Page:Gadsby.djvu/271

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GADSBY

around to Thanksgiving Day; that day on which as many of a family as possibly can should sit around a common board; coming from afar, or from only a door or two away.

Gadsby’s dining-room was not big; it had always sat but six in his family. But, on this Thanksgiving Day,—hmmm! “Wait, now—uh-huh, that’s it. Just run that pair of sliding doors back, put that parlor lamp upstairs; and that piano? Why not roll it out into my front hall? I know it will look odd, but you can’t go through a Thanksgiving ‘soup to nuts’ standing up. Got to jam in chairs, any old way!”

But who is all this mob that will turn His Honor’s dining-room into a thirty-foot hall? I’ll look around, as our happy, laughing, singing, clapping group sits down to Gadsby’s Thanksgiving party.

I find two “posts of honor;” (My gracious! so far apart!); His Honor, with carving tools filling dish, dish, and dish.

“Atta boy! Atta girl! Pass up your chow-dish! This bird has but two drum-sticks, but six of his cousins wait, out in our cook-shop! Lots of grub! What’s that, Julius? A bit of dark? Want any gravy?”

At Post Two sits “Ma;” again in that good

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