A day later came Huldah’s turn. She had taken some calf’s-foot jelly to Mrs. Taylor in the little house at the foot of the hill. The Widow Taylor was crying.
“You see, it’s Thanksgiving!” she sobbed, in answer to Huldah’s dismayed questions.
“Thanksgiving!”
“Yes. And last year I had--him!”
Huldah sighed, and murmured something comforting, appropriate; but almost at once she stopped, for the woman had turned searching eyes upon her.
“Huldah Gregg, do you appreciate Cyrus?”
Huldah bridled angrily, but there was no time for a reply, for the woman answered her own question, and hurried on wildly.
“No. Did I appreciate my husband? No. Does Sally Clark appreciate her husband? No. And there don’t none of us do it till he’s gone--gone-- gone!”
As soon as possible Huldah went home. She was not a little disconcerted. The “gone--gone--gone” rang unpleasantly in her ears, and before her eyes rose a hateful vision of unappetizing fried eggs and boiled potatoes. As to her not appreciating Cyrus--that was all nonsense; she had always appreciated him, and that, too, far beyond his just deserts, she told herself angrily.
There was no escaping Thanksgiving after that for either Huldah or Cyrus. It looked from every eager eye, and dropped from every joyous lip, until, of all the world Huldah and Cyrus came to regard themselves as the most forlorn, and the most abused.