THANKSGIVING.
With the happier outlook resulting from Constance’s success in her
candy-making, it had been deemed advisable to send Jean to the private
school from which Eleanor had graduated. Consequently, that autumn Jean
had been enrolled among its pupils, and her place in the public school
at which she and Constance had been pupils knew her no more, and Jean
was much divided in her mind as to whether she was made happier or
otherwise by the change. In the old school were many friends whom she
loved dearly, and whom she missed out of her daily life. In the new one
was her boon companion, Amy Fletcher, and also a number of the girls
whom she constantly met in the homes of her mother’s friends. But Jean
was a loyal little soul, and her interest in her fellow-beings a lively
one. She could hardly have been her mother’s daughter otherwise.
Naturally in the public school were many children from the less
well-to-do families of Riveredge, and not a few from those in very
straitened circumstances. Among the latter were three girls very near
Jean’s own age. They were sisters, and were ambitious to complete the
grammar school course, in order to fit themselves for some employment.
There were other children older and other children younger; in fact,
there seemed to be no end to the children in the Hodgeson family, a new
one arriving upon the scene with the punctuality of clockwork. This fact
had always disturbed Jean greatly.
“If there only _would_ come an end to the Hodgesons,” she lamented to
her mother. “The trouble is, we no sooner get settled down and think
we’ve reached the end than we have to begin all over again. Those babies
keep things terribly stirred up. Don’t you think you could make Mrs.
Hodgeson understand that she could get on with fewer of them, Mother?
You see, the clothes never do hold out, and as for that last baby
carriage you managed to get for her, why, it’s just a wreck already. The
other day, when I went by there on my way to the Irving School, I saw
Billy Hodgeson riding the newest and the next newest, and the _third_
newest in it, and the third newest had a puppy in his arms. No carriage
could stand all that, could it?”
“I’m afraid not, dear. Perhaps we had better ask some other friends if
they have a carriage they no longer need.”
“Oh, no, don’t! Please, don’t! If you do, Mrs. Hodgeson will think she’s
got to get a brand new baby to put into it, for the old babies wouldn’t
match, you know. No, please, don’t.”
“Very well; we must let them get on with the old ones, both babies and
carriage, I see,” Mrs. Carruth answered, much amused.
“Yes, I really would; but here is something that’s bothering me,” and
Jean snuggled close into the encircling arms of the big chair in which
she and her mother sat for this twilight hour conference.
“What are they going to do when Thanksgiving Day comes? No turkey on
earth would be big enough to go ’round, even if they could buy one,
which I don’t believe they can. I was talking to Mrs. Hodgeson about it
just the other day, and she said she was afeered her man couldna buy one
nohow this year; they was so terrible intortionate in the prices,”
concluded Jean, lapsing unconsciously into the slipshod Mrs. Hodgeson’s
vernacular.
“I think she must have meant extortionate,” corrected Mrs. Carruth.
“Perhaps she did; I don’t know. But I’ll bet five cents they won’t have
a thing when the day comes around, and I think that’s awful.”
“We are sending out a number of baskets from the church, and I have
asked that one be sent to the Hodgesons,” was Mrs. Carruth’s hopeful
reply. It was not welcomed as she anticipated.
“That won’t do a bit of good,” answered Jean, with a dubious shake of
her copper-tinted head. “Not a _single bit_, for when Mrs. Hodgeson said
she reckoned they’d have to get along without a turkey I said right off
that I thought I could manage one all right, ’cause you could get one
sent to her. My, but she got mad! And she told me she guessed she could
get along without no charity turkey; that Hodgeson always _had_ managed
to fill up the young ones somehow, and if he couldn’t do it on turkey
this year he could do it on salt pork. Ugh! Wouldn’t that be awful? Why,
Mammy won’t have salt pork near her except for seasoning use, as she
calls it. No, we’ve got to do something else for those everlasting
Hodgesons.”
Mrs. Carruth thought the term well applied, even though she did not say
so; they were everlasting. But she was hardly prepared for Jean’s
solution of the problem with which she had seen fit to burden her
youthful shoulders.
Mrs. Carruth’s Thanksgiving guests were Hadyn Stuyvesant and Homer
Forbes. Her table was laid for six, and a pretty table it was,
suggestive in its decorations of the day. According to her Southern
traditions, the meal was ordered for two o’clock instead of the more
fashionable hour favored by her Northern friends. Her guests had
arrived, and Charles, the very personification of the old family
servitor, had just announced with all the elegance and mannerism of
which he was capable:
“De Madam is sarved.”
Upon this day Mammy had taken affairs strictly into her own hands. No
one except herself should prepare her Miss Jinny’s Thanksgiving dinner.
The other servants might assist Charles in serving it, but the actual
preparation and cooking must be done by her own faithful hands.
Consequently all the marketing for this occasion had been personally
looked to by Mammy and Charles. In their chariot of state, drawn by
Baltie, they had driven to South Riveredge, selected every article, and
carried it home in their own baskets. Once that lordly turkey had been
scientifically poked and pinched by her and met with approval, she was
not going to let it out of her sight “an’ have no secon’-rater sont up
to de house instid.” Mammy had small faith in Northern tradesmen. So to
her cabin all had been sent, there to be prepared and cooked by her on
“de fines’ range in de worl’!” as she confidently believed her own to
be, and truly it was a wondrous feast which now stood ready for Charles’
serving, the two maids to dart like shuttles between Mammy’s cabin and
the great house.
It was Hadyn Stuyvesant who with graceful bow offered his arm to Mrs.
Carruth, while Homer Forbes turned to the two girls. As she rose to
accept Hadyn’s arm Mrs. Carruth paused a moment, doubt and indecision in
her eyes, and asked:
“Where is Jean?”
“She left the room just a short time ago, mother. Shall I call her?”
asked Constance.
“Yes, do, dear. We will wait just a moment for you.”
Constance left the room, to return in two minutes with consternation
written upon her face.
“Where is she and what—?” asked Mrs. Carruth, resignation to any
possibility descending upon her.
“She has just come in, mother, and—and—” the words ended in a laugh as
Constance collapsed upon a chair.
“What is it, Connie?” demanded Eleanor. “What has Jean done now?”
“Where’s my little sister?” asked Hadyn. “You can’t make me believe she
has broken all the laws of the Medes and Persians.”
“No, not those old fogies, but, oh, dear, what do you suppose she has
done?—invited, sans ceremony, Victoria Regina, Mary Stuart, and Adelaide
Elizabeth Hodgeson to dine with her!”
“Constance! Never!” cried Mrs. Carruth.
“She has. They are up in her room this very minute putting the finishing
touches to their very unique toilets.”
“Go get ’em. Fetch ’em on. We’ll entertain ’em right royally! I know
that National bird is a bouncer, and big enough to feed a dozen
Hodgesons as well as all present,” was Hadyn’s laughing command.
“Oh, Hadyn, we can’t,” protested Eleanor, whose dignity and sense of
propriety were continually receiving slight jars from this friend of the
household.
“Why not? It will be the experience of their lives—an education by
practical illustration of manners polite. How can you hesitate, Eleanor?
I thought you were a strong advocate of settlement work, and here you
are overlooking an opportunity sent to your very door. Who was it I
heard talking about ‘neglected opportunities’ not long since? A most
edifying dissertation, if I recollect aright, too.”
“I second the motion. Such a zest to a meal may never again be offered.
Yes, Mrs. Carruth, you’ve got it to do. It is clearly a duty brought to
your door,” added Homer Forbes. “Moreover, it will give me a wonderful
opportunity to pursue my psychological studies. Didn’t know I was
knee-deep in them, did you, Eleanor? Fact, however. Human emotions as
the direct result of unsuspected mental suggestion, etc. Bring on your
subjects, Constance.”
“I give in. Do as you’ve a mind to, you incorrigible children, only bear
this in mind—you are _not_ to tease those girls and make them miserable.
Jean has made one wild break, but there shall be no more if I can
prevent it. Since she has brought them here, and you _will_ dine with
them, so be it; but you are not to tease them, you madcap men,” was Mrs.
Carruth’s final dictum.
“Not a tease, not a smile out of order,” agreed Hadyn, though his
twinkling eyes half belied his words.
“You just watch us entertain ’em,” insisted Homer.
“I’ll watch, you may be sure of that,” laughed Mrs. Carruth. “Now fly,
Connie, and summon our unexpected guests.”
We will pass over the oysters, which were disposed of as never before
oysters had been, and the soup, which disappeared audibly. That dinner
was a genuine Southern one, and no item was lacking. At length arrived
the critical moment when the bird of national fame should have appeared,
but—didn’t. There was a long, ominous delay. Charles bustled and fussed
about, one eye upon his mistress, the other upon the pantry. No one
noticed that Jean’s conversational powers, never mediocre, were now
phenomenal. She talked incessantly and as rapidly as a talking machine,
albeit her listeners seemed to offer small encouragement for such a
ceaseless flow of language. They sat with their eyes fastened to their
plates—plates which would require very little scraping before washing.
To and from pantry and dining room vibrated Charles. The vegetables,
relishes, jellies—in short, everything to be served with the turkey—was
placed in tempting array upon the sideboard; but still no sign of the
festive bird itself, and Charles’ perturbation was increasing by the
second. As on many another occasion it was Mammy who supplied the
climax. At this crucial moment she appeared in the doorway of the
pantry, her eyes blazing, her face a thundercloud, as she stammered:
“Miss Jin-n-n-ninny! M-m-iss Jinny! Please, ma’am, fergive me fer
’trudin’ in ’pon yo’ when yo’ is entertainin’; but ’tain’t lak dey was
strangers, dey’s all ob de family, so to speak, ma’am” (Mammy was too
excited to notice that the cheeks of two individuals seated at that
board had turned a rosy, rosy pink), “an’ I jes’ natchelly _got_ to
speak ma min’ or bus’—”
“Why, Mammy, what has happened?” interrupted Mrs. Carruth, quite aware
that Mammy managed to find mares’ nests when others were unable to do
so, but surprised by this one, nevertheless. Mammy did not often
overstep the lines set by convention; but on this occasion she certainly
seemed tottery.
“De bird! De tuckey! It’s gone! It’s done been stole right out ob ma
wamin oven yonder. I done had it all cook to a tu’n, an’ set up in ma
oven fer ter keep it jes’ ter de true livin’ p’int ob sarvin’, an den I
run inter Miss Connie’s kitchen fer ter git some ob dem little frilly
papers I need fer its laigs, an—an’ it mus’ ’a’ been stole whilst I was
in dar, er else de very debbil hisself done fly away wid it right from
unner ma nose, kase I ain’t been outer dat kitchen one single minnit
since—not one!” emphasized Mammy, with a wag of her turbaned head, her
talking machine running down simply because her breath had given out.
If poor Mammy had needed anything to further outrage her feelings and
put a climax to her very real distress, the roar which at that instant
arose from two masculine throats would have been more than enough; but
when Homer Forbes turned a reproachful face toward her and asked, “Mammy
Blairsdale, do you mean to tell me that our goose—”
“No, sah! No, sah! de _tuckey_!” corrected Mammy instantly.
“Well, then, our turkey is cooked—”
“Cooked! Cooked! Ef it was only de _cookin’_ dat pestered me I wouldn’t
be pestered,” was Mammy’s Hibernian reply. “It’s done been _stole_, sah!
Clean, cl’ar stole out ob ma kitchen.”
“Let’s go find the thief, Forbes!” cried Hadyn, casting his napkin upon
the table and springing to his feet. “Come on. Mammy, whom do you
suspect? Which way shall we run? What must we do with him when we
overhaul him?”
“Oh, yo’ jes’ a-projeckin, I knows dat all right, but I tells you dat
bird ain’ got no ekal in dis town. I done supervise his p’ints masef,
an’ he’s de best to be had. If yo’ wants to know who I thinks is got
him, I thinks it’s a man what done stop at ma door when I was a-stuffin’
dat tucky early dis mawnin’. He was a tromp, an’ he ax me fer somethin’
ter eat. I ain’t ginnerly got no use fer tromps, but dis hyer was de
Thanksgivin’ mawnin’, an’ seem lak I couldn’t turn him away hungry.”
“We’ll find him! Come on, Forbes! Where’s that stout walking-stick, Mrs.
Carruth? Bring along the wheelbarrow for the remains, Charles—of the
turkey, I mean.”
Haydn was making for the door, Forbes hard upon his heels, when Jean
darted to her mother’s side to draw her head toward her and whisper
something into the listening ear. Jean’s guests sat like graven images.
Constance and Eleanor were ready to shriek at the absurdity of the
situation.
“Hadyn, Homer, come back! Mammy, send in the quail pie and all the other
good things you’ve prepared; we shall not starve. Ladies and gentlemen,
circumstances render explanations somewhat embarrassing at this moment.
Don’t be distressed, Mammy. On with the feast, Charles.
“Why? what? where? who?” were the words which rattled about Mrs.
Carruth’s ears.
Mammy gave one glance at Jean, who had returned to her seat. She had not
been in this family sixty-eight years without arrogating a few
prerogatives. Then, but for Mrs. Carruth’s upraised hand, Etna would
have broken forth. But Jean knew her hour of reckoning would come later.
Her conversational powers seemed to have suffered a reaction. Her chair
was next Hadyn’s. As he returned to his place he bent low, slipped his
arm about the subdued little figure, and asked in a tone which it would
have been hard to resist:
“Little Sister, what did you do with that turkey?”
“Rolled it in a big towel, put it in a basket, and carried it to the
Hodgesons’ with mother’s Thanksgiving compliments, when I went after the
girls. They wouldn’t eat a _charity_ turkey, but a compliment turkey was
different,” was whispered back in a voice suspiciously charged with
tears.
“I call you a trump!” Then in a lower tone he turned to Constance, who
sat at the other side, and said: “Who gives himself with his gift,
serves three.”