The Thanksgiving Pie

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 30, 1882

The Thanksgiving Pie.

"Look here, Sally!"

Mrs. Deacon Farrell brushed the flour from her hands, casting meanwhile a complacent eye over the well-filled kitchen-table, with its generous array of unbaked pies and cakes, the plump turkey stuffed and trussed ready for the morrow's baking, and the big chicken-pie to which her skillful fingers had just put the finishing touches, as she repeated rather more decidedly,—

"Look here, Sally! There's enough chicken left, with the giblets—that I never put in my own pie, because the deacon don't relish 'em—ter make a thanksgiving pie for the minister's folks."

'Twon't need ter be very large," she added, in reply to Sally's doubtful look. "Only the minister and his wife—and you can bake it in that smallest yaller dish.

"Now, I'm goin' up stairs to look over them rug-rags, an' you make it an' bake it right off, so't I can send it over by the deacon. He's got ter go out to the Corner this afternoon, an' can take it along as well as not."

She bustled out of the door, but the next moment, seized perhaps with a sudden pang of compunction, she put her head in again, to say warningly,—

"Be sure you put in a good parcel of gravy; that'll keep it from bein' dry, if 'tis half giblets."

"Yes'm," answered Sally, briskly; and catching up the rolling-pin she brought it down with an emphasis upon a lump of dough on the mould-board.

As the stairway-door closed behind her mistress, Sally dropped the rolling-pin, and a look of perplexity crept over her dull face, making it ten times more stolid than usual, while she repeated, in ludicrous bewilderment—

"Giblets! What, if anybody can tell me, does she mean by them?"

Involuntarily she took a step forward, but checked herself as quickly, while a cunning smile replaced the look of perplexity, and she muttered triumphantly:—

"I guess I ain't a-goin' ter confess my ignorance ter the deacon's wife, an' hear her say, as she always does, 'Two terms to the academy, Sally, an' not know that!' No, ma'am! not while there's a dictionary in the house."

So, softly creeping into the adjoining sitting-room, Sally hastily opened the big dictionary on the deacon's writing-desk, and began her search for the mysterious word.

"G-i-b—here 'tis! and she read aloud to herself, with an air of triumph, the following definition:—

"Those parts of a fowl that are removed before cooking,—the heart, gizzard, liver, etc."

"That's it!—'heart, gizzard, liver, and so forth,'" she repeated, joyfully, as she retraced her steps to the kitchen, and began, with great alacrity, to fill, according to directions, the minister's pie; keeping up, meanwhile, a running fire of comment for her own special benefit.

"Six gizzards! Well, that is rather 'steep,' as Dan Watson would say. But I guess the deacon's wife knows; if she don't 'taint none o' my business. Six hearts! Them's small and tuck into the corner's handy. Six livers! Seems ter me they don't fill up much," and she glanced with a perplexed air at a pile of denuded chicken-bones that formed her only resource.

"Now I wonder," with a sudden inspiration, "what that 'and so forth' meant? Here's 'hearts, gizzards, and livers,' plenty of 'em, but no 'and so forth,' and the pie ain't moren' two-thirds full yet. It must mean," and she cast a bewildered look at the half-filled pie, "the chicken's legs. I never knew nobody ter put 'em in a pie, but that must be it means, an' they'll just fill up."

No sooner thought than done. In went the three pairs of stout yellow legs upon which their unfortunate owners had strutted so proudly only a day before; on went the well-rolled dough, covering them from sight, and into the oven went the minister's pie, just as the mistress of the house re-entered her kitchen, and with an approving glance at the snowy pastry, remarked encouragingly,—

"That pie looks real neat, Sally. I shouldn't wonder if, in time, you came to be quite a cook."

It was Thanksgiving morning, and Miss Patience Pringle stood at the minister's back door. To be sure it was rather early for callers, but Miss Patience was, as she often boasted, "one of the kind that never stood on ceremony." Indeed, she didn't consider it necessary even to knock before she opened the door, although she was thoughtful enough, in opening it, to do so softly.

The minister's wife was just taking from the oven a newly warmed chicken-pie, which she nearly dropped from her hands, so startled was she by the sharp, shrill voice that spoke so close to her ear,—

"Good mornin', Mis' Graham. Haint been to breakfast yet, I see—we had ours half an hour ago. I know my mother used ter say that if anybody lost an hour in the mornin', they might chase after it all day, an' not ketch up with it then."

"That's a good lookin' pie,—pretty rich pastry, though, for a chicken-pie! I don't never put much shortenin' in anything of that kind; it's rich enough inside ter make up. But you're young, an' have got a good many things to learn yet. I run in ter see if you could spare me a cup o' yeast; mine soured, an' the last batch of bread I made I had ter throw to the hogs."

"Certainly," and a roguish smile flitted over the fair face of the minister's wife, at this specimen of her meddlesome neighbor's own economy.

But she had learned the rare lesson of a judicious silence, and taking the cup that Miss Patience produced from beneath her shawl, she bade her visitor be seated while she left the room to get the desired article.

As her steps died away, Miss Patience noiselessly arose from her seat, and approaching the dresser upon which the pie stood, peered curiously into the apertures in the crust, her sharp face expressing eager curiosity.

"I'll bet she did'nt know enough ter put crackers in. I wish I could I could get one look, jest ter satisfy my own mind," she added. And determined to accomplish her object at all hazards, she ran a knife deftly around a small portion of the edge, and inserting four inquisitive fingers, lifted the brown crust, and took a glimpse of the contents.

A look of unmitigated disgust passed over her face. Dropping into a convenient chair, she actually groaned aloud,—

"Well, I never! an' we payin' that man $500 a year, besides a donation party at Christmas. Ough!"

Unsuspicious Mrs. Graham, as she returned with the yeast, was somewhat puzzled by the sudden frostiness of her guest, who hurried out of the house as if some dreadful contagion had haunted it; but when the minister, in carving the pie that the deacon's wife had sent, made two curious discoveries simultaneously, the reason for Patience's altered demeanor was made plain, and the young pair indulged in a hearty laugh that made the old parsonage ring like a peal of Thanksgiving bells.

The Tuesday following was the regular day for the weekly sewing-circle, and seldom had that interesting gathering proved so lively and animated as on this occasion.

Miss Patience was in the field bright and early, and it was evident at a glance to those who knew her best, that she was well-nigh bursting with some important secret that she was only waiting a fitting opportunity to divulge. That opportunity was not long in coming, for Mrs. Dea. Farrell, who was a constitutional croaker, took occasion to say, in reference to the hard times,—

"The deacon has been tryin' ter collect the church tax, and he says he never found money so tight in all the years he's lived here. It's as hard ter get five dollars now as it used ter be ten."

"And no wonder," spoke Miss Patience, with the stormy severity of a sphinx. "You can't expect folks ter feel like payin' their money when they see it fairly thrown away and wasted."

Everybody looked and some of the younger girls began to bridle defiantly. The minister's sweet young wife was evidently a favorite with them, at least.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mrs. Deacon, pointedly. "Mis' Graham is young and inexperienced, to be sure; but as the deacon was sayin' only yesterday, she does very well, indeed, considerin'."

Miss Patience tossed her head knowingly. "I don't want ter say nothin' to hurt her, but, livin' next door, as I do, I can't always help seein' and hearin' things that other folks can't be expected to know about, and when I see and know things like—"

There was an ominous pause, and the deacon's wife asked excitedly:—

"Like what?"

"Chicken-pies, with the legs and feet of the chickens baked in!"

Had a thunderbolt fallen among them it could not have caused greater surprise to those tidy, thrifty New England housekeepers than this dreadful revelation of the incapacity of their pastor's young wife.

"Are you sure of it?" gasped one matron, breaking the ominous silence.

"I know it for a fact," was solemnly returned.

"She's a born fool!" ejaculated the deacon's wife, indignantly, "and I am thankful for her poor husband's sake that I sent her over one of my pies yesterday. They had to throw hers away, of course, and it's lucky that he didn't have ter go without his Thanksgiving breakfast on account of her ignorance and shiftlessness."

"How did you know about the pie?" asked one of the girls.

Miss Patience bristled defiantly. "It's nobody's business but my own!" she retorted, tartly. "I don't go round ter find out things that don't concern me, I'd have you know; but when they are thrown right into my face, as you might say, I don't shet my eyes no more than other folks."

Just here the door opened; in walked the subject of their conversation, her pretty face glowing with the haste that she had made, and with a mischievous twinkle in her brown eyes that nobody noticed, so occupied were they in hiding the confusion that her sudden entrance had created.

Walking up to the table where most of the ladies were sitting she saluted them cordially, and then, holding out upon the tip of one slender finger a well-worn silver thimble, she said, archly—

"Where do you think I found your thimble, Miss Patience?"

So pleased was Miss Patience to regain her lost treasure that she forgot for a moment all her assumed dignity, and exclaimed joyfully,—

"Well, I declare, I am glad ter see that thimble once more! I told Mary Jane that I felt sure I had it on my finger when I run into your house Thanksgivin' mornin' after that yeast. But when I got home it wan't nowheres to be found. Now where did you find it?"

Her shrill, high voice had attracted the attention of all in the room, and everybody looked up curiously as the minister's wife replied with an innocent smile,—

"In the chicken-pie that our good friend here"—and she nodded brightly to Mrs. Farrell—"sent me. I left the pie on the dresser when I went down cellar after your yeast, and as soon as I came back I put it on the table, and when my husband cut it, there was your thimble in it. How could it have got there? It is certainly very mysterious, anyway."

Silence, dead, profound, yet oh, how terribly significant to the deacon's wife and her spinster neighbor, fell upon the group.

This was apparently unnoticed by Mrs. Graham, who, with a playful admonition to Miss Patience to take better care of her thimble in future, began an animated conversation with the ladies nearest her that soon restored the company to their wonted ease and good-humor.

But poor Miss Patience! She never heard the last of that lost thimble. While the deacon's wife, to the day of her death, never trusted any hands but her own to make Thanksgiving pies for her minister.—Youth's Companion.