ate, and that the
cows had long since come home, they took their pails and went out to
milk, while she washed up the supper things. Whilst they were milking,
the subsequent dialogue took place between them:--

_Orphy_. I know it's not right to notice strangers, and to be sure the
man's welcome, but, Amy, did thee ever see anybody take victuals like
this Yankee?

_Amy_. Yes, but he didn't eat all he took, for I saw him slip a great
chunk of bread and cheese into his pocket, and then a big piece of pie,
while he was talking and making us laugh.

_Orphy_. Well, I think a man must be very badly off to do such a thing.
I wonder he did not ask for victuals to take away with him. He need
not have been afraid. He must know that victuals is no object. And
then he has travelled the roads long enough to be sure that he can get a
meal for nothing at any house he stops at, as all the tinmen do. He
must have seen us looking at his eating so much, and may be his pride is
hurt, and so he's made up his mind, all of a sudden, to take his meals
no more at people's houses.

_Amy_. Then why can't he stop at a tavern, and pay for his victuals?

_Orphy_. May be he don't want to spend his money in that trifling way.
Who knows, he may be saving it up to help an old mother, or to buy back
land, or something of that sort? I'll be bound he calculates upon
eating nothing to-morrow but what he slipped off from our table.

_Amy_. All he took will not last him a day. It's a pity of him,
anyhow.

_Orphy_. I wish he had not been too bashful to ask for victuals to take
with him.

_Amy_. And still he did not strike me at all as a bashful man.

_Orphy_. Suppose we were just in a private way to put some victuals
into his cart for him, without letting him know anything about it!
Let's hide it among the tins, and how glad he'll be when he finds it
to-morrow!

_Amy_. So we will; that's an excellent notion! I never pitied anybody
so much since the day the beggars came, which was five years ago last
harvest; for I have kept count ever since; and I remember it as well as
if it was yesterday.

_Orphy_. We don't know what a hard thing it is to want victuals, as the
Irish schoolmaster used to tell us when he saw us emptying pans of milk
into the pig-trough, and turning the cows into the orchard to eat the
heaps of apples lying under the trees.

_Amy_. Yes, and it must be worse for an American to want victuals than
for people from