THANKSGIVING DAY AT THE BROWN HOUSE

“Gail!”

“Yes, dear.”

Peace stood at the kitchen window looking out into the winter twilight, heavy with falling snow, but as she spoke, she turned her back on the scene without, and walked over to the table where the oldest sister was busy kneading bread. “Are we going to have turkey for tomorrow? It’s Thanksgiving Day, you know.”

“We can’t afford turkey, Peace.”

“Chicken, then?”

“No.”

“But we keep chickens ourselves, Gail! I’ll kill one for you if it’s just ’cause you can’t chop its head off.”

A smile flashed across Gail’s sweet, care-worn face. “It isn’t that, dear. We can’t spare any. All our extra roosters we used for broth when ”

“Yes, I know,” interrupted the smaller sister hastily. “But haven’t we got a tough old hen that isn’t good for anything else?”

Again Gail smiled, but answered patiently, “I am afraid not, Peace. All our hens are laying now, and eggs mean money. We can’t afford to kill them.”

“Can’t we buy one?”

“There is no money.”

“Have you used up all we made selling flowers?”

“That went long ago.”

“And the bill we found in the barn?”

“No, dear. We don’t know whose that is, or where it came from. Someone may come along and claim it one of these days.”

“I don’t see how anyone could have lost that money in the barn, Gail. It was pinned down to the grain sacks with a real pin. Folks don’t carry bills around in their pockets with pins in them; and s’posing they did, if the bills dropped out of their pockets, they wouldn’t up and pin themselves onto gateposts and grain sacks. Someone must have left them for us to use. First I thought it was my tramp, and that maybe he was a prince in disgust” she meant disguise “but now I think it was Mr. Strong, even if he did say he had nothing to do with it.”

“Peace! Did you ask him again, after I told you not to mention it?”

“N-o, not ezackly. I just wrote it on a piece of paper and he did the same. You never said I mustn’t write it, Gail.”

“What did you write?” asked Gail, faintly.

“I just said well, here’s the paper. I kept it ’cause he is such a pretty writer.”

She drew a crumpled scrap out of her pocket, smoothed it out carefully, and passed it over to Gail. At the top of the page in Peace’s childish scrawl were scribbled these words, “Didn’t you reely put that muny in our barn?” Below, in Mr. Strong’s firm, flowing handwriting, was the answer, “I reely didn’t.” “Are you purfickly shure you aint lying just to be plite?” was the next question. “Purfickly shure.” “Cross your heart?” “Cross my heart.”

Silently Gail dropped the slip back onto the table and fell to moulding her biscuit vigorously, biting her lips to hide a telltale smile.

Peace watched her for a time and then began again, “Are we going to have meat of any kind tomorrow?”

“I am afraid not, dear.”

“What what do you ’xpect to have?”

“Just potatoes and cabbage and beets, I guess.”

“It will seem kind of hard to be thankful for such a dinner as that, won’t it?” sighed Peace.

“There are lots of people in the city who won’t have that much unless the churches and Associated Charities give them dinners.”

“I wish someone would give us a turkey. I could be lots thankfuller over a drumstick than over a cabbage leaf or a beet pickle.”

“That isn’t the right spirit, dear,” remonstrated Gail, wondering how she could clinch her argument with this small sister. “Thanksgiving Day was created so we might have a special day to thank the Lord for the blessings He has given us during the year food and clothing and home and family.”

“Yes, teacher told us all about that, but seems to me people ought to give thanks every day instead of saving them up for a whole year and praying them all in a lump.”

“Oh, Peace! I didn’t mean that. People do thank Him every day. Don’t we always say grace when we sit down at the table? But Thanksgiving Day is a special time for giving thanks. It is in the fall after the crops are all in, and the barns are full of hay and grain, and the cellars filled with vegetables; and we thank Him for the good harvests.”

“S’posing the harvests ain’t good? We didn’t get much off from our farm this year. I am tired already of turnips and carrots.”

“What if we had no vegetables at all?”

“Well, that would be worser, wouldn’t it? I s’pose we ought to be glad for even that.”

“Yes, dear; there is always something to give thanks for. Suppose you take a piece of paper and write out all the things you have to be thankful for this year.”

The idea was a novel one to Peace, and after a moment of debate, she searched out pencil and tablet, drew up an old hassock beside a chair, which she used as her table, and laboriously began to compile her list of thankfuls. She finished her task just as Gail announced the supper hour, and dropped the sheet, scribbled full of crooked letters, into the mending basket, where Gail found it that evening when the three little sisters were fast asleep in their beds. Hope was busy with her lessons and Faith sat listlessly in front of the wheezy organ, idly playing snatches of melody. So Gail spread the paper out on the table and read with reverent eyes what Peace had written from the depths of her heart:

“I am thankful cause my tramp didn’t burn us up with his matches.

“Dito (dito means I am thankful and its lots shorter to rite) cause
of the muny pined to the gatepost and granesaks in the barn, but I’d
be more thankful if Gale would spend it.

“I am thankful cause Mr. Strong says our 2 angels got inside the
gates all right.

“Dito cause there ain’t any more of us angels.

“Dito cause Hector Abbott got licked for teezing lame Jenny
Munn his name just fits him.

“Dito cause Mr. Strong is our preecher he’s got some sense.

“Dito for his wife.

“Dito for Towzer. He’s a good dog.

“Dito for all the rest of our family.

“Dito cause we have some shoes to wear this winter.

“Dito cause for carrots and beets and turnips and cabbige and
potatoes. They don’t take the place of turkey, but they are good
vittles.

“Dito for the hens that lay eggs so we cant kill them for
Thanksgiving dinner.

“Dito for the eggs. They meen muny, Gale says.

“Dito for the hot biskits we are going to have for supper.

“Dito cause this paper wont hold any more. My hand akes.

“Amen. Peace Greenfield.”

For a long moment Gail sat with tear-dimmed eyes fixed on the queer list before her; then she reverently tucked the badly-written sheet away among her treasures, and in her heart offered up a little prayer of thanksgiving for the blessed gift of so many sisters.

Thanksgiving Day dawned clear and cold upon a world of dazzling whiteness, and with the first ray of the sun, Peace flew out of bed, scrambling into her clothes with such eager haste that Cherry opened her eyes and demanded, “What are you hurrying for? The house is cold as a barn. Gail slept late this morning, and the fire can’t be more than beginning to burn.”

“Huh, I don’t care! It snowed last night, and I’m going out to shovel,” was the scornful reply. “If you want a chance to help, you will have to hurry.”

Allee scrambled out from the warm blankets, but Cherry snuggled down closer in the pillows with a contented grunt, and was soon lost in slumberland again, so the two youngest sisters had the whole snow-covered world to themselves when they stepped out into the winter morning with shovel and broom.

“Whee! Isn’t this fine!” cried Peace, whirling a cloud of feathery flakes off the porch with one sweep. “We won’t need the shovel at all, the snow is so light.”

Beauty-loving Allee stopped awestruck on the threshold to drink in the glory of the winter dawn, saying slowly, “It is it looks like ”

“Ice-cream,” finished Peace. “S’posing it was ice-cream and we could have all we wanted. Wouldn’t we be a sick crowd by night?”

The startled sister pulled on her mittens and trudged down the steps to work, and in a few minutes, the porches and paths were swept clean.

“Wish there was more to do,” sighed Allee, when they had finished their chosen task, unwilling to go indoors even for breakfast.

“Tell you what,” cried Peace, from her perch on the gatepost. “Let’s go down to the village and sweep paths for money. Perhaps we could earn enough to buy a chicken.”

“All right! Where will we go?”

“Judge Abbott will pay us, I’m sure, and Mr. Strong would hire us, too, if he hasn’t swept his own walks. Maybe Lute Dunbar isn’t home yet and we can get their paths.”

Without further discussion they sped away to town, dragging their brooms behind them. But here disappointment awaited the small toilers, for at nearly every house some enterprising soul had already cleared away the light snow.

“Lute Dunbar must be at home, I guess,” sighed Peace, when she beheld the neat paths circling that house; “and Mr. Strong has swept his whole yard, looks like. Well, Judge Abbott’s porch is all covered yet. Hector is lazy. We will try him.”

Marching up to the door, she knocked timidly, but to her dismay, no one answered, though three times she repeated the summons.

“What shall we do, go back home?” asked Allee, visibly disappointed, for visions of roast chicken were very alluring to her.

“No,” answered Peace with sudden decision. “We’ll sweep his paths and collect our pay when it is done.”

So again they fell to work making the snow fly briskly, and in a short time had cleared steps and walks, but apparently no one was yet stirring within doors.

“Guess they are still in bed,” suggested Allee. “We will have to come back later.”

“If we are going to have chicken for dinner we ought to get it as soon as possible, so’s Gail can fix it, ’cause it takes hours to cook. I’m going to knock again and see if I can’t wake someone. It’s time they were up anyway. Rich folks do sleep an awful long time in the morning.”

Mounting the steps once more, she knocked loudly, with no result. A happy inspiration seized her, and picking up her broom, she tapped on the door with the handle. No one came.

“I don’t b’lieve that is loud enough,” whispered Allee. “You’d better pound.”

“I think so myself,” answered Peace, clutching the broom like a battering ram and giving the door three resounding thumps that shook the house from cellar to garret, and sounded like the booming of a cannon.

“Try it again,” urged impatient Allee, and again the broom struck the panels with thunderous force, once, twice

The door burst open with sudden fury, and an angry-faced man in a long bathrobe confronted the paralyzed children with the fierce demand, “What in creation do you want?”

“It it’s time to get up,” stammered Peace. “I mean, it it snowed last night. I mean, we’ve swep’ your walks off. We s’posed you’d be glad to pay us for our trouble.”

“Well!” ejaculated the man, too much surprised for further speech.

“We’ve swep’ real clean better than Hector ever does.”

“Well!” repeated the Judge, an amused gleam in his eyes chasing away the angry frown. “How much do I owe you, Peace? You are Peace Greenfield, are you not?”

“Yes, sir. A quarter will do, I think. The snow was very light, but you’ve got lots of porch and walk.”

“That’s a fact, we have. Here is a quarter for you, and many thanks for your good work.”

“You are much obliged,” she answered gravely, mixing her pronouns in her haste to slip the coin inside her damp mitten. “I wish you a merry Thanksgiving.”

With a whoop of delight she bounded down the steps, snatched Allée’s hand, and rushed away up the street to the butcher shop for their chicken, never pausing for breath until she had dropped the money onto the counter before the astonished proprietor, who was making ready to close his shop for the day. “A quarter’s worth of chicken, Mr. Jones,” she panted. “I was afraid you would be gone before we could collect from the Judge.”

“Sorry, Peace,” answered the astonished man, “but I haven’t any chickens as small as that.”

“Haven’t you a cheap old hen?” she faltered, almost too disappointed to speak.

“No, I am afraid not.”

“And you can’t sell me a piece of chicken?”

“No, we never do that, either.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Allee. “We swep’ that walk all for nothing!”

But Peace’s bright eyes had caught sight of a tall, wooden bucket on the counter, and now she demanded, “Is that oysters?”

“Yes, jimdandies.”

“That’s next best to chicken. I’ll take a quarter’s worth of them. We will have a Thanksgiving after all, Allee.”

Bearing the precious burden carefully in her arms, Peace was hurrying down the street toward home, followed by the happy Allee trailing the two old brooms, when they were halted by an excited, boyish voice, screaming lustily, “Peace, oh Peace! Wait a minute! I’ve got something for you.”

She stopped short in the snow and waited impatiently for the boy to overtake her, more interested in her bucket of oysters than in the prospect of a gift from him; but as he drew near, she saw he carried two white, furry bundles, and her eyes grew bright with anticipation.

“Surely not your bunnies, Bryan?” she gasped.

“Yep! We are going to move back to the city on Monday, and papa said I must leave these here. They will starve with no one to take care of them, and you always thought they were so pretty, I decided to give them to you that is, if you want them.”

“Want them? Oh, Bryan, they are the cutest things! I like pets and never have had any all of my very own, ’cept the chicken Mr. Hardman stole. Give one to Allee, and I will carry the other. Tuck your broom under your arm, Allee, and give me mine. There! I’m awful glad you brought them to us, Bryan. We will take real good care of them.”

Once more the sisters trudged on their way, happily excited and eager to show their new possessions to the family at home.

“Gobble, gobble, gobble!”

Allee screamed, dropped her broom and almost let go of the little white rabbit in her fear. “Oh, Peace, he’s after us again and we can’t run!”

“Maybe he won’t touch us if we don’t look at him,” began the older sister; but the old gobbler, with ruffled feathers and wattles flaming, came straight toward them, and Peace stopped with a jerk.

“Drop your bunny in my skirt, Allee, grab that broom and hit the gobbler over the head. Mr. Hardman said to do that whenever he bothered us and he would soon get tired of it.” As she spoke she gathered her skirt up apron-fashion, and thrust both rabbits within the folds, while Allee snatched up the broom, according to instructions, and made ready for the attack.

“Gobble, gobble, gobble!” The enemy advanced rapidly, but before he could strike either child the blue-eyed baby let the hard-wood stick fly with all her might over the fierce old head, and without another sound the monstrous bird crumpled up in the snow.

“Mercy!” screamed Peace. “You’ve killed him! There, don’t cry! Hold your coat for the rabbits while I tote this thing up to Hardman’s house. I told you to hit him, but Mr. Hardman told us, too.”

Laying down her own burdens, she seized the heavy turkey by the neck and dragged it up the path to the door of the green house. “Here’s your old bird,” she chattered, when Mr. Hartman answered her knock. “He’ll never gobble again! We hit him over the head, just as you told us to, and he laid right down and died. But we never meant to kill him. If you chop his head off right away, he will be good to eat yet, for we just now finished him. ’F I had the money, I’d pay for him, just so’s we could have a Thanksgiving dinner over at our house, but I spent all I had for oysters, and, besides, I s’pose likely you would charge more’n a quarter for him. You told us to hit him, you know.”

With never a word of reply, the dazed man dragged the carcass into the house and shut the door, leaving Peace glaring indignantly after him. “Well, that’s manners,” she finally sputtered, and stamped angrily away to help Allee home with her load.

“Here are some oysters,” she announced, depositing the paper bucket on the kitchen table.

“We earned them shoveling Judge Abbott’s porches off. And here are Bryan Tenney’s rabbits. He has given them to us for keeps.”

“Well, you can march them straight back,” declared Faith, with energy. “Where do you expect to keep rabbits on this place?”

“In a box of hay in the barn. We may keep them, mayn’t we, Gail?”

“They will die of cold,” protested Faith.

“We won’t let them. There are lots of gunny sacks we can cover over the box until it gets warmer.”

“They will dig the whole farm up and spoil the garden when spring comes.”

Gail was perplexed. How could she refuse the children’s eager eyes? Yet clearly they could not keep the little animals. There were scarcely enough vegetables in the cellar to last the family until the winter months were over, let alone feeding a pair of hungry rabbits.

While she hesitated, Hope entered the room, and with a cry of rapture, she snatched up one pink-nosed bunny and hid her face in its fur, exclaiming, “Oh, you darlings! Are they yours, Peace? We will fix up that old, big box in Black Prince’s stall and they will be as cosy as babies. What shall you call them?”

“Winkum and Blinkum,” was the prompt answer. “Their noses are never still. Shall we fix up the box right now?” The four younger sisters gathered up the rabbits and departed for the barn. The question was settled to their satisfaction, at least.

In the meantime, at the Hartman house the gentle little wife was busily plucking the mammoth gobbler, while Mr. Hartman stood idly by the kitchen window, gazing out into the winter sunshine. But his thoughts were not idle, and when at length the great bird was stripped clean, he turned to the woman and said, “What are we going to do with the thing? If they had just killed it before we dressed one for ourselves ”

“Better take it over to them. It’s too late to dispose of it to the butcher, and I am afraid they will have a pretty slim dinner. Mrs. Grinnell thinks they are badly pinched for money.”

“Sho, now, Myra Ann! It’s just because they don’t know how to manage. They’ve got one of the best farms in this part of the country.”

“It’s mortgaged, and you have the mortgage.”

“Yes, but with proper handling they ought to clear that off easily.”

“They had to sell Black Prince ”

“And got a fancy price for him, too. That alone would pretty nearly have paid the mortgage. If they are hard up, it’s their own fault.”

“Mrs. Grinnell is in position to know if anyone does. The mother’s sickness must have been terribly costly, and now they are orphans. They are in a bad way, I feel sure, and this turkey would come in mighty handy.”

He offered no further arguments, but a few moments later, when Gail answered a knock at the kitchen door, she found their neighbor standing there with the turkey in his arms. Almost too surprised to understand, she accepted his offering, and he was gone before she could stammer out her thanks.

Then how they bustled in the little brown house, preparing such a dinner as they had seldom eaten before, oyster dressing, creamed carrots, mashed potatoes, gravy, and the height of extravagance cake and custard, such as only Faith could make. Oh, but that was a dinner! Nevertheless, as the six hungry girls gathered around the table full of dainties their faces were sober at the sight of the two empty chairs in the corner, and each heart bled afresh for the mother who had left them only a few short months before.

Seeing the shadow in the eyes of her sisters, and feeling depressed by the abrupt silence, Gail sought to make the sun shine again by remarking, “I am thankful for so many things, I hardly know which to put first; but I think I will call it friends. That will include them all.”

Faith dropped her eyes and made no attempt to speak.

Perceiving this, Hope, with hardly a pause, began, “I am thankful for this beautiful day. The world was so spotless and white when we woke, it seemed like angels’ wings had covered up all the sin.”

“I’m thankful we have enough to eat and wear,” said Cherry. “There is a family with seven children just moved into that tumble-down old house on the next road, and they look starved to death, to say nothing of the rags and patches they wear.”

Peace was busily engaged in “being thankful over a drumstick,” but as Cherry ceased speaking, she lifted her round eyes from her plate, and stopped chewing long enough to say, “I am thankful my nose doesn’t twitch all the time like my rabbit’s, that my ears don’t grow out of the top of my head, and that I don’t have to hop with both feet wherever I want to go.”

Five knives and forks fell to the table with a clatter, five napkins flew simultaneously to as many faces, and five voices shrieked out a chorus of mirth.

It was Thanksgiving Day at the little brown house.