Down the River
Narrator
Eastern Oklahoma’s crisp autumn air always reminded sixteen-year-old Cherokee Billy Buckhorn of his grandma Awinita.
The Cherokee medicine woman usually served hot apple cider and warm pumpkin pie whenever he went to visit her and Grandpa Wesley in the fall months.
Sadly, she passed away when Billy was only six years old.
But he continued to smell the sweet aroma of apple cider and pumpkin pie at odd times and places during the season.
Like this morning when he woke up inside his tent on the bank of the Arkansas River.
Narrator
He and his best friend, Chigger, were on a canoeing and camping trip.
It would take them along this wide, winding river for the four-day Thanksgiving break.
Chigger lay in his sleeping bag on the other side of the tent a few feet from Billy— snoring.
The odors that Billy expected to smell in that tent that morning included his own stinky feet, sweaty camping clothes, stale potato chips, and decaying fallen leaves that lay near their camp.
But not apple cider and pumpkin pie.
Narrator
Then Billy realized it was probably just his mind playing tricks on him.
After all, it was Thanksgiving Day.
Many families would be starting to prepare the day’s big meal.
That could include baking pumpkin pies in the oven and warming up apple cider on the stove.
So his own memories of Thanksgiving Days gone by might have produced the strong smells in his brain.
It hadn’t been all that hard for the boys to convince their parents to let them go on this trip instead of staying home for the holiday.
Narrator
Billy’s dad was usually carrying on about the “myth of the first Thanksgiving.”
He said the Pilgrims never really invited the Indians over for dinner to thank them for helping them survive.
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