"Blanche, gib Miss Sally Winn some 'scalloped oyschters, and there is Mr. Tucker 'thout a livin' thing on his plate."
Eating was not the only thing we did at that feast. We talked and laughed and cracked jokes until poor Sally Winn forgot all about dying and I think realized there was something in life, after all. What we had for that Christmas dinner was no doubt what every family in the United States who could have it was having, but it seemed to us to be better, and I believe it was. Mammy Susan had a witch's wand to stir things with and whatever she touched was perfect. Her cranberry sauce always jelled; her candied sweet potatoes were only equalled by marrons glacé, so Zebedee said. The cheese on her macaroni always browned just right; and her mashed potatoes always looked like banks of snowy clouds. She seemed to have the power of glorifying egg plant and salsify so that persons often asked what the delicious thing was they were eating.
"Whew!" ejaculated Zebedee, "I am certainly glad I did not have to eat in my embonpoint. I would have touched the table long ago and would have had to stop. As it is, I can still eat about three inches without having a collision."
Our day passed in feasting and merry making. The walls of Bracken rang with merriment. Even Father came out of his book and got quite gay. Sally Winn forgot to hold her heart and laughed like a girl at the jests.
"It will be fatal to sit down after such a dinner," declared Dee. "We had better go out and coast and jolt it down."
There was only one small sled, left from my childhood, but the attic was full of broken chairs, and in a few minutes the eager males had fashioned make-shift coasters out of old rockers and chair backs.
"They are not very elegant but they will slide down the hill, which is the main thing," said Wink, as he lay flat on his stomach and whizzed down the long hill to the spring.
We had a chair back apiece and so did not have to wait turns nor did we have to go double. I must say I like to coast by myself and guide my own sled. The impromptu sleds were not so very strong and it was much safer not to overload. We coasted until the long hill was as slick as glass and, with the exception of an occasional turnover, there were no casualties.
Father and Sally Winn watched us from the library window but after a while they came out, Sally bundled up to within an inch of her life, and what should they do but mount some chair backs and get in the game. Jo Winn fell off his sled when he saw his invalid sister, who only the night before had been on the point of shuffling off this mortal coil, actually straddling a chair back and taking the hill like a native of Switzerland.
"This is a new prescription I have given Sally," whispered Father to Jo. "She is to coast every day as long as the snow lasts, and after it melts we are to think of some other form of exercise for her."