“What’ll you have?” said David to Mrs. Cullom, “dark meat? white meat?”
“Anything,” she replied meekly, “I’m not partic’ler. Most any part of a turkey’ll taste good, I guess.”
“All right,” said David. “Don’t care means a little o’ both. I alwus know what to give Polly—piece o’ the second jint an’ the last-thing-over-the-fence. Nice ’n rich fer scraggly folks,” he remarked. “How fer you, John?—little o’ both, eh?” and he heaped the plate till our friend begged him to keep something for himself.
“Little too much is jest right,” he asserted.
When David had filled the plates and handed them along—Sairy was for bringing in and taking out; they did their own helping to vegetables and “passin’ ”—he hesitated a moment, and then got out of his chair and started in the direction of the kitchen door.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Bixbee in surprise. “Where you goin’?”
“Woodshed,” said David.
“Woodshed!” she exclaimed, making as if to rise and follow.
“You set still,” said David. “Somethin’ I fergot.”
“What on earth!” she exclaimed, with an air of annoyance and bewilderment. “What do you want in the woodshed? Can’t you set down an’ let Sairy git it for ye?”
“No,” he asserted with a grin. “Sairy might sqush it. It must be putty meller by this time,” And out he went.
“Manners!” ejaculated Mrs. Bixbee. “You’ll think (to John) we’re reg’ler heathin.”
“I guess not,” said John, smiling and much amused.
Presently Sairy appeared with four tumblers which she distributed, and was followed by David bearing a bottle. He seated himself and began a struggle to unwire the same with an icepick. Aunt Polly leaned forward with a look of perplexed curiosity.
“What you got there?” she asked.
“Vewve Clikot’s universal an’ suv’rin remedy,” said David, reading the label and bringing the corners of his eye and mouth almost together in a wink to John, “fer toothache, earache, burns, scalds, warts, dispepsy, fallin’ o’ the hair, windgall, ringbone, spavin, disapp’inted affections, an’ pips in hens,” and out came the cork with a wop, at which both the ladies, even Mrs. Cullom, jumped and cried out.
“David Harum,” declared his sister with conviction, “I believe thet that’s a bottle of champagne.”
“If it ain’t,” said David, pouring into his tumbler, “I ben swindled out o’ four shillin’,” and he passed the bottle to John, who held it up tentatively, looking at Mrs. Bixbee.
“No, thank ye,” she said with a little toss of the head, “I’m a son o’ temp’rence. I don’t believe,” she remarked to Mrs. Cullom, “thet that bottle ever cost less ’n a dollar.” At which remarks David apparently “swallered somethin’ the wrong way,” and for a moment or two was unable to proceed with his dinner. Aunt Polly looked at him suspiciously. It was her experience that, in her intercourse with her brother, he often laughed utterly without reason—so far as she could see.
“I’ve always heard it was dreadful expensive,” remarked Mrs. Cullom.
“Let me give you some,” said John, reaching toward her with the bottle. Mrs. Cullom looked first at Mrs. Bixbee and then at David.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I never tasted any.”
“Take a little,” said David, nodding approvingly.
“Just a swallow,” said the widow, whose curiosity had got the better of scruples. She took a swallow of the wine.
“How do ye like it?” asked David.
“Well,” she said as she wiped her eyes, into which the gas had driven the tears, “I guess I could get along if I couldn’t have it regular.”
“Don’t taste good?” suggested David with a grin.
“Well,” she replied, “I never did care any great for cider, and this tastes to me about as if I was drinkin’ cider an’ snuffin’ horseradish at one and the same time.”
“How’s that, John?” said David, laughing.
“I suppose it’s an acquired taste,” said John, returning the laugh and taking a mouthful of the wine with infinite relish. “I don’t think I ever enjoyed a glass of wine so much, or,” turning to Aunt Polly, “ever enjoyed a dinner so much,” which statement completely mollified her feelings, which had been the least bit in the world “set edgeways.”
“Mebbe your app’tite’s got somethin’ to do with it,” said David, shoveling a knife-load of good things into his mouth. “Polly, this young man’s ben livin’ on crackers an’ salt herrin’ fer a week.”
“My land!” cried Mrs. Bixbee with an expression of horror. “Is that reelly so? ’Tain’t now, reelly?”
“Not quite so bad as that,” John answered, smiling; “but Mrs. Elright has been ill for a couple of days and—well, I have been foraging around Purse’s store a little.”
“Wa’al, of all the mean shames!” exclaimed Aunt Polly indignantly. “David Harum, you’d ought to be ridic’lous t’ allow such a thing.”
“Wa’al, I never!” said David, holding his knife and fork straight up in either fist as they rested on the table, and staring at his sister. “I believe if the meetin’-house roof was to blow off you’d lay it onto me somehow. I hain’t ben runnin’ the Eagle tavern fer quite a consid’able while. You got the wrong pig by the ear as usual. Jest you pitch into him,” pointing with his fork to John. “It’s his funeral, if anybody’s.”
“Wa’al,” said Aunt Polly, addressing John in a tone of injury, “I do think you might have let somebody know; I think you’d ortter ’ve known—”
“Yes, Mrs. Bixbee,” he interrupted, “I did know how kind you are and would have been, and if matters had gone on so much longer I should have appealed to you, I should have indeed; but really,” he added, smiling at her, “a dinner like this is worth fasting a week for.”
“Wa’al,” she said, mollified again, “you won’t git no more herrin’ ’nless you ask fer ’em.”
“That is just what your brother said this morning,” replied John, looking at David with a laugh.
XXIV
The meal proceeded in silence for a few minutes.
