turkey, "I
understand that you did not forget the poor to-day. Eh, my son?"

"The poor?" What could he mean? Johnnie was too puzzled to speak.

Then his father went on to tell how little Mrs. Mouse and her babies
had nibbled a wondrous dinner of pink thimble cakes on the floor of
pew number one while Johnnie slept. Grandma and Mrs. Smiley had told
him all about it on the way home; besides, he had seen enough himself
from the pulpit.

Johnny bravely bore the laugh at his expense, and as the merriment
died away heaved a deep sigh of relief, and exclaimed, "Well, I'm
glad somebody had a feast, even if it wasn't the fellow 'twas meant
for! Humph, _'twas_ quite a setup for poor church mice, wasn't it? But
they needn't be looking for another next year. You don't catch me
trying that again--no-sir-ee!"

TWO OLD BOYS[25]

BY PAULINE SHACKLEFORD COLYAR.

Walter's two grandfathers were a pair of jolly chums, _as
boys_. There is plenty of humour in this tale of a turkey
hunt.

"Day after to-morrow will be Thanksgiving," said Walter, taking his
seat beside Grandpa Davis on the top step of the front gallery.

[Footnote 25: _From Lippincott's Monthly Magazine_, December, 1896.]

"And no turkey for dinner, neither," retorted Grandma Davis, while her
bright steel needles clicked in and out of the sock she was knitting.

The old man was smoking his evening pipe, and sat for a moment with
his eyes fixed meditatively upon the blue hills massed in the
distance.

"Have we got so pore as all that, Mother?" he asked, after a while,
glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who was rocking to and fro
just back of him.

"I'm obleeged to own to the truth," answered the old lady dejectedly.
"What with the wild varmints in the woods and one thing an' another,
I'm about cleaned out of all the poultry I ever had. It's downright
disheartenin'."

"Well, then," asserted Grandpa Davis, with an unmirthful chuckle, "it
don't appear to me as we've got so powerful much to be thankful about
this year."

"Why, Grandpa!" cried Walter, in shocked surprise, "I never did hear
you talk like that before."

"Never had so much call to do it, mebbe," interposed the old man
cynically.

The last rays of the setting sun touched the two silvered heads, and
rested there like a benediction, before disappearing below the
horizon.

Silence had fallen upon the little group, and a bullfrog down in the
fishpond was croaking dismally.