The old man was smoking his evening pipe, and sat for a moment with his eyes fixed meditatively upon the blue hills massed in the distance.
"Have we got so pore as all that, Mother?" he asked, after a while, glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who was rocking to and fro just back of him.
"I'm obleeged to own to the truth," answered the old lady dejectedly. "What with the wild varmints in the woods and one thing an' another, I'm about cleaned out of all the poultry I ever had. It's downright disheartenin'."
"Well, then," asserted Grandpa Davis, with an unmirthful chuckle, "it don't appear to me as we've got so powerful much to be thankful about this year."
"Why, Grandpa!" cried Walter, in shocked surprise, "I never did hear you talk like that before."
"Never had so much call to do it, mebbe," interposed the old man cynically.
The last rays of the setting sun touched the two silvered heads, and rested there like a benediction, before disappearing below the horizon.
Silence had fallen upon the little group, and a bullfrog down in the fishpond was croaking dismally.
"Why don't you go hunting, and try to kill you a turkey for Thanksgiving?" ventured Walter, slipping his arm insinuatingly through his grandfather's. "I saw a great big flock of wild ones down on the branch last week, and I got right close up to them before they flew."