“Did you think there was nothing pretty to see to-day—this day? Why, I didn’t know there was such a world!”
The clocks had struck twelve when they left Hudson Street; the bells were ringing for one when they entered it again. Bridget was gone, but a good-natured boy stood by the horse’s head, and Kitty ran lightly upstairs, followed by Luke, with Tom in his arms.
Kitty threw open the door, and there was a table spread with as good a Thanksgiving dinner as the heart could desire, with Tom’s chair drawn up beside it. Luke set his light burden down.
Kitty waited to hear neither thanks nor exclamations. She saw Tom’s brown eyes as they rested on the table, and that was enough. She bent for one moment over the bright face,—the cheeks which the out-door air had painted red as the rose that had just opened in honor of the day,—and left on the young, sweet, wistful lips a kiss, and then went silently down the stairs, leaving Tom and Tom’s mother to their Thanksgiving.
FINDING JACK.
Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue eyes. It seemed to her that the world was coming to an end all at once, there was such a Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had everybody gone mad? Then her wits began to wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of July. That worst noise of all—why, that must be Jack’s pistol, which he had been saving up money to buy all winter and all summer. And that other sound—that must be torpedoes; and there was the old dog, Hero, barking at them, and no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable dog bark. Fire-crackers—ugh! Wasn’t the pistol bad enough, without all these side shows? Just then Jack called out from the yard below,—
“Conn! Conn!”