58 The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound 



"Come down and see me, come for a week," said Uncle Ab- 

 ner. "We'll fill you up on pumpkin pie and buckwheat cakes. 

 We'll give you plenty of New England air and that is the 

 best in the world for your health. As you are built that way, 

 we'll go fox hunting every day and coon hunting every night." 



"Now see here. Uncle, you are leading me into temptation 

 beyond my strength. Pumpkin pie, that's my favourite, buck- 

 wheat cakes are my special favourites and fox hunting — that's 

 the last straw. 'I am yours to command.' When you are 

 ready let me know, and I'll be there." 



"What's the matter with right now? Get your grip and 

 come along with me," and Uncle Abner's stronger will again 

 prevailed. 



Uncle Abner is a widower, and his maiden sister keeps 

 house for him. "Just we two," explained Uncle Abner in his 

 cutting New England humour, "and a man to do a few chores 

 around the place and make me a lot of trouble and a hired 

 girl in the kitchen, just to keep my sister from getting out of 

 employment and to have something handy on the place for 

 women folks to talk about when they call." 



It was nearly evening when we arrived at Uncle Abner's 

 farm, and soon after we were seated to a good New England 

 dinner such as Aunt Polly knows how to prepare — a kind of 

 dinner that is being imitated and called "A New England 

 dinner," all over the United States, but there is onty one true 

 receipt and that the writer is inclined to think never went out of 

 New England. 



Uncle Abner had never enjoyed the advantages of a college 

 education, but he, like many of his colleagues, possessed a fund 

 of knowledge that is seldom met with in men who have been 

 forced through college by the present day cramming process. 



Well, Uncle Abner was one of those pioneer great men who 

 in lieu of book learning, had received from the fates some bea- 

 con light that leads on to a grand and noble manliood, an 



