"I'll make a pitcher of egg nog; A--- drinks egg nog, I guess, although he's the poorest drinkin' man I ever did see. Now, Brower, look alive-- the fire's lit, is it? Well, then, jump now and feed them poor starvin' bags-a-bones, as Archer calls dogs, and tell your mother to git supper. Have you brought anything along to eat or drink, boys--I guess we haven't nothin' in the house!"
"Oh! you be hanged," said Harry, "I've brought a round of cold spiced beef, but I'm not going to cut that up for supper; we shall want it to take along for luncheon--you must get something! Oh! by the way, you may let the girls pick half a dozen quail, and broil them, if you choose!"
"Quail! do you say? and where'll I git quail, I'd be pleased to know?"
"Out of that gamebag," answered Harry, deliberately, pointing to the well filled plump net which Timothy had just brought in and hung up on the pegs beside the box-coats. Without a word or syllable the old chap rushed to the wall, seized it, and scarcely pausing to sweep out of the way a large file of "The Spirit," and several numbers of "The Register," emptied it on the table.
"Where the plague, Archer, did you kill them?" he asked, "you didn't kill all them to-day, I guess! One, two, three--why, there's twenty-seven cock, and forty-nine quail! By gin! here's another; just fifty quail, three partridge, and six rabbits; well that's a most all-fired nice mess, I swon; if you killed them today you done right well, I tell you--you won't get no such mess of birds here now--but you was two days killing these, I guess!"
"Not we, Tom! Frank and I drove up from York last night, and slept at young Tom's, down the valley--we were out just as soon as it was light, and got the quail, all except fifteen or sixteen, the ruffed grouse and four hares, before twelve o'clock. At twelve the Commodore came up from Nyack, where he left his yacht, and joined us; we got some luncheon, went out again at one, and between that and five bagged all the cock, the balance, as you would call it, of the quail, and the other two bunnies."
"Well, then, you made good work of it, I tell you, and you won't do nothin' like that agin this winter--not in Warwick; but I won't touch them quail--it's a sin to break that bunch--but you don't never care to take the rabbits home, and the old woman's got some beautiful fresh onions--she'll make a stew of them--a smother, as you call it, in a little less than no time, Archer; and I've got half a dozen of them big gray snipe--English snipe--that I killed down by my little run'-side; you'll have them roasted with the guts in, I guess! and then there's a pork-steak and sassagers--and if you don't like that, you can jist go without. Here, Brower, take these to your mother, and tell her to git supper right stret off--and you tell Emma Jane to make some buckwheat cakes for A---! he can't sup no how without buckwheat cakes; and I sets a great store by A---! I does, by G--! and you needn't laugh, boys, for I doos a darned sight more than what I doos by you."
"That's civil, at all events, and candid," replied Frank; "and it's consolatory, too, for I can fancy no greater reproach to a man, than to be set store on by you. I do not comprehend at all, how A--- bears up under it. But come, do make that egg-nog that you're chattering about."
"How will I make it, Harry--with beer, or milk, or cider?"
"All three! now be off, and don't jaw any more!" answered Archer-- "asking such silly questions, as if you did not know better than any of us."