As though he knew the very secrets of their souls, and touched their very heart-strings with a gentle hand, the preacher glanced from one member of the Peabody household to another, as he proceeded, something in this manner. (For William Peabody:) do I find on this holy day that I love God in all his glorious universe, more than the image even of Liberty, which hath ensnared and enslaved the soul of many a man on the coin of this world? (For buxom Mrs. Jane, in her vandyke:) Do I stifle the vanity of good looks and comfortable circumstances under a plain garb? (For the jovial Captain:) Am I not over hasty in pursuit of carnal enjoyment? (For Mr. Oliver: who was wiping his brow with the Declaration of Independence,) and eager over much for the good opinion of men, when I should be quietly serving them without report? (For Mrs. Carrack and her son:) And what are pomp and fashion, but the painted signs of good living where there is no life? These (he continued,) are all outward, mere pretences to put off our duty, and the care of our souls. Yea, we may have churches, schools, hospitals abounding—but these are mere lath and mortar, if we have not also within our own hearts, a church where the pure worship ever goeth on, a school where the true knowledge is taught, a hospital, the door whereof standeth constantly open, into which our fellow-creatures are welcomed and where their infirmities are first cared for with all kindness and tenderness. If these be our inclinings this day, let us be reasonably thankful on this Thanksgiving morning. Let such as are in health be thankful for their good case; and such as are out of health be thankful that they are no worse. Let such as are rich be thankful for their wealth, (if it hath been honestly come by;) and let such as are poor be thankful that they have no such charge upon their souls. Let old folks be thankful for their wisdom in knowing that young folks are fools; and let young ones be thankful that they may live to see the time when they may use the same privilege. Let lean folks be thankful for their spare ribs, which are not a burthen in the harvest-field; fat folks may laugh at lean ones, and grow fatter every day. Let married folks be thankful for blessings both little and great; let bachelors and old maids be thankful for the privilege of kissing other folks' babies, and great good may it do them.
With what a glow of mutual friendship the quaint preacher was warming the plain old meeting-house on that thanksgiving day!
Finally, and to conclude, (he went on in the language of a chronicle of the time:)—Let no man look upon a turkey to-day, and say, 'This also is vanity.' What is the life of man without creature-comforts, and the stomach of the son of man with no aid from the tin kitchen? Despise not the day of small things, while there are pullets on the spit, and let every fowl have fair play, between the jaws of thy philosophy. Are not puddings made to be sliced, and pie-crust to be broken? Go thy ways, then, according to good sense, good cheer, good appetite, the Governor's proclamation, and every other good thing under the sun;—render thanks for all the good things of this life, and good cookery among the rest; eat, drink, and be merry; make not a lean laudation of the bounties of Providence, but let a lively gusto follow a long grace. Feast thankfully, and feast hopingly; feast in good will to all mankind, Grahamites included; feast in the full and joyous persuasion, that while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, dinner-time, pudding-time, and supper-time, are not likely to go out of fashion;—feast with exulting confidence in the continuance of cooks, kitchens, and orthodox expounders of Scripture and the constitution in our ancient, blessed, and fat-sided commonwealth—feast, in short, like a good Christian, proving all things, relishing all things, hoping all things, expecting all things, and enjoying all things. Let a good stomach for dinner go hand in hand with a good mind for sound doctrine. Let us all be thankful that a gracious Providence hath furnished each and all with a wholesome and bountiful dinner this day; and, if there be none so furnished, let him now make it known, and we will instantly contribute thereto of our separate abundance. There are none who murmur—we all, therefore, have a thanksgiving dinner waiting for us; let us hie home cheerily, and in a becoming spirit of mirth and devotion partake thereof.
The windows of the little meeting-house were up to let in the pleasant sunshine; and the very horses who were within hearing of his voice, seemed by the pricking up of their brown ears to relish and approve of his discourse. The Captain's city nag, as wide awake as any, seemed to address himself to an acquaintance of a heavy bay plougher, who stood at the same post, and laying their heads together for the better part of the sermon, they appeared to regard it, as far as they caught its meaning, as sound doctrine, particularly acknowledging that this was as fine a thanksgiving morning as they (who had been old friends and had spent their youth together, being in some way related, in a farm-house in that neighborhood) had ever known; and when they had said as much as this, they laughed out in very merriness of spirit, with a great winnow, as the happy audience came streaming forth at the meeting-house door. There were no cold, haughty, or distrustful faces now, as when they had entered in an hour ago; the genial air of the little meeting-house had melted away all frosts of that kind; and as they mingled under the sober autumn-trees, loitering for conversation, inquiring after neighbors, old folks whose infirmities kept them at home, the young children; they seemed indeed, much more a company of brethren, embarked (as sailors say) on a common bottom for happiness and enjoyment. The children were the first to set out for home through the fields on foot; Peabody the younger, little Sam and Robert being attended by the footman in livery, whom Mrs. Carrack relieved from attendance at the rear of the coach.
If the quaint preacher had urged the rational enjoyment of the Thanksgiving cheer from the pulpit, Mopsey labored with equal zeal at home to have it worthy of enjoyment. At an early hour she had cleared decks, and taken possession of the kitchen: kindling, with dawn, a great fire in the oven for the pies, and another on the hearth for the turkey. But it was from the oven, heaping it to the top with fresh relays of dry wood, that she expected the Thanksgiving angel to walk in all his beauty and majesty. In performance of her duty, and from a sense only that there could be no thanksgiving without a turkey, she planted the tin oven on the hearth, spitted the gobbler, and from time to time, merely as a matter of absolute necessity, gave it a turn; but about the mouth of the great oven she hovered constantly, like a spirit—had her head in and out at the opening every other minute; and, when at last the pies were slided in upon the warm bottom, she lingered there regarding the change they were undergoing with the fond admiration with which a connoisseur in sunsets hangs upon the changing colors of the evening sky. The leisure this double duty allowed her was employed by Mopsey in scaring away the poultry and idle young chickens which rushed in at the back entrance of the kitchen in swarms, and hopped with yellow legs about the floor with the racket of constant falling showers of corn. Upon the half door opening on the front the red rooster had mounted, and with his head on one side observed with a knowing eye all that went forward; showing perhaps most interest in the turning of the spit, the impalement of the turkey thereon having been with him an object of special consideration.
The highly colored picture of Warren at Bunker-Hill, writhing in his death-agony on one wall of the kitchen, and General Marion feasting from a potato, in his tent, on the other, did not in the least attract the attention of Mopsey. She saw nothing on the whole horizon of the glowing apartment but the pies and the turkey, and even for the moment neglected to puzzle herself, as she was accustomed to in the pauses of her daily labors, with the wonders and mysteries of an ancient dog-eared spelling-book which lay upon the smoky mantel.
Meanwhile, in obedience to the spirit of the day, the widow Margaret and Miriam, having each diligently disposed of their separate charge in the preparations, making a church of the homestead, conducted a worship in their own simple way. Opposite to each other in the little sitting-room, Miriam opened the old Family Bible, and at the widow Margaret's request read from that chapter which gives the story of the prodigal son. It was with a clear and pensive voice that she read, but not without a struggle with herself. Where the story told that the young man had gone into a far country; that he had wasted his substance in riotous living; that he was abased to the feeding of swine; that he craved in his hunger the very husks; that he lamented the plenty of his father's house—a cloud came upon her countenance, and the simplest eye could have interpreted the thoughts that troubled her. And how the fair young face brightened, when she read that the young man resolved to arise and return to the house of his father; the dear encounter; the rejoicing over his return, and the glad proclamation, "This, my son, was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."
"If he would come back even so," said the widow when the book was closed, "in sorrow, in poverty, in crime even, I would thank God and be grateful."
"He is not guilty, mother," Miriam pleaded, casting her head upon the widow's bosom and clinging close about her neck.
"I will not think that he is," Margaret answered, lifting up her head. "Guilty or innocent, he is my son—my son." Clasping the young orphan's hand, after a pause of tender silence, she gave utterance to her feelings in a Thanksgiving hymn. These were the words:—