ERTAIN unmistakable signs were in the wind by which anyone could have told that, Thanksgiving Day was comparatively close at hand. There was a vigorous stoning of raisins on the part of Mrs. Murray, an odour of cider in the air which pointed plainly to the concoction of mincemeat, and Nan was confident she detected the largest turkey scratching round the yard in a nervous, timorous sort of way, as though he knew his days were numbered. By the calendar the eventful occasion was still ten days off, when one cold and blustering afternoon Captain Murray came home from the Life-saving Station, and into the cosy kitchen.
“If I'm not very much mistaken,” he said (and in the matter of weather Captain Murray seldom was mistaken), “we are in for a pretty heavy storm. We shall need to be on the look out, every man of us at the Station, the whole night through. Give us a hearty supper, Mollie, that'll keep a fellow well braced till morning.”
“Do I ever put you off with a poor supper, Epher?” asked Mrs. Murray, reproachfully, pausing a moment in her mixing of some gingerbread in a large yellow bowl.
“Never with a poor supper, mother, only you know what I mean. Give us sort of an extra touch to-night.”