The Complete Short Stories of W.D. Howells (Illustrated Edition). William Dean Howells
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it wasn’t true, all along. How could turkeys have ghosts if they don’t have souls, I should like to know?”
“Oh, easily,” said the papa.
“Tell how,” said the little girl.
“Now look here,” said the papa, “are you telling this story, or am I?”
“You are,” said the little girl, and she cuddled down again. “Go on.”
“Well, then, don’t you interrupt. Where was I? Oh yes.”
Well, he couldn’t do anything with them, old First Premium couldn’t. They acted perfectly ridiculous, and one little brat of a spiteful little chick piped out, “I speak for a drumstick, ma!” and then they all began: “I want a wing, ma!” and “I’m going to have the wish-bone!” and “I shall have just as much stuffing as ever I please, shan’t I, ma?” till the other little girl was perfectly disgusted with them; she thought they oughtn’t to say it before her, anyway; but she had hardly thought this before they all screamed out, “They used to say it before us,” and then she didn’t know what to say, because she knew how people talked before animals.
“I don’t believe I ever did,” said the little girl. “Go on.”
Well, old First Premium tried to quiet them again, and when he couldn’t he apologized to the other little girl so nicely that she began to like him. He said they didn’t mean any harm by it; they were just excited, and chickledren would be chickledren.
“Yes,” said the other little girl, “but I think you might take some older person to begin with. It’s a perfect shame to begin with a little girl.”
“Begin!” says old First Premium. “Do you think we’re just beginning? Why, when do you think it is?”
“The night after Thanksgiving.”
“What year?”
“1886.”
They all gave a perfect screech. “Why, it’s Christmas Eve, 1900, and every one of your friends has been eaten up long ago,” says old First Premium, and he began to cry over her, and the old hen-turkey and the little turkey chicks began to wipe their eyes on the backs of their wings.
“I don’t think they were very neat,” said the little girl.
Well, they were kind-hearted, anyway, and they felt sorry for the other little girl. And she began to think she had made some little impression on them, when she noticed the old hen-turkey beginning to untie her bonnet strings, and the turkey chicks began to spread round her in a circle, with the points of their wings touching, so that she couldn’t get out, and they commenced dancing and singing, and after a while that little he-turkey says, “Who’s it?” and the other little girl, she didn’t know why, says, “I’m it,” and old First Premium says, “Do you promise?” and the other little girl says, “Yes, I promise,” and she knew she was promising, if they would let her go, that people should never eat turkeys any more. And the moon began to shine brighter and brighter through the turkeys, and pretty soon it was the sun, and then it was not the turkeys, but the window-curtains—it was one of those old farm-houses where they don’t have blinds—and the other little girl—
“Woke up!” shouted the little girl. “There now, papa, what did I tell you? I knew it was a dream all along.”
“No, she didn’t,” said the papa; “and it wasn’t a dream.”
“What was it, then?”
“It was a—trance.”
The little girl turned round, and knelt in her papa’s lap, so as to take him by the shoulders and give him a good shaking. That made him promise to be good, pretty quick, and, “Very well, then,” says the little girl; “if it wasn’t a dream, you’ve got to prove it.”
“But how can I prove it?” says the papa.
“By going on with the story,” says the little girl, and she cuddled down again.
“Oh, well, that’s easy enough.”
As soon as it was light in the room, the other little girl could see that the place was full of people, crammed and jammed, and they were all awfully excited, and kept yelling, “Down with the traitress!” “Away with the renegade!” “Shame on the little sneak!” till it was worse than the turkeys, ten times.
She knew that they meant her, and she tried to explain that she just had to promise, and that if they had been in her place they would have promised too; and of course they could do as they pleased about keeping her word, but she was going to keep it, anyway, and never, never, never eat another piece of turkey either at Thanksgiving or at Christmas.
“Very well, then,” says an old lady, who looked like her grandmother, and then began to have a crown on, and to turn into Queen Victoria, “what can we have?”
“Well,” says the other little girl, “you can have oyster soup.”
“What else?”
“And you can have cranberry sauce.”
“What else?”
“You can have mashed potatoes, and Hubbard squash, and celery, and turnip, and cauliflower.”
“What else?”
“You can have mince-pie, and pandowdy, and plum-pudding.”
“And not a thing on the list,” says the Queen, “that doesn’t go with turkey! Now you see.”
The papa stopped.
“Go on,” said the little girl.
“There isn’t any more.”
The little girl turned round, got up on her knees, took him by the shoulders, and shook him fearfully. “Now, then,” she said, while the papa let his head wag, after the shaking, like a Chinese mandarin’s, and it was a good thing he did not let his tongue stick out. “Now, will you go on? What did the people eat in place of turkey?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, you awful papa! Well, then, what did the little girl eat?”
“She?” The papa freed himself, and made his preparation to escape. “Why she—oh, she ate goose. Goose is tenderer than turkey, anyway, and more digestible; and there isn’t so much of it, and you can’t overeat yourself, and have bad—”
“Dreams!” cried the little girl.
“Trances,” said the papa, and she began to chase him all round the room.
The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express
Christmas Eve, after the children had hung up their stockings and got all ready for St. Nic, they climbed up on the papa's lap to kiss him good-night, and when they both got their arms round his neck, they said they were not going to bed till he told them a Christmas story. Then he saw that he would have to mind, for they were awfully severe with him, and always made him do exactly what they told him; it was the way they had brought him up. He tried his best to get out of it for a while; but after they had shaken him first this side, and then that side, and pulled him backward and forward till he did not know where he was, he began to think perhaps he had better begin. The first thing he said, after he opened his eyes, and made believe he had been asleep, or something, was, “Well, what did I leave off at?” and that made them just perfectly boiling, for they understood his tricks, and they knew he was trying to pretend that he had told part of the story already; and they said he had not left off anywhere because he had not commenced, and he saw it was no use. So he commenced.
“Once there was a little Pony