Thanksgiving Isn't Christmas

I

MRS. EICHELBERGER was a woman after Benjamin Franklin’s own heart — she saved daylight both summer and winter. When, standing at the telephone on Thanksgiving Day, consternation on her face, despair in her voice, she saw Henry Ide’s long car enter the lane, it was her twelve o’clock and everyone else’s eleven. She laughed excitedly— what a day for Henry Ide to come!

She wore a dark blue dress and neckerchief and a transparent white cap, small and beautifully made. An all-enveloping green gingham apron protected a less voluminous but still large white apron. Her eyes were blue, her smoothly parted hair was dark brown.

She was a Mennonite, but not an Amish Mennonite, and the rule of her meeting did not forbid her rolling her hair a little over each ear. The dark curve of her hair, the bright rose of her cheek, the smooth cream of her neck, gave her a beauty not counteracted by the green apron.

She was looking neither at the telephone nor at the clock, nor at the stove, nor at Pop, sitting at a far window, the Lancaster almanac in his hands, nor at the long table set for dinner and extending pretty well from wall to wall, nor at the kitchen table between the dining table and the stove, laden with vegetables prepared for cooking. She looked through the telephone and the wall to New Holland ten miles away. The fields between her and New Holland, a short time ago covered abundantly with wheat and corn and tobacco, bore now a crop of white which filled the hollows and lay deep on the level. A wind was rising; the smooth surface began to show light arabesques.

The table might well have held her attention, or that of anyone else. On the stiffly starched cloth were laid places for twelve — Pop; John and Melinda and their two older children; Levi and Sally and their older child; David and Ethel; finally, the queer but interesting and attractive outlanders, Mr. and Mrs. Hugger. By ‘outlanders’ Mrs. Eichelberger meant persons not born in Lancaster County.

There was an apparent omission — there was no place for Mrs. Eichelberger. The omission was deliberate — Mrs. Eichelberger would eat after the others finished, not because she was afraid of the number thirteen, but because no one could wait on so many guests and sit at the same time. Melinda and Sally and Ethel would jump up when their aid was required; there was no doubt that obliging little Mrs. Hugger would jump up also when she was needed, or before. But Mrs. Eichelberger would stand throughout.

‘For one thing, I can’t eat and jump so round,’ she said. ‘It shakes me too much up. For another, I know how to do. I had once such a shussle to help; she forgot the salt in the second peas and cut her pie in wedges that would n’t cover a saucer. The folks, they thought their Mom was getting old — or mean.’

The places at the table were not the only accommodation for Mrs. Eichelberger’s family; in the bedroom opening from the kitchen stood two cradles and on the broad bed lay two tiny pillows.

Now, at her twelve o’clock, Mrs. Eichelberger shifted her weight from one foot to the other and leaned her elbow on the telephone shelf. Her feet were, though she would have refused to confess it, a little tired. She had risen at four by her time to prepare for dinner at twelve by her children’s time. It put an extra hour into the morning.

She had begun to telephone at her eight, which was Levi’s and Sally’s seven. They lived far away, almost as far as York County, which was separated from Lancaster by the Susquehanna River, Even at that early hour she had had a little trouble reaching Levi and Sally.

‘Hello!’ she shouted. ‘Central!’

Central did not answer.

‘Hello!’ she called again.

Still Central did not answer. She jiggled the hook. ‘Hello! Hello!’

‘Number?’ asked Central briskly.

‘I gave it.’ Mrs. Eichelberger gave it again. When she was excited she could not remember how to shape her lips and protrude her tongue slightly between her teeth to say th. ‘Sree, nine, one, eight.’

‘Your number?’

Mrs. Eichelberger was always astonished because Central could not remember her number. As she waited she contemplated the table, which even at her eight o’clock and the world’s seven was ready for her guests.

‘Sally!’ she called at last, joyfully. ‘My, I tried long to get you! Have n’t you started yet, Sally?’

‘Levi says,’ said Sally, and that was all that Sally said. In vain Mrs. Eichelberger called. ‘Perhaps Levi told her to get quick in the auto,’ she thought, knowing that that was an inadequate explanation for Sally’s failure to proceed. ‘Central!’ she called. ‘Central!’

At her ten o’clock she tried for the third time to get David and Ethel. The turkey was long since in the stove, four pies having yielded their places. The kitchen was scented with the odor of spices and of browning turkey.

‘Ach, Essle!’ she called. The plain people no longer used only Bible names; there was a Doris Zook and a Gladys Ebersole and a Sylvia Kleibscheidel. There would no doubt be Sheilas and Yvonnes presently. Perhaps eventually there would be girls called Freddie and Teddie and Bobbie. It was sorrowful to think of.

Ethel did not mind being called ‘Essle’ — almost everyone called her ‘Essle,’ but she hated being called ‘ Asel,’ which was the pronunciation of Esel, German for mule.

‘Ach, Essle!’ called Mrs. Eichelberger, again, rapturously. ‘Have I then got you?’

It was not Ethel whom she got — it was nobody. She thought of the turkey, a twenty-pounder, of the ham and mashed potatoes and the gravy and the corn pudding and the tomatoes and the buttered beets and the sauerkraut and the bread and the chow — not a dog but a pickle — and the piccalilli and the hot slaw and the spreads and the pies — mince and pumpkin — and the cherry custard.

‘Central!’ she called, shaking the hook as a dog his bone.

At her eleven o’clock she tried again, frantically, first Levi and Sally, then David and Ethel, then John and Melinda. By this time Pop had come into the kitchen and sat down by the window to study the almanac. He had exchanged his boots for shoes and had shed the old overcoat in which he had tried without success to keep the path to the barn clear. The small area of cheek which showed above his thick beard was burned red by the wind and the stinging snow.

‘You can give just so well now as later up, Mom,’he said in the metallic tone of the deaf. ‘It says here the last week in November will contain a period of storm, possibly severe cold and high wind.’

‘You could a said that before,’ snapped Mrs. Eichelberger, unreasonably.

Pop said nothing.

‘Of course you can’t change Thanksgiving because it might give bad weather,’ acknowledged Mrs. Eichelberger, now sure of her th’s. ‘That’s something else again.’ There was certainly a faint tinkle of the telephone bell — she turned like a shot. ‘Hello! Hello! Sure it’s Mom.’ She pressed her plump bosom against the shelf, ’Ach, how it spites me! Hello! Hello! All right! Yes, I hear. Ach, no! Hello!’

She turned to face Pop. ‘John’s can’t come, near as they are,’ she announced. ‘The lane’s drifted tight shut. John’s thought David’s could perhaps get to them. They can’t even do that. John says Thanksgiving is n’t Christmas, but I am sure put out.’

Half an hour later, as Henry Ide’s car turned into the lane, Levi’s Sally called faintly.

‘It’s no go, Mom. We started and we had to turn back.’

‘The others can’t come, either,’ wailed Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘What will I do with this eatings?’

‘The Huggers can come — ain’t so?’ called Sally.

‘Yes, they can. They — ’ Mrs. Eichelberger interrupted herself. ‘Sally!’ she screamed. ‘Believe it or not, the Pest is in the lane! He comes in his limousine. It pushes the snow like a plough. He missed the gate by a hair!’

As though Sally’s laughter strengthened the current, her voice came clearly. ‘He’s God’s gift to you to-day, Mom. And you like him, no matter what you say — you know you do. Thanksgiving is n’t Christmas, Mom — we’ll be there Christmas. It can’t throw two such snows. Let him have the picture and buy yourself such an electric washer. You washed long enough by hand. You do that, Mom! ’

‘ An electric washer! His money would buy no washer, not one tenth part of a washer. I —’ Mrs. Eichelberger realized that she was talking over a dead wire. Pop had not heard the roaring of the car, bucking the snow on low gear. ‘Look once the window out, Pop!’ shouted Airs. Eichelberger. ‘See what the Lord sent us to eat turkey.’

II

Ide, traveling jerkily up the lane, was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a close-trimmed gray beard and gray eyes. His suit was gray and he wore a very dark red tie. He smoked a pipe which gave his mouth a smiling twist. He had spent the early part of his life making machines for the manufacture of ice and he was spending the latter part putting into circulation the money he had made. He liked to help people and he liked to collect mediæval paintings and also Americana of all sorts.

Haverstock, the chauffeur, was tall and broad-shouldered and dressed in a black uniform. He looked not unlike his master and would have looked more like him if Ide had not worn a beard. Ide’s sister said that that was why Ide wore a beard — it was simpler than to do without Haverstock. She suggested that sometime they change for the sake of variety.

Wisely Ide sat by Haverstock; on the remote rear seat he would certainly have suffered physical injury. The limousine quivered, it wagged its tail, it dashed ahead as if to mow down the fence, it sped toward the corncrib. It backed, then leaped sidewise; it crouched and sprang. The wheels slid; they spun round, making no progress but sending up fountains of snow.

The gyrations were accompanied by snorts, and these made Ide smile round his pipe. ‘The dear thing heard us long since,’ he thought. ‘I’ll bet she’s shouting to Pop.’

His lips smiled, but his eyes were hungry. He lifted his arm and pressed it against his side. There was no great bulk there, only a thin billfold. ‘I wonder — will she — at last?’

Mrs. Eichelberger made a frantic dash at the table and began to take off knives and forks and glasses. Then she laughed and set them down in disorder, and opened the kitchen door. The flush on her cheek brightened and deepened; her neck seemed whiter by contrast, her eyes shone.

‘Du liever Friede!‘ she cried. The words mean, ‘Thou dear peace!’ They signified, used thus by Mrs. Eichelberger, ‘Of all things!’ ‘Did you ever!’ ‘In the name of common sense!’ She held out her hand. ‘But you are welcome! And Haverstock! ’

Haverstock stepped into the rear of the car, where he began to gather parcels into his arms.

‘Are you home to company?’ inquired Ide.

‘Am I home to company?’ Mrs. Eichelberger kept hold of Ide’s hand and arm till she had him well within the kitchen. ‘Look once there if I’m home to company!’

Ide was taken aback. ‘This is no day for me!’

‘No day!’ mocked Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘How else would we eat the turkey — I and Pop and the thin Huggers?’ Mrs. Eichelberger burst out with accounts of John and little John and Melinda and Levi and Sally and little Levi and little Sally and David and Essle — there were no th’s now. ‘I phoned till my sroat gave almost out and not a soul can come — not a soul.’

‘I’d have known better than to come Christmas, but I did n’t think of a Thanksgiving party.’

‘We don’t make so much over Sanksgiving,’ said Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘But we make always a little somesing.’

Ide shook hands with Pop. He liked Pop and Pop liked him. It might be said that Ide liked everybody in Lancaster County. When his sister teased him about his beard he threatened to let it grow like an Old Order Amishman’s — unchecked, unpruned, flamboyant.

‘It looks as though you expected the whole meeting,’ he said to Pop in a shout.

‘Only our own and two others yet,’ corrected Pop. ‘I and Mom are already many times multiplied. By the next generation you can count us by hundreds.’

Mrs. Eichelberger made a dash at the oven door and pulled the huge turkey pan out on the lowered lid. ‘Just in time,’ she said, basting swiftly.

‘ That is n’t a turkey — it’s an ostrich,’ grinned Ide.

Mrs. Eichelberger counted places. ‘I and you and Pop and Haverstock and the Huggers,’ she said. ‘Six in all.’

‘The Huggers?’ repeated Ide. ‘And who are the Huggers?’

Mrs. Eichelberger turned to greet Haverstock, who came in with arms laden. ‘A few oranges, et cetera,’ explained Ide.

‘It’s well you brought along a little food once,’ mocked Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘Put them down on a chair.’

Ide permitted himself a witticism which would have been acceptable from no one else in the world. ‘The Huggers,’ said he. ‘I know the Dunkers and the Foot-washers and the Quakers and the Seventh Dayers, but I never heard of the Huggers.’

‘These are no religious people,’ explained Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘That is, not our religion. I guess they have religion of some kind. They are painters. Hugger is their name — they spelled it for me.’

‘Painters? What do they paint? Barns?’

‘They paint people,’ answered Mrs. Eichelberger with some asperity. ‘They are a he and a she. They talk a little queer. They painted Pop and they painted me, but not that we knew it. And they paint cows and they paint woods and the fields and such. And the crick — they painted the crick — you could see the water flowing.’

Ide laughed his easy laugh.

‘They’re nice people,’ continued Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘They’re not rich people. They live ’ — she nodded her head toward the west — ‘ they live in the chicken house.’

‘In the chicken house!’

‘Ach, it’s a big chicken house David built before he was married. No chickens lived ever in it. It has a nice door and windows. He will sometime move it to where he now lives. I put a stove there. They get pretty good along.’

‘How did they come here?’

‘In such a Ford. They just came and they looked in and they stopped the Ford; it lays now back of the barn. It has the taking-off. He works on it sometimes. She says he don’t work no faster because he don’t want to leave me.’

‘He shows good sense. Where are their pictures? I’d like to see you and Mr. Eichelberger painted by the Huggers.’

Mrs. Eichelberger made a grimace. ‘They have them. We’re not for images in our meeting — you know that. The Ten Commandments are also against them.’

Ide looked straight at Mrs. Eichelberger and laughed.

‘Go up on the attic if you must,’ she said. ‘Your sweetheart’s yet there.’

‘That’s the right name for her,’ laughed Ide. ‘I love her dearly.’

Mrs. Eichelberger shook her head. ‘She let herself be painted when she was yet worldly. That she would n’t a done later.’

Ide opened the door of the enclosed stairway. ’Haverstock might take some of the oranges and other things down to the Huggers,’ he suggested.

‘Yes, he might,’ agreed Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘But he could wait yet a little; then he could help Hugger get her up through the snow.’

‘Is she sick?’

‘No, not sick. But little to plough through drifts.’

When the door was closed and the echo of Ide’s footsteps died away, Mrs. Eichelberger reopened the door. ‘Dinner in an hour,’ she yelled. ‘Don’t be late! And don’t kiss her and take the paint off!’

She caught Pop’s eye and tapped her forehead and Pop shook his head. ‘It’s good they came,’ he said. ‘It’ll help get things away.’

As though she were stabbing into a feather bed, Mrs. Eichelberger poked her finger toward the stove, on which some of the viands were cooking, then toward the table where others waited to be moved to the stove. ‘Potatoes,’ she counted. ‘ Corn, tomatoes, beans, — green and wax, — beets, sauerkraut — all is O. K.‘

Ide took the second flight of steps slowly as if to come deliberately to a goal of delight. He raised a window shade at the end of the low attic and lifted an old quilt from a large framed oil portrait which stood against the wall. It was he who had covered the portrait, he who had persuaded Mrs. Eichelberger to move it downstairs in summer, away from the burning heat close to the roof. He lifted it and stood it on a chair and sat down in front of it.

The portrait, signed Jacob Eicholtz, was that of a girl of eighteen; she was, Mrs. Eichelberger said, less than twenty when she died. She had dark brown hair like Mrs. Eichelberger’s and wide blue eyes and a delicate throat. Her dress was white, and round her neck was a scarf, blue like her eyes. On her lap lay a handful of wild roses — she looked down at them as though bidding them farewell. A hard second glance might condemn the portrait for sentimentality, but no first glance could do anything but adore.

Ide leaned back in his chair and filled his pipe and drew slowly upon it. Mrs. Eichelberger’s great-gran’pop must have grieved when his young wife died. Possibly he wore a young, curly, abundant beard, a long coat with tails, a bright shirt, blue or purple or green, finished with a plain band, and a flat highcrowned black hat, but he must have had some engaging qualities to attract so lovely a creature. Ide leaned back farther and clasped his hands at the back of his neck. The attic was cool, but he did not feel chilled.

III

At her one o’clock, which was Ide’s twelve, Mrs. Eichelberger opened the stairway door. Six places had been removed from the table, but the table was not shortened. There was exactly the same amount of food to be placed on it — why not leave it as it was? ‘We shall have for once elbowroom,’ said she to herself.

Haverstock was here and the Huggers, all hanging their snow-sprinkled coats on the pegs on the door. The wind had risen still more; there were drifts against the fences. Powerful Haverstock had done more than help Mrs. Hugger — he had carried her. The Huggers were slender, dark people, not, Mrs. Hugger to the contrary, very young. They looked worried except when their eyes fell on the turkey or on the Eichelbergers. A city person would have said they were charming people — Mrs. Eichelberger did not know that word. She would have said, and had said, many times, ‘They are for sure nice!’ Their clothes were a little shabby.

Mrs. Eichelberger put her head into the stairway. ‘Come on down,’ she called. ‘Time to give her good-bye.’

Ide descended in a dream. He looked at the Eichelbergers and at the Huggers and blinked, as though by so doing he could recover full consciousness.

‘This here is Mr. Ide,’ said Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘These here are Mr. and Mrs. Hugger.’

Ide washed his hands at the sink, then shook hands with the Huggers. He looked a little surprised, but he got no chance to say even ‘ How do you do ? ’ so prompt and voluminous was the flow of Mrs. Eichelberger’s speech.

‘This man is picture-crazy,’ said she. ‘He likes best of anything in the world to sit in the attic and look at my poor great-gran’mom. I never look at her — her neck is too bare. He wants always to buy her; he thinks well of her.’

‘“Always” is the word,’ said Ide gloomily. ‘Twenty times I’ve been here.’

‘Sit on the table,’ invited Mrs. Eichelberger. ’When it gives more than six I stand, but to-day I sit.’

Pop carved the turkey, Mrs. Eichelberger served the vegetables. The vegetables overflowed the large dinner plates; happily, Mrs. Eichelberger owned many side dishes. There were side dishes in place, both saucers and plates.

‘Put your mashed potatoes on such a side plate,’ she directed, passing the vegetable dishes. ‘Then the sauerkraut over the top — that’s the right way. They get then mixed, yet not altogether mixed.’

Ide came out of his brown study into his usual mood of gayety; Haverstock put in a few shy words. Mr. and Mrs. Hugger talked and laughed a great deal, as though they had not for a long time indulged in just this kind of talk and laughter. Their speech was a little odd, not in form or idiom, but in accent. Pop did not talk much; he meant to, and did, eat a great deal, and mastication was difficult. Mrs. Eichelberger talked most of the time; through her speech ran a refrain. ‘Ach, eat!’ she urged. ‘Ach, eat!’ she pleaded. ‘Ach, don’t make me ashamed of my cooking!’

Ide studied Hugger’s face from the side — it was slender, dark, beautifully modeled. Hugger’s gestures were very unlike Ide’s deliberate motions and equally unlike Mrs. Eichelberger’s swift jerks of elbow and forearm. His wrist turned lightly; once he lifted his hand and it was as though a bird fluttered. When he talked to Ide or to anyone else he seemed to give all that was in him.

‘French,’ thought Ide. ‘Strange to find him here.’

Turning his head, Hugger met Ide’s gaze so squarely that he felt that he must have been staring at Ide. ‘Mrs. Eichelberger has never told me about her great-grandmother,’ he said to cover his confusion.

‘No?’ said Ide. ‘After I’ve eaten one more slice of turkey and a spoonful of filling and three pieces of pie, I’ll take you to see her.’

Mrs. Eichelberger laughed. ‘ He makes free with my house,’ she said. In her heart a plan was forming. ‘It’s Thanksgiving,’ she thought. ‘Thanksgiving is n’t Christmas, but I’m going to give him a present. I’m going to give him my great-gran’mom without any money passing. None of my children or grandchildren need a great-gran’mom with such a bare neck.’

Ide and Hugger climbed the stairs and after a long time descended. Their voices could be heard meanwhile rising and falling.

‘What do you think of that for a Pennsylvania German artist, a coppersmith by trade, untrained except by himself? ’

‘ Amazing! ’ commented Hugger. ‘ Amazing for anybody. There are faults of technique, many of them, but there she is — to break the heart.’

‘Exactly,’ said Ide. ‘She’s often broken mine.’

‘Are you going to get her?’

Ide shrugged his shoulders. ‘ I’ve been trying to for fifteen years.’

’Does anybody else know about her?’

‘It’s known that she once existed and then that she vanished.’

‘How did you find her?’

Ide imitated Mrs. Eichelberger’s delightful vernacular. ‘Ach, I chust stopped once by!’

Down in the kitchen Ide reached for his overcoat. ‘I’m going to Mr. Hugger’s house with him, Mrs. Eichelberger, to see his portrait of you.’

‘I have a milk bucket in each hand,’ answered Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘ You could well use your time otherwise.’

Hugger threw back his head and laughed. The grace of the gesture caught Ide’s eye.

‘Mr. Hugger,’ he said, suddenly, ‘how do you spell your name?’

Hugger laughed a little and flushed. His eye met his wife’s and both bestowed a fleeting glance on Mrs. Eichelberger. ’H-u-g-e-r,’ he said.

‘Huger!’ cried Ide. ‘Not Huger!’ He gave the name a pronunciation strange to Mrs. Eichelberger. It sounded like ‘U-gee’; she was mortified by Mr. Ide’s ignorance.

‘There was a French artist of that name in whose hands one could safely put old paintings for restoration,’ went on Ide excitedly. ‘He was a genius. I’ve often wished I could find him. He could n’t have been your father!’

Mr. Hugger nodded.

‘What became of him?’ Ide did n’t wait for an answer. ‘The war?’

Again Hugger nodded.

‘Were you his pupil? Can you do the same kind of work?’

‘I try to.’

‘Is it that you know Hugger’s pop?’ demanded Mrs. Eichelberger, agape.

‘I know his name well. It is n’t a week since I heard him talked about and regretted.’

‘See, I knew they were somebody!’ cried Mrs. Eichelberger.

IV

Ide opened the door and took Hugger by the arm and they went out. The snowplough was chugging in the road, the sun was breaking through the clouds, a rush of pure air filled the room.

‘It seems too good to be true!’ cried Ide as the door closed.

Mrs. Eichelberger and Mrs. Hugger washed the dishes and Haverstock went out to clear the snow from the porch and the path to the barn. Pop sat by the window, his chin on his breast. When he opened his eyes and saw Haverstock send the snow flying, he smiled beatifically.

The sun was declining when Ide and Hugger came back. Mrs. Hugger saw them coming and called to Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘They have their arms full of canvases!‘

‘Good!’ approved Mrs. Eichelberger. ’He could easy buy half a dozen.’ But Mrs. Eichelberger was not quite happy — suppose this new art made her present of no value? She was embarrassed when Ide again mispronounced Hugger’s name. Ide was an educated man; it was queer for him to make such a mistake. He was excited — that was the reason.

‘I’m going to take Mr. and Mrs. Huger back to Philadelphia with me if Mrs. Huger consents,’ said Ide. ’What a day, Mrs. Eichelberger!’

Mrs. Eichelberger hurried to speak. She was a little jealous of the Huggers. ‘Thanksgiving is n’t Christmas,’ she said. ‘ But I’m going to give you —

She paused while Ide took out his billfold. It could n’t be that Ide, who had such good manners, would offer to pay for his dinner! ‘Then he need never come back,’ she thought. ‘Never in this world!’

Ide laid a green slip on the table. ‘Let me take her,’ he coaxed.

Mrs. Eichelberger’s lips parted. In absolute stupefaction she bent her head above the green slip. Her th’s vanished; it was days before she recovered them.

‘Eicholtz was such a coppersmiss! ’ she gasped. ‘He made coffeepots and teakettles. He painted pictures, but he painted signs, too. He was well known round here!’

‘That’s all true,’ said Ide. ‘And he was well known a long distance from here.’

Mrs. Eichelberger seized Ide by the arm. ‘But it says sree sousand dollars! I’ll give her to you for nosing! I’ll — ’ Mrs. Eichelberger halted. There was a mortgage on John’s house and there was to be a third baby at Levi’s and she hoped there would soon be a first baby at David’s. Also, David wanted to move his chicken house and put it to its proper use, and that was expensive. ‘I’ll—’ she said, and stopped.

‘Give her to me for nothing!’ mocked Ide. ‘Nonsense!’

‘But sree sousand!’ protested Mrs. Eichelberger again. ‘You talked about sree, and I sought you meant sree, not sree sousand!’

‘Three thousand,’ said Ide, pronouncing the th’s with care. ‘That’s what she’s worth.’

‘Du liever Friede!’ cried Mrs. Eichelberger. ‘My, but Sanksgiving beats Christmas! ’