"I'll watch, you may be sure of that," laughed Mrs. Carruth. "Now fly, Connie, and summon our unexpected guests."

We will pa.s.s over the oysters, which were disposed of as never before oysters had been, and the soup, which disappeared audibly. That dinner was a genuine Southern one, and no item was lacking. At length arrived the critical moment when the bird of national fame should have appeared, but-didn't. There was a long, ominous delay. Charles bustled and fussed about, one eye upon his mistress, the other upon the pantry. No one noticed that Jean's conversational powers, never mediocre, were now phenomenal. She talked incessantly and as rapidly as a talking machine, albeit her listeners seemed to offer small encouragement for such a ceaseless flow of language. They sat with their eyes fastened to their plates-plates which would require very little sc.r.a.ping before washing.

To and from pantry and dining room vibrated Charles. The vegetables, relishes, jellies-in short, everything to be served with the turkey-was placed in tempting array upon the sideboard; but still no sign of the festive bird itself, and Charles' perturbation was increasing by the second. As on many another occasion it was Mammy who supplied the climax. At this crucial moment she appeared in the doorway of the pantry, her eyes blazing, her face a thundercloud, as she stammered:

"Miss Jin-n-n-ninny! M-m-iss Jinny! Please, ma'am, fergive me fer 'trudin' in 'pon yo' when yo' is entertainin'; but 'tain't lak dey was strangers, dey's all ob de family, so to speak, ma'am" (Mammy was too excited to notice that the cheeks of two individuals seated at that board had turned a rosy, rosy pink), "an' I jes' natch.e.l.ly _got_ to speak ma min' or bus'-"

"Why, Mammy, what has happened?" interrupted Mrs. Carruth, quite aware that Mammy managed to find mares' nests when others were unable to do so, but surprised by this one, nevertheless. Mammy did not often overstep the lines set by convention; but on this occasion she certainly seemed tottery.

"De bird! De tuckey! It's gone! It's done been stole right out ob ma wamin oven yonder. I done had it all cook to a tu'n, an' set up in ma oven fer ter keep it jes' ter de true livin' p'int ob sarvin', an den I run inter Miss Connie's kitchen fer ter git some ob dem little frilly papers I need fer its laigs, an-an' it mus' 'a' been stole whilst I was in dar, er else de very debbil hisself done fly away wid it right from unner ma nose, kase I ain't been outer dat kitchen one single minnit since-not one!" emphasized Mammy, with a wag of her turbaned head, her talking machine running down simply because her breath had given out.

If poor Mammy had needed anything to further outrage her feelings and put a climax to her very real distress, the roar which at that instant arose from two masculine throats would have been more than enough; but when Homer Forbes turned a reproachful face toward her and asked, "Mammy Blairsdale, do you mean to tell me that our goose-"

"No, sah! No, sah! de _tuckey_!" corrected Mammy instantly.

"Well, then, our turkey is cooked-"

"Cooked! Cooked! Ef it was only de _cookin'_ dat pestered me I wouldn't be pestered," was Mammy's Hibernian reply. "It's done been _stole_, sah!

Clean, cl'ar stole out ob ma kitchen."

"Let's go find the thief, Forbes!" cried Hadyn, casting his napkin upon the table and springing to his feet. "Come on. Mammy, whom do you suspect? Which way shall we run? What must we do with him when we overhaul him?"

"Oh, yo' jes' a-projeckin, I knows dat all right, but I tells you dat bird ain' got no ekal in dis town. I done supervise his p'ints masef, an' he's de best to be had. If yo' wants to know who I thinks is got him, I thinks it's a man what done stop at ma door when I was a-stuffin'

dat tucky early dis mawnin'. He was a tromp, an' he ax me fer somethin'

ter eat. I ain't ginnerly got no use fer tromps, but dis hyer was de Thanksgivin' mawnin', an' seem lak I couldn't turn him away hungry."

"We'll find him! Come on, Forbes! Where's that stout walking-stick, Mrs.

Carruth? Bring along the wheelbarrow for the remains, Charles-of the turkey, I mean."

Haydn was making for the door, Forbes hard upon his heels, when Jean darted to her mother's side to draw her head toward her and whisper something into the listening ear. Jean's guests sat like graven images.

Constance and Eleanor were ready to shriek at the absurdity of the situation.

"Hadyn, Homer, come back! Mammy, send in the quail pie and all the other good things you've prepared; we shall not starve. Ladies and gentlemen, circ.u.mstances render explanations somewhat embarra.s.sing at this moment.

Don't be distressed, Mammy. On with the feast, Charles.

"Why? what? where? who?" were the words which rattled about Mrs.

Carruth's ears.

Mammy gave one glance at Jean, who had returned to her seat. She had not been in this family sixty-eight years without arrogating a few prerogatives. Then, but for Mrs. Carruth's upraised hand, Etna would have broken forth. But Jean knew her hour of reckoning would come later.

Her conversational powers seemed to have suffered a reaction. Her chair was next Hadyn's. As he returned to his place he bent low, slipped his arm about the subdued little figure, and asked in a tone which it would have been hard to resist:

"Little Sister, what did you do with that turkey?"

"Rolled it in a big towel, put it in a basket, and carried it to the Hodgesons' with mother's Thanksgiving compliments, when I went after the girls. They wouldn't eat a _charity_ turkey, but a compliment turkey was different," was whispered back in a voice suspiciously charged with tears.

"I call you a trump!" Then in a lower tone he turned to Constance, who sat at the other side, and said: "Who gives himself with his gift, serves three."

CHAPTER VII

EXPANSION.

The short Thanksgiving holiday ended, Eleanor returned to college and Jean to school, found Constance busier than ever in her kitchen, for the holiday season was her hardest time, and this year promised to be an exceptional one. An extra supply of candy must be made for the booth in the Arcade, as well as for those who sold her candies on commission in other towns. Then, too, an unusual number of private orders had already come in. These all meant incessant work for Constance and Mary Willing.

The first week in December she entered the kitchen where Mary was just cutting into squares great ma.s.ses of chocolate caramels. She had been hard at work all the morning, and her face was flushed from her exertions.

"Oh, I'm afraid you are nearly done up," cried Constance, contritely.

"You have been working so hard ever since eight o'clock, and it is now past eleven. I am so sorry to leave all this work to you while I do the easy part."

"Do you call it easy work to write about two dozen letters, keep track of all the orders which are pouring in now, and run accounts straight?-to say nothing of ordering our supplies. _I_ don't, and I'm thanking my lucky stars that I can do _my_ share of the work with a big spoon instead of a pen," was Mary's cheerful reply, as she raised her arm to push back from her forehead an unruly lock of hair which fell across her eyes.

"Let me," said Constance quickly, lifting the soft strand into place.

"You are all sticky, and when one's hands are sticky that is the time for hair to grow rampant and one's nose to itch! I've been there too many times myself not to know all about it, I tell you. But that isn't what I came downstairs to say! Do you know that this pile of letters has set me thinking, Mary? If things go on at this rate you and I can never in the world handle the business. Why, it has taken me the whole morning to look after the letters and acknowledge the orders which came by the early mail. I haven't been able to do one single stroke in here, and now I have got to go down to South Riveredge. Charles told Mammy that we ought to have more s.p.a.ce there for our goods, and he wished I would see Mr. Porter about it at once. He thinks we ought to rent one of the other s.p.a.ces for the Christmas season, anyway, and have someone there to attend to it. What do you think? And do you know of someone we could get? You see Christmas is only three weeks off, and whatever we do we've got to do at once."

As Constance talked she wielded a big knife and helped briskly. Mary did not answer at once; her pretty forehead wore a perplexed pucker. At length she said:

"I know a girl who could take charge of it I think, although I don't know whether you'd like her or not."

Constance smiled as she answered: "Suppose you tell me who she is, then maybe I can tell you whether I like her or not."

"It's Kitty Sniffins. We used to go to school together."

"I don't know her at all, so I'm a poor judge of her qualifications, am I not? But if you think she is the sort of girl we would like to have there, I am sure she needs no other recommendation, Mary. What is her address?"

"Her brother is an insurance agent down on State Street. You might see him. They moved not long ago, and I don't know where they live now."

"Oh--," exclaimed Constance, light beginning to dawn upon her. She had not heard the name Sniffins since the year in which she began her candy-making, as the result of the burning of their home, and the name had not figured very pleasantly in the experience of that October, or the months which followed. Still, the sister might prove very unlike the brother, and just now time was precious. If she was to act upon Charles'

suggestion she must act immediately.

"I think I'll drop her a note in care of her brother; I don't like to go to his office. She can call here," said Constance.

Mary glanced up quickly to ask:

"Is there any reason, Miss Constance, why you would prefer someone else?" for something in Constance's tone made her surmise that for some reason which she failed to comprehend Kitty Sniffins did not meet with her young employer's approval.

"If I have one it is too silly to put into words," laughed Constance, "so I will not let it influence me. I dare say Kitty Sniffins is a right nice girl and will sell enough candy to make me open my eyes. At all events, I'll have a pow-wow with her. But before she can sell candy or anything else she must have a place to sell it in, and it's up to me to scuttle off to the Arcade as fast as I can go. And, by the way, you've got to have more help here, Mary. Yes, you _have_. You need not shake your head. As matters are shaping I shall have to give every moment of my time to the business of this great and glorious enterprise. Now whom shall I get? What is f.a.n.n.y doing this fall? She left school in the spring, didn't she?"

"Yes. She is helping mother sew, but--" and an eager light sprang into Mary's eyes. f.a.n.n.y Willing was a younger sister, a rather delicate girl, who was growing more delicate from the hours spent at work in the close rooms of her home, and running a heavy, old-fashioned sewing machine.

She was a plain, quiet little thing, very unlike her striking-looking older sister, and as such had not found favor in her mother's eyes. In her younger days Mrs. Willing had boasted a certain style of beauty, and with it had contrived to win a husband whom she felt would elevate her to a higher social plane, but her hopes had never been realized.

Probably every family has a black sheep; Jim Willing had figured as that unenviable figure in his. It was the old story of the son born after his parents had been married a number of years, and several older sisters were waiting to spoil him; plenty of money to fling about, a wild college career of two years, marriage with a pretty housemaid and-disinheritance. It had required only twenty-three years to bring it all to pa.s.s, and the next twenty-three completed the evil. At forty-six Jim Willing looked like a man of fifty-six-so can dissipation and moral degeneration set their seal upon their victims. Gentle blood? What had it done for him? Very little, because he had permitted it to become hopelessly contaminated. And his children?-they were working out the problem of heredity; paying the penalties of an earlier generation; demonstrating the commandment which says, "unto the third and fourth generation." A cruel, relentless one, but not to be lightly broken.

In Mary was one ill.u.s.tration of it; f.a.n.n.y another. Each was to "drie her weird," as the Scotch say.

"Do you think your mother can spare her?"

"I'm sure she can. The fact is, f.a.n.n.y has been trying to get some work in one of the shops in South Riveredge. Sewing doesn't agree with her, somehow; she seems to grow thinner every day; she ain't-_isn't_, I mean-very strong, you see."