"Jo! Jo! Pull me out! The grey legs are mine!" came in muffled tones from the deepest part of the drift where two fat legs encased in homemade grey woolen stockings were wildly beating the air.
"Sally!" we cried, and in a moment we had her out.
"Oh, Lord!" I groaned. "Poor Father and more pink medicine!" but not a bit of it! Sally was as game as the rest of them, and came up smiling and happy when she, too, found no one was hurt. The snow was as dry as powder and shook off them like so much flour. The sleigh was righted in short order and they all clambered back. Dee penitently handed the reins to Jo.
"I am not to be trusted. You had better drive."
"Not at all! No one could have told that was not perfectly good road. I should have been looking at the road instead of—ahem—ahem—instead of—instead—of—that buzzard, sailing down there," pointing to one of the denizens of the air who had made his appearance in the sky almost as though he had expected some pickings from our turnover.
"Humph! Buzzard, indeed!" grunted Sally. "If I was Miss Dee I shouldn't thank you to be a calling me a buzzard." Which went to show that Sally was not so much wrapped up that she could not see what was right in front of her.
What a dinner we did have! Tweedles and I often spoke of it when we were back at school, especially on the veal pot-pie days. The table was resplendent with its fine old damask and silver and with its load of good things.
"That there gobbler," said Mammy Susan, pointing with pride at the king of the feast sitting on his parsley throne, "don't weigh a ounce less 'n twenty pounds. He was the greediest one of the whole flock an' now see what he done come to! He was always the struttinest fowl and looks lak he is still some pompous with his bosom chuck full of chestnuts."
Blanche and Bill were to wait on the table, but Mammy Susan had to come into the dining room to see that everything went off in proper style. She stood back like a head waiter in some fine restaurant and directed her minions with the airs of a despot.
"Pass that ther macaroni to Miss Dum!" would come in a sibilant whisper. And then as Bill would prance by the old woman with all of the style he had learned on the Mississippi steamboat, she would say in stern undertones: "Don't wait fer folks to lick they plates befo' you gib um a sicond help."