n her
yellow silk; then she seated them around the table, each one in her
own chair. Polly was just telling them about company manners, how they
must not eat with their knives, or leave their teaspoons in their cups
when they drank their tea, when the door opened and in came mamma with
a real dolls' Thanksgiving dinner.

There was a chicken bone to put on the platter before Hannah Welch,
for Hannah always did the carving. There were cunning little dishes of
mashed potato and cranberry sauce, and some celery in a tiny tumbler,
and the smallest squash pie baked in a patty pan. Polly Pine just
hopped up and down with delight when she saw it. She set everything on
the table; then she ran away to put on her nicest muslin frock with
the pink ribbons, and she went downstairs to her own dinner.

There were gentlemen there for dinner--gentlemen Polly was very fond
of--and she had a nice time visiting with one of them. He could change
his table napkin into a white rabbit, and she forgot all about the
dolls' Thanksgiving dinner until it was dessert-time, and the nuts and
raisins came in.

Then Polly remembered, and she jumped down from her chair and asked
mamma if she might go upstairs and see if the dolls had eaten their
dinner. When mamma told about the doll house Thanksgiving, all the
family wanted to go, too, to find out if the dolls had enjoyed their
dinner.

The front door of the doll house was open, and there sat the dolls
just as their little mistress had left them--only they had eaten
nearly all the dinner! Everything was gone except the potato and the
cranberry sauce. The chicken leg was picked bare, the bread was
nibbled, and the little pie was eaten all around.

"Well, this is funny," said papa.

Just then they heard a funny, scratching noise in the doll house, and
a little gray mouse jumped out from under the table. He ran out the
front door of the doll house, and over the piazza, and down the steps
before you could say "Jack Robinson." In a minute he was gone--nobody
knew where. There was another tiny mouse in the doll house under the
parlour sofa, and a third one under Lavinia's bed, with a poor,
frightened gray tail sticking out. They all got away safe. Papa would
not allow mamma to go for the cat. He said:

"Why can't a poor little mouse have a Thanksgiving dinner as well as
we?"

AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKSGIVING[30]

BY ROSE TERRY COOKE.

A long story about a family of hardy New England pion