is house to a family dinner-party.

"I dropped in to see Mary two or three days before the speakin', and
when I was leavin', I said, 'Mary, if there's anything I can do to
help you about your dinner-party, jest let me know.' And she said,
'There ain't a thing to do; Harvey's been to town and bought
everything he could think of in the way of groceries, and Jane Ann's
comin' over to cook the dinner; but thank you, all the same.'

"I thought Mary looked pleased and satisfied, and I says, 'Well, with
everything to cook and Jane Ann to cook it, there won't be anything
lackin' about that dinner.' And Mary laughed, and says she, 'You know
I'm my father's own child.'

"Old Jerry used to say, ''Tain't no visit unless you waller a bed and
empty a plate.' They used tell it that Aunt Maria, the cook, never had
a chance to clean up the kitchen between meals, and the neighbors all
called Jerry's house the free tavern. I've heard folks laugh many a
time over the children recitin' the Ten Commandments Sunday evenin's,
and Jerry would holler at 'em when they got through and say:

"'The 'leventh commandment for Kentuckians is, "Be not forgetful to
entertain strangers," and never mind about 'em turnin' out to be
angels. Plain folks is good enough for me.'

"Here I am strayin' off from the dinner, jest like I always do when I
set out to tell anything or go anywhere. Abram used to say that if I
started to the spring-house, I'd go by way o' the front porch and the
front yard and the back porch and the back yard and the flower gyarden
and the vegetable gyarden to git there.

"Well, the day come, and Judge McGowan made a fine speech, and Harvey
carried him off in his new buggy, as proud as a peacock. I ricollect
when I set down to my table that day I said to myself: 'I know Judge
McGowan's havin' a dinner to-day that'll make him remember Kentucky as
long as he lives.' And it wasn't till years afterwards that I heard
the truth about that dinner. Jane Ann herself told me, and I don't
believe she ever told anybody else. Jane Ann was crippled for a year
or more before she died, and the neighbors had to do a good deal of
nursin' and waitin' on her. I was makin' her a cup o' tea one day, and
the kittle was bubblin' and singin', and she begun to laugh, and says
she, 'Jane, do you hear that sparrer chirpin' in the peach tree there
by the window?' Says she, 'I never hear a sparrer chirpin' and a
kittle b'ilin', that I don't think o' the dinner Ma