"Thanksgiving feasts!" O'Harra said.
"Thanksgivings like this here
Ain't anything to one I ate
In Wartleburg, one year.
The champeen eaters all were there,
Slack-stomached for the feast,
And we agreed the ones to pay
Were those who ate the least.
"Tom Haskins, up Frog Holler way,
And Uncle Peeleg Coon
And Moses Hit, across the creek,
And Bill and Doc Magoon,
And several others I can't name,
All trained and gaunted down,
Sat stropping knives upon their boots
While hundreds gathered round
"To see the champeen eating race;
And when the judge yelled 'go!'
We started in deliberate,
Devouring vittles slow.
First came a chicken pie apiece,
With mushrooms sprinkled in;
And then we ate a quart of squash,
Six taters and a tin
"Of piping biscuits, buttered hot,
And jam and apple jell.
Then pickled beets and celery--
'Twas here that Peeleg fell,
While several others looked quite pale,
Yet feebly carried on,
But when we reached the turkey course
The most of them were gone.
"Each had an eight-pound turkey, stuffed
With nuts and sage and things.
I hadn't hardly ate a half
'Fore Bill and Haskins rings
Their curtains down, and off they drags
Upon their hands and knees--
Which left just three--old Doc Magoon,
And me and Adam Pees.
"We picked the turkeys bare and then
Came pies all freshly baked.
We had our choice of apple, mince
And cherry, sugar caked.
One bite of pie and old Doc slumped,
And fainted in his chair.
But Adam Pees and I ate ours
And split the doctor's share.
"But that fixed Adam.
Mournfully He realized his fate--
His middle swelled so mightily
He couldn't reach his plate.
I cleaned the board and then I rose,
Disgusted with the bunch
And wandered to the pantry
where I fixed myself some lunch."
--Author: LeRoy W. Snell
--Source: OCR scan of a copy of text typed on a manual typewriter by LeRoy Behling (with some minor corrections for OCR and typing errors and to clean up the formatting)