Miriam Haven staggered against the door-post,
the widow fell upon her knees, “Thank God, my
boy is heard from.”

Little Sam Peabody darted from the Captain's
knee and rushed upon the balcony, crying at the top
of his lungs, “Grandfather, brother Elbridge is heard
from.”

“I don't believe it,” said William Peabody; the
poor old blind sorrel had disappeared from sight into
a piece of woods near the orchard, and the merchant
had quite recovered his usual way of speaking.
“Never will believe it. You hav'nt heard of that
youngster,—never will. Always knew he would run
away some day—never come back again.”

The Captain's story was rapidly explained by the
different members of the family, who had followed
little Sam, to repeat it to old Sylvester, each in her
own way. Miriam and Hannah Peabody, who at
sound of the commotion had come forth from an
inner chamber, whither she had been retired by herself,
joined the company of lookers on.

“What all amount to,” he continued, in his peculiar
clipped style of speech, “Expect to see him

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

again, do you. Mighty fine chance—where going
to?”

The Captain couldn't tell.

“One of the Captain's fine stories—no—no—if
that boy ever comes back again, I'll—”

There was a deep silence to hear what the hard
old merchant proposed.

“I'll hand over to him the management of his
late father's property, he was always hankering after,
and thought he could make so much more of than
his hard-fisted old uncle.”

This was a comfortable proposition, and little Sam
Peabody, as though it were a great pear or red pippin
that was spoken of, running to his mother, said,

“Mother, I'd take it.”

“I do,” said the widow, “and call you all to
witness.”

William Peabody smiled grimly on Margaret; his
countenance darkened suddenly, and he was, no
doubt, on the point of retracting his confident offer,
when his wife uttered in an under tone, half entreaty,
half authority, “William,” at the same time turning
on her husband the side of the countenance which
wore the green shade. He stifled what he intended

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

to utter, and shifting uneasily in his seat, he looked
toward the city and was silent. Whatever the reason,
it was clear that when they were seated at the
table, partaking of the meal, it was Captain Saltonstall
that had the best attention from every member
of the household, (and the best of the dish,) from
all save old Sylvester, who held himself erect, as
usual, and impartial in the matter.

“The ways of Providence are strange,” said old
Sylvester, “Out of darkness he brings marvellous
light, and from the frivolous acorn he spreads the
branches wide in the air, which are a shelter, and a
solace, and a shadowy play-ground to our youth and
old age. We must wait the issue, and whatever
comes, to Him must we give thanks.”

With this sentiment for a benediction, the patriarch
dismissed his family to their slumbers, which to
each one of the household brought its peculiar train
of speculation; to two, at least, Miriam and the
widow Margaret, they brought dreams which only
the strong light of day could disprove to be realities.

CHAPTER THIRD. THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST.

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

With the following day, (which was calm, gentle,
and serene as its predecessor,) a little after the dispatch
of dinner, the attention of the household was
summoned to the clatter of a hurrying wagon, which,
unseen, resounded in the distant country. Old Sylvester
was the first to hear it—faintly at first, then it
rose on the wind far off, died away in the woods and
the windings of the roads, then again was entirely
lost for several minutes, and at last growing into a
portentous rattle, brought to at the door of the homestead,
and landed from its ricketty and bespattered
bosom Mr. Oliver Peabody, of Ohio; Jane his wife,
a buxom lady of fair complexion, in a Quaker bonnet;
and Robert, their eldest son, a tall, flat-featured
boy, some thirteen years of age.

The countryman in a working shirt, who had the
control of the wagon, and who had been beguiled by
Oliver some five miles out of his road home, (to which
he was returning from the market town,) under pretence
of a wish to have his opinion of the crops—the

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

poor fellow being withal a hired laborer and never
having owned, or entertained the remotest speculation
of owning, a rood of ground of his own,—with a commendation
from Oliver, delivered with a cheerful
smile, that “his observations on timothy were very
much to the purpose,” drove clattering away again.
Mr. Oliver Peabody, farmer, who had come all the
way from Ohio to spend thanksgiving with his old
father—of a ruddy, youthful and twinkling countenance—
who wore his hair at length and unshorn,
and the chief peculiarity of whose dress was a grey
cloth coat, with a row of great horn-buttons on either
breast, with enormous woollen mittens, brought his
buxom wife forward under one arm with diligence,
drawing his tall youth of a son after him by the other
hand—threw himself into the bosom of the Peabody
family, and was heartily welcomed all round. He
didn't say a word of half-horses and half-alligators,
nor of greased lightning, although he was from the
West, but he did complain most bitterly of the uncommon
smoothness of the roads in these parts, the
short grass, and the 'bominable want of elbow-room
all over the neighborhood. It was with difficulty he
could be kept on the straitened stage of the balcony

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

long enough to answer a few plain questions of children
and other matters at home; and immediately
expressed an ardent desire to take a look at the
garden.

“We got somefin' to show thar, Mas'r Oliver,”
said Mopsey, who had stood by listening, with open
mouth and eyes, to the strong statements of the
western farmer, “we haint to be beat right-away no
how!”

Old Sylvester rose with his staff, which he carried
more for pleasure than necessity, and led the way.
As they approached there was visible through all the
plants, shrubs and other growths of the place, whatever
they might be—a great yellow sphere or ball,
so disposed, on a little slope by itself, as to catch the
eye from a distance, shining out in its golden hue
from the garden, a sort of rival to the sun himself,
rolling overhead.

“Dere, what d'ye tink of dat, Oliver,” Mopsey
asked, forgetting in the grandeur of the moment all
distinctions of class or color, “I guess dat's somefin.”

“That's a pumpkin,” said Mr. Oliver Peabody,
calmly.

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

“Yes, I guess it is—de tanksgivin punkin!”

She looked into the western farmer's face, no doubt
expecting a spasm or convulsion, but it was calm—
calm as night. Mopsey condescended not another
word, but walking or rather shuffling disdainfully
away, muttered to herself, “Dat is de very meanest
man, for a white man, I ever did see; he looked at
dat 'ere punkin which has cost me so many anxious
days and sleepless nights—which I have watched
over as thoughf it had been my own child—which I
planted wid dis here hand of my own, and fought for
agin the June bugs and the white frost, and dat mouse
dat's been tryin to eat it up for dis tree weeks and
better—just as if it had been a small green cowcumber.
I don't believe dat Oliver Peabody knows it is
tanksgivin'. He's a great big fool.”

“I see you still keep some of the old red breed,
father,” said Oliver when they were left alone in the
quiet of the garden, pointing to the red rooster, who
stood on the wall in the sun.

“Yes,” old Sylvester answered, “for old times'
sake. We have had them with us now on the farm
for better than a hundred years. I remember the day
the great grandfather of this bird was brought among

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

us. It was the day we got news that good David
Brainard, the Indian missionary, died—that was some
while before the revolutionary war. He died in the
arms of the great Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton;
their souls are at peace.”

“I recollect this fellow,” Oliver continued, referring
to the red rooster, “When I was here last he
was called Elbridge's bird, that was the year before
last.”

“There is no Elbridge now,” said the old grandfather.

“I know all,” said Oliver, “I had a letter from
Margaret, telling me the story and begging me to
keep a watch for her boy.”

“A wide watch to keep and little to be got by it,
I fear,” old Sylvester added.

“Not altogether idle, perhaps; we have sharp eyes
in the West and see many strange things. Jane is
confident she saw our Elbridge, making through
Ohio, but two months after he left here; he was riding
swiftly, and in her surprise and suddenness she
could neither call nor send after him.”

“You did not tell us of that,” said the old man.

“No, I waited some further discovery.”

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

“Be silent now, you may easily waken hopes to be
darkened and dashed to the ground. Which way
made the boy?”

“Southward.”

During this discourse, as though he distinguished
the sound of his young master's name and knew to
what it related, Chanticleer walked slowly, and as if
by accident or at leisure, up and down the garden-wall,
keeping as near to the speakers as was at all
seemly. When they stopped speaking he leaped
gently to the ground and softly clapped his wings.

A moment after there came hurrying into the
garden, in a wild excitement, and all struggling to
speak first, little Sam Peabody in the lead, Robert,
the flat-featured youth of thirteen, and Peabody
Junior, (who, it should be mentioned, having found his
way into a pantry a couple of minutes after his arrival
with the Captain, and appropriated to his own
personal use an entire bottle of cherry brandy, had
been straightway put to bed, from which he had now
been released not more than a couple of hours), and
to announce as clamorously as they respectively
could, that Brundage's Bull had just got into “our
big meadow.”

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

“Nobody hurt?” asked old Sylvester.

“Nobody hurt, grandfather, but he's ploughing
up the meadow at a dreadful rate,” said little Sam
Peabody.

“Like wild,” Peabody Junior added.

This statement, strongly as it was made, seemed
to have no particular effect on old Sylvester. Oliver
Peabody, on the other hand, was exceedingly indignant,
and was for proceeding to extremities immediately,
the expulsion of the Brundage bull, and the
demanding of damages for allowing his cattle to cross
the boundary line of the two farms.

Old Sylvester listened to his violence with a blank
countenance; nor did he seem to comprehend that
any special outrage had been committed, for it must
be acknowledged that the only indication that the
grandfather had come to his second childhood was,
that, with his advancing years, and as he approached
the shadow of the other world, he seemed to have
lost all idea of the customary distinctions of rank
and property, and that very much like an old apostle,
he was disposed to regard all men as brethren,
and boundary lines as of very little consequence.

He therefore promptly checked his son Oliver in

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

his heat, and discountenanced any further proceedings
in the matter.

“Brundage,” he said, “would, if he cared about
him, come and take his bull away when he was
ready; we are all brethren, and have a common
country, Oliver,” he added, “I hope you feel that
in the West, as well as we do here.”

“Thank God, we have,” Oliver rejoined with emphasis,
“and we love it!”

“I thank God for that too,” old Sylvester replied,
striking his staff firmly on the ground, “I remember
well, my son, when your great state was a wilderness
of woods and savage men, and now this common
sky—look at it, Oliver—which shines so clearly above
us, is yours as well as ours.”

“I fear me, father, one day, bright, beautiful, and
wide-arched as it is, the glorious Union may fall,”
said Oliver, laying his hand upon an aged tree which
stood near them, “may fall, and the states drop, one
by one away, even as the fruit I shake to the ground.”

As though he had been a tower standing on an
elevation, old Sylvester Peabody rose aloft to his full
height, as if he would clearly contemplate the far past,
the distant, and the broad-coming future.

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

“The Union fall!” he cried. “Look above, my
son! The Union fall! as long as the constellations
of evening live together in yonder sky; look down,
as long as the great rivers of our land flow eastward
and westward, north and south, the Union shall stand
up, and stand majestical and bright, beheld by ages,
as these shall be, an orb and living stream of glory
unsurpassable.”

The children were gathered about, and watched with
eager eyes and glowing cheeks, the countenance of
the grandfather as he spoke.

“No, no, my son,” he added, “there's many a true
heart in brave Ohio, as in every state of ours, or they
could not be the noble powers they are.”

While old Sylvester spoke, Oliver Peabody wrenched
with some violence, from the tree near which they
stood, a stout limb, on the end of which he employed
himself with a knife in shaping a substantial knob.

“What weapon is that you are busy with, Oliver?”
old Sylvester asked.

“It's for that nasty bull,” Oliver replied. “I would
break every bone in his body rather than let him remain
for a single minute on my land; the furtherance
of law and order demands the instant enforcement
of one's rights.”

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

“You are a friend of law and order, my son.”

“I think I am,” Oliver answered, standing erect
and planting his club, in the manner of Hercules in
the pictures, head down on the ground.

“I hope you are, Oliver; but I fear you forget the
story I used to tell of my old friend Bulkley, of Danbury,
who, being written to by some neighboring
Christians who were in sore dissension, for advisement,
gave them back word:—Every man to look
after his own fence, that it be built high and strong,
and to have a special care of the old Black Bull;
meaning thereby no doubt, our own wicked passions;—
that is the true Christian way of securing peace
and good order.”

Oliver threw his great trespass-club upon the
ground, and was on the point of asking after an old
sycamore, the largest growth of all that country,
which, standing in a remote field had, in the perilous
times sheltered many of the Peabody family in
its bosom—when he was interrupted by the sudden
appearance of Mopsey in a flutter of cap-strings, shuffling
shoes, and a flying color in her looks of at least
double the usual depth of darkness. It was just discovered
that the poultry-house had been broken into

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

over night, and four of the fattest hens taken off by
the throat and legs, besides sundry of the inferior
members of the domicile; as wicked a theft, Mopsey
said, as ever was, and she hadn't the slightest hesitation
in charging it on them niggers in the Hills, (a
neighboring settlement of colored people, who lived
from hand to mouth, and seemed to be fed, like the
ravens by some mystery of providence.)

Oliver Peabody watched closely the countenance
of the patriarch, not a little curious to learn what
effect this announcement would have upon his temper.

“This is all our own fault,” said old Sylvester,
promptly. “We should have remembered this was
thanksgiving time, and sent them something to stay
their stomachs. Poor creatures, I always wondered
how they got along! Send 'em some bread, Mopsey,
for they never can do anything with fowls without
bread!”

“Send 'em some bread!” Mopsey rejoined, growing
blacker and more ugly of look as she spoke:
“Send 'em whips, and an osifer of the law!—the four
fattest of the coop.”

“Never mind,” said old Sylvester.

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

“Six of the ten'drest young'uns!”

“Never mind that,” said old Sylvester.

“I'd have them all in the county jail before sundown,”
urged Mopsey.

“Oliver, we will go in to tea,” continued the patriarch.
“We have enough for tea, Mopsey?”

“Yes, quite enough, Mas'r.”

“Then,” cried the old man, striking his staff on the
ground with great violence, rising to his full height,
and glowing like a furnace, upon Mopsey, “then, I
say, send 'em some bread!”

This speech, delivered in a voice of authority, sent
Mopsey, shuffling and cowering, away, without a
word, and brought the sweat of horror to the brow of
Oliver, which he proceeded to remove with a great
cotton pocket-handkerchief, produced from his coat
behind, on which was displayed in glowing colors, by
some cunning artist, the imposing scene of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence getting ready
to affix their names. Mr. Oliver Peabody was the
politician of the family, and always had the immortal
Declaration of Independence at his tongue's end,
or in hand.

CHAPTER FOURTH. THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED.

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

When Oliver and old Sylvester entered the house
they found all of the family gathered within, save
the children, who loitered about the doors and windows,
looking in, anxious-eyed, on the preparations
for tea going forward under the direction of the
widow Margaret, and Mopsey. The other women of
the household were busy with a discussion of the
merits of Mrs. Carrack, of Boston, the fashionable
lady of the family.

“I should like to see Mrs. Carrack above all
things,” said the Captain's pretty little wife, “she
must be a fine woman from all I have heard of her.”

“Thee will have small chance, I fear, child,”
said Mrs. Jane Peabody, sitting buxomly in an easy
arm chair, which she had quietly assumed, “she is
too fine for the company of us plain folks in every
point of view.”

“It's five years since she was here,” the widow

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

suggested as she adjusted the chairs around the table,
“she said she never would come inside the house
again, because the best bed-chamber was not given
to her—I am sorry to say it.”

“She's a heathen and wicked woman,” Mopsey
said, shuffling at the door, and turning back on her
way to the kitchen—“your poor boy was lying low
of a fever and how could she expect it.”

“In one point of view she may come; her husband
was living then,” continued Mrs. Jane Peabody,
“she has become a rich woman since, and may honor
us with a visit—to show us how great a person she has
got to be—let her come—it need'nt trouble thee, nor
me, I'm sure.” Mrs. Jane Peabody smoothed her
Quaker vandyke, and sat stiffly in her easy chair.

Old Sylvester entering at that moment, laid aside
his staff and broad-brimmed hat, which little Sam
Peabody ran in to take charge of, and took his seat
at the head of the table; the Captain, who was busy
at the back-door scouring an old rusty fowling-piece
for some enterprise he had in view in the morning,
was called in by his little wife; the others were seated
in their places about the board.

“Where's William?” old Sylvester asked.

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

He was at a window in the front room, where he
had sat for several hours, with spectacles on his brow,
poring over an old faded parchment deed, which
related to some neighboring land he thought belonged
to the Peabodys, (although in possession of others,)
and which he had always made a close study of on
his visits to the homestead. There was a dark passage,
under which he made their title, which had
been submitted to various men learned in the law;
it was too dark and doubtful, in their opinion, to
build a contest on, and yet William Peabody gave it
every year a new examination, with the hope, perhaps,
that the wisdom of advancing age might
enable him to fathom and expound it, although it
had been drawn up by the greatest lawyer of his
day in all that country. His wife Hannah, grieving
in spirit that her husband should be toiling forever in
the quest of gain, sat near him, pale, calm and disheartened,
but speaking not a word. He could not
look at her with that fearful green shade on her face,
but kept his eyes always fixed on the old parchment.
When his aged father had taken his seat, and began
his thanks to God for the bounties before them, as
though the old Patriarch had brought a better spirit

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

from the calm day without, he thrust the paper into
his bosom and glided to his place at the table. It
would have done you good to hear that old man's
prayer. He neither solicited forgiveness for his
enemies nor favors for his friends; for schools,
churches, presidents or governments; neither for
health, wealth, worldly welfare, nor for any single
other thing; all he said, bowing his white old head,
was this:

“May we all be Christian people the day we die—
God bless us.”

That was all; and his kinsfolk lost no appetite in
listening to it—for it was no sooner uttered than they
all fell to—and not a word more was spoken for five
minutes at least, nor then perhaps, had not little Sam
Peabody cried out, with breathless animation, and
delight of feature,

“The pigeons, grandfather!” at the same time
pointing from the door to the evening sky, along
which they were winging their calm and silent flight
in a countless train—streaming on westward as
though there was no end to them; which put old
Sylvester upon recalling the cheerful sports of his
younger days.

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

“I have taken a couple of hundred in a net on the
Hill before breakfast, many a time,” he said. “You
used to help me, William.”

“Yes, I and old Ethan Barbary,” said the merchant,
“used to spring the net; you gave the word.”

“Old Ethan has been dead many a day. Ethan,”
continued old Sylvester, in explanation, “was the
father of our Mr. Barbary. He was a preacher too,
and carried a gun in the revolution. I remember he
was accounted a peculiar man. I never knew why.
To be sure he used to spend the time he did not employ
in prayers, preaching and tending the sick, in
working on the farms about, for he had no wages for
preaching. When there was none of that to be had,
he took his basket, and sallying through the fields,
gathered berries, which he bestowed on the needy
families of the neighborhood. In winter he collected
branches in the woods about, as fire-wood for the
poor.”

“That was a capital idea,” said Oliver the politician.
“It must have made him very popular.”

“Wasn't he always thought to be a little out of
his head?” asked the merchant. “He might have
sold the wood for a good price in the severe winters.”

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

“I remember as if it were yesterday,” old Sylvester
went on in his own way, not heeding in the slightest
the suggestions of his sons, “he and black Burling,
who is buried in the woods by the Great Walnut
tree, near the pond, both fought in the American
ranks, and had but one gun between them, which
they used turn about.”

“You saw rough times in those days, grandfather,”
said the Captain.

“I did, Charley,” old Sylvester answered, looking
kindly on the Captain, who had always been something
of a favorite of his from the day he had married
into the family; “and there are but few left to talk
with me of them now. I am one of the living survivors
of an almost extinguished race. The grave
will soon be our only habitation. I am one of the
few stalks that still remain in the field where the tempest
passed. I have fought against the foreign foe
for your sake; they have disappeared from the land,
and you are free; the strength of my arm delays,
and my feet fail me in the way; the hand which
fought for your liberties is now open to bless you.
In my youth I bled in battle that you might be independent—
let not my heart, in my old age, bleed

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

because you abandon the path I would have you follow.”

The old patriarch leaned his head upon his hand,
and the company was silent as though they had
listened to a voice from the grave. He presently
looked up and smiled—“Old Ethan, I call to mind
now,” he renewed, “had a quality which our poor
Barbary inherited, and for which,” he added, looking
toward his son William, “and for which I greatly
honor his memory. He counted the money of this
world but as dross. From his manhood to the very
moment of his entering on the ministry, he never
would touch silver nor gold, partly, I think, because
it was the true Scripture course, and partly because a
dreadful murder had once happened in the Barbary
family, growing out of a quarrel for the possession of
a paltry sum of money.”

The bread she was raising to her lips fell from the
widow's hand, for she could not help but think of the
history of her absent son; and the voice of Miriam,
who did not present herself at the table, was heard
from a distant chamber, not distinctly, but in that
tone of chanting lament which had become habitual
to her whether in house, garden, or field. It was an

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

inexpressibly mournful cadence, and for the time stilled
all other sounds. They were only drawn away
from it by descrying Mopsey, the black servant, at a
turn of the road, hurrying with great animation towards
the homestead, but with a singularity in her
progress which could not fail to be observed. She
rushed along at great speed, for several paces, and
suddenly came to a halt, during which her head disappeared,
and then renewed her pace, repeating the
peculiar manœuvre once at least in every ten yards.
In a word, she was shuffling on in her loose shoes,
(which were on or off, one or the other of them every
other minute,) at as rapid a rate as that peculiar species
of locomotion allowed. Bursting with impatience
and the importance of her communication, her cap
flaunting from her head, she stood in the doorway
and announced, “We've beat Brundage—we've beat
Brundage!”

“What's this, Mopsey?” old Sylvester inquired.

“I've tried it and I've spanned it. I can't span
ours!”

On further questioning it appeared that Mopsey
had been on a pilgrimage to the next neighbor's, the
Brundages, to inspect their thanksgiving pumpkin,

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

and institute a comparison with the Peabody growth
of that kind, with a highly satisfactory and complacent
result as regarded the home production. Nobody
was otherwise than pleased at Mopsey's innocent
rejoicing, and when she had been duly complimented
on her success, she went away with a broad
black guffaw to set a trap in the garden for the
brown mouse, the sole surviving enemy of the great
Peabody thanksgiving pumpkin which must be plucked
next day for use.

With the dispatch of the evening meal, old Sylvester
withdrew to the other room, with a little hand
lamp, to read a chapter by himself. The others
remaining seated about the apartment; the Captain
and Oliver presently fell into a violent discussion on
the true sources of national wealth, the Captain giving
it as his opinion that it solely depended on having
a great number of ships at sea, as carriers between
different countries. Oliver was equally clear and
resolute that the real wealth of a nation lay in its
wheat crops. When wheat was at ten shillings the
bushel, all went well; let it fall a quarter, and you
had general bankruptey staring you in the face. Mr.
William Peabody was'nt at the pains to deliver his

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

opinion, but he was satisfied, in his secret soul, that
it lay in the increase of new houses, or the proper
supply of calicoes—he had'nt made up his mind
which. Presently Oliver was troubled again in reference
to the supply of gold in the world—whether
there was enough to do business with; he also had
some things to say (which he had out of a great
speech in Congress) about bullion and rates of exchange,
but nobody understood him.

“By the way,” he added, “Mrs. Carrack's son
Tiffany is gone to the Gold Region. From what he
writes to me I think he'll cut a very great figure in
that country.”

“An exceedingly fine, talented young man,” said
the merchant, who had, then, sundry sums on loan
from his mother.

“In any point of view, in which you regard it,”
continued Oliver, “the gold country is an important
acquisition.”

“You hav'nt the letter Tiffany wrote, with you?”
interrupted the Captain.

“I think I have,” was the answer. “I brought
it, supposing you might like to look at it. Shall I
read it?”

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

There was no objection—the letter was read—in
which Mr. Tiffany Carrack professed his weariness of
civilized life—spoke keenly of misspent hours—a
determination to rally and do something important,
intimating that that was a great country for enterprising
young men, and, in a familiar phrase, closed
with a settled resolution to do or die.

“I have a letter to the same effect,” said the Captain.

“And so have I,” said William Peabody, “word
for word.”

“He means to do something very grand,” said the
Captain. Something very grand — the women all
agreed—for Mr. Tiffany Carrack was a nice young
man, and had a prospect of inheriting a hundred
thousand dollars, to say nothing of the large sums he
was to bring from the Gold Regions. It was evident
to all that he was going into the business with a
rush. They, of course, would'nt see Mr. Tiffany
Carrack at this Thanksgiving gathering—he had better
business on hand—Mr. Tiffany Carrack was clearly
the promising young man of the family, and was
carrying the fortunes of the Peabodys into the remotest
quarters of the land.

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

“In a word,” said Mr. Oliver Peabody, developing
the Declaration of Independence on his pocket-handkerchief.
“He is going to do wonders in every point
of view. He'll carry the principles of Free Government
everywhere!”

The consideration of the extraordinary talents and
enterprise of the son imparted a new interest to the
question of the coming of Mrs. Carrack; which was rediscussed
in all its bearings; and it was almost unanimously
concluded—that, one day now only intervening
to Thanksgiving—it was too late to look for her.
There had been a general disposition, secretly opposed
only by Mrs. Jane Peabody, to yield to that fashionable
person the best bed-chamber, which was always accounted
a great prize and distinguished honor among
the family. But now there was scarcely any need of
reserving it longer—and who was to have it? Alas!
that is a question often raised in rural households,
often shakes them to the very base, and spreads
through whole families a bitterness and strength and
length of strife, which frequently ends only with
life itself.

To bring the matter to an issue, various whispered
conversations were held in the small room, lying next

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

to the sitting-room, at first between Mrs. Margaret
Peabody and Mopsey, to which one by one were summoned,
Mrs. Jane Peabody, the Captain's wife, and
Mrs. Hannah Peabody. The more it was discussed
the farther off seemed any reasonable conclusion.
When one arrangement was proposed, various faces
of the group grew dark and sour; when another,
other faces blackened and elongated; tongues, too,
wagged faster every minute, and at length grew to
such a hubbub as to call old Sylvester away from his
Bible and bring him to the door to learn what turmoil
it was that at this quiet hour disturbed the peace
of the Peabodys. He was not long in discovering
the ground of battle, and even as in old pictures
Adam is shown walking calmly in Eden among the
raging beasts of all degrees and kinds, the old patriarch
came forward among the women of the Peabody
family—“My children,” he said, “should dwell in
peace for the short stay allotted them on earth. Why
make a difference about so small a matter as a lodging-place—
they are all good and healthful rooms. I
have seen the day when camping on the wet grounds
and morasses I would have held any one of them to
be a palace-chamber. The back chamber, my child,”

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

he continued, addressing the Captain's wife, “looks
out on the orchard, where you always love to walk;
the white room, Hannah, towards your father's
house; and Jane, you cannot object to the front chamber
which is large, well-furnished, and has the best
of the sunrise. The Son of Man, my children, had
not where to lay his head, and shall we who are but
snails and worms, compared with his glory and goodness,
presume to exalt ourselves, where he was
abased.”

The old patriarch wished them a good night,
and with the departure of his white locks gleaming
as he walked away, as though it had been the
gentle radiance of the moon stilling the tumult of
the waters, they each quietly retired, and without a
further murmur, to the chambers assigned them.

CHAPTER FIFTH. THE CHILDREN.

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

There was no question where the children were to
lodge, for there had been allotted to them from time
immemorial, ever since children were known in the
Peabody family, a great rambling upper chamber,
with beds in the corners, where they were always bestowed
as soon after dark as they could be convoyed
thither under direction of Mopsey and the mistress
of the household. This was not always—in truth it
was rarely—easy of achievement, and cost the shuffling
black servant at least half an hour of diligent search
and struggling persuasion to bring them in from the
various strayings, escapes, and lurking-places, where
they shirked to gain an extra half-hour of freedom.

To the children, however darker humors might
work and sadden among the grown people, (for whatever
hue rose-favored writers may choose to throw
over scenes and times of festivity, the passions of character
are always busy, in holiday and hall, as well as

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

in the strifes of the world,) to the Peabody children
this was thanksgiving time indeed—it was thanksgiving
in the house, it was thanksgiving in the orchard,
climbing trees; it was thanksgiving in the barn,
tumbling in the hay, in the lane. It was thanksgiving,
too, with the jovial Captain, a grown-up boy,
heading their sports and allowing the country as he
did, little rest or peace of mind wherever he lead the
revel; it was not four-and-twenty hours that he had
been at the quiet homestead before the mill was set
a-running, the chestnut-trees shaken, the pigeons
fired into, a new bell of greater compass put upon the
brindle cow, the blacksmith's anvil at the corner of
the road set a-dinging, fresh weather-cocks clapped
upon the barn, corn-crib, stable, and out-house, the
sheep let out of the little barn, all the boats of the
neighborhood launched upon the pond. With night,
darkness closed upon wild frolic; bed-time came, and
thanksgiving had a pause; a pause only, for Mopsey's
dark head, with its broad-bordered white cap, was no
sooner withdrawn and the door firmly shut, than
thanksgiving began afresh, as though there had been
no such thing all day long, and they were now just
setting out. For half a minute after Mopsey's

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

disappearance they were all nicely tucked in as she had left
them—straight out—with their heads each square on
its pillow; then, as if by a silent understanding, all
heads popped up like so many frisking fish. They
darted from bed and commenced in the middle of the
chamber, a great pillow-fight amicable and hurtless,
but furiously waged, till the approach of a broad foot-step
sent them scampering back to their couches,
mum as mice. Mopsey, well aware of these frisks,
tarried till they were blown over, in her own chamber
hard by, a dark room, mysterious to the fancy of
the children, with spinning wheels, dried gourd-shells
hung against the wall, a lady's riding-saddle, now out
of use this many a day, and all the odds and ends of an
ancient farm-house stored in heaps and strings about.

It was only at last by going aloft and moving a
trap in the ceiling, which was connected in tradition
with the appearance of a ghost, that they were at
length fairly sobered down and kept in bed, when
Mopsey, looking in for the last time, knew that it
was safe to go below. They had something left even
then, and kept up a talk from bed to bed, for a good
long hour more, at least.

“What do you think of the turkey, Bill?” began

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

Master Robert Peabody, the flat-featured, rising from
his pillow like a homely porpoise.

“I don't know,” Peabody Junior answered, “I
don't care for turkeys.”

Little Sam Peabody, the master of the turkey,
took this very much to heart.

“I think he's a very fine one,” continued Master
Robert, “twice as big as last year's.”

“I'm very glad to hear you say that, Cousin Robert,”
said little Sam Peabody, turning over toward
the quarter whence the voice of encouragement
came.

“As fine a turkey as I've ever seen,” Robert went on.
“When do they kill him?”

Little Sam struggled a little with himself, and
answered feebly, “To-morrow.”

There was silence for several minutes, broken presently
by Peabody Junior, fixing his pillow, and saying
“Boys, I'm going to sleep.”

Allowing some few minutes for this to take effect,
Master Robert called across the chamber to little Sam,
“I wonder why Aunt Hannah wears that old green
shade on her face?”

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

“Pray don't say anything about that,” little Sam
answered, “Cousin don't like to hear about that!”

Master Robert—rather a blunt young gentleman—
is not to be baffled so easily.

“I say, Bill, why does your mother wear that
green patch over her eye?” he called out.

There was no answer; he called again in a louder
key.

“Hush!” whispered Peabody Junior, who was
not asleep, but only thinking of it, in a tone of fear,
“I don't know.”

“Is the eye gone?” Robert asked again, bent on
satisfaction of some kind.

“I don't know,” was the whispered answer again.
“Don't ask me anything about it.”

“I'm afraid Aunt Hannah's not happy,” suggested
little Sam, timidly.

“Pr'aps she is'nt, Sam,” Peabody Junior answered.

“What is the reason,” continued little Sam, “I
always liked her.”

“Don't know,” was all Peabody Junior had to
reply.

“Did you ever see that other eye? Bill,” asked the

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

blunt young gentleman, whose head was still running
on the green shade.

“Oh, go to sleep, will you, Nosey,” cried Peabody
Junior. “If you don't leave me alone I'll get up
and wollop you.”

The flat-featured disappeared with his porpoise
face under the bed-clothes and breathed hard, but
kept close; and when he fell asleep he dreamed of
dragons and green umbrellas all night, at a fearful
rate.

“I would'nt be angry, Cousin,” said little Sam,
when the porpoise gave token that he was hard-bound
in slumber. “He don't mean to hurt your
feelings, I don't believe.”

“Pr'aps he don't,” Peabody Junior rejoined.
“What could I tell him, if I wanted to; all I know
is, mother has worn the shade ever since I can recollect
anything. I think sometimes I can remember
she used to have it on as far back as when I was at
the breast, a very little child, and that I used to try
and snatch it away—which always made her very
sad.”

“Don't she ever take it away?” asked little Sam.

“I never saw it off in all my life; nor can I tell

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

you whether my dear mother has one eye or two. I
know she never likes to have any one look at it. It
makes her melancholy at once; nurse used to tell me
there was a mystery about it—but she would never
tell me any more. It always scares father when she
turns that side of her face on him, that I've noticed;
and he always at home sits on the other side of the
table from it.”

“I would'nt think any more about it to-night,
Cousin,” said little Sam. “I know it makes you
unhappy from your voice. Don't you miss some one
to-night that used to keep us awake with telling
pleasant stories?”

“I do,” answered Peabody Junior. “I'm thinking
of him now. I wish Cousin Elbridge was back again.”

“You know why he is'nt?”

“Father says it's because he's a bad young man.”

“And do you believe it, William?”

“I'm afraid he is—for father always says so.”

A gentle figure had quietly opened the chamber-door,
and stood listening with breathless attention to
the discourse of the two children.

“You wait and see,” continued little Sam firmly,
“I'm sure he'll come back—and before long.”

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

“What makes you think so?” William asked.
“I'm sure I hope he will.”

“Because the red rooster,” answered little Sam,
“crowed yesterday morning for the first time since
he went away, and the red rooster knows more than
anybody about this farm except old grandfather.”

Thinking how that could be, Peabody Junior fell
asleep; and little Sam, sure to dream of his absent
brother, shortly followed after. The gentle figure of
Miriam Haven glided into the chamber, to the bed-side
of little Sam, and watching his calm, innocent features—
which were held to greatly resemble those of
the absent Elbridge—with tears in her eyes, she
breathed a blessing from her very heart on the dear
child who had faith in the absent one. “A blessing!”
such was her humble wish as she returned to her
chamber and laid her fair head on the pillow, “a
blessing on such as believe in us when we are in
trouble and poverty, out of favor with the world,
when our good name is doubted, and when the current
running sharply against, might overwhelm us,
were not one or two kind hands put forth to save
us from utter ruin and abandonment!”

CHAPTER SIXTH. THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON.

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

All the next day, being the Wednesday before
thanksgiving, was alive and busy with the various
preparations for the great festival, now held to be a
sacred holiday throughout this wide-spread union.
The lark had no sooner called morning in the meadow
than Mopsey, who seemed to regard herself as
having the entire weight of the occasion on her single
shoulders, slipped from bed, hurried to the garden,
and taking a last look at the great pumpkin as it lay
in all its golden glory, severed the vine at a stroke
and trundled it with her own arms, (she saw with a
smile of pity the poor brown mouse skulking off, like
a little pirate as he was, disappointed of his prize,) in
at the back-door. The Peabodys were gathering for
breakfast, and coming forward, stood at either side of
the entrance regarding the pumpkin with profound
interest. It fairly shook the house as it rolled in upon
the kitchen floor.

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

When little Sam, who had lingered in bed beyond
the others, with pleasant dreams, came down stairs,
he was met by young William Peabody.

“What do you think, Sam?” said Peabody Junior,
smiling.

“I suppose Aunt Carrack has come,” Sam answered.
“It's nothing to me if she has.”

“No, that isn't it.—Turkey's dead!”

Little Sam dropped a tear, and went away by himself
to walk in the garden. Little Sam took no
breakfast that morning.

Every window in the house was thrown wide open
to begin with; every chair walked out of its place;
the new broom which Miriam had gathered with a
song, was used for the first time freely on every floor,
in every nook and corner; then the new broom was
carried away, and locked in a closet like a conjuror
who had wrought his spell and need not appear again
till some other magic was to be performed. All the
chairs were set soberly and steadily against the wall,
the windows were closed, and a sacred shade thrown
over the house against the approaching festival. The
key was turned in the lock of the old parlor, which
was to have no company (save the tall old clock

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

talking all alone in the corner to himself) till to-morrow.

And so the day sailed on, like a dainty boat with
silent oar on a calm-flowing stream, to evening, when,
as though it had been a new-born meteor or great
will-o'-the-wisp, there appeared on the edge of the
twilight, along the distant horizon, a silvery glitter,
which, drawing nearer and nearer, presently disclosed
a servant in a shining band mounted on a great
coach, with horses in burnished harness; with champing
speed, which it seemed must have borne it far
beyond, it came to in a moment at the very gate of
the homestead, as at the striking of a clock. A gentleman
in bearded lip, in high polish of hat, chains
and boots, emerged, (the door being opened by a
stripling also in a banded hat, who leaped from behind,)
followed by a lady in a gown of glossy silk and
a yellow feather, waving in the partial darkness from
her hat. Such wonder and astonishment as seized on
the Peabodys, who looked on it from the balcony, no
man can describe.

Angles have descended before now and walked
upon the earth—giants have been at some time or
other seen strutting about—ghosts appear

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

occasionally in the neighborhood of old farm-houses, but neither
ghost, giant, nor angel had such a welcome of uplifted
hands and staring eyes as encountered Mrs.
Carrack and her son Tiffany, when they, in the body
entered in at the gate of the old Peabody mansion at
that time. There was but one person in the company,
old Sylvester perhaps excepted, who seemed to
have his wits about him, and that was the red rooster
who, sitting on the wall near the gate when Mr.
Tiffany Carrack pushed it open, cocked his eye smartly
on him, and darted sharply at his white hand, with
its glittering jewel as he laid it on the gate.

“Nancy,” said old Sylvester, addressing her with
extended grasp, and a pleasant smile of welcome on
his brow, “we had given up looking for you.”

Was there ever such a rash old man! “Nancy!”
as though she had been a common person he was
speaking to.

Mrs. Carrack, who was a short woman, stiff and
stern, tossing her feather, gave the tips of her fingers
to the patriarch, and ordering in a huge leathern
trunk all over brass nails and capital C's, condescended
to enter into the house. In spite of all resolutions
and persuasions to the contrary the door of the best

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

parlor unlocked before her grandeur of demeanor, and
she took possession as though she had not the slightest
connection with the other members of the Peabody
family, nor the remotest interest in the common
sitting-room without. Mr. Tiffany Carrack, with
patent shanks to his boots which sprang him into the
air as he walked, corsets to brace his body in, new-fangled
straps to keep him down, a patent collar of a
peculiar invention, to hold his head aloft, moving as
it were under the convoy of a company of invisible
influences, deriving all his motions from the shoe-maker,
stay-maker, tailor and linen-draper, who originally
wound him up and set him a-going, for whose
sole convenience he lives, having withal, by way of
paint to his ashy countenance, a couple of little conch-shell
tufts, tawny-yellow, (that being the latest to be
had at the perfumer's,) on his upper lip; the representative
and embodiment of all the latest new improvements,
patents, and contrivances in apparel, Mr. Tiffany
Carrack followed his excellent mother.

“Why, Tiffany,” said old Sylvester, who notwithstanding
the immensity of these people, calmly pursued
his old course, “we all thought you were in
California.”

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

The family were gathered around and awaited Mr.
Tiffany Carrack's answer with a good deal of curiosity.

“That was all a delusion, sir,” he replied, plucking
at his little crop of yellow tufts,—“a horrible delusion.
I had some thought of that kind in my mind,
in fact I had got as far south as New Orleans, when
I met a seedy fellow who told me that the natives
had rebelled and wouldn't work any more; so I
found if I would get any of the precious, I must dig
with a shovel with my own dear digits; of course I
turned back in disgust, and here I am as good as
new—Jehoshaphat!”

It was well that Mr. Tiffany had a fashion of emphasizing
his discourse with a reference to this ancient
person, whom he supposed to have been an excuisite
of the first water, which happily furnished a
cover under which the entire Peabody family exploded
with laughter at Mr. Carrack's announcement of
the sudden termination of his grand expedition to the
Gold Region. Without an exception they all went
off in an enormous burst, the Captain, little Sam, and
Mopsey leading.

“Every word true, 'pon my honor,” repeated Mr.
Carrack.

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

The great burst was renewed.

“It was a capital idea, wasn't it?” he said again,
supposing he had made a great hit.

The explosion for the third time, but softened a
little by pity in the female section of the chorus.

Mrs. Carrack had sat stately and aloof, with an
inkling in her brain that all this mirthful tumult was
not entirely in the nature of a complimentary tribute
to her son.

“I think,” she said, with haughty severity of aspect,
“my son was perfectly right. It was a sinful
and a wicked adventure at the best, as the Reverend
Strawbery Hyson clearly showed from the fourth Revelations,
in his last annual discourse to the young
ladies of the church.”

“He did, so he did,” said Mr. Tiffany, stroking
his chin, “I remember perfectly: it was very prettily
stated by Hyson.”

“The Reverend Strawbery Hyson,” said Mrs. Carrack.
“Always give that excellent man his full title.
What would you say, my son, if he should appear in
the streets without his black coat and white cravat?
Would you have any confidence in his preaching
after that?”

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

“Next to myself,” answered Mr. Tiffany, “I think
our parson's the best-dressed man in Boston.”

“He should be, as an example,” said Mrs. Carrack.
“He has a very genteel congregation.”

Old Sylvester, who had on at that moment an old
brown coat and a frayed black ribbon for a neck-cloth,
ordered Mopsey to send the two best pies in the
house immediately to the negroes in the Hills. Mrs.
Carrack smiled loftily, and drew from her pocket an
elegant small silver vial of the pure otto of rose, and
applied it to her nostrils as though something disagreeable
had just struck upon the air and tainted it.

“By the way,” said Mr. Tiffany Carrack, adjusting
his shirt collar, “how is my little friend Miriam?”

“Melancholy!” was the only answer any one had
to make.

“So I thought,” pursued Mr. Carrack, rolling his
eyes and heaving an infant sigh from his bosom.
“Poor thing, no wonder, if she thought I was gone
away so far. She shall be comforted.”

Mopsey looking in at this moment, gave the summons
to tea, which was answered by Mr. Tiffany Carrack's
offering his arm, impressively, to his excellent
mother, and leading the way to the table.

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

It was observed, that in his progress to the tea-table,
Mr. Tiffany adopted a tottering and uncertain step,
indicating a dilapidated old age, only kept together
by the clothes he wore, which was altogether unintelligible
to the Peabody family, seeing that Mr.
Carrack was in the very prime of youth, till Mrs. Carrack
remarked, with an affectionate smile of motherly
pride:

“You remind me more and more every day, Tiff,
of that dear delightful old Baden-Baden.”

“I wish the glorious old fellow would come over to
me for a short lark,” rejoined Mr. Tiffany. “But he
couldn't live here long; there's nothing old here.”

“Who's Baden Baden?” asked Sylvester.

“Only a prince of my acquaintance on the other
side of the water, and a devilish clever fellow. But
he could'nt stand it here—I'm afraid—everything's
so new.”

“I'm rather old,” suggested Sylvester, smiling on
the young man.

“So you are, by Jove—But that aint the thing I
want exactly; I want an old castle or two, and a donjon-keep,
and that sort of thing.—You understand.”

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

“Something,” suggested the grandfather, “in the
style of the old revolutionary fort on Fort Hill?”

“No—no—you don't take exactly. I mean something
more in the antique—something or other, you
see”—here he began twirling his forefinger in the
air and sketching an amorphous phantom of some
sort, of an altogether unattainable character, “in a
word—Jehoshaphat!”

The moment the eye of Mrs. Carrack fell upon the
blue and white crockery, the pewter plates which had
been in use time out of mind in the family, and the
plain knives and forks of steel, she cast on her son a
significant glance of mingled surprise and contempt.
“Thomas,” she said, standing before the place assigned
to her, her son doing the same, “the napkins!”

The napkins were brought from a great basket
which had accompanied the leathern trunk.

“The other things!”

The other things, consisting of china plates, cups
and saucers, and knives and forks of silver for two,
were duly laid—Mrs. Carrack and her son having
kept the rest of the family waiting the saying of
grace by old Sylvester, were good enough to be seated
at the old farmer's (Mrs. Carrack's father's) board.

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

When old Sylvester unclosed his eyes from the
delivery of thanks, he discovered at the back of Mrs.
Carrack and her son's chairs, the two city servants in
livery, with their short cut hair and embroidered coats
of the fashion of those worn in English farces on the
stage, standing erect and without the motion of a
muscle. There is not a doubt but that old Sylvester
Peabody was a good deal astonished, although he
gave no utterance to his feelings. But when the two
young men in livery began to dive in here and there
about the table, snapping up the dishes in exclusive
service on Mrs. Carrack and Mr. Tiffany Carrack, he
could remain silent no longer.

“Boys,” he said, addressing himself to the two fine
personages in question, “you will oblige me by going
into the yard and chopping wood till we are done
supper. We shall need all you can split in an hour
to bake the pies with.”

Thunder struck, as though a bolt had smitten them
individually in the head, this direction, delivered in a
quiet voice of command not to be resisted, sent the
two servants forth at the back-door. They were
no sooner out of view than they addressed each other

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

almost at the same moment, “My eyes! did you ever
see such a queer old fellow as that!”

When Mrs. Carrack and her son turned, and
found that the two young gentlemen in livery had
actually vanished, the lady smiled a delicate smile of
gentle scorn, and Mr. Tiffany, regarding his aged
grandfather steadily, merely remarked, in a tone of
most friendly and familiar condescension, “Baden-Baden wouldn't have done such a thing!”

The overpowering grandeur of the fashionable lady
chilled the household, and there was little conversation
till she addressed the widow Margaret.

“Hadn't you a grown up son, Mrs. Peabody?”

The widow was silent. Presently Mr. Carrack renewed
the discourse.

“By the by,” he said, “I thought I saw that son
of yours—wasn't his name Elbridge, or something of
that sort?—in New Orleans.”

“Did you speak to him?” asked the Captain, flushing
a little in the face.

“I observed he was a good deal out at elbows,”
Mr. Carrack answered, “and it was broad day-light,
in one of the fashionable streets.”

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

“Is that all you have to tell us of your cousin?”
old Sylvester inquired.

“He is my cousin—much obliged for the information.
I had almost forgotten that! Why ye-es—I
couldn't help seeing that he went into a miserable
broken-down house in a by-street—but had to get
my moustache oiled for a Creole ball that evening,
and couldn't be reasonably expected to follow him,
could I?—Jehoshaphat!”

If the human countenance, by reason of its clouding
up in gusts of pitchy blackness acquired the
power, like darkening skies, of discharging thunder-bolts,
it would have been, I am sure, a hot and heavy
one which Mopsey, blackening and blazing, had delivered,
as she departed to the kitchen, lowering upon
Mr. Tiffany Carrack,—“`He thought he saw her son
Elbridge!' The vagabone has no more feeling nor
de bottom of a stone jug.”

The meal over, the evening wore on in friendly
chat of old Thanksgiving times—of neighbors and
early family histories; each one in turn launching,
so to speak, a little boat upon the current, freighted
deep with many precious stores of old-time remembrance;
Mrs. Carrack sitting alone as an iceberg in the

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

very midst of the waters, melting not once, nor contributing
a drop or trickle to the friendly flow. And
when bed-time came again, how clearly was it shown,
that there is nothing certain in this changeful world.
By some sudden and unforeseen interruption, nations
lose power, communities are shattered, households
well-constructed fall in pieces at a breath.

Her sudden appearance in their midst, compelled
another consultation to be taken as to the disposal
of the great Mrs. Carrack for the night. It would
never answer to put that grand person in any secondary
lodging; so all the old arrangements were of
necessity broken up; the best bed-room allotted to
her; and that her gentle nerves might not be afflicted,
the old clock, which adjoined her sleeping-chamber,
and which had occupied his corner and told the
time for the Peabodys for better than a hundred
years from the same spot, was instantly silenced, as
impertinent. The Captain's high-actioned white horse,
which had enjoyed the privilege of roaming unmolested
about the house, was led away like an unhappy
convict, and stabled in the barn; and to complete
the arrangements, the two servants in livery were put
on guard near her window, to drive off the geese,

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

turkeys, and other talkative birds of the night, that
she might sleep without the slightest disturbance
from that noisy old creature, Nature.

Mr. Tiffany Carrack, while these delicate preparations
were in progress, was evidently agitated with
some extraordinary design, in which Miriam Haven
was bearing a part; for, although he did not address
a word to that young maiden, he was as busy as his
imitation of the antiquity of Baden-Baden would allow
him, ogling, grimacing, and plucking his tawny
beard at her every minute in the most astonishing
manner, closely watched by Mopsey, the Captain,
and old Sylvester, who strongly suspected the young
man of being affected in his wits.

It was very clear that it was this same Mr. Tiffany
Carrack who had entered in at the door of the sleeping
chamber assigned to that gentleman, but who would
have ventured to assert that the figure, which, somewhere
about the middle of the night, emerged from
the window of the chamber in question, in yellow slippers,
red silk cloak trimmed with gold, fez cap, and
white muslin turban, and, with folded arms, began
pacing up and down under the casement of Miriam
Haven, after the manner of singers at the opera,

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

preparatory to beginning, was the same Tiffany? And
yet, when he returned again, and holding his face up
to the moon, which was shining at a convenient angle
over the edge of the house, the tawny tuft clearly
identified it as Tiffany and no one else. And yet, as if
to further confuse all recognition, what sound is
that which breaks from his throat, articulating:—

The summons passed for some time unanswered,
till Mopsey, from the little end-window of her lodgement,
presented her head in a flaming red and yellow
handkerchief, and rolled her eyes about to discover
the source of the tumult; scowling in the belief that
it must be no other than “one of dem Brundages come
to carry off in de dead of night de Peabody punkin.”

A gentle conviction was dawning in the brain of Mr.
Carrack that this was the fair Miriam happily responding
to his challenge in the appropriate character
and costume of a Moorish Princess; when, as he
began to roar again, still more violent and furious
in his chanting, the black head opened and demanded,
“what you want dere?” followed by an

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

extraordinary shower of gourd-shells, which, crashing
upon his sconce, with a distinct shatter for each shell,
could not, for a moment, be mistaken for flowers,
signet-rings, or any other ordinarily recognised love-tokens.

It immediately occurred to Mr. Carrack, with the
suddenness of inspiration, that he had better return
to his chamber and go to bed; a design which was
checked, as he proceeded in that direction, by the
alarming apparition of a great body with a fire-lock
thrust out of the window of the apartment, next to his
own, occupied by the Captain, presented directly at
his head, with a cry “Avast, there!” and a movement
on the part of the body, to follow the gun out
at the window. Fearfully harassed in that quarter,
Mr. Carrack wheeled rapidly about, encountering as
he turned, the two servants in livery, still making the
circuit of the homestead—who in alarm of their
lives from this singular figure in the red cloak, fled into
the fields and lurked in an old out-house till daylight.
As these scampered away before him, Mr. Tiffany, to
relieve himself of the apparition of the gun, would
have turned the corner of the house; when Mopsey
appeared, wildly gesticulating, with a great

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

brush-broom reared aloft, and threatening instant ruin to
his person.

From this double peril, what but the happiest genius
could have suggested to Mr. Tiffany, an instant
and straightforward flight from the house; in which
he immediately engaged, making up the road—the
Captain with his musket, and Mopsey with her hearth-broom,
close at his heels. If Mr. Tiffany Carrack
had promptly employed his undoubted resources of
youth and activity, his escape from the necessity of
disclosure or surrender had been perhaps easy; but
it so happened that his progress was a good deal
baffled by the conflict constantly kept up in his brain,
between the desire to use his legs in the natural
manner, and to preserve that antique pace of tottering
gentility which he had acquired from that devilish
fine old fellow, the Prince of Baden-Baden, so that
at one moment he was in the very hands of the
enemy, and at the next, flying like an antelope in the
distance. The gun, constantly following him with a
loud threat, from the Captain, seemed, in the moon-light,
like a great finger perpetually pointing at his
head; till at last it became altogether too dreadful
to bear, and making up the road toward Brundage's,

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

which still further inflamed the pursuit, in sheer exhaustion
he rushed through an open gate into a
neighboring tan-yard, and took refuge in the old
bark-mill. There was but a moment's rest allowed
him even here, for Mopsey and the Captain, furiously
threatening all sorts of death and destruction, presently
rushed in at the door, and sent him scampering
about the ring like a distracted colt, in his first
day's service; a game of short duration, for the Captain
and Mopsey, closing in upon him from opposite directions
compelled him to retreat again into the open
air. How much longer the chase might have continued,
it were hard to tell, for as his pursuers made
after him, Mr. Tiffany Carrack suddenly disappeared,
like a melted snow-flake, from the surface of the
earth. In his confused state he had tumbled into a
vat, fortunately without the observation of the inexorable
enemy, although as he clung to the side the
Captain discharged his musket directly over his head.

“I guess that's done his business,” said the Captain.
“We'll come and look for the body in the
morning.”

Now it is strongly suspected that both Mopsey
and the Captain knew well enough all along that

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

this was Mr. Tiffany Carrack they had been pursuing,
and that as they watched him from the distance
emerge from the vat, return to the homestead, and
skulk, dripping in, like a rat of outlandish breed,
at his chamber-window, they were amply avenged:
the Captain, for the freedom with which the city-exquisite
had treated the Peabody family, especially
the good old grandfather, and Mopsey, for the
slighting manner in which he had referred to absent
young Mas'r Elbridge.

When all was peace again within the homestead,
there was one who still watched the night, and ignorant
of the nature of this strange tumult, trembled as at
the approach of a long-wished for happiness. It was
Miriam, the orphan dependent, who now sat by the
midnight casement. Oh, who of living men can tell
how that young heart yearned at the thought—the
hope—the thrilling momentary belief—that this was
her absent lover happily returning?

In the wide darkness of the lonesome night, which
was it shone brightest and with purest lustre, in view
of the all-seeing Mover of the Heavens—the stars
glittering far away in space, in all their lofty glory,
or the timid eyes of that simple maiden, wet with the

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

dew of youth, and bright with the pure hope of honest
love! When all was still again, and no Elbridge's
voice was heard, no form of absent Elbridge there to
cheer her, oh, who can tell how near to breaking, in its
silent agony, was that young heart, and with what
tremblings of solicitude and fear, the patient Miriam
waited for the friendly light to open the golden-gate
of dawn upon another morrow!

CHAPTER SEVENTH. THE THANKSGIVING SERMON.

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

The morning of the day of Thanksgiving came
calm, clear and beautiful. A stillness, as of heaven
and not of earth, ruled the wide landscape. The Indian
summer, which had been as a gentle mist or
veil upon the beauty of the time, had gone away a
little—retired, as it were, into the hills and back
country, to allow the undimmed heaven to shine
down upon the happy festival of families and nations.
The cattle stood still in the fields without a low;
the trees were quiet as in friendly recognition of the
spirit of the hour; no reaper's hook or mower's
scythe glanced in the meadow, no rumbling wain was
on the road. The birds alone, as being more nearly
akin to the feeling of the scene, warbled in the
boughs.

But out of the silent gloom of the mist there
sprang as by magic, a lovely illumination which lit

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

the country far and wide, as with a thousand varicolored
lamps. As a maiden who has tarried in her
chamber, some hour the least expected appears before
us, apparelled in all the pomp and hue of brilliant
beauty, the fair country, flushed with innumerable
tints of the changed autumn-trees, glided forth upon
the Indian summer scene, and taught that when
kindly nature seems all foregone and spent, she can
rise from her couch fresher and more radiant than in
her very prime.

What wonder if with the peep of dawn the children
leaped from bed, eager to have on their new
clothes reserved for the day, and by times appeared
before old Sylvester in proud array of little hats,
new-brightened shoes and shining locks, span new
as though they had just come from the mint; anxious
to have his grandfatherly approval of their comeliness?
Shortly after, the horses caught in the distant
pastures, the Captain and Farmer Oliver having
charge of them, were brought in and tied under the
trees in the door-yard.

Then, breakfast being early dispatched, there was
a mighty running to and fro of the grown people
through the house, dresses hurried from old

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

clothes-presses and closets, a loud demand on every hand for
pins, of which there seemed to be (as there always is
on such occasions) a great lack. The horses were put
to Mrs. Carrack's coach, the Captain's gig, the old
house-wagon, with breathless expectation on the part
of the children; and in brief, after bustling preparation
and incessant summoning of one member of the
family and another from the different parts of the
house, all being at last ready and in their seats, the
Peabodys set forth for the Thanksgiving Sermon at
the country Meeting-house, a couple of miles away.

The Captain took the lead with his wife and Peabody
Junior somewhere and somehow between
them, followed by the wagon with old Sylvester, still
proud of his dexterity as a driver, Oliver, much
pleased with the popular character of the conveyance
and wife, with young Robert; William Peabody and
wife; little Sam riding between his grandfather's legs
in front, and allowed to hold the end of the reins.
Slowly and in great state, after all rolled Mrs. Carrack's
coach with herself and son within, and footman
and coachman without.

Chanticleer, too, clear of eye and bright of wing,
walked the garden wall, carried his head up, and

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

acted as if he had also put on his thanksgiving suit and
expected to take the road presently, accompany the
family, and join his voice with theirs at the little
meeting-house.

Although the Captain, with his high-actioned
white horse kept out of eye-shot ahead, it was Mrs.
Carrack's fine carriage that had the triumph of the
road to itself, for as it rolled glittering on, the simple
country people, belated in their own preparations, or
tarrying at home to provide the dinner, ran to the
windows in wonder and admiration. The plain wagons,
bent in the same direction, turned out of the path
and gave the great coach the better half of the way,
staring a broadside as it passed.

And when the party reached the little meeting-house,
what a peace hung about it! The air seemed
softer, the sunshine brighter, there, as it stood in
humble silence among the tall trees which waved
with a gentle murmur before its windows. The people,
as they arrived, glided noiselessly in, in their
neat dresses and looks of decent devotion; others
as they came made fast their horses under the sheds
and trees about—most of them in wagons and plain
chaises, brightened into all of beauty they were

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

capable of, by a severe attention to the harness and
mountings; others—these were a few bachelors and
striplings—trotted in quietly on horseback. Before
service a few of the old farmers lingered outside discussing
the late crops or inquiring after each other's
families, who presently went within, summoning from
the grassy churchyard—which lay next to the meeting
house—the children who were loitering there
reading the grave-stones.

When the Captain arrived with his gig, under
such extraordinary headway that he was near driving
across the grave-yard into the next county—the
country people scampered aside, like scared fowl;
Mrs. Carrack's great coach, with its liveried outriders,
set them staring as if they did not or could not believe
their own eyes. With the arrival of old Sylvester
they re-gathered, and, almost in a body, proffered
their aid to hold the horses—to help the old
Patriarch to the ground—in a word, to show their regard
and affection in every way in their power. He
tarried but a moment at the door, to speak a word
with one or two of the oldest of his neighbors, and
passed in, followed by all of his family save Mrs.
Carrack and her son, who under color of hunting up

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

the grave of some old relation, delay in order to
make their appearance in the meeting-house by
themselves, and independently of the Peabody connection.

Will you pardon me, reader, if I fail to tell you
whether this house of worship was of the Methodist,
Episcopal, or Baptist creed, whether it had a chancel
or altar, or painted windows? Whether the pews
had doors to them and were cushioned or not?
Whether the minister wore a gown and bands, or
plain suit of black, or was undistinguished in his
dress? Will it not suffice if I tell you, as the very
belief of my soul, that it was a christian house, that
there were seats for all, that things were well intended
and decently ordered, and that with a hymn sung
with such purity of heart that its praises naturally
joined in with the chiming of the trees and the carols
of the birds without and floated on without a stop to
Heaven, when a meek man rose up:

Some two hundred years ago, our ancestors (he
said,) finding themselves more comfortable in the
wilderness of the new world, than they could have
reasonably looked for, set apart a day of Thanksgiving
to Almighty God for his manifold mercies. That

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

day, God be praised, has been steadily observed
throughout this happy land, by cheerful gatherings
of families, and other festive and devotional observances,
down to the present time. Our fathers covenanted,
in the love of Christ, to cleave together, as
brethren, however hard the brunt of fortune might be.
That bond still continues. We may not live (he went
on, in the very spirit and letter of the first Thanksgiving
discourse ever delivered amongst us,) as retired
hermits, each in our cell apart, nor inquire, like
David, how liveth such a man? How is he clad?
How is he fed? He is my brother, we are in league
together, we must stand and fall by one another. Is
his labor harder than mine? Surely I will ease him.
Hath he no bed to lie on? I have two—I will lend
him one. Hath he no apparel? I have two suits—
I will give him one of them. Eats he coarse food,
bread and water, and have I better? Surely we
will part stakes. He is as good a man as I, and we
are bound each to other; so that his wants must be
my wants; his sorrows, my sorrows; his sickness my
sickness; and his welfare my welfare; for I am as
he is; such a sweet sympathy were excellent,

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

comfortable, nay, heavenly, and is the only maker and conserver
of churches and commonwealths.”

To such as looked upon old Sylvester there seemed
a glow and halo about his aged brow and whitened
locks, for this was the very spirit of his life.

As though he knew the very secrets of their souls, and
touched their very heart-strings with a gentle hand,
the preacher glanced from one member of the Peabody
household to another, as he proceeded, something
in this manner. (For William Peabody:) do I
find on this holy day that I love God in all his glorious
universe, more than the image even of Liberty,
which hath ensnared and enslaved the soul of many
a man on the coin of this world? (For buxom Mrs.
Jane, in her vandyke:) Do I stifle the vanity of good
looks and comfortable circumstances under a plain
garb? (For the jovial Captain:) Am I not over hasty
in pursuit of carnal enjoyment? (For Mr. Oliver:
who was wiping his brow with the Declaration of Independence,)
and eager over much for the good opinion
of men, when I should be quietly serving them without
report? (For Mrs. Carrack and her son:) And what
are pomp and fashion, but the painted signs of good
living where there is no life? These (he continued,)

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

are all outward, mere pretences to put off our duty,
and the care of our souls. Yea, we may have
churches, schools, hospitals abounding—but these are
mere lath and mortar, if we have not also within
our own hearts, a church where the pure worship
ever goeth on, a school where the true knowledge is
taught, a hospital, the door whereof standeth constantly
open, into which our fellow-creatures are welcomed
and where their infirmities are first cared for
with all kindness and tenderness. If these be our
inclinings this day, let us be reasonably thankful on
this Thanksgiving morning. Let such as are in
health be thankful for their good case; and such as
are out of health be thankful that they are no worse.
Let such as are rich be thankful for their wealth, (if
it hath been honestly come by;) and let such as are
poor be thankful that they have no such charge upon
their souls. Let old folks be thankful for their wisdom
in knowing that young folks are fools; and let
young ones be thankful that they may live to see the
time when they may use the same privilege. Let
lean folks be thankful for their spare ribs, which are
not a burthen in the harvest-field; fat folks may
laugh at lean ones, and grow fatter every day. Let

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

married folks be thankful for blessings both little and
great; let bachelors and old maids be thankful for
the privilege of kissing other folks' babies, and great
good may it do them.

With what a glow of mutual friendship the quaint
preacher was warming the plain old meeting-house on
that thanksgiving day!

Finally, and to conclude, (he went on in the language
of a chronicle of the time:)—Let no man
look upon a turkey to-day, and say, `This also
is vanity.' What is the life of man without creature-comforts,
and the stomach of the son of man
with no aid from the tin kitchen? Despise not the
day of small things, while there are pullets on the
spit, and let every fowl have fair play, between the
jaws of thy philosophy. Are not puddings made to
be sliced, and pie-crust to be broken? Go thy ways,
then, according to good sense, good cheer, good appetite,
the Governor's proclamation, and every other
good thing under the sun;—render thanks for all the
good things of this life, and good cookery among the
rest; eat, drink, and be merry; make not a lean laudation
of the bounties of Providence, but let a lively
gusto follow a long grace. Feast thankfully, and

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

feast hopingly; feast in good will to all mankind,
Grahamites included; feast in the full and joyous
persuasion, that while the earth remaineth, seed-time
and harvest, dinner-time, pudding-time, and supper-time,
are not likely to go out of fashion;—feast with
exulting confidence in the continuance of cooks, kitchens,
and orthodox expounders of Scripture and the
constitution in our ancient, blessed, and fat-sided
commonwealth—feast, in short, like a good Christian,
proving all things, relishing all things, hoping all
things, expecting all things, and enjoying all things.
Let a good stomach for dinner go hand in hand with
a good mind for sound doctrine. Let us all be
thankful that a gracious Providence hath furnished
each and all with a wholesome and bountiful dinner
this day; and, if there be none so furnished, let him
now make it known, and we will instantly contribute
thereto of our separate abundance. There are none
who murmur—we all, therefore, have a thanksgiving
dinner waiting for us; let us hie home cheerily, and
in a becoming spirit of mirth and devotion partake
thereof.

The windows of the little meeting-house were up
to let in the pleasant sunshine; and the very horses

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

who were within hearing of his voice, seemed by the
pricking up of their brown ears to relish and approve
of his discourse. The Captain's city nag, as wide
awake as any, seemed to address himself to an acquaintance
of a heavy bay plougher, who stood at
the same post, and laying their heads together for
the better part of the sermon, they appeared to regard
it, as far as they caught its meaning, as sound
doctrine, particularly acknowledging that this was as
fine a thanksgiving morning as they (who had been
old friends and had spent their youth together, being
in some way related, in a farm-house in that neighborhood)
had ever known; and when they had said
as much as this, they laughed out in very merriness
of spirit, with a great winnow, as the happy audience
came streaming forth at the meeting-house door.
There were no cold, haughty, or distrustful faces
now, as when they had entered in an hour ago; the
genial air of the little meeting-house had melted
away all frosts of that kind; and as they mingled under
the sober autumn-trees, loitering for conversation,
inquiring after neighbors, old folks whose infirmities
kept them at home, the young children; they seemed
indeed, much more a company of brethren,

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

embarked (as sailors say) on a common bottom for happiness
and enjoyment. The children were the first
to set out for home through the fields on foot; Peabody
the younger, little Sam and Robert being attended
by the footman in livery, whom Mrs. Carrack
relieved from attendance at the rear of the coach.

If the quaint preacher had urged the rational enjoyment
of the Thanksgiving cheer from the pulpit,
Mopsey labored with equal zeal at home to have it
worthy of enjoyment. At an early hour she had
cleared decks, and taken possession of the kitchen:
kindling, with dawn, a great fire in the oven for the
pies, and another on the hearth for the turkey. But
it was from the oven, heaping it to the top with fresh
relays of dry wood, that she expected the Thanksgiving
angel to walk in all his beauty and majesty.
In performance of her duty, and from a sense only
that there could be no thanksgiving without a turkey,
she planted the tin oven on the hearth, spitted the
gobbler, and from time to time, merely as a matter
of absolute necessity, gave it a turn; but about the
mouth of the great oven she hovered constantly, like
a spirit—had her head in and out at the opening
every other minute; and, when at last the pies were

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

slided in upon the warm bottom, she lingered there
regarding the change they were undergoing with the
fond admiration with which a connoisseur in sunsets
hangs upon the changing colors of the evening sky.
The leisure this double duty allowed her was employed
by Mopsey in scaring away the poultry and idle
young chickens which rushed in at the back entrance
of the kitchen in swarms, and hopped with yellow
legs about the floor with the racket of constant falling
showers of corn. Upon the half door opening on the
front the red rooster had mounted, and with his head
on one side observed with a knowing eye all that
went forward; showing perhaps most interest in the
turning of the spit, the impalement of the turkey
thereon having been with him an object of special
consideration.

The highly colored picture of Warren at Bunker-Hill,
writhing in his death-agony on one wall of the
kitchen, and General Marion feasting from a potato,
in his tent, on the other, did not in the least attract
the attention of Mopsey. She saw nothing on the
whole horizon of the glowing apartment but the
pies and the turkey, and even for the moment neglected
to puzzle herself, as she was accustomed to in

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

the pauses of her daily labors, with the wonders
and mysteries of an ancient dog-eared spelling-book
which lay upon the smoky mantel.

Meanwhile, in obedience to the spirit of the day,
the widow Margaret and Miriam, having each diligently
disposed of their separate charge in the preparations,
making a church of the homestead, conducted
a worship in their own simple way. Opposite
to each other in the little sitting-room, Miriam opened
the old Family Bible, and at the widow Margaret's
request read from that chapter which gives the story
of the prodigal son. It was with a clear and pensive
voice that she read, but not without a struggle with
herself. Where the story told that the young man
had gone into a far country; that he had wasted his
substance in riotous living; that he was abased to the
feeding of swine; that he craved in his hunger the
very husks; that he lamented the plenty of his
father's house—a cloud came upon her countenance,
and the simplest eye could have interpreted the
thoughts that troubled her. And how the fair young
face brightened, when she read that the young man
resolved to arise and return to the house of his
father; the dear encounter; the rejoicing over his

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

return, and the glad proclamation, “This, my son, was
dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

“If he would come back even so,” said the widow
when the book was closed, “in sorrow, in poverty, in
crime even, I would thank God and be grateful.”

“He is not guilty, mother,” Miriam pleaded, casting
her head upon the widow's bosom and clinging
close about her neck.

“I will not think that he is,” Margaret answered,
lifting up her head. “Guilty or innocent, he is my
son—my son.” Clasping the young orphan's hand,
after a pause of tender silence, she gave utterance to
her feelings in a Thanksgiving hymn. These were
the words:—

At this moment a tumult of children's voices was
heard in the door-yard, and as the widow turned,
young William Peabody was seen struggling with

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

Robert and little Sam, who were holding him back
with all their force. As he dragged them forward,
being their elder and superior in strength, Peabody
Junior stretched his throat and called towards the
house—“I've seen him—I've seen him!”

“Who have you seen?” asked the widow, rising
and approaching the door.

“Mr. Barbary.” When Peabody Junior made
this answer the widow advanced with a gleam on her
countenance, and gently releasing him, said, “Come,
William, and tell us all about it.”

“Aunt Margaret,” said Robert, thrusting himself
between, “don't listen to a word he has to say. I'll
tell you all about it. You see we were coming home
from meeting, and little Sam got tired, and William
and I made a cradle of our hands and were carrying
him along very nice.”

“Not so very nice, either,” Peabody Junior interrupted,
“for I was plaguy tired.”

“That's what I was going to tell you, Aunt Margaret.
Bill did get tired, and as we came through
the Locust Wood, he made believe to see something,
and run away to get clear of carrying little Sam any
further.”

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

“I did see him!” said Peabody Junior, firmly.

“Where was he?” the widow asked.

“Behind the hazel-bush, with his head just looking
out at the top, all turned white as dead folks do.”

Mopsey was in immediately with her dark head,
crying out, “Don't belief a word of it.”

“I guess you saw nothing but the hazel-bush,
William,” said the widow.

“That was it, Aunt; it was the hazel-bush with a
great mop of moss on it,” Robert added.

Miriam sat looking on and listening, pale and
trembling.

“If your cousin Elbridge and Mr. Barbary should
ever come back,” said the widow, addressing Peabody
Junior, “you would be sorry for what you have
said, William.”

“So he would, Aunt,” echoed Robert.

Mopsey was in again from the kitchen; this time
she advanced several steps from the door-sill into the
room, lifted up both her arms and addressed the
assembled company.

“One ting I know,” said Mopsey, “dere's a big
pie baking in dat ere oven, and if Mas'r Elbridge
don't eat that pie it'll haf to sour, dat I know.”

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

“What is it, Mopsey,” asked Margaret, “that
gives you such a faith in my son?”

“I tell you what it is, Missus,” Mopsey answered
promptly, “dast tanksgivin when I tumbled down
on dis ere sef-same floor bringin' in de turkey, every
body laugh but Mas'r Elbridge, and he come from his
place and pick me up. He murder any body! I'll
eat de whole tanksgivin dinner myself if he touch
a hair of de old preacher's head to hurt it.” Suddenly
changing her tone, she added, “Dey're comin'
from meetin', I hear de old wagon.”

CHAPTER EIGHTH. THE DINNER.

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As the Peabodys approached the homestead, the
smoke of the kitchen chimney was visible, circling
upward and winding about in the sunshine as though
it had been a delicate corkscrew uncorking a great
bottle or square old flask of a delicious vintage. The
Captain averred a quarter of a mile away, the moment
they had come upon the brow of the hill, that
he had a distinct savor of the fragrance of the turkey,
and that it was quite as refreshing as the first odor
of the land breeze coming in from sea, and he snuffed
it up with a zeal and relish which gave the gig an
eager appetite for dinner. The Captain's conjecture
was strongly confirmed in the appearance of Mopsey,
darting, with a dark face of dewy radiance at the
wood-pile and shuffling back with bustling speed to
the kitchen with a handful of delicate splinters.
“She's giving him the last turn,” said the Captain.

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The shadow of the little meeting-house was still
over the Captain, even so far away, for he conducted
the procession homeward at a pace much less furious
than that with which he had advanced in the morning;
and Mrs. Carrack too, observed now, with a
strange pleasure, what she had given no heed to before
when the fine coach was rolling in triumph along
the road,—birds twittering in the sunny air by the
wayside, and cattle roving like figures in a beautiful
picture, upon the slopes of the distant hills. Oliver,
the politician, more than once had out the great cotton
pocket-handkerchief, and holding it spread before
him contemplating the fatherly signers, was evidently
acquiring some new lights on the subject of independence.

A change, in fine, of some sort or other, had passed
over every member of the Peabody family save
old Sylvester, returning as going, calm, plain-spoken,
straightforward and patriarchal. When they reached
the gate of the homestead, William Peabody gave
his hand to his wife and helped her, with some show
of attention, to alight; and then there could be no
doubt that it was in very truth Thanksgiving day, for
the glory of the door-yard itself had paled and

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disappeared in the gorgeous festal light. There was no
majestic gobbler in the door-yard now, with his great
outspread tail, which in the proud moments of his
life he would have expanded as if to shut the very
light of the sun from all meaner creatures of the
mansion.

Within doors there was that bustling preparation,
with brief lulls of ominous silence which precede and
usher a great event. The widow Margaret, with
noiseless step, glided to and fro, Miriam daintily hovering
in the suburbs of the sitting-room, which is evidently
the grand centre of interest, and Mopsey toils
like a swart goblin in her laboratory of the kitchen in
a high glow, scowling fearfully if addressed with a
word which calls her attention for a moment away
from her critical labors.

As the family entered the homestead on their return,
the combined forces were just at the point of
pitching their tent on the ground of the forthcoming
engagement, in the shape of the ancient four-legged
and wide-leaved table, with a cover of snowy whiteness,
ornamented as with shields and weapons of
quaint device, in the old plates of pewter and the
horn-handled knives and forks burnished to such a

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polish as to make the little room fairly glitter.
Dishes streamed in one after the other in a long and
rapid procession, piles of home-made bread, basins of
apple-sauce, pickles, potatoes of vast proportion and
mealy beauty. When the ancient and lordly pitcher
of blue and white (whether freighted with new cider
or old cold water need not be told) crowned the
board, the first stage of preparation was complete,
and another portentous pause ensued. The whole
Peabody connection arranged in stately silence in the
front parlor, looked on through the open door in wonder
and expectation of what was to follow. The
children loitered about the door-ways with watering
eyes and open mouths, like so many innocent little
dragons lying in wait to rush in at an opportune moment
and bear off their prey.

And now, all at once there comes a deeper hush—
a still more portentous pause—all eyes are in the
direction of the kitchen; the children are hanging
forward with their bodies and outstretched necks half
way in at the door; Miriam and the widow stand
breathless and statue-like at either side of the room;
when, as if rising out of some mysterious cave in the
very ground, a dark figure is discerned in the

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distance, about the centre of the kitchen, (into which
Mopsey has made, to secure an impressive effect, a
grand circuit,) head erect, and bearing before it a
huge platter; all their eyes tell them, every sense
vividly reports what it is the platter supports; she
advances with slow and solemn step; she has crossed
the sill; she has entered the sitting-room; and, with
a full sense of her awful responsibility, Mopsey delivers
on the table, in a cleared place left for its careful
deposit, the Thanksgiving turkey.

There is no need now to sound a gong, or to ring
an alarm-bell to make known to that household that
dinner is ready; the brown turkey speaks a summons
as with the voice of a thousand living gobblers,
and Sylvester rising, the whole Peabody family flock
in. To every one his place is considerately assigned,
the Captain in the centre directly opposite the turkey,
Mrs. Carrack on the other side, the widow at one end,
old Sylvester at the head. The children too, a special
exception being made in their favor to-day, are allowed
seats with the grown folks, little Sam disposing
himself in great comfort in his old grandsire's arms.

Another hush—for everything to-day moves on
through these constantly shut and opened gates

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of silence, in which they all sit tranquil and speechless,
when the old patriarch lifts up his aged hands
over the board and repeats his customary grace:

“May we all be Christian people the day we die—
God bless us.”

The Captain, the great knife and fork in hand, was
ready to advance.

“Stop a moment, Charley,” old Sylvester spoke
up, “give us a moment to contemplate the turkey.”

“I would there were just such a dish, grandfather,”
the Captain rejoined, “on every table in the land this
day, and if I had my way there would be.”

“No, no, Charley,” the grandfather answered, “if
there should be, there would be. There is One who
is wiser than you or I.”

“It would make the man who would do it,” Oliver
suggested, “immensely popular: he might get to be
elected President of the United States.”

“It would cost a large sum,” remarked William
Peabody, the merchant.

“Let us leave off considering imaginary turkeys,
and discuss the one before us,” said old Sylvester,
“but I must first put a question, and if it's answered
with satisfaction, we'll proceed. Now tell me,” he

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said, addressing himself to Mr. Carrack, who sat in a
sort of dream, as if he had lost his identity, as he
had ever since the night-adventure in the fez-cap and
red silk cloak: “Now tell me, Tiffany, although you
have doubtless seen a great many grand things, such
as the Alps, and St. Peter's church at Rome, has
your eye fallen in with anything wherever you travelled
over the world, grander than that Thanksgiving
turkey?”

Mr. Carrack, either from excessive modesty or total
abstraction, hesitated, looked about him hastily,
and not till the Captain called across the table,
“Why don't you speak, my boy?” and then, as if
suddenly coming to, and realizing where he was,
answered at last, with great deliberation, “It is a
fine bird.”

“Enough said,” spoke up old Sylvester cheerfully;
“you were the last Peabody I expected to acknowledge
the merits of the turkey;” and, looking towards
the Captain with encouragement, added, “now,
knife and fork, do your duty.”

It was short work the jovial Captain made with
the prize turkey; in rapid succession plates were forwarded,
heaped, sent around; and with a keen relish

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of the Thanksgiving dinner, every head was busy.
Straight on, as people who have an allotted task before
them, the Peabodys moved through the dinner,—
a powerful, steady-going caravan of cheerful travellers,
over hill, over dale, up the valleys, along the
stream-side, cropping their way like a nimble-toothed
flock of grazing sheep, keenly enjoying herbage and
beverage by the way.

What though, while they were at the height of its
enjoyment a sudden storm, at that changeful season,
arose without, and dashed its heavy drops against the
doors and window-panes; that only, by the contrast
of security and fire-side comfort, heightened the zest
within, while they were engaged with the many good
dishes at least, but when another pause came, did not
the pelting shower and the chiding wind talk with
them, each one in turn, of the absent, and oh! some
there will not believe it—the lost? It was no doubt
some thought of this kind that prompted old Sylvester
to speak:

“My children,” said the patriarch, glancing with a
calm eye around the circle of glowing faces at the table
“you are bound together with good cheer and in
comfortable circumstances; and even as you, who are

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here from east and west, from the north and the
south, by each one yielding a little of his individual
whim or inclination, can thus sit together prosperously
and in peace at one board, so can our glorious
family of friendly States, on this and every other day,
join hands, and like happy children in the fields, lead
a far-lengthening dance of festive peace among the
mountains and among the vales, from the soft-glimmering
east far on to the bright and ruddy west.
If others still seek to join in—”

“Ay, father,” said Oliver, “there is a great danger.”

“Even as by making a little way,” answered the
patriarch, “we could find room at this table for one
or two or three more, so may another State and still
another join us, if it will, and even as our natural
progeny increaseth to the third, fourth, tenth generation,
let us trust for centuries to come this happy
Union still shall live to lead her sons to peace, prosperity,
and rightful glory.”

“But,” interposed Oliver, the politician, again,
with a double reference in his thoughts, it would almost
seem, to an erring State or an absent child, “one
may break away in wilfulness or crime—what then?”

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“Let us lure it back,” was old Sylvester's reply,
“with gentle appeals. Remember we are all brethren,
and that our alliance is one not merely of worldly
interest, but also of family affection. Let us, on
this hallowed day,” he added, “cherish none but
kindly thoughts toward all our kindred, and if him
we have least esteemed offer the hand, let us take it
in brotherly regard.”

There was a pause of silence once again, which was
broken by a knock at the door. Old Sylvester, having
spoken his mind, had fallen into a reverie, and
the Peabodys glancing one to the other, the question
arose, shall the strangers (Mopsey reported them to
be two) whoever they may be, be admitted?

“This is strictly a family festival,” it was suggested,
“where no strangers can be rightly allowed.”

“May be thieves!” the merchant added.

“Vagabonds, perhaps!” Mrs. Carrack suggested.

“Strangers, anyhow!” said Mrs. Jane Peabody.

The widow Margaret and Miriam were silent and
gave utterance to no opinion.

In the midst of the discussion old Sylvester suddenly
awakening, and rearing his white locks aloft, in

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the voice of a trumpet of silver sound, cried out:—
“If they be human, let 'em in!”

As he delivered this emphatic order there was a
deep moan at the door, as of one in great pain, or
suffering keenly from anguish of spirit, and when it
was opened to admit the new-comers, the voice of
Chanticleer, raised for the second time, broke in,
clear and shrilly, from the outer darkness.