Kansas
prairies that raw November night. It had rained hard all day, and was
cold; and although the open fire made every honest effort to be
cheerful, Ezra, as he sat in front of it in the wooden rocker and
looked down into the glowing embers, experienced a dreadful feeling of
loneliness and homesickness.

[Footnote 21: From "A Little Book of Profitable Tales," copyright,
1889, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.]

"I'm sick o' Kansas," said Ezra to himself. "Here I've been in this
plaguey country for goin' on a year, and--yes, I'm sick of it,
powerful sick of it. What a miser'ble Thanksgivin' this has been!
They don't know what Thanksgivin' is out this way. I wish I was back
in ol' Mass'chusetts--that's the country for _me_, and they hev the
kind o' Thanksgivin' I like!"

Musing in this strain, while the rain went patter-patter on the
windowpanes, Ezra saw a strange sight in the fireplace--yes, right
among the embers and the crackling flames Ezra saw a strange,
beautiful picture unfold and spread itself out like a panorama.

"How very wonderful!" murmured the young man. Yet he did not take his
eyes away, for the picture soothed him and he loved to look upon it.

"It is a pictur' of long ago," said Ezra softly. "I had like to forgot
it, but now it comes back to me as nat'ral-like as an ol' friend. An'
I seem to be a part of it, an' the feelin' of that time comes back
with the pictur', too."

Ezra did not stir. His head rested upon his hand, and his eyes were
fixed upon the shadows in the firelight.

"It is a pictur' of the ol' home," said Ezra to himself. "I am back
there in Belchertown, with the Holyoke hills up north an' the
Berkshire Mountains a-loomin' up gray an' misty-like in the western
horizon. Seems as if it wuz early mornin'; everything is still, and it
is so cold when we boys crawl out o' bed that, if it wuzn't
Thanksgivin' mornin', we'd crawl back again an' wait for Mother to
call us. But it _is_ Thanksgivin' mornin', and we're goin' skatin'
down on the pond. The squealin' o' the pigs has told us it is five
o'clock, and we must hurry; we're goin' to call by for the Dickerson
boys an' Hiram Peabody, an' we've got to hyper! Brother Amos gets on
about half o' my clothes, and I get on 'bout half o' his, but it's all
the same; they are stout, warm clo'es, and they're big enough to fit
any of us boys--Mother looked out for that when she made 'em. When we
go downstairs, we find the girls there, all bundl