The Weekly Visitor

Selected Story.

Thanksgiving at St. Botolph's

St. Botolph's was an old-fashioned Academy for boys and girls, such as is scarcely to be found since the era of high schools. It was located in a small country village, too far from supplies to be agreeable to the girl who wanted a fresh ribbon, or to the boy who wanted a smart stable team to dash about with on a holiday. But the staid teachers, who had left all youthful follies behind them, congratulated themselves that there was so little to divert the minds of the students from their studies; and perhaps it was not to be wondered at that they looked upon Thanksgiving day with unthankful hearts, viewing it in the light of a holiday which would be likely to demoralize the students in anticipation, realization, and retrospection.

Prof. Fowler, the principal of St. Botolph's, was a man of profound learning, long experience, and great tact and ability. The Preceptress was a maiden lady of much personal dignity and real worth of character. All the teachers were highly educated and thoroughly competent, and the school had such a deservedly high reputation that pupils came from North, South, East and West. But the old saying that a "prophet is never without honor save in his own country," held good at St. Botolph's, for it was said that the town's people who looked on the students as a disorderly class of young people who brought petty tricks and lawless habits to an otherwise peaceful community, had dubbed the Academy "Fowler's Menagerie!" It is to be feared that they had some reason for their animosity, for it is certain that only in term time did Deacon Jones's front gate rise from its hinges and walk on two feet a mile out of the village and then lie down to rest in a cow pasture! Or, that Dr. Willis found his silver-plated harness adorning a carpenter's saw-horse and attached to a wheelbarrow, and both paraded on his front piazza on a Sabbath morning. And it could not have been during vacation that an elaborately embroidered skirt belonging to the Preceptress disappeared from the line one washing day and was observed the next morning adorning the hitching post in front of Prof. Ryder's house. And when Thanksgiving day was appointed and began to draw near, all the farmers within a radius of five miles from the Academy, watched their turkeys' and their hens' nests with vigilant care lest eggs and fowls should leave the premises by unlawful means.

The buildings at St. Botolph's were on a scale greatly inferior to the reputation of the school. The chapel and recitation-rooms were all in one large brick building which boasted of a wooden wing and a belfry with a good noisy bell. A long brick building known as "The Block," was occupied by the lady teachers and most of the girls, but the boys were scattered all over the village. The hotel accommodated a good number. Some of the professors who had large houses let a number of rooms; and widows and old maids, who abounded at St. Botolph's added to their narrow incomes by taking lodgers. Boys thus provided for, joined clubs where they took their meals.

A few of the girls, whose parents were in humble circumstances, had rooms in private houses and cooked their own meals. Of this number, Laura Edmonds, a bright, attractive girl of nineteen, had a room in the house of Miss Chandler, a kind-hearted spinster who was very fond of the girl, and as the Thanksgiving day of which we write drew near, she asked Laura to dine with her on that occasion. Laura was not particularly delighted with the invitation, as she had other friends who were likely to invite her, and to whom she would prefer going, but, as they had not yet asked her, she had no reasonable excuse to offer, and therefore accepted Miss Chandler's invitation. That very afternoon, as Laura passed Prof. Ryder's, on her way home from recitation, Mrs. Ryder called to her and invited her to spend Thanksgiving with her, and meet some young relatives who were staying there.

"Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. Ryder," exclaimed Laura, "but I have already accepted an invitation from Miss Chandler; I am so sorry! I should so like to come."

"So am I," said Mrs. Ryder; "would not Miss Chandler excuse you in my favor?"

"I shouldn't like to ask her," said Laura, "for I think she really wants me; she would not be likely to cook a nice dinner for herself alone; it would not seem like Thanksgiving."

"I'll tell you what to do," said Mrs. Ryder, after a moment's thought, "Miss Chandler will be sure to have dinner at twelve, she would not think she could eat a dinner at any other hour; I shall have mine at three. You can dine with Miss Chandler, stay long enough not to seem impolite, and then come to me."

"So I can!" cried Laura, delightedly; "but, Mrs. Ryder, what an extravagant idea you must have concerning my capacity for eating dinners! I do assure you I am ordinarily satisfied with one per day."

"Oh, as to that, you can eat as lightly as you please. I leave that entirely to your own good sense," replied Mrs. Ryder merrily.

A little more talk followed, and then Laura, having promised to be at Mrs. Ryder's at three o'clock on Thanksgiving day, tripped along down the street to Miss Chandler's. At the door of her room, sitting flat on the floor in a dejected attitude, she found Kitty Deming, one of her most intimate friends.

"Oh, Kitty!" exclaimed Laura.

"I might as well be only a kitty if I am always to stay outside people's doors: I have been here an age!" protested Kitty, a willful, vivacious girl of sixteen, petite, pretty, and spoiled.

"Which being interpreted means you have been here about ten minutes," said Laura, laughingly, as she unlocked the door and let in her offended visitor.

"Mamma sent me to invite you to eat Thanksgiving dinner with us," announced Kitty, sinking into the one easy chair. "Oh, how good this chair feels! I have sat on the floor at your inhospitable door until I feel like an old lady of sixty: of course, you will come?"

"It never rains but it pours!" exclaimed Laura despairingly. "Why did you not ask me a few hours sooner? You know I would rather go to your house than anywhere else, but I have already accepted two invitations."

"Why, Laura Edmonds! what greedy girl you must be! I'm perfectly shocked! But you'll have to come to us all the same," continued Kitty; "Mamma won't mind if you don't eat a great deal; she's economical, you know. I'm not sure but it's providential: she'll save half a dinner toward the next day!"

"But, Kitty, I couldn't possibly eat three dinners even if I did eat lightly; it's too much to expect of a girl; if I were only a boy—but I'm not," sighed Laura, regretfully.

"Where are the other dinners to be?" questioned Kitty.

"I am to dine with Miss Chandler at twelve and at Prof. Ryder's at three," replied Laura.

"And we shall not have dinner until five, so you can come as well as not. That is another providential circumstance," announced Kitty, with the air of one who has arrived at a satisfactory solution of a knotty problem.

"You seem to forget, Kitty, that I can't possibly eat three dinners, and it would spoil the dinner for all if one were to sit at table and not eat: I will spend the evening with you instead."

"That won't do at all: you were expected to spend the evening anyway, and I would let the very nicest of the boarders see you safe home; only think of it! I never was so magnanimous to any one else. Mamma said you must come, so I'll not hear another word; so there!" And, as Laura began to expostulate, the willful Kitty put a daintily gloved hand over each ear and ran laughingly away.

Thanksgiving day dawned bright and sunny as such a day should be, and all St. Botolph's was astir with preparation and expectation. Savory odors floated out from the block and were met by appetizing smells from the Professor's houses. Young ladies in holiday attire walked in twos and threes up and down the long plank sidewalk that extended from one end of the village to the other, meeting young gentlemen, also in holiday dress, and mutually exchanging surreptitious notes, pictures, and other tokens of regard, besides the conventional bow of recognition which was the only communication allowed between the two sexes at St. Botolph's.

At widow Deming's pretty cottage the four young gentlemen whom she lodged and boarded, more for their company than to increase her ample income, were in the parlor gathered about the piano singing hymns which Kitty rattled off on that much-enduring instrument in a very lively and spirited manner. Mrs. Deming herself, a happy motherly soul, bustled about from dining-room to kitchen overseeing everything and putting finishing touches to her arrangements for dinner, and meaning soon to go into the parlor and listen to the singing. In the pantry on the broad shelf before the open window lay a plump turkey, stuffed and ready to put into the oven when his hour should come. Across the field over which this window looked, came Tom Rollins, one of the students and a cousin of Laura Edmonds. Tom had been for a long walk and was taking a short cut to his room, which led him past that open window. Tom saw the turkey; how plump and white it looked! Tom smelled the turkey; how deliciously suggestive! Tom was a fine-looking fellow, not at all like a sneak thief in appearance. Tom's overcoat hung over his arm. Tom reached his hand cautiously in at the window and drew out the turkey, hastily threw his overcoat around it lest it should suffer from too sudden exposure to the bracing autumnal air, and then walked rapidly along on his way. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Deming discovered and bewailed her loss. Kitty and the four boarders rushed into the dining-room to condole with her and to lament their own share in the misfortune.

"Must we do without a turkey dinner?" eagerly demanded the stoutest and fattest boarder, who might have gone without several dinners and not suffered.

"Show me the thief and I will give him a lesson or two in craniology!" cried the smallest and thinnest boarder, making a great show of rolling up his sleeves and doubling up a minute pair of fists.

"May the fowl villain be banished from Turkey and smothered in Greece, and buried in Malta!" anathematized the would-be-witty boarder.

And the fourth boarder, who was of a philosophical turn, looked wise and wisely held his peace.

But Mrs. Deming was a woman of resources, and had a pair of nice large chickens in the store-room, besides those which were already reposing in a huge pie, having intended, like a skillful manager as she was, to let her boarders down gently from Thanksgiving fare, by way of stewed chickens, to the every-day dinners of baked beans, or corned-beef and vegetables. She soon had the chickens ready for the oven, in place of the absent turkey, and the preparations for dinner went on without further mishap.

Meanwhile Tom Rollins, who, with two other boys roomed at Miss Spicer's, two houses beyond Mrs. Deming's, stepped hesitatingly into his landlady's kitchen, with Mrs. Deming's turkey in his hands. Miss Spicer looked up wonderingly: she had not felt that she could afford a turkey.

"Miss Spicer," began Tom timidly, "our club voted against a turkey dinner this year, but a kind friend has provided a turkey for me and the boys upstairs, and I thought perhaps you would be willing to cook it, and—help eat it."

Miss Spicer readily undertook to do both, and her social and friendly nature was so roused by the savory odor of the turkey, that she provided vegetables and cranberry sauce to eat with it, and spread the table in her own dining-room, and the three boys had quite a homelike dinner with Miss Spicer to preside.

Laura Edmonds ate a quiet dinner with Miss Chandler at twelve, but rather disappointed that lady by her meager appetite, for Laura had said nothing to her about the other invitations. After dinner Laura helped her hostess to clear away the things, and set everything in its usual order, and then excused herself on plea of an engagement. She repaired to Mrs. Ryder's, where she met a hearty welcome, and was soon partaking moderately of a second dinner.

Dinner was over and the young people were in the midst of a game of Crambo, when a violent ring at the door was followed by a merry peal of laughter and a gay chatter of voices, and Mrs. Ryder ushered Kitty Deming into the room. Kitty had caught up Laura's hat and shawl from the hall-table and advanced into the room, saying merrily:

"Good day, good people! Am sorry to interrupt your game, but mamma sent me to fetch Laura, and you know I always obey my mother," which audacious untruth was nullified by the twinkle in her mischievous eyes, as she set Laura's hat on the head of its owner, threw her shawl over her shoulders, and amid exclamations and expostulations from all concerned, made her own and Laura's adieux and hurried the latter out of the house.

"How can you act so, Kitty?" said Laura as they reached the sidewalk.

"You did not give me a chance to say good-bye to any one."

"It is the easiest way in the world to act," replied Kitty, "and never mind about the good-byes, I said enough for a dozen of us, and they all knew me! Now trot lively and shake down those dinners in readiness for another!" and Kitty grasped Laura by the arm and suited the action to the word. Half laughing and half protesting, half running and half walking, the reluctant yet amused Laura soon found herself at Mrs. Deming's, where she was always a welcome guest.

There was a brief but exciting confab, during which Tom evidently tried to escape, but Kitty had taken him by the arm and half led, half dragged the reluctant victim into the house.

"There!" exclaimed Kitty, as she entered the parlor triumphant, "that was real hard work; mamma is always saying that I don't like to work and that I am of no sort of use to the community; but I'm always achieving some great thing or other that the rest of you couldn't possibly do! There take your cousin Laura out to dinner, young man, and be thankful for your mercies."

"Laura, my dear," said Mrs. Deming, as they sat down at her bountifully spread table, "you'll have to excuse the turkey; he decided to be eaten elsewhere; at least he disappeared mysteriously about the middle of the forenoon."

"Some of those heartless students stole it, no doubt," chimed in Kitty; "only think what heartless wretches they must be to rob the widow and the fatherless!"

As the sparkling Kitty and her smiling mother presented every token of being a well-to-do and prosperous couple, this appeal for sympathy was met with derisive laughter by the boarders, but Tom Rollins was observed to be very red as to his complexion and confused as to his manner. Kitty speedily observed this, and with mischievous intent, exclaimed:

"Do see how Tom blushes. I verily believe he is the culprit; I mean to run right up after dinner and ask Miss Spicer if she has smelled turkey to-day. I know she had none, for she told me the other day she couldn't afford one."

Then Laura began to rally him.

"Ah, Tom, that accounts for your reluctance to come in when Kitty asked you. No wonder you didn't want to face Mrs. Deming if you stole her turkey! I don't wonder that you blush."

"I thought Tom looked stouter than usual," remarked the fat student.

"Shall I give him that thrashing now, Mrs. Deming?" asked the lean little student, laying down his knife and fork and beginning to roll up his sleeves.

"Never mind their fun, Tom," said Mrs. Deming, compassionating his flushed face and embarrassed manner. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if they knew where that turkey went to better than you or I do; I shall keep my ears open to-night after these young men go to their rooms, and if they have a midnight collation, I shall be sure to smell it."

"I didn't know before that your sense of smell was located in your ears, mamma," said saucy Kitty.

But Tom Rollins felt as if every mouthful he ate would choke him, and he had really eaten too much of Mrs. Deming's turkey to have any appetite left under the best of circumstances. But, seeing that he made no progress with his dinner, Kitty and Laura, little dreaming that they were but telling the truth, declared that they considered his lack of ability to eat as positive proof that he had made way with that turkey. Thus driven into a corner poor Tom renewed his efforts to do justice to Mrs. Deming's dinner, which, notwithstanding the loss of the turkey, was still varied and abundant. He didn't know whether he felt most like a criminal or a martyr.

Music and lively conversation occupied the evening, and at half-past nine they separated. Laura, not being allowed by the rules of the school to avail herself of Kitty's magnanimous offer of an escort, accepted instead an invitation to spend the night with that young lady. The boarders went to their rooms, and Tom Rollins, with a fervent sense of relief, found himself at liberty to return to Miss Spicer's protecting roof. But Tom was far from being in an enviable condition of mind or body. The turkey had been too much for him, and rested as uneasily on his stomach as on his conscience. So it is not to be wondered at that, after an hour or two of uneasy and fitful slumber, accompanied by frightful dreams, he awoke really sick. His chum, Bill Cutting, not knowing what to do for him, would have called Miss Spicer to the rescue, but Tom declared that if she appeared at the door he would throw himself out at the window, and Bill refrained. But Tom grew no better very fast, and, being a robust fellow to whom sickness was a stranger, he felt certain that he was dying, and demanded that Bill should summon Mrs. Deming at once: he must see her before he died. Bill objected to rousing her in the middle of the night, but Tom would take no refusal, and Mrs. Deming soon appeared on the scene, for she was ready to respond to any appeal from the sick or sorrowing. And Tom was both!

The dying boy turned Bill unceremoniously out of the room, and, rejecting the medicine which Mrs. Deming had hastily caught up and brought with her, insisted on relieving his conscience from the burden of that turkey. We pass over the good woman's surprise and Tom's intense mortification at making the confession.

"I only took it for a lark," said Tom, apologetically, as he finished his sad tale.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Deming, "it's the first time I ever heard of a turkey being mistaken for a lark. And after all it has turned out a nightingale!"

She freely forgave him, and assured him that no one else should ever know it; but she gave him such a judicious mingling of advice and medicine that before morning the turkey ceased to be a burden, and he had learned the all important lesson that taking what belongs to another is just as much stealing in a student as in any other person, and that disorderly or lawless conduct is no more creditable to a schoolboy or collegian than to other fellows.—The Ladies' Floral Cabinet.