Josie was fearful that she might get caught in a genealogical web and quickly repudiated Virginia kin, explaining she was the last of her line.
Dinner soon was announced, much to Josie’s relief. Not only was she hungry, but she felt that when the guests began to eat they would not evince quite so much interest in her relations. Teddy arranged matters so that they sat directly opposite Cheatham.
“We can look right down his throat,” he explained in a whisper. “You watch him and I’ll get him going.”
Josie had heard of groaning boards, but she had never heard one before. The table at the Trasks’—although it was of solid mahogany—literally creaked with the weight of the Christmas dinner. The fact that it was stretched to its utmost length and the drop-leaf side-tables pressed into service to make it even longer may have been responsible for its audible groaning. A twenty-pound turkey at one end, and a huge home-cured ham at the other, were flanked with dishes of escalloped oysters, mashed potatoes, squash, spinach, celery, chicken salad, every kind of pickle known to housewives, cranberry sauce, currant jelly and other things that escaped one’s eye in the multiplicity of dishes.
Little attempt was made to serve the guests by the numerous servants, who contented themselves by standing against the walls, grinning happily over the prospect of the “leavin’s” that were sure to follow such a feast and the “totin’s” they could no doubt accomplish on that blessed Christmas day.
There were at least thirty guests seated at the long table in the great dining room, and in the breakfast room adjoining the children were holding high carnival at a table prepared especially for them. Their happy voices and loud clamorings for turkey gizzards and drum sticks could be heard above the clatter of knives and forks and tongues in the grown-ups’ dining room.
“We always have a general scramble on Christmas day,” Teddy explained to Josie. “There is no use in trying to have orderly service or put on any style. It is always catch-as-catch-can at this Christmas dinner. The same people come year after year, with an occasional addition. Ursula used always to come, but this is the first time Cheatham has been here on this day. He has been getting powerful thick out here lately, now I come to think about it, and I’m just wondering why.”
Josie was not wondering at all. It was plain to see that Mr. Cheatham was paying court to Anita Trask, but, brother like, Teddy was the last to suspect that anyone was attentive to his sister. Anita was a very pretty girl, with her brother’s fair hair and blue, blue eyes. She was young and a bit shy, and evidently flattered by the devotion of the handsome, middle-aged man who was seated next to her at the table.
“Ursula, Ursula,” thought Josie, “what a mistake you have made in concealing from these kind friends the trouble you have had with your stepfather! Had Mr. Trask dreamed of the real character of the man, he never would have permitted him the freedom of his house and the right to pay court to his daughter. Too great reticence and secretiveness is worse than being a downright blabber. I only hope it is not too late to spare Anita a heartache. She is certainly interested in her neighbor, who no doubt can be as fascinating as he can be cruel and overbearing.”
Josie began to feel sorrier than ever for Ursula, because she was not in her usual place at this unique gathering. Such a genial host and gracious hostess! Such hungry guests and such plentiful food! Such willing, if ineffectual, servants! Such gay badinage and good-natured raillery! In ten minutes Josie felt almost as though she belonged. Everybody accepted her simply and naturally. If she was Teddy’s friend, she was everybody’s friend. She never was called on to explain her presence in Peewee Valley and the tale of rag rugs and brooms and bed quilts and baskets did not have to be told. Uncle Tom had begun to be a little curious and was beginning on his questionnaire when cranberry sauce and a turkey thigh switched him off the track and he forgot he had not found out all he wanted to know.