Holiday Food

I

HOLIDAYS in my childhood, some fifty years ago in Southern Michigan, were celebrated mostly by a forgathering of relatives and the generous consumption of good food, interlarded with talk. There being no radio to listen to, no movies to go to, no ‘dine-and-dance’ shacks around every corner to hurry the young people from dinner, there was nothing to do but talk.

And so, on such holidays as fell in winter, the men tipped their chairs back against the wall of the front room and swapped local history, while the women swung between the parlor bedroom, where they had laid their wraps and sleeping children, and the kitchen, where they fell to and helped.

The kitchen was a large and, in my own home, an exceedingly friendly room. The floor was bare except for a braided rug before the stove and worktable with another at the sunniest window, where stood my mother’s rocking chair and sewing basket. I do not remember much about the walls, except that there was a huge map of the world hanging behind the table where we ate, and across from where I sat — a map on which I learned my letters and across whose green waters and pastel lands I journeyed countless miles in silent dreams.

On another wall was the shelf upon which stood an eight-day steeple clock which my father religiously wound each Sunday morning before breakfast. On a nail underneath hung the almanacs, by which weather was foretold, seeds sown, crops reaped, and on the margin of whose leaves vital statistics were often recorded.

Our cooking was done on an ‘Elevated Stove’ — so called, I suppose, because the oven was above the stove surface, as in most oil and some gas ranges of to-day. But since the stove itself was lifted high from the floor on long curved legs, the name was well taken. I do not know the principle on which that ’elevated oven’ was heated, since wood was our only fuel, but I can certify to the quality of its cooking, for the very walls of the kitchen were permeated with odors of roast meat, saltrising bread, spice cake, gingerbread — a whole roster of fragrant memories. Cupboards held dishes and cooking utensils, and a generous-sized buttery contained ingredients for cooking, dry groceries, and the best dishes.

Into such a room as this, inconvenient, poorly equipped for the work to be done in it, arranged with absolutely no thought to saving steps or labor, freezing cold in winter until the morning fire was lighted, hot in summer until the stove was allowed to cool off in late afternoon, but homely in comfort and cheerful, the women relatives gathered to help with the dishes and to exchange recipes, quilt patterns, family news, and gossip.

Thanksgiving was the day of days for intimate family gathering and unstinted feasting. My mother had no relations within visiting distance, but my father had enough to make up for her lack. Moreover, he was the patriarchal type who loved to gather his relatives about him in hordes and then sit in their midst, beaming with hospitality and paternal dignity.

From my earliest remembrance my father seemed an old man, largely because of his bald head and fringe of white hair, after the manner of Horace Greeley. But if he seemed old in appearance to a small daughter (as a matter of fact, he was twenty years older than my mother), he was anything but old in spirit, manner, or mind. He was stout and virile, but a man not much given to sport or games. A mantle of pride had settled upon him in youth which he had never shed, and so he sat, on such occasions, benignantly smiling upon the frolicking youngsters and accepting the worshipful attention of their elders.

Two widowed sisters younger than himself, but capped and caped in middle life, with their numerous progeny and progeny’s progeny, and a contemporary second cousin whom I was taught to call ‘Uncle Frank,’ were all within the possibilities of a day’s visit; but it was only the sisters, Uncle Frank and Aunt Catherine, with their two daughters Amelia and Sariette, and one favorite niece, Abigail, with her family of husband and two children, that were invited to partake of the Thanksgiving dinner, making about a baker’s dozen in all.

On Thanksgiving my mother welcomed numbers; only numbers could provide suitable scope for her prowess as a cook. A meagre family of three, even though augmented by a hired man, was no excuse for the array of cakes, cookies, pies, puddings, and bread in the orgy of preparing which was her delight.

Such preparations were sometimes in progress far ahead of the eventful date, as in one certain instance which I well remember.

II

A young sow once mistook, in the exuberance of her youth, the proper season for mating, and in early fall presented herself with a lively litter of thirteen husky pigs. All but the thirteenth. The thirteenth was one too many for the calculations of nature, and he, being shriveled and feeble, was rooted out of place by the others and repudiated by his mother. My father brought him into the house, scrawny, unable to stand on his little spindling legs, blear-eyed and pallid, and laid him on my mother’s lap.

‘Runt,’ my father said succinctly. ‘Thought maybe you’d like to put him in a box or something.’

My mother placed an old apron on a chair and laid Little Runt upon it. Then she warmed some milk, stuck a finger in it, and let the little creature suck it off. This he did repeatedly until, satisfied and warmed, he fell asleep.

In a few days a bottle was substituted for fingers, and in a week Little Runt not only had a chance but was well on the way to normal pig life. He was given a small box near the kitchen door, and all day his contented grunts, and more demanding squeals as mealtime drew near, were heard.

It became my duty to dump the box, give him fresh straw, and see that he had water.

‘Fat him up,’ said my father, eyeing Little Runt critically, ‘and we’ll have him for Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve always wanted roast pig for Thanksgiving.’

My mother reminded him that he had had roast pig once some years before at Uncle Frank’s house and had not liked it. In fact he had pronounced the whole dinner an utter failure because he had not liked the pig.

‘Sour milk,’ retorted my father tersely. ‘Flabby and tough. Frank’s too tarnation stingy to feed a pig fit for roasting.’

My father held for this cousin of his a strange combination of affection and contempt. Uncle Frank was reputed to be ‘close,’ a quality by which he seemed to prosper, since he of all the family had the biggest farm, the finest stock, the largest house. He was good company, expansive and jovial, until his purse was touched, when he drew head, feet, and tail within his shell. My father liked him for his joviality but hated his penuriousness, being himself overgenerous, and despised him for a certain religious coating which slipped over him, oily and unctuous, upon occasion.

‘Feed the critter up,’ my father advised, ‘on sweet milk and corn-meal mush, get him nice and fat, and we’ll ask the old curmudgeon over here Thanksgiving and show him what a roast pig’s like.‘

So Little Runt was fed on sweet milk, fresh corn meal, and vegetables, and throve to a state of porcine beauty beyond all rightful expectation, considering his early state.

He was tolerated by Shep, who, after eyeing him for a few weeks with cold disfavor, finally accepted his presence around the yard with mild lenience, and even allowed him to sprawl full bellywise in the sun.

He tagged at my mother’s skirts when she looked for eggs and when she fed the hens, always sniffing at everything in his path, continually expressing his affection, gratitude, and general satisfaction in life with cheerful little grunts or a high-pitched squeal.

He allowed me to wash and scrub him until his skin was pink and smooth and firm, and made no serious objection to the still pinker ribbon tied about his neck. With his little round quirking nose, his small bright watchful eyes, and his upcurled wiry tail, Little Runt was a pig to be proud of.

My father watched the process of his growth with evident approval. He was not as large as the other members of his immediate family, but he was well proportioned, and his contours were such as to stimulate the imagination of the gourmet.

‘Going to look pretty good spread out on a dripping pan ’long about the twenty-ninth,’ observed my father early in November, sitting on the back stoop and watching Little Runt nuzzle the cats away from their pan of milk.

My mother made no reply, and as for myself I looked at my father with positive distaste. How could he be so cruel, actually smacking his lips at thought of Little Runt spread out in a dripping pan! Poor Little Runt! I ran and grabbed him up and held him, kicking, squealing, protesting, on my lap, glowering at my father as at an ogre.

‘Just how,’ queried my father at another time, as Little Runt grew in stature and rotundity, ‘do you make the stuffing for roast pig?’

For quite a few moments my mother did not reply. Her face reflected none of the gustatory fervor that lightened my father’s, and she even turned her head away from where he was scratching Little Runt’s back with a stick. The subject seemed to lack favor with her as it grew in Father’s approval.

Surprised at her silence, he set his penetrating eyes upon her and said, ‘Huh?’

‘Stuffing?’ she repeated with apparent reluctance. ‘Oh, I make it ’bout the same as for turkey. Little more sage, maybe.’

‘Umm-m!’ My father made pleasant reminiscent sounds in his throat. ‘Sage? You picked the sage yet?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘ long ago. Savory, too, and all the herbs.’

‘Put any onion in it?’

‘Yes,’ said my mother, shortly, ‘plenty of it.’

After an interval of silence, in which Little Runt kept up a running commentary on the salubrious effect of back scratching, he asked solicitously, ‘You begun to save up dried bread yet?’

My mother lifted her hands impatiently. ‘Good gracious!’ she exclaimed irritably, ‘what do you think that pig’s goin’ to be — an elephant?’

III

And then, all of a sudden, Little Runt took to following my father about, his nose close to the heel of the man whose favor he seemed to think it vital that he should gain. At first he was merely tolerated, with much berating and execrations bordering upon the profane.

‘Get out the way, you dod-rotted, blame little fool,’ my father would exclaim, accompanying the admonition with a thrust of the boot designed to caution rather than to harm. But within a short time, as Little Runt with porcine stupidity ignored his master’s indifference and increased his noisy attentions, the companionship seemed to be encouraged.

‘ Come along then, you old cuss-fool,’ Father would invite leniently, ‘you get underfoot and you ’ll get your tarnation nose knocked off.’

But Little Runt, with the assured experience of all the dumb brethren of the farm in the futility of my father’s pretentious bluster, trotted close to heel and thrust his pink nose curiously into the pit his master was digging for winter vegetables, or pried into whatever task he was about.

And into my father’s voice crept an extra note of bravado when he referred to the succulent dish so soon to be served upon his plate.

‘You goin’ to have anything besides roast pig?’ he asked of my mother in what was intended for a casual tone.

‘Potatoes,’ replied my mother, ‘and squash, and boiled onions — ’

‘I mean any — any other — meat?’ he explained in a manner strangely hesitating for one of his forthright spirit. ‘I did n’t know as just the — the — pig’d be enough.’

‘Well,’ said my mother judicially, ‘I did n’t know as’t would be, myself, seein’ how your mouth’s waterin’ fer it. So I thought I’d roast a turkey. Old Tom’s good and fat.’

My father’s face lightened.

‘Maybe’s well,’ he remarked carelessly. ‘When you want him killed?’

‘Not yet, anyway,’ replied Mother, shortly. ‘You can kill him when you butcher the pig.’

Abruptly my father rose and went outside, where we heard him being vociferously greeted by Little Runt, with his own response made in loud and threatening tones. My mother smiled with her eyes, but her lips were tightly shut as she went on about her work of clearing away supper.

After that my father talked loud and often of the Thanksgiving feast so rapidly approaching. He asked my mother if she was going to put a raw apple or a cooked one in Little Runt’s mouth. He enlarged the daily rations of meal and milk and even gave him a few small ears of corn. He cut up pumpkins and fed him bit by bit. He stood by the pen (Little Runt now had a pen and shelter all his own, so he ‘would n’t run the fat off,’ my father said) and scratched his back and talked to him, always loudly and truculently of his impending fate when anyone was within hearing.

With the imminent approach of the festal day, Father haunted the kitchen. He watched the filling of the cooky jars — gray stone for sugar cookies and a brown glazed one for molasses. He sampled each batch of doughnuts as it came from the kettle and said they were not quite up to my mother’s usual standard. He took, at my mother’s invitation, repeated tastes of the mincemeat under preparation, and with the air of a connoisseur suggested the addition of a lee-tle more boiled cider, just a speck more of allspice, and, finally, with a tentative glance at my mother’s face, just a touch of brandy. Adding and mixing and stirring and tasting, together they brought the concoction to what both were satisfied was a state of perfection.

One Saturday about two weeks before Thanksgiving my father came into the kitchen, where my mother was making mince pies.

‘You know this old receipt book,’ he said genially, holding it up and tapping the cover lightly with his spectacles.

‘Yes,’ said my mother, eyeing him with suspicion, ‘ it was my mother’s. What of it?’

‘You use any of these receipts?’ he queried in unctuous tones.

‘Sometimes. What you want?’ she replied bluntly.

‘ Why, I don’t want anything, ’Miry — what makes you ask that?’

‘Because,’ ’Mother said witheringly, ‘when you talk like that you’re generally up to something.’

‘I found a receipt,’ pursued Father, sitting down in the rocking chair by the window and adjusting his spectacles, ‘I thought maybe you’d like — unless you’ve seen it.’

‘I guess I’ve seen pretty near everything in that book several times over,’ she told him coldly. ‘Which one is it?‘

He cleared his throat and read: ‘English Way of Roasting Pig.’

‘Huh!’ exclaimed my mother, pinching down the edges of her crust with a competent thumb. ‘You don’t need to read me anything about English ways of roasting pigs. American ways are good enough for me.’

‘Still,’ persisted her obstinate spouse, ‘this is different. You listen.’

She listened.

‘ “ Put some sage, a large piece of saltish bread, salt and pepper in the inside and sew it up. Observe to skewer the legs back [That’s a queer way to put it, ain’t it — ‘observe to skewer the legs back’] or the under part will not crisp. Lay it to a brisk fire [Must have been one of these hearth fires] till thoroughly dry; then have ready some butter in a dry cloth and rub the pig with it in every part. Dredge as much flour over as will possibly lie, and do not touch it again till ready to serve, then scrape off the flour very carefully with a blunt knife, rub the pig well with buttered cloth, and take off the head while at the fire; take out the brains and mix them with the gravy that comes from the pig.” Gosh, ’Miry! Sounds like some heathen performance!’

‘It is,’ interrupted my mother sharply, ‘and nobody but a heathen’d set and gloat over it!’ And, wiping her hands on a towel that lay near, she made an excuse to go to the buttery. My father waited with unwonted patience until she returned and then resumed: —

‘“Then take it up and cut it down the back and breast, fay it into the dish and chop the sage and bread quickly as fine as you can [Seems as if they could have done that before], and mix them with a large quantity of fine melted butter that has very little flour. Put the sauce into the dish after the pig has been split down the back and garnished with the ears and the two jaws. Take off the upper part of the head down to the snout [I thought we’d cut off the head once]. In Devonshire it is served whole, if very small, the head only being cut off to garnish with as above.”

‘Well,’ observed my father, closing the book and rising, ‘if that’s the way they roast a pig in England, I’m glad I’m a Yankee!’

And all the time Little Runt was innocently wee-weeing as my father approached his pen with the tridaily rations, and sniffed and snuffed his fat content as he stuffed his little pink hide to his own destruction.

IV

Two days before Thanksgiving my father beheaded Old Tom, filled the big brass kettle with boiling water, scalded and plucked him. The wing tips were cut off whole for brushing the hearth, and the tail feathers were finally gathered up and tied together in the form of a duster. He was then handed over to my mother with the somewhat ostentatious remark, ‘ There you are. I ’ll fetch the pig in to-night. Stib Obart’s goin’ to butcher him for me.’

Stib Obart was the community butcher, a man of mighty brawn, a mild eye, falsetto voice, a stout stomach, and beautiful hands. In between his more legitimate duties he helped in harvesting, acted as amateur veterinarian, and played the fiddle. And when he came to table — as one of the family, of course — children studied his brown slender hands for some sinister evidence of his awesome craft.

Turning in the door as at an afterthought, Father continued, ‘ You don’t want his head cut off, do you, ’Miry? The way that book said the English do?’

I never saw my mother roused to a pitch of real anger in all her life. Her sense of humor was keen and her understanding of my father was deep, and as for throwing anything, she never, I believe, so much as tossed a ball. And yet for a moment I thought that, certain as the world, she was going to throw the bowl of suet she was crumbling full at his head. So did he, I think, for he made a quick exit through the nearest door.

The bowl came down heavily on the table and my mother lifted a corner of her apron to wipe her eyes. As for me, I was openly bawling. No miracle had happened, no ram in the bushes to save Little Runt. Stib Obart and his hideous knife stood, a menacing shadow, in the too near future.

As for my father, there was no understanding him. He had seemed, especially in the last few weeks, to love Little Runt. He had fondled him, scolded him, even called to him when not in sight. He had scratched his back, and now he talked callously about cutting off his head.

After supper that night he set off with Little Runt, squealing, kicking, protesting, in a box in the back of the pung, it having snowed during the day.

My mother and I sat close together by the evening lamp, she mending, I playing half-heartedly with paper dolls. Our ears were strained to catch — in imagination only, since the Obarts lived a mile or so away — the shrill harsh cry of fear and pain, our eyes seeing crimson splotches on the sweet new snow.

Along about nine o’clock my father returned. He put the horse in the barn and then came stomping up to the door — the back kitchen door, where a light had been left burning.

‘Where you want him?’ he called lustily.

‘Put him down cellar,’ my mother replied. ‘On the bench.’

She did not rise, she made no inquiries. She took me off to bed and sat with me until I slept.

My mother always stuffed her meats at least twenty-four hours before roasting, so for one day Old Tom hung head down in an outer room to cool, while the little pig lay supinely upon a wooden bench in the cellar. I crept down once for a peep at him, but the sight of the now too-white form sticking stiff inglorious feet in the air was too much for me. I ran whimpering upstairs to the comfort of my mother’s arms.

Early in the morning of the day before the feast, a big bowl of stuffing was prepared — sage, savory, marjoram, and thyme crumbled between the fingers into moistened bread; onion and celery chopped and added; salt and pepper, and lastly a generous half cup of melted butter, with frequent tastings as the rite proceeded. W hen it was finally enriched to my mother’s satisfaction, the turkey’s ample cavities were filled and sewed together. The wings were trussed, the neck bent back; and then, dipping her hand in the moist stuffing, my mother rubbed the entire exterior of the bird with the savory dressing. Over this, paper-thin slices of fat salt pork were laid, and the bird was again consigned to the cold room to await his final call to glory. Then the pig was stuffed and returned to the cellar.

On Thanksgiving morning the family were early astir. There was much to be done. The company would begin to arrive before eleven and my mother wanted to make progress before they came.

‘ Once your Aunt Catherine gets here and your Aunt Hanner, there’ll be so much talk I shan’t be able to think.’

The little pig’s carcass was brought up as soon as breakfast was over, and at sight of it I burst into tears and fled the kitchen; but I could not remain long away, and neither could my father.

Immediately after the early breakfast and the completion of his morning’s chores, he had shaved, scrubbed his bald pate until it shone, and brushed the fringe of silvery hair and short white beard to a state of bristling order. He put on a clean white shirt and over it a blue ‘wamus,’ a sort of short coat made of denim which, with him, took the place of a house coat. He was then ready for the festivities and began to watch the clock as well as the progress of affairs in the kitchen.

Particularly he was interested in the preparation of the pig for roasting.

‘You do rub it with butter, don’t you?’ he demanded with eager interest.

‘Who said I did n’t?’ countered my mother a shade tartly, as well she might with a small girl following her about, tiptoe with excitement, and a restless, curious man under her feet when she had a thousand things to do.

More irritable than I had ever seen her she seemed as she rubbed the tender flesh with the buttered cloth and sprinkled it with flour, and especially impatient she seemed with my father, who watched her every move with avid eyes. And when he asked her if she was going to ‘observe to skewer the legs back’ she lost patience with him entirely. ‘I wish you’d get out of the kitchen, ’Lige Thompson,’ she told him hotly, ‘and go and do something. Fill up the woodbox and the water pail, and stay out.’

He went, and so did I, for I could bear neither the sight of Little Runt in his defenseless state of abrogation nor my mother’s face as she bent over him.

The elevated oven, as I remember it, was a monstrous affair, but I cannot recall whether both the turkey and the pig were roasted at the same time or whether first one was baked and then the other, but I do most definitely know that the odors as my mother opened the door to baste the browning meats were such as neither the voluptuous nose of my father nor my own ever-susceptible palate could withstand, and soon we were both back sniffing greedily at the redolent air.

Time is no respecter of emotion, and as the hours wore on the tempo of activity was increased. Potatoes were pared and left in a kettle of cold water that they might not discolor. My father brought a huge Hubbard squash up from the sandpit in the cellar, and broke it into small pieces with the axe. He was not a handy man when it came to household procedures, but on this day he seemed unusually eager to make himself useful. Indeed, as I look back upon it now with mature judgment, I recall that his manner was, for a man of his independent and somewhat truculent disposition, singularly propitiatory.

After chopping the squash into parts, he scraped out the seeds and loose pulp, emptied the waste, and stacked the green and golden sections neatly on the kitchen table.

‘Anything more I can do, ’Miry?’ he inquired solicitously, only to meet with a suspicious glance from my mother.

‘Yes,’ she said shortly, ‘you can peel the onions.’ This was more than he had bargained for, but his quick, rather shocked look into her face brought him no quarter.

‘They’re in the buttery,’ she said tersely, ‘and you better peel ’em all.‘

To my certain knowledge, my father had never up to this time peeled an onion or any other vegetable in his whole life. Nor had he ever washed a dish or in any other way shown an inclination toward self-preservation so far as the preparation of food was concerned. My mother often said that if he were left alone he would probably starve to death before he would cook himself a meal. And now there he was standing at the kitchen table peeling onions and surreptitiously wiping his weeping eyes, while my mother stepped briskly from room to room, her hands filled with one delectable-looking food after another, her lips grimly set, her eyes unsmiling and hard.

The onions peeled and standing in a pan of water, my father scrubbed his hands in the tin basin, wiped them on the roller towel hanging on the back of a door, and then, without a word or a glance in my mother’s direction, put on his hat and escaped.

To a little girl accustomed to basking in the warmth, the approval, the impregnable security of a united family life, there was something oppressive and threatening in the atmosphere of this morning. Still, there was assurance in the wealth of delicacies stored against the day.

In the buttery were the pumpkin pies that had been baked earlier in the morning, the ruffled edges of their biscuit-brown crust encircling smooth plaques of yellow custard coated with a thin, almost transparent veil of dappled russet and bronze. Alongside these were the mince pies baked a week earlier, stored in cold, and now brought out to be warmed at the last moment on the oven top. Marked with an ‘M’ they were, and through the delicate tracery of the letter one caught tantalizing whiffs of meat preserved in heavenly juices, apple, currant, and raisin all blended into one sweetly tart aroma bathed in the bouquet of rich old brandy.

Here, too, arranged in glass saucedishes, were pickled peaches with the pointed ears of cloves dotting their amber sides; mustard pickles to neutralize the too rich content of the young pork; bowls of crimson cranberry sauce; globules of currant jelly for those who did not favor the fruit of the bog; long green sections of cucumber pickle standing upright in the crystal dish swinging censer-like in its silver frame with hanging fork beside.

V

And then company arrived. Uncle Frank and Aunt Catherine with the cousins, Sariette and Amelia, both older than I: Amelia, fat-faced and smug, the known possessor of a cigar box filled with candy hearts (the kind that said, ‘Will you be my girl?’) and Sariette, a delicate young lady in her teens who had been known to faint away upon being unduly chided — a talent openly cultivated, my father declared, and one that a good sound spanking would certainly have prevented.

Greetings exchanged, and the horses having been attended to, Uncle Frank and my father betook themselves to the sitting room, where heat from a round chunk stove sent vibrations quivering upon the air. Aunt Catherine unfolded a voluminous apron from her sewing bag, tied it around her ample waist, and laid capable hands to the setting of the table. By the time Aunt Hanner had arrived with the remainder of the guests, the table was dressed in its long white linen cloth, the tall silver castor and its five crystal bottles as a centrepiece, with the various relishes, jellies, and preserves clustered about it.

At two o’clock we were all seated around the board, the turkey, his crisp juicy skin bursting here and there in the plenitude of his stuffed insides, before my mother at one end of the table, and the rosy-brown, crackling-coated, well-rounded porcine frame before my father. The little pig’s legs, now untied, squatted wantonly beneath his wellpadded hams and shoulders, his golden belly crouched upon the plate.

Scorning the English method of what they were pleased to call garnishing, my mother had left the head intact, with upstanding ears and truculently extended snout. In his mouth was a beautiful red apple, polished (for I saw him do it) on the sleeve of my father’s wamus, and inserted by him, at my mother’s request, in the open mouth after the pig was placed on the table. Over his haunches a small crisp tail upcurled with a realism seldom equaled in culinary lore.

A beautiful creature he certainly was, smoking, steaming, reeking of succulent juices, and rich with fragrance of herbs sun-ripened in our own garden.

‘How do I carve him?’ inquired my father with suspicious alacrity, poising his carving instruments above the plate before him, and ignoring the expectant silence with which my mother always recognized the religious tendencies accorded to Uncle Frank. Dismissing the too-previous question as unheard, my mother turned in the direction of her guest and politely inquired if he would like to ask a blessing.

Uncle Frank, knowing my father’s contempt for an attitude that he considered lacking in sincerity, waved dismissal of the courtesy.

’Best way to thank the Lord,’ observed my father benignly, slipping the thin razor-edged knife well under the skin of the succulent pig and watching with round eyes the free rich juices run, ‘ is to fall to and eat. Pass up your plate, Cathy, for some of the best roast pig you ever tasted in your life. ’Miry ’ll tend to the turkey.’

One by one he filled the huge plates — a slice of well-done pinkish-white young pork, a bit of crackling brown skin, a spoonful of mashed potatoes whipped with cream and butter to a very froth of delectable flavor, a spoonful of the stuffing. My mother, brooding eyes intent upon the work before her, was carving the turkey — a thin piece of white meat rimmed with chestnut-brown, a bit of the dark, laying the pieces on the side of the platter and transferring them to the plates as they reached her.

Finally all were taken care of except Mother, and Father, holding his knife above the riddled carcass, said with odd gusto, ‘Now, ’Miry, I’m goin’ to cut you a nice juicy slice.’

My mother, struggling to control herself, said, ‘I don’t care for any, thank you,’ and burst into tears.

We all with one accord turned to look at her, the guests in astonishment, I with streaming eyes and sobbing breath, and my father in consternation and apparent anger.

‘Well!’ he said with what would seem to be a righteous indignation. ’I was waitin’ to see if you was goin’ to show some signs of feeling, ’Miry. Wait a minute.’

He threw down his napkin, shoved back his chair, dashed through the kitchen, snatched his hat from a nail as he went — all, it seemed, in one whirlwind of motion, his guests staring after him in rooted amazement.

My mother wiped her eyes, and in a shamed and shaken voice said, ’It was Little Runt. I fed him by hand — he t-tagged us around — I did n’t see — h-how he could — I d-don’t know what he’s up to — ’

But her tearful, broken apology was interrupted by a confusion of the strangest sounds — a mingling of sharp, staccato squeals, the wee-wee-wee of a struggling pig, snuffles and grunts, my father’s voice raised in affectionate abuse, the back door opening.

‘Hol’ your tongue, you tarnation fool-cuss’ — and there he was, white hair flying, hat awry, and in his arms, legs kicking, snout wrinkling, small pink body squirming, was — sure as you live — Little Runt!

‘There!’ said my father, wheezing a bit from exertion. ‘Now what you think?’

Every chair had been pushed back. Food was cooling on the plates. I had flown from my chair to greet Little Runt and pull him into my lap.

‘Why!’ cried my mother, gasping, ‘what — where —’

‘Well,’ said my father, flinging off his hat and smoothing hair and beard, and beaming with satisfaction in his own exploit, ‘when I see you [addressing my mother] was really bent on roast pig for dinner [my mother lifted her hands, opened her mouth, and remained silent], I thought I’d have to fix it some way to save Little Runt’s hide. You see,’ he now turned eagerly to the dumbfounded guests, ‘this was a runt we raised by hand and he took to following me round, so when it came time I did n’t have the heart to — so I took one of the others over to Stib Obart’s instead.’ Then, with a swift turn from the still silent table, he addressed the contented, adventuring pig.

‘Come along now,’ he said, and, executing a flank movement, caught Little Runt by his hind leg and hoisted him to his arms, admonishing him sonorously.

‘Thanksgiving for you, all right, you fool runt, you, but hogs don’t celebrate it in the house,’ and in an uproar of squeals and protesting kicks Little Runt was borne away.

‘’Lige,’ said Uncle Frank sententiously in his absence, ‘always was a sentimental old fool.’

‘Let me,’ urged my mother politely, ignoring the remark, ‘ give you some of the turkey.’

Almost immediately my father was at his place washed and brushed, passing the squash, asking for the cranberries, urging second helpings where the first was hardly touched. He made complimentary and utterly absurd remarks about Aunt Catherine’s fine looks, joshed Uncle Frank about a horse trade he had recently made, and otherwise disported himself as the benignant and genial host. To my mother he was especially considerate, but could not at the last deny himself the pleasure of a subtle thrust which would reflect upon his own clever scheming.

‘Well, ’Miry,’ he said handsomely as the guests, replete with food and hospitable content, drove away in the dusk of blue-white snow and creeping night, ‘ain’t you glad now that I done something about Little Runt?’

‘You better go feed him,’ said my mother dryly, which he did. And, so far as I can remember, Little Runt may have lived to a fat old age and died in his pen.