"So, after the party was over, and the folks was going home, the gentleman steps up to me, before 'em all, as perlite as could be, and says, says he, 'we're very much obliged to you, Mr Weaver; I really don't know how we should ha' got along without you:' and then he offered to pay me for the iseters; but I wan't agoing to do no sich thing. 'Not a cent,' says I, 'not a cent;' for I thought 'twould be real shabby to go to his party, and then make him pay for the iseters. So he put the money back into his pocket, and everybody laughed and looked so tickled, 'at I knowed I'd done just about the right thing. And then he said, he hoped he should have the pleasure—I misremember the exact words, but that's near enough—of seeing me again at his house, some time'r other, and so I mean he shall; for, as soon as ever I git ten thousand dollars, I'm going straight back to Boston, and I mean to call on him the very first thing.
"And, then, I'm going to the old shop where I used to work; and, first, I shall call for a dozen raw—and then I shall call for a dozen fried—and then for an out-and-out stew; and then! I'll walk up to the counter, and pay 'm in gold dust! won't that make 'em stare?"
When the cunning Weaver had woven so much of his fantastic web, he invariably turned over and went to sleep—very wisely, as I thought; for, surely, no wit of man could blow a more airy and buoyant bubble than that on which, balloon-like, he now set sail for the land of dreams.
The morning brought with it less seductive realities. For breakfast we had, at first, coffee without sugar—the sugar and pepper having become too intimately blended during their rough journey to answer their legitimate purpose—ship biscuit, with a bit of pork or bacon, and, now and then, a dish of stewed beans. After living this way a week, we obtained a keg of butter and a small quantity of flour; and, one evening, "Now," says Weaver, "I'm going to have some nice biscuit for supper, so hold on, boys, I'll have 'em ready in a twinkling."
Weaver was a short, thick-set fellow, and wore a pair of oilcloth pantaloons, strikingly suggestive of his former avocations. Owing to their natural gummy and adhesive nature, their original colour had been overlaid and aggravated, something like a painter's palette, by numerous successive layers of every variety of hue, among which, however, dirt-colour was decidedly predominant. This process of accretion had been carried on with most perseverance and success on that part of his nether garments that would naturally stand in greatest need of such patching, and which, from constant manipulation, now exhibited a truly Parthian polish, almost dazzling to behold.
Having emptied a due proportion of flour and water into one of the large, shallow tin-pans used in mining, Weaver gave his hands, fresh from their day's work, a desperate slide over the part aforesaid, and, without more ado, plunged them half up to the elbows into the paste. A liberal supply of saleratus was added, and, in half an hour, he placed upon the smooth stone that served us for a table, two small loaves of a greenish-yellow complexion and about the consistency of a middling-boiled egg.
"There!" said he, triumphantly, as he drew a long knife from his boot, and, breathing upon it, gave it a preparatory wipe over his breeches, "that's what I call despatch. Now for some butter!"
The butter was brought in a plate, already bearing the indisputable marks of pork and beans; though a bowl would have been the more fitting receptacle, the heat of the sun having converted the contents of the keg into a state of perfect fluidity.
"Never mind," said Weaver, "I'll fix it to-morrow;" and with the word, five knives clashed together on the bottom of the plate, and returned as if they had been dipt in oil.