fusions by putting the test
questions of practical efficiency, Uncle Fliakim always remembered
that he'd "forgotten to inquire about that," and skipping through the
kitchen, and springing into his old wagon, would rattle off again on a
full tilt to correct and amend his investigations.

Moreover, my grandmother's kitchen at this time began to be haunted by
those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of uncertain fortunes, whom
a full experience of her bountiful habits led to expect something at
her hand at this time of the year. All the poor, loafing tribes,
Indian and half-Indian, who at other times wandered, selling baskets
and other light wares, were sure to come back to Oldtown a little
before Thanksgiving time, and report themselves in my grandmother's
kitchen.

The great hogshead of cider in the cellar, which my grandfather called
the Indian hogshead, was on tap at all hours of the day; and many a
mugful did I draw and dispense to the tribes that basked in the
sunshine at our door.

Aunt Lois never had a hearty conviction of the propriety of these
arrangements; but my grandmother, who had a prodigious verbal memory,
bore down upon her with such strings of quotations from the Old
Testament that she was utterly routed.

"Now," says my Aunt Lois, "I s'pose we've got to have Betty Poganut
and Sally Wonsamug, and old Obscue and his wife, and the whole tribe
down, roosting around our doors till we give 'em something. That's
just mother's way; she always keeps a whole generation at her heels."

"How many times must I tell you, Lois, to read your Bible?" was my
grandmother's rejoinder; and loud over the sound of pounding and
chopping in the kitchen could be heard the voice of her quotations:
"If there be among you a poor man in any of the gates of the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart,
nor shut thy hand, from thy poor brother. Thou shalt surely give him;
and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him, because
that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy
works; for the poor shall never cease from out of the land."

These words seemed to resound like a sort of heraldic proclamation to
call around us all that softly shiftless class, who, for some reason
or other, are never to be found with anything in hand at the moment
that it is wanted.

"There, to be sure," said Aunt Lois, one day when our preparations
were in full blast; "there comes Sam Lawso