But lest I make this chapter too sad, I shall not speak of our feelings as we missed our baby brother, for they who have lost from their fireside an active, playful child, understand far better than I can describe, the loneliness, the longing for something gone, which becomes almost a part of their being, although at times they may seem to forget. Children’s grief is seldom as lasting as that of mature years; and hence it is not strange if I sometimes forgot my sorrow in the joyous anticipation of Thanksgiving Day, which was then to me but another name for plum puddings, chicken pies, meeting dresses, morocco shoes, city cousins, a fire in the parlor, and last, though not least, the privilege of sitting at the first table, and using grandma’s six tiny silver spoons, with the initials of her maiden name, “P. S.” marked upon them.
On such occasions my thoughts invariably took a leap backward, and looking at grandma’s wrinkled face and white, shining hair, I would wonder if she ever were young like me; and if, being young, she swung on gates or climbed trees, and walked the great beams, as I did. Then, with another bound, my thoughts would penetrate the future, when I, a dignified grandmother, should recline in my arm-chair, stately and stiff, in my heavy satin and silver gray, while my oldest son, a man just my father’s size, should render me all the homage and respect due to one of my age. By myself, too, I had several times tried on grandma’s clothes, spectacles, cap and all; and then, seated in her chair, with the big Bible in my lap, I had expounded scripture to the imaginary children around me, frequently reprimanding Rosa for her inattention, asking her what “she thought would become of her, if she didn’t stop wriggling so in her chair, and learn ‘the chief end of man.’” Once, in the midst of my performance, grandma herself appeared, and as a natural consequence, I was divested of my fixings in a much shorter space of time than it had taken me to don them. From that day up to the period of my illness, I verily believe grandma looked upon me as “given over to hardness of heart and blindness of mind.”
But I am wandering from my subject, which was, I believe, the Thanksgiving succeeding Jamie’s death and my own recovery from sickness. For this occasion great preparations were made, it being confidently expected that my father’s brother, who lived in Boston, would be with us, together with his wife, a lady whose reputation for sociability and suavity of manners was, with us, rather below par. She was my uncle’s second wife, and rumor said that neither himself nor his home were as comfortable as they once had been. From the same reliable source, too, we learned that she breakfasted in her own room at ten, dined at three, made or received calls until six, went to parties, soirées, or the theatre in the evening, and seldom got to bed until two o’clock in the morning; a mode of living which was pronounced little better than heathenish by grandma, who had long been anxious for an opportunity of “giving Charlotte Ann a piece of her mind.”
Mother, who was more discreet, very wisely advised her not to interfere with the arrangements of her daughter-in-law. “It would do no good,” she said, “and might possibly make matters worse.” Unlike most old people, grandma was not very much set in her own way, and to mother’s suggestion, she replied that “Mebby she shouldn’t say anything—’twould depend on how many airs Charlotte put on.”
To me the expected visit was a sore trial; for, notwithstanding my cheeks and neck were rounder and fuller than they had ever been, my head, with its young crop of short, stiff hair, was a terrible annoyance, and more than once I had cried as I saw in fancy the derisive smile with which my dreaded Aunt Charlotte was sure to greet me. At last sister Anna, who possessed a great deal of taste in such matters, and who ought to have been a milliner, contrived for the “picked chicken,” as she called me, a black lace cap, which fitted me so well, and was so vastly becoming that I lost all my fears, and child-like, began to count the days which must elapse before I could wear it.
Meantime, in the kitchen there was a loud rattling of dishes, a beating of eggs, and calling for wood, with which to heat the great brick oven, grandma having pronounced the stove unfit for baking a Thanksgiving dinner. From the cornfield, behind the barn, a golden pumpkin, four times larger than my head and about the same color, was gathered, and after being brought to the house, was pared, cut open, scraped, and sliced into a little tin kettle with a copper bottom, where for hours it stewed and sputtered, filling the atmosphere with a faint, sickly odor, which I think was the main cause of the severe headache I took to bed with me. Mother, on the contrary, differed from me, she associating it in some way with the rapid disappearance of the raisins, cinnamon, sugar, and so forth, which, in sundry brown papers, lay open upon the table. She was generally right when she made up her mind, so I shall not dispute the point, for, let the cause have been what it would, it was a very sick little girl which, the night before Thanksgiving, was put early to bed by Sally, who remarked, as she undressed me, that “I was slimpsy as a rag, and she wouldn’t wonder if I had a collapse,” adding, as she tucked the clothes around me, that “if I did, it would be mighty apt to go hard with me.”
The next morning, just as the first grey streaks of daylight were appearing in the east, I awoke, finding, to my great joy, that my headache was gone. Rising upon my elbow and leaning far out of bed, I pushed aside the striped curtain which shaded the window, and looking out upon the ground below, saw, to my utter dismay, that it was covered with snow. To me there is nothing pleasant in a snow storm, a snow bank, or a snow cloud; and when a child, I used to think that with the fall of the first flake, there came over my spirits a chill, which was not removed until the spring-time, when, with its cause, it melted away: and even now, when, with my rubber boots, I dare brave any drift, not more than five feet four inches high, I cannot say that I have any particular love for snow; and as from my window I watch the descent of the feathery flakes, I always feel an irresistible desire to make at them wry faces, my favorite method of showing my dislike. On the morning of which I have spoken, I vented my displeasure in the usual way, and then I fell into a deep sleep, from which I was at last awakened by the loud shouts of my brothers, who, in the meadow across the road, were pelting each other with balls, occasionally rolling over in the pure, white snow, which they hailed as an old and well loved friend.
Not long after breakfast was over Anna, commenced dressing Lizzie and Carrie, and as she had herself to beautify before the arrival of the train which was to bring my uncle and aunt, it is not surprising that she hurried rather faster then was wholly agreeable to the little girls, who could see no good cause for such haste, even if Herbert Langley, my aunt’s son and a youth of seventeen, was to accompany her. I, however, who was older, read things differently, and when Anna pulled Lizzie’s curly hair, and washed Carrie’s nose up instead of down, until they both cried, and when she herself stood before the glass a whole half hour, arranging just in front of her ears two spit curls, sometimes called “beau catchers,” I shrugged my shoulders, wondering if she thought a city boy would care for her.
The morning train from Boston was due about ten o’clock, and as Meadow Brook did not then boast a daily omnibus, it was necessary that some one should be at the dépôt in order to meet our expected guests. In New England it is almost an unheard-of thing for an entire family to remain away from church on Thanksgiving Day, but considering all the circumstances, it was, on this occasion, decided orthodox for us to do so, and accordingly at nine o’clock father and old sorrel started for the dépôt, which was distant about two and a half miles. Long and wearisome to us children was that waiting for his return; for stiff and prim, as starched white aprons, best gowns, and hemstitched pantalets could make us, we sat in a row like so many automatons, scarcely daring to move, lest we should displace some article of dress. In the best chamber, the room which Aunt Charlotte was to occupy, a cheerful wood fire was burning, and at least a dozen times did grandma go up there to see if all were right, now smoothing the clean, linen pillow-case, now moving the large easy-chair a little more to the centre of the room, and again wiping from the mirror some imaginary specks of dust.
As she was coming down the twelfth time, the sound of sleigh-bells took us all to the window, where, instead of the costly furs and rich velvet wrappings of Aunt Charlotte, we saw the coarse plaid shawl and dark delaine hood of Aunt Betsey, while at her side was the shaggy overcoat and sealskin cap of her better half, Uncle Jason. This worthy couple, good enough in their way, lived in Union, about nine miles from Meadow Brook, where, for the last ten years, they had been in the habit of spending Thanksgiving, without ever seeming to think it possible for them to return the compliment. Although we had never seen Aunt Charlotte, we knew full well that there was nothing in common between her and Aunt Betsey, and after a long consultation it had been decided not to invite the latter, who, as it proved, did not deem an invitation necessary.