there were
barbecue--was merely a concomitant of the feeding, not the whole thing.
Part of it was left untouched to help out with supper. So were part of
the melons, and much of the fruit. Apples, pears and peaches were plenty
in good years--the near plantations sent them by wagon loads--as they
also sent ice cream by freezerfuls, and boilers to make coffee. These
were dispensed more than generously--but nobody would have helped
himself to them uninvited, any more readily than he would have helped
himself to money in the pocket. All that was in the baskets was spread
on the general tables, but no man thought of eating thereof, until all
women and children had been served. Old men came next--the women
generally forcing upon them the best of everything.

Such a best! Broiled chicken, fried chicken, in quantity, whole hams
simply entreating to be sliced, barbecue, pickle in great variety,
drained and sliced for eating, beaten biscuit, soda biscuit, egg bread,
salt-rising bread, or rolls raised with hop-yeast--only a few attempted
them--every manner of pie, tart, and tartlet that did not drip and mess
things, all the cakes in the calendar of good housewifery--with, now and
then, new ones specially invented. Even more than a wedding, a
bran-dance showed and proved your quality as a cake-maker. Cakes were
looked at in broad daylight, eaten not with cloyed finicky appetites,
but with true zest. Woe and double woe to you if a loaf of pride showed
at cutting a "sad" streak, not quite done. Joy untold if you were a raw
young housekeeper, to have your cake acclaimed by eaters and critics.

Mammy, and other Mammies, moved proudly about, each a sort of oracle to
the friends of her household. They kept sharp eyes on things
returnable--plates, platters, knives, spoons, and tablecloths--in any
doubtful case, arising from the fact of similarity in pattern, they were
the court of last resort. Spoons and so on are unmistakable--but one
sprigged saucer is very like other saucers sprigged the same. It was the
Mammies rather than the masters and mistresses, who ordered carriage
drivers and horse boys imperiously about. But nobody minded the
imperiousness--it was no day for quarrelling or unwisdom. And it would
surely have been unwise to fret those who were the Keepers of the
Baskets, at the very last.

After dinner one went to the dressing-room, a wide roofless space
enclosed with green boughs massed on end, and furnished plentifully with