appetite, immediately sat
down and ate a prodigious quantity of bread and butter, together with
several slices of cold ham, washed down by two cups of tea; after which he
rested his knife and fork, and informed Aunt Rachel that he had done.

"Well, I think it's high time," responded she. "Why, boy, you'll breed a
famine in de house if you stay here long enough. You'll have to do a heap
of work to earn what you'll eat, if yer breakfast is a sample of yer
dinner. Come, get up, child! and shell dese 'ere pease--time you get 'em
done, old Mrs. Thomas will be down stairs."

Charlie was thus engaged when Mrs. Thomas entered the kitchen. "Well,
Charles--good morning," said she, in a bland voice. "I'm glad to see you
here so soon. Has he had his breakfast, Aunt Rachel?"

"Yes; and he eat like a wild animal--I never see'd a child eat more in my
life," was Aunt Rachel's abrupt answer.

"I'm glad he has a good appetite," said Mrs. Thomas, "it shows he has good
health. Boys will eat; you can't expect them to work if they don't. But it
is time I was at those custards. Charlie, put down those peas and go into
the other room, and bring me a basket of eggs you will find on the table."

"And be sure to overset the milk that's 'long side of it--yer hear?" added
Aunt Rachel.

Charlie thought to himself that he would like to accommodate her, but he
denied himself that pleasure; on the ground that it might not be safe to do
it.

Mrs. Thomas was a housekeeper of the old school, and had a scientific
knowledge of the manner in which all sorts of pies and puddings were
compounded. She was so learned in custards and preserves that even Aunt
Rachel sometimes deferred to her superior judgment in these matters.
Carefully breaking the eggs, she skilfully separated the whites from the
yolks, and gave the latter to Charlie to beat. At first he thought it great
fun, and he hummed some of the popular melodies of the day, and kept time
with his foot and the spatula. But pretty soon he exhausted his stock of
tunes, and then the performances did not go off so well. His arm commenced
aching, and he came to the sage conclusion, before he was relieved from his
task, that those who eat the custards are much better off than those who
prepare them.

This task finished, he was pressed into service by Aunt Rachel, to pick and
stone some raisins which she gave him, with the injunction either to sing
or whistle all the time he was "at 'em;" and that if he st