Since that time, almost without interruption, Thanksgiving has been kept by the people of New England as the great family festival of the year. At this time children and grandchildren return to the old home, the long table is spread, and brothers and sisters, separated often by many miles, again sit side by side.
To-day Thanksgiving is observed in nearly all the states of the Union, a season of sweet and blessed memories.
THANKSGIVING AT TODD"S ASYLUM[6]
By Winthrop Packard.
Many a chuckle lies in wait for the reader in the pages of this story. And the humour is of the sweet, mellow sort that sometimes brings moisture to the eyes as well as laughter to the lips.
People said that if it had not been for that annuity Eph Todd would have been at the poor farm himself instead of setting up a rival to it; but there _was_ the annuity, and that was the beginning of Todd"s asylum.
[Footnote 6: From the _Outlook_, November 19, 1898.]
No matter who or what you were, if you were in hard luck, Todd"s asylum was open to you. The No. 4 district schoolhouse clock was a sample. For thirty years it had smiled from the wall upon successive generations of scholars, until, one day, bowed with years and infirmities, it had ceased to tick. It had been taken gently down, laid out on a desk in state for a day or two, and finally was in funeral procession to the rubbish heap when Eph Todd appeared.
"You"re not going to throw that good old clock away?" Eph had asked of the committeeman who acted as bearer.
"Guess I"ll have to," replied the other. "I"ve wound it up tight, put "most a pint of kerosene in it, and shook it till I"m dizzy, and it won"t tick a bit. Guess the old clock"s done for."
"Now see here," said Eph; "you just let me have a try at it. Let me take it home a spell."
"Oh, for that matter I"ll give it to you," the committeeman replied.
"We"ve bought another for the schoolhouse."
A day or two after the old clock ticked away as soberly as ever on the wall of the Todd kitchen.
"Took it home and boiled it in potash," Eph used to say; "and there it is, just as good as it was thirty years ago."
This was true, with restrictions, for enough enamel was gone from the face to make the exact location of the hour an uncertain thing; and there were days, when the wind was in the east, when the hour hand needed periodical a.s.sistance.
"It wasn"t much of a job," as Eph said, "to reach up once an hour and send the hand along one s.p.a.ce, and Aunt Tildy had to have something to look forward to."
Aunt Tildy was the first inmate at Todd"s, and if Eph had possessed no other recommendation to eternal beat.i.tude, surely Aunt Tildy"s prayers had been sufficient. She pa.s.sed his house on her way to the poor farm on the very day that news of the legacy arrived, and Eph had stopped the carriage and begged the overseer to leave her with him.
"Are you sure you can take care of her?" asked the overseer, doubtfully.
"Sure?" echoed Eph with delight. "Of course I"m sure. Ain"t I got four hundred dollars a year for the rest of my natural born days?"
"He"s a good fellow, Eph Todd," mused the overseer as he drove away, "but I never heard of his having any money."
Next day the news of the legacy was common property, and Aunt Tildy had been an inmate at Todd"s ever since. Her grat.i.tude knew no bounds, and she really managed to keep the house after a fashion, her chief care being the clock.
Then there was the heaven-born inventor. He had dissipated his substance in inventing an incubator that worked with wonderful success till the day the chickens were to come out, when it took fire and burned up, taking with it chickens, barn, house, and furniture, leaving the heaven-born inventor standing in the field, thinly clad, and with nothing left in the world but another incubator.
With this he had shown up promptly at Todd"s, and there he had dwelt thenceforth, using a pretty fair portion of the annuity in further incubator experiments.
With excellent sagacity, for him, Eph had obliged the heaven-born inventor to keep his machine in a little shed behind the barn, so that when this one burned up there was time to get the horse and cow out before the barn burned, and the village fire department managed to save the house. Repairing this loss made quite a hole in the annuity, and all the heaven-born inventor had to show for it was Miltiades. He had put a single turkey"s egg in with a previous hatch, and though he had raised nary chicken, and it was contrary to all rhyme and reason, the turkey"s egg had hatched and the chick had grown up to be Miltiades.
Miltiades was a big gobbler now, and had a right to be named Ishmael, for his hand was against all men. He took care of himself, was never shut up nor handled, and led a wild, nomadic life.
Last of all came Fisherman Jones. He was old now and couldn"t see very well, unable to go to the brook or pond to fish, but he still started out daily with the fine new rod and reel which the annuity had bought for him, and would sit out in the sun, joint his rod together, and fish in the dry pasture with perfect contentment.
You would not think Fisherman Jones of much use, but it was he who caught Miltiades and made the Thanksgiving dinner possible.
The new barn had exhausted the revenues completely, and there would be no more income until January 1st; but one must have a turkey for Thanksgiving, and there was Miltiades. To catch Miltiades became the household problem, and the heaven-born inventor set wonderful traps for him, which caught almost everything but Miltiades, who easily avoided them. Eph used to go out daily before breakfast and chase Miltiades, but he might as well have chased a government position.
The turkey scorned him, and grew only wilder and tougher, till he had a lean and hungry look that would have shamed Ca.s.sius.
The day before Thanksgiving it looked as if there would be no turkey dinner at Todd"s, but here Fisherman Jones stepped into the breach. It was a beautiful Indian-summer day, and he hobbled out into the field for an afternoon"s fishing. Here he sat on a log, and began to make casts in the open. Nearby, under a savin bush, lurked Miltiades, and viewed these actions with the scorn of long familiarity. By and by Fisherman Jones kicked up a loose bit of bark, and disclosed beneath it a fine fat white grub, of the sort which blossoms into June beetles with the coming of spring. He was not so blind but that he saw this, and with a chuckle at the thoughts it called up, he baited his hook with it.
A moment after, Eph Todd, coming out of the new barn, heard the click of a reel, and was astonished to see Fisherman Jones standing almost erect, his eyes blazing with the old-time fire, his rod bent, his reel buzzing, while at the end of a good forty feet of line was Miltiades rushing in frantic strides for the woods.
"Good land!" said Eph; "it"s the turkey! Snub him," he yelled. "Don"t let him get all the line on you! He"s hooked! Snub him! snub him!"
The whir of the reel deadened now, and the stride of Miltiades was perceptibly lessened and then became but a vigorous up-and-down hop, while the tense line sang in the gentle autumn breeze.
"Eph Todd!" gasped Fisherman Jones, "this is the whoppingest old ba.s.s I ever hooked onto yet. Beeswax, how he does pull!" And with the words Fisherman Jones went backward over the log, waving the pole and a pair of stiff legs in air. The turkey had suddenly slackened the line.
"Give him the b.u.t.t! Give him the b.u.t.t!" roared Eph, rushing up. Even where he lay the fisherman blood in Fisherman Jones responded to this stirring appeal, and as the rod bent in a tense half circle a race began such as no elderly fisherman was ever the centre of before.
Round and round went Miltiades, with the white grub in his crop, and the line above it gripped tightly in his strong beak; and round and round went Eph Todd, his outstretched arms waving like the turkey"s wings, and his big boots denting the soft pasture turf with the vigour of his gallop. In the centre Fisherman Jones, too nearsighted to see what he had hooked, had risen on one knee, and revolved with the coursing bird, his soul wrapped in one idea: to keep the b.u.t.t of his rod aimed at the whirling game.
"Hang to him! Reel him in! We"ll get him!" shouted Eph; and, with the word, he caught his toe and vanished into the p.r.i.c.kly depths of the savin bush, just as the heaven-born inventor came over the hill. It would be interesting to know just what scheme the heaven-born inventor would have put in motion for the capture of Miltiades, but just then he stepped into one of his own extraordinary traps, set for the turkey of course, and, with one foot held fast, began to flounder about with cries of rage and dismay.
This brought Eph"s head above the fringe of savin bush again, and now he beheld a wonderful sight. Fisherman Jones was again on his feet, staring in wild surprise at Miltiades, whom he sighted for the first time, within ten feet of him. There was no pressure on the reel, and Miltiades was swallowing the line in big gulps, evidently determined to have not only the white grub, but all that went with it.
Fisherman Jones"s cry of dismay was almost as bitter as that of the heaven-born inventor, who still writhed in his own trap.
"Oh, Eph! Eph!" he whimpered, "he"s eating up my tackle! He"s eating up my tackle!"
"Never mind!" shouted Eph. "Don"t be afraid! I reckon he"ll stop when he gets to the pole!"
Those of us who knew Miltiades at his best have doubts as to this, but, fortunately, it was not put to the test. Eph scrambled out of his bush, and, taking up the chase once more, soon brought it to an end, for Fisherman Jones, his nerve completely gone, could only stand and mumble sadly to himself, "He"s eating up my tackle! He"s eating up my tackle!" and the line, wrapping about his motionless form, led Eph and the turkey in a brief spiral which ended in the conjunction of the three.
It was not until the turkey was decapitated that Eph remembered the heaven-born inventor and hastened to his rescue. He was still in the trap, but he was quite content, for he was figuring out a plan for an automatic release from the same, something which should hold the captive so long and then let him go in the interests of humanity. He found the trap from the captive"s point of view very interesting and instructive.
The tenacity of Miltiades"s make-up was further shown by the difficulty Eph and Fisherman Jones had in separating him from his feathers that evening; and Aunt Tildy was so interested in the project of the heaven-born inventor to raise featherless turkeys that she forgot the yeast cake she had put to soak until it had been boiling merrily for some time. Everything seemed to go wrong-end-to, and they all sat up so late that Mrs. Simpkins, across the way, was led to observe that "Either some one was dead over at Todd"s or else they were having a family party"; and in a certain sense she was right both ways.
The crowning misadventure came next morning. Eph started for the village with his mind full of commissions from Aunt Tildy, some of which he was sure to forget, and in a great hurry lest he forget them all. He threw the harness hastily upon Dobbin, hitched him into the wagon which had stood out on the soft ground overnight, and with an eager "Get up, there!" gave him a slap with the reins.
Next moment there was a ripping sound, and the heaven-born inventor came to the door just in time to see the horse going out of the yard on a run, with Eph following, still clinging to the reins, and taking strides much like those of Baron Munchausen"s courier.
"Here, here!" called the inventor, "you"ve forgot the wagon. Come back, Eph! You"ve forgot the wagon!"
"Jeddediah Jodkins!" said Eph, as he swung an eccentric curve about the gatepost; "do you--whoa!--suppose I"m such a--whoa! whoa!--fool that I don"t know that I"m not riding--whoa! in a--whoa!
whoa!--wagon?" And with this Eph vanished up street in the wake of the galloping horse, still clinging valiantly to the reins.