home; and immediately expressed an ardent desire to take a look at the
garden.

"We got somefin' to show thar, Mas'r Oliver," said Mopsey, who had stood
by listening, with open mouth and eyes, to the strong statements of the
western farmer, "we haint to be beat right-away no how!"

Old Sylvester rose with his staff, which he carried more for pleasure
than necessity, and led the way. As they approached there was visible
through all the plants, shrubs and other growths of the place, whatever
they might be--a great yellow sphere or ball, so disposed, on a little
slope by itself, as to catch the eye from a distance, shining out in its
golden hue from the garden, a sort of rival to the sun himself, rolling
overhead.

"Dere, what d'ye tink of dat, Oliver," Mopsey asked, forgetting in the
grandeur of the moment all distinctions of class or color, "I guess
dat's somefin."

"That's a pumpkin," said Mr. Oliver Peabody, calmly.

"Yes, I guess it is--_de tanksgivin punkin_!"

She looked into the western farmer's face, no doubt expecting a spasm or
convulsion, but it was calm--calm as night. Mopsey condescended not
another word, but walking or rather shuffling disdainfully away,
muttered to herself, "Dat is de very meanest man, for a white man, I
ever did see; he looked at dat 'ere punkin which has cost me so many
anxious days and sleepless nights--which I have watched over as though
it had been my own child--which I planted wid dis here hand of my own,
and fought for agin the June bugs and the white frost, and dat mouse
dat's been tryin to eat it up for dis tree weeks and better--just as if
it had been a small green cowcumber. I don't believe dat Oliver Peabody
knows it is tanksgivin'. He's a great big fool."

"I see you still keep some of the old red breed, father," said Oliver
when they were left alone in the quiet of the garden, pointing to the
red rooster, who stood on the wall in the sun.

"Yes," old Sylvester answered, "for old times' sake. We have had them
with us now on the farm for better than a hundred years. I remember the
day the great grandfather of this bird was brought among us. It was the
day we got news that good David Brainard, the Indian missionary,
died--that was some while before the revolutionary war. He died in the
arms of the great Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton; their souls are at
peace."

"I recollect this fellow," Oliver continued, referring to the red
rooster, "When I was here last he was c