After the Ball.
CHAPTER X.
N
NOV. 25.—To-day we are resting and slowly recovering from yesterday's "spree." It was the most gratifying Thanksgiving, as far as the gastronomic and social celebrations are considered, that I have experienced. At eleven o'clock in the morning our "Penelope" crowd of nine were marshaled into line out on the ice, and marched three miles down to the Hanson Camp. Harry Reynolds was elected captain, and he bore a streamer of red, white and blue. We were all dressed exactly alike in our brown Mackinaw suits, sealskin muckluks and hoods. Our appearance was picturesque, and we regretted that there were so few spectators to review us. We admired ourselves. When we reached the first of the Hanson cabins, which are built within a short distance of each other in a spruce forest on a hillside, we lined up and sang "Marching Through Georgia" and other patriotic airs. We have only recently heard of the defeat of Spain, so were necessarily in harmony with the songs we sang.
After breaking ranks we were divided among the cabins for the day's entertainment. Cabin No. 1 is occupied by Joe Jury. Normandin, Jack Messing and Solsbury, and these gentlemen invited C. C. Reynolds, Clyde Baldwin, Rivers and myself. We felt the honor of our invitation, for they had been before styled the "Aristocracy of the Kowak."
After the "Penelope" crowd was apportioned, each division became the guests of the cabin to which it was assigned. Until about three o'clock our company sat quietly engaged in conversation. Meanwhile one could scarcely believe that a state dinner was in process of preparation, and that in the same room in which we were sitting. Solsbury was cook, and what appeared at his touch was marvelous, considering that the cabin was short on culinary utensils and he must "potter" over a little sheet-iron stove.
At three o'clock the table was ready and we sat down to it, eight of us. We were seated opposite our hosts—Rivers opposite Solsbury; C. C, Normandin: Clyde. Jack Messing: and I opposite Joe Jury (Big Joe and Little Joe), in the order named. At each plate was an "Arctictically" executed menu—a section of birch, one of the logs of our hosts' cabin: thus literally were we the guests of the house. This in itself was a very appropriate memento of Thanksgiving on the Kowak.
On one side of the plaque was written indelibly the menu. In one corner was a sketch of the cabin. On the opposite we later wrote our names, alternately, in order as we sat at table. Here is a partial statement of the menu:
Split pea soup. Wafers.
Roast ptarmigan. Jelly.
Turkey pot-pie.
Sweet potato. Baked potato. Sweet corn.
Sago pudding.
Mince pie. Jelly tarts. Olives. Pickles.
Coffee. Cocoa.