Slit herrin' was a long-dried, deep-salted edition of the native alewife, a fish in which Wallencamp abounded. They hung in massive tiers from the roofs of the Wallencamp barns. The herrin' was cut open, and without having been submitted to any mollifying process whatever, not one assuaging touch of its native element, was laid flat in the spider, and fried.
I saw the Keeler family, from the greatest to the least, partake of this arid and rasping substance unblinkingly, and I partook also. The brine rose to my eyes and coursed its way down my cheeks, and Grandma Keeler said I was "homesick, poor thing!"
The golden seal, a "remedy for toothache, headache, sore-throat, sprains, etc., etc.," was served in a diluted state with milk and sugar, and taken as a beverage. The herrin' had destroyed my sense of taste; anything in a liquid state was alike delectable to me, and while I drank, I had a sense of having become somehow mysteriously connected with the book of revelations. "We used to think," Grandma proceeded mildly to elucidate, "that it had ought to be took externally, but husband, he was painin' around one time, and nothin' didn't seem to do him no good, and so we ventured some of it inside of him, and he didn't complain no more for a great while afterwards." I appreciated the hidden meaning of these words when I saw how sparingly Grandpa Keeler partook of the golden seal. "So then we tried some of it ourselves, and ra'ly begun to like it, so we've got into the habit of drinkin' it along through the winter, it's so quietin', and may not be no special need of it, so far as we can see, but then, it's allus well enough to be on the safe side, for there's no knowin'," concluded Grandma, solemnly, "what disease may be a growin' up inside of you."
"My brother invented on't," said Grandpa Keeler, looking up at me from under his shaggy eyebrows with questionable pride. He went on more glowingly, however; "There's a picter of my brother on every bottle, teacher." (Madeline immediately ran from her chair, went into an adjoining room, and brought out a bottle to show me.) "Ye see, he used to wear them air long ringlets, though he was a powerful man, John was; but his hair curled as pretty as a girl's. Oh, he was a great dandy, John was; a great dandy." Grandpa Keeler straightened himself up and his eyes brightened perceptibly.
"Never wore nothin' but the finest broadcloth; why, there's a pair of black broadcloth pants o' his'n that you'll see, come Sunday, teacher!"
"Wall, thar', now, pa," said Grandma Keeler, reprovingly; "I wouldn't tell everything."
"Le' me see," continued Grandpa; "I had eight brothers, teacher, yis, yis, there was nine boys in all," nodding his head emphatically, and proceeding to count on his fingers.
Grandma Keeler laid her knife and fork aside, as though she felt that the occasion was an important one, and that she had a grave duty to perform in regard to it.
"Thar' was Philemon, he comes first, that makes one, don't it? and there was Doddridge—
"Sure he comes next, pa?" interposed Grandma; "for now you're namin' of em, you might as well git 'em right."