The Talkative Wig | Page 5

light and goes to bed. I bet she'll give us one of her chickens. But
let us take whatever she gives us, just for the fun, and for fear we
should be found out."
Willie was to be the spokesman. He felt rather queerly at first; but the
fun of the thing was too tempting, so he agreed to speak. He was
dressed as a girl, and wrapped me closely about him, as if he was very
cold. He had on an old straw bonnet, and his face was painted, so that
she could not recognize him, he knew.
They knocked at Granny Horton's door, and she, in a kind, gentle voice,
replied, "Come in!" Willie, pretending to be a girl, told how she and her
brother and sister had come from the farther part of the town, where
they lived in the woods with a mother who was very old, and had
hardly any thing to eat; and how they wanted something good to carry
to her for thanksgiving day--a little flour, or a chicken, or any thing;
that it was too hard for his dear mother to have nothing but beans on
that day; that beans were what they lived on commonly.
He looked so mournful, and spoke in such a mournful tone that the dear
old woman, after thinking one moment, said to him, "I have two
chickens, a quart of flour, and two pounds of raisins, sent to me by a
good lady this morning, and brought to me by a real good little boy
called Willie. I can't ask their leave, but I guess they would not scold
me for giving your mother half of what he brought me; so you shall
have it, dear. 'It's more blessed to give than to receive.' 'The Lord gave
and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be His name.'"
While she was saying over these blessed words, she was busy dividing

the flour and the raisins, and putting them and the chicken into the
basket which Willie gave her.
They all thanked the old woman very kindly, and went off with her
flour and chicken.
"What shall we do with it all?" said they, as soon as they were out of
the house.
"Let us," said Willie, "beg all we can every where, and get our basket
full, and carry it back to her, and, when she is asleep, get into her house
again, and put it on her hearth. I know how to open the window on the
outside when she thinks it fast."
This was a good joke for the boys; so they went from house to house,
and, except at the squire's and one other place, got something from
every one, till, at last, their basket was full. Then they went home, and
got a peck of apples from their mother.
Willie then led the way to Granny Horton's again. They looked in at the
window, and, by the light of the few embers still burning, saw the good
woman asleep in her great, old-fashioned chair, with her spectacles on,
and by her side a little stand on which lay her Bible open at the place
where she had been reading.
"I can get in," said Willie, "and put the basket down by her side before
she wakes."
Accordingly, he went to a little window in the back part of the house,
climbed in, came softly into the room where she was, and set the
baskets, all running over with good things, down on the hearth. Willie
had hardly got back to the window, when the good woman waked up;
and there, directly before her eyes, stood the baskets. She took them up,
and looked at them for some minutes before she took any thing out. At
last, she began to examine their contents. When she came to her
chicken and flour and raisins, in the very papers in which she had
wrapped them; she looked up and clasped her hands with such
astonishment, with such a look of wonder and gratitude, that the boys,

in their glee, laughed outright, and so loud that she heard them.
She ran to the window, but they were gone; and she never knew how it
was that her chicken and flour brought her back seven fold.
When next the cook went to see her, with me on,--I was every body's
cloak,--the old lady told her the whole story of finding the chicken and
flour, and so many other good things with them. The secret was kept;
and it was Granny Horton's firm faith that it was the wings of angels
she heard when she went to the window. Indeed she thought she had
seen the wings, for as Willie turned to run, he forgot to hold me tight,
and the wind