"I should have had supper on the table when you came, but Mr. Seth's coming: the boys have gone after him, and I knew you would want to eat with him."
It was not long before they all came in; and after putting the dishes on the table, and other provisions, Mrs. Sumerford took from the Dutch oven the biscuits, a custard pudding she had baked from a kettle, and then, placing a bean-pot in the middle of the table, exclaimed with an air of ill-concealed triumph,—
"There! Harry, Elick, Enoch, look at that pot, and tell me where you suppose it came from."
They examined it with great attention; and, the more they looked, the more their wonder grew.
"It was made by somebody in this place, of course," said Alex; "because nobody has been here to bring it, and nobody could go from here to get it. I guess Mr. Honeywood made it, because he's lived in Baltimore where they make such things."
"Guess, all of you; and, when any one guesses right, I'll say yes."
"I," said Enoch, "guess Mr. Holt made it, 'cause he came from one of the oldest settlements, where they have every thing; and he made the millstones."
Harry, who had been examining it all the while, thought he recognized Uncle Seth's handiwork in the inscription, and said,—
"I think, as Elick does, it must have been made here, because there's no intercourse betwixt us and other people; and no regular potter would have made it that shape; it would have been higher and straighter, like some I saw at Baltimore when we went after the salt: so I guess Uncle Seth made it."