At each place was a printed menu with the heading "At Home Abroad"—a hospitable inversion of the general title of these chapters—and with details as follows:
A COUNTRY DINNER
Old Pike County ham,
Pike County capons
and other Pike County essentials,
with Pike County Colonels.
At the bottom of the card was this—shall I call it warning?
Senator Warner once said to Colonel Roosevelt: "Pike County babies cut their teeth on poker chips."
I have already said that Pike is a county with a Southern savor, but I had not realized how fully that was true until I dined there. I will not say that I have never tasted such a dinner, for truth I hold even above politeness. All I will say is that if ever before I had met with such a meal the memory of it has departed—and, I may add, my memory for famous meals is considered good to the point of irritation.
The dinner (save for the "essentials") was entirely made up of products of the county. More, it was even supervised and cooked by county products, for two particularly sweet young ladies, members of the family, were flying around the kitchen in their pretty evening gowns, helping and directing Molly.
Molly is a pretty mulatto girl. Her skin is like a smooth, light-colored bronze, her eye is dark and gentle, like that of some domesticated animal, her voice drawls in melodious cadences, and she has a sort of shyness which is very fetching.
"Ah cain't cook lak they used to cook in the ole days," she smiled in response to my tribute to the dinner, later. "The Kuhnel was askin' jus' th' othah day if ah could make 'im some ash cake, but ah haid to tell 'im ah couldn't. Ah've seen ma gran'fatha make it lots o' times, but folks cain't make it no mo', now-a-days."