“O yes,” said Uncle Jacob, “I’ll think I have at any rate. But I like mine the way the man in the moon did his, or part of the way.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Phebe, “I understand! The last part—the ‘plum’ part!”
“O, don’t all eat gruel for me,” said Billy. “Course I sha’ n’t be a baby, and cry for things!”
But Aunt Phebe seemed resolved to develop the gruel idea to its utmost. She made all kinds,—Indian meal, oatmeal, corn-starch, flour, mixed meals, wheat; made it sweetened, and spiced with plums, and plain. One kind, that she called “thickened milk,” was delicious. “Course” we had one cup of tea, and bread and butter, and I can truly say that I have eaten many a worse supper than a “gruel supper.”
Here is a letter from William Henry to Dorry, written when he began to get well:—
William Henry’s Letter to Dorry.
Dear Dorry,—
I’m just as hungry as anything, now, about all the time. My grandmother says she’s so glad to see me eat again; and so am I glad to eat myself. Things taste better than they did before. Maybe I shall come back to school again pretty soon, my father says; but my grandmother guesses not very, because she thinks I should have a relapse if I did. A relapse is to get sick when you’re getting well; and, if I should get sick again, O what should I do! for I want to go out-doors. If they’d only let me go out, I’d saw wood all day, or anything. There isn’t much fun in being sick, I tell you, Dorry; but getting well, O, that’s the thing! I tell you getting well’s jolly! I have very good things sent to me about every day, and when I want to make molasses candy my grandmother says yes every time, if she isn’t frying anything in the spider herself; and then I wait and whistle to my sister’s canary-bird, or else look out the window. But she tells me to stand a yard back, because she says cold comes in the window-cracks: and my uncle Jacob he took the yardstick one day, and measured a yard, and put a chalk mark there, where my toes must come to, he said. If I hold the yardstick a foot and a half up from the floor, my sister’s kitty can jump over it tip-top. My sister has made a Red-Riding-Hood cloak for her kitty, and a muff to put her fore paws in, and takes her out.
