THANKSGIVING DINNER
Old November’s come once more;
Children, see the snow!
Riding out in grandpa’s sleigh,
We all will gladly go,
For Thanksgiving brings such joys
To the waiting girls and boys;
I heard the Ink-Bottle Babies sigh,
“Please give us a piece of pumpkin pie!”
Next day the farmer hitched up his horses and took all the Ink-Bottle
Babies home.
They said, “Oh Ma, we want to learn to read. Oh Ma, we will go to school
every day!”
The Ink-Bottle Mamma kissed all her babies and sent them to school.
They wanted so much to learn to read fairy tales that they never missed a
day of school, from the 16th of October to Thanksgiving.
[Illustration: “_They never missed a day of school_”]
The day before Thanksgiving Molly began to cry on the way home from
school. Then Polly began to cry! Pretty soon all the Ink-Bottle Babies
took out their twenty-five little pocket handkerchiefs and began to cry!
When they got home Mamma said, “Why do you cry?”
The first Ink-Bottle Baby said, “I don’t know, boo-hoo!”
The second Ink-Bottle Baby said, “I don’t know, boo-hoo!”
Polly said, “I am crying because Molly is crying.”
Molly said, “I am crying because we have no grandma and grandpa to go to
see on Thanksgiving Day.”
Then all the Ink-Bottle Babies said, “We want a grandma and grandpa,
boo-hoo!”
The Ink-Bottle Mamma said, “Dry your eyes, and I will tell you what to
do.”
Then the Ink-Bottle Babies dried their eyes and Mamma said, “Suppose we
go and spend Thanksgiving Day with the farmer and his wife!”
The Ink-Bottle Babies clapped their hands and shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah!”
When they had stopped their noise, Mamma said each Baby should take a pie
in a little basket to the farmer and his wife.
Then she took the Babies to the pantry and showed them twenty-five little
pies all in a row.
The Ink-Bottle Babies were so anxious to start that they said, “To-morrow
will never come!”
The Ink-Bottle Mamma knew a few things to make the time pass, so she
said, “Who will sweep my floor? Who will dust my chairs? Who will wipe my
dishes?”
Then the Ink-Bottle Babies all set to work at once, and they swept the
floor and dusted the furniture, and they wiped the dishes, and soon the
work was all done.
At bedtime the Babies said, “Three cheers for the farm. Hurrah for the
farmer and his wife! Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!”
Then they all went to bed and fell asleep.
Early next morning the Ink-Bottle Babies were all ready to start. Each
one carried a basket. The Ink-Bottle Mamma locked the house and put the
key under the doormat. Then they were all ready to go.
They walked a long way, and were getting quite tired, when a man came
along in his automobile.
He said, “You cunning little Babies, where are you going?”
Then the Babies shouted, “We are going to the farm. We are going to see
the farmer and his wife, and we are taking them some pumpkin pies!”
The man said, “I will take you to the farm if you will give me one or two
of your pies!”
He said, “I have not tasted a pumpkin pie for forty years!”
The Ink-Bottle Babies wept to think of a man not tasting a pie for so
many years, and they all crowded around the automobile and cried, “Take
mine! Please take mine!”
Then the Ink-Bottle Mamma stepped up and said, “Please Sir, we need all
these pies to-day, but if you care to give us a ride and then will call
at my house to-morrow you may have all the pies you can carry.”
The man was delighted, you may be sure. He helped the Ink-Bottle Mamma
right into the automobile and called to the Babies, “Pile in, one and
all!”
Soon they were all riding merrily along the road.
The man allowed Polly and Molly to blow the horn and they rode right into
the farmer’s yard and right up to his front door.
The farmer’s wife came out and cried, “Bless my soul! What a fine
automobile! And bless my soul! Here are the Ink-Bottle Babies again!”
Then the farmer heard the noise and came out and said, “Bless my buttons!
Let me count the Babies! Yes, they are here, every last one of them!”
Then he caught sight of the Ink-Bottle Mamma, and he bowed to her
politely and helped her out.
The man who owned the automobile looked at the farmer and said, “Will you
have a ride, good people?”
Now the farmer and his wife had never ridden in an automobile in their
lives.
The Ink-Bottle Mamma said, “Go right along; don’t mind us; we will get
the dinner!”
The farmer said, “Wait till I get some turkeys and ducks ready for
dinner,” and the farmer’s wife said, “Wait till I make a few dozen pies!”
At the word “pies,” the Ink-Bottle Babies set up a shout, and each one
made a low bow and presented the farmer’s wife with a little pie. She was
so surprised that she hardly knew what to say.
The farmer called, “Put on your old gray bonnet!” Then the Babies began
to sing,
“Put on your old gray bonnet,
With the blue ribbons on it!”
Then the stranger said, “You are very sweet singers!”
Soon the farmer and his wife were ready, and they went whizzing away in
the automobile. Then the Ink-Bottle Mamma began to cook the turkeys and
many other things, and the Ink-Bottle Babies had the table all set by the
time the farmer and his wife returned.
Did they have a big dinner? Well, I guess they did. They had turkey and
duck, and sweet-potatoes and white potatoes, and squash, and carrots, and
rice, and jelly, and pickles, and pudding, and cranberry sauce, and cake,
and ice cream, and pumpkin pies!
The farmer and his wife said, “We never had such a happy Thanksgiving
before!”
The Ink-Bottle Babies cried, “Hurrah for the turkey! Hurrah for the
pumpkin pies!”
[Illustration: “_Presented the farmer’s wife with a little pie_”]
After dinner the Babies begged for a story. They said, “Read us a fairy
tale; please read us a fairy tale!”
The farmer’s wife said, “I have broken my glasses and I cannot see to
read, but Pa will tell you a story!”
Then the farmer grew quite red in the face and said, “I don’t know any
fairy stories; honestly I don’t!”
“You know about the fox and the crow,” said the farmer’s wife.
Then the Babies climbed up on his chair and on his knees and there was no
way out of it; he had to begin:
“There once was a crow, and at early morn
He spied the farmer’s field of corn;
He said, ‘As sure as I am born,
I’ll have that corn, heigh-o!’”
“Go on! Go on!” shouted all the Babies. “Tell about the fox. Please tell
us some more.” Then the farmer said:
“There once was a fox so very sly
He knew that farmer’s field hard by;
‘To catch the crow, I’m going to try,’
Said the fox with a soft heigh-o!”
Then the farmer stopped. The Babies begged him to go on but he said,
“Honestly that is all I know.”
“Did the crow get the corn?” asked Molly.
“Did the fox get the crow?” asked Polly.
“I don’t know,” said the farmer. “How can I tell about such things? I
only went to school one year in all my life.”
“Oh,” said the Ink-Bottle Babies, “we intend to go to school for
seventeen years!”
“That is right,” said the farmer; “then you will learn all about the fox
and the crow.”
Just at this minute, the farmer’s wife set up a cry. “Oh see the cunning
little baskets! See the twenty-five little baskets! We must not send them
home empty!”
Then she whispered something in Molly’s ear, and she whispered something
in Polly’s ear, and each Ink-Bottle Baby whispered to the next one.
Then they carried their twenty-five little baskets with them and they all
scampered down to the cellar. The farmer’s wife went with them and showed
them five barrels of apples.
The farmer’s wife said, “Help yourselves. Fill your baskets full.”
What fun they had, picking apples first out of one barrel and then out of
another!
They were all ready to start home at last, when the farmer said, “Where
are the apples for the Ink-Bottle Mamma?”
Then the farmer’s wife gave her a bag of apples and a bag of nuts.
The farmer hitched up his horses to the wagon, and the Ink-Bottle Mamma
and the Ink-Bottle Babies all piled in.
“Crack!” went the whip, and they were off and away singing and whistling
as they went.
The Ink-Bottle Mamma said to the farmer, “It is very kind in you to take
us home in your wagon!”
The farmer said, “I never had twenty-five grandchildren, and I love every
one of your babies.”
The Ink-Bottle Babies began to get sleepy. They tried to remember the
story the farmer had told and they said,
“There once was a fox at early morn.”
“No! That is not right!” said Molly.
Then they tried it again, and they said, “There once was a farmer’s field
of corn.”
“No! no!” shouted Polly, “that is not right.”
The farmer had to tell the story again, and the Babies repeated it after
him in a singsong way:
“There once was a crow, and at early morn
He spied the farmer’s field of corn;
He said, ‘As sure as I am born
I’ll have that corn, heigh-o!’”