n down the hill, limpsy as
ever; now he'll have his doleful story to tell, and mother'll give him
one of the turkeys."

And so, of course, it fell out.

Sam came in with his usual air of plaintive assurance, and seated
himself a contemplative spectator in the chimney corner, regardless of
the looks and signs of unwelcome on the part of Aunt Lois.

"Lordy massy, how prosperous everything does seem here!" he said in
musing tones, over his inevitable mug of cider; "so different from
what 'tis t' our house. There's Hepsey, she's all in a stew, an' I've
just been an' got her thirty-seven cents' wuth o' nutmegs, yet she
says she's sure she don't see how she's to keep Thanksgiving, an'
she's down on me about it, just as ef 'twas my fault. Yeh see, last
winter our old gobbler got froze. You know, Mis' Badger, that 'ere
cold night we hed last winter. Wal, I was off with Jake Marshall that
night; ye see, Jake, he had to take old General Dearborn's corpse into
Boston, to the family vault, and Jake, he kind o' hated to go alone;
'twas a drefful cold time, and he ses to me,' Sam, you jes' go 'long
with me'; so I was sort o' sorry for him, and I kind o' thought I'd
go 'long. Wal, come 'long to Josh Bissel's tahvern, there at the
Halfway House, you know, 'twas so swingeing cold we stopped to take a
little suthin' warmin', an' we sort o' sot an' sot over the fire,
till, fust we knew, we kind o' got asleep; an' when we woke up we
found we'd left the old General hitched up t' th' post pretty much all
night. Wal, didn't hurt him none, poor man; 'twas allers a favourite
spot o' his'n. But, takin' one thing with another, I didn't get home
till about noon next day, an' I tell you, Hepsey she was right down on
me. She said the baby was sick, and there hadn't been no wood split,
nor the barn fastened up, nor nuthin'. Lordy massy, I didn't mean no
harm; I thought there was wood enough, and I thought likely Hepsey'd
git out an' fasten up the barn. But Hepsey, she was in one o' her
contrary streaks, an' she wouldn't do a thing; an' when I went out to
look, why, sure 'nuff, there was our old tom-turkey froze as stiff as
a stake--his claws jist a stickin' right straight up like this." Here
Sam struck an expressive attitude, and looked so much like a frozen
turkey as to give a pathetic reality to the picture.

"Well, now, Sam, why need you be off on things that's none of your
business?" said my grandmother. "I've talked to you plainly about that