The morning came dark and dismal. It didn’t seem like Thanksgiving as the Bud and I went after the doctor. The clerks and professional people seemed to be taking a holiday, but the drivers, the diggers and heavy workmen were at their jobs as usual. The streets were filled with children dressed up in ridiculous costumes, wearing masks or with faces blackened. These urchins went about begging money from passers-by. Our little folks were rather shocked at this way of celebrating Thanksgiving. Where this ridiculous mummery came from or how it crept into a Thanksgiving celebration is more than I can say. It may be as close as a city child can come to thanking Nature for a bountiful harvest! Charlie and his family came in from the farm, and Jack came from his school. Grandmother made a desperate struggle and was finally able to sit up so that her children and grandchildren might be about her. As the children grew restless in the house I took them out and we walked along the river. My mind was busy with other matters relating to other days, but the little folks, happily, saw only the great bright side of the future. Their past was too small to cast any shadow. We went as far as Grant’s Tomb and passed through the room where the great general’s remains are lying. As we passed in, the Graft and Scion saw the men take off their hats and they did the same.
“Why do they make you take off your hat?” asked the Graft, when we came out.
I tried to explain to him that this was one of the things that people should not be _made_ to do. They should do it because they wanted to show their respect or reverence. I doubt if I made him understand it, for when a boy is hungry and other boys are playing football in a nearby vacant lot even the gentlest sermon loses its point. Our dinner was such a success that we did not have chairs enough to go around. The children had to sit on boxes and baskets. A taste of everything from turkey down went in to Grandmother, but she could eat little. The plates came back again and again until the Hope Farm man was obliged to say:
“Well, Mother, I shall have to turn this turkey over after all.”
He had not only to turn it over but scrape many of the bones clean. The farm folks finally went home and Jack too was obliged to go. Happily the little folks were tired out and they were asleep early. About two o’clock Mother woke me. She did not do it before, because it might have alarmed Grandmother, who did not, I think, clearly understand her true condition. There was apparently no pain or struggle at the end. We noticed that her face lighted up with a strange, puzzled look, of surprise and wonder—and well it might when one is called upon to lay down the troubles and toil of such a life as hers in the dim, mysterious country which one must die to enter.