CHAPTER I.

THE air was clear and fresh; a slight fall of snow just conveniently stopping at the point of becoming higher than the overshoes of the pedestrians, lay on the ground. It was an early fall, as the old farmers say when there is snow at Thanksgiving, and every sign gave promise of winter shutting in rapidly.

The old gray house set back from Cherryfield high road, had its chimney smoking by break of day, for Mother Brimmer tied on her baking apron as soon as she had told Rosalie how to prepare the simple breakfast “to hurry forward those pies,” as she said.

“All that can be done to-day, Rosy,” she observed, in the midst of the bustle that now ensued, “is clear gain toward to-morrow. Always remember that, child; don’t leave a lot of odds and ends to do when you’re going to have company, thinking you’ll have time. You never do; and the last minute catches you before you know it.”

“It’s such fun,” hummed the one girl of the family, stirring the cornmeal mush in the kettle vigorously, “to have company. I don’t ever remember having any before.”

“You forget the parson coming to tea,” said Mrs. Brimmer, bringing out her pie-plates from the pantry. “Let me see; I shall make four mince ones.”

“He isn’t company!” cried Rosy. “Mr. Higginson isn’t; I ain’t a bit afraid of him.”

“No more you should be,” exclaimed Mrs. Brimmer, setting down her pie-plates; “and then again, child, there isn’t any call to be afraid of any one, so long as you haven’t been doing anything wrong.”

“But it scares me to think something don’t look nice, or I don’t know how to do things,” said Rosy.

“Well, that’s very silly,” observed Mrs. Brimmer, going for her pastry-board; “do the best you can, Rosy, and then let it go.”

Rosy turned her little anxious face toward her mother, and smiled. “Anyway, this company is to be nice, and the things will be nice, too, I guess, ma.”

“We’ll try to make ’em so,” declared her mother, energetically stirring up her mince-meat in the stone jar.

“What will Miss Clorinda say to see the goose that I’m going to roast all myself?” cried Rosy, deserting her mush-kettle, to go over with this important question to the baking-table. “Say, ma?”

“I’m sure I don’t know!” cried Mrs. Brimmer, with pride. “She’ll say, ‘Was there ever such a goose!’ like as not, though, Rosy.”

“Do you suppose she really will!” cried the girl in delight, the color coming into her cheeks. When she looked like this, the boys, her brothers Jack and Cornelius, always called her “Wild Rose,” and it was their secret delight to summon the lovely bloom in as many startling ways as they could.

“But you’d better fly back to that mush,” said Mother Brimmer presently, “and get breakfast as you’d ought to, and not look ahead to to-morrow. That’ll take care of itself.”

“So it will!” cried Rosy merrily.

Jack and Cornelius, now hurrying in to breakfast, the small maid-of-all-work had to desert her delightful anticipations of to-morrow’s good times and fly to the work in hand. It was presently on the table—the steaming dish of mush, the baked potatoes, and the large pitcher of milk, and Mother Brimmer being summoned from her work, wiped her hands, took off her apron, and joined the others at their simple meal.

For the good woman, although her children were “in business and doing for themselves,” as she proudly expressed it, observed the same frugality as when times were hard and the future looked dark. “We won’t give up our plain breakfasts; they’ve always done us good, and we don’t need any other food,” she would say when the boys urged her to have a “bit of meat for herself, at least.”

“No, no; I don’t want it,” she said, “mother’s tough and hearty. As long as I’ve such perfect health, you needn’t worry, children.”

So the money that would have gone into the butcher’s till for the beefsteak or mutton chop, went instead into the bank to Brimmer Brothers and Company’s credit.

And the economy observed in the matter of breakfasts went into all the other details of daily life. The only thing in which the family indulged themselves was in the matter of books and magazines; and occasionally Mrs. Brimmer would send the young people off of an evening to a good lecture or concert in the Town Hall, or she would go with some of them, one always being obliged to remain with Roly Poly, who was called “the baby,” although rejoicing in the dignity of five years.

The business conducted by Brimmer Brothers and Company was a grocery and general trade carried on in a little red building on their grounds, that had formerly been an old tool-house, in which the farmer who then lived in the big gray house mended up his farming utensils, and kept his tools when he had done the jobs. The business was started because the little money left by Father Brimmer when he died had, despite all the watchful care of it, dwindled till now there was only a pittance left. The old weather-beaten house would last them their lifetime, and the ground was theirs, but the growing family would need more each year to support them, and make them able to take their proper place in the world. And the children, who had silently worried over the problem, how to help the mother they had seen working for them early and late ever since they could remember, were at last one day helped out by the little old red tool-house.

“Here I am,” it seemed to say. “Your mother has given me to you for a play-house; now use me to help her.”

It was an inspiration in the first of it, to be followed by hard and grinding work, much of it in the face of half-laughing opposition and downright sneers of friends and townsfolk. But Brimmer Brothers and Company having begun to face the world never once thought of shirking any of the duties which they met there, but just the same as if everybody believed that they could make a success of the business, they determined in their own minds to do so, and behaved accordingly. And Rosy, the most timid little thing before strangers, forgot all her fears now, and as Company of the new concern developed a resoluteness and self-possession that amazed the boys.

All this was two years before this Thanksgiving; and now Mother Brimmer and the successful business firm and Roly Poly were to have a party!

After the breakfast dishes were cleared away, the boys hurrying off to the shop, as they anticipated a rushing trade for the day, the old kitchen began to assume the aspect of getting ready for some great festivity, while it smelt of spices and boiling sweets clear out beyond the lilacs and down to the front gate. Every passer-by must have known that it was Thanksgiving, and suspected pies and such other accompaniments of the national holiday at once.

The stoning of raisins and buttering of cake-pans fell to Rosy to do, who was excused from shop duty for the morning to help the mother in her unwonted tasks; and patiently the little girl performed it all, secretly planning, as she waited on the busy housewife, taking the thousand and one necessary steps in and out the buttery and pantry, if one of her little wood-gardens remained unsold in the shop, to take it to dress the dinner-table on the morrow.

“They can’t all be sold,” thought Rosy, almost wishing for the moment that there was not quite such a demand for them. “If the red partridge-berries could only stay at home, what a party we would have!”

But when Cornelius ran in to dinner, Jack staying behind to mind the shop, he shouted out gleefully, “Rosy, every single one of your gardens is gone, and we could have sold two more if we’d had ’em!” Rosy gave a great sigh, and then reproached herself for even wishing it otherwise.

“Rosy’ll make more money than any of us,” declared Cornelius, generally called “Corny,” between his mouthfuls. “How I wish I’d thought about fixing up roots and ferns and such things in old cracked saucers.”

“But you help me,” cried Rosy. “I couldn’t even dig the roots without you, Corny.”

“And me, too!” cried Roly Poly, or Primrose, which was her real name. “I always go with you, Rosy, you know,” and she laid down the little bone she was slowly picking to regard her sister gravely.

“So you do!” cried Rosy and Cornelius together. “I’m sure we couldn’t ever get along without you, Pet;” whereat the baby of the family felt happy, and smilingly resumed her bone once more.

But that night a rap sounded on the outer door, sharp and decided.

“Run and see who it is, Jack,” said Mother Brimmer, looking up from her stocking-mending.

Jack came hurrying back, a large parcel with white paper loosely folded over it, in his hand.

“It’s for Rosy,” he said, setting it down.

“For me?” cried Rosy, too astonished to open it; but Cornelius helped her, and at last the paper was torn off.

“It’s your old red wood-garden!” exclaimed Corny, dreadfully disappointed, at least expecting a big cake.

“Oh!” Rosy clasped her hands, and took an ecstatic little spin in the middle of the floor. “Now it isn’t wicked to want it!” she cried, dreadfully excited.

“If I’d known you wanted to keep one,” said Jack slowly, “so bad, I never’d sold it.”

“Who bought it?” asked his mother.

“Mrs. Higginson.”

“I wonder what other people do who haven’t got such a minister, and his wife,” observed Mrs. Brimmer, wiping her eyes, as Rosy fell to oh-ing over her treasure, and fondling each leaf. “Folks ought to be good who sit under their preaching,” she added.

“We’ll be good to-morrow, anyway,” declared Cornelius. “My! don’t it seem funny to go to church in the middle of the week!”

But on the morrow, wasn’t that a festive scene? The table was laid in the keeping-room, whose door opened into the kitchen; knives and forks were laid for seven guests: Mr. and Mrs. Higginson, the minister and his good wife; Miss Clorinda Peaseley, a staunch friend of the family; old Widow Tucker and her spinster daughter who went out tailoring, and lived down in the Hollow; not because they would be such pleasant additions to the party, as that Mother Brimmer felt sure that no other invitations would be sent to them, bidding them to a Thanksgiving dinner; and lame Joey Clark and his sister, for the same reason, and because the children had begged to ask them.

Rosy’s wood-garden had the place of honor in the centre of the table, and it did seem as if there never was such a number of bright little berries to cast a glow over the neat cloth, done up in Mother Brimmer’s best style! How they shone among their green leaves!

And the goose! The cheeks of the little maid who cooked it rivalled her partridge berries in coloring, at all the compliments that were showered upon her; while the chicken pie, and spare-rib, and plum pudding, and pies, were declared the best ever eaten; and the hickory nuts and butter nuts, cracked by the boys, received most honorable mention.

And old Widow Tucker’s thin face began to lose some of its worn lines, and she forgot to make any uncharitable remarks about other people, to which she was a little prone, and her daughter, Miss Mary Jane, seeing her ma so happy, came out from behind her spectacles and began to be pleasant, too.

And the minister told the most delightful stories! and when he got tired, then there was Miss Clorinda to set the ball of conversation to rolling again. Everybody laughed, even lame Joey Clark, and, altogether, there was no family party in all Cherryfield so merry and festive.

And as they at last arose from the table, everybody protesting that they could not eat a bit more, Rosy pulled her mother’s gown and whispered, “I want to send a basketful of goodies down to the Four Corners boys; may I, ma?”