towel!" It was the girl, with face aflame and eyes emitting
blue fire. "Here; Mr. Cameron, take this," she said.

"Great Jerusalem, Mandy! You ain't goin' to bring on a clean towel the
middle of the week?" said Perkins in mock dismay. "Guess it's for Mr.
Cameron," he continued with another laugh.

"We give clean towels to them that knows how to use 'em," said Mandy,
whisking wrathfully into the house.

"Say, Scotty!" said Perkins, in a loud bantering tone, "guess you're
makin' a mash on Mandy all right."

"I don't know exactly what you mean," said Cameron with a quick rising
of wrath, "but I do know that you are making a beastly cad of yourself."

"Oh, don't get wrathy, Scotty!" laughed Perkins, "we're just having a
little fun. Here's the comb!" But Cameron declined the article,
which, from its appearance, seemed to be intended for family use, and,
proceeding to his room, completed his toilet there.

The breakfast was laid in the kitchen proper, a spacious and comfortable
room, which served as living room for the household. The table was
laden with a variety and abundance of food that worthily sustained the
reputation of the Haleys of being "good feeders." At one end of the
table a large plate was heaped high with slices of fat pork, and here
and there disposed along its length were dishes of fried potatoes, huge
piles of bread, hot biscuits, plates of butter, pies of different kinds,
maple syrup, and apple sauce. It was a breakfast fit for a lord, and
Cameron sat down with a pleasurable anticipation induced by his early
rising and his half hour's experience in the fresh morning air with the
wood pile. A closer inspection, however, of the dishes somewhat damped
the pleasure of his anticipation. The food was good, abundant, and well
cooked, but everywhere there was an utter absence of cleanliness.
The plates were greasy, the forks and knives bore the all too evident
remains of former meals, and everywhere were flies. In hundreds they
swarmed upon the food, while, drowned in the gravy, cooked in the
potatoes, overwhelmed in the maple syrup, buried in the butter, their
ghastly carcasses were to be seen. With apparent unconcern the men
brushed aside the living and picked out and set aside the remains of the
dead, the unhappy victims of their own greed or temerity, and went on
calmly and swiftly with their business. Not a word was spoken except
by Cameron himself, who, constrained by what he considered to be the
ordina