“Oof!” I screwed up my nose. “Do I have to do it?”
“Here we go,” says Poppy, heroically. “One, two, three.”
At the third count I jabbed the hated pickle into my mouth and began to chew. Then, as I got a taste, I sort of stiffened with surprise, after which I chewed all the faster, my jaws and eyes working together.
“What the dickens?...” cried Poppy, staring at me.
“It tastes to me like those church pickles,” says I, staring back at him.
He was out of the room like a shot. And this time, instead of grabbing a pickle apiece, he heaved up the stairs to our boudoir with a whole dishful.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he cried, when the bottom of the dish was uncovered. “I can’t understand it. But if these aren’t a match for the church pickles and the ones I ate in old Butch’s house, I’ll eat my shirt.”
I remembered then what the mule driver had dished out to us about his choice recipe.
“Don’t you catch on?” I cried, as my beezer slipped into high gear. “It was from Mrs. O’Mally that old Butch got his recipe in the first place.”
Poppy looked dizzy.