CHAPTER XIV.

THE YELLOW SATIN GOWN.

A good Thanksgiving dinner being assured to everybody within the limits of Byfield, the household at Park's tavern slept the sleep of the just on the night preceding that time-honored festival, and assembled in excellent spirits around the breakfast-table on Thanksgiving morning. The party was strictly a family party, and the principal dish was chicken pie, or pies rather, as there were two of them, and one was sweetened. Thanksgiving would not have been Thanksgiving at the old tavern without chicken pie for breakfast. Uncle Harry's father had always had chicken pie for Thanksgiving breakfast, and his father before him, and I was about to say that _his_ father before _him_ had eaten it, too, in Yorkshire, England. Doubtless the latter did eat chicken pie, for the English have always been famous for their rich pasties, but it could not have been _Thanksgiving_ chicken pie, as Thanksgiving, we all know, is a Puritan festival, and had its origin in New England.

The two pies which graced Uncle Harry's breakfast-table that morning were baked in deep, wide pans, and were so stuffed with chicken that the top crusts had taken on a pyramidal form. They were brought in steaming hot, with the gravy bubbling out of a hole in the apex of each pyramid, and bearing no slight resemblance to a couple of small but spunky volcanoes.

Uncle Harry had just inserted the point of the carving-knife into the sweetened pie, and was opening his mouth to inquire where Ned was--that young gentleman's place at the table being empty--when the door flew open and he appeared quite out of breath and bursting with news.

"The McLouds were all burned out last night!" he said.

There was a second's silence, such as usually follows the announcement of an unexpected and surprising bit of news, and then a volley of exclamations and interrogations was discharged at him.

"When? how? at what time? save anything? all safe?"

"About two o'clock. Mr. Emerson saw it first all of a blaze, an' rushed over an' got' em out in their night-clothes, all sound asleep."

"Children all safe, I hope," said Aunt Anna.

"Yes, though they like to have forgot the baby. Mr. Emerson pulled him out after the bed was afire."

An exclamation of horror burst from Aunt Anna and Cousin Kitty at this announcement.

"Didn't they save _anything_?--no clothes? nothing?"

"Not a rag," was the decisive answer.

"Dear me, that is hard indeed!"

Only six weeks before the father of this family had died, and his kind-hearted townsmen had been much exercised as to how, even with the house and bit of land which she owned, Mrs. McLoud was going to feed and clothe her young brood of ravens, the oldest of which was only ten, and here was an added complication.

"Where are they now?" asked Mrs. Park.

"At Aunt Debby's," replied Ned, chuckling. "I just saw 'em sitting 'round the breakfast-table, an' Aunt Debby an' Aunt Nanny fussing and clucking about like a couple of old hens with a new lot of chickens."

"Ned!" remonstrated his mother, but his father only laughed.

"Well," remarked the latter, "I don't see how they ever squeezed them all into that coop of a place."

"If Aunt Debby's house were as elastic as her heart, there would be no limits to her benevolence," said Mrs. Park. "But we mustn't let them eat her out of house and home. Thankful!" she called through the open door, and Thankful appeared, grim and expectant. "Just fill a couple of baskets, will you, and let 'Zekle take them over to Aunt Debby's. The McLouds are all there. Put in another turkey, and anything else you think best. And oh, tell him to tell Aunt Debby I'll drive over after dinner and see about them. Perhaps we'd better let them go into the Little Madam's cottage for the present," she said, looking inquiringly at Uncle Harry, who was carefully dissecting the sweetened chicken pie. "There's plenty of old furniture in the garret we can take down."

"Just as you say," answered Uncle Harry, heartily. He never blocked the course of his wife's benevolence. He trusted her excellent judgment. Once, hearing somebody say that "Mis' Park's warm heart would run away with her yet," he had made answer, "My wife has a cool head as well as a warm heart, and I'll risk her."

Dolly had said "when" and "how" with the rest, and then suddenly lapsed into silence, and, with her eyes fastened upon the chicken's breast with its wish-bone, to which she had been helped, ate rapidly. But somehow the chicken had lost its flavor.

"We had just got them comfortably clothed for the winter," Aunt Anna was saying to Cousin Kitty, "and now it is all to do over again. Well, we must look over our belongings and see, not what we can spare, but how little we can get on with ourselves, and give them the rest. A woman and six children to clothe is no small matter."

"Oh dear!" thought Dolly, "I wish they would talk about something else. They can have that old blue merino--I'd just as lief they would as not." But she did not say so aloud. She kept thinking of "something else." When Ned said, "Not a rag!" she instantly thought of that "something else."

That "something else" was a pile of five-dollar gold-pieces in a corner of the small drawer in her dressing-table. She rarely went into her room without opening that drawer and taking a peep at those gold-pieces. They were hidden under a pile of handkerchiefs. There were five of them.

Mamma had sent her that twenty-five dollars to do what she pleased with. That was what the note that came with the money said--"Do just what you like with it, darling. Buy what you please."

Dolly had been for some time making up her mind as to what she _did_ want. She wanted a harp--Cousin Kitty could play the harp; but twenty-five dollars would not buy a harp. She had thought of a pair of pink coral bracelets. Dolly liked pretty jewellery, but she knew mamma did not approve of girls wearing it. But at last she had come to a decision.

There was to be a ball at the old tavern on the 22d of December, a military ball, and Aunt Anna had said that Dolly and Ned might sit up until twelve, at which time the turkey supper was to be served. Now, Dolly had known how to dance almost ever since she could remember. She had been to the afternoon dancing-school, and once to an evening dancing-party that lasted till nine o'clock.

But a _ball_! The instant she heard about that ball she knew what she wanted to do with the five five-dollar gold-pieces. She would buy a new gown with it--a gown of that lustrous yellow satin that looked so much like sunlight. She at once took Cousin Kitty into her confidence, and Cousin Kitty said she had shown good taste in the choice of color.

"It will just suit your dark hair and eyes," said Cousin Kitty. "And I tell you what I'll do, Dolly. I'll write to Cousin Maud, and she'll get it for you. And those lovely yellow chrysanthemums of the Little Madam's will be just the thing to wear with it. She'll let us have them, I know. And you shall wear the biggest ones on your hair and skirt, and at the girdle, and I'll make a necklace out of the tiny ones--there'll be lots of blooms by that time, for they are all over buds--and you shall go to the ball as 'The Chrysanthemum!'" and as she concluded she had seized hold of Dolly, and they had _chasséed_ up and down the long hall where they had chanced to be, in sheer delight over the idea.

And such a lovely idea! Dolly thought; every girl will understand how often she thought it all over, and how she imagined over and over again how she was going to look as "The Chrysanthemum," arrayed in the gown of lustrous satin. It is the most natural thing in the world for a girl to wish to look pretty--why shouldn't she? So we can well imagine what a pang wrung Dolly's heart as something seemed to whisper to her, when Ned was telling about the burning out of the McLouds, "There's that twenty-five dollars! Give them that."

"It is altogether too ridiculous," thought Dolly. "There's that old blue merino, they can have that and one of my bonnets, and I can spare two pairs of stockings."

"But those are not yours to give," whispered the something again. "Those belong to your father and mother."

"Well, I shouldn't wonder if Cousin Kitty had written to Maud to buy the satin, and so it's too late, anyhow," replied Dolly, defiantly. And the something ceased whispering, and Dolly finished her breakfast quite cheerfully.

Shortly after breakfast, however, to make everything sure, she asked Cousin Kitty if she had sent for the satin.

"No, I haven't," said Cousin Kitty. "I meant to have sent yesterday, but I certainly will to-morrow. There's plenty of time," she added, observing Dolly's fallen countenance.

Then the something began its work again, and managed to make Dolly so unhappy with its hints and suggestions, that, to strengthen herself in her resolution _not_ to listen, she went up and took a look at the gold-pieces, and then spent half an hour in the Little Madam's room, playing with the cockatoo and admiring the opening blossoms of the yellow chrysanthemums. The Little Madam was already pulling over her scanty wardrobe to see what could be spared for the destitute McLouds, and showed Dolly the beginning of a pair of white woollen socks for the baby. This wasn't, after all, an encouraging atmosphere, and she soon betook herself to the carriage-house, where Ned was setting up his menagerie.

"I'll tell you what 'tis, Dolly," said Ned, confidentially, "we'll ask five cents admission instead of one cent. And see what I've got on my sign;" and he took down a board whereon he had painted, in very black ink,

MENAGERIE OF WILD BEASTS. FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE McLOUDS. _Admission, Five Cents._

"That'll fetch 'em, I guess," he said, complacently. "The fellows are going t' have a game of ball on the Green this afternoon, an' I shouldn't wonder if we took five dollars," hammering away at a hen-coop which he was converting into a wild-beast cage.

"'Menagerie' means a lot of wild beasts, anyway," said Dolly, petulantly, and beginning to hate the very name of McLoud.

"So 't does," responded Ned, good-naturedly. "But I can't help it now--can't print it over again. Took all my ink t' do that."

"It's only a good specimen of tautology," said Cousin Kitty, putting in her head to see what they were about.

"Of _what_?" asked Ned, with hammer arrested in mid-air.

"Of tautology, Ned. It isn't a wild beast--it's rhetoric. Did you ever read the 'Diversions of Purley?'"

"No, but it sounds good," said Ned.

"It's grammar," said Cousin Kitty, mischievously.

"Oh, thunder!" exclaimed Ned, bringing down his hammer. He wasn't fond of grammar.

Cousin Kitty caught sight of the sign.

"Oh, that's a good idea, Ned," she said. "The poor things will need every cent they can get. And, Ned, I'll do something. Isn't there a place? Oh yes, there's the harness room; that's nice and clean, and has a window just right. I'll have something in there. Five cents admission, too. It'll be great fun!"

"What is it?" asked Ned.

"Oh, that's my secret--mine and Dotty's," laughed Cousin Kitty. "She'll help me, and you'll have to pay to come in and find out, Master Ned."

"All right!" answered Ned, cheerfully.

"And you must print me a sign to put over the harness-room door."

"Can't," was the laconic reply--"used up all my ink."

"Take a piece of coal," said Cousin Kitty, "and print in large letters,

"ART GALLERY. "ADMISSION, "_Five Cents, and a Promise not to Tell what you See_."

"Oho! that's your game, is it?" said Ned.

"Why, of course. If those who went in first told, the rest wouldn't want to go in. And I shouldn't wonder if, between us, Ned, we got enough to clothe the baby, and the fun thrown in."

Then Cousin Kitty carried off Dolly to the Little Madam's room, where, with much frolic and laughter, Cousin Kitty explained her plan, and together they made out the programme, and got together their specimens of the fine arts.

The dinner-bell rang just as they had completed their preparations. So busy had Dolly been all the morning, that the troublesome something had not had a chance to get in even one whisper. But beginning to plume herself a little upon her fore-noon's work for the benefit of the McLouds, it immediately whispered, "Well, what of that? What sacrifice have you made? you've had a good time." And Dolly, out of sorts again, passed into the dining-room.

Here were assembled what Ned had saucily called the "tag-rag-'n-bobtail c'nvention," and a very respectable convention it was as to size and quality. One of its members was Mr. Emerson, who was accompanied by his mother. Dolly had never before seen the latter, an eccentric little woman, who never went away from home except to the annual Thanksgiving dinner at the tavern. She wore a canary-colored silk petticoat, with a kind of blue short gown of the fashion of her girlhood, a blue shawl of another shade over her shoulders, and a pink necktie. She carried a large yellow bag, embroidered with purple flowers, and her Marie Stuart cap of white lace was surmounted by a huge red bow. The dear old lady looked so deliciously absurd that Dolly, meeting Ned's laughing eyes, could hardly keep from laughing outright.

"She's wore that same rig every year since I can remember," whispered Ned. "Isn't she a guy? and arn't she and Piggy a funny pair?"

Mr. Emerson was a devoted son to his queer little mother, who was "no fool," the Byfieldites said, but a remarkably shrewd, observant woman.

After the preliminaries--the carving, and helping each one of the numerous guests--the talk naturally clustered about the McLouds and their misfortune, and Dolly again suffered tortures as that impertinent and persistent something began its suggestive whispers. It was decided that the Little Madam's cottage should be at once put in order for the homeless family. The furniture would be forthcoming from the tavern attic.

"But there's bedding--beds and sheets and pillow-cases and blankets and quilts," said Mrs. Park. "A body does not realize how much it takes to keep a family like that going till you come to fit it out with everything."

"I can spare a few sheets and pillow-beers, I think," said Mrs. Emerson, "although 'tisn't a question so much of what we can spare, I think, as 'tis of what we can get along without ourselves. I never did believe in giving away only what you don't want yourself--getting rid of things and pretending it's charity."

"I don't, nuther," put in Thankful, who was changing plates and looking after the wants of the Tuttle children, who, their mother being down with a fever, had been invited to eat their Thanksgiving dinner at the tavern. "My old mother used t' say, 'Give till y' _feel_ it, then what y' give 's _wuth_ somethin'.'"

The red bow on the top of the Marie Stuart cap nodded approvingly, and Dolly began to admit that it was within the bounds of possibility that she might give that twenty-five dollars, and give up the lustrous yellow satin. She sighed so deeply over her turkey at the thought, that Cousin Kitty, hearing her, whispered, "What's the matter, Dolly?"

"Oh, nothing!" replied Dolly, trying to smile, and succeeding only in producing a very watery smile, which Cousin Kitty attributed to the abundance of pepper on the turnip.

"Oh dear!" thought poor Dolly, "this is a dreadful funny world to live in, where, if you want to be good and happy, you've got to give up the very things you want."

"And there's shoes and such things," Mrs. Emerson was saying. "You've got to have money to get those things, and money's _skerce_ with us."

"That is true," replied Mrs. Park. "When it comes to provisions, vegetables, and meat, we can most of us give something; and Mr. Trask (the keeper of the Byfield "store") no doubt will do his share. But, as you say, we've got to have money for many things."

"And just think," suggested that meddlesome something, "how much twenty-five dollars would buy. Wouldn't it be such a nice thing to do--to fit out that chubby little Archie McLoud with everything he needs?"

"He _is_ a cunning little fellow," acknowledged Dolly; "but how _can_ I give up being 'The Chrysanthemum?'"

And so the war waged in Dolly's soul between her good and bad angel--between selfishness and the love which never faileth. And when, the puddings and pies having been brought in, Ned called her attention to his plate, on which were six sections of pie, viz., custard, mince, pumpkin, cranberry, apple, and dried huckleberry, forming a complete variegated circle, she could not even smile; and as to appetite, she could not have eaten a morsel of even the plummiest piece.

After dinner she went to her room, half resolved to take the five gold-pieces out of her drawer and give them to Aunt Anna for Archie McLoud. She lifted the handkerchief and looked at them. How suggestive was their golden glitter of the sunlit satin! Just then Cousin Kitty called, "Dolly, Dolly, come!--it's time we opened our art gallery. The people are beginning to come." And Dolly, covering the gold-pieces with the handkerchiefs, shut the drawer and ran down to join Cousin Kitty, saying to herself all the way, "Oh, I can't! I can't!"

The art gallery was a success. Everybody who visited the menagerie paid another five cents and went into the harness room. Almost everybody, too, gave ten or twenty cents admission, and would take no change.

"No, keep it; it's for the McLouds," they said.

The game of ball on the Green was a semi-annual affair, played on Thanksgiving-day and the day of the April fast; and if the weather was fine a large part of the town, that is, of the masculine portion, were present, either as players or as lookers-on, and hardly any of the crowd failed to visit the menagerie.

They were admitted to the art gallery four at a time, after promising not to tell what they saw. Bursts of laughter issuing from behind the closed door, whetted the curiosity of those who had not been in, while those who had, laughed again. A few, it is true, came out looking bewildered. They belonged to those hapless folk who cannot see a joke. Here is the catalogue written out by Cousin Kitty to assist the visitors to the art gallery. If you are one of those hapless individuals who cannot see a joke, you will find little of interest or of wit in this catalogue. But if you have, as I trust, a sense of humor, you will appreciate Cousin Kitty's efforts, as most of her visitors did.

ART GALLERY.

EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS AND STATUARY

IN THE HARNESS ROOM

OF

PARK'S TAVERN.

NO EXPENSE HAS BEEN SPARED TO MAKE THIS COLLECTION ONE OF THE BEST IN THE COUNTRY.

_Connoisseurs declare that nothing like these artistic gems can be found, even in the finest European galleries._

1. View of Boston (_wood-cut_) _A. Wheelwright._

2. A Marble Group _M. Clay._

3. Mustered In and Mustered Out (_companion pieces_) _G. Ullem._

4. View of the Red Sea and Plains Beyond _Unknown._

5. Old English Lyre _Lon. D. Ontimes._

6. Lay of the Last Minstrel _Hennessey._

7. A Bridal Scene _S. T. Able._

8. Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine _Sol. D. A. Gain._

9. A Commentator on the Acts _D. Seave._

10. Cain and Abel _Unknown._

11. Things to Adore _H. Ware._

12. View of Cologne _N. Farina._

13. The Seasons _C. Ondiment._

14. The Drill _Steele._

15. Flower of the Family (_very fine_) _Wheatleigh._

16. One of the Constellations _T. Inman._

17. Alpine Scenery (_after Bierstadt_) _A. Carpenter._

18. Last Hop of the Season _Beers._

19. Sweet Memories of Childhood _B. Stick._

20. The Skipper's Home (_a spirited scene_) _Cheeseborough._

21. Ho, for the Diggings! _Farmer._

22. The Last Shot _Schumaker._

23. Hart and Doe _Baker._

24. Wayworn Travellers _Crispin._

25. Handel's Bust _B. Room._

26. Little Indian _C. Cobb._

27. All Afloat (_a marine view_) _Waterman._

28. The Lost Heir (_a subject from Hood's poems_) _H. Dresser._

29. Village on the Rhine _Cheeseborough._

30. The Last of the Crispins (_wood-cut_) _Schumacher._

31. The Light of Other Days _T. Chandlers._

32. The Old Mill _C. Grinder._

The menagerie, too, was a success. The monkey outdid himself, and went through all the performances to which he had been trained in his original menagerie. He posed as a dandy with a lighted cigar, and rode Skatta in a ring, leaping through a hoop which Ned had hung from the ceiling. It was with sorrow that his audience learned that he was to be returned to his rightful owners by stage the next day.

Johnny Tuttle made an admirable half of an elephant, of which Jimmy Trask was the other half, and the combined two moved about as clumsily and disjointedly as the real beast could have done. It was pronounced to be an admirable and accurate representation, in color and texture of skin, in trunk, tusks, tail, and feet.

There was a white rabbit in a cage, a weasel, a rat painted red, some blue-and-pink mice, and Johnny Tuttle's crow, who could talk like Mr. Emerson and cough like Phœbe, the tailoress, who was afflicted with a chronic cough. There was, at first, talk of adding the Little Madam's Australian cockatoo to the collection, but Skipper Joe said monkeys and parrots were natural enemies, and it would never do to have them together in the same room "loose;" they'd be sure to fight, and one of the two, if not both, would be killed. But the blue-eyed Persian cat was there, and conducted herself with perfect propriety, and was much admired.

Summing up the proceeds from the menagerie and art gallery, Cousin Kitty and Ned found they had nineteen dollars and seventy-three cents, "which will clothe the baby handsomely," said Cousin Kitty; "and I shall hereafter consider myself as a foster-mother to the little witch."

Through all the stir and interest and merriment of the afternoon, the meddlesome something had kept silence, but now it began to bestir itself, and whispered,

"Dear little Archie! What a pity somebody couldn't clothe him."

"Well, there's Aunt Anna and lots of folks. I don't see why I should give up something I've planned and want so much."

"But don't you _want_ to do it? I don't believe you'd be half as happy going to the ball as 'The Chrysanthemum' as you would to see him in a cunning little suit you had bought for him."

And then Dolly began to think about Archie, remembering how one day she had found him far from home, picking buttercups by the roadside, and had taken him home on Skatta, and how cunning the little bareheaded fellow was, with his rings of curly black hair like a baby Bacchus.

And then she made a sudden resolution, and ran quickly up to her room, saying all the way, "I will; yes, I will! I will! I will!" snatched the pile of gold coins from the corner of the drawer, and running down again, thrust them into Aunt Anna's hand, saying, "I'll give those to buy clothes for Archie."

Aunt Anna, who had known all about the gold-pieces and the plan about the yellow satin, looked astonished, and said, "Do you know what you are doing, Dolly?"

"Oh, please, don't say a word, Auntie! just take them," entreated Dolly, distressfully. And so Aunt Anna, understanding by intuition the situation, forebore to say anything more, having had herself, in former years, many a fierce battle with selfishness, and knowing how spent and sore such a battle often leaves the victor.

After Dolly got to bed that night she had a good cry, in which all regrets for the vanished chrysanthemum dream were washed away. She did not tell anybody about that battle, not even mamma. But years after, when she was obliged to choose a fancy dress for a brilliant party in London, she remembered that old dream, and went to the party as "The Chrysanthemum," in a gown of lustrous yellow satin, bordered with exquisite chrysanthemums and with ornaments of yellow amber. And then, for the first time, she told some one who had become even dearer than mamma, the story of Archie McLoud and the five five-dollar gold-pieces.