The Talkative Wig | Page 5

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 blew me up so as to hide him entirely, and she took me for great dark wings.
I fear you may be weary of my story. I have much more that I could relate, but I have already been too long.
I am, as you see, ragged and worn, but the dear family have an affection for