The Mercury Is 5
Degrees Below Zero, And The Aurora Is Glorious.
In my unchinked
room the mercury is 1 degrees below zero.
Mr. Buchan can hardly
get his breath; the dryness is intense. We spent the afternoon
cooking the Thanksgiving dinner. I made a wonderful pudding, for
which I had saved eggs and cream for days, and dried and stoned
cherries supplied the place of currants. I made a bowl of
custard for sauce, which the men said was "splendid"; also a
rolled pudding, with molasses; and we had venison steak and
potatoes, but for tea we were obliged to use the tea leaves of
the morning again. I should think that few people in America
have enjoyed their Thanksgiving dinner more. We had urged Mr.
Nugent to join us, but he refused, almost savagely, which we
regretted. My four-pound cake made yesterday is all gone! This
wretched boy confesses that he was so hungry in the night that he
got up and ate nearly half of it. He is trying to cajole me into
making another.
November 29.
Before the boy came I had mistaken some faded cayenne pepper for
ginger, and had made a cake with it. Last evening I put half of
it into the cupboard and left the door open. During the night we
heard a commotion in the kitchen and much choking, coughing, and
groaning, and at breakfast the boy was unable to swallow food
with his usual ravenousness. After breakfast he came to me
whimpering, and asking for something soothing for his throat,
admitting that he had seen the "gingerbread," and "felt so
starved" in the night that he got up to eat it.
I tried to make him feel that it was "real mean" to eat so much
and be so useless, and he said he would do anything to help me,
but the men were so "down on him." I never saw men so patient
with a lad before. He is a most vexing addition to our party,
yet one cannot help laughing at him. He is not honorable,
though. I dare not leave this letter lying on the table, as he
would read it. He writes for two Western periodicals (at least
he says so), and he shows us long pieces of his published poetry.
In one there are twenty lines copied (as Mr. Kavan has shown me)
without alteration from Paradise Lost; in another there are two
stanzas from Resignation, with only the alteration of "stray" for
"dead"; and he has passed the whole of Bonar's Meeting-place off
as his own. Again, he lent me an essay by himself, called The
Function of the Novelist, which is nothing but a mosaic of
unacknowledged quotations. The men tell me that he has "bragged"
to them that on his way here he took shelter in Mr. Nugent's
cabin, found out where he hides his key, opened his box, and read
his letters and MSS. He is a perfect plague with his ignorance
and SELF-sufficiency.
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