this thing layin' in the barn chamber in a thousand pieces
all summer!" explained Mr. Popham radiantly. "It wan't none o' my
business if the family throwed it away thinkin' it wan't no more good.
Thinks I to myself, I never seen anything Osh Popham couldn't mend if he
took time enough and glue enough; so I carried this little feller home
in a bushel basket one night last month, an' I've spent eleven evenin's
puttin' him together! I don't claim he's good 's new, 'cause he ain't;
but he's consid'able better'n he was when I found him layin' in the
barn chamber!"

"Thank you, Mr. Popham!" said Mrs. Carey, her eyes twinkling as she
looked at the laughing children. "It was kind of you to spend so much
time in our behalf."

"Well, I says to myself there's nothin' too good for 'em, an' when it
comes Thanksgivin' I'll give 'em one thing more to be thankful for!"

"Quit talkin', Pop, will yer?" whispered Digby, nudging his father.
"You've kep' us from startin' to eat 'bout five minutes a'ready, an' I'm
as holler as a horn!"

It was as cheery, gay, festive, neighborly, and friendly a supper as
ever took place in the dining room of the Yellow House, although
Governor Weatherby may have had some handsomer banquets in his time.
When it was over all made their way into the rosy, bowery, summer
parlor. Soon another fire sparkled and snapped on the hearth, and there
were songs and poems and choruses and Osh Popham's fiddle, to say
nothing of the supreme event of the evening, his rendition of "Fly like
a youthful hart or roe, over the hills where spices grow," to Mother
Carey's accompaniment. He always slipped up his glasses during this
performance and closed his eyes, but neither grey hairs nor "specs"
could dim the radiant smile that made him seem about fifteen years old
and the junior of both his children.

Mrs. Harmon thought he sang too much, and told her husband privately
that if he was a canary bird she should want to keep a table cover over
his head most of the time, but he was immensely popular with the rest of
his audience.

Last of all the entire company gathered round the old-fashioned piano
for a parting hymn. The face of the mahogany shone with delight, and why
not, when it was doing everything (almost everything!) within the scope
of a piano, and yet the family had enjoyed weeks of good nourishing
meals on what had been saved by its exertions. Also, what rational
family could mourn the loss of an irregularly shaped