FRIED PORK 119 
was a heaping dish of steaming potatoes. A 
knife had been drawn once around each, just to 
give it a chance to expand and show mealy white 
between the gaping circles that covered its bulk. 
At the other side was a boat of milk gravy, 
which had followed the pork into the frying-pan 
and had come forth fit company for the boiled 
potatoes. I went back forty years at one jump, 
and said, — 
«TIT now renew my youth. Is there anything 
better under the sun than fried salt pork and 
milk gravy? If there is, don’t tell me of it, for 
I have worshipped at this shrine for forty years, 
and my faith must not be shaken.” 
Such a supper twice or thrice a week would 
warm the cockles of my old heart; but Polly 
says, “No modern cook can make these things 
just right ; and if not just right, they are horrid.” 
That is true; it takes an artist or a mother to 
fry salt pork and make milk gravy. 
There were other things on the table, — quan- 
tities of bread and butter, apple sauce (in a dish 
that would hold half a peck), stacks of fresh gin- 
ger-bread, tea, and great pitchers of milk; but 
naught could distract my attention from the 
piece de résistance. Thrice I sent my plate back, 
and then could do no more. That meal con- 
vinced me that I could trust Mrs. Thompson. 
A woman who could fry salt pork as my mother 
did, was a woman to be treasured. 
I left the farm-house at 7, and reached home 
