“You don’t?—why, I’ve eaten six as big as that, this noon,” replied Abby. “I had to ‘hook’ them, though, for Mrs. Miles would fidget herself to death if she knew how fast her pickles are going off. I love sour things, dearly. When I was at home, I used to eat a dozen pickled limes a day, sometimes. We always keep them in the house—father buys them by the barrel. I think it’s real mean, that they don’t keep them for sale here.”
“I shouldn’t think it could be very wholesome to eat so much of such things—they are very indigestible,” remarked Jessie.
“O, they never hurt me—I eat everything I want, and think nothing about it,” replied Abby.
Abby then prevailed upon Jessie to accept a piece of her cake, but immediately added:—
“I declare, it’s so mean I’m almost ashamed to offer it to you. At home, we shouldn’t think it was hardly fit to set before the servants. Mother never allows our cook to make anything plainer than nice pound cake.”
“I call that very good cake—good enough for anybody,” said Jessie, utterly indifferent to “our cook” and her “nice pound cake.”
“Just look at that squint-eyed girl—did you ever see such a fright?” continued Abby, in a whisper, alluding to one of the new scholars, who sat in her seat, alone, apparently listening with a good degree of astonishment to Abby’s remarks.
“Poor girl, she feels lonesome—some of us ought to go and speak to her,” said Jessie.
Abby now left the room, whereupon the girls in Jessie’s neighborhood began to make merry at her expense.
“My mother doesn’t allow the cook to make anything meaner than brown bread, and we have that on the table three times a day,” said one girl.