pacity of the human stomach charac-
teristic of rustic Yankees.   He
generally omitted the material portion
of a meal, only beginning and ending.
I have known him dine on oyster
soup and pie, or buckwheat cakes with molasses
finishing up with coffee and a glass
of cider, or rather newly pressed ap-
ple juice.   Meats he didn�t seem to
care about, perhaps because they cost
a good deal.     Once, at Baton Rouge,
when I was denouncing the atrocious
negro cookery, Howell exultantly
got off this sentence, �He thinks grease
isn�t gravy!� absolutely knowing
no better than that the two were synony-
mous.   Greater culinary ignorance hath
no man, claiming to come of a civilized
race!        So Howell got sick, kept
his room, closed the windows and
blinds and became uncommonly splenet-
ic, even for a young man of his natu-
rally contradictory disposition.  Hayes