SUPPER. 255 



fully watching them cook, from time to time giving the 

 ducks a twist, that made them revolve on their gallows 

 like martyrs suffering two of the extreme penalties of the 

 law at one time. Jackson set up the snipe as sentinels 

 around one side of the fire, and the iron pot was hung 

 over the coals, and in it was placed bits of bears' meat and 

 venison, the breast of cranes, pieces of ship-biscuit, and 

 all the little odds and ends of game, which, being fit for 

 nothing else, seem especially intended for making a stew. 

 To this was added a wild pepper or two, and some green 

 leaves and roots that the negroes had gathered, and 

 every time the water bubbled a savory smell issued forth 

 that mad > one entertain a more lenient opinion of Esau, 

 in spite of the thousands of years of misjudgment that 

 have been visited upon him. And lastly, as a crowning 

 honor to the meal, a pumpkin was produced; a real 

 golden pumpkin, with its honest ochre face wrinkled 

 into lines of swelling rotundity, and suggesting the rows 

 of rustling corn, among which it had obtained its ple- 

 thoric shape. The boys had brought it from the planta- 

 tion in the boat, and though some might say " there is an 

 article that will bother these improvising cooks," it was 

 hailed with exclamations of delight and welcome. A 

 plug was cut in its upper side, where the stalk joined the 

 fruit, and when the piece was taken out it formed a 

 cover to the interior cavity, to which the short stalk 

 answered for a handle. The seeds were carefully 

 removed from the interior, and in their place was poured 

 as much heavy brown sugar as would fill the cavity, 



