John Inglefield's Thanksgiving

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About this book

John Inglefield's Thanksgiving is a work by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The text describes the evening of Thanksgiving day, with John Inglefield, the blacksmith, sitting in his elbow-chair among those who had been keeping festival at his board. The text says the vacant chair at John Inglefield's right hand was in memory of his wife, whom death had snatched from him since the previous Thanksgiving.

The text says that within the past year another member of the household had gone, but not to the grave, and that no vacant chair was kept for her. A character named Prudence starts from her chair, holds out both her hands with a warning gesture, and tells Mary not to touch her. The text names Prudence Inglefield and says her visit to the Thanksgiving fireside was the realization of one of those waking dreams in which the guilty soul will sometimes stray back to its innocence.