“I forgot to ask ye if ye’d have some cider?” a sepulchral voice asked presently; “but I don’t know now’s I can get at it.  I told John I shouldn’t want any whilst he was away, and so he ain’t got the spiggit in yet,” to which Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin both replied that they were no hands for that drink, unless ’t was a drop right from the press, or a taste o’ good hard cider towards the spring of the year; and Mrs. Thacher soon returned with some slices of cake in a plate and some apples held in her apron.  One of her neighbors took the candle as she reached up to put it on the floor, and when the trap door was closed again all three drew up to the table and had a little feast.  The cake was of a kind peculiar to its maker, who prided herself upon never being without it; and there was some trick of her hand or a secret ingredient which was withheld when she responded with apparent cheerfulness to requests for its recipe.  As for the apples, they were grown upon an old tree, one of whose limbs had been grafted with some unknown variety of fruit so long ago that the history was forgotten; only that an English gardener, many years before, had brought some cuttings from the old country, and one of them had somehow come into the possession of John Thacher’s grandfather when grafted fruit was a thing to be treasured and jealously guarded.  It had been told that when the elder Thacher had given away cuttings he had always stolen to the orchards in the night afterward and ruined them.  However, when the family had grown more generous in later years it had seemed to be without avail, for, on their neighbors’ trees or their own, the English apples had proved worthless.  Whether it were some favoring quality in that spot of soil or in the sturdy old native tree itself, the rich golden apples had grown there, year after year, in perfection, but nowhere else.

“There ain’t no such apples as these, to my mind,” said Mrs. Martin, as she polished a large one with her apron and held it up to the light, and Mrs. Jake murmured assent, having already taken a sufficient first bite.

“There’s only one little bough that bears any great,” said Mrs. Thacher, “but it’s come to that once before, and another branch has shot up and been likely as if it was a young tree.”

The good souls sat comfortably in their splint-bottomed, straight-backed chairs, and enjoyed this mild attempt at a festival.  Mrs. Thacher even grew cheerful and responsive, for her guests seemed so light-hearted and free from care that the sunshine of their presence warmed her own chilled and fearful heart.  They embarked upon a wide sea of neighborhood gossip and parish opinions, and at last some one happened to speak again of Thanksgiving, which at once turned the tide of conversation, and it seemed to ebb suddenly, while the gray, dreary look once more overspread Mrs. Thacher’s face.

“I don’t see why you won’t keep with our folks this year; you and John,” once more suggested Mrs. Martin. “’T ain’t wuth while to be making yourselves dismal here to home; the day’ll be lonesome for you at best, and you shall have whatever we’ve got and welcome.”