had broke one of his shue strings and wuz bent down breathin'
kinder hard and tusslin' with it and his answer wuzn't what I could
wished it wuz. But I knowed that it wuz because the blood had rushed
to his head. He got it tied up in a few minutes and eat his breakfast
with a splendid appetite. Philury had good tender lamb chops and baked
potatoes and light muffins and a fragrant cup of coffee, and Josiah
recovered his usual flow of sperits before we got half through. And we
read together a chapter out of The Book, and Josiah made a prayer full
of thankfulness that come from his very heart for the blessings of
home and love and all the precious gifts the Father bestowed on us
durin' the year.

The children come early and brought some lovely presents to us. We
make a practice of givin' presents in our own family Thanksgivin', for
it always seemed so kinder appropriate that while we wuz givin' thanks
we might just as well give a few more. And their presents to us wuz
just what we wanted and ourn to them proved to be just what they
wanted. Of course it wuzn't all a happen; we had throwed out hints and
perspected round as well as we could before we selected 'em, kinder
throwed out the line of wonder and surmises, and ketched opinions and
wishes on it.

At ten A.M. we all got into two big sleighs and went to Jonesville to
meetin'. It wuz a union meetin' and Elder White wuz chose to preach
the Thanksgivin' sermon. It wuz a beautiful discourse, it come from
the depths of a thankful, lovin' Christian heart and went right to
ourn.

The party I had invited went home with us from the meetin'-house,
Philury had the house all warm and it wuzn't long before we had dinner
ready, of course we had got everything cooked we could the day
before.

The dinner, though of course I ortn't to say it, but they all said,
and of course it must be so, they said it wuz the best Thanksgivin'
dinner that wuz ever cooked in this world, and Josiah whispered to me
as he helped himself to the third helpin' of turkey and dressin', that
he knowed that there never wuz such a meal cooked in Jupiter or Mars
or any other planet.

But I whispered back, it wuzn't safe to say such things, sez I. "Most
probably they have many and lots of things we don't know anything
about."

"Manny!" sez he, "how would manny show off by the side of this
dressin'?" and he took another spunful.

I spoze my dressin' duz go ahead of most, though it hain't made me
hauty. Wel