  THANKSGIVING AGAIN. Seven years had passed and once more the Thanksgiving tide was in Mapleton. This year it had come cold and frosty. Chill driving autumn storms had stripped the painted glories from the trees, and remorseless frosts had chased the hardy ranks of the asters and golden-rods back and back till scarce a blossom could be found in the deepest and most sequestered spots. The great elm over the Pitkin Seven long years had passed since James sailed. Years of watching, of waiting, of cheerful patience, at first, and at last of resigned sorrow. Once they heard from James, at the first port where the ship stopped. It was a letter dear to his mother's heart, manly, resigned and Christian; expressing full purpose to work with God in whatever calling he should labor, and cheerful hopes of the future. Then came a long, long silence, and then tidings that the Eastern Star had been wrecked on a reef in the Indian ocean! The mother had given back her treasure into the same beloved hands whence she first received him. "I gave him to God, and God took him," she said. "I shall have him again in God's time." This was how she settled the whole matter with herself. Diana had mourned with all the vehement intensity of her being, but out of the deep baptism of sorrow she had emerged with a new and nobler nature. The vain, trifling, laughing Undine had received a soul and was a true woman. She devoted herself to James's mother with an utter self-sacrificing devotion, resolved as far as in her lay to be both son and daughter to her. She read, and studied, and fitted herself as a teacher in a neighboring academy, and persisted in claiming the right of a daughter to place all the amount of her earnings in the family purse. And this year there was special need. With all his care, with all his hard work and that of his family, Deacon Silas never had been able to raise money to annihilate the debt upon the farm. There seemed to be a perfect fatality about it. Let them all make what exertions they might, just as they were hoping for a sum that should exceed the interest and begin the work of settling the principal would come some loss that would throw them all back. One year their barn was burned just as they had housed their hay. On another a valuable horse died, and then there were fits of sickness among the children, and poor crops in the field, and low prices in the market; in short, as Biah remarked, "The deacon's luck did seem to be a sort o' streaky, for do what you might there's always suthin' to put him back." As the younger boys grew up the deacon had ceased to hire help, and Biah had transferred his services to Squire Jones, a rich landholder in the neighborhood, who wanted some one to overlook his place. The increased wages had enabled him to give a home to Maria Jane and a start in life to two or three sturdy little American citizens who played around his house door. Nevertheless, Biah never lost sight of the "deacon's folks" in his multifarious cares, and never missed an opportunity either of doing them a good turn or of picking up any stray item of domestic news as to how matters were going on in that interior. He had privately broached the theory to Miss Briskett, "that arter all it was James that Diany (he always pronounced all names as if they ended in y) was sot on, and that she took it so hard, his goin' off, that it did beat all! Seemed to make another gal of her; he shouldn't wonder if she'd come out and jine the church." And Diana not long after unconsciously fulfilled Biah's predictions. Of late Biah's good offices had been in special requisition, as the deacon had been for nearly a month on a sick bed with one of those interminable attacks of typhus fever which used to prevail in old times, when the doctor did everything he could to make it certain that a man once brought down with sickness never should rise again. But Silas Pitkin had a constitution derived through an indefinite distance from a temperate, hard-working, godly ancestry, and so withstood both death and the doctor, and was alive and in a convalescent state, which gave hope of his being able to carve the turkey at his Thanksgiving dinner. The evening sunlight was just fading out of the little "keeping-room," adjoining the bed-room, where the convalescent now was able to sit up most of the day. A cot bed had been placed there, designed for him to lie down upon in intervals of fatigue. At present, however, he was sitting in his arm-chair, complacently watching the blaze of the hickory fire, or following placidly the motions of his wife's knitting-needles. There was an air of calmness and repose on his thin, worn features that never was there in days of old: the haggard, anxious lines had been smoothed away, and that spiritual expression which sickness and sorrow sometimes develops on the human face reigned in its place. It was the "clear shining after rain." "Wife," he said, "read me something I can't quite remember out of the Bible. It's in the eighth of Deuteronomy, the second verse." Mrs. Pitkin opened the big family Bible on the stand, and read, "And thou shalt remember all the way in which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee and to know what is in thy heart, and whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." "There, that's it," interrupted the deacon. "That's what I've been thinking of as I've lain here sick and helpless. I've fought hard to keep things straight and clear the farm, but it's pleased the Lord to bring me low. I've had to lie still and leave all in his hands." "And where better could you leave all?" said his wife, with a radiant smile. "Well, just so. I've been saying, 'Here I am, Lord; do with me as seemeth to thee good,' and I feel a great quiet now. I think it's doubtful if we make up the interest this year. I don't know what Bill may get for the hay: but I don't see much prospect of raisin' on't; and yet I don't worry. Even if it's the Lord's will to have the place sold up and we be turned out in our old age, I don't seem to worry about it. His will be done." There was a sound of rattling wheels at this moment, and anon there came a brush and flutter of garments, and Diana rushed in, all breezy with the freshness of out-door air, and caught Mrs. Pitkin in her arms and kissed her first and then the deacon with effusion. "Here I come for Thanksgiving," she said, in a rich, clear tone, "and here," she added, drawing a roll of bills from her bosom, and putting it into the deacon's hand, "here's the interest money for this year. I got it all myself, because I wanted to show you I could be good for something." "Thank you, dear daughter," said Mrs. Pitkin. "I felt sure some way would be found and now I see what." She added, kissing Diana and patting her rosy cheek, "a very pleasant, pretty way it is, too." "I was afraid that Uncle Silas would worry and put himself back again about the interest money," said Diana. "Well, daughter," said the Deacon, "it's a pity we should go through all we do in this world and not learn anything by it. I hope the Lord has taught me not to worry, but just do my best and leave myself and everything else in his hands. We can't help ourselves—we can't make one hair white or black. Why should we wear our lives out fretting? If I'd a known that years ago it would a been better for us all." "Never mind, father, you know it now," said his wife, with a face serene as a star. In this last gift of quietude of soul to her husband she recognized the answer to her prayers of years. "Well now," said Diana, running to the window, "I should like to know what Biah Carter is coming here about." "Oh, Biah's been very kind to us in this sickness," said Mrs. Pitkin, as Biah's feet resounded on the scraper. "Good evenin', Deacon," said Biah, entering, "Good evenin', Mrs. Pitkin. Sarvant, ma'am," to Diana—"how ye all gettin' on?" "Nicely, Biah—well as can be," said Mrs. Pitkin. "Wal, you see I was up to the store with some o' Squire Jones's bell flowers. Sim Coan he said he wanted some to sell, and so I took up a couple o' barrels, and I see the darndest big letter there for the Deacon. Miss Briskett she was in, lookin' at it, and so was Deacon Simson's wife; she come in arter some cinnamon sticks. Wal, and they all looked at it and talked it over, and couldn't none o' 'em for their lives think what it's all about, it was sich an almighty thick letter," said Biah, drawing out a long, legal-looking envelope and putting it in the Deacon's hands. "I hope there isn't bad news in it," said Silas Pitkin, the color flushing apprehensively in his pale cheeks as he felt for his spectacles. There was an agitated, silent pause while he broke the seals and took out two documents. One was the mortgage on his farm and the other a receipt in full for the money owed on it! The Deacon turned the papers to and fro, gazed on them with a dazed, uncertain air and then said: "Why, mother, do look! Is this so? Do I read it right?" "Certainly, you do," said Diana, reading over his shoulder. "Somebody's paid that debt, uncle!" "Thank God!" said Mrs. Pitkin, softly; "He has done it." "Wal, I swow!" said Biah, after having turned the paper in his hands, "if this 'ere don't beat all! There's old Squire Norcross's name on't. It's the receipt, full and square. What's come over the old crittur? He must a' got religion in his old' age; but if grace made him do that, grace has done a tough job, that's all; but it's done anyhow! and that's all you need to care about. Wal, wal, I must git along hum—Mariar Jane'll be wonderin' where I be. Good night, all on ye!" and Biah's retreating wagon wheels were off in the distance, rattling furiously, for, notwithstanding Maria Jane's wondering, Biah was resolved not to let an hour slip by without declaring the wonderful tidings at the store. The Pitkin family were seated at supper in the big kitchen, all jubilant over the recent news. The father, radiant with the pleasantest excitement, had for the first time come out to take his place at the family board. In the seven years since the beginning of our story the Pitkin boys had been growing apace, and now surrounded the table quite an army of rosy-cheeked, jolly young fellows, who to-night were in a perfect tumult of animal gaiety. Diana twinkled and dimpled and flung her sparkles round among them, and there was unbounded jollity. "Who's that looking in at the window?" called out Sam, aged ten, who sat opposite the house door. At that moment the door opened, and a dark stranger, bronzed with travel and dressed in foreign-looking garments, entered. He stood one moment, all looking curiously at him, then crossing the floor, he kneeled down by Mrs. Pitkin's chair, and throwing off his cap, looked her close in the eyes. "Mother, don't you know me?" She looked at him one moment with that still earnestness peculiar to herself, and then fell into his arms. "O my son, my son!" There were a few moments of indescribable confusion, during which Diana retreated, pale and breathless, to a neighboring window, and stood with her hand over the locket which she had always worn upon her heart. After a few moments he came, and she felt him by her. "What, cousin!" he said; "no welcome from you?" She gave one look, and he took her in his arms. She felt the beating of his heart, and he felt hers. Neither spoke, yet each felt at that moment sure of the other. "I say, boys," said James, "who'll help bring in my sea chest?" Never was sea chest more triumphantly ushered; it was a contest who should get near enough to take some part in it's introduction, and soon it was open, and James began distributing its contents. "There, mother," said he, undoing a heavy black India satin and shaking out its folds, "I'm determined you shall have a dress fit for you; and here's a real India shawl to go with it. Get those on and you'll look as much like a queen among women as you ought to." Then followed something for every member of the family, received with frantic demonstrations of applause and appreciation by the more juvenile. "Oh, what's that?" said Sam, as a package done up in silk paper and tied with silver cord was disclosed. "That's—oh—that's my wife's wedding-dress," said James, unfolding and shaking out a rich satin; "and here's her shawl," drawing out an embroidered box, scented with sandal-wood. The boys all looked at Diana, and Diana laughed and grew pale and red all in the same breath, as James, folding back the silk and shawl in their boxes, handed them to her. Mrs. Pitkin laughed and kissed her, and said, gaily, "All right, my daughter—just right." What an evening that was, to be sure! What a confusion of joy and gladness! What a half-telling of a hundred things that it would take weeks to tell. James had paid the mortgage and had money to spare; and how he got it all, and how he was saved at sea, and where he went, and what befell him here and there, he promised to be telling them for six months to come. "Well, your father mustn't be kept up too late," said Mrs. Pitkin. "Let's have prayers now, and then So they gathered around the wide kitchen fire and the family Bible was brought out. "Father," said James, drawing out of his pocket the Bible his mother had given him at parting, "let me read my Psalm; it has been my Psalm ever since I left you." There was a solemn thrill in the little circle as James read the verses: "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven; they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!" When all had left the old kitchen, James and Diana sat by the yet glowing hearth and listened to the crickets, and talked over all the past and the future. "And now," said James, "it's seven years since I left you, and to-morrow is the seventh Thanksgiving, and I've always set my heart on getting home to be married Thanksgiving evening." "But, dear me, Jim, we can't. There isn't time." "Why not?—we've got all the time there is!" "But the wedding-dress can't be made, possibly." "Oh, that can wait till the week after. You are pretty enough without it!" "But what will they all say?" "Who cares what they say? I don't," said James. "The fact is, I've set my heart on it, and you owe me something for the way you treated me the last Thanksgiving I was here, seven years ago. Now don't you?" "Well, yes, I do, so have it just as you will." And so it was accomplished the next evening. And among the wonders of Mapleton Miss Briskett announced it as chief, that it was the first time she ever heard of a bride that was married first and had her wedding-dress made the week after! She never had heard of such a thing. Yet, strange to say, for years after neither of the parties concerned found themselves a bit the worse for it. |
The shores of the Atlantic coast of America may well be a terror to navigators. They present an inexorable wall, against which forbidding and angry waves incessantly dash, and around which shifting winds continually rave. The approaches to safe harbors are few in number, intricate and difficult, requiring the skill of practiced pilots.
But, as if with a pitying spirit of hospitality, old Cape Cod, breaking from the iron line of the coast, like a generous-hearted sailor intent on helpfulness, stretches an hundred miles outward, and, curving his sheltering arms in a protective circle, gives a noble harborage. Of this harbor of Cape Cod the report of our governmental Coast Survey thus speaks: "It is one of the finest harbors for ships of war on the whole of our Atlantic coast. The width and freedom from obstruction of every kind at its entrance and the extent of sea room upon the bay side make it accessible to vessels of the largest class in almost all winds. This advantage, its capacity, depth of water, excellent anchorage, and the complete shelter it affords from all winds, render it one of the most valuable ship harbors upon our coast."
We have been thus particular in our mention of this place, because here, in this harbor, opened the first scene in the most wonderful drama of modern history.
Let us look into the magic mirror of the past and see this harbor of Cape Cod on the morning of the 11th of November, in the year of our Lord 1620, as described to us in the simple words of the pilgrims: "A pleasant bay, circled round, except the entrance, which is about four miles over from land to land, compassed about to the very sea with oaks, pines, junipers, sassafras, and other sweet weeds. It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ship may safely ride."
Such are the woody shores of Cape Cod as we look back upon them in that distant November day, and the harbor lies like a great crystal gem on the bosom of a virgin wilderness. The "fir trees, the pine trees, and the bay," rejoice together in freedom, for as yet the axe has spared them; in the noble bay no shipping has found shelter; no voice or sound of civilized man has broken the sweet calm of the forest. The oak leaves, now turned to crimson and maroon by the autumn frosts, reflect themselves in flushes of color on the still waters. The golden leaves of the sassafras yet cling to the branches, though their life has passed, and every brushing wind bears showers of them down to the water. Here and there the dark spires of the cedar and the green leaves and red berries of the holly contrast with these lighter tints. The forest foliage grows down to the water's edge, so that the dash of the rising and falling tide washes into the shaggy cedar boughs which here and there lean over and dip in the waves.
No voice or sound from earth or sky proclaims that anything unwonted is coming or doing on these shores to-day. The wandering Indians, moving their hunting-camps along the woodland paths, saw no sign in the stars that morning, and no different color in the sunrise from what had been in the days of their fathers. Panther and wild-cat under their furry coats felt no thrill of coming dispossession, and saw nothing through their great golden eyes but the dawning of a day just like all other days—when "the sun ariseth and they gather themselves into their dens and lay them down." And yet alike to Indian, panther, and wild-cat, to every oak of the forest, to every foot of land in America, from the stormy Atlantic to the broad Pacific, that day was a day of days.
There had been stormy and windy weather, but now dawned on the earth one of those still, golden times of November, full of dreamy rest and tender calm. The skies above were blue and fair, and the waters of the curving bay were a downward sky—a magical under-world, wherein the crimson oaks, and the dusk plumage of the pine, and the red holly-berries, and yellow sassafras leaves, all flickered and glinted in wavering bands of color as soft winds swayed the glassy floor of waters.
In a moment, there is heard in the silent bay a sound of a rush and ripple, different from the lap of the many-tongued waves on the shore; and, silently as a cloud, with white wings spread, a little vessel glides into the harbor.
A little craft is she—not larger than the fishing-smacks that ply their course along our coasts in summer; but her decks are crowded with men, women, and children, looking out with joyous curiosity on the beautiful bay, where, after many dangers and storms, they first have found safe shelter and hopeful harbor.
That small, unknown ship was the Mayflower; those men and women who crowded her decks were that little handful of God's own wheat which had been flailed by adversity, tossed and winnowed till every husk of earthly selfishness and self-will had been beaten away from them and left only pure seed, fit for the planting of a new world. It was old Master Cotton Mather who said of them, "The Lord sifted three countries to find seed wherewith to plant America."
Hark now to the hearty cry of the sailors, as with a plash and a cheer the anchor goes down, just in the deep water inside of Long Point; and then, says their journal, "being now passed the vast ocean and sea of troubles, before their preparation unto further proceedings as to seek out a place for habitation, they fell down on their knees and blessed the Lord, the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all perils and miseries thereof."
Let us draw nigh and mingle with this singular act of worship. Elder Brewster, with his well-worn Geneva Bible in hand, leads the thanksgiving in words which, though thousands of years old, seem as if written for the occasion of that hour:
"Praise the Lord because he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Let them which have been redeemed of the Lord show how he delivereth them from the hand of the oppressor, And gathered them out of the lands: from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south, when they wandered in deserts and wildernesses out of the way and found no city to dwell in. Both hungry and thirsty, their soul failed in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their troubles, and he delivered them in their distresses. And led them forth by the right way, that they might go unto a city of habitation. They that go down to the sea and occupy by the great waters: they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, and it lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, and descend to the deep: so that their soul melteth for trouble. They are tossed to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and all their cunning is gone. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He turneth the storm to a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. When they are quieted they are glad, and he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be."
As yet, the treasures of sacred song which are the liturgy of modern Christians had not arisen in the church. There was no Watts, and no Wesley, in the days of the Pilgrims; they brought with them in each family, as the most precious of household possessions, a thick volume containing, first, the Book of Common Prayer, with the Psalter appointed to be read in churches; second, the whole Bible in the Geneva translation, which was the basis on which our present English translation was made; and, third, the Psalms of David, in meter, by Sternhold and Hopkins, with the music notes of the tunes, adapted to singing. Therefore it was that our little band were able to lift up their voices together in song and that the noble tones of Old Hundred for the first time floated over the silent bay and mingled with the sound of winds and waters, consecrating our American shores.
"All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice:
Him serve with fear, His praise forthtell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
"The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make;
We are His flock, He doth us feed,
And for his sheep He doth us take.
"O enter then His gates with praise,
Approach with joy His courts unto:
Praise, laud, and bless His name always,
For it is seemly so to do.
"For why? The Lord our God is good,
His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure."
This grand hymn rose and swelled and vibrated in the still November air; hile in between the pauses came the warble of birds, the scream of the jay, the hoarse call of hawk and eagle, going on with their forest ways all unmindful of the new era which had been ushered in with those solemn sounds.
