It was at about this time that each began to worry about the other. Huldah shuddered at the changeless fried eggs and boiled potatoes; and Cyrus ordered a heavy storm window for the room where Huldah slept alone. Huldah slyly left a new apple pie almost under her husband’s nose one day, and Cyrus slipped a five-dollar bill beneath his wife’s napkin ring. When both pie and greenback remained untouched, Huldah cried, and Cyrus said, “Gosh darn it!” three times in succession behind the woodshed door.
A week before Thanksgiving a letter came from the married daughter, and another from the married son. They were good letters, kind and loving; and each closed with a suggestion that all go home at Thanksgiving for a family reunion.
Huldah read the letters eagerly, but at their close she frowned and looked anxious. In a moment she had passed them to Cyrus with a toss of her head. Five minutes later Cyrus had flung them back with these words trailing across one of the envelopes:
Write um. Tell um we are sick--dead--gone away--anything! Only don’t let um come. A if we wanted to Thanksgive!
Huldah answered the letters that night. She, too, wrote kindly and lovingly; but at the end she said that much as she and father would like to see them, it did not seem wise to undertake to entertain such a family gathering just now. It would be better to postpone it.
Both Huldah and Cyrus hoped that this would end the subject of Thanksgiving; but it did not. The very next day Cyrus encountered neighbor Wiley in the village store. Wiley’s round red face shone like the full moon.
“Well, well, Cy, what ye doin’ down your way Thanksgivin’--eh?” he queried.
Cyrus stiffened; but before he could answer he discovered that Wiley had asked the question, not for information, but as a mere introduction to a recital of his own plans.
“We’re doin’ great things,” announced the man. “Sam an’ Jennie an’ the hull kit on ’em’s comin’ home an’ bring all the chicks. Tell ye what, Cy, we be a-Thanksgivin’ this year! Ain’t nothin’ like a good old fam’ly reunion, when ye come right down to it.”
“Yes, I know,” said Cyrus gloomily. “But we--we ain’t doin’ much this year.”