Thanksgiving on Thursday (6 page)
Read Thanksgiving on Thursday Online
Authors: Mary Pope Osborne
“Indeed,” said Jack.
Before closing his notebook, he added one last thing:
Squanto bowed.
“Good day, Jack and Annie,” he said.
“Good day!” they said.
Squanto turned and headed back to the village. The sun was setting. All of Plymouth was lit with a fiery light.
“It really was a good day,” said Annie.
“Yeah, it was,” said Jack.
Annie sighed. “Ready to go home?” she asked.
“Indeed,” Jack said.
They started running through the woods.
Their feet crunched through the red and yellow leaves. They scrambled up the rope ladder into the tree house.
From the distance came the sounds of the Pilgrims singing a hymn and the Wampanoag beating their drums. Annie picked up the Pennsylvania book. She pointed at a picture of the Frog Creek woods.
“I wish we could go home!” she said.
“Good-bye, Priscilla!” Jack called.
“Good-bye, Squanto!” said Annie. “Good-bye, everyone!”
The wind started to blow.
The wind blew harder.
The tree house started to spin.
It spun faster and faster.
Then everything was still.
Absolutely still.
Jack opened his eyes. He sighed. They were wearing their own clothes again. His leather bag was a backpack.
Sunlight slanted through the tree house window. As always, no time at all had passed in Frog Creek.
“Home,” said Annie. She held up the pouch of corn seeds. “Proof for Morgan we found a special magic.”
“The magic of community,” said Jack.
Annie placed the pouch on the floorânext to the scrolls from Shakespeare and the twig from the gorillas of the cloud forest.
“Let's go,” she said.
Jack took the research book out of his pack. He left it under the window. Then they climbed down the rope ladder.
As they started through the woods, a warm wind blew, rattling the leaves. Jack felt happy. He was looking forward to visiting their grandmother today and seeing their cousins and aunts and uncles.
“You know, Pilgrim kids had a really hard life,” said Annie.
“Yeah. They did as much work as the grown-ups,” said Jack. “Maybe more.”
“Worst of all, lots of their friends and family members died,” said Annie.
“Yeah,” said Jack.
Both were silent for a moment.
“If
they
could be so thankful,” said Annie, “
we
should be really thankful.”
“No kidding,” said Jack. “Really,
really
thankful.”
And they were.
MORE FACTS FOR
JACK AND ANNIE AND
YOU
!
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln designated the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed it to the fourth Thursday in Novemberâin case there were ever five Thursdays in the month.
Wampanoag
means “people of the first light.” When the Pilgrims arrived, the Wampanoag people had lived in southeastern New England for thousands of years. They were experts at hunting, fishing, and planting.
Squanto's real name was Tisquantum. He was a native of the Patuxet people, which belonged to the Wampanoag federation of tribes. The Patuxet had lived in Plymouth before the Pilgrims arrived. But when Squanto returned to Plymouth in 1619 after being kidnapped as a slave, he discovered that all his people had died in a plague in 1617. Since Squanto knew English as well as the language of the Wampanoag, he helped negotiate a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and Chief Massasoit.
Less than half of the original Pilgrims survived their first terrible winter. But after that, their numbers began to grow. More and more people came from England. Within ten years, the population of Plymouth Colony rose to almost 2,000.
Priscilla Mullins was the eighteen-year-old daughter of a shopkeeper. In the “general sickness” of the first year, she lost her parents and her brother. In 1623, Priscilla married another PilgrimâJohn Alden, a barrel-maker. Priscilla and John had ten children.
The character of Mary was based on Mary Allerton, who was a small child when the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth. She was the last survivor of the
Mayflower
's passengers. She died at Plymouth in 1699, at the age of eighty-three.
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Excerpt copyright ©
2003
by
Published by Random House Children's Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Jack and Annie were sitting on their porch, reading books. Jack was reading about gorillas. Annie was reading about Pilgrims.
Suddenly Annie closed her book. She looked up into the sunset.
“Hey!” Annie said with a smile.
Jack looked over at her.
“It's back!”
she said, jumping up.
“Oh, man,” breathed Jack. He knew she was talking about the magic tree house. Annie could always tell when it was back.
Jack closed his book and stood up.
“We're going to the woods!” he called through the screen door. “There's something we have to check on!”
“Be back before dark!” their mom said.
“We will!” said Jack.
He picked up his backpack. Then he and Annie headed across the yard. When they got to the sidewalk, they started running. They ran up their street and into the Frog Creek woods.
In the last light of day, they hurried between the trees. Finally, they came to the tallest oak. They held their breath as they looked up.
The magic tree house
was
back.
“Good going,” said Jack.
“Thanks!” said Annie.
She started up the ladder. Jack followed. It was nearly dark inside. But the sun-dried wood smelled like a summer day.
“What kind of special magic will we look for this time?” said Jack.
They glanced around the tree house. They saw the scrolls they'd brought back from Shakespeare's theater. They saw the twig from the mountain gorillas and the pouch of corn seeds from the first Thanksgiving.
“There!” said Annie. She pointed to a book in the corner. A piece of paper was sticking out of it.
Jack picked up the book. Then he pulled out the paper and read:
Dear Jack and Annie,
Good luck on your fourth journey to find a special magic. This secret rhyme will guide you:
To find a special magic,
build a special kind of ship
that rides the waves,
both high and low,
on every kind of trip.
          Thank you,
          Morgan
Jack looked at Annie.
“A ship?” he said.
She shrugged. “Yep. I guess we have to build a ship. Where do we go to build it?”
She and Jack looked at the book's cover. It showed palm trees, a beach, and a beautiful ocean. The title was:
A VISIT TO OLD HAWAII
“Oh, wow!” said Annie. “I
love
Hawaii!”
“How do you know you love it?” Jack asked. “We've never been to Hawaii.”
“Well, we're going now!” said Annie. She pointed at the cover. “We wish we could go there!”
The wind started to blow.
The tree house started to spin.
It spun faster and faster.
Then everything was still.
Absolutely still.
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