Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/201

 What does Thanksgiving mean?' asked little Nanny, who was perched on the stranger's knee. 'Tell us the 'tory about it.'

"So the traveller, who was a kind man, made quite a story to amuse the children. He told how, long ago, when the land was all wild woods in which only Indians lived, a shipload of English people came across the sea, in the freezing winter, to make a home for themselves in the wilderness. How they suffered hunger, cold, and all sorts of hardships: and at last, after many months, housed their first harvest from a few scanty fields; and, in gratitude for this food which saved them from starvation, set aside a day to be spent in giving God thanks for it. And how, ever since, among their descendants, this day of Thanksgiving had been kept up, and solemnly observed every autumn after the gathering in of the crops.

"Then he told them that in New England, on this day, all the sons and daughters come to the old homestead with their families; and how the