Part 19 (2/2)

The horses were wonderful. They stopped stock-still. The near one was dragged over by the weight of the sleigh but he lay quite still. Peg behaved like the almost thoroughbred she is and not only stood quietly but gave a ringing neigh of encouragement to the other horses.

Zebedee and I were out in a jiffy and running to the a.s.sistance of the turnover. I deemed it wiser for me to attend to the horses. If they had struggled, it might have been quite serious. I loosened the traces on the one who had been able to keep his feet, and then the fallen one, and as soon as I had accomplished that, I caught hold of the bridle and got him up in no time. He was not hurt at all. Zebedee was digging out the crowd, who had, one and all, taken headers. A waving sea of legs presented itself to our astonished gaze. One by one they scrambled out, all looking more or less sheepish but all rosy and ready to laugh if they could just be rea.s.sured that no one was hurt.

”Jo! Jo! Pull me out! The grey legs are mine!” came in m.u.f.fled tones from the deepest part of the drift where two fat legs encased in homemade grey woolen stockings were wildly beating the air.

”Sally!” we cried, and in a moment we had her out.

”Oh, Lord!” I groaned. ”Poor Father and more pink medicine!” but not a bit of it! Sally was as game as the rest of them, and came up smiling and happy when she, too, found no one was hurt. The snow was as dry as powder and shook off them like so much flour. The sleigh was righted in short order and they all clambered back. Dee penitently handed the reins to Jo.

”I am not to be trusted. You had better drive.”

”Not at all! No one could have told that was not perfectly good road. I should have been looking at the road instead of--ahem--ahem--instead of--instead--of--that buzzard, sailing down there,” pointing to one of the denizens of the air who had made his appearance in the sky almost as though he had expected some pickings from our turnover.

”Humph! Buzzard, indeed!” grunted Sally. ”If I was Miss Dee I shouldn't thank you to be a calling me a buzzard.” Which went to show that Sally was not so much wrapped up that she could not see what was right in front of her.

What a dinner we did have! Tweedles and I often spoke of it when we were back at school, especially on the veal pot-pie days. The table was resplendent with its fine old damask and silver and with its load of good things.

”That there gobbler,” said Mammy Susan, pointing with pride at the king of the feast sitting on his parsley throne, ”don't weigh a ounce less 'n twenty pounds. He was the greediest one of the whole flock an' now see what he done come to! He was always the struttinest fowl and looks lak he is still some pompous with his bosom chuck full of chestnuts.”

Blanche and Bill were to wait on the table, but Mammy Susan had to come into the dining room to see that everything went off in proper style.

She stood back like a head waiter in some fine restaurant and directed her minions with the airs of a despot.

”Pa.s.s that ther macaroni to Miss Dum!” would come in a sibilant whisper.

And then as Bill would prance by the old woman with all of the style he had learned on the Mississippi steamboat, she would say in stern undertones: ”Don't wait fer folks to lick they plates befo' you gib um a sicond help.”

”Blanche, gib Miss Sally Winn some 'scalloped oyschters, and there is Mr. Tucker 'thout a livin' thing on his plate.”

Eating was not the only thing we did at that feast. We talked and laughed and cracked jokes until poor Sally Winn forgot all about dying and I think realized there was something in life, after all. What we had for that Christmas dinner was no doubt what every family in the United States who could have it was having, but it seemed to us to be better, and I believe it was. Mammy Susan had a witch's wand to stir things with and whatever she touched was perfect. Her cranberry sauce always jelled; her candied sweet potatoes were only equalled by marrons glace, so Zebedee said. The cheese on her macaroni always browned just right; and her mashed potatoes always looked like banks of snowy clouds. She seemed to have the power of glorifying egg plant and salsify so that persons often asked what the delicious thing was they were eating.

”Whew!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Zebedee, ”I am certainly glad I did not have to eat in my embonpoint. I would have touched the table long ago and would have had to stop. As it is, I can still eat about three inches without having a collision.”

Our day pa.s.sed in feasting and merry making. The walls of Bracken rang with merriment. Even Father came out of his book and got quite gay.

Sally Winn forgot to hold her heart and laughed like a girl at the jests.

”It will be fatal to sit down after such a dinner,” declared Dee. ”We had better go out and coast and jolt it down.”

There was only one small sled, left from my childhood, but the attic was full of broken chairs, and in a few minutes the eager males had fas.h.i.+oned make-s.h.i.+ft coasters out of old rockers and chair backs.

”They are not very elegant but they will slide down the hill, which is the main thing,” said Wink, as he lay flat on his stomach and whizzed down the long hill to the spring.

We had a chair back apiece and so did not have to wait turns nor did we have to go double. I must say I like to coast by myself and guide my own sled. The impromptu sleds were not so very strong and it was much safer not to overload. We coasted until the long hill was as slick as gla.s.s and, with the exception of an occasional turnover, there were no casualties.

Father and Sally Winn watched us from the library window but after a while they came out, Sally bundled up to within an inch of her life, and what should they do but mount some chair backs and get in the game. Jo Winn fell off his sled when he saw his invalid sister, who only the night before had been on the point of shuffling off this mortal coil, actually straddling a chair back and taking the hill like a native of Switzerland.

”This is a new prescription I have given Sally,” whispered Father to Jo.

”She is to coast every day as long as the snow lasts, and after it melts we are to think of some other form of exercise for her.”

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