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Updated: September 17, 2025
From here I had a desire to penetrate straight east to the Finke, as a considerable distance upon that line was yet quite unknown. One of our horses, Formby, was unwell, and very troublesome to drive. We are nearly at the end of our stock of Tommy, and Formby is a candidate for the smoke-house that will evidently be elected, though we have yet enough Tommy for another week.
Her hands were a bright brown from the butternut dye, and the pungent, acrid odor she brought in with her garments made unnecessary her halting explanation that she had been out in the smoke-house. "Philip sent down two haunches yesterday by Marinus Folts," she said, apologetically, "and this muggy weather I was afraid they wouldn't keep."
Your wife is not a woman to play the fool under any circumstances, and for ourselves we are not in heart for practical jokes. Mr. MacLeod, we have here more than three hundred mouths to feed daily, nearly three hundred the mouths of hearty, hungry men, and we have exhausted our supply of corn and have in the smoke-house barely enough salted meat to sustain us for another fortnight.
"You needn't pack any more chips to the smoke-house: the last meat's smoked enough." "Very well, then. You shall have every basketful of them for your own fire." "If you can keep them from the negroes: negroes love chips." "I'll save them while I chop. You shall have them, if I have to catch them as they fly." His hunger had been satisfied: his spirits began to rise.
He went to the kitchen, where he built a fire in the cook stove, and to the smoke-house, from which he returned with a slice of ham and some eggs. He set some potatoes boiling and took bread, butter and milk from the pantry. Then he laid a small note-book on the table before him and studied the transactions of the day. "Not so bad," he muttered, bending over the figures.
A great many times have we poor creatures been nearly perishing with hunger, when food in abundance lay mouldering in the safe and smoke-house, and our pious mistress was aware of the fact; and yet that mistress and her husband would kneel every morning, and pray that God would bless them in basket and store!
"But there is, I'm sure. You must get up!" They both got up and looked out of the window. The snow-drifts, the paths through them, the store-house, the smoke-house, and the other white-washed out-buildings could be seen as clearly as in broad day. The smoke-house door was open! Old John Pontiac was one of the kindest souls that ever inhabited a body, but this was a little too much.
"Every bit of it," he affirmed. "I am going to rebuild the barn, put in a new well, dig a cistern, build a smoke-house, lay a brick walk down to the front gate and put up a brand new picket fence " "You must be made of money," she cried, eyeing him with wonder in her big, violet eyes. "I am richer now than when we started out this morning," said he, magnificently.
Meanwhile, bonfires had been kindled in the yard. By the light the swarming demons carried on their destructive work outside. Around the pans of delicious milk in the dairy men reached over each others' heads to fill their tin cups. Buttermilk, clabber, fresh butter, disappeared in an instant. In the basement the officers were feasting on ham, etc. The smoke-house was left bare.
Ford's smile was sympathetic to a degree. "That's too bad, now. Next time you want to hunt a hole and crawl into it, Bill. I don't want to hurt you but seems like I've kinda got the habit. You'll have to excuse me." He hunched his shoulders at the chill of the morning and walked around the jail, inspecting it with half-hearted interest. "What is this, anyway?" he inquired of Tom. "Smoke-house?"
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