HERE it is, the old bright day, the day of home, brought about once again by the whirligig of time. The New England snows are deep beneath the windows in the house where I was born, and icicles hang over the door; the city that is beyond is given up to joy and plenty,  
"And all that heart is lying still."
 
I sit quite among you in a far-away corner, forgetfully turning the pages of a book, and letting my thoughts take wing for other scenes and other years. In memory there arises a succession of Thanksgivings, long gone into dust and ashes, so different from this, so careless and kind and merry, that it seems like wronging them to be sad for them even at this distance. Then all the world was golden, and our wilful,-99- loving lives were jewels set in the heart of it. Then the air , and the sun was jolly as Harlequin. Then there was a little in those familiar fields, delicately in ice every Thanksgiving morning, and lending itself to a childish holiday frolic just in the nick of time; and a stone, squirted along its surface, made the daintiest bird-like sound imaginable, and died into silence so that you sent innumerable after it, to see if they could sing as sweetly as the first. Then everybody was so considerate and tender that poor people could not want or suffer on that day, if they tried; then grown people were indulgent, and wee people and as lambs. Then we used to have pop-corn and ginger-snaps and and ruddy apples—and turkey! Well, we can have turkey yet, on any Thanksgiving, a sort of in memoriam turkey, eaten in foreign lands, and made with recollections and vain wishes; so, of course, it is not the same turkey at all.
 
What a , social old festival it was! How gentle we tried to be, that not one harsh word should spoil it! We were taught to make out of the Thanksgiving of the Puritans, their , unpicturesque opposition-Christmas, a day lovely and and helpful beyond any in the calendar. There was a great halloo going on the whole time in the cheerful old house, quartering an army of children: merry-making in the pantry, in the corridors, in the porches, where hungry sparrows gathered to squabble over hundreds of ; and in the lively fire that and , and tossed the pans and kettles, and nearly burst a-laughing over the fat plum-pudding. As for the other Lords and Ladies of Misrule, you could not swing your arm anywhere without brushing a little boy or a little girl. You heard the patter of their tireless feet, the noise of their drums and doll-carriages, and the echo of their voices upstairs and down,—some of them rolling about on the rugs in the sunny room, where the bare elms, with their nests, against the on windy days; some-101- strumming on the venerable piano in the hall, just at the balustrade's foot, and singing a little Tyrolese catch............