"It's fine coffee," said Jarvis proudly. "Aunt Suse taught me how to make it. She learned, when you didn't git coffee often, an' you had to make the most of it when you did git it."
"Who is Aunt Suse?"
"Aunt Susan, or Suse as we call her fur short, is back at home in the hills. She's a good hundred, colonel, an' two or three yars more to boot, I reckon, but as spry as a kitten. Full o' tales o' the early days an' the wild beasts an' the Injuns. She says you couldn't make up any story of them times that ain't beat by the truth. When she come up the Wilderness Road from Virginia in the Revolution she was already a young woman. She's knowed Dan'l Boone and Simon Kenton an' all them gran' old fellers. A tremenjous interestin' old lady is my Aunt Suse, colonel."
"I've no doubt of it, Mr. Jarvis." said Colonel Kenton, "but I don't think I can wait a second longer for a cup of that coffee of yours. It smells so good that if you don't give it to me I'll have to take it from you."
Jarvis grinned cheerfully. Harry saw that his father had already made a skillful appeal to the mountaineer's pride.
"Ike, you lunkhead," he said to his nephew, "I told the colonel to set, but we did'nt give him anythin' to set on. Pull up them blocks o' wood fur him an' his son. Now you'll take breakfast with us, won't you, colonel? The bacon an' the corn cakes are ready, too."
"Of course we will," said the colonel, "and gladly, too. It makes me young again to eat this way in the fresh air of a cool morning."
Samuel Jarvis shone as a host. The breakfast was served on a smooth stump put on board for that purpose. The coffee was admirable, and the bacon and thin corn cakes were cooked beautifully. Good butter was spread over the corn cakes, and Harry and his father were surprised at the number they ate. Ike, addressed by his uncle variously and collectively as "lunkhead," "nephew," and "Ike," served. He rarely spoke, but always grinned. Harry found later that while he had little use for his vocal organs he invariably enjoyed life.
"Colonel," said Jarvis, at about the tenth corn cake, "be you fellers down here a-goin' to fight?"
"I suppose we are, Mr. Jarvis!"