Jason and Minty slyly exchanged anxious glances. Neither of them had looked at the turkey, and Minty's face was suffused with red even to the roots of her tow-coloured hair.
Mary Ellen and Nahum came that night, and bright and early on the morning of Thanksgiving Day came Uncle and Aunt Piper with Mirandy and Augustus and the twins, and the house was full of noise and jollity. Jason was obliged to go to church in the morning with the grown people, but Minty stayed at home to help Clorinda, and after much manœuvring she found an opportunity to run down to the shanty in the logging road and feed the white turkey. The new minister and his daughter came to dinner, and Jason and Minty were glad that the children had seats at the far end of the table. The minister's daughter was sixteen, and looked very stylish, and Aunt Kittredge said she was glad enough that they had the snow pudding, and that she had asked Aunt Piper to bring her sauce dishes.
It had begun to be very merry at the far end of the table, in a quiet way, for Aunt Kittredge's stern eye wandered constantly in that direction, and Jason and Minty had almost forgotten that there were trials and difficulties in life, when suddenly Aunt Piper's loud voice sounded across the table, striking terror to their souls:
"You don't say that this is the white turkey? Seems kind of a pity to kill her, she was so handsome. But she eats real well. Now, you mustn't forget to let me take a wing home to Sabriny. You know you always promised her a wing for her hat when the white turkey was killed."
Sabriny was Aunt Piper's niece, who had been left at home to keep house.
"Sure enough I did," said Aunt Kittredge. "Jason, you go out to the barn and get Cyrus to give you one of the white turkey's wings; and Minty, you wrap it up nice, so it will be handy for your aunt to carry. Go as soon as you've ate your dinner, so's to have it ready, for Uncle Piper has got to get home before sundown."
"Yes'm," answered Jason hoarsely, without lifting his eyes from his plate. He could scarcely eat another mouthful, and Minty found it unexpectedly easy to obey Aunt Kittredge's injunction to decline snow pudding lest there should not be "enough to go round."
"What are you going to do?" asked Minty, overtaking Jason, as he walked dejectedly through the woodshed as soon as dinner was over.
"I don't know; run away and be a cowboy like Hiram Trickey, I guess."
Minty's heart gave a great throb. Hiram Trickey had sent home a photograph, which showed him to have become very like the picture of a pirate in Cyrus's old book, with pistols and a dirk at his belt.