"Then you might try that. And there's a way of dealing with bacon. I'm not quite sure how it's done, but the taste all goes out of it, and it gets extremely tough. Then you fry it in such a way that it's quite limp, and sprinkle a little soot on it. I've often tried to eat bacon done that way—before I was married, of course—and I never could. I don't suppose the judge will be able to either. Boiled eggs are difficult things to tamper with, but you could always see that they were stale."
"I could not, then."
"You could, Sabina. Don't raise frivolous difficulties. Anybody could keep an egg until it was stale."
"Not in this house."
"And why not?"
"Because they'd be ate," said Sabina. "Whatever many eggs the hens might lay they'd be ate by some one before they were a day in the house, and I couldn't keep them. There was a little Plymouth Rock hen that was wanting to sit here last week, and it took me all I could do and more to get the eggs saved up for her, and at the latter end I had only nine."
"Is she sitting yet!"
"She is, of course."
"Then you might try the judge with the eggs that's under her."
"I will not, then. Is it after all the trouble I had with her, and the chickens will be out early next week. I never heard of the like."