If poor Mammy had needed anything to further outrage her feelings and put a climax to her very real distress, the roar which at that instant arose from two masculine throats would have been more than enough; but when Homer Forbes turned a reproachful face toward her and asked, “Mammy Blairsdale, do you mean to tell me that our goose—”
“No, sah! No, sah! de tuckey!” corrected Mammy instantly.
“Well, then, our turkey is cooked—”
“Cooked! Cooked! Ef it was only de cookin’ dat pestered me I wouldn’t be pestered,” was Mammy’s Hibernian reply. “It’s done been stole, sah! Clean, cl’ar stole out ob ma kitchen.”
“Let’s go find the thief, Forbes!” cried Hadyn, casting his napkin upon the table and springing to his feet. “Come on. Mammy, whom do you suspect? Which way shall we run? What must we do with him when we overhaul him?”
“Oh, yo’ jes’ a-projeckin, I knows dat all right, but I tells you dat bird ain’ got no ekal in dis town. I done supervise his p’ints masef, an’ he’s de best to be had. If yo’ wants to know who I thinks is got him, I thinks it’s a man what done stop at ma door when I was a-stuffin’ dat tucky early dis mawnin’. He was a tromp, an’ he ax me fer somethin’ ter eat. I ain’t ginnerly got no use fer tromps, but dis hyer was de Thanksgivin’ mawnin’, an’ seem lak I couldn’t turn him away hungry.”
“We’ll find him! Come on, Forbes! Where’s that stout walking-stick, Mrs. Carruth? Bring along the wheelbarrow for the remains, Charles—of the turkey, I mean.”
Haydn was making for the door, Forbes hard upon his heels, when Jean darted to her mother’s side to draw her head toward her and whisper something into the listening ear. Jean’s guests sat like graven images. Constance and Eleanor were ready to shriek at the absurdity of the situation.
“Hadyn, Homer, come back! Mammy, send in the quail pie and all the other good things you’ve prepared; we shall not starve. Ladies and gentlemen, circumstances render explanations somewhat embarrassing at this moment. Don’t be distressed, Mammy. On with the feast, Charles.
“Why? what? where? who?” were the words which rattled about Mrs. Carruth’s ears.