The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1895-11-30
50 TOGETHER. %
A Thanksgiving tory BY Edward
Everett Hale.
CHAPTER NEW PADUA.

Thanksgiving dinner?"
Ellen asked this question a little tim
idly.
mo" said Fergus, rather shortly
and then he added with an artificial
smile: II shall take pot-luck here with
Mrs. Odonto unless your aunt asks
me-"
Mrs. Odonto kept the boarding house
at which Fergus and Ellen both lived.
mo" said Ellen-and her smile was
half a smile only, and her eyes looked
a little wet-"my aunt will not ask you;
for-for-I have told her that l should
not accept her invitation"
Fergus fairly laughed this time
'Have you had row there? / have
had row with my uncle"
Fergus and Ellen were engaged to be
married, and had been for year past
die was the assistant teacher in chem
istry in the State Agricultural college.
This meant that he opened and shut the
shutters, according as the professors
experiments required sun or shade, and
that he cleared up the broken glass and
other fragments when the professor was
done. The place was rather a calling
one for Fergus, who knew perhaps as
much of the new chemistry as the pro-
fessor did. AS for Ellen, she was an
assistant teacher in the same college;
for the State Agricultural college was
also the state university, and in that
state co-education existed So Ellen
taught young men and young women to
square the hypothenuse and to work
out the binominal theorum; while in the
basement Fergus Menet swept up the
fragments and chafed when the pro-
fessor failed in his experiments.
The drawback about the Thanksgiy-
ing dinner began deeper down than you
might guess. Fergus had made an even
ing call at his uncle's, knowing that he
would be welcome on THANKSGIVING
day, and hoping, nay, expecting that
they would ask Ellen Markley to come
with him. His engagement to her was
perfectly understood. His aunt had
called on Ellen, and Ellen had returned
the call. Instead of this, his aunt had
made an excuse to be alone with him.
Then she had said, half in joke and half
On earnest as it seemed, that Miss Ghol-
son, from Albany, was coming to visit
her; that Miss Gholson had been very
much interested in Fergus when he
spoke at Saratoga, at the association;
that she had spoken of him several
times, as if she remembered him; that
she had an immense fortune in her own
right; and that, if Fergus would fol
low his hand" as his aunt elegantly
said he could win Miss Gholson and
could be Independent for life. In reply
TO all this Fergus had said, very sim
ply, at first, that he was
engaged to the sweetest girl in the
world; and when his aunt intimated
that such things meant nothing with
young people, Fergus had fared up and
gone away in a rage. This rage had not
subsidized when Ellen Markley ask
ed him, as you know, if he should go to
mis- uncle's for his Thanksgiving din
ner.
All this, of course, Ellen did not un-
derstand. Fergus would not insult her
by telling her But what Ellen did I'M
derstand and had understood for weeks,
was that she would not taste salt nor
turkey on Thanksgiving day at the
stately mansion of the Robervals. The
RoberVals were old Huguenot people.
They lived four miles out from New
Padua, in an elegant way Mrs. Rober-
val was Ellens aunt; and last year
Ellen was there at Thanksgiving and
at Christmas. But 1t happened, oddly
enough, that Mrs Roberval had been
making a match for Ellen just about
the time when her engagement with
Fergus came on. The stately and rich
MIR. Arbuthnot, the great Connecticut
manufactures. had seen Ellen at the
Robervals', had admired her, had offer
ed himself and been refused. But Mrs
Roberval had told him that faint heart
never won a fair lady, and he could not
give up. And an eager letter had come
from him, and Mrs. Roberval had
shown it to Ellen and had made heI
cry. And Ellen had said to herself that
she would not go to Rochelle House tc
dine for all the world, If they did not
ask Fergus; and, as Ellen knew, they
We're as likely to ask Sitting Bull.
So was it that for reasons not dis.
similar, these two young people were
to have their Thanksgiving dinner with
such company as Mrs. Odonto might
supply, at the boarding house table
CHAPTER ia THANKSGIVING
DINNER
I do not know. What I do not know
is this: Whether Mrs. Odonto was glaC
or sorry that Fergus Menet and Eller
Markley notified her that they should
dine at the boarding house.
What do know is: That Rose Finne
gan, the cook, expected a holiday tina
day, and that Mary Maginnis the tabl,
girl. was going to the Mills for the day
so l think Mrs. Odonto had hoped tina
all the boarders would dine away from
what she was pleased to call home.
am sure none of the boarders called
it so.
However Mrs. Odonto bore up brave
ly, and made no sign of anxiety or re
gret, though she knew that the Thanks