All three of them had been born in the neighborhood and had lived here ever since. All three of them came from old New England stock and had inherited small farms from their fathers. And I must say that their personal appearance was no great credit to that stock. This impressed me right off. Not only were their bodies undersized and spare but their faces were thin and sallow. They didn’t look healthy. They didn’t look as healthy as the average emigrant. And yet they had been living in the country all their lives with out-of-door work in this fine air for a tonic and with country food to nourish them. They didn’t look dissipated--just scrawny and underfed. If I had met one of them in the slums I would have said he was a case for the associated charities. I doubt if Seth could have got past the emigration officials. The first time they opened their dinner pails, however, I saw that I had missed my guess about their being starved. I never saw any three human beings get outside of as much food as they did. Three or four eggs, half a loaf of bread, a big slab of pie and two or three doughnuts to a pail, was their average lunch. They saw my surprise and Jim told a story fixing it on Seth, though I suspect it was an old one round the neighborhood. He said that Seth happened into the grocery one day just after a drummer had opened a large tin of canned beef. The drummer took off a slice which he ate with some crackers, and then shoved the can along to Seth with the invitation to join him. Seth took out his pocket knife and began. He finished that pound can with the rest of the crackers and allowing that this sort of whetted his appetite ordered a second can. When he finished this the drummer who had been watching in amazement said, “Don’t quit now; have another.” Seth replied that he didn’t mind if he did and ate the contents of the third can. Then closing his knife and running the back of his hand across his mouth, he gave a sigh of satisfaction. “My,” he said, “but that was a juicy morsel.”