At the Little Brown House Part 8

He drew a worn Testament from his pocket, turned to the Fourteenth Chapter of St. John, and slowly, impressively read those beautiful words, "In my Father's house are many mansions," explaining his understanding of the pa.s.sage so clearly, so comfortingly that finally the tears were dried and the aching hearts soothed.

At length the grief-stricken company repaired to the house for their belated breakfast, while the tramp, touched to the quick by the pathos of the scene he had just witnessed, made his way across the fields and through the woods, leaving only a crumpled ten-dollar bill among the grain sacks to tell of his visit.

CHAPTER VI

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 sc.r.a.p out of her pocket, smoothed it out carefully, and pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociated 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 ha.s.sock 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 t.e.e.zing lame Jenny Munn--his name just fits him.