"That'll be all right," his aunt said, simply, "an' I'm glad you thought of it, childern. 'It's more blessed to give,' you know. George, I wisht you'd get me some chips."
So she turned the subject then; but that evening, as Mr. and Mrs. Andrews sat together over the kitchen fire, with their charges asleep up stairs, Aunt Polly retold George's story, keenly watching her husband's face as she did so, although her eyes were apparently fixed upon her knitting.
Uncle Amasa took his pipe out of his mouth and drew a long breath. "Bless them childern," he said, heartily. "I vum, now, Polly, that makes me feel putty small—don't it you? To think o' their thinkin' of it, an' they a-lookin' forward to Thanksgivin'-day so long!"
"Well, what kin we do, Amasa?" was his wife's quiet question.
"Massy! I don't know. But we'll send that widder her dinner anyway, an' we won't rob them little childern o' theirn neither."
"But, Amasa"—Aunt Polly laid down her knitting—"don't you see that won't be the childern's givin'? I don't want to take away their dinners, dear knows; but 'twouldn't be right, after all, you know, for them to be gen'rous and keep their turkey too."
Uncle Amasa mused a moment. "That's so!" he said, ruefully, at last. "I tell ye, Polly, woman, we'll give 'em the hull turkey, an' we'll throw in the pies. I guess we won't starve on bacon an' cabbage, an' on Chris'mas I'll manage so's they can hev a turkey, 'n' we too. I love my dinner's much 's the next 'un, but I swan to massy them babies o' ourn make me feel putty small—putty small!"
And gathering up his boots and pipe, Uncle Amasa strode off to bed.
And so it came to pass that on Thanksgiving-eve George and Patty, accompanied by Uncle Amasa, not Mike, again followed the lame turkey under the hill to Uncle Jake's old place. But this time the recreant fowl was borne on their uncle's shoulders, in the huge market-basket, in company with potatoes and onions and golden pies and rosy cranberries; in short, with the party's Thanksgiving dinner.
Uncle Amasa first placed the basket on the cracked door-step, and then he and George concealed themselves in the darkness behind the brush heap, while Patty, the lightest and fleetest of the three, knocked at the door, and then ran swiftly to the common hiding-place.