The next day was Thanksgiving.  Dotty wakened in such a happy mood that it seemed to her the world had never looked so bright before.

“I don’t think, Prudy, it’s the turkey and plum pudding we’re going to have that makes me so happy ­do you?”

“What is it, then, little sister?”

“O, it’s ’cause I dreamed I was sleeping on pin-feathers, and woke up and found I wasn’t.  You’d feel a great deal better, Prudy, if you’d run away and had such a dreadful time, and got home again.”

“I don’t want to try it,” returned Prudy, with a smile.

“No; but it’s so nice to be forgiven!” said Dotty, laying her hand on her heart, “it makes you feel so easy right in here.”

A fear came over Prudy that the little runaway had not been punished enough.  But Dotty went on: ­

“It makes you feel as if you’d never be naughty again.  Now, if my mamma was always thumping me with a thimble, and scolding me so as to shake the house, I shouldn’t care; but when she is just like an angel, and forgives me, I do care.”

“I’m so glad, Dotty!  I think, honestly, mother’s the best woman that ever lived.”

“Then why didn’t she marry the best man?” asked Dotty, quickly.

“Who is that?”

“Why, Abraham Lincoln, of course.”  Prudy laughed.

“Yes; I suppose Mr. Lincoln was the best man that ever lived; but papa comes next.”

“Yes,” said Dotty; “I think he does.  And I’d rather have him for a father than Mr. Lincoln, ’cause I’m better ’quainted with him.  I shouldn’t dare kiss the President.  And, besides that, he’s dead.”

“You’re a funny girl, Dotty; but what you say is true.  Everything happens just right in this world.”

“Does it?” said Dotty, wrinkling her brows anxiously; “does it, now truly?”

“Yes, indeed, Dotty.  Anybody wouldn’t think so, but it does.”

“Then I suppose it happens right for me to be a bad girl and run away.”

“No, indeed, Dotty; because you can help it.  Everything is right that we can’t help; that’s what I mean.”

“Then I s’pose ’twas right for me to crawl through the cellar window,” said Dotty; “for I’m sure I couldn’t help it”

“O, dear me! you ask such queer questions that I can’t answer them, Dotty Dimple.  All I know is this:  everything happens just right in this world ­when you can’t help it.”

With which sage remark Prudy stepped out of bed, and began to dress herself.  Dotty planted her elbow in the pillow, and leaned her head on her hand.

“I don’t believe it happens just right for Mrs. Rosenberg to keep that dog, or to thump so with a thimble; but, then, I don’t know.”

“I’m hurrying to get dressed,” said Prudy.  “The first bell has rung.”

“Why, I never heard it,” cried Dotty, springing up.  “I wouldn’t be late to-day for anything.”

Prudy looked anxiously at her little sister to see if she was cross; but her face was as serene as the cloudless sky; she had waked up right, and meant to be good all day.  When Dotty had one of her especially good days, Prudy’s cup of happiness was full.  She ran down stairs singing, ­

“Thank God for pleasant weather! 
  Shout it merrily, ye hills,
And clap your hands together,
  Ye exulting little rills.

“Thank him, bird and birdling,
  As ye grow and sing;
Mingle in thanksgiving,
  Every living thing,
  Every living thing,
  Every living thing.”

Dotty was so anxious to redeem her character in everybody’s eyes, that she hardly knew what she was doing.  Mrs. Parlin sent her into the kitchen with a message to Norah concerning the turkey; but she forgot it on the way, and stood by Norah’s elbow gazing at the raisins, fruit, and other nice things in a maze.

“What did my mamma send me here for?  She ought to said it over twice.  Any way, Norah, now I think of it, I wish you please wouldn’t starch my aprons on the inside; starch ’em on the outside, ’cause they rub against my neck.”

“Go back and see what your mamma wants,” said Norah, laughing.

“Why, mamma,” cried Dotty reappearing in the parlor quite crestfallen ­” why, mamma, I went right up to Norah to ask her, and asked her something else.  My head spins dreadfully.”

Mrs. Parlin repeated the message; and Dotty delivered it this time correctly, adding, ­

“Now, Norah, I’m all dressed for dinner; so I can do something for you just as well as not.  Such days as, this, when you have so much to do, you ought to let me help.”

To Dotty’s surprise Norah found this suggestion rather amusing.

“For mercy’s sake,” said she, “I have got my hands full now; and when you are round, Miss Dotty, and have one of your good fits, it seems as if I should fly.”

“What do you mean by a good fit?”

“Why, you have spells, child ­you know you do ­when butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.”

“Do I?” said Dotty.  “I thought butter always melted in anybody’s mouth.  Does it make my mouth cold to be good, d’ye s’pose?”

“La, me, I don’t know,” replied the girl, washing a potato vigorously.

“I might wash those potatoes,” said Dotty, plucking Norah’s sleeve; “do you put soap on them?”

“Not much soap ­no.”

“Well, then, Norah, you shouldn’t put any soap on them; that’s why I asked; for my mother just washes and rinses ’em; that’s the proper way.”

“For pity’s sake,” said Norah, giving the little busybody a good-natured push.  “What’s going on in the parlor, Miss Dotty?  You’d better run and see.  If you should go in there and look out of the window, perhaps a monkey would come along with an organ.”

“No, he wouldn’t, Norah, and if he did, Prudy’d let me know.”

As Dotty spoke she was employed in slicing an onion, while the tears ran down her cheeks; but a scream from Norah caused her to drop the knife.

“Why, what is it?” said Dotty.

“Ugh!  It’s some horrid little animil crawling down my neck.”

“Let me get him,” cried Dotty, seizing a pin, and rushing at poor Norah, who tried in vain to ward off the pin and at the same time catch the spider.

“Will you let me alone, child?”

“No, no; I want the bug myself,” cried Dotty, pricking Norah on the cheek.

“Want the bug?”

“Yes; mayn’t I stick him through with a pin from ear to ear?  I know a lady Out West that’s making a c’lection of bugs.”

“Well, here he is, then; and a pretty scrape I’ve had catching him; thanks be to you all the same, Miss Dimple.”

As it turned out to be only a hair-pin, Dotty shook her head in disdain, and went on slicing onions.

“Sure now,” said Norah, “I should think you’d be wanting to go and see what’s become of your sister Prudy.  Maybe she’s off on the street somewhere, and never asked you to go with her.”

“Now you’re telling a hint,” exclaimed Dotty, making a dash at a turnip.  “I know what you mean by your monkeys and things; you want to get me away.  It’s not polite to tell hints, Norah; my mamma says so.”

But as Dotty began to see that she really was not wanted, she concluded to go, though she must have it seem that she went of her own accord, and not because of Norah’s “hints.”

“Did you think it was a buggler, when I opened the cellar-door last night, Norah?”

“No; I can’t say as I did ­not when I looked at you,” replied Norah, gravely.

“’Cause I’m going into the parlor to ask mother if she thought I was a buggler.  I believe I won’t help you any more now, Norah; p’rhaps I’ll come out by and by.”

So Dotty skipped away; but it never occurred to her that she had been troublesome.  She merely thought it very strange Norah did not appreciate her services.

“I s’pose she knows mother’ll help her if I don’t,” said she to herself.

Dotty’s goodness ran on with a ceaseless flow till two o’clock, when that event took place which the children regarded as the most important one of the day ­that is, dinner.

After the silent blessing, Mr. Parlin turned to his youngest daughter, and said, ­

“Alice, do you know what Thanksgiving Day is for?”

“Yes, sir; for turkey.”

“Is that all?”

“No, sir; for plum pudding.”

“What do you think about it, Prudy?”

“I think the same as Dotty does, sir,” replied Prudy, with a wistful glance at her father’s right hand, which held the carving knife.

“What do you say, Susy?”

“It comes in the almanac, just like Christmas, sir; and it’s something about the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mayflower.”

“No, Susy; it does not come in the almanac; the Governor appoints it.  We have so many blessings that he sets apart one day in the year in which we are to think them over, and be thankful for them.”

“Yes, sir; yes, indeed,” said Susy.  “I always knew that.”

“Now, before I carve the turkey, what if I ask the question all around what we feel most thankful for to-day?  We will begin with grandmamma.”

“If thee asks me first,” said grandma Read, clasping her blue-veined, beautiful old hands, “I shall say I have everything to be thankful for; but I am most thankful for peace.  Thee knows how I feel about war.”

The children thought this a strange answer.  They had almost forgotten there had ever been a war.

“Now, Mary, what have you to say?” asked Mr. Parlin of his wife.

“I am thankful we are all alive,” replied Mrs. Parlin, looking at the faces around the table with a loving smile.

“And I,” said her husband, “am thankful we all have our eyesight.  I have thought more about it since I have visited two or three Blind Asylums.  Susy, it is your turn.”

“Papa, I’m thankful I’m so near thirteen.”

Mr. Parlin stroked his mustache to hide a smile.  He thought that was a very young remark.

“And you, Prudy?”

“I’m so thankful, sir,” answered Prudy, reflecting a while, “so thankful this house isn’t burnt up.”

“Bless your little grateful heart,” said her father, leaning towards her and stroking her cheek.  “For my part, I think one fire is quite enough for one family.  I confess I never should have dreamed of being thankful we hadn’t had two.  Well, Alice, what have you to say?  I see a thought in your eyes.”

“Why, papa,” said Dotty, laying her forefingers together with emphasis, “I’ve known what I’m thankful for, for two days.  I’m thankful Mrs. Rosenberg isn’t my mother!”

A smile went around the table.

“But, papa, I am, truly.  What should I want her for a mother for?”

“Indeed, I see no reason, my child, since you already have a pretty good mother of your own.”

“Pretty good, papa!” said Dotty, in a tone of mild reproof.  “Why, if she was YOUR mother, you’d think she was very good.”

“Granted,” returned Mr. Parlin.

“I don’t think you’d like it, papa, to have her scold so she shakes down cobwebs.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Rosenberg.”

“Never mind, my dear; we will not discuss that woman to-day.  I hope you will some time learn to pronounce her name.”

Then followed a few remarks from Mr. Parlin upon our duty to the Giver of all good things; after which he began at last to carve the turkey.  The children thought it was certainly time he did so.  They were afraid their thankfulness would die out if they did not have something to eat pretty soon.