Bettys Bright Idea | Page 9

soul. Unknown to herself, she had that day taken the first step out of
self-life into that life of love and care for others which brought the King
of Glory down to share earth's toils and sorrows. And that precious
experience was Christ's Christmas gift to her.
[Decoration]

DEACON PITKIN'S FARM.

[Illustration: The Pitkin Homestead. ]
CHAPTER I.
MISS DIANA.
Thanksgiving was impending in the village of Mapleton on the 20th of
November, 1825.
The Governor's proclamation had been duly and truly read from the
pulpit the Sunday before, to the great consternation of Miss Briskett,
the ambulatory dressmaker, who declared confidentially to Deacon
Pitkin's wife that "she didn't see nothin' how she was goin' to get
through things--and there was Saphiry's gown, and Miss Deacon
Trowbridge's cloak, and Lizy Jane's new merino, not a stroke done on't.
The Governor ought to be ashamed of himself for hurrying matters so."
It was a very rash step for Miss Briskett to go to the length of such a
remark about the Governor, but the deacon's wife was one of the few
women who are nonconductors of indiscretion, and so the Governor
never heard of it.
This particular Thanksgiving tide was marked in Mapleton by
exceptionally charming weather. Once in a great while the inclement
New England skies are taken with a remorseful twinge and forget to
give their usual snap of September frost which generally bites off all
the pretty flowers in so heart-breaking a way, and then you can have
lovely times quite down through November.
It was so this year at Mapleton. Though the Thanksgiving proclamation
had been read, and it was past the middle of November, yet marigolds
and four-o'clocks were all ablaze in the gardens, and the golden rod and
purple aster were blooming over the fields as if they were expecting to

keep it up all winter.
It really is affecting, the jolly good heart with which these bright
children of the rainbow flaunt and wave and dance and go on budding
and blossoming in the very teeth and snarl of oncoming winter. An
autumn golden rod or aster ought to be the symbol for pluck and
courage, and might serve a New England crest as the broom flower did
the old Plantagenets.
The trees round Mapleton were looking like gigantic tulip beds, and
breaking every hour into new phantasmagoria of color; and the great
elm that overshadowed the red Pitkin farm-house seemed like a dome
of gold, and sent a yellow radiance through all the doors and windows
as the dreamy autumn sunshine streamed through it.
The Pitkin elm was noted among the great trees of New England. Now
and then Nature asserts herself and does something so astonishing and
overpowering as actually to strike through the crust of human stupidity,
and convince mankind that a tree is something greater than they are. As
a general thing the human race has a stupid hatred of trees. They
embrace every chance to cut them down. They have no idea of their
fitness for anything but firewood or fruit bearing. But a great cathedral
elm, with shadowy aisles of boughs, its choir of whispering winds and
chanting birds, its hush and solemnity and majestic grandeur, actually
conquers the dull human race and asserts its leave to be in a manner to
which all hearts respond; and so the great elms of New England have
got to be regarded with a sort of pride as among her very few crown
jewels, and the Pitkin elm was one of these.
But wasn't it a busy time in Mapleton! Busy is no word for it. Oh, the
choppings, the poundings, the stoning of raisins, the projections of pies
and puddings, the killing of turkeys--who can utter it? The very chip
squirrels in the stone-walls, who have a family custom of making a
market-basket of their mouths, were rushing about with chops
incredibly distended, and their tails had an extra whisk of thanksgiving
alertness. A squirrel's Thanksgiving dinner is an affair of moment,
mind you.

In the great roomy, clean kitchen of the deacon's house might be seen
the lithe, comely form of Diana Pitkin presiding over the roaring great
oven which was to engulf the armies of pies and cakes which were in
due course of preparation on the ample tables.
Of course you want to know who Diana Pitkin was. It was a general
fact about this young lady that anybody who gave one look at her,
whether at church or at home, always inquired at once with effusion,
"Who is she?"-- particularly if the inquirer was one of the masculine
gender.
This was to be accounted for by the fact that Miss Diana presented to
the first view of the gazer a dazzling combination of pink and white, a
flashing