I might chop mince-meat instead of you, Moses. There,
now, you're getting it so fine 'twill be poison."

Aunt Hannah heard that and laughed.

"That child takes everything in earnest," said she. "I told Moses if he
got the mince-meat _too_ fine, 'twould be poisonous; but I never saw any
mince-meat that _was_ too fine--did you, Rachel?"

"Mary," said Mrs. Lyman, "if you please, you may poke up the coals now.
George, you'll have to move round, and let her get to the oven."

"I'll attend to it myself," said George, rising from his chair, at one
end of the big fireplace, and stirring the glowing coals in the brick
oven with the hard-wood "poking-stick."

"Now, if you'll all keep still," said James, "I'll read you something
from the newspaper."

Moses dropped his chopping-knife, Mary looked frightened, and Patty
stopped shaking the squash-shell. They knew it would never do to make a
noise while James was reading.

"My son, my son," pleaded Mrs. Lyman, turning round from her turkey, and
shaking her darning-needle at him, "you wouldn't try to read in all this
confusion? Wait till we get a little over our hurry. Go to the
end-cupboard, and fetch me a couple of good, stout strings; I want these
turkeys all ready to tie on the nails."

She was going to roast them before the fire. That was the way they
cooked turkeys in old times.

"And, Betsey," said Mrs. Lyman, "you may as well go to work on the
doughnuts. Make half a bushel or more."

"What about the _riz_ bread?" said Betsey.

"I should think a dozen loaves would be enough," replied Mrs. Lyman, who
was now beginning to make a suet pudding.

You see they meant to have plenty of food, for beside their own large
family, they expected twenty or thirty guests to dinner day after
to-morrow.

"O, mother!" exclaimed Mary, "I'm afraid you're not making that pudding
thick enough. Siller Noonin says the pudding-stick ought to stand
alone."

"Priscilla is thinking of the old Connecticut Blue Laws about mush,"
replied Mrs. Lyman, smiling; "we don't mind the blue laws up here in
Maine. And this isn't mush, either; it's suet pudding.--Solomon, my son,
you may go into the shed-chamber, and bring me a bag of hops; we must
have some beer starting."

Betsey swung the frying-kettle on the crane, and had just turned away,
when the baby crept up, and tipped over sick George's basin of
pussy-willow and cider, which was steeping in one corner of the
fireplace. There was no harm don