It was several months before we had flour. Meantime, during my long fever, I conceived a desire for bread that became a craving like the hunger of famine as I grew weaker. Dr. Good sent word to Mrs. Good at the coast to send some bread as the carriers were returning immediately. He did not tell me that he had sent for it, lest by some mischance it might not come. But when it arrived and before he opened the package he told me it had come. Then they opened it; there were two loaves—all blue with mould and looking like poison; for it was the wet season and the carriers had been long on the way. The disappointment was too great. I told Dr. Good to cut off the worst part, on the outside, and burn the rest to a black crisp, and I ate the burned bread. Flour arrived some weeks later when I was again on my feet; and then it occurred to us that none of us knew just what to do with it. For our cook had not yet arrived. One of us modestly confessed that he knew something about making biscuits. It was immediately voted that he take half a day off and exercise his culinary talent. The biscuits were made and appeared that evening on the table. When I surveyed them I suggested that it would be fitting that we should keep them as happy memorials of this first triumph. So saying I took the two that were coming to me and put them in my box of curios under the bed. I have them after all these years. Time works no change upon them. Some months later I had a severe attack of dysentery and for three days had been allowed no food but the white of an egg. The physician, who happened to be visiting at Efulen at the time, told me one morning, in response to my eager inquiry, that he would allow me something a little heavier than the white of an egg. I immediately applied for a mince pie; for we had minced meat in tins. The proposition was promptly vetoed by the doctor. But a week later, when I was again on my feet, the request was granted. This mince pie was the most pretentious achievement that we had yet undertaken, and the most stupendous failure. If too many cooks spoil a pie, as it is said of some other things, I think that the whole community of Efulen, white and black, must have had a hand in that ill-fated pie, for a few persons could never have made so many mistakes. The oven was a pot set on an outside fire, with another pot turned upside down to cover it. An explosion occurred during the process of cooking. I do not know what caused it—possibly a stone bursting or the overheated pot cracking. At any rate it was a good opportunity for Dr. Good’s wit, who contended that the pie had exploded through the neglect to put air-holes in the top of it. And that night he presented a resolution that hereafter cooks should be obliged to punch air-holes in the top of every pie, lest they should explode, thereby endangering our property and our lives and entailing the loss of the pie itself. I suggested an amendment,