Next to her sat SALLY, the little milkmaid, casting
coy glances at mother, who would have none of them, but with undue
sternness, as I thought then, and still think, tossed them back to the
shame-faced SALLY. Lower down sat JOHN TOOKER, "GIRT JAN DOUBLEFACE"
he was ever called, not without a sly hint of increasing obesity,
for JOHN, though a mighty man of thews and sinews, was no small
trencherman, and, as the phrase is, did himself right royally whenever
porridge was in question. All these sat, peaceably swallowing, while
I, at the table's foot, faced mother, stirring my steaming bowl with
my forefinger, forgetting the heat thereof, but not daring to wince,
lest BETTY, whose tongue cut shrewdly when she had a mind, should make
sport of me.
CHAPTER III.
Although I had, for the most part, so very stout an appetite that my
bowl stood always first for the refilling, I had no desire for my food
that day, but idly sat and stirred, and the burden of my thoughts wore
deeply inward with the dwelling of my mind on this view and on that of
it. But, on a sudden, what a turmoil, what a rising of maids, what a
jumping on chairs, what a drawing up of gowns, and what a scurrying!
For, out of a corner, comes the great brown rat, gliding sedately,
and never so much as asking by your leave or with your leave.
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