"You know, Becky, that he is coming, and I don't see what difference a couple of hours will make," she said as she gave her hand, to her sister, Mrs. Willis. "I am just telling Becky, Cecelia, that she is very foolish to make such a fuss because Howard is detained; he missed the train, you see, and can't arrive till the next comes in." She pa.s.sed on into the house still talking, while Edna made her escape upstairs. She had not noticed the little girl, and Edna felt rather slighted.

However, this was all forgotten a little later when her own brothers and sister as well as her father were to be welcomed. You would suppose Edna had been parted from them for at least a year, so joyous were her greetings, and so much did she have to tell. She had scarcely unburdened herself of all her happenings, before in swarmed Uncle Bert and his family. There was so many of these that for a little while they seemed to fill the entire house, for, first appeared Aunt Lucia and after her the nurse carrying the baby, then Uncle Bert with little Herbert in his arms, and then Lulie and Allen and Ted. Cousin Becky's sweetheart, Howard Colby, came on the last train and ended the list of guests. What a houseful it was, to be sure, and what long, long tables in the dining-room. Reliance was not able to wait on everybody, and so Amanda's niece f.a.n.n.y, took a hand, thus everyone was served.

Edna was rather shy of those cousins whom she had not seen for two or three years, and after supper preferred to stay close to her sister Celia and Ben, though her brothers were soon hob-n.o.bbing with Allen and Ted, and were planning expeditions for the morrow. Ben told such a funny story about the lady by the willow tree, that Edna could never look at the picture again without laughing, but he had scarcely finished it before some one called out: "Bedtime for little folks!" and all the younger ones trooped off upstairs, grandma herself leading the way to see that each one was tucked in comfortably.

CHAPTER IV

A HEARTY DINNER

It would be quite a task if one were to try to compute the number of buckwheat cakes consumed at the long tables the next morning, and there might have been more but that Charlie stopped Frank in the act of helping himself to a further supply by saying: "Look here, son, if you keep on eating cakes you won't give your Thanksgiving dinner any show at all. I'm thinking about that turkey."

This remark was pa.s.sed down the table and had the effect of bringing the breakfast to a conclusion. The boys scampered off out of doors to scour the place for nuts or to dive into unfrequented woodsy places, while the girls gathered around the crowing baby, in high good-humor with herself and the world at large. Then the nurse bore baby off and Edna turned to her mother for advice.

"What can I do, mother?" she asked.

"Why, let me see. Your Aunt Alice and I are going to help your grandma to arrange the tables, after a while. We shall want a lot of decorations besides the roses your Uncle Bert brought. Suppose you little girls const.i.tute yourselves an order of flower girls with Celia at your head, and go out to find whatever may do for the tables."

"There are some chrysanthemums, little yellow ones, and there are a few white ones, too; I saw them yesterday down by the fence."

"They will do nicely; we will have those and anything else that will be pretty for the table or the rooms."

"Shall we ask Lulie to go with us?" whispered Edna.

"Certainly I would. She isn't quite so old as you, but she is the only other little girl here, and it would be very rude and unkind to leave her out."

"You ask her," continued Edna in a low tone.

For answer Mrs. Conway smiled over at Lulie. "Don't you want to be a flower girl?" she asked; "Celia, I propose that you take these two little girls in tow and go on an expedition to gather flowers to deck the tables and the house, I know you will enjoy it."

"Indeed I shall," replied Celia. "Come on, girls, let's see what we can find." And the three sallied forth to discover what might be of use.

An hour later they came back laden with small branches of scarlet oak, with graceful weeds, with the little b.u.t.tony chrysanthemums, and with actually a few late roses which had braved the frost and were showing pale faces in a sheltered corner when the girls came upon them. By this time, the three cousins were well acquainted, the two younger the best friends possible, so that when dinner was really ready they were quite happy at being allowed to sit side by side.

It would fill a whole chapter if I were to tell you about all the good things on that table. Grandpa carved a huge brown turkey at one end, while Uncle Bert carved an equally huge and brown one at the other end.

Grandma served the flakiest of n.o.ble chicken-pies at her side of the table, while Aunt Alice served an oyster-pie of the same proportions and quite as delicious. The boys, not in the least disturbed by the memory of the buckwheat cakes, were ready with full-sized appet.i.tes, while the girls, after their scramble in search of decorations, had no reason to complain of not being hungry. To Cousin Becky's lot fell one of the wishbones, and to Edna's joy she had the other. Cousin Becky put hers up over the front door after dinner, and it was the strangest thing in the world that Mr. Howard Colby should be the first to come in afterward.

Edna decided to save hers till it was entirely dry.

"What are you going to do with it then?" asked Lulie.

"I haven't quite decided. I shall take it home, and maybe I'll pull it with Dorothy or maybe I will make a pen-wiper of it for a Christmas gift. I might give it to Ben."

"I never heard of wishbone pen-wipers," said Lulie. "Are they very hard to make?"

"Not so very, if you have anyone to help you with the sealing-wax head.

Celia could help me with that. You make a head, you know, and then the wishbone has two legs and you dress it up so it is a pen-wiper." This was not a very clear description, but Lulie was satisfied, especially as at that moment Ben came to them and said that everyone was going to play games, in order that their dinners might properly digest.

"Everybody?" inquired Lulie. "The grandparents, too?"

"Of course," Ben told her. "We are going to begin with something easy, like forfeits, and work up to the real snappy ones after."

"What are the snappy ones?" asked Edna.

"Oh, things like Hide-and-Seek and lively things that will keep us on the jump."

The two little girls followed Ben into the next room and before long everyone was trying to escape from grandpa who was as eager for a game of Blind Man's Buff as anybody, and who at last caught Becky, who in turn caught Howard Colby because he didn't try to get out of her way.

This ended that game, but everybody was so warmed up to the fun that when it was proposed to carry on a game of Hide and Seek out of doors all agreed, and Edna was so convulsed with laughter to see her dignified, great-uncle Wilbur crouching behind a wood-pile and peeping fearfully over the top that she forgot to hide herself properly and was discovered by Ben in a moment.

"You're no good at all at hiding," Ben told her. "Anybody could have found you with half an eye."

"Oh, I don't care," replied Edna; "I'll have just as much fun finding out some one else," and she it was who made straight for Uncle Wilbur's wood-pile to which he had returned with the fond belief of its serving as good a turn a second time.

It was not so very long before the older persons declared that they had had enough of it. The men returned to the house to have a smoke and the ladies to chat around the fire. As for the children, it was quite too much to expect them to go in while there was a twinkle of daylight left, and, as Amanda expressed it, "They took the place." The girls did not roam far from the house but the boys wandered much further afield, bringing caps and pockets full of nuts, and clothes full of burs and stick-tights, even Ben brought back a h.o.a.rd of persimmons touched by the frost and as sweet as honey.

He poured these out on a flat stone near which Edna was standing. "Come here, Edna," he said, "let's divvy up. I'll give you half; you can take what you don't eat to your mother and I'll take what I don't eat to my mother."

Edna squatted down by the stone and began delicately to nibble at the fruit which still bore its soft purple bloom. "I don't believe I shall eat very many," she said, "for my dinner is still lasting, and there will be supper before I am ready for it. We are not going to have a real, regular set-the-table supper, because grandma thinks Amanda and Reliance should have some holiday, too, but we are going to have sandwiches and cakes and nuts and apples and cider and a whole lot of things; something like a party you know. Aren't you going to eat any of your persimmons, Ben?"

"No, that coming supper party sounds too seductive; I'll wait so that I can do it justice."

"What did you see out in the woods?" asked Edna.

"Foxy grape-vines and bare trees," he answered promptly.

"Do you mean b-e-a-r trees or b-a-r-e trees?"

"Which ever you like; I've no doubt there were both kinds."

"Oh, Ben," Edna glanced around fearfully, "do you really think there are bears around here?"

"I know there are, sometimes." He drew down his mouth in a way which made Edna suspect a joke.

"When is the sometimes?" she asked suspiciously.

"When they have a circus at Mayville."

"Oh, you Ben Barker, you are the worst," cried Edna roguishly pulling his nose.

"Here, here," he exclaimed, "look out, it might come off like the fox's tail."

"What fox?"

"Don't you know the story of 'Reynard, the Fox'? It is in one of those big, red books that lie on that claw-footed table in the living-room."

"Here, in this house?"