o, who loved
each other so truly, could so hide their inmost feelings. Each had
feared to appear weak to the other.

Mr. Waddle looked at his wife with almost a radiant smile. "Well,
Mary, we'll go back in the fall--if we can sell. I guess we can hire
the Deacon Elbridge place I see by last week's paper it's still for
sale or rent, and carpenter work in old Hartbridge is about as
profitable for me as farming out West."

"I'm glad you wouldn't mind going back, Homer," said Mrs. Waddle, and
they looked at each other as in the days of their courtship.

But selling the farm was not easy, and October found the Waddles in
painful straits.

"What will we have for Thanksgiving, Ma?" asked Obadiah.

"Oh, a pair of nice prairie chickens, mashed turnips, hot biscuits,
and melted sugar," cheerfully replied Mrs. Waddle.

"That sounds pretty good," said Obadiah; but when he got out of doors
he said to himself that you could not shoot prairie chickens without
ammunition, and that he had no bait even if he tried to use his quail
traps. He also reflected that his mother looked thin and pale, that
sister Ellie needed shoes, and that plum pudding and mince pie used to
be on Thanksgiving tables. But this was the day for his story
paper--post-office day--which seemed to cheer things up somehow.

When he went to town for the mail he would see if his father, who was
at work carpentering on a barn, could not spare a dime for a little
powder and shot. So the boy trudged away on his long walk, with his
empty gun on his shoulder and the hope of youth in his heart.

His father, busy at work, greeted him cheerily, but had no dime for
powder and shot. Pay for the work was not to be had until the first of
December, and meanwhile every penny must be saved--for coal and for
Ellie's shoes.

"It leaves Thanksgiving out in the cold, doesn't it, Bub? But we'll
make it up at Christmas, maybe," said Mr. Waddle, as Obadiah turned to
go. "Here's three cents for a bite of candy for Sis, and take good
care of mother. I'll be home day after to-morrow, likely."

Obadiah jingled the three pennies in his pocket as he walked to the
combined store and post-office. Three cents! They would buy a charge
or two of powder and shot, and he still had a few caps. And candy was
not good for people anyhow! He wished he had asked his father if he
might buy ammunition instead.

"But I'll not bother him again," he decided, "and Sis will be glad
enough of the candy."