The Ill-Fated Moll

To celebrate Thanksgiving this year we bring you a charmingly illustrated book from our Class of 1926 collection. Thanksgiving Day: or the Fate of Poor Molly Goosey (Boston: Wier & White, ca. 1850). This hand-colored children's book relates the tale of young Prince Gander's courtship with the lovely Miss Molly Goosey. The two fall madly in love and became engaged, then the troubles start:

Both looked forward, soon, to a sweet honeymoon,
For neither of them did remember,
That once, every year, there comes, it is clear,
A Thanksgiving day in November.

And then, I've heard say, it is a Festival day,
When people scorn beef, veal, and mutton,
By way of excuse, on a well stuffed goose,
To play the inordinate glutton.

As the lovers were walking, one morning, and talking,
O, think of the pangs they must suffer,
To hear the fat cook say, with ominous look,
"I must presently kill her and stuff her."

At Molly our swain looked with evident pain,
For he feared Moll might be such a sinner
His young bride to choose for her Thanksgiving goose,
To be killed, stuffed, and roasted for dinner.

As the day nearer drew, more uneasy he grew,
For a kind of foreboding possessed him!
But Moll, not a whit cared for cookery or spit,
As she said,---whilst she fondly caressed him.

But oh! lady gay,---'ere that Thanksgiving day,
In fact, two or three days before it,
A chase there was seen, upon Roxbury Green,
And the lovers had cause to deplore it.

Without more delay, then suffice it to say,
That some farmers that day met together,
Of a goose to partake, and a good dinner make,
While they talked of the markets and weather.

But the goose they extol, is the ill-fated Moll,
Whilst Prince Gander, as pale as a muffin,
Faintly uttered, "Alas!" as he saw the dish pass,
And died upon smelling the stuffing.

Ask for 1926 Collection T3544, and enjoy your TURKEY,