THE LAME TURKEY.

A Story of Thanksgiving-Time.

BY RUTH HALL.

"Childern, childern, come here quick. That 'ere lame turkey's out ag'in."

So called Mrs. Amasa Andrews, in the kitchen doorway, and two shrill trebles answered her from the pumpkin patch.

"Oh, Aunt Polly, where's it gone to? Out in the orchard, or across the fields?"

"Under the hill, down by Uncle Jake's old place," waving away the panting figures who rushed into view from behind the corn-house. "You'd better hurry up, or he'll get clean away this time."

George and Patty needed no second warning. In the missing turkey were bound up delightful visions of "white meat," "wish-bones," and "stuffing," on which they had been dwelling for two months past, and which they had no idea of losing at this late day, only one little week before Thanksgiving. So they tore like small whirlwinds across the kitchen yard, squeezed under the fence, and slid down the steep hill, never stopping to take breath until they had lost sight of home, and had "Uncle Jake's old place" in view.

"Oh, George!" gasped little Patty then, "what if we didn't find it?—what ever would we do?"

"Wouldn't have no Thanksgivin'," replied George, stolidly.

"Oh, but I just couldn't bear that. I couldn't, truly. It is such a awful long time since we had a taste o' turkey, George."

"Not since last Christmas, before we ever thought o' comin' here to live," her brother mused, as he trimmed a switch with dexterous fingers. "Pa 'n' ma was alive then, 'n' little sister, 'n'— There's that gobbler now!"

They were close to the house, which had long been vacant, but now showed signs of life in open door and windows, and a faint curl of pale blue smoke from the tumble-down chimney. In the tiny door-yard stood the runaway, calmly picking at a few potato-skins in a rusty old tin pan.

The children crept softly up behind a brush heap, intending to rush from thence and surprise him, and were about to carry their scheme into effect, when George laid a detaining hand upon his sister's arm.

"Hush!" he whispered. "What's that comin'?"

"Oh, Sally," called a thin voice from the door of the little house, "come and see what's here. A turkey, Sally—a real turkey, sure's you live!"

"But it ain't for us," said another voice. Evidently Sally had come. "It belongs to some 'un, 'Melia, 'n' they'll come after it. That means a Thanksgivin' dinner for somebody"—with a heavy sigh.

"Oh dear!" went on the younger voice, "don't you wish 'twas ours, Sally? I never tasted turkey 'n all my life, an' I do hate corn meal so!"

"Turkey's for them that has fathers to buy 'em," replied Sally, with a sob in her voice; and then some one called shrilly from an inner room:

"Come, girls, Miss Watson's washin's ready;" and the little forms, at which our Patty and George had been furtively "peeking," disappeared.

It was the work of a few moments to catch the lame turkey, and to start him homeward at the point of George's switch; but someway neither child looked happy over the achievement.

"George," finally began Patty's pleading little voice.

"Well, what d'ye want?" in his gruffest manner.

"They hain't got no father, Georgie."

"No more ha' we, nor mother neither. We're orphans."

"Oh, George! when we've got such a good Aunt Polly, 'n' such a Uncle Amasa. An' corn meal, George."

Now Patty's brother "hated corn meal so" too, as his crafty sister knew. There was a little pause.

"Well, what shell we do?" he inquired, finally. "Tell Aunt Polly, 'n' get her to send 'em something down?"

"We couldn't do that," small Patty answered, decidedly. "They can't afford to do much extra, I'm afraid, Georgie. You know we're quite expensive, our keepin'; I heard old Miss Crandall tell Mike so."

"Miss Crandall's a gossip, Uncle Amasa says."

"But I know we are," poor Patty went on. "Aunt Polly ain't had no fall bunnit, you know, an' she does her own washin' since we come. I'm afraid we cost 'em quite a deal."

"Well, what shell we do?" George cried, desperately, and giving the lame turkey a savage cut over his saucy tail.

"I don't know what you'll do," was Polly's calm response, "but I shell give that 'Melia every smitch o' my turkey next Thursday. So there!"

There was another pause, and then George remarked, with a great showing of coolness: "Well, all right. An' I'll take Sally my turkey an' all my pumpkin pie!"

"Oh, you dear George!" began his sister, and then broke down and cried.

"What air you childern whisperin' about?" queried Aunt Polly, coming upon the two, sitting side by side on the wood-pile, later in the day.

Patty hesitated. Good and kind as Aunt Polly always was, her sharp eyes and sharper voice were awe-inspiring to her small niece. But George, whose bravery was the glory of his sister, looked up at the tall woman with his fearless gray eyes, and told the story of that morning's adventures and their resolution, adding:

"An' we were just a-wonderin', Aunt Polly, how we'd get the things down there, an' if you'd let Mike go with us, maybe, 'cause you know you say you don't like us to go where you don't know the folks."

"That'll be all right," his aunt said, simply, "an' I'm glad you thought of it, childern. 'It's more blessed to give,' you know. George, I wisht you'd get me some chips."

So she turned the subject then; but that evening, as Mr. and Mrs. Andrews sat together over the kitchen fire, with their charges asleep up stairs, Aunt Polly retold George's story, keenly watching her husband's face as she did so, although her eyes were apparently fixed upon her knitting.

Uncle Amasa took his pipe out of his mouth and drew a long breath. "Bless them childern," he said, heartily. "I vum, now, Polly, that makes me feel putty small—don't it you? To think o' their thinkin' of it, an' they a-lookin' forward to Thanksgivin'-day so long!"

"Well, what kin we do, Amasa?" was his wife's quiet question.

"Massy! I don't know. But we'll send that widder her dinner anyway, an' we won't rob them little childern o' theirn neither."

"But, Amasa"—Aunt Polly laid down her knitting—"don't you see that won't be the childern's givin'? I don't want to take away their dinners, dear knows; but 'twouldn't be right, after all, you know, for them to be gen'rous and keep their turkey too."

Uncle Amasa mused a moment. "That's so!" he said, ruefully, at last. "I tell ye, Polly, woman, we'll give 'em the hull turkey, an' we'll throw in the pies. I guess we won't starve on bacon an' cabbage, an' on Chris'mas I'll manage so's they can hev a turkey, 'n' we too. I love my dinner's much 's the next 'un, but I swan to massy them babies o' ourn make me feel putty small—putty small!"

And gathering up his boots and pipe, Uncle Amasa strode off to bed.

And so it came to pass that on Thanksgiving-eve George and Patty, accompanied by Uncle Amasa, not Mike, again followed the lame turkey under the hill to Uncle Jake's old place. But this time the recreant fowl was borne on their uncle's shoulders, in the huge market-basket, in company with potatoes and onions and golden pies and rosy cranberries; in short, with the party's Thanksgiving dinner.

Uncle Amasa first placed the basket on the cracked door-step, and then he and George concealed themselves in the darkness behind the brush heap, while Patty, the lightest and fleetest of the three, knocked at the door, and then ran swiftly to the common hiding-place.

A faint streak of light came from the doorway as Sally appeared holding a tallow candle aloft. A moment's silence while she stared at the basket, and kneeling by it explored the contents; then—

"Oh, mother! 'Melia!" she screamed, "it's a turkey, and it's pies, an'—oh, come quick an' see!"

There was the hurry of other footsteps, and a cry from 'Melia: "Just to look at the onions! Oh, I do love them!" and then some one upset and extinguished the candle, and under cover of the darkness Uncle Amasa drew the eager children away.

As they went up the hill together George remarked, "I'm glad she likes onions; so do I."

But Uncle Amasa drew his rough hand across his eyes, murmuring, in a choked sort of voice: "Well I swan, if between them two sets o' childern, them that gives 'n' them that takes, I don't feel putty small! Yes, I do that, put-ty small!"