It was the evening before Thanksgiving. Grandma had told Bobby and Alice and Pink about the first Thanksgiving, celebrated so long ago by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony to show their gratitude because their lives had been spared in spite of many hardships and because their crops had been plentiful enough to support them through the coming winter.
And she had told them how that now, on recommendation of the President, the last Thursday of November is set apart by proclamation of the governors of the different states as an annual Thanksgiving Day.
“Thanksgiving at our house was a wonderful time,” Grandma said thoughtfully. “Next to Christmas, it was the best day of all the year, I think. And it always began weeks before the real Thanksgiving Day—when Mother made the mincemeat and the plum pudding and the fruit cakes.
“All day Mother and the girls would work, crumbing bread for the puddings, washing currants, slicing citron, beating eggs, measuring sugar and spices, chopping suet and meat in the big wooden chopping bowl, and seeding raisins. I helped seed the raisins. I liked to seed raisins until I got all I wanted to eat. Then after that I didn’t like the sticky things a bit.
“When everything was all mixed and ready, the pudding would be packed in muslin bags and the cake put in pans lined with writing paper and they would be steamed for hours and hours. When they were done and cool they would be put away, beside the big stone jar of mincemeat, to ripen for Thanksgiving.
“Father said that Thanksgiving came at just the right time of the year. All the fall work was done by then, the corn husked, lots of wood cut, and the butchering was over. The meathouse was filled with hams and sausage and side meat, and there was always a jar of pickled pigs’ feet. The apples had been picked and the potatoes dug and both buried out in the garden alongside the cabbage and beets. The nuts had been gathered in, and the popcorn was ready to pop. The finest pumpkin had been set aside for the pies, and the biggest, proudest, young turkey gobbler was fattened for the Thanksgiving dinner.
“And then, on Thanksgiving morning, what delicious smells came out of our kitchen! You know what they were! You’ve all smelled the very same kind of smells coming out of your kitchen, I know you have. Mm! mm! and the dinner! And every one of the family at home to enjoy it and lots of company, too.
“But we didn’t think of just things to eat, either. Father said folks were likely to do that. We seldom had services at our church on Thanksgiving because the minister was usually off in another part of the circuit holding a meeting. But at the breakfast table, after Father had asked the blessing, to preserve and foster, as he said, the real spirit of the day, each one of us would tell something we had to be thankful for.
“And one Thanksgiving morning Charlie said he couldn’t think of anything to be thankful for except, of course, Father and Mother and good health and Sport, but nothing special, he said. I knew what was the matter with Charlie. He had asked Truman to lend him his gun to take along when he went to look at his traps. Truman had refused because he had just cleaned it, and Father had said Charlie could carry a gun when he was twelve years old and not before.
“Afterward when I went with him to his traps he told me he was tired being thankful for ordinary things like those everybody else had. He wanted something different, such as a silver watch, or a Wild West pony, or a magic lantern.
“He said he could be the thankfulest boy on Sugar Creek if he had any of those things, and he thought Thanksgiving ought to come after Christmas anyhow—then a fellow would have more to be thankful for.
“We were down at the hole under the willows where we fished in summer and the boys set traps for muskrats in winter. It was getting colder, and I told Charlie I thought I’d go on to the house instead of going with him to the cabin in the sugar grove where he and Truman were keeping their skins that winter. The cabin was convenient to the traps, and Truman had put a good lock on the door and he and Charlie each had a key. I wanted to go to the house to play with brother Joe’s baby and see whether anyone else had come and to find out how the dinner was coming on. So Charlie told me to go ahead and he would come as soon as he skinned a couple of muskrats he had caught in his traps.
“There were so many of us and so much confusion that I did not notice until dinner was nearly over that Charlie was not there. When I called Mother’s attention to it, she said he was probably around somewhere and would eat presently. It took a long time to serve dinner that day, and afterward a sled load of neighboring young folks came in and there were games and music and a general good time. No one missed Charlie but me, and I didn’t miss him all the time, either.
“But about four o’clock in the afternoon Mother came out to the kitchen where some of the girls were popping corn and asked anxiously if anyone had seen Charlie. Belle said he hadn’t come in for any dinner.
“‘I can’t imagine where he is,’ Mother said. ‘He never did a thing like this before. He may have met the Orbison boys and gone home with them, but I can’t understand it at all. It isn’t like Charlie.’
“Just then Truman came up from the cellar with a big basket of apples we had polished the previous day.
“‘What about Charlie?’ he asked. ‘Where is he? What’s the trouble?’
“Mother explained that Charlie had gone to his traps early that morning and hadn’t been at the house since, nor been seen by any one since he had started for the cabin with two muskrats to skin.
“Truman just stared at Mother.
“‘You say Charlie went to the cabin this morning?’ he repeated slowly as if he couldn’t believe it. ‘Well, then, by jingoes, Mother, that’s where he is right now!’ And he went on to tell how when he was coming from feeding the stock on the upper place he had noticed that the door of the cabin was shut, but the lock was not snapped. He supposed Charlie had forgotten to tend to it as he had one other night, and so he had snapped it shut and come along home. Charlie had evidently been busy and had not heard the lock click.
“‘Oh, the poor boy!’ cried Mother. ‘Go see about him at once, Truman.’ And she began putting things in the oven to heat.
“And, sure enough, that was where they found Charlie—he had been locked up in the cabin all day. When he found he was locked in, he had tried to pry the windows open, but they were securely nailed down. He had shouted himself hoarse and had even attempted to climb up the chimney and get out that way.
“A little later, when he was thoroughly warmed and had had a good wash and sat at the kitchen table eating his dinner, with Mother piling up good things on his plate and Charlie eating as if he were afraid some one would snatch it away before he got enough, Father came out of the sitting room and stood looking down at him.
“‘Well, son,’ he said, ‘have you thought of anything special to be thankful for yet?’
“‘Yes, sir,’ Charlie answered, grinning. ‘I’m thankful for something to eat and a fire.’
“Well, well, if it isn’t bedtime already!”