Part 18 (1/2)

CHAPTER XIV

AT LAST!

Mr. Sim shuffled in from one door, Mr. Sam from the other. As each raised his eyes to look at the table, he saw the figure opposite; both stopped short, and the two pairs of little gray eyes glared, one at a black waistcoat, the other at a red.

”Take your seats, Cousins, please!” said Mary Sands, quickly. ”Mr.

Parks, if you'll set opposite me--that's it! The Lord make us thankful, Cousins and Mr. Parks, this Christmas Day, and mindful of the wants of others, amen! You said you didn't mind carvin', Mr. Parks, so I've give you the turkey.”

The four gray eyes, releasing the waistcoat b.u.t.tons opposite, glanced furtively over the table, and opened wide. Never had the Sill farm seen a Christmas dinner like this. ”Ma” had liked a good set-out, but she aimed to be saving, holidays and all days. They always had a turkey, but it was apt to be the smallest hen in the flock, and the rest was to match. But here,--here was the Big Young Gobbler, the pride and glory of the poultry yard, no longer ruffling it in black and red, but s.h.i.+ning in rich golden brown, with strings of nut-brown sausages about his portly breast. Here was cranberry sauce, not in a bowl, but moulded in the wheat-sheaf mould, and glowing like the Great Carbuncle. Here was an Alp of potato, a golden mountain of squash, onions glimmering translucent like moonstones, the jewels of the winter feast, celery tossing pale-green plumes--good gracious! celery enough for a hotel, Mr. Sam thought; here beside each plate was a roll--was this bread, Mr. Sim wondered, twisted into a knot and s.h.i.+ning ”like artificial?” and on each roll a spray of scarlet geranium with its round green leaf. And what--_what_ was that in the middle of the table? The twins forgot the waistcoats; forgot the waste too, forgot even each other, and stared with all their eyes. A castle! a real castle, towers and battlements, moat and drawbridge, all complete, all sparkling in crystal sugar. From the topmost turret a tiny pennon floating; in the gateway a knight on horseback, nearly as large as the pennon, with fairy lance couched. It was the triumph of Mr. Ivory Cheeseman's life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARY SANDS.]

”You take that to your lady friend,” he said, ”and say the man as made it wishes her well, and you too, friend Parks, you too!”

Mary Sands was gazing at it with delighted eyes.

”Did you ever, Cousins?” she said. ”Now _did_ you ever see anything so handsome as that? It's a Christmas present from Mr. Parks, and it beats any present ever I had in my life. I declare, this _is_ a Christmas, isn't it, Cousins? and look at you both dressed up to the nines, and lookin' real--” she caught Calvin's eye over the turkey, and faltered,--”real nice, I'm sure! And each one of you changin' his vest for Christmas! I'm sure it's real smart of you. Cousin Sim's got on his new slippers, Cousin Sam! Cousin Sim, you see Cousin Sam's got the seal on, and don't it look elegant? Why, I'm just as proud of you both! Now you want to make a good dinner, Mr. Parks and Cousins, or I shall think it _isn't_ good, and I own I've done my best.”

”Good!” said Calvin Parks, as he handed a solid ivory slab to Mr. Sim; ”if there's a better dinner than this in the State of Maine, the folks wouldn't get over it, I expect. I've seen dinners served from the Roostick down to New Orleans, and I never see the ekal of this for style nor quality.”

”I'm sure you are more than kind to say so!” said Mary Sands. ”Dear me!

times like this, any one thinks of days past and gone, don't they? You must have had real good times Christmas, when you was boys together, Mr.

Parks, Cousins and you together.”

”Well, I guess!” said Calvin Parks. ”Sam, do you rec'lect one time I come over to spend Christmas Day with you when we was little shavers about ten year old, and we left the pig-pen gate open, and the pigs got all over the place? Gorry! do you rec'lect the back door stood open, and nothin' to it but old Marm Sow must projick right into the kitchen where your Ma was gettin' dinner? Haw! haw! do you rec'lect that?”

”He! he!” piped Mr. Sam; ”I guess I do! and Ma up and basted her hide with hot gravy! My Juniper, how she hollered!”

Mr. Sim fixed Mary Sands with a glittering eye. ”You tell him 'twarn't gravy, 'twas puddin' sauce!” he said.

”Cousin Sam, Cousin Sim says 'twas puddin' sauce!” said Mary Sands cheerfully.

”Think likely 'twas!” said Mr. Sam. ”Tell him he's right for once, and put that down on his little slate.”

”Then another time,” Calvin went on; ”another morsel, Miss Hands? just a sc.r.a.p? can't? now ain't that a sight! I can, just as easy--watch me now!

I rec'lect well, that Methody parson was here with his boy. What was his name? Lihu, was it, or 'Liphalet?”

”'Liphalet!” said Mr. Sim, a faint twinkle coming into his dim eyes.

”'Liphalet Pinky!”

”'Liphalet Pinky! that's it!” Calvin laid down his knife and fork to slap his thigh. ”Jerusalem crickets! how we did play it on that unfort'nate youngster! Miss Hands, you see Sim settin' there, sober as a judge; you'd think he'd been like that all his life now, wouldn't you?

You'd never think he'd get an unfort'nate boy into the bucket and h'ist him up and down the well till he was e'enamost scairt to death, would you now?”

”I certin should not!” cried Mary Sands gleefully. ”Why, Cousin Sim!”

”And he hollerin' all the time, 'Lemme out! I'll tell Pa on you, and he'll call down the wrath to come! You lemme out!' and then we'd slack on the old sweep and down he'd go again--haw! haw!”