NOVEMBER 137 



ing day when we walked across the open fields, six 

 miles, to dinner at Aunt Eliza's, drove into town 

 with the cousins and back again, and closed the 

 day with a solitary walk homeward under clear 

 moonlit skies, with the cottontails leaping beside 

 the road and the farm dogs baying and barking 

 loudly at the lone midnight traveler. A few years 

 later, a drive across snowless Kansas prairies was 

 a Thanksgiving treat ; again a few years, a similar 

 ride across the low hills of the Jim River Valley 

 was enjoyed, with the fur of the jack-rabbit the 

 only white against the brown landscape. 



Two important items of Thanksgiving season, 

 at least, we are sure are not dream-memories — 

 apples and buffalo robes. One November day long- 

 ago, a Grinnell firm sold seventy-eight barrels of 

 apples. At that time a popular program for 

 humble households was a barrel or two of bell- 

 flowers for early consumption, greenings for solid 

 midwinter comfort, and a barrel of russets to last 

 as far into the spring as strong apple appetites 

 would permit. The Christmas stocking usually 

 contained a big bellflower or greening or both. 

 What excursions, candle-lighted, into the cellar of 

 a winter evening, for a plate of apples, to be pared, 

 quartered or scraped ; reinforced perhaps by a big 

 bowl of crisp popcorn ! What games with parings 

 thrown over the shoulder, apples hung in the door- 

 way for girlish teeth to claim ! With changing 



