place. He was a brave, courageous boy, on most occasions, but the idea
of going to Wishbone Valley when the stars were appearing filled him
with a dread that he didn't like to acknowledge even to the ghost of a
gobbler.
"I can't go with you now, Mr. Gobbler," he said, "because I have a lot
of lessons to study for next Monday; wait until to-morrow, and I will
gladly go with you."
"Come along," replied the gobbler, with a provoked air, "and let your
lessons go until to-morrow, when you will have plenty of light."
Thereupon the gobbler extended his wing and took Donald by the hand,
and started on a trot.
"Not so fast," protested Donald.
"Why not?" demanded the gobbler in surprise.
"Because," replied Donald, with a groan, "I have just had my dinner,
and I'm too full of you to run."
So the gobbler kindly and considerately slackened his pace to a walk,
and the two proceeded out of the barnyard and across a wide meadow to
a little valley surrounded by a dense thicket. The moon was just
rising and the thicket was silvered by its light, while the dry leaves
rustled weirdly in the cold crisp air.
"This," said the gobbler, "is Wishbone Valley. Look and see."
Donald strained his eyes, and, sure enough, there were wishbones
sticking out of the ground in every direction. He thought they looked
like little croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of
offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to
make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in
an offhand way:
"Let's break one and make a wish."
The ghost of the old gobbler frowned, drew himself up, and uttered a
ghostly whistle that seemed to cut the air. As he did so, the ghosts
of the other turkeys long since eaten popped out of the thickets with
a great flapping of wings, and each one perched upon a wishbone and
gazed upon poor Donald, who was so frightened that his collar flew
into a standing position, while he stood upon his toes, with his knees
knocking together at a great rate.
Every turkey fixed its eyes upon the trembling boy, who was beside
himself with fear.
"What shall we do with him, grandpapa?" asked the gobbler of an
ancient bird that could scarcely contain itself and remain on its
wishbone.
"I cannot think of anything terrible enough, Willie," replied the
grandparent. "It almost makes my ghost-ship boil when I think of the
way in which he used to amuse himself by making me a target for his
bean shooter. Often when I was asleep in the button-ball he would
fetch me one on the side of the head that would give me an earache for
a week. But now it is our turn."
Here the other turkeys broke into a wild chorus of approval.
"Take his bean shooter from his pocket," suggested another bird, "and
let's have a shot at him."
Donald was compelled to hand out his bean shooter, and the grandparent
took it, lay on his back, and with the handle of the bean shooter in
one claw and the missile end in the other began to send pebbles at
Donald at a great rate. He could hear them whistling past his ears,
but could not see them to dodge. Fortunately none struck him, and when
the turkeys felt that they had had fun enough of that kind at his
expense the bean shooter was returned to him.
"Now, then," said the gobbler's Aunt Fanny, "he once gave me a string
of yellow beads for corn."
"What shall we do to him for that?" asked the gobbler.
"Make him eat a lot of yellow beads," said the chorus.
"But we have no beads," said the gobbler sadly.
"Then let's poke him with a stick," suggested the gobbler's Granduncle
Sylvester; "he used to do that to us."
So they all took up their wishbones and poked Donald until he was
sore. Sometimes they would hit him in a ticklish spot, and throw him
into such a fit of laughter that they thought he was enjoying it all
and chaffing them. So they stuck their wishbones into the ground, and
took their positions on them once more, to take a needed rest, for the
poor ghosts were greatly exhausted.
There was one quiet turkey who had taken no part in the proceedings.
"Why don't you suggest something?" demanded Uncle Sylvester.
"Because," replied the quiet turkey, "Donald never did anything to me,
and I must treat him accordingly. I was raised and killed a long way
from here, and canned. Donald's father bought me at a store. To be a
ghost in good standing I should be on the farm where I was killed,
and really I don't know why I should be here."
"Then you should be an impartial judge," said Aunt Fanny. "Now what
shall we do with him?"
"Tell them to let me go home," protested Donald, "and I'll agree never
to molest or eat turkey again; I will give them all the angleworms I
can dig every day, and on Thanksgiving Day I'll ask my father to have
roast beef."
"I think," replied the impartial canned ghost, "that as all boys
delight in chasing turkeys with sticks, it would be eminently just and
proper for us, with the exception of myself, to chase this boy and
beat him with our' wishbones, to let him learn by experience that
which he could scarcely learn by observation."
"What could I do but eat turkey when it was put on the table?"
protested Donald.
"But you could help chasing us around with sticks," sang the chorus.
They thereupon descended from the wishbones upon which they had been
perching, and flying after him, they darted the wishbones, which they
held in their beaks, into his back and neck as hard as they could.
Donald ran up and down Wishbone Valley, calling upon them to stop, and
declaring that if turkey should ever be put upon the table again he
would eat nothing but the stuffing. When Donald found that the
wishbones were sticking into his neck like so many hornet stings, he
made up his mind that he would run for the house. Finally the
wishbone tattoo stopped, and when he looked around, the gobbler, who
was twenty feet away, said: "When a Thanksgiving turkey dies, his
ghost comes down here to Wishbone Valley to join his ancestors, and it
never after leaves the valley. You will now know why every spring the
turkeys steal down here to hatch their little ones. As you are now
over the boundary line you are safe."
"Thank you," said Donald gratefully.
"Good-bye," sang all the ghosts in chorus.
There was then a great ghostly flapping and whistling, and the turkeys
and wishbones all vanished from sight.
Donald ran home as fast as his trembling legs could carry him, and he
fancied that the surviving turkeys on the place made fun of him as he
passed on his way.
When he reached the house he was very happy, but made no allusion to
his experience in Wishbone Valley, for fear of being laughed at.
"Come, Donald," said his mother, shortly after his arrival, "it is
almost bedtime; you had better eat that drumstick and retire."
"I think I have had turkey enough for to-day," replied Donald, with a
shudder, "and if it is just the same, I would rather have a nice thick
piece of pumpkin pie."
So the girl placed a large piece of pie before him; and while he was
eating with the keen appetite given him by the crisp air of Wishbone
Valley, he heard a great clattering of hoofs coming down the road.
These sounds did not stop until the express wagon drew up in front of
the house, and the driver brought in a large package for Donald.
"Hurrah!" shouted Donald, in boundless glee. "Uncle Arthur has sent me
a nice bicycle! Wasn't it good of him?"
"Didn't you wish for a bicycle to-day, when you got the big end of the
wishbone?" asked his little sister Grace.
"What makes you think so?" asked Donald, with a laugh.
"Oh, I knew it all the time; and my wish came true, too."
"How could your wish come true?" asked Donald, with a puzzled look,
"when you got the little half of the wishbone?"
"I don't know," replied Grace, "but my wish did come true."
"And what did you wish?"
"Why," said Grace, running up and kissing her little brother
affectionately, "I wished your wish would come true, of course."
PATEM'S SALMAGUNDI[10]
BY E. S. BROOKS.
New York boys, especially, will enjoy this tale of the
doings of a group of Dutch schoolboys in old New Amsterdam.
Little Patem Onderdonk meant mischief. There was a snap in his eyes
and a look on his face that were certain proof of this. I am bound to
say, however, that there was nothing new or strange in this, for
little Patem Onderdonk generally did mean mischief. Whenever any one's
cow was found astray beyond the limits, or any one's bark gutter laid
askew so that the roof-water dripped on the passer's head, or whenever
the dominie's dog ran howling down the Heeren Graaft with a battered
pypken cover tied to his suffering tail, the goode vrouws in the
neighbourhood did not stop to wonder who could have done it; they
simply raised both hands in a sort of injured resignation and
exclaimed:
"_Ach so_; what's gone of Patem's Elishamet's Patem?"
So you see little Patem Onderdonk was generally at the bottom of
whatever mischief was afoot in those last Dutch days of New Amsterdam
on the island of Manhattan.
[Footnote 10: From "Storied Holidays," Lothrop, Lee & Shepard
Company.]
But this time he was conjuring a more serious bit of mischief than
even he usually attempted. This was plain from the appearance of the
startled but deeply interested faces of the half-dozen boys gathered
around him on the bridge.
"But I say, Patem," queried young Teuny Vanderbreets, who was always
ready to second any of Patem's plans, "how can we come it over the
dominie as you would have us?"
"So then, Teuny," cried Patem, in his highest key of contempt, "did
your wits blow away with your hat out of Heer Snediker's nut tree
yesterday? Do not you know that the Heer Governor is at royal odds
with Dominie Curtius because the skinflint old dominie will not pay
the taxes due the town? Why, lad, the Heer Governor will back us up!"
"And why will he not pay the taxes, Patem?" asked Jan Hooglant, the
tanner's son.
"Because he's a skinflint, I tell you," asserted Patem, "though I do
believe he says that he was brought here from Holland as one of the
Company's men, and ought not therefore pay taxes to the Company.
That's what I did hear them say at the Stadt Huys this morning, and
Heer Vanderveer, the schepen, said there, too, that Dominie Curtius
was not worth one of the five hundred guilders which he doth receive
for our teaching. And sure, if the burgomaster and schepens will have
none of the old dominie, why then no more will we who know how stupid
are his lessons, and how his switch doth sting. So, hoy, lads, let's
turn him out."
And with that little Patem Onderdonk gave Teuny Vanderbreets' broad
back a sounding slap with his battered horn book and crying, "Come on,
lads," headed his mutinous companions on a race for the rickety little
schoolhouse near the fort.
It was hard lines for Dominie Curtius all that day at school. The boys
had never been so unruly; the girls never so inattentive. Rebellion
seemed in the air, and the dominie, never a patient or gentle-mannered
man, grew harsher and more exacting as the session advanced. His reign
as master of the Latin School of New Amsterdam had not been a
successful one, and his dispute with the town officers as to his
payment of taxes had so angered him that, as Patem declared, "he
seemed moved to avenge himself upon the town's children."
This being the state of affairs, Dominie Curtius's mood this day was
not a pleasant one, and the school exercises had more to do with the
whipping horse and the birch twigs than with the horn book and the
Latin conjugations.
The boys, I regret to say, were hardened to this, because of much
practice, but when the dominie, enraged at some fresh breach of rigid
discipline, glared savagely over his big spectacles and then swooped
down upon pretty little Antje Adrianse who had done nothing whatever,
the whole school broke into open rebellion. Horn books, and every
possible missile that the boys had at hand, went flying at the
master's head, and the young rebels, led on by Patem and Teuny,
charged down upon the unprepared dominie, rescued trembling little
Antje from his clutch, and then one and all rushed pell-mell from the
school with shouts of triumph and derision.
But when the first flush of their victory was over, the boys realized
that they had done a very daring and risky thing. It was no small
matter in those days of stern authority and strict home government for
girls and boys to resist the commands of their elders; and to run away
from school was one of the greatest of crimes. So they all looked at
Patem in much anxiety.
"Well," cried several of the boys almost in a breath, "and now what
shall we do, Patem? You have us in a pretty fix."
Patem waved his hand like a young Napoleon.
"_Ach_! ye are all cowards," he cried shrilly. "What will we _do_?
Why, then we will but do as if we were burgomasters and schepens--as
we will be some day. We will to the Heer Governor straight, and lay
our demands before him."
Well, well; this _was_ bold talk! The Heer Governor! Not a boy in all
New Amsterdam but would sooner face a gray wolf in the Sapokanican
woods than the Heer Governor Stuyvesant.
"So then, Patem Onderdonk," they cried, "you may do it yourself, for,
good faith, we will not."
"Why," said Jan Hooglant, "why, Patem, the Heer Governor will have us
rated soundly over the ears for daring such a thing; and we will all
catch more of it when we get home. Demand of the Heer Governor indeed!
Why, boy, you must be crazy!"
But Patem was not crazy. He was simply determined; and at last, by
threats and arguments and coaxing words, he gradually won over a
half-dozen of the boldest spirits to his side and, without more ado,
started with them to interview the Heer Governor.
But, quickly as they acted, the schoolmaster was still more prompt in
action. Defeated and deserted by his scholars, Dominie Curtius had
raged about the schoolroom for a while, spluttering angrily in mingled
Dutch and Polish, and then, clapping his broad black hat upon his
head, marched straight to the fort to lay his grievance before the
Heer Governor.
The Heer Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General for the Dutch West India
Company in their colony of New Netherlands, walked up and down the
Governor's chamber in the fort at New Amsterdam woefully perplexed.
The Heer Governor was not a patient man, and a combination of
annoyances was hedging him about and making his government of his
island province anything but pleasant work.
The "malignant English" of the Massachusetts and Hartford colonies
were pressing their claim to the ownership of the New Netherlands,
just as, to the south, the settlers on Lord De La Ware's patent were
also doing; the "people called Quakers," whom the Heer Governor had
publicly whipped for heresy and sent a-packing, were spreading their
"pernicious doctrine" through Long Island and other outer edges of the
colony, and the Indians around Esopus, the little settlement which the
province had planted midway on the Hudson between New Amsterdam and
Beaverwyck (now Albany), were growing restless and defiant. Thump,
thump, thump, across the floor went the wooden leg with its silver
bands, and with every thump the Heer Governor grew still more puzzled
and angered. For the Heer Governor could not bear to have things go
wrong.
Suddenly, with scant ceremony and but the apology of a request for
admittance, there came into the Heer Governor's presence the Dominie
Doctor Alexander Carolus Curtius, master of the Latin School.
"Here is a pretty pass, Heer Governor!" he cried excitedly. "My pupils
of the Latin School have turned upon me in revolt and have deserted me
in a body."
"_Ach_; then you are rightly served for a craven and a miser, sir!"
burst out the angry Governor, turning savagely upon the surprised
schoolmaster.
This was a most unexpected reception for Doctor and Dominie Curtius.
But, as it happened, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant was just now
particularly vexed with the objectionable Dominie. At much trouble and
after much solicitation on his part the Heer Governor had prevailed
upon his superiors and the proprietors of the province, the Dutch West
India Company, to send from Holland a schoolmaster or "rector" for
the children of their town of New Amsterdam, and the Company had sent
over Dominie Curtius.
The Heer Governor had entertained great hopes of what the new
schoolmaster was to do, and now to find him a subject of complaint
from both the parents of the scholars and the officials of the town
made the hasty Governor doubly dissatisfied. The Dominie's intrusion,
therefore, at just this stage of all his perplexities gave the Heer
Governor a most convenient person on whom to vent his bad feelings.
"Yes, sirrah, a craven and a miser!" continued the angry Governor,
stamping upon the floor with both wooden leg and massive cane. "You,
who can neither govern our children nor pay your just dues to the
town, can be no fit master for our youth. No words, sirrah, no words,"
he added, as the poor dominie tried to put in a word in his defence,
"no words, sir; you are discharged from further labour in this
province. I will see that one who can ride wisely and pay his just
dues shall be placed here in your stead."
Protests and appeals, explanations and arguments, were of no avail.
When the Heer Governor Stuyvesant said a thing, he meant it, and it
was useless for any one to hope for a change. The unpopular Dominie
Curtius must go--and go he did.
But, as he left, the delegation of boys, headed by young Patem
Onderdonk, came into the fort and sought to interview the Heer
Governor.
The sentry at the door would have sent them off without further ado,
but, hearing their noise, the Heer Governor came to the door.
"So, so, young rapscallions," he cried, "you, too, must needs disturb
the peace and push yourself forward into public quarrels! Get you
gone! I will have none of your words. Is it not enough that I must
needs send the schoolmaster a-packing, without being worried by
graceless young varlets as you?"
"And hath the Dominie Curtius gone indeed, Heer Governor?" Patem dared
to ask.
"Hath he, hath he, boy?" echoed the Governor, turning upon his
audacious young questioner with uplifted cane. "Said I not so, and
will you dare doubt my word, rascal? Begone from the fort, all of you,
ere I do put you all in limbo, or send word to your good folk to give
you the floggings you do no doubt all so richly deserve."
Discretion is the better part of valour, and the boyish delegation
hastily withdrew. But when once they were safely out of hearing of the
Heer Governor, beyond the Land Gate at the Broad Way, they took breath
and indulged in a succession of boyish shouts.
"And that doth mean no school, too!" cried young Patem Onderdonk,
flinging his cap in air. "Huzzoy for that, lads; huzzoy for that!"
And the "huzzoys" came with right good-will from every boy of the
group.
Within less than a week the whole complexion of affairs in that little
island city was entirely changed. Both the Massachusetts and the
Maryland claimants ceased, for a time at least, their unfounded
demands. A treaty at Hartford settled the disputed question of
boundary-lines, and the Maryland governor declared "that he had not
intended to meddle with the government of Manhattan." Added to this,
Sewackenamo, chief of the Esopus Indians, came to the fort at New
Amsterdam and "gave the right hand of friendship" to the Heer
Governor, and by the interchange of presents a treaty of peace was
ratified. So, one by one, the troubles of the Heer Governor melted
away, his brow became clear and, "partaking of the universal
satisfaction," so says the historian, "he proclaimed a day of general
thanksgiving."
Thanksgiving in the colonies was a matter of almost yearly occurrence.
Since the first Thanksgiving Day on American shores, when, in 1621,
the Massachusetts colony, at the request of Governor Bradford,
rejoiced, "after a special manner after we had gathered the fruit of
our labours," the observance of days of thanksgiving for mercies and
benefits had been frequent. But the day itself dates still further
back. The States of Holland after establishing their freedom from
Spain had, in the year 1609, celebrated their deliverance from tyranny
"by thanksgiving and hearty prayers," and had thus really first
instituted the custom of an official thanksgiving. And the Dutch
colonists in America followed the customs of the Fatherland quite as
piously and fervently as did the English colonists.
So, when the proclamation of the Heer Governor Stuyvesant for a day of
thanksgiving was made known, in this year of mercies, 1659, all the
townfolk of New Amsterdam made ready to keep it.
But young people are often apt to think that the world moves for them
alone. The boys of this little Dutch town at the mouth of the Hudson
were no different from other boys, and cared less for treaties and
Indians and boundary questions than for their own matters. They,
therefore, concluded that the Heer Governor had proclaimed a
thanksgiving because, as young Patem Onderdonk declared, "he had
gotten well rid of Dominie Curtius and would have no more
schoolmasters in the colony."
"And so, lads," cried the exuberant young Knickerbocker, "let us
wisely celebrate the Thanksgiving. I will even ask the mother to make
for me a rare salmagundi which we lads, who were so rated by the Heer
Governor, will ourselves give to him as our Thanksgiving offering, for
the Heer Governor, so folk do say, doth rarely like the salmagundi."
Now the salmagundi was (to some palates) a most appetizing mixture,
compounded of salted mackerel, or sometimes of chopped meat, seasoned
with oil and vinegar, pepper and raw onions--not an altogether
attractive dish to read of, but welcome to and dearly loved by many an
old Knickerbocker even up to a recent date. Its name, too, as most of
you bright boys and girls doubtless know, furnished the title for one
of the works of Washington Irving, best loved of all the
Knickerbockers.
Thanksgiving Day came around, and so did Patem's salmagundi, as highly
seasoned and appetizing a one as the Goode Vrouw Onderdonk could make.
The lengthy prayers and lengthier sermon of good Dominie Megapolensis
in the Fort Church were over and the Thanksgiving dinners were very
nearly ready when up to the Heer Governor's house came a half-dozen
boys, with Patem Onderdonk at their head bearing a neatly covered
dish.
Patem had well considered and formed in his mind what he deemed just
the speech of presentation to please the Heer Governor, but when the
time came to face that awful personage his valour and his eloquence
alike began to ooze away.
And, it must be confessed, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant did not
understand boys, nor did he particularly favour them. He was hasty and
overbearing though high-minded, loyal, and brave, but he never could
"get on" with the ways and pranks of boys.
And as for the boys themselves, when once they stood in the presence
of the greatest dignitary in the province, Patem's ready tongue seemed
to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and he hummed and hawed and
hesitated until the worthy Heer Governor lost patience and broke in:
"Well, well, boys; what is the stir? Speak quick if at all, for when a
man's dinner waiteth he hath scant time for stammering boys."
Then Patem spoke up.
"Heer Governor," he said, "the boys hereabout, remembering your
goodness in sending away our most pestilential master, the Dominie
Curtius, and in proclaiming a Thanksgiving for his departure and for
the ending of our schooling--"
"What, what, boy!" cried the Heer Governor, "art crazy then, or would
you seek to make sport of me, your governor? Thanksgiving for the
breaking up of school! Out on you for a set of malapert young knaves!
Do you think the world goeth but for your pleasures alone? Why, this
is ribald talk! I made no Thanksgiving for your convenience, rascals,
but because that the Lord in His grace hath relieved the town from
danger--"
"Of which, Heer Governor," broke in the most impolitic Patem, "we did
think the Dominie Curtius and his school were part. And so we have
brought to you this salmagundi as our Thanksgiving offering to you for
thus freeing us of a pest and a sorrow--"