It would be quite a task if one were to try to compute the number of buckwheat cakes consumed at the long tables the next morning, and there might have been more but that Charlie stopped Frank in the act of helping himself to a further supply by saying: "Look here, son, if you keep on eating cakes you won't give your Thanksgiving dinner any show at all. I'm thinking about that turkey." This remark was passed down the table and had the effect of bringing the breakfast to a conclusion. The boys scampered off out of doors to scour the place for nuts or to dive into unfrequented woodsy places, while the girls gathered around the crowing baby, in high good-humor "What can I do, mother?" she asked. "Why, let me see. Your Aunt Alice and I are going to help your grandma to arrange the tables, after a while. We shall want a lot of decorations besides the roses your Uncle Bert brought. Suppose you little girls constitute yourselves an order of flower girls with Celia at your head, and go out to find whatever may do for the tables." "There are some chrysanthemums, little yellow ones, and there are a few white ones, too; I saw them yesterday down by the fence." "They will do nicely; we will have those and anything else that will be pretty for the table or the rooms." "Shall we ask Lulie to go with us?" whispered Edna. "You ask her," continued Edna in a low tone. For answer Mrs. Conway smiled over at Lulie. "Don't you want to be a flower girl?" she asked; "Celia, I propose that you take these two little girls in tow and go on an expedition to gather flowers to deck the tables and the house, I know you will enjoy it." "Indeed I shall," replied Celia. "Come on, girls, let's see what we can find." And the three sallied forth to discover what might be of use. An hour later they came back laden with small branches of scarlet oak, with graceful weeds, with the little buttony chrysanthemums, and with actually a few late roses which had braved the frost and It would fill a whole chapter if I were to tell you about all the good things on that table. Grandpa carved a huge brown turkey at one end, while Uncle Bert carved an equally huge and brown one at the other end. Grandma served the flakiest of noble chicken-pies at her side of the table, while Aunt Alice served an oyster-pie of the same proportions and quite as delicious. The boys, not in the least disturbed by the memory of the buckwheat cakes, were ready with full-sized appetites, while the girls, after their scramble in search of decorations, had no reason to complain of not being hungry. "What are you going to do with it then?" asked Lulie. "I haven't quite decided. I shall take it home, and maybe I'll pull it with Dorothy or maybe I will make a pen-wiper of it for a Christmas gift. I might give it to Ben." "I never heard of wishbone pen-wipers," said Lulie. "Are they very hard to make?" "Not so very, if you have anyone to help you with the sealing-wax head. Celia could help me with that. You make a head, you know, and then the "Everybody?" inquired Lulie. "The grandparents, too?" "Of course," Ben told her. "We are going to begin with something easy, like forfeits, and work up to the real snappy ones after." "What are the snappy ones?" asked Edna. "Oh, things like Hide-and-Seek and lively things that will keep us on the jump." The two little girls followed Ben into the next room and before long everyone was trying to escape from grandpa who was as eager for a game of Blind Man's "You're no good at all at hiding," Ben told her. "Anybody could have found you with half an eye." "Oh, I don't care," replied Edna; "I'll have just as much fun finding out some one else," and she it was who made straight for Uncle Wilbur's wood-pile to which he had returned with the fond belief of its serving as good a turn a second time. He poured these out on a flat stone near which Edna was standing. "Come here, Edna," he said, "let's divvy up. I'll give you half; you can take what you don't eat to your mother and I'll take what I don't eat to my mother." "No, that coming supper party sounds too seductive; I'll wait so that I can do it justice." "What did you see out in the woods?" asked Edna. "Foxy grape-vines and bare trees," he answered promptly. "Which ever you like; I've no doubt there were both kinds." "Oh, Ben," Edna glanced around fearfully, "do you really think there are bears around here?" "I know there are, sometimes." He drew down his mouth in a way which made Edna suspect a joke. "When is the sometimes?" she asked suspiciously. "When they have a circus at Mayville." "Oh, you Ben Barker, you are the worst," cried Edna roguishly pulling his nose. "Here, here," he exclaimed, "look out, it might come off like the fox's tail." "What fox?" "Don't you know the story of 'Reynard, the Fox'? It is in one of those big, "Here, in this house?" "Yea, verily. You don't mean to say you have never read those books! Why, there is not a year since I was eight years old that I haven't pored over them. Every time I have been here, and that is at least once a year, I go for those books, I'd advise you to make their acquaintance." "You tell me the story; then I won't have to read it." "No, my child, I shall not allow you to neglect your opportunities through any weakness on my part. Read it for yourself, and thereafter, the red book will be one of your prized memories of 'Overlea.'" "Then tell me again about the lady and the willow tree," begged Edna; "that was so funny." Hanging on his arm, Edna skipped along to the house to find that it was quite too early to think of sandwiches, though the lamps were lighted in all but the living-room where a cheerful fire made the place light enough. Around the fire sat grandma, Aunt Emmeline, Aunt Alice and Mrs. Conway. Aunt Lucia was upstairs with the babies. Uncle Wilbur was taking a nap, and grandpa and Uncle Bert were out looking after the stock, as Ira and the other man had been allowed a holiday. Over in the corner of the sofa sat Cousin Becky and her lover talking in low tones. "Dear me," said grandma, as the children "This is the best kind of light," declared Ben, "and the very time for telling tales. Let's all sit around the fire and have a good time. We'll begin with the oldest and so on down to the youngest If we don't have time to go all the way down the line, we'll stop when we're hungry. How's that, grandma? Do you like the plan?" "It is just as the others say, my dear," she answered. "It's a lovely plan, Ben," said Mrs. Conway. "You will have to begin, mother, and Aunt Emmeline can come next." "Oh, dear," protested that lady, "I never was one for telling tales; you will have to count me out." "I am sure if I can, you can," grandma "Oh, about when you were a little girl," cried Edna. "About the time the horse ran away with you," spoke up the boys. "About your first ball please," begged Celia. Grandma laughed. "Just listen to them. They have heard all those things dozens of times. I'll tell you what we will do. I will tell about the runaway horse, that belongs to the time when I was a little girl, and Emmeline shall tell about her first ball, and I can remind her if she forgets anything. I remember her first ball even better than my first, for it was at hers I met your grandfather." This was all so satisfactory that there was not a murmur of dissent, and grandma began: "It was when I was about ten years old that I went one day "Who was it shut the gate?" asked Allen eagerly. "Amanda's mother, who was living with us at that time." "And who caught the horses?" queried Ted. "Jim Doughty, who was our hired man." "Weren't you nearly frightened to death?" Lulie put the question. "Very nearly, and so was my father. He was as pale as a ghost when he got home. He had to walk all the way, and said he thought he should never get there. The country wasn't as thickly settled as it is now, and there were no houses between us and the spot where the horses took fright." "Where is the place you lived?" asked Allen. "I should like to see it," said the boy musingly. "I suppose those horses are dead. I'd like to see horses that could run like that." "They would be somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty-five or seventy years old by this time," said grandma with a smile, "and the oldest horse I ever knew was forty." "Gee! but that was old," remarked Frank. "Whose was it, grandma? Yours?" "No, my grandfather's. Her name was Dolly, and she took my grandparents to church every Sunday for many years, up to a little while before she died. Now, Emmeline, let's hear about the ball." "It was just a ball," began Aunt Emmeline. "The County Ball," put in grandma. "They always have one every year at Fair "I wore white tarlatan trimmed with forget-me-nots," said Aunt Emmeline, "and I danced my first dance with Steve Hardesty." She paused and gave a little sigh. "He took me into supper, too, poor Steve." Grandma leaned over and laid her hand softly on her sister's. "It is such a long time, such a very long time ago," she said softly. Aunt Emmeline smiled a little sadly. "Yes, a long time," she repeated. "You wore, what was it you wore, Cecelia?" "I wore pink tarlatan trimmed with rosebuds and a wreath of them in my hair. The skirt was caught up with bunches of the little buds and green leaves, and I thought it the prettiest dress I ever saw." "It was a great ball," Aunt Emmeline went on, brightening. "I danced every set, and so did you, Cecelia." "It was not till two years after, that Steve went," said Aunt Emmeline wistfully. "Tell us about Steve," spoke up Frank. "Did he become a soldier?" Celia shook her head warningly at her little brother, for she knew Aunt Emmeline's story, and of how her young lover was killed in battle, but Aunt Emmeline did not hesitate to answer. "Yes, he went, but he never came back." Grandma laughed. "Well, after all, hers wasn't a bit like mine, for it was a different shade of pink and wasn't made the same way. Yes, I was furious, I remember, because it wasn't the first time Polly had copied my things; she had a way of doing it." "Here comes grandpa," announced Herbert who did not find all this talk of dress and balls very interesting. The entrance of grandpa and Uncle Bert broke up the party by the fire, for |