As the Peabodys approached the homestead, the smoke of the kitchen chimney was visible, circling upward and winding about in the sunshine as though it had been a delicate corkscrew uncorking a great bottle or square old flask of a delicious vintage. The Captain averred a quarter of a mile away, the moment they had come upon the brow of the hill, that he had a distinct savor of the fragrance of the turkey, and that it was quite as refreshing as the first odor of the land breeze coming in from sea, and he snuffed it up with a zeal and relish which gave the gig an eager appetite for dinner. The Captain's conjecture was strongly confirmed in the appearance of Mopsey, darting, with a dark face of dewy radiance at the wood-pile and shuffling back with bustling speed to the kitchen with a handful of delicate splinters. "She's giving him the last turn," said the Captain. The shadow of the little meeting-house was still over the Captain, even so far away, for he conducted the procession homeward at a pace much less furious than that with which he had advanced in the morning; and Mrs. Carrack too, observed now, with a strange pleasure, what she had given no heed to before when the fine coach was rolling in triumph along the road,--birds twittering in the sunny air by the wayside, and cattle roving like figures in a beautiful picture, upon the slopes of the distant hills. Oliver, the politician, more than once had out the great cotton pocket-handkerchief, and holding it spread before him contemplating the fatherly signers, was evidently acquiring some new lights on the subject of independence. A change, in fine, of some sort or other, had passed over every member of the Peabody family save old Sylvester, returning as going, calm, plain-spoken, straightforward and patriarchal. When they reached the gate of the homestead, William Peabody gave his hand to his wife and helped her, with some show of attention, to alight; and then there could be no doubt that it was in very truth Thanksgiving day, for the glory of the door-yard itself had paled and disappeared in the gorgeous festal light. There was no majestic gobbler in the door-yard now, with his great outspread tail, which in the proud moments of his life he would have expanded as if to shut the very light of the sun from all meaner creatures of the mansion. Within doors there was that bustling preparation, with brief lulls of ominous silence which precede and usher a great event. The widow Margaret, with noiseless step, glided to and fro, Miriam daintily hovering in the suburbs of the sitting-room, which is evidently the grand centre of interest, and Mopsey toils like a swart goblin in her laboratory of the kitchen in a high glow, scowling fearfully if addressed with a word which calls her attention for a moment away from her critical labors.