Uncle Ned dropped his spade and went sullenly away, while Absalom smiled through his tears on the old dusty rafter in the dark corner of the garret.
"Now what are we going to have for Thanksgiving dinner?" inquired the head of the house. "It's three miles to the village, the butcher's will be closed in an hour, and we can't even get a steak!"
"Say, papa," suggested Herbert, "let's have nothing only dessert. What do you say? Nothing but plum pudding; that'll make a fine old dinner."
Although the adults of the family frowned on such a suggestion, the family had to make out a dinner on plum pudding or go hungry. Herbert had never eaten so fine a dinner before; and when it was over he slipped up to the garret with a plateful for Absalom.
"What in the world is this, Herbert?" asked the bird, as he smacked his bill.
"It's plum pudding with hard sauce for your Thanksgiving dinner."
"Well, it's mighty fine, and I think it must be called hard sauce, because it's hard to find anything else quite so good."
So he ate away until he fell asleep. In the bright rosy morning he returned to the barn-yard, greatly relieved and in buoyant spirits.
"Take Uncle Ned right back to work at once," said Herbert's father at about noon to Michael.
"What, after stealing the gobbler?" asked Michael.