A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays, Amy Ella Blanchard [top e book reader txt] 📗

married my mother out of town; she hadn't ever been used to the country. She used to work in a store and that's why she couldn't cook, you see."

Edna pondered over this information, wondering if everyone who worked in a store must necessarily turn out a poor cook.

"You ought just to see what's getting ready for Thanksgiving," said Reliance, changing the subject, "I never seen such a pile of stuff. It fair makes my mouth water to think of it; pies and cakes and doughnuts and jellies and I don't know what all. I guess there's as many as twenty or thirty coming, ain't there?"

"Let me see; I shall have to count. There will be Aunt Alice and her two boys, Ben and Willis, and Uncle Bert Willis with his five children and Aunt Lucia; that makes ten, and then there will be all of us, papa and mamma and us four children; that makes--let me see--" she counted hurriedly on her fingers. "How many did I say, Reliance? Ten? Oh, yes, and six make sixteen. Then there are the greats; great Aunt Emmeline and her brother, Wilbur Merrifield, and his daughter, Cousin Becky. Sixteen did I say? and three make nineteen. Oh, yes, Cousin Becky's sweetheart that she is going to marry soon; he is coming and he will make it just twenty. Counting grandpa and grandma there will be twenty-two, and counting you and Amanda there will be twenty-four to eat the goodies."

"You didn't count the two men, Ira and Jim," said Reliance; "they will eat here, too."

"Oh, yes, I forgot them. What a crowd, twenty-six people. If they cut a pie in six pieces it would take over four to go around once, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose we would be allowed a second piece on Thanksgiving Day," remarked Reliance, "though maybe with the other things no one would want it."

"How many kinds of pie will there be?" asked Edna.

"Three at least. I heard Amanda say that she would make the fillings to-day for pumpkin, lemon and apple; she has the crust all done. She has made the jelly, too; it's to be served with whipped cream. Your grandma was talking about having plum pudding, but Amanda said she didn't see the sense of having it when it wasn't Christmas, and there would be such lots of other things, all the nuts and apples and such things. There is going to be chicken pie, besides the turkeys and the oysters."

"Dear me," sighed Edna, "I am afraid I shall eat a great deal and be very uncomfortable. I was last year for a little while because I ate two Thanksgiving dinners. What did you do last year, Reliance?"

Reliance looked very sober. "We didn't have much of a Thanksgiving last year, for it was just before my mother died and she was ill then, so us children just had to get along the best we could. Somebody sent us in a pie and some jelly for mother and that is about all we had to be thankful for. I suppose it was much better than nothing. We ate all the pie at one meal. Billy said we might as well for it wouldn't last two days anyhow unless we had little bits of pieces, so each of us had a whole quarter. Billy tried to trap a rabbit or shoot a squirrel or something, but he hadn't enough shot and the rabbits didn't trap."

Secretly Edna was rather glad to hear this, even though it meant that the Fairmans went without meat for dinner. She walked along pondering over these facts and wondering which were to be preferred. She could not tell whether to be glad the squirrels and rabbits had escaped or to be sorry that the Fairmans could not have had game for Thanksgiving. It was rather a hard matter to settle, so finally she dismissed the subject and gave her attention to the pigs whose pen they now had reached. Edna did not think them very cleanly or attractive creatures, however, and was very soon ready to leave them that she might see the chickens and ducks which she found much more interesting.

The short November day was already so near its end that the fowls were thinking of going to roost, though the hour was not late, and after watching them take their supper, which Edna helped Reliance to distribute, the two girls went on to the garden, now robbed of most of its vegetables. There were a few tomatoes to be found on the vines; though celery, turnips and cabbages made a brave showing. Edna felt that she was quite a discoverer when she came across some tiny yellow tomatoes which the frost had not yet touched, and which she gathered in triumph to carry back to her mother.

"I know where there's a chestnut tree," announced Reliance suddenly.

"Oh, do let's find it," said Edna. "I will put the tomatoes in my handkerchief and carry them that way. We ought to gather all the chestnuts we can, for I know mighty well after the boys come there won't be a nut left." There was a rush down the hill to the big chestnut tree about whose roots lay the prickly burs which the frost had opened to show the shining brown nuts within.

"I don't see how we are going to carry them," said Edna after a while, when she had gathered together quite a little heap.

"I'll show you," Reliance told her, and began tying knots in the corners of the apron she wore. "There," she said, "that makes a very good bag, and what we can't carry that way we can leave and come back for to-morrow. We'd better take as many as we can, though, for to-morrow will be such a busy day I may not be able to come, and if we don't, the squirrels will get them all."

"I could come alone, now that I know the way," said Edna, "or maybe mamma would come with me."

"I suppose we'd better be going back," said Reliance when she lifted the improvised bag to her arm. "It is near to milking time and that means getting ready for supper."

"What do you do to get ready for supper?" asked Edna taking hold of one side of the bag.

"Oh, I set the table and go down to the spring-house for the butter and cream. I can skim milk now, but I couldn't at first, I got it all mixed up."

"Do you skim all the milk?"

"Oh, no, that we put on the table to drink is never skimmed. The skimmed milk goes to the pigs."

"Oh, does it? I think you feed your pigs pretty well. Are we going to watch them milk?"

"You can if you like; I've got to go right back."

"You don't help with the milking then?"

"No; Ira does it. Your grandpa says it is man's work, but Ira lets me do a little sometimes so I will learn."

"Aren't you afraid of the cows?"

"No, indeed, are you?"

"Kind of. They have such sharp horns sometimes," answered Edna by way of excusing her fear.

"Your grandpa's don't have; he keeps only dehorned cattle."

"What are they?"

"The kind that have had their horns taken off so they don't do any damage."

"I think maybe I wouldn't mind that kind so much," said Edna, after considering the matter for a moment. "If you don't mind, I think I would like to stop and see Ira milk."

Reliance said she didn't mind in the least and, therefore, she left the little girl at the bars of the stable yard which was quite as near as she wished to stand to the herd of cows gathered within.

"Want to come in and learn to milk?" asked Ira, looking up with a smile at the little red-capped figure.

"Oh, no, thank you," returned Edna hastily. "I'd rather watch you." She would really have like to try her hand if there had been but one cow, but when there were six, how could a young person be certain that one of the number would not turn and rend her? To be sure, they were much less fearsome without horns, but still they were too big and dreadful to be entirely trusted. So she stood watching the milk foam into the shining tin buckets and then she walked contentedly with Ira to where Amanda was waiting to strain the milk and put it away in the spring-house.

"Do you keep it out here all winter and doesn't it freeze?" asked Edna.

"In winter we keep it in the pantry up at the house. If it should turn cold suddenly now, we'd have to bring it in," Amanda told her, as she carefully lifted the earthen crocks into place. "There comes Reliance for the cream and butter," she went on. "Reliance, I'll carry up the milk and you come along with the rest. Don't tarry down here, and be sure you lock the spring-house door and fetch in the key." Then she went out leaving the two little girls behind.

Reliance carefully attended to her duties, Edna watching her admiringly. It must be a fine thing to be so big a girl as this, one who could be trusted to do work like a grown-up woman. "Let me carry something," she offered, when Reliance stepped up the stone steps and outside, carrying the butter in one hand and the pitcher of cream in the other.

"If you would lock the door and wouldn't mind taking the key along, I wouldn't have to set down these things," Reliance said.

Edna did as she was asked, standing tip-toe in order to turn the big key in the heavy door.

"When we get to the house you can hang the key on its nail behind the kitchen door," Reliance told her. "It is always kept there."

Edna swung the big key on her finger by its string and trotted along by the side of Reliance, asking many questions, and delighting to hear Reliance enlarge upon the all-important subject of the Thanksgiving festivities.

"We've got to get up good and early," Reliance remarked, "for there's a heap to be done, even if we are ahead with the baking. I expect to be up before daylight, myself, and I reckon Ira will be milking by candlelight," she added, as she entered the kitchen door. Mrs. Conway was in the kitchen talking to Amanda, and Edna hastened to show her little hoard of tomatoes. "We gathered a whole lot of chestnuts, too," she told her mother. "They were all on the ground down the hill behind the barn."

"I know the very tree," Mrs. Conway told her. "We must roast some in the ashes this evening. Come along, supper is ready and you must get yourself freshened up."

Edna followed along and, in the prospect of supper and then of roasting chestnuts, she forgot all about the spring-house key. This, by the way, was lying on the door-mat where she had dropped it. A little later on, it was picked up by Reliance and was slipped into the pocket of her gingham apron. "I won't remind her that she dropped it. Likely as not she forgot all about it," said Reliance to herself. "I ought not to have trusted it to as little a girl as she is."

It was not till after she was in bed that Edna remembered that she had ever had the key. Where had she put it? She had no recollection of it after she