The Pumpkin Pie Procession

When Mistress Satterthwaite heard that their old friend Christopher Ludwig was ill, and that he and his wife needed her, she made plans to go  to them at once, good woman that she was.  At first she thought she would take Baby Betsy with her.  But then she decided against it, for fear her two-year-old daughter would disturb the sick man.  “And besides,” she told her eldest daughter, “thee is fifteen, Lydia, and well able to look after Betsy and the others.” -from “The Pumpkin Pie Procession”

So begins our favorite Thanksgiving read-aloud.  This sweet short story of how the children in a Quaker family came to the aid of a very ill and former Baker General in the Army will warm your heart. Charles Ludwig was a real person appointed to the position by President Washington who really did declare the first thanksgiving proclamation by the new government in 1789.  The resolve and determination of 15-year-old Lydia and 11-year-old Deborah is inspiring.

This story and many others by favorite authors such as Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Carol Ryrie Brink can be found in It’s Time For Thanksgiving (1957), written and compiled by Elizabeth Hough Sechrist and Janette Woolsey.  It has sections on history, stories, plays, poems, games, and recipes.

I just wanted to share this Thanksgiving favorite with you.  Any book that has a game called “Pricilla, Where Art Thou?” based on John Alden and Priscilla Mullins has got to be worth something!

For more Thanksgiving books, see – Gratitude  and Gratefulnesse.