!
Sometimes we would take hold of hands and repeat together, over and over again: “Rain, rain, go away, come again, another day!”
And if we said those words long enough, the rain would go away!