ould not hatch, and the hens, too, it is
said, gave up laying eggs, perhaps from lack of food. Even the song
birds fell into the "dumps" and neglected to rear young.

The dreary, fruitless autumn drew on; and Thanksgiving Day bade fair
to be such a hollow mockery that in several states the governors did
not issue proclamations.

Maine at that time was a part of the state of Massachusetts. My
impression is that the governor appointed November 28th as
Thanksgiving Day, but I am not sure. It is likely that not much
unction attended the announcement. The notices of it did not reach
many localities in Maine. In the neighbourhood where my grandparents
lived, in Oxford County, nothing was heard of it; but at a schoolhouse
meeting, on November 21st, our nearest neighbour, Jonas Edwards, made
a motion "that the people of the place keep the 28th of the month as
Thanksgiving Day--the best they could."

The motion prevailed; and then the poor housewives began to ask the
question, "What shall we have for Thanksgiving dinner?" At our house
it is still remembered that one of my young great-uncles cried in
reply, "Oh, if we could only have a good big johnnycake!"

And it was either that very night, or the night after, that the
exciting news came of the arrival of a shipload of corn at Bath and
Brunswick.

At Brunswick, seat of the then infant Bowdoin College, Freeport,
Topsham, and other towns near the coast of Maine, where the people
were interested in maritime ventures, it had become known that a
surplus of corn was raised in Cuba, and could be purchased at a fair
price. An old schooner, commanded by one Capt. John Simmons, was
fitted out to sail for a cargo of the precious cereal. For three
months not a word was heard from schooner or skipper.

Captain Simmons had purchased corn, however, and loaded his crazy old
craft full to the deck with it. Heavy weather and head winds held him
back on his voyage home. Water got to the corn, and some of it swelled
to such an extent that the old schooner was like to burst. But it got
in at last, early in November, with three thousand bushels of this
West India corn.

How the news of this argosy flew even to towns a day's journey up from
the coast!

A great hunger for corncake swept through that part of the state; and
in our own little neighbourhood a searching canvass of the resources
of the five log farm-houses followed. As a result of it, young
Jonathan Edwards and my then equally yo