Eighth Reader Part 9

A WINTER EVENING IN OLD NEW ENGLAND

Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost line back with tropic heat; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it pa.s.sed, The merrier up its roaring draft The great throat of the chimney laughed.

The house dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet The mug of cider simmered slow, And apples sputtered in a row.

And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's woods.

What matter how the night behaved?

What matter how the north wind raved?

Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Winter Evening in Old New England.]

THE OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING[20]

I do not know but it is that old New England holiday of Thanksgiving which, for one of New England birth, has most of home a.s.sociations tied up with it, and most of gleeful memories. I know that they are very present ones.

We all knew when it was coming; we all loved turkey--not Turkey on the map, for which we cared very little after we had once bounded it--by the Black Sea on the east, and by something else on the other sides--but basted turkey, brown turkey, stuffed turkey. Here was richness!

We had scored off the days until we were sure, to a recitation mark, when it was due--well into the end of November, when winds would be blowing from the northwest, with great piles of dry leaves all down the sides of the street and in the angles of pasture walls.

I cannot for my life conceive why any one should upset the old order of things by marking it down a fortnight earlier. A man in the country wants his crops well in and housed before he is ready to gush out with a round, outspoken Thanksgiving; but everybody knows, who knows anything about it, that the purple tops and the cow-horn turnips are, nine times in ten, left out till the latter days of November, and husking not half over.

We all knew, as I said, when it was coming. We had a stock of empty flour barrels on Town-hill stuffed with leaves, and a big pole set in the ground, and a battered tar barrel, with its bung chopped out, to put on top of the pole. It was all to beat the last year's bonfire--and it did. The country wagoners had made their little stoppages at the back door. We knew what was to come of that. And if the old cook--a monstrous fine woman, who weighed two hundred if she weighed a pound--was brusque and wouldn't have us "round," we knew what was to come of that, too.

Such pies as hers demanded thoughtful consideration: not very large, and baked in scalloped tins, and with such a relishy flavor to them, as on my honor, I do not recognize in any pies of this generation....

The sermon on that Thanksgiving (and we all heard it) was long. We boys were prepared for that too. But we couldn't treat a Thanksgiving sermon as we would an ordinary one; we couldn't doze--there was too much ahead.

It seemed to me that the preacher made rather a merit of holding us in check--with that basted turkey in waiting. At last, though, it came to an end; and I believe d.i.c.k and I both joined in the doxology.

All that followed is to me now a cloud of misty and joyful expectation, until we took our places--a score or more of cousins and kinsfolk; and the turkey, and celery, and cranberries, and what nots, were all in place.

Did d.i.c.k whisper to me as we went in, "Get next to me, old fellow"?

I cannot say; I have a half recollection that he did. But bless me! what did anybody care for what d.i.c.k said?

And the old gentleman who bowed his head and said grace--there is no forgetting him. And the little golden-haired one who sat at his left--his pet, his idol--who lisped the thanksgiving after him, shall I forget her, and the games of forfeit afterwards at evening that brought her curls near to me?

These fifty years she has been gone from sight, and is dust. What an awful tide of Thanksgivings has drifted by since she bowed her golden locks, and clasped her hand, and murmured, "Our Father, we thank thee for this, and for all thy bounties!"

Who else? Well, troops of cousins--good, bad, and indifferent. No man is accountable for his cousins, I think; or if he is, the law should be changed. If a man can't speak honestly of cousinhood, to the third or fourth degree, what _can_ he speak honestly of? Didn't I see little Floy (who wore pea-green silk) make a saucy grimace when I made a false cut at that rolypoly turkey drumstick and landed it on the tablecloth?

There was that scamp Tom, too, who loosened his waistcoat before he went into dinner. I saw him do it. Didn't he make faces at me, till he caught a warning from Aunt Polly's uplifted finger?

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Thanksgiving Reunion.]

How should I forget that good, kindly Aunt Polly--very severe in her turban, and with her meeting-house face upon her, but full of a great wealth of bonbons and dried fruits on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, in I know not what capacious pockets; ample, too, in her jokes and in her laugh; making that day a great maelstrom of mirth around her?

H---- sells hides now, and is as rich as Croesus, whatever that may mean; but does he remember his venturesome foray for a little bit of crisp roast pig that lay temptingly on the edge of the dish that day?

There was Sarah, too,--turned of seventeen, education complete, looking down on us all--terribly learned (I know for a fact that she kept Mrs.

Hemans in her pocket); terribly self-a.s.serting, too. If she had not married happily, and not had a little brood about her in after years (which she did), I think she would have made one of the most terrible Sorosians of our time. At least that is the way I think of it now, looking back across the basted turkey (which she ate without gravy) and across the range of eager Thanksgiving faces.

There was Uncle Ned--no forgetting him--who had a way of patting a boy on the head so that the patting reached clear through to the boy's heart, and made him sure of a blessing hovering over. That was the patting I liked. _That's_ the sort of uncle to come to a Thanksgiving dinner--the sort that eat double filberts with you, and pay up next day by noon with a pocketknife or a riding whip. Hurrah for Uncle Ned!

And Aunt Eliza--is there any keeping her out of mind? I never liked the name much; but the face and the kindliness which was always ready to cover, as well as she might, what wrong we did, and to make clear what good we did, make me enrol her now--where she belongs evermore--among the saints. So quiet, so gentle, so winning, making conquest of all of us, because she never sought it; full of dignity, yet never a.s.serting it; queening it over all by downright kindliness of heart. What a wife she would have made! Heigho! how we loved her, and made our boyish love of her--a Thanksgiving!

Were there oranges? I think there were, with green spots on the peel--lately arrived from Florida. Tom boasted that he ate four. I dare say he told the truth--he looked peaked, and was a great deal the worse for the dinner next day, I remember.

Was there punch, or any strong liquors? No; so far as my recollection now goes, there was none.

Champagne?

I have a faint remembrance of a loud pop or two which set some cousinly curls over opposite me into a nervous shake. Yet I would not like to speak positively. Good bottled cider or pop beer may possibly account for all the special phenomena I call to mind.

Was there coffee, and were there olives? Not to the best of my recollection; or, if present, I lose them in the glamour of mince pies and Marlborough puddings.

How we ever sidled away from that board when that feast was done I have no clear conception. I am firm in the belief that thanksgiving was said at the end, as at the beginning. I have a faint recollection of a gray head pa.s.sing out at the door, and of a fleece of golden curls beside him, against which I jostle--not unkindly.

Dark?

Yes; I think the sun had gone down about the time when the mince pies had faded.

Did d.i.c.k and Tom and the rest of us come sauntering in afterwards when the rooms were empty, foraging for any little tidbits of the feast that might be left, the tables showing only wreck under the dim light of a solitary candle?

How we found our way with the weight of that stupendous dinner by us to the heights of Town-hill it is hard to tell. But we did, and when our barrel pile was fairly ablaze, we danced like young satyrs round the flame, shouting at our very loudest when the fire caught the tar barrel at the top, and the yellow pile of blaze threw its lurid glare over hill and houses and town.

Afterwards I have recollection of an hour or more in a snug square parlor, which is given over to us youngsters and our games, dimly lighted, as was most fitting; but a fire upon the hearth flung out a red glory on the floor and on the walls.

Was it a high old time, or did we only pretend that it was?

Didn't I know little Floy in that pea-green silk, with my hands clasped round her waist and my eyes blinded--ever so fast? Didn't I give d.i.c.k an awful pinch in the leg, when I lay _perdu_ under the sofa in another one of those tremendous games? Didn't the door that led into the hall show a little open gap from time to time--old faces peering in, looking very kindly in the red firelight flaring on them? And didn't those we loved best look oftenest? Don't they always?

Well, well--we were f.a.gged at last: little Floy in a snooze before we knew it; d.i.c.k, pretending not to be sleepy, but gaping in a prodigious way. But the romps and the fatigue made sleep very grateful when it came at last: yet the sleep was very broken; the turkey and the nuts had their rights, and bred stupendous Thanksgiving dreams. What gorgeous dreams they were, to be sure!

I seem to dream them again to-day.

Once again I see the old, revered gray head bowing in utter thankfulness, with the hands clasped.

Once again, over the awful tide of intervening years--so full, and yet so short--I seem to see the shimmer of _her_ golden hair--an aureole of light blazing on the borders of boyhood: "_For this, and all thy bounties, our Father, we thank thee._"

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