have been at the poor farm himself instead of setting up a rival to
it; but there _was_ the annuity, and that was the beginning of Todd's
asylum.
[Footnote 6: From the _Outlook_, November 19, 1898.]
No matter who or what you were, if you were in hard luck, Todd's
asylum was open to you. The No. 4 district schoolhouse clock was a
sample. For thirty years it had smiled from the wall upon successive
generations of scholars, until, one day, bowed with years and
infirmities, it had ceased to tick. It had been taken gently down,
laid out on a desk in state for a day or two, and finally was in
funeral procession to the rubbish heap when Eph Todd appeared.
"You're not going to throw that good old clock away?" Eph had asked of
the committeeman who acted as bearer.
"Guess I'll have to," replied the other. "I've wound it up tight, put
'most a pint of kerosene in it, and shook it till I'm dizzy, and it
won't tick a bit. Guess the old clock's done for."
"Now see here," said Eph; "you just let me have a try at it. Let me
take it home a spell."
"Oh, for that matter I'll give it to you," the committeeman replied.
"We've bought another for the schoolhouse."
A day or two after the old clock ticked away as soberly as ever on the
wall of the Todd kitchen.
"Took it home and boiled it in potash," Eph used to say; "and there it
is, just as good as it was thirty years ago."
This was true, with restrictions, for enough enamel was gone from the
face to make the exact location of the hour an uncertain thing; and
there were days, when the wind was in the east, when the hour hand
needed periodical assistance.
"It wasn't much of a job," as Eph said, "to reach up once an hour and
send the hand along one space, and Aunt Tildy had to have something to
look forward to."
Aunt Tildy was the first inmate at Todd's, and if Eph had possessed no
other recommendation to eternal beatitude, surely Aunt Tildy's prayers
had been sufficient. She passed his house on her way to the poor farm
on the very day that news of the legacy arrived, and Eph had stopped
the carriage and begged the overseer to leave her with him.
"Are you sure you can take care of her?" asked the overseer,
doubtfully.
"Sure?" echoed Eph with delight. "Of course I'm sure. Ain't I got four
hundred dollars a year for the rest of my natural born days?"
"He's a good fellow, Eph Todd," mused the overseer as he drove away,
"but I never heard of his having any money."
Next day the news of the legacy was common property, and Aunt Tildy
had been an inmate at Todd's ever since. Her gratitude knew no bounds,
and she really managed to keep the house after a fashion, her chief
care being the clock.
Then there was the heaven-born inventor. He had dissipated his
substance in inventing an incubator that worked with wonderful success
till the day the chickens were to come out, when it took fire and
burned up, taking with it chickens, barn, house, and furniture,
leaving the heaven-born inventor standing in the field, thinly clad,
and with nothing left in the world but another incubator.
With this he had shown up promptly at Todd's, and there he had dwelt
thenceforth, using a pretty fair portion of the annuity in further
incubator experiments.
With excellent sagacity, for him, Eph had obliged the heaven-born
inventor to keep his machine in a little shed behind the barn, so that
when this one burned up there was time to get the horse and cow out
before the barn burned, and the village fire department managed to
save the house. Repairing this loss made quite a hole in the annuity,
and all the heaven-born inventor had to show for it was Miltiades. He
had put a single turkey's egg in with a previous hatch, and though he
had raised nary chicken, and it was contrary to all rhyme and reason,
the turkey's egg had hatched and the chick had grown up to be
Miltiades.
Miltiades was a big gobbler now, and had a right to be named Ishmael,
for his hand was against all men. He took care of himself, was never
shut up nor handled, and led a wild, nomadic life.
Last of all came Fisherman Jones. He was old now and couldn't see very
well, unable to go to the brook or pond to fish, but he still started
out daily with the fine new rod and reel which the annuity had bought
for him, and would sit out in the sun, joint his rod together, and
fish in the dry pasture with perfect contentment.
You would not think Fisherman Jones of much use, but it was he who
caught Miltiades and made the Thanksgiving dinner possible.
The new barn had exhausted the revenues completely, and there would be
no more income until January 1st; but one must have a turkey for
Thanksgiving, and there was Miltiades. To catch Miltiades became the
household problem, and the heaven-born inventor set wonderful traps
for him, which caught almost everything but Miltiades, who easily
avoided them. Eph used to go out daily before breakfast and chase
Miltiades, but he might as well have chased a government position.
The turkey scorned him, and grew only wilder and tougher, till he had
a lean and hungry look that would have shamed Cassius.
The day before Thanksgiving it looked as if there would be no turkey
dinner at Todd's, but here Fisherman Jones stepped into the breach. It
was a beautiful Indian-summer day, and he hobbled out into the field
for an afternoon's fishing. Here he sat on a log, and began to make
casts in the open. Nearby, under a savin bush, lurked Miltiades, and
viewed these actions with the scorn of long familiarity. By and by
Fisherman Jones kicked up a loose bit of bark, and disclosed beneath
it a fine fat white grub, of the sort which blossoms into June beetles
with the coming of spring. He was not so blind but that he saw this,
and with a chuckle at the thoughts it called up, he baited his hook
with it.
A moment after, Eph Todd, coming out of the new barn, heard the click
of a reel, and was astonished to see Fisherman Jones standing almost
erect, his eyes blazing with the old-time fire, his rod bent, his reel
buzzing, while at the end of a good forty feet of line was Miltiades
rushing in frantic strides for the woods.
"Good land!" said Eph; "it's the turkey! Snub him," he yelled. "Don't
let him get all the line on you! He's hooked! Snub him! snub him!"
The whir of the reel deadened now, and the stride of Miltiades was
perceptibly lessened and then became but a vigorous up-and-down hop,
while the tense line sang in the gentle autumn breeze.
"Eph Todd!" gasped Fisherman Jones, "this is the whoppingest old bass
I ever hooked onto yet. Beeswax, how he does pull!" And with the words
Fisherman Jones went backward over the log, waving the pole and a pair
of stiff legs in air. The turkey had suddenly slackened the line.
"Give him the butt! Give him the butt!" roared Eph, rushing up. Even
where he lay the fisherman blood in Fisherman Jones responded to this
stirring appeal, and as the rod bent in a tense half circle a race
began such as no elderly fisherman was ever the centre of before.
Round and round went Miltiades, with the white grub in his crop, and
the line above it gripped tightly in his strong beak; and round and
round went Eph Todd, his outstretched arms waving like the turkey's
wings, and his big boots denting the soft pasture turf with the vigour
of his gallop. In the centre Fisherman Jones, too nearsighted to see
what he had hooked, had risen on one knee, and revolved with the
coursing bird, his soul wrapped in one idea: to keep the butt of his
rod aimed at the whirling game.
"Hang to him! Reel him in! We'll get him!" shouted Eph; and, with the
word, he caught his toe and vanished into the prickly depths of the
savin bush, just as the heaven-born inventor came over the hill. It
would be interesting to know just what scheme the heaven-born inventor
would have put in motion for the capture of Miltiades, but just then
he stepped into one of his own extraordinary traps, set for the
turkey of course, and, with one foot held fast, began to flounder
about with cries of rage and dismay.
This brought Eph's head above the fringe of savin bush again, and now
he beheld a wonderful sight. Fisherman Jones was again on his feet,
staring in wild surprise at Miltiades, whom he sighted for the first
time, within ten feet of him. There was no pressure on the reel, and
Miltiades was swallowing the line in big gulps, evidently determined
to have not only the white grub, but all that went with it.
Fisherman Jones's cry of dismay was almost as bitter as that of the
heaven-born inventor, who still writhed in his own trap.
"Oh, Eph! Eph!" he whimpered, "he's eating up my tackle! He's eating
up my tackle!"
"Never mind!" shouted Eph. "Don't be afraid! I reckon he'll stop when
he gets to the pole!"
Those of us who knew Miltiades at his best have doubts as to this,
but, fortunately, it was not put to the test. Eph scrambled out of his
bush, and, taking up the chase once more, soon brought it to an end,
for Fisherman Jones, his nerve completely gone, could only stand and
mumble sadly to himself, "He's eating up my tackle! He's eating up my
tackle!" and the line, wrapping about his motionless form, led Eph and
the turkey in a brief spiral which ended in the conjunction of the
three.
It was not until the turkey was decapitated that Eph remembered the
heaven-born inventor and hastened to his rescue. He was still in the
trap, but he was quite content, for he was figuring out a plan for an
automatic release from the same, something which should hold the
captive so long and then let him go in the interests of humanity. He
found the trap from the captive's point of view very interesting and
instructive.
The tenacity of Miltiades's make-up was further shown by the
difficulty Eph and Fisherman Jones had in separating him from his
feathers that evening; and Aunt Tildy was so interested in the project
of the heaven-born inventor to raise featherless turkeys that she
forgot the yeast cake she had put to soak until it had been boiling
merrily for some time. Everything seemed to go wrong-end-to, and they
all sat up so late that Mrs. Simpkins, across the way, was led to
observe that "Either some one was dead over at Todd's or else they
were having a family party"; and in a certain sense she was right both
ways.
The crowning misadventure came next morning. Eph started for the
village with his mind full of commissions from Aunt Tildy, some of
which he was sure to forget, and in a great hurry lest he forget them
all. He threw the harness hastily upon Dobbin, hitched him into the
wagon which had stood out on the soft ground overnight, and with an
eager "Get up, there!" gave him a slap with the reins.
Next moment there was a ripping sound, and the heaven-born inventor
came to the door just in time to see the horse going out of the yard
on a run, with Eph following, still clinging to the reins, and taking
strides much like those of Baron Munchausen's courier.
"Here, here!" called the inventor, "you've forgot the wagon. Come
back, Eph! You've forgot the wagon!"
"Jeddediah Jodkins!" said Eph, as he swung an eccentric curve about
the gatepost; "do you--whoa!--suppose I'm such a--whoa! whoa!--fool
that I don't know that I'm not riding--whoa! in a--whoa!
whoa!--wagon?" And with this Eph vanished up street in the wake of the
galloping horse, still clinging valiantly to the reins.
"I believe he did forget that wagon," said the heaven-born inventor;
"he's perfectly capable of it." But when he reached the barn he saw
the trouble. The ground had frozen hard overnight, and the wagon
wheels sunken in it were held as in a vise. Eph had started the horse
suddenly, and the obedient animal had walked right out of the shafts,
harness and all.
A half hour later Eph was back with Dobbin, unharmed but a trifle
weary. It took an hour more and all Aunt Tildy's hot water to thaw out
the wheels, and when it was done Eph was so confused that he drove to
the village and back and forgot every one of his commissions. And in
the midst of all this the clock stopped. That settled the matter for
Aunt Tildy. She neglected the pudding, she forgot the pies, and she
let the turkey bake and bake in the overheated oven while she fretted
about that clock; and when it was finally set going, after long and
careful investigation by Eph, and frantic but successful attempts on
the part of Aunt Tildy to keep the heaven-born inventor from ruining
it forever, it was the dinner hour.
Poor Aunt Tildy! That dinner was the crowning sorrow of her life. The
vegetables were cooked to rags, the pies were charcoal shells, and the
pudding had not been made. As for Miltiades, he was ten times tougher
than in life, and Eph's carving knife slipped from his form without
making a dent. Aunt Tildy wept at this, and Fisherman Jones and the
inventor looked blank enough, but there was no sorrow in the
countenance of Eph. He cheered Aunt Tildy, and he cracked jokes that
made even Fisherman Jones laugh.
"Why, bless you!" he said, "ever since I was a boy I've been looking
for a chance to make a Thanksgiving dinner out of bread and milk. And
now I've got it. Why, I wouldn't have missed this for anything!" And
there came a knock at the door.
Even Eph looked a trifle blank at this. If it should be company! "Come
in!" he called.
The door was pushed aside and a big, steaming platter entered. It was
upheld by a small boy, who stammered diffidently, "My moth-moth-mother
thaid she wanted you to try thum of her nith turkey."
"Well, well!" said Eph; "Aunt Tildy has cooked a turkey for us to-day,
and she's a main good cook"--Eph did not appear to see the signs the
heaven-born inventor was making to him--"but I've heard that your
mother does things pretty well, too. We're greatly obliged." And Eph
put the steaming platter on the table.
"She thays you c-c-can thend the platter home to-morrow," stammered
the boy, and stammering himself out, he ran into another. The other
held high a big dish of plum pudding, from which a spicy aroma filled
the room. Again the heaven-born inventor made signs to Eph.
"Our folks told me to ask if you wouldn't try this plum pudding," said
the newcomer. "They made an extra one, and the cousins we expected
didn't come, so we can spare it just as well as not."
It seemed as if Eph hesitated a moment, and the inventor's face became
a panorama. Then he took the boy by the hand, and there was an odd
shake in his voice as he said:
"I'm greatly obliged to you. We all are. Something happened to our
plum pudding, and we didn't have any. Tell your ma we send our
thanks."
There was a sound of voices greeting in the hallway, and two young
girls entered, each laden with a basket.
"Oh, Mr. Todd," they both said at once, "we couldn't wait to knock. We
want you to try some of our Thanksgiving. It was mother's birthday,
and we cooked extra for that, and we've got so much. We can't get all
ours onto the table. She'll feel real hurt if you don't."
Somehow Eph couldn't say a word, but there was nothing the matter with
the heaven-born inventor. His speech of delighted acceptance was such
a good one that before he was half done the girls had loaded the table
with good things, and, with smiles and nods and "good-byes," slipped
out as rapidly and as gayly as they had come in. It was like a gust of
wind from a summer garden.
The table, but now so bare, fairly sagged and steamed with offerings
of Thanksgiving. Somehow the steam got into Eph's eyes and made them
wet, till all he could do was to say whimsically:
"There goes my last chance at a bread-and-milk Thanksgiving."
But now Aunt Tildy had the floor, with her faded face all alight.
"Eph Todd," she said, "you needn't look so flustrated. It's nothing
more than you deserve and not half so much either. Ain't you the
kindest man yourself that ever lived? Ain't you always doing something
for everybody, and helping every one of these neighbours in all sorts
of ways? I'd like to know what the whole place would do without you!
And now, just because they remember you on Thanksgiving Day, you look
like--"
The steam had got into Aunt Tildy's eyes now, and she sat down again
just as there came another knock at the door, a timid sort of knock
this time.
The heaven-born inventor's face widened in beatified smiles of
expectation at this, but Eph looked him sternly in the eye.
"Jeddediah Jodkins!" he said; "if that is any more people bringing
things to eat to this house, they'll have to go away. We can't have
it. We've got enough here now to feed a--a boarding school."
The heaven-born inventor sprang eagerly to his feet. "Don't you do it,
Eph," he said, "don't you do it. I've just thought of a way to can
it."
A thinly clad man and woman stood at the door which Eph opened. Both
looked pale and tired, and the woman shivered.
"Can you tell me where I can get work," asked the man, doggedly, "so
that I can earn a little something to eat? We are not beggars"--he
flushed a little through his pallor--"but I have had no work lately,
and we have eaten nothing since yesterday. We are looking--"
The man stopped, and well he might, for Eph was dancing wildly about
the two, and hustling them into the house.
"Come in!" he shouted. "Come in! Come in! You're the folks we are
waiting for! Eat? Why, goodness gra-cious! We've got so much to eat we
don't know what to do with it."
He had them in chairs in a moment and was piling steaming roast turkey
on their plates. "There!" he said, "don't you say another word till
you have filled up on that. Folks"--and he returned to the
others--"here's two friends that have come to stay a week with us and
help eat turkey. Fall to! This is going to be the pleasantest
Thanksgiving we've had yet."
And thus two new inmates were added to Todd's asylum.
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN[7]
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
The old-time New England Thanksgiving has been described
many times, but never better then by the author of "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" in her less successful but more artistic novel,
"Oldtown Folks," from which book the following narrative has
been adapted.
When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the
yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold,
and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and
the warm, late days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and
still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but
with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over
the community a sort of genial repose of spirit--a sense of something
accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar
of life--and the deacon began to say to the minister, of a Sunday, "I
suppose it's about time for the Thanksgiving proclamation."
[Footnote 7: Adapted from "Oldtown Folks," Houghton, Mifflin Co.]
Conversation at this time began to turn on high and solemn culinary
mysteries and receipts of wondrous power and virtue. New modes of
elaborating squash pies and quince tarts were now ofttimes carefully
discussed at the evening firesides by Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and
notes seriously compared with the experiences of certain other aunties
of high repute in such matters. I noticed that on these occasions
their voices often fell into mysterious whispers, and that receipts of
especial power and sanctity were communicated in tones so low as
entirely to escape the vulgar ear. I still remember the solemn shake
of the head with which my Aunt Lois conveyed to Miss Mehitable
Rossiter the critical properties of _mace_, in relation to its powers
of producing in corn fritters a suggestive resemblance to oysters. As
ours was an oyster-getting district, and as that charming bivalve was
perfectly easy to come at, the interest of such an imitation can be
accounted for only by the fondness of the human mind for works of art.
For as much as a week beforehand, "we children" were employed in
chopping mince for pies to a most wearisome fineness, and in pounding
cinnamon, all-spice, and cloves in a great lignum-vitæ mortar; and the
sound of this pounding and chopping reëchoed through all the rafters
of the old house with a hearty and vigorous cheer most refreshing to
our spirits.
In those days there were none of the thousand ameliorations of the
labours of housekeeping which have since arisen--no ground and
prepared spices and sweet herbs; everything came into our hands in the
rough, and in bulk, and the reducing of it into a state for use was
deemed one of the appropriate labours of childhood. Even the very salt
that we used in cooking was rock salt, which we were required to wash
and dry and pound and sift before it became fit for use.
At other times of the year we sometimes murmured at these labours, but
those that were supposed to usher in the great Thanksgiving festival
were always entered into with enthusiasm. There were signs of richness
all around us--stoning of raisins, cutting of citron, slicing of
candied orange peel. Yet all these were only dawnings and intimations
of what was coming during the week of real preparation, after the
Governor's proclamation had been read.
The glories of that proclamation! We knew beforehand the Sunday it was
to be read, and walked to church with alacrity, filled with gorgeous
and vague expectations.
The cheering anticipation sustained us through what seemed to us the
long waste of the sermon and prayers; and when at last the auspicious
moment approached--when the last quaver of the last hymn had died
out--the whole house rippled with a general movement of complacency,
and a satisfied smile of pleased expectation might be seen gleaming on
the faces of all the young people, like a ray of sunshine through a
garden of flowers.
Thanksgiving now was dawning! We children poked one another, and
fairly giggled with unreproved delight as we listened to the crackle
of the slowly unfolding document. That great sheet of paper impressed
us as something supernatural, by reason of its mighty size and by the
broad seal of the State affixed thereto; and when the minister read
therefrom, "By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty
repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders. Then,
after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the Commonwealth had
that year received at the hands of Divine Providence, came at last the
naming of the eventful day, and, at the end of all, the imposing
heraldic words, "God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." And
then, as the congregation broke up and dispersed, all went their
several ways with schemes of mirth and feasting in their heads.
And now came on the week in earnest. In the very watches of the night
preceding Monday morning a preternatural stir below stairs and the
thunder of the pounding barrel announced that the washing was to be
got out of the way before daylight, so as to give "ample scope and
room enough" for the more pleasing duties of the season.
The making of _pies_ at this period assumed vast proportions that
verged upon the sublime. Pies were made by forties and fifties and
hundreds, and made of everything on the earth and under the earth.
The pie is an English institution, which, planted on American soil,
forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of genera
and species. Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand
strictly American seedlings from that main stock, evinced the power of
American housewives to adapt old institutions to new uses. Pumpkin
pies, cranberry pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant
pies, peach, pear, and plum pies, custard pies, apple pies,
Marlborough-pudding pies--pies with top crusts and pies without--pies
adorned with all sorts of fanciful flutings and architectural strips
laid across and around, and otherwise varied, attested the boundless
fertility of the feminine mind when once let loose in a given
direction.