Fried pork, too,
was a "main-stay" on the bill-of-fare. The deal table was graced
by no cloth or napery of any kind. There were heaps of potatoes
and onions fried together, and golden cornbread with bowls of
white gravy to ladle over it.
After riding twenty-five miles through such a frosty air, Nan
would have had to possess a delicate appetite indeed not to enjoy
these viands. She felt bashful because of the presence of so
many rough men; but they left her alone for the most part, and
she could listen and watch.
"Old Toby Vanderwiller tell you what Ged's been blowin' about,
Henry?" asked one of the men at the table, busy ladling beans
into his mouth with a knife, a feat that Nan thought must be
rather precarious, to say the least.
"Says he's going to jail me if I go on to the Perkins Tract,"
growled Uncle Henry, with whom the matter was doubtless a sore
subject.
"Yaas. But he says more'n that," said this tale bearer.
"Oh, Ged says a whole lot besides his prayers," responded Uncle
Henry, good-naturedly. Perhaps he saw they were trying to bait
him.
"Wal, 'tain't nothin' prayerful he's sayin'," drawled the first
speaker, after a gulp of coffee from his thick china cup. "Some
of the boys at Beckett's, you know, they're a tough crowd, was
riggin' him about what you said to him down to the Forks, and Ged
spit out that he'd give a lump of money to see you on your back.
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