"'What do you call that?' says he.
"'A rice puddin',' says I; and, judgin' by my feelin's, I turned all manner of colors.
"'Well, don't put sich a lookin' thing as that on to the table,' says he. 'It don't look fit to be sot afore anybody but a heathen. I've no notion of havin' what leetle appetite I've got sp'ilt by havin' that dispisable-lookin' thing afore my eyes.'
"So I goes and pokes it away in a sly corner, for it had tried my feelin's so I parfectly hated the sight on't. I wa'n't much afeared that Uncle Higgins would starve, if he didn't have the puddin' to top off with. He was a dreadful great eater—eat as much as two Christian men ought to; but I guess he didn't take a terrible sight of comfort eatin' his dinner, for he had on an awful long face the whole time. I s'pose that tarnal old puddin' was runnin' in his head. If 'twa'n't in his, it was in mine.
"Well, Aunt Keziah was mighty airnest to know what luck I had with it. I meant to ave told her afore dinner, and should, if Uncle Higgins hadn't come in so, all of a sudding, while I was tryin' to settle in my mind what I should do about puttin' it on to the table for dinner. When she asked me about it, I had tough work to keep from bu'stin' right out a cryin'; for I felt sorry, and I felt 'shamed, and, to tell the plain truth, a leetle mite put out.
"'Well, it does seem curious,' says she, arter I'd finished tellin' her about it. 'Run, Tabitha, and bring the puddin' here, and let me have a squint at it. If I ever made one puddin' by that resait, I'm free to say I've made a hundred, and al'ays had first rate luck. The very witches have got into the puddin', I b'l'eve.'
"So off I goes and gits the puddin', and carries it in for Aunt Keziah to look at.
"'La, child,' says she, the minute she clapped her eye on it, 'I've found out the marvellous mystery. You've put it into the wrong pudding'-dish.'
"'What odds can it make,' says I, 'whether it's in this or any other?'
"'Why, don't you see, child, that the dish, by bein' so deep and so small over, don't give the whey a chance to settle off round the edges, but makes it all mix in with the rice? I al'ays puts it into that shaller, Chany dish, with a gilt edge, that you'll find on the lower shelf of the cupboard. Now, if you'll jest shift the puddin' into that 'ere dish, you'll see 'twill look as different as light and darkness.'