I opened the book, and tried to see what it was all about; but there was nothing to read. A lot of English words twisted out of all shape and meaning, with some figures cut up in short rows, were scattered over the pages as if they had been shook out of a pepper-box. The only thing I could make out that seemed to have a sensible meaning, was—beef. This I read out loud—glad to find one good wholesome word to light on.
"Roast beef," says the fellow, and away he went.
There was no use trying to get anything like reading out of that ghost of a book; so I sat still and looked on, wondering what brought so many ladies into the Capitol, as they are not considered Congressmen yet.
XLIII.
PHŒMIE DINES WITH A SENATOR.
DEAR SISTERS: I had moved my chair back a little, for it seemed rather lonesome sitting there with nothing but a table-cloth spread before me, and a castor on it, when a gentleman came in and sat down on the other side of the table, just as if I hadn't been there.
He took up the skimpy book, and began to read, as if he understood every word of it—figures and all. By and by a young fellow came up to him. They whispered together a minute, and the gentleman kept pointing at the book.
Just then, the young man that I had been so sociable with, came up with some dishes in his hand, which he set down on the table, then spread his hands a little, as much as to say, politely: "Set to, ma'am, and help yourself;" which I did.
Sisters, the national kitchens want renovating. There is female missionary work here enough to keep half our Society busy for a year. That beef was never roasted by a fire. I'll take my oath of that. It never swung on an iron skewer, inside of a tin oven before a hickory-wood fire, since it was a born calf. There's no cheating me in such things. Why, this beef had a taste of chickens, and oysters, and baked pork about it, so strong that you couldn't at first tell which it was, or if its birthplace was a barn-yard, a hen-coop, or the salt sea ocean.