“We are sending out a number of baskets from the church, and I have asked that one be sent to the Hodgesons,” was Mrs. Carruth’s hopeful reply. It was not welcomed as she anticipated.
“That won’t do a bit of good,” answered Jean, with a dubious shake of her copper-tinted head. “Not a single bit, for when Mrs. Hodgeson said she reckoned they’d have to get along without a turkey I said right off that I thought I could manage one all right, ’cause you could get one sent to her. My, but she got mad! And she told me she guessed she could get along without no charity turkey; that Hodgeson always had managed to fill up the young ones somehow, and if he couldn’t do it on turkey this year he could do it on salt pork. Ugh! Wouldn’t that be awful? Why, Mammy won’t have salt pork near her except for seasoning use, as she calls it. No, we’ve got to do something else for those everlasting Hodgesons.”
Mrs. Carruth thought the term well applied, even though she did not say so; they were everlasting. But she was hardly prepared for Jean’s solution of the problem with which she had seen fit to burden her youthful shoulders.
Mrs. Carruth’s Thanksgiving guests were Hadyn Stuyvesant and Homer Forbes. Her table was laid for six, and a pretty table it was, suggestive in its decorations of the day. According to her Southern traditions, the meal was ordered for two o’clock instead of the more fashionable hour favored by her Northern friends. Her guests had arrived, and Charles, the very personification of the old family servitor, had just announced with all the elegance and mannerism of which he was capable:
“De Madam is sarved.”
Upon this day Mammy had taken affairs strictly into her own hands. No one except herself should prepare her Miss Jinny’s Thanksgiving dinner. The other servants might assist Charles in serving it, but the actual preparation and cooking must be done by her own faithful hands. Consequently all the marketing for this occasion had been personally looked to by Mammy and Charles. In their chariot of state, drawn by Baltie, they had driven to South Riveredge, selected every article, and carried it home in their own baskets. Once that lordly turkey had been scientifically poked and pinched by her and met with approval, she was not going to let it out of her sight “an’ have no secon’-rater sont up to de house instid.” Mammy had small faith in Northern tradesmen. So to her cabin all had been sent, there to be prepared and cooked by her on “de fines’ range in de worl’!” as she confidently believed her own to be, and truly it was a wondrous feast which now stood ready for Charles’ serving, the two maids to dart like shuttles between Mammy’s cabin and the great house.
It was Hadyn Stuyvesant who with graceful bow offered his arm to Mrs. Carruth, while Homer Forbes turned to the two girls. As she rose to accept Hadyn’s arm Mrs. Carruth paused a moment, doubt and indecision in her eyes, and asked:
“Where is Jean?”
“She left the room just a short time ago, mother. Shall I call her?” asked Constance.
“Yes, do, dear. We will wait just a moment for you.”