“I think, Uncle Isaac, we all caught them, and we all ought to carry them. If I should go alone it would look as though I had done it all. If she ain’t in any hurry for them, why can’t they stay at our house till we go to haul her wood? and then we might dig her potatoes, and put them in the cellar, and she will be all fixed up for winter.”
“That will be the best way, John.”
They now washed out the canoe, and the day’s work was done. As the boys were still some wet, they piled whole slabs on the fire, and lay down before it, waiting for supper, their wet clothes smoking in the heat. The great pot was now put in the middle of the table, and Hannah Murch filled the bowls as fast as they were emptied, which was not seldom.
“Don’t give Fred any more, Aunt Hannah,” said John; “he’ll kill himself, and his blood will be on your head.”
“Shouldn’t think you need say anything,” growled Fred; “that’s the third bowlful you’ve eaten.”
“I don’t believe there ever was so good a chowder as this,” said Charlie; “I never tasted anything so good in all my life.”
After the chowder came the roasted eggs. Uncle Isaac now brought a broad, thin flat rock from the beach, which, after Hannah had washed in boiling water, he placed in the middle of the table. She then went to the pot which had so excited Fred’s curiosity, and took from it an apple pudding, which she had made at home, and brought with her, and put it on the rock; she also brought a jug of sauce.
“I knew,” she said to Sally, “how well you liked my apple puddings when you was a girl, and I mean’t you should have one. I’ve done my best; if it ain’t good I shall be sorry.”
If the proof of a pudding is in the eating, Mrs. Murch certainly succeeded, for every morsel was devoured. The cheese, apples, and cider furnished the dessert, of which the boys freely partook, as cider was not mentioned in Uncle Isaac’s pledge, or even thought of. Indeed, that was but the germ in a thoughtful, benevolent mind, of principles that were to be widely extended in after years. It was found, when all were satisfied, that a large portion of the eggs, cheese, butter, bread, pies, and milk, had not been tasted.
“I’ll just leave these,” said Uncle Isaac, “as I go home, at the widow Yelf’s; the boys, I reckon, can take care of the apples.”