The firelight shone through slices
of clear pink ham put down to broil. Aunt Corinne laid the cloth on a
box which Zene took out of the wagon for her, and set the cups and
saucers, the sugar and preserves, and little seed cakes which grew
tenderer the longer you kept them, all in tempting order. They had
baker's bread and gingercakes in the carriage. Since her adventure at
the Susan house, Grandma Padgett had taken care to put provisions in
the carriage pockets. Then aunt Corinne, assisted by her nephew, got
potatoes from the sack, wrapped them in wet wads of paper, and
roasted them in the ashes. A potato so roasted may be served up with
a scorched and hardened shell, but its heart is perfumed by all the
odors of the woods. It tastes better than any other potato, and while
the butter melts through it you wonder that people do not fire whole
fields and bake the crop in hot earth before digging it, to store for
winter.
[Illustration: BOBADAY'S CANOPIED THRONE.]
Zene had frequently assured Robert Day that an egg served this way
was better still. He said he used to roast eggs in the ashes when
burning stumps, and you only needed a little salt with them, to make
them fit for a king.
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