"Wouldn't have no Thanksgivin'," replied George, stolidly.
"Oh, but I just couldn't bear that. I couldn't, truly. It is such a awful long time since we had a taste o' turkey, George."
"Not since last Christmas, before we ever thought o' comin' here to live," her brother mused, as he trimmed a switch with dexterous fingers. "Pa 'n' ma was alive then, 'n' little sister, 'n'— There's that gobbler now!"
They were close to the house, which had long been vacant, but now showed signs of life in open door and windows, and a faint curl of pale blue smoke from the tumble-down chimney. In the tiny door-yard stood the runaway, calmly picking at a few potato-skins in a rusty old tin pan.
The children crept softly up behind a brush heap, intending to rush from thence and surprise him, and were about to carry their scheme into effect, when George laid a detaining hand upon his sister's arm.
"Hush!" he whispered. "What's that comin'?"
"Oh, Sally," called a thin voice from the door of the little house, "come and see what's here. A turkey, Sally—a real turkey, sure's you live!"
"But it ain't for us," said another voice. Evidently Sally had come. "It belongs to some 'un, 'Melia, 'n' they'll come after it. That means a Thanksgivin' dinner for somebody"—with a heavy sigh.
"Oh dear!" went on the younger voice, "don't you wish 'twas ours, Sally? I never tasted turkey 'n all my life, an' I do hate corn meal so!"
"Turkey's for them that has fathers to buy 'em," replied Sally, with a sob in her voice; and then some one called shrilly from an inner room: