and backed up the devotional habits of good
housewives by the capital care which he took of whatever was committed
to his capacious bosom. A truly well-bred oven would have been ashamed
of himself all his days and blushed redder than his own fires, if a
God-fearing house matron, away at the temple of the Lord, should come
home and find her pie crust either burned or underdone by his over or
under zeal; so the old fellow generally managed to bring things out
exactly right.

When sermons and prayers were all over, we children rushed home to see
the great feast of the year spread.

What chitterings and chatterings there were all over the house, as all
the aunties and uncles and cousins came pouring in, taking off their
things, looking at one another's bonnets and dresses, and mingling
their comments on the morning sermon with various opinions on the new
millinery outfits, and with bits of home news and kindly neighbourhood
gossip.

Uncle Bill, whom the Cambridge college authorities released, as they
did all the other youngsters of the land, for Thanksgiving Day, made a
breezy stir among them all, especially with the young cousins of the
feminine gender.

The best room on this occasion was thrown wide open, and its habitual
coldness had been warmed by the burning down of a great stack of
hickory logs, which had been heaped up unsparingly since morning. It
takes some hours to get a room warm where a family never sits, and
which therefore has not in its walls one particle of the genial
vitality which comes from the indwelling of human beings. But on
Thanksgiving Day, at least, every year this marvel was effected in our
best room.

Although all servile labour and vain recreation on this day were by
law forbidden, according to the terms of the proclamation, it was not
held to be a violation of the precept that all the nice old aunties
should bring their knitting work and sit gently trotting their needles
around the fire; nor that Uncle Bill should start a full-fledged romp
among the girls and children, while the dinner was being set on the
long table in the neighbouring kitchen. Certain of the good elderly
female relatives, of serious and discreet demeanour, assisted at this
operation.

But who shall do justice to the dinner, and describe the turkey, and
chickens, and chicken pies, with all that endless variety of
vegetables which the American soil and climate have contributed to the
table, and which, without regard to