“Yes, easily, and it isn’t brackish at all.”
“That’s excellent, and now let us eat, drink and be merry. I couldn’t give you that injunction till I learned that we had the water for the drinking part.”
Without waiting for him to finish his sentence the others busied themselves in examining what the negroes had brought. As they did so, Cal catalogued the supplies orally with comments:
“That bag contains a half bushel of rice—enough to serve us as a breadstuff for a long time to come, as we require only three teacupfuls—measured by guess—for a meal; the bag by the side of it is badly out at elbows and knees, but it holds a fine supply of new sweet potatoes which will help the endurance of the rice. What’s that? Oh, that’s a little okra, and the red-turbaned old darky woman who sold it to me carefully explained how to cook the mucilaginous vegetable. As she delivered her instructions in the language of the Upper Congo, I cannot say that my conception of the way in which okra should be prepared for the table is especially clear, but we’ll find some way out of that difficulty. Yes, the big bag on the right contains a few dozen ears of green corn, and the one next to it is full of well-ripened tomatoes, smooth of surface, shapely of contour and tempting to the appetite. Finally, we have here half a dozen cantaloupes, or ‘mush millions,’ as the colored youth who supplied them called his merchandise. Now scamper, you little vagabonds. I’ve paid you once for toting the things and it is a matter of principle with me never to pay twice for a single service.”
“Where on earth, Cal, did you find all these things?” asked Larry, the others looking the same question out of their eyes as it were.
“I found them in the garden patches where they were grown,” he replied. “That’s what I went out to do. They are the ‘manna,’ the finding of which somewhere in this neighborhood I foreshadowed in answer to your querulous predictions of an exclusively meat diet for some days to come.”
As he spoke, Cal was throwing sweet potatoes into the fire and covering them with red-hot ashes with glowing coals on top.
“You’re a most unsatisfactory fellow, Cal,” said Dick. “Why don’t you tell us where you got the provender and how you happened to find so rich a source of supply. Anybody else would be eager to talk about such an exploit.”
“I’ll tell you,” Cal answered, “as soon as I get the potato roast properly going. I’m hungry. Suppose you cut some cantaloupes for us to eat while the potatoes are cooking.”