“They’s more in the pot,” Aunt Tibbie put in.
The parson’s gentle eye searched the table—as our eyes have often done. A bit of hopeful curiosity—nothing more: a thing common to us all, saints and sinners alike. We have all been hungry and we have all hoped; but few of us, I fancy, being faint of hunger—and dyspeptic—have sat down to a bowl of brewis. ’Tis no sin, in parson or layman, to wish for more; for the Lord endowed them both with hunger, and cursed many, indiscriminately, with indigestion. Small blame, then, to the parson, who was desperately hungry; small blame to Jonathan, who had no more to give. There is no fault anywhere to be descried. Ah, well! the parson’s roving eye was disappointed, but twinkled just the same; it did not darken—nor show ill-humor. There was a great bowl of brewis—a mountain of it. ’Twas eyed by the twins with delight. But there was nothing more. The parson’s eye—the shy, blue, twinkling eye—slyly sought the stove; but the stove was bare. And still the mild eyes continued full of benevolence and satisfaction. He was a man—that parson!
“Windy weather,” said he, with an engaging smile.
“Never seed nothin’ like it!” Jonathan declared.
The twins were by this time busy with their forks, their eyes darting little glances at the parson, at the parson’s overloaded plate, at the ruin of the mountain.
“Wind in the east,” the parson remarked.
Jonathan was perturbed. “You isn’t very hearty the night,” said he.
“Oh, dear me, yes!” the parson protested. “I was just about to begin.”
The faces of the twins were by this overcast.
“Don’t spare it, parson.”