Skiddoo! Part 2

"Oh, yes!" said Ollie. "I have some potato pudding for desert."

When I got through swearing Ollie was under the stove, my wife was under the table, the dog was under the bed, and I was under the influence of liquor.

No more vegetarianism in mine.

Hereafter I am for that lamb chop thing, first, last and always.

But let's get back to that Thanksgiving dinner.

My wife invited Mr. and Mrs. William T. Hodge, Joe Coyne and his wife, and their daughter, Cuticura; Mr. and Mrs. Frank Doane, and their son, Communipaw; Mr. and Mrs. Jack Golden, and their niece, Casanova; and Mr. and Mrs. Riley Hatch.

Charlie Swayne was the referee.

My wife was so worried about the cook that before dinner time arrived she had an attack of nervous postponement.

As a matter of fact, we were both in fear and trembling that Ollie would send a tomato salad from the kitchen and before it reached the table it would become a chop suey.

Anyway, the guests arrived promptly, and I could see from their faces that they would fight that dinner to a finish.

The ladies began to chat pleasantly while they sized up our furniture out of the corners of their eyes, and the men glanced carelessly around to see if I had a box of cigars which would require their attention after dinner.

Pretty soon dinner was announced and they all jumped to their feet as though they had stepped on a third rail.

I believe in being thrifty, but the way some of those people saved up their hunger for our dinner was too penurious for mine.

I took Mrs. Hodge in and she took in my wife's dress to see if it was made over from last year's.

Young Communipaw Doane tried hard not to reach the table first, but a plate of Dill-pickles caught his eye and he won from old man Hodge by an arm.

The first round was oyster c.o.c.ktails and everybody drew cards.

This was Ollie's maiden attempt at making oyster c.o.c.ktails and she had original ideas about them, which consisted of salad oil instead of tomato ketchup.

The salad oil came from Italy, so the oysters were extremely foreign to the taste.

After eating his c.o.c.ktail Riley Hatch began to turn pale and inquired politely if we raised our own oysters.

But just then little Cutey Coyne upset a gla.s.s of water and changed the subject, and the complexion of the tablecloth.

The next round was mock turtle soup, and it made a deep impression, especially on Charlie Swayne, because little Casanova Golden upset her share in his lap when he least expected it.

Charlie was very nice about it, however.

He only swore twice, then he remembered once a gentleman always a gentleman and he did not strike the girl.

After a while we all convinced Charlie that the laugh was on the soup and not on him, and when the fish came on he forgot his troubles by getting a bone in his throat.

When Charlie began to talk like a trout, old man Hodge grabbed the bread knife and begged to be allowed to carve his initials on somebody's wishbone.

But Joe Coyne finally pacified him by a second helping of Bermuda onions.

I opened a third bottle of Pommery just to show I wasn't stingy.

Then came the Thanksgiving turkey, and this is where that Swede cook of ours won the blue ribbon.

My wife had told her to stuff it with chestnuts, but Ollie thought chestnuts too much of an old joke, so she stuffed it with peanut brittle.

Ollie had noticed some other things about the kitchen which looked lonesome, so she decided to put them in the turkey, too.

One of these was the corkscrew.

When I went to carve the turkey I found a horseshoe which Ollie had put in for luck.

It made my wife extremely nervous to see the can-opener, a pair of scissors, and nine clothes-pins come out of that turkey, but Jack Golden said that their last cook tried to stuff their last turkey with the garden hose, so my wife felt better.

The next round was some salad which Ollie had dressed in the kitchen, but the dress was such a bad fit that n.o.body could look at it without blus.h.i.+ng.

Then we had some home-made ice cream for desert.

The ice was very good, but Ollie forgot to add the cream, so it tasted rather insipid.

Every time there was a lull in the conversation Charlie Swayne kept yelling for a Bronx c.o.c.ktail, and the only thing that kept him from getting it was the fact that Riley Hatch wanted to tell the story of his life.

Anyway, the dinner came to a finish without anybody fainting, and the guests went home, a little hungry but unpoisoned.

The next morning my wife spoke bitterly to Ollie and she left us, followed by the Thanksgiving prayers of all those present.

The only thing about the house that loved Ollie was a pair of earrings belonging to my wife, and they went with her.

CHAPTER III

JOHN HENRY ON PATRIOTISM

Uncle Peter spent the Fourth of July at his old home in Ohio. I must show you a letter he wrote me a few days after that noisy event.

Dear John:

We had a nice quiet time on the Fourth with the exception of my ankle, which was somewhat dislocated because my foot stepped on an infant bombsh.e.l.l which same exploded for my benefit.

I like the idea of the Fourth with the exception of the noise.

I believe that if our forefathers had suspected that their great-grandchildren would make such an infernal racket on the Fourth of July they would have waited for a snow storm on the 16th of January before signing their John Hanc.o.c.ks, because then it would be too cold to explode firecrackers under your neighbor's eyebrows when he least expects it.

We had a nice quiet time at home on the Fourth, John, with the exception that little Oscar Maddy, who lives next door, presented me with a Roman candle which joined me between the third b.u.t.ton on my waistcoat and the solar plexus.