Thirty-six months. That's not so long a run in daily affairs, and this Branton Hills history finds Thanksgiving Day dawning. In Branton Hill's locality it is not, customarily, what you would call a cold day. Many a Thanksgiving has had warm, balmy air, and without snow; though, also, without all that vast army of tiny chirping, singing, buzzing things on lawn or branch. But contrast has its own valuation; for, through it, common sights, vanishing annually, show up with a happy joy, upon coming back. Ah! That first faint coloring of grass, in Spring! That baby bud, on shrub or plant, shyly asking our loving South Wind if it's all right to pop out, now. That sprouting of big brown limbs on oak and birch; that first "blush of Spring" in orchards; that first furry, fuzzy, cuddly spray of pussy willows! Spring and Fall; two big points in your trip along your Pathway. Fall with its rubbish from months of labor: cornstalks, brown, dry grass, old twigs lying around, wilting plants; bright colorings blazing in distant woodlands; chill winds crawling in through windows, at night. And Spring! Pick-up, paint-up, wash-up Spring!! So, as I said, Branton Hills got around to Thanksgiving Day; that day on which as many of a family as possibly can should sit around a common board; coming from afar, or from only a door or two away. Gadsby's dining-room was not big; it had always sat but six in his family. But, on _this_ Thanksgiving Day,--hmmm! "Wait, now--uh-huh, that's it. Just run that pair of sliding doors back, put that parlor lamp upstairs; and that piano? Why not roll it out into my front hall? I know it will look odd, but you can't go through a Thanksgiving 'soup to nuts' standing up. _Got_ to jam in chairs, any old way!" But who is all this mob that will turn His Honor's dining-room into a thirty-foot hall? I'll look around, as our happy, laughing, singing, clapping group sits down to Gadsby's Thanksgiving party. I find _two_ "posts of honor;" (My gracious! _so_ far apart!); His Honor, with carving tools filling dish, dish, and dish. "Atta boy! Atta girl! Pass up your chow-dish! This bird has but two drum-sticks, but six of his cousins wait, out in our cook-shop! Lots of grub! What's that, Julius? A bit of dark? Want any gravy?" At Post Two sits "Ma;" again in that good old buxom condition, so familiar to all Branton Hills:-- "Right this way, folks, for potato, squash, onions, carrots and turnip!!"