! A table loaded with fish and flesh and fowl; glittering and
glowing with cleanliness; linen as white as snow, and plates and dishes
that glistened and shone until you could see your face in them, while the
steam alone, which arose from each of them, might have made a lean man
fat; and then there were the decanters too, in which the ruby wine
sparkled, until it made even Dick Holmes smack his lips.

'Aha!' ejaculated one of the neighbors, a thin, hungry fellow, with large
eyes; 'aha!' And he snuffed up the dinner as if he intended to appropriate
it all, and as if, mistaking the table and its contents for a snuff-box,
he supposed his nose to be the only member destined to play a part there.

Harry paused at the head of his table, and said a short grace; and then
seizing a carving knife, he plunged it forthwith into the fat saddle:
right merrily the red gravy spirted out; and as he drew the knife along
the bone, and cut out the long strips, the steam and savor filling the
room, it was to be feared that the thin neighbor would have gone beside
himself, lest his pet piece should be given to some one else before his
turn came. But such a dinner as graced that table is a thing to be eaten,
not spoken of; and so thought the small boy, who notwithstanding his
genteel extraction, brought with him the appetite which he had acquired by
education. A dreadful havoc he made in that fat saddle! It was labor lost
for his sister to kick and pinch him under the table, in hopes of checking
his course. He kicked backed again, but could not pinch; his hands were
too busy. What eyes he had for the meats and gravies! what a deaf ear he
turned to all invitations to waste his energies on bread and vegetables,
or trifles of that sort! His appetite, though belonging to a child, was
full grown, and needed no assistance. All that he required was
quantity--and he got it.

'Help yourself, my son,' said Harson, actually growing hungry by seeing
the child eat. 'Don't spare any thing.'

The boy looked up at him, and said nothing. He was a fellow of few words,
but of great action; and for one of six years of age, he was a phenomenon;
and displayed a capacity which would have done credit to a man or a
barrel.

The first course went off, and so did a second and third. Martha had
excelled herself; a cooking-stove was nothing to her. Everything was
praised; and at every fresh eulogy, the tall boy was missing from his
attendance on the table. He had dart