cial. Some of this ham, and horse radish,
and maple syrup to begin with, and thin your fried spring chicken and
your stewed squirrel is a drame, Mary. Nobody iver makes turtle soup
half so rich as yours, and your green peas in cream, and asparagus on
toast is a rivilation--don't you rimimber 'twas Father Michael that
said it? I ought to be able to find mushrooms in a few weeks, and I can
taste your rhubarb pie over from last year. Gee! But I wish he'd come
in strawberrying! Berries from the vines, butter in the crust, crame
you have to bate to make it smooth--talk about shortcake!"

"What's wrong wi' cherry cobbler?" asked Dannie.

"Or blackberry pie?"

"Or greens cooked wi' bacon?"

"Or chicken pie?"

"Or catfish, rolled in cornmeal and fried in ham fat?"

"Or guineas stewed in cream, with hard-boiled eggs in the gravy?"

"Oh, stop!" cried the delighted Mary. "It makes me dead tired thinkin'
how I'll iver be cookin' all you'll want. Sure, have him come, and both
of you can pick out the things you like the best, and I'll fix thim for
him. Pure, fresh stuff might be a trate to a city man. When Dolan took
sister Katie to New York with him, his boss sent them to a
five-dollar-a-day house, and they thought they was some up. By the
third day poor Katie was cryin' for a square male. She couldn't touch
the butter, the eggs made her sick, and the cold-storage meat and
chicken never got nearer her stomach than her nose. So she just ate
fish, because they were fresh, and she ate, and she ate, till if you
mintion New York to poor Katie she turns pale, and tastes fish. She
vows and declares that she feeds her chickens and hogs better food
twice a day than people fed her in New York."

"I'll bet my new milk pail the grub we eat ivery day would be a trate
that would raise him," said Jimmy. "Provided his taste ain't so
depraved with saltpeter and chalk he don't know fresh, pure food whin
he tastes it. I understand some of the victims really don't."

"Your new milk pail?" questioned Mary.

"That's what!" said Jimmy. "The next time I go to town I'm goin' to get
you two."

"But I only need one," protested Mary. "Instead of two, get me a new
dishpan. Mine leaks, and smears the stove and table."

"Be Gorry!" sighed Jimmy. "There goes me tongue, lettin' me in for it
again. I'll look over the skins, and if any of thim are ripe, I'll get
you a milk pail and a dishpan the nixt time I go to town. And, by gee!
If that dandy big co