At this the massive girl got herself somewhat together, and made room for me, which I declined, however.
“Prospectin’?” inquired Madame.
“I say huntin’,” suggested the man.
“Maybe he’s a cattle-feller,” interrupted the little girl.
“Goin’ somewhere, ain’t yer?” was Susan’s guess.
I gave a brief account of myself, evidently satisfying the social requirements of all but the old woman, who at once classified me as not up to her standard. Susan saw this, so did her father, and it became evident to me in ten minutes’ conversation that they two were always at one, and made it their business to be in antagonism to the mother. They were then allies of mine from nature, and I felt at once at home. I saw, too, that Susan, having slid back to her horizontal position when I declined to share her rightful ground, was watching with subtle solicitude that fated spot in the fire, opposing sympathy and squints accurately aligned by her shoe to the dull spot in the embers, which slowly went out into blackness before the well-directed fire of her mother’s saliva.
The shouts which I heard proceeding from the direction of my camp were easily translatable into summons for supper. Mr. Newty invited me to return later and be sociable, which I promised to do, and, going to my camp, supped quickly and left the men with orders about picketing the animals for the night, then, strolling slowly down to the camp of my friends, seated myself upon a log by the side of the old gentleman. Feeling that this somewhat formal attitude unfitted me for partaking to the fullest degree of the social ease around me, and knowing that my buckskin trousers were impervious to dirt, I slid down in a reclined posture with my feet to the fire, in absolute parallelism with the family.
The old woman was in the exciting dénouement of a coon-story, directed to her little boy, who sat clinging to her skirt and looking in her face with absorbed curiosity. “And when Johnnie fired,” she said, “the coon fell and busted open.” The little boy had misplaced his sympathies with the raccoon, and having inquired plaintively, “Did it hurt him?” was promptly snubbed with the reply, “Of course it hurt him. What do you suppose coons is made for?” Then turning to me she put what was plainly enough with her a test-question, “I allow you have killed your coon in your day?” I saw at once that I must forever sink beneath the horizon of her standards, but, failing in real experience or accurate knowledge concerning the coon, knew no subterfuges would work with her. Instinct had taught her that I had never killed a coon, and she had asked me thus ostentatiously to place me at once and forever before the family in my true light. “No, ma’am,” I said; “now you speak of it, I realize that I never have killed a coon.” This was something of a staggerer to Susan and her father, yet as the mother’s pleasurable dissatisfaction with me displayed itself by more and more accurate salivary shots at the fire, they rose to the occasion, and began to palliate my past. “Maybe,” ventured Mr. Newty, “that they don’t have coon round the city of York;” and I felt that I needed no self-defence when Susan firmly and defiantly suggested to her mother that perhaps I was in better business.
Driven in upon herself for some time, the old woman smoked in silence, until Susan, seeing that her mother gradually quenched a larger and larger circle upon the fire, got up and stretched herself, and, giving the coals a vigorous poke, swept out of sight the quenched spot, thus readily obliterating the result of her mother’s precise and prolonged expectoration; then, flinging a few dry boughs upon the fire, illumined the family with the ruddy blaze, and sat down again, leaning upon her father’s knee with a faint light of triumph in her eye.
I ventured a few platitudes concerning pigs, not penetrating the depths of that branch of rural science enough to betray my ignorance. Such sentiments as “A little piece of bacon well broiled for breakfast is very good,” and “Nothing better than cold ham for lunch,” were received by Susan and her father in the spirit I meant,—of entire good-will toward pork generically. I now look back in amusement at having fallen into this weakness, for the Mosaic view of pork has been mine from infancy, and campaigning upon government rations has, in truth, no tendency to dim this ancient faith.