Then the excitement calmed down somewhat, but only to break right out again, for Jimmy who had been downtown came home and found the box which Tom Motherwell had left on the step after Pearl had gone in. They carried it in excitedly and eager little hands raised the lid, eager little voices shouted with delight.
"Didn't I tell ye we'd have a turkey when Pearlie came home," Mary shouted triumphantly.
Pearlie rose at once to her old position of director-in-chief.
"The turkey'll be enough for us, and it'll be done in time yet, and we'll send the chicken to Mrs. McGuire, poor owld lady, she wuz good to me the day I left. Now ma, you sit down, me and Mary'll git along. Here Bugsey and Tommy and Patsey and Danny, here's five cents a piece for ye to go and buy what ye like, but don't ye buy anything to ate, for ye'll not need it, but yez can buy hankies, any kind ye like, ye'll need them now the winter's comin' on, and yez'll be havin' the snuffles."
When the boys came back with their purchases they were put in a row upon their mother's bed to be out of the way while the supper was being prepared, all except wee Bugsey, who went, from choice, down to the tracks to see the cars getting loaded—the sizzle of the turkey in the oven made the tears come.
Two hours later the Watson family sat down to supper, not in sections, but the whole family. The table had long since been inadequate to the family's needs, but two boards, with a flour-sack on them, from the end of it to the washing machine overcame the difficulty.
Was there ever such a turkey as that one? Mrs. Watson carved it herself on the back of the stove.
"Sure yer poor father can't be bothered with it, and it's a thing he ain't handy at, mirover, no more'n meself; but the atin' is on it, praise God, and we'll git at it someway."
Ten plates were heaped full of potatoes and turnips, turkey, brown gravy, and "stuffin"; and still that mammoth turkey had layers of meat upon his giant sides. What did it matter if there were not enough plates to go around, and Tommy had to eat his supper out of the saucepan; and even if there were no cups for the boys, was not the pail with the dipper in it just behind them on the old high-chair.
When the plates had all been cleaned the second time, and the turkey began to look as if something had happened to it, Mary brought in the surprise of the evening—it was the jelly Mrs. Evans had sent them when she let Mary come home early in the afternoon, a present from Algernon, she said, and the whipped cream that Camilla had given Jimmy when he ran over to tell her and Mrs. Francis that Pearlie had really come. Then everyone saw the advantage of having their plates licked clean, and not having more turkey than they knew what to do with. Danny was inarticulate with happiness.