rse for wear.

'Give me dish, Aunt Loish, and I gif you dot Gunpowder dee. Paper proke
in mine bocket.'

So out of his coat pocket he began to fish great handfuls of tea leaves,
and a fine, black, granular substance. Grandmother looked at the strange
mixture critically, and concluded that the reason the tea was so called
was because part of it so much resembled gunpowder. So she thanked the
thoughtful Dutchman most kindly, and set it away carefully. A few
evenings later she invited a number of her neighbors, old cronies, to
drink Gunpowder tea with her. None of them had ever seen the new variety
of tea, and all were there, expecting a very great treat indeed.

It was soon poured out and upon the table. Grandmother noticed that its
color was black as ink, and she felt a thrill of anxiety run down her
spinal column as she poured it into the cups. Aunt Joanna, my
grandmother's sister, was the oracle of the settlement on social
matters, and by tacit consent, all awaited until she had first tasted
the new beverage. Each felt that a great event was at hand, and the fate
of Gunpowder tea was about to be settled, once and forever, in that
settlement. So Aunt Joanna, fully alive to a sense of her position and
responsibility, with great deliberation took a generous sip of the
candidate for social favor. Her eyes filled with tears; she coughed
furiously behind her handkerchief, and a spasm of disgust and nausea
went to her very toes. Then she sat straight, grim, and silent as
death. Each of the other old ladies went through about the same motions.
And now grandmother, who had been puttering about, waiting upon her
guests, noticed that something was wrong.

'Well, Joan, how do you like Gunpowder tea?'

'Taste it, Lois,' was all Aunt Joan would condescend to reply. She
complied, taking quite a generous swallow.

'Oh! my stars!' she fairly screamed, 'What horrible stuff is this?
Waugh!'

'Why, that is Gunpowder tea, Lois,' said Aunt Joan with grim sarcasm.
'Beautiful, isn't it?'

'There is some awful mistake about this,' said grandmother. 'I'll see
that drunken Pete about it.'

Pete was called in. Grandmother brought the box of tea out before him
and said: 'Pete, what is the matter with this tea? It has nearly
poisoned us all to death. What is this black stuff mixed up with the
tea?'

The Dutchman looked at it stupidly for a moment, then his mouth expanded
from ear to ear, and he roared with laughter. 'Dunder und blixen,