It was the morning of Thanksgiving Day, and Susan woke, sat up in bed, and looked about her. Beside her, on the quilt, lay the black-and-white shawl dolly, and, if you remember that she came out to play only when Susan was ailing, then you will know, without being told, that Susan had been ill.

Yes, for three whole days Susan had been in bed. But to-day she meant not only to be up and dressed, but to go downstairs as well, for to-day was Thanksgiving Day, and to stay in bed on such an occasion was something Susan didn’t intend to do.

Four days ago Susan and Grandfather had come home from Banbury. They had arrived late in the evening, and Susan, tired out, had fallen asleep in her chair at the dinner-table, and had been carried up to bed without telling Grandmother a single word about her visit or even presenting her with the stocking-darner which she had carried in her hand all the way home from Letty’s house.

Of the next two days all Susan could remember was a sharp pain and a big black bottle of medicine, with occasional glimpses of Grandmother and Grandfather tiptoeing about the darkened room.

But yesterday Susan had felt more like herself. She had enjoyed cuddling the shawl baby, she had eaten a plate of milk toast for her dinner, and she had given Grandmother a complete history of her visit from the moment she left Featherbed Lane until her return.

She had asked to see Flip, but Grandmother had said mysteriously that Flip, in her turn, had gone visiting, and that she wouldn’t be back until dinner-time Thanksgiving Day.

“When is Thanksgiving Day?” Susan had asked.

“To-morrow,” Grandmother had answered, and Susan had sprung up in bed with a cry.

“Won’t I be well to-morrow?” she asked imploringly. “Won’t I be well for Thanksgiving Day?”

Grandmother at this moment was shaking the big black medicine bottle. It did seem to Susan that it was always medicine time, though Grandmother said it was marked on the bottle “To be taken every two hours.”

Mrs. Whiting smiled at her tone of despair.

“I think so,” said she encouragingly. “That is, if you take your medicine nicely,” she added, approaching the bed with a large spoon in one hand and the bottle in the other.

Susan shut her eyes and opened her mouth. Down went the medicine, and, without a whimper and with only a wry face to tell how she really felt, Susan smiled bravely up at Grandmother.

“A good child,” said Grandmother approvingly. “I’m sure you will be downstairs to-morrow.”

Now to-morrow had come, and Susan, slipping out of bed and into her warm rosy wrapper and slippers, trotted downstairs in search of some one.

She found Grandmother quite alone, save for a delicious smell in the air of roasting turkey. Grandmother was busy baking, but she stopped long enough to help Susan dress and to answer a few of the questions that tumbled pell-mell from Susan’s lips.

“Where is Grandfather? Gone to Thanksgiving service at church. You slept late this morning, Susan. When will Phil be home? Not for two weeks. They have all gone to his grandfather’s for Thanksgiving, and they mean to visit his Great-Uncle Fred, who gave him his electric train, on their way back.”

“Is any one coming here for Thanksgiving, Grandmother?” asked Susan, delicately eating a bowl of bread and milk for breakfast from one end of the table on which Mrs. Whiting was stirring up a cake.

“Miss Liza is coming,” answered Mrs. Whiting, stopping her work and putting down her spoon. “I may as well tell you now, Susan, I suppose. Miss Lunette is married.”

Susan looked at Grandmother for a moment without speaking. How unkind of Miss Lunette to have a wedding while she was away!

“Didn’t she save me any cake?” she asked at length. “Did Phil go to the wedding?”

“There wasn’t any wedding, Susan, or any cake,” answered Mrs. Whiting. “No one was invited but Miss Liza. They stood up in the parlor and Mr. Drew married them. Then they went off to Green Valley, where her husband lives.”

“Maybe she will ask me to come to see her there,” said Susan hopefully.

“Perhaps she will,” said Grandmother. “It may be the making of her, Susan,” she went on, half to herself. “She certainly was full of whims and crotchets, and would try the patience of any one but a saint like Miss Liza. Your Grandfather always said that all she needed was hard work, and I think she will have it now, for her husband was a widower with three children and an old mother, too. It may make a woman of her. I hope so, I’m sure. I know things won’t be so hard for Miss Liza, and I’m glad of that.”

And Grandmother beat her batter with such determination that her cheeks grew pink and her little white curls bobbed up and down in time with the beating.

“Is Flip coming with Miss Liza?” asked Susan.

“Um-um,” was all Grandmother answered.

So Susan put away her little bowl and went into the front hall to call upon her friend the newel post.

“You ought to be dressed up for Thanksgiving,” decided Susan, stroking her friend’s bulky form. “Which do you like best, pink or blue? Pink, did you say? Then Snowball shall wear a blue ribbon and you shall have a pink one on your neck to celebrate the day.”

Susan spent some time selecting and arranging the ribbons to suit the taste of all concerned. She then found the table set for Thanksgiving dinner, so she posted herself in the front window where she could look all the way down the lane to the gate and report to Grandmother the moment old Nero’s Roman nose was visible.

She watched and watched, and at last they came jogging along, Miss Liza well wrapped up against the cold November air that had a “feel” of snow in it, and Grandfather wearing his fur-lined gloves for the first time this season, Susan observed.

In came Miss Liza, while Grandfather drove on to the barn, and to Susan’s delight Miss Liza carried a big bundle which she placed in the little girl’s outstretched arms.

“It’s Flip,” Susan repeated joyfully. “I know it’s Flip. It’s my Flip.”

Yes, it was Flip, but a Flip so changed, so beautified, so transformed that only the members of her own family would have known her.

In the first place, her face and hands, which had grown a dingy brown, had become several shades lighter, producing a fresh, youthful appearance heretofore sorely lacking. Her bald head had blossomed out in a beautiful crop of worsted hair, in color a rich garnet-brown.

“Miss Lunette always used that color for her worsted hens,” Miss Liza explained, “and I thought it would make real pretty-looking hair for Flip.”

Susan was delighted with the effect. She smiled radiantly at Miss Liza. But when she examined her child’s complete new wardrobe, she put Flippy down on the couch, and flung her arms first around Miss Liza and then about Grandmother’s neck.

For Flippy wore a new set of underwear, even to a red flannel petticoat trimmed with red crocheted lace. She wore a brown cloth dress, elaborately decorated with yellow feather-stitching. But, most beautiful of all, about her sloping shoulders was a dark-blue cape, lined with scarlet satin and edged with narrow black fur; upon her head was tied a dark-blue fur-trimmed cap to match, from under which her garnet worsted hair peeped coyly; and, oh, crowning touch! about her neck upon a ribbon hung a black fur muff.

Susan’s excitement and delight were such that even Thanksgiving dinner seemed of little importance compared with this unexpected trousseau of Flippy Whiting. Susan did manage to sit still in her chair at the table, but she turned every moment or two to smile happily upon Flip, who returned her glances with proud and conscious looks.

“One square inch of turkey for Miss Susan Whiting,” announced Grandfather, when at last her turn came to be served, “and a thimbleful of mashed potato, one crumb of bread, and an acorn cup of milk. And that is all the dinner you get, if I have anything to say about it.”

And Grandfather brandished the carving knife and looked so severe that Susan went off into a fit of laughter in which every one joined.

“Were there many out at church this morning?” asked Grandmother. “Was Mr. Drew’s sermon good?”

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Grandfather, “that I have to go out this afternoon. I promised Parson Drew that I would take something to eat down to the Widow Banks. The Young People’s Society gave her five dollars to buy a Thanksgiving dinner for herself and her six children, and if she didn’t go spend the five dollars on a crepe veil and a Bible.”

Grandfather gave a chuckle as he thought of the surprise that the Widow Banks had given the Young People.

“I don’t blame her,” said he stoutly. “She probably takes more pride and pleasure in what she bought than we can imagine. The neighbors won’t let her starve. You fix up a good basket for her, won’t you, Grandmother?”

And that Mrs. Whiting did, though she shook her head over what she termed “extravagance and shiftlessness.”

A little later, Susan and Mr. Whiting, who carried a large basket, the contents of which would mean far more to the six hungry Banks orphans than would a crepe veil and a Bible, started down Featherbed Lane on their charitable errand.

“The air will do Susan good,” Grandfather declared. “And if she is tired, I will carry her home. It isn’t far, anyway.”

Susan enjoyed both the walk and the short call they made at the dingy little white house in the Hollow.

Mrs. Banks, a thin, tearful wisp of a woman, with pale-blue eyes and untidy hair, gratefully accepted their offering; and the six sorrowful little Banks cheered up immediately when word went round as to what the basket held, so their visitors made haste to be gone, that they might be kept no longer from their Thanksgiving feast.

While Mr. Whiting talked to Mrs. Banks, Susan gazed round the poor little room, and eyed the Banks orphans standing in a row like steps, who, to do them justice, quite as frankly eyed her in return. The crepe veil was not in evidence, but on the mantelpiece lay the new Bible, black and shiny, and smelling powerfully of leather.

“Yes, six of them,” said Mrs. Banks in her melancholy voice, waving her hand at the line, which looked more dejected than ever when attention was thus directed to it. “And not one of them old enough to do a stroke of work or to earn a penny.”

“This is Richie,” she went on, pointing to the tallest son of Banks, who dug his bare toes into the floor in an agony of embarrassment. “He’s the flower of the family. He will amount to something. He never opens his mouth for a word. He’s like me.

“And this is Mervin. He eats like a fish. And his brother Claudius is not far behind him. I gave them their names, for I do like a rich-sounding name. Mr. Banks wasn’t of my way of thinking. He was all for plain, commonsense names. He named the next two,—Maria and Also Jane.”

“‘Also,’ did you say?” inquired Mr. Whiting, who was thoroughly enjoying his call. “That is a name new to me.”

“It was a mistake,” explained Mrs. Banks dolefully. “The two girls were christened together, and, after Maria was baptized, the minister turned to Jane and, says he, ‘Also Jane Banks,’ and ‘Also Jane’ she has been to this day, for her father wouldn’t go against the minister’s word for anything in the world.”

“What is the baby’s name?” asked Mr. Whiting, preparing to depart.

“Her name is a compromise,” answered Mrs. Banks, pulling out her damp handkerchief to wipe the baby’s eyes which had instantly overflowed at hearing herself called a “mean name,” as she whimpered into her mother’s ear. “To please me we named her Cleopatra, but we always call her Pat, her father was such a one for plain names.”

When Mr. Whiting and Susan reached home they found Grandmother and Miss Liza rocking placidly before a roaring fire, and room was made for Grandfather’s chair with Susan on a cricket at his feet.

“Now, we will tell what we are most thankful for,” said Grandmother, when the story of the call at the Banks’ had been related, and a way of helping Mrs. Banks support her six children had been discussed. “You begin, Miss Liza.”

“I’m thankful,” said Miss Liza, without a moment’s hesitation, “for good friends, for health, and a home.”

“I’m most thankful,” said Grandmother, “for Grandfather, and Susan, and a peaceful life. I couldn’t live in strife with any one.”

Grandfather thrust his boots out toward the fire and pulled his silk handkerchief from his pocket.

“I’m thankful,” said he, carefully spreading his handkerchief over his head, “I’m thankful for my home, and that means Grandmother and Susan, and I’m thankful, too, that I have my own teeth. I mean it, I’m not joking.” And he soberly snapped his strong white teeth together without a smile.

“I’m thankful,” piped up Susan, glad her turn had come, “for Grandfather, and Grandmother, and Miss Liza, and Snuff, and Flip, and Nero, and—”

Grandfather caught her up from the cricket and held her in his arms.

“My black-eyed Susan,” said he, tenderly.

Susan looked round with a smile.

“I think,” said she,—“I think I’m thankful—why, I think I’m thankful for just everything.”

THE END

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