THANKSGIVING IN CAMP.
The last thing before crawling under his blanket, Arthur, the “seasoned
weather-sharp” of the troop, had called the attention of his mates to
the fact that, just as he had predicted, the wind was commencing to come
out of the Northwest, so that the rain that had been blown so wildly
before the gale had already, no doubt, commenced to turn into sleet.
“We’re going to have the queerest Thanksgiving ever heard of in this
section of the country,” Arthur had said. “Mark my words if it doesn’t
change into a regular baby blizzard. Oakvale fellows won’t want to
bother much with any football this year, if I know what’s what.”
All night long the wind whistled and moaned, and even howled at times
around the corners of the bunk-house. Inside, it was fairly cheerful,
for many times did Hugh get up and renew the fire which ate up the fuel
at an alarming rate, as always happens when the wind blows at a gale.
Finally, when morning came, and there were heard sounds to indicate that
some of the sleepers had awakened, the place felt pretty cold. That was
remedied, however, after the fire had been built up so that it fairly
roared.
No sooner was Gus up than he went to where his brother lay.
“How are you feeling, Sam?” he asked, upon discovering that the other
was awake.
“I hardly know yet,” came the reply. “I reckon I’ll be weak for a short
spell, but that doctor of yours has done me heaps of good, and you can
wager I’m bound to pull through all right. I’ve got a new lease of life,
Gus, since you told me what you did about father. I’m crazy to see
mother, and little baby sister Amy, too.”
Gus laughed. He was feeling ever so much more light-hearted himself, now
that things had turned out so well.
“You forget that nearly five years have gone past since you were home,
Sam,” he went on to say. “Amy isn’t a baby any longer, but the prettiest
little girl the sun ever shone on. Wait till you see her, that’s all.
She’s as sweet as she is pretty, which is the best part of it all. We
worship her as if she might be a fairy queen in our house.”
Sam thereupon gave a half groan.
“I guess it goes without saying,” he remarked, sadly, “that all the
badness in the Merrivale family was concentrated in me. Oh! how bitterly
I’ve repented some of the mean things I did in those wild days; and
nearly broke my mother’s heart. I’ve tried again and again to lay all
the blame on father for being so strict; but, Gus, I know just as well
as anything that I was at fault, too. But I’m going to make it all up,
if I live long enough.”
Breakfast was eaten amidst considerable merriment. Everybody seemed to
be quite cheerful, considering the fact that they were snowbound on the
one great day of the fall which all true Americans celebrate at home or
abroad, the Thanksgiving handed down from the Pilgrim Fathers.
“There’s something that’s bothering me,” remarked Billy, “and that’s
_grub_!”
“What about it?” demanded Arthur. “So far as I can see it’s just prime,
and as good as anything we ever packed into camp. Please put a couple of
pieces of that bacon on my pannikin, will you, Hugh? It certainly goes
to the spot. I never smell bacon or ham cooking at home but what my mind
goes out to camp life. They seem, as Billy here would say, intimately
connected.”
“Oh! the quality is gilt-edged,” the fat scout hastened to admit. “It’s
the quantity that’s bothering me. Look what a hole we’ve made already in
our stack, will you? Where will we be three days from now, tell me?”
Hugh laughed at hearing this complaint, because it was not the first
time by any means that he had listened to Billy holding forth along
similar lines.
“Oh! no use borrowing trouble, Billy,” he said, consolingly. “Don’t
cross a bridge before you come to it, as lots of people do. There are
several remedies to your disease. If necessary we can cut our outing
short and speed back home in the big auto. Then again, if we conclude to
stay, a couple of us can scour the country around this section, and
visit several farm houses, where money will talk, and buy all the eggs
and chickens we want. It’s all right, Billy, make your mind up to that.”
As the morning advanced none of them cared to stay outdoors more than
was absolutely necessary, so keen was the wind. One by one they took
turns wielding the camp ax, and bringing in stacks of wood.
Billy, remembering the day, laid out quite an extensive menu for
Thanksgiving dinner, nor did he have any trouble about finding plenty of
recruits ready to assist in peeling potatoes and doing the other chores.
“I did hope,” he announced, when asking their opinion of his intended
bill of fare, “that somebody’d be smart enough to bag a plump gobbler.
It would have been a splendid thing to grace the head of the table. But
let’s be thankful we’ve got what might be called the poor man’s
turkey—pork. That half ham is going to take the place of the National
bird for this once. First time, though, since I was knee-high to a duck
that I haven’t eaten real turkey on Thanksgiving.”
“There must always be a first time, Billy,” was Arthur’s consoling
remark.
They put in most of the morning getting ready for the dinner. Billy
fairly outdid all his previous efforts along the line of preparing a
grand feast. He had looked ahead when laying in his stock of edibles, as
was apparent when the meal finally was placed on the table.
The bill of fare Billy had written out and placed beside every tin
pannikin was as follows:
Tomato soup,
Celery,
Tuna fish, à la Camp Merrivale,
Boiled Ham (home smoked),
Potatoes mashed (“Irish”),
Yams, baked camp-style,
Yellow turnips,
Bread and butter,
Pumpkin pie,
Cheese, crackers and coffee.
Who cared because there was no table cloth, and that the dishes were of
tin or granite or aluminum? What did it matter if the supply was so
limited that often during the meal some one had to scurry over and do a
little dishwashing before he could take the next course?
The ham was unbeatable, the fish just prime, the vegetables as “good as
mother herself could have prepared them,” so they all admitted, and even
the pumpkin pies that dear old Billy had smuggled into camp so carefully
without any of the others knowing about it, came through in pretty good
shape. The fact that they were broken a little mattered nothing to those
boys who ate and ate until they could only look helplessly at one
another, and wonder how under the sun they could ever dream of wanting
anything more for forty-eight hours.
Perhaps that was one of the biggest events in Casey’s whole life. It
must have been many a year since he had filled himself with such a
choice collection of good things. Possibly it brought back memories that
had almost faded from the mind of the old tramp, for to be sure he had
once been a boy, and lived upon a farm. During the remainder of that
whole day Casey was unusually quiet. When Sam asked him if he felt ill
he shook his head and grinned, and simply said he was resurrecting dead
recollections that he had never thought would rise again to haunt him.
Hugh only hoped they might continue to pester the old chap until finally
he decided to give up this wandering life, and go back to see if any of
his own kindred were still alive.
Casey did not intend going to town with them. They could guess why, for
he as much as admitted that in times past he had been guilty of
appropriating certain things to which he had no legal claim; and there
was always a haunting fear in the mind of the old tramp that he was
going to be jailed for these petty acts.
Sam was improving rapidly. Indeed, the fact was, it would have been most
singular if such had not proved to be the case—with those merry fellows
in his company to keep him laughing much of the time, so that his
troubles fell from him very much as water does from a duck’s back.
Occasionally during that day he and Gus and Hugh talked matters over.
Something in the shape of a plan of campaign was arranged, whereby Sam
might in good time meet his devoted mother, and something be done
looking toward a reconciliation with the stern father. So Sam declared,
when night again drew near, that he believed he was far along the road
to full recovery.