44 
House & Garden 
A golden sheaf of wheat 
with twining grape vines 
may shade the lights, and 
be set off by small pump¬ 
kins of crystallised sugar 
DECORATING THE THANKSGIVING TABLE 
Harvest Fruits and Customs that Were Old in the Days of the Puritans 
Suggest Decorations for the Hospitable Feast 
MARY TUCKER 
O NCE more, as the old chronicle runs, 
“Since it hath pleased God in comfort¬ 
able measure to bless us in the fruits of the 
earth”, we are again called on to add up the 
credit side of the year and to prepare the feast, 
whether with or without the transient blessing 
of servants, and whether beneath our own or 
our landlord’s roof. 
The tritest commonplace of decoration and 
observance can not conceal the meaning of the 
Thanksgiving feast, its portion of beauty and 
abundance, its symbolism of plenty which is 
more than the plenty of mere daily food. Here 
are the fruits of orchard and field, and the 
bidden guests sit down to give thanks at a 
common board. But less frequent ways of 
decoration are to be sought for, in order to add 
the zest of novelty to the laudable duty of 
being thankful. That beauty which reached 
its mellow perfection in field and garden now 
gains by artistic arrangement on dinner tables, 
and a variety of attractive ways suggest them¬ 
selves to the hostess for 
disposing fruits or flow¬ 
ers or grains. The col¬ 
orings from the rich 
palette of autumn itself 
will suit the menu, and 
the glow of candles or 
mellow lights will lend 
the proper accent. 
A Formal Arrangement 
In one very attrac¬ 
tive arrangement, min¬ 
iature pumpkins of 
crystallized sugar, 
fairy-like enough to 
have served a sweet 
Cinderella and her ret¬ 
inue, make attractive 
spots of color, and 
serve for nuts and fa¬ 
vors, while the central 
note of the decoration 
is a sheaf of wheat, 
with the lights glowing 
softly between its satiny 
stalks; and grape-vines 
twined about it and 
laid upon the white 
cloth are graceful sug¬ 
gestions of the old time 
of vintage. Nor is the 
sheaf of wheat less sug¬ 
gestive of the old ori¬ 
gin of this harvest day, 
as the dimier-guest could testify who had been 
fortunate enough to take a leisurely journey 
through Northumberland at reaping time. In 
this formal decoration he would see a remi¬ 
niscence of the “kern-baby”—the last sheaf of 
wheat to stand after the bending reapers and 
flashing sickles had passed over the ripened 
grain, leaving the stubble in their wake; and 
after this the kern-baby was brought home to 
the shouts of the reapers and the pipes and 
tabours of old England and set up at the fol¬ 
lowing feast, just as on more modern and more 
sophisticated dinner tables. 
For it is the essence of Thanksgiving to be 
traditional and time-loving under the guise of 
novelty, just as the Thanksgiving dinner will 
follow the old and savory way. There are 
those spicy fragrances, those tempting whiffs, 
as familiar as the multiplication-table, but 
sweeter than the perfume of Araby for all 
that. Until it is revolutionized, Thanksgiving 
day will float in the aroma of New England 
cookery, in the sacrosanct odor of mince and 
pumpkin which offers recompense for the de¬ 
parted summer fragrances of the garden. 
And the pumpkin may hold as much appeal 
for the Thanksgiving hostess as for the pastry 
cook, with its mellow and satisfying color and 
its delicious contours. It has grown among the 
sprawling vines from small and gourdlike be¬ 
ginnings to this lordly sphere; and now it 
proudly brims with the delicate fragrance and 
varied hues and shapes of fruit—burnished red 
apples, pears touched with a cheek of pink, and 
dangling puqfle clusters of plump grapes. Its 
bed of autumn leaves and the soft candle lights 
echo the colors. 
Using Fruits 
Fruits prove most plastic material for the 
decorator, adapting themselves with equal 
beauty to more dignified arrangements. To the 
long lines of a refectory table, an array of 
lovely fruit adapts itself in formal fashion like 
a gorgeous polychrome 
panel of the Renais¬ 
sance. Two tall candle¬ 
sticks are the central 
notes, and from them 
festoon the wreathed 
grapes, the purple 
plums, red pomegra¬ 
nates and many fruits 
with all the blended 
richness of mosaic. 
On a square table, 
one central mass of 
fruits in profusion fur¬ 
nishes the theme, and 
from it go trailing off 
delicate strands of vine, 
which suit the outline 
of the table and mark 
etchings UDon the white 
cloth. The design is 
completed by burnished 
red apples, hollowed 
out and holding a mer¬ 
rily flaming candle. For 
candle-light itself is a 
most friendly element, 
the “yellow ease of 
eyes” in which hospi¬ 
tality takes on a more 
informal tone. 
There are other vines, 
which may be used to 
mark lines upon the 
Thanksgiving table 
In this arrangement the Thanksgiving table holds a note of the harvest in its center 
decoration of grasses and poppies, and of purple grapes on burnished silver. Fine napery 
and crystal add much to the effect 
