Such a turkey as it proved to be, so succulent, so toothsome, with such a flavor! Then Rosie's vegetables were so very good, and so intemperately abundant! Mrs. Scollard had made the mince pies after a recipe which had come down to her from a long line of colonial dames, her ancestors, and their crusts flaked and flew in a way that spoke volumes for the amount of butter the farm cows allowed her to use. The nuts were hickory and chestnuts, grown and gathered on the farm—how could the best intentioned help overeating? And that sort of indulgence is more than excusable on the Day of Gratitude.
"I guess we're done for for the rest of the afternoon," observed Snigs at the end of the feast as he dropped his last nut shell, denuded of meat, on his plate. "I've got my watch out of my vest pocket—wanted to see how long we'd been here—and now I can't get it back again."
Bob and Ralph shouted, but Snigs had not meant to be funny, merely to state a fact proving how fully he had done his duty by the institutions of his country—turkey and Thanksgiving Day.
Happie's lips were moving rapidly, and her face, already flushed, grew very red.
"Hapsie's in the throes," announced Bob. "Let's have it, Hap! She always looks like that when the Muse has grappled with her."
"Wait a minute! No, I didn't mean that! I wasn't going to repeat anything; I was only——"
"Improvising! We know, and you don't mind us, Happie," said Ralph. "Domesticated minor poets often put others in a less minor key—not that we are not reasonably cheerful! Let her go, Happie!"
Thus elegantly encouraged, and at an imploring touch on her foot from Gretta, who dearly loved to display Happie's talents, Happie favored the company with the following effusion:
"I'd rather dine with Barmecide,
Where food and drink were not supplied,
Than have my belt so very tight,
And black specks bobbing in my sight,
And feel I never more could care
For more than bread and water fare."
There was general applause for this humble poem, which Snigs feelingly and briefly endorsed by the words: "Same here!"