“Well, there must be a white sauce, compounded of cream and wheaten flour and butter; and there must be pork-scraps cut in dice and fried of a dainty brown; and there must be beets boiled tender, but not cut to let out the color; and there must be parsnips and turnips and onions; and there must be brown bread and white bread; and there must be sallet oil and mustard; and above all, there must be a good flagon of cider, and another to back it.”
“Right, right! Here’s every one of the things you told about and more, for here’s a dish of those roots John Howland got in Boston of the sloop trading to the Carolinas. Molly begged so hard for them that mother cooked some, but I doubt if they will suit with salt fish.”
“Father told of eating some in Boston, but we’ve had none as yet,” said Alick, and Sally, taking up one of the sweet potatoes, broke it in two and handed a piece across the table to Alick, who, eating it skin and all, as if it were a fruit, declared it with sincerity to be the most delicious morsel he had ever tasted.
“I’ve an apple pasty to follow,” announced Priscilla, as her husband pushed away his plate. “Rachel, you and Timothy may take away the trenchers and bring some fresh ones; and Sally, have you a jug of cream and a morsel of cheese for us in your dairy?”
“Yes, indeed, mother,” and Sally, glad to escape Alick’s scrutiny, jumped up and retreated to the dairy.
“While John Howland was in Boston he saw Ras Brewster,” said Joseph to keep up the conversation, which rather lagged through Betty’s preoccupation and her mother’s housewifely cares.
“He has been at Kennebec all this time, hasn’t he?” asked Alick with somewhat languid interest.
“Yes, but Master Winslow sent for him to company him to England. Will they make any stay there, father?”
“The Lord only knows, my son,” returned Alden with a ponderous sigh. “The Bay people, that is to say the authorities, have to my mind done an ill-advised thing in tolling Edward Winslow away from us. They say he has a skillful tongue and good acquaintance with the ways of courts; and so he hath, so he hath, but also he has a home, and comrades of old time who look to him for comfort and aid, the more that so many of the old stock are removed by death or distance. It is not well done of the Bay people, and much do I hope that Winslow will not deeply engage himself in their concerns.”