The Governor ought to
be ashamed of himself for hurrying matters so."
It was a very rash step for Miss Briskett to go to the length of such a
remark about the Governor, but the deacon's wife was one of the few women
who are nonconductors of indiscretion, and so the Governor never heard of
it.
This particular Thanksgiving tide was marked in Mapleton by exceptionally
charming weather. Once in a great while the inclement New England skies
are taken with a remorseful twinge and forget to give their usual snap of
September frost which generally bites off all the pretty flowers in so
heart-breaking a way, and then you can have lovely times quite down
through November.
It was so this year at Mapleton. Though the Thanksgiving proclamation had
been read, and it was past the middle of November, yet marigolds and
four-o'clocks were all ablaze in the gardens, and the golden rod and
purple aster were blooming over the fields as if they were expecting to
keep it up all winter.
It really is affecting, the jolly good heart with which these bright
children of the rainbow flaunt and wave and dance and go on budding and
blossoming in the very teeth and snarl of oncoming winter. An autumn
golden rod or aster ought to be the symbol for pluck and courage, and
might serve a New England crest as the broom flower did the old
Plantagenets.
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