University of Virginia Library

8. SQUIRE A. AND THE FRITTERS.

Now, in the times we write of, the flourishing village of
M. was in its infancy. She had not dreamed of the great
things in store for her when she should have reached her teens,
and railroad cars crowded with visitors, should make her the
belle-village of all the surrounding country. A few log houses
hastily erected and overcrowded with inmates, alone were to be
seen; nor did the inn, either in the order or style of its architecture,
or in the beauty or comfort of its interior arrangements
and accommodations, differ from the other and less public edifices
about her. In sober truth, it must be confessed that,
like the great man after whom she was named, the promise
of her youth was by no means equal to the respectability of
her more advanced age. It was the season of the year most
unpropitious to the development of the resources of the
landlord and the skill of the cook. Fall had set in, and flour
made cakes were not set out. Wheat was not then an article
of home growth, and supplies of flour were only to be got
from Mobile, and not from thence, unless when the Tombigbee
river was up; so, for a long time, the boarders and
guests of the tavern had to rough it on corn dodger, as it

was called, greatly to their discontent. At length the joyful
tidings were proclaimed, that a barrel of flour had come from
Mobile. Much excitement prevailed. An animated discussion
arose as to the form in which the new aliment should be
served up; and on the motion of A., who eloquently seconded
his own resolution, it was determined that Fritters should
be had for supper that night. Supper time dragged its slow
length along: it came, however, at last.

There were a good many boarders at the Inn—some
twenty or more—and but one negro waiter, except a servant
of J. T., whom he kept about him, and who waited at table.
Now, if Squire A. had any particular weakness, it was in favor
of fritters. Fritters were a great favorite, even per se;
but in the dearth of edibles, they were most especially so.
He had a way of eating them with molasses, which gave
them a rare and delectable relish. Accordingly, seating himself
the first at the table, and taking a position next the door
nearest to the kitchen, he prepared himself for the onslaught.
He ordered a soup-plate and filled it half full of molasses—
tucked up his sleeves—brought the public towel from the
roller in the porch, and fixed it before him at the neck, so
as to protect his whole bust—and stood as ready as the jolly
Abbot over the haunch of venison, at the widow Glendinning's,
to do full justice to the provant, when announced.

Now, A. had a distinguished reputation and immense skill
in the art and mystery of fritter eating. How many he could
eat at a meal I forget, if I ever heard him say, but I should
say—making allowances for exaggeration in such things—from

the various estimates I have heard, well on to the matter
of a bushel— possibly a half a peck or so, more or less.
When right brown and reeking with fresh fat, it would take as
many persons to feed him as a carding-machine. Sam Harkness
used to say, that if a wick were run down his throat after
a fritter dinner, and lit, it would burn a week—but I don't
believe that.

He used no implement in eating but a fork. He passed
the fork through the fritter in such a way as to break its
back, and double it up in the form of the letter W, and pressing
it through and closing up the lines, would flourish it
around in the molasses two or three times, and then convey
it, whole, to his mouth—drawing the fork out with a sort of
c-h-u-g.

If A ever intended to have his daguerreotype taken—
that was the time—for a more hopeful, complacent, benevolent
cast of countenance, I never saw than his, when the
door being left a little ajar, the cook could be seen in the
kitchen, making time about the skillet, and the fat was heard
cheerfully spitting and spattering in the pan.

“But pleasures are like poppies spread,” and so forth.
As when some guileless cock-robin is innocently regaling
himself in the chase of a rainbow spangled butterfly, poising
himself on wing, and in the very act of conveying the
gay insect to his expectant spouse for domestic use, some ill-omened
vulture, seated in solitary state on a tree hard by,
unfurls his wing, and swoops in fell destruction upon the
hapless warbler, leaving nothing of this scene of peace and

innocence but a smothered cry and a string of feathers. So
did J. T. look upon this scene of Squire A.'s expectant and
hopeful countenance with a like and kindred malignity and
fell purpose. In plain prose,—confederating and conspiring
with three other masterful fritter eaters and Sandy, the
amateur waiter at the Inn, it was agreed that Sandy should
station himself at the door, and, as the waiting-girl came in
with the fritters, he should receive the plate, and convey
the same to the other confederates for their special behoof,
to the entire neglect of the claim of Squire A. in the premises.

Accordingly the girl brought in the first plate—which
was received by Sandy—Sandy brought the plate on with
stately step close by Squire A.—the Squire's fork was raised
to transfix at least six of the smoking cakes with a contingency
of sweeping the whole platter; but the wary Sandy
raised the plate high in air, nor heeded he the Squire's cajoling
tones—“Here, Sandy, here, this way, Sandy.” Again
the plate went and came, but with no better success to the
Squire. Sandy came past a third time—“I say, Sandy, this
way—this way—come Sandy—come now—do—I'll remember
you;”—but Sandy walked on like the Queen of the West
unheeding; the Squire threw himself back in his chair and
looked in the puddle of molasses in his plate sourly enough
to have fermented it. Again—again—again and yet again
—the plate passed on—the fritters getting browner and
browner, and distance lending enchantment to the view: but
the Squire couldn't get a showing. The Squire began to be

peremptory, and threatened Sandy with all sorts of extermination
for his contumacy; but the intrepid servitor passed
along as if he had been deaf and dumb, and his only business
to carry fritters to the other end of the table. At
length Sandy came back with an empty plate, and reported
that the fritters were all out. The Squire could contain
himself no longer—unharnessing himself of the towel
and striking his fist on the table, upsetting thereby about a
pint of molasses from his plate, he exclaimed in tones of
thunder, “I'll quit this dratted house: I'll be eternally and
constitutionally dad blamed, if I stand such infernal partiality!”
and rushed out of the house into the porch, where he
met J. T., who, coolly picking his teeth, asked the Squire
how he “liked the fritters?” We need not give the reply
—as all that matter was afterwards honourably settled by a
board of honor.