“Don’t you wish you’d been present when they were passing ’em around?” he said. “Now go away and let me continue my lesson to the cook. He got up a peach of a steak for us, and I’m giving him a few instructions to guide him in future years. Go away, now, and leave us alone. Skedaddle!”
The cook was black as the ace of spades, and was evidently a native of the South. He stood by the cook stove with a broad grin on his face. If he knew a lot about roasting ’possums that Alex had never heard of, he said not a word about it!
Rube sat in the corner of the room holding his sides.
“You sure take the whole bakery!” was his comment.
“Perhaps you don’t think I can cook a ’possum?” Alex announced. “Well, just you bring on your ’possum, and I’ll show you that I can! The idea!”
This was greeted with a burst of laughter.
“All right!” declared Alex, “just you bring on your ’possum! I’ll show you a thing about cooking the bird!”
“There isn’t a ’possum within a thousand miles!” roared Buck.
“Now, don’t yo’ make too sho’ o’ dat!” grinned the cook. “Yo’ sho’ got to show me!”
The cook went to a woodshed just outside the door and produced about the fattest ’possum ever seen.