The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1895-11-27
ONE THANKSGIVING.
BY EVA BEST.

much TO do in the way of cake-baking
and seeing to thousand things beside.
We were 10 give supper on this
Thanksgiving Day, as it was the thir-
tieth anniversary of our wedding.
"Deary me-" thought, peering in
to the oven to see how the turkey was
getting on. al can't believe it has
been thirty years since Tom and L
stood up before Preacher Censor To get
married-it really doesn't seem that
| long: but Preacher Censor has been
dead and gone these twenty years,
| Toms hair is as white rs the flour at
the mill, and well, / don't feel so
very old yet, and wouldn't realize the
| flight of time so much if hadn't jam
| ie, here, with me-" and i glanced at
cur child-a man now in years, but to
me always child; for he had never
grown in stature since ten long years
! ago, when they brought him in, man
gled and bleeding, his feet crippled for
life, caused 10y fall from beam in
| the mill
l thought it would kill me, at first,
to see my once active, bonny, bright
darling tramping around on crutches I;
| but somehow | got used TO it as years
passed us both by-so used to it, in
deed, that when Jamie asked me that
Thanksgiving morning if would take
! Dora for my daughter, l fiared up at
him and answered him more sharply
than | should have thought possible
for me to answer my idolized boy.
What right had he to leave me for
Dora? Not that l disliked the girl,
though she ,ods a strange sort of body
living first at one house, then at an
other. Our neighbors were all work
ing people and managed to get along
without hired help, except field hands
I and some such man-labor; il was only
at house-cleaning times that Dora was
needed steadily, or when sewing was
going to be done, at marriages or
funerals. 1t was hap-haZard way Of
getting ones bread, but Dora was al
WAYS busy; for she was as handy Mt
| bows work as any lad in the village
and had the advantage of being more
| intelligent. Dora would be just the
wife for my son; she was energetic,
robust, strong, and smart, while he
was the crippled son of a hard-wOrk-
ing miller, who could leave him no
money or estate when he died; and
me, his mother, who could leave him
only to the mercy of the world when
life was ended.
But steeled my heart against his
pleading voice and eyes, and gave him
short, angry replies, until he could
stand it no longer and hobbled away,
slowly and tremblingly, toward the
mill.
NY heart cried out for him; but /
stifled its reproaches, and gave vent to
my ugly feelings by spitefully dashing
all manner of kitchen utensils ont up
on the porch. After the turkeys Were
tanned to russell and gold in the big
oven, and the cakes were done, the ex-
citement that had kept me in a furry
all day suddenly left me, and | sat
down in the disordered kitchen and
had good, long, hard cry over my
poor boy. Still | felt that all this
trouble was Dora's fault, and / tried to
hush my accusing conscience by blam-
ing her.
BY sundown all was ready to receive
the expected guests. Dora had come
so as to help me about the tables, and
had treated her so coldly that her
usually bright, sweet, sunshiny look
| fled from her face, and there seemed,
oddly enough, gloomy cloud spread
ing, shadow-like, all over the house.
Tom and Jamie came in late from
the mill, for it was being repaired and
| the masters eye" was required in
cessantly. Jamie stopped on the porch,
and before my very eyes-with never a
| hint that he saw the anger flashing out
of them-he drew Dora's face down TO
his and kissed her.
Then | was mad and said things
that made me tremble at my unjust
| bitterness and hate. Jamie never ans
wered me, but limped upstairs to his
own room and stayed there several
hours; as for Dora, she disappeared.
BY ones and twos and threes the
guests began to congregate in my little
best room until it was crowded, and
they were forced, for want of space, TO
move on into the other rooms or seat
ter about the garden. The young folks
chose the latter place, as the night was
mild a. summer itself, and the big full
moon, that seemed too heavy ever TO
rise above our heads, was floating slow
Iy up over the eastern hills. The low
ers looked so bIissful and happy that it
made me almost sorry that | had driv-
en- Dora and Jamie apart by my fearful
tongue-lashing, but my bark was
worse than my bite-and it was Jamie's
own fault If he hadn't found that out
long ago.
For the next hour or so l forgot
Jamie; but when supper time came, L
crept upstairs to his little room and
peeped in. He lay stretched on the
bed by the window in the white moon
light, which was as bright as day,
showing Inc plainly his poor, dwarfed
foot, his useless limb, and his grand,
j wide forehead He WAS still dressed,