"Folks that don't like my vittles can go where there's vittle's they do like," was my hostess's answer, after a moment of stony silence. And so I lost that boarding-place, and found one where they never ground their own coffee, but where they did everything else to it, decently and in order.
Two years later I found myself one morning in a waste, howling wilderness in North Carolina—a tar and turpentine station in the pine woods, where only a cabin or two showed signs of life. One truck of the car was off the track. Hours must pass before we could go on, and any breakfast lay forty miles beyond.
"You'll get a snack in yonder," the conductor said presently, pointing to a distant cabin. "And it's a pretty good one. I've tried it before."
He led the way under the pines to the lonely little cabin, in the door of which stood a tall "cracker," with a keener face than most of his order. It was the roughest of interiors, but it was clean. He had already cut some slices of bacon and placed it in his pan, and a pone baked in the ashes. A coffee-mill was screwed against the post, and from a shed I heard the lowing of a cow. We should not be milkless.
"Do your prettiest, Jacob," the conductor said, and Jacob nodded. Then he went to a spring and filled a little kettle with the fresh, bubbling water, and hung it over the coals. Coffee was in a sack in the corner, and he took out a handful and roasted it then and there, turning each grain in the pan as it browned, and grinding it the instant the process ended. The water boiled on the same moment. He scalded his coffee-pot, put in the ground coffee and the boiling water, and put that and a little can of milk on the coals. Three minutes passed. Then he lifted the pot, poured off a cupful to free the nozzle, poured it back, and put it aside to settle.
"Set by," he said, concisely, putting a tin cup at my place, with a spoonful of sugar in the bottom.
"We hain't any store cups," he said; "an' this ain't what you're used to, but it won't spoil the coffee." And with that he poured two streams, one a rich, clear brown, the other snowy white, and both at boiling-point, till the cup was full. Never had more perfect coffee passed my lips, and I said so.
"Learned that in Mexico," said the tall "cracker," with a smile of pride. "Used to drink my coffee straight; but go down thar for a year, an' now can't bar it no other way but their's. Roast it, an' boil it, and drink it all to onst. It gits ahead o' whiskey, or even peach an' honey."
Here are the two ways: Admirable cook-books will give you admirable rules for making coffee; but, if you believe it worth the trouble, try my "cracker's," otherwise Mexican, method. Cream and coffee are often indigestible; boiled milk and coffee, almost never. The union prevents excess of coffee, and, if both come to the table as near the boiling-point as possible, you have the perfect drink. Only remember that the coffee must be one-third Mocha to two-thirds Java, and, if you will roast more than enough for once, keep closely covered, and heat before grinding.