Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1879 — PATTY’S THANKSGIVING. [ARTICLE]

PATTY’S THANKSGIVING.

The Doane household was in a most delightful ferment. It was at last decided that Thanksgiving should be spent at grandpa's. Ricnara Doane, a lad of fourteen, and Patty, his sister, a sweet little girl of five, could talk of nothing else. Oh, what fun they could have! Sleigh-rides and coasting—for of course there would be snow. Thanksgiving without snow on the ground wouldn't be half so nice; and as they were going to have the very jolliest tune that anybody ever did have, it wasn’t at all probable that the snow would be mean enough to disappoint them. Dick was a manly fellow, fine looking, and generally kind and good-natured, but possessed of a quick and fiery temper, which occasioned his parents great anxiety. Mrs. Doane had just began to congratulate herself that the worst was over when something dreadful happened. Dick was expelled from school, and this, thoogh baa enough, was not all. Dick ran away. All this happened just two days before the intended journey to grandpa's. The following is the letter received by Mr. Doane the morning after the expulsion: Deab Father and Mother: You know by this time that I have been driven out of school. It was right that' I should bo, for I was very Impertinent and very wicked. 1 tried to come none, but shame wouldn’t let me. I feel that I shall never behave so again, but I can’t ask you to trust me after all that has happened. I have taken out the twenty dollars 1 nad in the bank, and am going to try and get some work to do. Kiss Patty for me and try to make her forget her bad brother. Dick. In vain did'Mr. Doane declare that he was sure it would all come out right, and this experience would be the best thing for Dick that ever happened. His mother refused to be comforted, and little Patty was inconsolable; but just because Mr. Doane was firm and wise, the visit to grandpa's was not postponed. Grandpa tned to appear as if nothing had happened, and, in the .effort, rather overdid the matter, Dick was a great pet of the old gentleman's, and it was very difficult to be cheery under such distressing circumstances. Grandma said “ there was altogether too much stuff in the boy to be spoiled so easily,” and went on with her work “ just as if Dick had come, too,” Patty said, who couldn’t quite understand anybody’s being happy with Dick away. But grandma was sure the lad was in God’s hands, and this thought gave her strength and courage to bear whatever might be sent. Patty sat by the kitchen table and watched the old lady sift the pumpkin, and then she helped stone the raisins for the last loaves of cake. Grandma said she was perfectly astonished to see how smart her little girl had grown; and then the darling’s fingers flew faster than ever, for, like other children, Patty liked to be praised. When grandma at last brought out (he tins in which she always baked the plum-cakes for Patty and Dick, Patty put her head down on the table and began to cry. “What is the matter?” inquired grandma. “Ograndma!” said Patty, “please don’t bake a cake in Dick’s tin. Omy poor brother Dick! I don’t want any cake neither, grandma.” “Nonsense, child,” said the old lady. “Why, you and your mother act as if Dick had gone forever! Now, look here. I shall bake the boy’s cake, and if he isn’t here to eat it I shall be very much surprised. We will ice the cake, Patty, and then you shall put his name on the top in caraway seeds; Dick’s uncommon fond of caraway seeds, you know.” Patty looked up and smiled through her tears. It was impossible to be sad very long with such a grandmother as that. By and by the cakes were done and cooled, and then the dear old lady spread a thick icing over them, and before it was quite stiffened she whittled a stick, and with it traced in the center of the largest cake the word “Dick.” Then Patty sprinkled the caraway seeds carefully into all the places, and just as everything was finished mamma came into the kitchen to see what had become of Patty. - . “ Why, child! what are voumakinerP” said she. 6 “Can’t yon read?” inquired grandma. “It seems to me that’s as plain as a pike-staff.”

“Oh, mother! do you really think he’ll be hereP” inquired Mrs. Doane, doing her best to keep from crying. “ I shall expect him,” replied the old lady, decidedly, “ and if he don’t come I shall believe God knows better what is good for all of us than we know ourselves: and now, my child, if there is a pleasant thing in the world I advise you to think about it, for it’s worse than useless to fret about Dick.” The next day was Thanksgiving. The weather was clear, but blustering and very cold. The ground was well covered with snow, ana there seemed nothing left to wish for in the way of comfort and happiness but the presence of the truant. The family drove to church in the morning, and returned just in time for dinner. Patty burst into tears as grandpa passed her plate, and she sobbed so that grandma told her she had better take some sugar and go out and feed the pony. Once out of sound of the house, Patty gave full vent to her grief, and cried as if her heart would break. There she sat, on the barn floor, a Door, little wilted bundle of merino and misery, the sauce-plate of sugar by her side.' with no thought in her curly head for anything in the world but her brother Dick. “O Dick! how could you be such a bad boyP” she cried. “Grandma said you would come, and you haven’t no such thing, and now you can’t have your cake, nor turkey, nor noffin.” All of a sudden Patty heard a queer noise. She stopped crying and held her breath. It was like a sob from the corn-crib. “Horses don’t cry, nor cows, nor pigs, as I ever heard of,” said Patty to herself, as the strange noise was repeated. A ladder stood against the corn-crib, and in a twinkling Patty had climbed to the top and looked in. There stood Dick up to his waist in yellow corn, both bands to his face, crying as he had probably never cried since he was a baby. “ O brother Dick!” said Patty, jumping in beside him, at imminent risk of being buried alive. “My gwacious! there ain't any bottom to this stuff, is

there?” Then Die* took his little j«ister on his arm, and tucked her head in his neck, end pressed his cheek to hers, and Patty laughed and cried, and Dick cried and laughed, and all this in the corn-crib. Tnen Dick lifted her out, end without a word, but keeping tight hold oI the ltttle hand, walked inth her to the house. “Here’s Dick, mamma,” said Patty, leading the boy to his mother. “ He's all over meal, but you mustn't mind that; I found him in the oom-crib.” “ What upon earth were you doing in the corn-crib?” said grandma, who wanted to appear as if nothing had happened. “Ididn’t mean to oome in, grandma,” replied Dick; “ but I wanted to see you all so much, and I hid in the bam. Patty almost caught me, and I ran for the oom-crib.” “And then he sniffed so that I caught him.” And then Dick sat down to the table, and they all waited upon him, and grandma brought the cakewith “Dick” on top, and Mr. Doane went to the window and looked out —but this was only a blind to hide his tearo*, 1 and grandma cat another mince-pie, saying as she did so: “ Where in the world can that boy have been? I shouldn't think he’d had anything to eat since the creation of the world.” The next day everything was explained and forgiven, and when Dick went back to the city he begged the Professor’B pardon, and was reinstated in school. Has he been a good boy ever since P We are pleased to say that he has, his last experience having been a good lesson to him. —Eleanor Kirk, in S. S. Times.