The Deacon laughed. "Ye don't know human nature, Parson, the way we men do that's knockin' round all the time among folks. Ye see folks always comes to you when they're in trouble, or else when they're joyful,--bein' married, or a baptizin' their babies,--or somethin' o' ruther that's out o' the common line; so you don't never see 'em jest exactly's they are. Now I kinder mistrusted that Garland from the fust. He was too anxious to sell, to suit me. When a man's got a first-rate berth, he ain't generally so ready to quit." When the milkers went in with their pails of milk, they found a blazing fire on the hearth, and supper set out on a red pine table without any table-cloth. Mrs. March had made Graham biscuit and white biscuit, and had baked some apples which she had left in her lunch-basket. When she saw the milk, she exclaimed:-- "Now, if this isn't a supper fit for a king!--bread and milk and baked apples!" "Ain't there any butter?" called out Rob. "Yes, there is some butter; but I doubt if you will eat it," said Mrs. March. "Zeb is going to buy some better butter at Manitou." Rob put some of the butter on his bread, and put a mouthful of the bread in his mouth. In less than a second, he had clapped his hand over his mouth with an expression of horror. "Oh, what'll I do, mamma? it's worse than medicine!" he cried; and swallowed the whole mouthful at one gulp. "That can't be butter, mamma," he said. "You've made a mistake. It'll poison us: it's something else." "Little you know about bad butter, don't you, Rob?" said Deacon Plummer, calmly buttering his biscuit, and eating it. "I've eaten much worse butter than this." Rob's eyes grew big. "What'd you eat it for?" he said, earnestly. "Sure enough," said Mrs. Plummer. "That's what I've always said about butter. If there's any thing else set before folks that's bad, why they just leave it alone. There isn't any need ever of eating what you don't like. But when it comes to butter, folks seem to think they've got to eat it, good, bad, or indifferent." "That's so," said the Deacon; "and if I've heard you say so once, Elizy, I've heard you say it a thousand times; I don't know how 'tis, but it does seem as if you had to have somethin' in shape o' butter, if it's ever so bad, to make a meal go down." "I don't see how bad butter helps to make a meal go down," said Rob. "It like to have made mine come up just now." "Rob, Rob!" said his mother, reprovingly; "you forget that we are at supper." "Excuse me, mamma," said Rob, penitently; "but it was true." CHAPTER VI LIFE AT GARLAND'S