In 1830 all the Doctor’s relatives, far and near, were invited to eat “Thanksgiving dinner” with him and his family; for he was hospitable enough, in his own fashion; in all, thirty were to sit down at his board. On the day before Thanksgiving, mother, daughters, and “help” were all busy at work from early morning in the great pantry and kitchen, making careful preparation for the coming dinner, and brisk sounds of chopping and pounding and mixing were heard, and savory smells and spicy vapors filled the house. Toward the close of the day, when their work was nearly done, they suddenly heard, to their terror, the sound of the Doctor’s cane (for he was badly crippled with that typical English disease, the gout) thump, thumping through the halls and rooms to the kitchen, an apartment he seldom visited. With palpitating hearts but firm countenances they stood in a hollow square for strength, as does any determined band, while he walked past them to the “buttery,” where were placed in military rows twenty-six of those hated abominations, pies--mince-pies, pumpkin and apple and cranberry, and, the crowning dainty of all, “Marlboro’” pies. Their only hope of salvation was that in the dull, fading November light the tyrant might not discover the forbidden pastry; and, indeed, he did not appear to do so, for he merely glanced scowlingly around, and, without speaking, hobbled back to his office. Once more they breathed freely, and the eldest daughter said, cheerfully: “Now, girls, nothing can happen; if he had seen them we should have had to give them away; but he won’t know anything about it now until they are brought on the table with the pudding, and he will be most through his bottle of port then--but oh, what shall we do when the company goes?” Poor souls! they slept for one night the happy, unconscious sleep of the victorious, the hospitable, and awoke on Thanksgiving morn to find every pie vanished from the pantry-shelf. Every pie? Yes, and every pie-plate, too!--twenty-six of the new English blue-and-white stone-ware plates. At first they really believed, in their simplicity, that a thief must have entered from outside and stolen them; but why should the marauder take pies, and no other food? Then, too, there was not a foot-print on the light snow which had fallen early in the evening. No; the Doctor must have stolen his wife’s pies! But where could he have hidden the pie-plates? For weeks, yes, for years, they searched in every nook and corner; through the hay in the barns, behind the logs of wood in the sheds, in old barrels and boxes in the cellar, in closets, in trunks, under the eaves in the attic; and they even peered out on the roof behind the peaks of the gable-windows, but no pie-plates could they find. The grim old Doctor kept his silence, until his daughters grew at last to think that some thief must have entered in spite of apparent impossibility.